Dana Loesch - Grace Canceled: How Outrage is Destroying Lives, Ending Debate, and Endangering Democracy

To my husband Chris, for his unwavering loyalty, wise counsel, and love

I ts spring 2019, and Im not in the mood to write this book.

I was in a pretty good place emotionally when I pitched this book. Its easy to discuss grace when the circumstances facilitate it, when your heart is happy, when youve nothing to lose, when the journey is favorable. Id read a quote from Norm MacDonald on forgiveness and redemption in current society, and it inspired me to draft a book proposal. My publisher was intriguedit was a different sort of topic, particularly for me, a person well-known for merciless political partisanship and a razor-sharp tongue.

And then life hit my perfectly planned world: My oldest son left for college. A power struggle consumed an issue about which Im passionate, leaving me a helpless spectator, a casualty in a political storm. I was betrayed by people I thought I could trust.

So right now, I feel no grace toward my fellow man, no interest in his redemptive qualities. In fact, I cant help thinking that returning to my old fire-and-brimstone self, devoid of grace and nuance, would take less effort than clawing out a space for grace every day. Politics and culture have become a war zone, and Im tired of the daily outrages.

The far left is flirting with a level of violence not seen since the 1960s (or, dare I say, the days of Lincoln?), emboldened by the mainstream lefts sanctioning-by-ignoring. The far right is hell-bent on confirming the lefts opinion of it by mimicking the lefts own worst tactics. Another faction of the right is busy patting itself on the back for reciting Democrat talking points on cable news while chyron-labeled as Republicans. Others on the right are just trying to hold the frontline against cancel culture, outrage mobs, and de-platforming while praying for either the sweet meteor of death or Jesus to come quickly.

Right now, as I try to write this book, I have never cared less for keeping or making friends. I have never cared less about political capital. And I have never, ever cared less for grace, mercy, forgiveness, or redemption. The temptation to let my burning bridges light the path before me is more alluring than the worst vices. I am working on a book about grace in an industry devoid of it. My firstborn is leaving home happy and confident for college, full of hope and optimism, and as I struggle to acclimate, Im watching two swampland factions descend into a morass of lawsuits and chaos. I am collateral damage after risking it allwhen I didnt need tobecause I am so passionate about the issue.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and no side or issue is exempt.

I feel like I just found out that Santa Claus isnt real and that hes also a jack wagon, I remarked once to my husband after a conference call with my attorney.

There is a trail of gasoline within a stones throw before my feet.

I am holding a match, and the flames are licking my fingers.

A week ago I spoke over the phone with a well-known friend who appears daily on television. We commiserated over the miserable state of discourse, how isolating it all is, and what we would do instead if we just walked away.

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? came a plea from within me. I feel we are in these positions for a purpose, a purpose that requires a grace that I have to pray for God to provide daily. Anyone familiar with me knows that grace is not one of my natural traits. In my twenties and part of my thirties, I rejoiced in its absence, and just as I was born into conservatism with the birth of my first child, so was I born into the truer understanding of grace as my oldest child grew.

Grace is hard. I think its harder to forgive wrongs than to apologize for them. It is so much easier and satisfying to cut someone down, to rhetorically destroy him. God knows Ive done my share of that. Its easy to obliterate someone in a debate but much harder to persuade him to share your perspective. You have to bore through ego to do that, and lets face it, many people are too thick-headed. No one wants to admit wrongdoing because apologies are viewed as worthless formalities signifying surrender, and forgiveness is in short supply. People dont want to apologize because other people arent interested in seeing the wrongdoer redeemed, so whats the point in trying? Its a vicious circle that has produced a rabid binary tribalism in our political discourse and in society at large.

As I said, Im not feeling very grace-oriented right now in life. I pitched this book in 2017, well before the chaos, and got to work shortly after it was accepted. Youre now reading this book several months into the future of my present time. I regretted ever pitching this book to my publisher, Regnery, with whom I have long wanted to work. I go back and forth between torching the premise of it and replacing it with a list like Aryas from Game of Thrones. Im emotionally drained, cantankerous, feeling rather merciless, and would prefer to tell people to do something unflattering to themselves anyplace but near me.

Id say the timing of this book is a cruel twist of fate, but its not. Its perfect timing.

Its all the more reason I need to write this book. My willingness to live out my belief in grace is being tested right now. God is not without a sense of humor. That I, of all people, am writing a book on grace is a reason for you to read it. I know what its like to receive undeserved grace, and so do you. And we all know what its like to deny it to others. Our society at large is addicted to that feeling right now.

Nuanced, insightful debate is dead, sound bites and outrage rule the news cycle, people are so poisonously partisan that finding common ground is viewed as capitulation and compromise is assumed to include a forfeiture of principle.

Politics used to be a nuisance, but extreme polarization has made it wretched.

My social media timelines and comments are filled by (often verified) partisans who think that typing their invectives in all caps amounts to informed debate. A simple disagreement is an attack on their character. Refusing to affirm their opinion as fact is an affront to decency, a reason for them to boycott, burn, attack, and smear you.

Other Republicans are eager to prove their bona fides to whichever non-Fox cable outlet will identify them as a contributor. These self-appointed bouncers of the right indict fellow Republicans and conservatives as sellouts for supporting Trump, even as they put aside long-held conservative principles like the right to life, lower taxes, and border security. They preen for the cameras, take screen grabs of their hits for Instagram, and celebrate that people are finally taking them seriously now that they have swapped their poorly-written, vanilla-wafer takes on Republican policy for over-rehearsed, snarky denunciations of the administration and everyone who supports any part of it.

You want a cable contributor deal, a book deal, and your name in the chyron? Talk about how, sure, Trump cut taxes, fueling rapid economic growth, lowered unemployment for every demographic, including high school drop-outs, and actually made good on all the talk about moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and OK, he expanded the GOP by throwing the tent over blue-collar workers worried about losing their jobs over PC pronounsbut his tweets! He cheated on his wife!

And dont forget the Christian version, which excoriates believers who like the presidents tax cuts, stabilized foreign policy, and record-low unemployment even though hes an admitted fornicator who writes mean things on Twitter.com. We should forfeit the election because of his tweets! Ah, the moral suffering of those poor innocent souls!