Narcissus was a lovely hunter in archaic Greece. He avoided all romantic advances. None of them were as lovely as he knew them to be, so there was no reason to form a relationship with anyone. Eventually, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a puddle of water by a stream. He looked at himself with such love and longing, unmoved and unmoved, remaining and gazing until he died. The gods turned him into a flower that now bears his name. It grows wild along river banks.
Each of us has mythologies that we tell ourselves. Myths explain how the world works for us when we don’t know how it really works. One of the reasons the Bible feels true to me is how counterintuitive it is and how it defies the mythologies of its time. Moses wrote Genesis 1 and claimed that there was only one God and that the sun, moon and stars were just objects in the sky. This monotheistic religion differed from literally every religion on planet Earth at that time.
The idea of ​​one God and objects in the sky being objects was completely countercultural. No one else in the world believed it. Even assuming that Genesis was written by someone later than Moses, Judaism and Christianity were still at odds with the thinking of everyone on the planet at the time – and even with the dominant views of up-to-date indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere.
Most of us tell ourselves complicated stories to explain how the world works. Today, many of these stories are conspiracy theories. But they all have traces of mythology in them. They capture the rhythm of the seasons and the flow of life.
For two decades, Democrats have been telling themselves mythology. This mythology has become orthodoxy. Democrats won’t lose unless Republicans steal the election by rigging the system, suppressing the vote, and cheating. In 2000, after former Vice President Al Gore lost the presidential election, Democrats insisted it had been stolen. In 2004, Democrats claimed that Karl Rove was playing grubby tricks in Ohio. To this day, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe continues to insist that these two elections were stolen.
Last week, former Georgia Republican Stacey Abrams launched a campaign for McAuliffe. She claimed that she “has no right to become the governor of Georgia.” Abrams still refuses to admit defeat. In fact, Democrats and members of the media continue to allow Abrams to tell her own “big lie” about her loss. Last week, Hillary Clinton also insisted Abrams won in 2018. Clinton still believes she would have won in 2016 if the Russians hadn’t stolen the election.
This is the Democratic mythology. In any case, Democrats aren’t that outraged by the GOP storming of the Capitol on January 6. Their constituents have been storming cities across America for a year, burning them to the ground. Democrats are just livid that Republicans have co-opted the Democrats’ mythology instead of creating their own. The GOP now claims they are winning, except when Democrats steal the election.
The media, subtly comparing Republicans to Nazis, calls it the “Big Lie,” a reference to a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler. But in reality, Democrats have been using the same lie for 20 years. Their mythology explains the world to them in a way that allows them to sleep at night as both righteous and victims.
Autumn has come. The Greeks believed that Zeus and Hades’ sister, Demeter, controlled the seasons. Her daughter, Persephone, was married to Hades. Every fall, Persephone left her mother. In despair, her mother caused the natural world to turn brittle, brown, and then die. The leaves were falling as Persephone came down. Rebirth will come in the spring when Persephone once again rises from Hades to be with her mother.
And just like that, as another election season begins, Democrats say the GOP will lie, cheat, and steal their next election. Already aware that the party controlling the White House tends to lose, Democrats have already gone into effect proclaiming their mythology. They expect to lose not because of historical patterns, but because of Republican theft. This is their most sacred myth.
