Back in the 1990s, one of the key political advisers to the Democratic presidential candidate famously put up a sign at campaign headquarters that said simply and crassly, “[It’s] the economy, stupid.”

Yes, the economy was and is always critical. In 2020, it was in the tank as covid ravaged the U.S.; the Democrats took over. In 2024, inflation, fueled by wanton federal spending, had reached the stratosphere, and the Republicans took over.

But it was more than that. The tension in the air, thick enough to cut, was more foundational than just the economy. It was over the very spiritual nature of the world’s most powerful country. It was over abortion, which the Democratic candidate disastrously embraced as her clarion call, barnstorming on the right of a woman to kill a baby as if it were a body part, “reproductive health,” the right to her “own body” (neglecting to mention that, when it comes to babies and bodies, males are also involved).

It was a real sore point with Christians –more than a sore point–but an equally galvanizing issue: society’s incredible diabolical disorientation in trying to establish another “right,” the right to choose one’s sexual identity no matter what God had fashioned.

“It’s the gender issue, stupid,” one could coin, if one wanted to be equally crass.

The Democratic president seemed constantly to be speaking about or posing with “transgenders.” It was all over the White House. The colors of homosexuality flew from a flagpole on the rooftop. One assistant secretary of a major federal department was a “woman” who obviously and embarrassingly, despite any surgery, was a man.

They are letting young kids decide on surgical procedures to change their sex!

And a nation founded on God, on The Creator, wasn’t having it, at least the voting majority.

Photos in newspapers and on websites showed men dressed as women reading books to kids in school libraries.

Men-as-women were allowed to compete in female sports (doing pretty well, one might add).

Incredibly, there were states that gave the option of writing in a third gender identity on official documents like the driver’s license.

Some states recognized a dozen or so “genders.” In Oregon, that includes “X.”

“Non-binary”? “Intersex”?

You could be what you wanted to be, what your inner demon told you.

This went straight back to the Garden, repudiating the notion of male-female, Adam and Eve. Oh, the serpent! It is also beyond ridiculous, showing actual societal cognitive dissonance. The worst person to deceive is yourself.

And it is not love to embrace it. It’s not love to assist someone in heading to a dark place.

There were other “religious” issues. But did any stand out as quite so outrageous (with the exception of late-term abortion) as transgenders?

Suddenly, one nation under God had become two nations under a plethora of gods (and goddesses), just as there was now a plethora of “genders.”

Yesterday The New York Times, which like mainstream media in general is now greatly diminished, had a subheadline that said, “Many Christian conservatives saw the battle for the White House as a holy war.”

You bet they did. The nation rightly has had it with that nefarious acronym, “LGBTQ+”

This isn’t to promote any particular politician. The flaws are evident on all sides. But the election was in large part, right after inflation, about foundational morality.

The motto perhaps should be, “Make America Godly Again.”

Or maybe “Make America Good Again” (including in the way of compassion, of less vitriol and hatred).

Nothing “stupid” about that.

[Footnote from The Catholic Thing: “Pope Francis, while rightly focusing on pastoral care for children and others with sex and gender confusion, also rightly described gender ideology, which leads to poisoning and mutilating our children, as “evil.” Just a few months ago, the Holy Father called it the “ugliest danger” of our time… A group called “Stop the Harm” has compiled a database from publicly available hospital records showing nearly 14,000 treatments related to sex changes that were delivered to minor children in the U.S. – and nearly 150 Catholic hospitals apparently had codes for procedures suggesting they were involved. Catholic hospitals seemingly prescribed both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones – and not a few even performed mutilating surgeries on children.]