Remember C. S. Lewis’ great novel The Screwtape Letters? As a senior demon, Screwtape writes mentoring letters to his nephew instructing him in the ways of screwing up (pun intended) human beings. Uncle Screwtape writes calm, encouraging missives to poor Wormwood. Such tutoring must be trickier these days -- evil has come so far, and yet human beings still keep fighting back. The demonic board of directors must be grasping at tridents as time keeps getting shorter.

Actually, I take demons seriously -- so did Lewis; it doesn’t take an astronaut to get mentally high enough above the fray to see the patterns forming. Everywhere we look we see evil just bubbling up out of the ground and spraying horror and temptation all over. I became aware of that as a high school teacher decades ago -- teachers stand on the front lines of societal decay -- and I’ve watched the speed and intensity of demonic malevolence increase year by year.

I can just hear a present-day demon -- we’ll call him Slywyrd – a CEO devil running the American franchise. Picture him urging his underlings on to more dangerous efforts, aware that time is running out.  I suspect that he has at least one functionary apiece assigned to the Democrat presidential minions. I’m sure at least one of his recent board meetings included an assessment like this:

Now, this election will make or break this country. When we win -- and we must win -- we will have shredded the last great stand for the Enemy. No longer will we have to fight bourgeois moral nincompoops. No longer will parents protect their sniveling offspring. We’ll be able to twist those puny brains into thinking whatever we want. They will hate God, and hate mummy and daddy. They’ll have no history to muddle their thinking. Math won’t clarify and discipline their thoughts. They will know no true art. They won’t be able to read well enough to study The Book. We’ll be able to stir them up to whatever viciousness we need.

Once we have the ankle-biters, the universe will be ours. We’ve been very successful -- this business of sucking the fathers away from their families has worked well. We’ve relieved them of any need to support their children, to raise them, or to let them live. We’ve soaked their shrively little brains with drugs.

And we’ve done quite a job on the women -- they’ve had to go to work and farm out motherhood, so not much is left of family, but something in humans keeps heading back there, so I want a special task force set up to work up better measures. Monday you will present seven new proposals. No failure will be tolerated.  Slywyrd glared around the conference table and the underlings trembled. Then he continued --

It’s good to see the burgeoning of sexual misbehavior. Was that you, Dildeaux, who managed to push through gay marriage? Great job. Now we just have to expand that -- polygamy can make a real mess of society, so who is going to get on that? The Internet will be useful, and television, of course. Let’s get those kids ready for sexual exploration as early as possible – the drag queen insinuation into the libraries was genius. Hellspake -- was that your idea? Libraries used to be dangerous places for us -- all that knowledge -- and now we have succeeded in tainting the very word “library.” Let’s purge the library of all excellence. Fauxpus -- take that on and be quick about it. Fauxpus bobbed his head up and down in rapid and fearful succession.

Slywyrd continued, Of course, we’ve been worming our way into the schools for over a century. We’ve been patient, but school choice must die. Keep pushing multiculturalism and force promotion of abortion and gay lifestyles. The trans mess is succeeding. Sex trafficking is effective -- His voice fell into a growl -- But it’s not nearly enough.

We need more pain -- the more damaged humans are -- physically, mentally, spiritually -- the better are our chances for making this world into what we want and the more likely we are to be able to ditch God altogether.

But this election is troubling. Spinthrust, are you handling Sanders?  He pointed a long crooked finger at a trembling imp at the other end of the table.

Everyone in the room cowered. An elderly demon tremulously raised his hand. Is he the best you could find? Get rid of him. What were you thinking? And who is responsible for Biden? Slywyrd screamed. What in the hell is he thinking? Is he thinking? Of course, if we can get him elected, he’ll be an easy puppet to control. But there can’t be any “if” about it. Who is in charge of vote tampering? And illegal voting? What are our chances of ditching the electoral college by November?

Slywyrd pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his sweating forehead...

Demons, of course, aren’t funny and they aren’t make-believe Halloween characters. Too much that is too heavy and awful is happening too quickly and too viciously to just be human.  Lucifer is at work, both in and out of Christian circles; he’s at work and is getting more and more frantic. I don’t know if he knows what the average student of Revelation and Daniel and Ezekiel knows, but his days are numbered, whether Christ returns soon or Trump gets re-elected, Lucifer is in trouble -- and he can feel it coming. We feel it coming -– who knows what awfulness this election will bring? Donald Trump is the worst thing to happen to Satan’s legions in centuries; it isn’t just the Democrats and the #NeverTrumpers who hate him, and it isn’t just those folks who will be throwing everything they have at him.

And yet, since arrogance is Lucifer’s greatest sin (“I will be like the Most High.”), and since arrogance always begets stupidity, we’ll get through this. After all, the Most High is, and always will be, the Most High.

Deana Chadwell  is an adjunct professor and department head at Pacific Bible College in southern Oregon. She teaches writing, logic, and literature.