A Leader, Poorly Chosen

" I couldn't help but wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret. It sounds like the sort of thing his people might do -- a revival of something nasty out the the past.  Did the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses -- as well as burn them?  The Nazis wore the swastika, which is a kind of cross, but I don't think they wore it on their chests.  There were crosses all over the place during the Crusades.  So now we have another group that uses crosses and slaughters people.  Jarret's people could be behind it.  Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, "simpler" time.  Now does not suit him.  Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him.  He wants to take us back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshiped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different.  There was never such a time in this country.  But these days, when more than half of the people in the country can't read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them.

Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches.  Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, or even a Catholic.  A witch may also be an atheist, a "cultist", or a well-to-do eccentric.  Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protection or much that's worth stealing. And "cultist" is a great catchall term for anyone who fits in no other large category, and yet doesn't quite match Jerrit's version of Christianity.  Jarret's people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness' sake.  Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear.  As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of "heathen houses of devil-worship", he has a single answer: "Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race!  Leave your sinful past behind and become one of us.  Help us make America great again!"

Parable of the Talents
Octavia E. Butler
(c) 1998