No One Can Immanentize the Eschaton.

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A brand-new term for me, gained from the peerless and fearless Jonah Goldberg. (He didn’t come up with it, to be clear.) Here’s what it means, as per that great fount of wisdom Wikipedia:

In political theory and theology,to immanentize the eschaton means trying to bring about the eschaton (the final, heaven-like stage of history) in the immanent world.

And here’s what Goldberg had to say about it:

The Trump team is ecstatic — and they have every right to be. They pulled it off. The philosophical and political sacrifices they made, the grief they took: It was all worth it. Congrats! But now they have to lead their own herd of shiny unicorns into the light of day. For example, Trump vowed that, if elected, he would make “make every dream you ever dreamed for your country come true.” Now, if you know anything — anything! — about conservatism, or human nature, or just plain reality, then you know in your heart this is balderdash of the highest order. It’s a less poetic version of Obama’s crazy talk about reversing the rise of the oceans because “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” As I’ve been writing for years and years, politics can’t immanentize the eschaton any more than basset hounds can fly.

Well, I’m tempted to quote paragraph after paragraph, so it’s only fair to stop here and just give the link to the entire article:

“The Election Is Over–Now Trump Must Govern”