Words, War, and the Imago Dei: Making Sense of the Left’s Latest Temper Tantrum

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week on presidential immunity, leftists have evinced the sort of temper tantrum that would shame and frighten even the loudest and wildest of toddlers. No doubt this tantrum has been directly guided by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion and tangentially exacerbated by the realization that Joe Biden should have retired roughly a decade ago. Sotomayor explicitly suggested, in her flippant response to the court’s majority holding, that the president might order a Navy SEAL team to assassinate a political opponent and fellow American.

If the president “[o]rders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” Sotomayor wrote, clearly (and perhaps willfully, given her 15 years of experience on the highest judicial bench in America) misunderstanding, misconstruing, and misrepresenting the majority’s opinion. The warped point was quickly latched onto and further distorted by leftist plebians and proletariats. Social media erupted with suggestions that Biden might use his office to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

A prime example of this hysterical behavior which hits all the more savagely salient points came from “comedian” and self-declared “big butch d*ke” Lea DeLaria. In a social media rant, the seriously unfunny performer called on Biden to drone strike Trump. “Joe, you’re a reasonable man. You don’t want to do this,” DeLaria said, addressing the octogenarian president whose own party is considering replacing him due to his cognitive decline. “But here’s the reality: This is a f***ing war. This is a war now and we are fighting for our f***ing country. And these a**holes are going to take it away. They’re going to take it away.”

“Joe, you now have the right to take that b*tch Trump out,” the self-identifying lesbian continued. “Take him out, Joe. If he was Hitler, and this was 1940, would you take him out? Well, he is Hitler and this is 1940. Take him the f*** out! Blow him up, or they’ll blow us up.” While DeLaria’s is certainly a colorful meltdown, it is by no means an uncommon one and is, in fact, rather indicative of the general tone and tenor of the collective hissy-fit being thrown by leftists across the nation at present.

Of course, Donald Trump is in no substantive way comparable to Adolf Hitler, nor is the year 1940. DeLaria may want to ask her doctor if she suffers from the same cognitive disorder as the president she so casually addresses by his first name. But this is a common rhetorical theme among leftists: comparing those they disfavor to Hitler. Conservative leaders like Trump or Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis or the U.K.’s Nigel Farage or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán are frequently called “Hitler,” while the conservative citizens who appreciate, admire, or support such leaders are labeled “Nazis” or “fascists.” This is more than just the garden variety of hysterical hyperbole but is, in fact, a core tenet of the leftist worldview.

Since the leftist does not recognize the supremacy of a Creator — instead, the leftist desires to declare himself creator; he considers his rights derived from his own self, his own desires, or, in many cases, from the consensus of his fellow creatures, as that is often the only authority he recognizes as larger than himself — his only frame of reference is the created world. Christians, of course, recognize the supremacy of the Creator and can thus clarify that our rights are derived not from any whim or desire, not from any polling data, not from any political institution, nor even from our own selves, but from God, in Whose image and likeness we are made. Our rights are thus finite, bounded by the imago Dei. No man, for example, has a right to wantonly slaughter his kindred, as God does not confer this right and, indeed, as one’s kindred are also bearers of the imago Dei.

The leftist has no conception of the imago Dei, and would revile and resent it if he did. What we would call “human dignity,” he has no words for. Conversely, the Christian — recognizing that Christ shed His blood for all mankind — has no words for a human without human dignity, but the leftist does: “Hitler,” “Nazi,” “fascist.” This theme makes an appearance, too, in the diabolical practice of child sacrifice often blithely called “abortion.” There is, in the leftist’s lexicon, no unborn child, no baby in the womb, but merely a “clump of cells,” a “fetus,” or even a “parasite.” This is the closest the leftist comes to recognizing the imago Dei, to recognizing inherent human dignity: by completely and totally denying it.

And on whose authority is it denied? By what office or decree does the leftist so callously and carelessly deny and reject the God-given dignity of his fellow creature? None, save his own. The leftist views himself as God, he has followed in the footsteps of Satan and declared, as Milton so famously put it, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” The leftist has listened too well and too long to the Serpent’s whisper: “[Y]ou will be like gods” (Genesis 3:5). The leftist recognizes no authority higher than himself, which is why the majority of leftist agendas and political regimes are hailed as “liberating” or “liberal,” as they grant license to even the most depraved whims and desires that the most twisted of souls can concoct. The LGBT agenda is evidence of this, with its voracious appetite for more and more “rights” and broader and broader recognition as legitimate or “normal.”

The words that we use, the names that we go by and call others by are not, of course, all-encompassing or essential (that is to say, comprising the essence of the thing), but are nonetheless crucial. Recall that the fracturing and obscuring of language at the Satanic Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) was a curse. It is no triviality or accident that Christ is referred to throughout Sacred Scripture as “the Word of God.” It is words which allow us to articulate things that are known and, indeed, to know things better. It is words which allow us to know ourselves and each other. In fact, it is words which we use to reflect reality.

The leftist’s favorite smears then — such terms as “Hitler,” “Nazi,” “fascist,” “dictator,” and all the rest — constitute more than just impotent rage, more than mere mudslinging, but are core to the leftist’s reality. It may come as a shock to hear and read of a whole swath of Americans calling for the assassination of a former president and current presidential candidate, but it should not. Leftists have been saying for years, with the only words they have for it, that Trump and Republicans and conservatives and all those who do not bow before their own degenerate agendas are less than human.

This distinction is key not only to understanding the leftist’s lexicon and worldview, but also to responding to them. One thing that DeLaria and her leftist ilk were absolutely right about is war: there is a war raging for the soul of America. But just like a war fought with guns and bayonets or swords and shields, there are rules to it.

For Christians and conservatives, it is tantamount — no matter how savage the fighting becomes, no matter how brutal the blows dealt by either side — to bear in mind the imago Dei. Unlike the leftist, we recognize the supremacy of the Creator and fight under His banner. We must therefore conduct ourselves according to His will. If this distinction is lost, if conservatives lose sight of human dignity and devolve to simply seeking political gain, they will be no better than the leftists they claim to fight against.

Instead, the Christian truth of the imago Dei must be the standard under which conservatives march. In hoc signo vinces: victory will be assured if Christ captains the army.