Author: Barb Woolard

Categories
Politics

Liberal, Conservative, Independent, Centrist, Moderate, Radical, Wingnut, Snowflake?

So many labels! How’s a responsible citizen to choose? Things used to be much simpler. People were Republican or Democrat; they disagreed on specific issues but agreed on certain foundational principles. They for the most part were cordial to each other, and each respected the other’s right to hold a different opinion. They could have conversations, sometimes heated ones, even verbally duke it out, and then have a drink together at the end of the day. Candidates for office were more or less acceptable to both parties; people preferred their own party’s candidate but could somewhat graciously grit their teeth, accept, and live with the other candidate if that person became the majority’s choice.

That was then, before mayhem ensued and the fragments flew. That was before the Internet, which opened the door to daily conversations with complete strangers, conversations which are anything but cordial. That was before the lines in the sand became thick walls separating Americans of different opinions into tribes and cults, each having its own inviolable code of belief and conduct which anyone who wishes to be a member must agree to. That was before cordial conversation died and was replaced by shouting across the thick walls of separation and never listening to the other group’s response.

There’s so much to say about the demise of our two-party system, but what troubles me most are the other labels applied to various groups, such as “liberal” and “conservative,” labels which used to be descriptive of the groups’ positions and values but which now have devolved to nothing more than disparaging names spewed in disgust by opposing tribes. Most troubling to me, as a word lover, is that labels are no longer accurately indicative of what each group stands for; and in some cases, even those who ascribe to a particular way of thinking find themselves baffled by the confusing disconnect between standard definitions of terms and their meaning in actual usage.

Am I a liberal or a progressive? Some say they’re two names for the same thing; others clearly spell out the nuances of difference between the two. I’m not sure I really care, just so I’m identified as being on what I consider the side most conducive to sane government and peaceful, loving, compassionate coexistence. By strictest definition, I even think of myself as conservative: one who loves and wishes to preserve the institutions which are the bedrock of our social order. Today, however, I would never whisper that word in reference to myself because of the craziness currently associated with it.

To sort this out, let’s just go ahead and begin with Donald Trump, shall we? As the whole planet knows, he won the presidency as the Republican candidate, but he in no way embodies the historic principles or values of the Republican Party. Let’s just say he is NO Abe Lincoln! He’s not even a Ronald Reagan or a George W. Bush. Trump is neither Republican nor Democrat; he’s an opportunist. He’ll say anything, do anything, and join any party necessary to achieve his own narcissistic ends.

According to a June 16, 2015, article in the Washington Times, Trump has changed his party affiliation at least five times since the late 1980s. The article says he first registered as a Republican in 1987; by my math, he would have been in his 40s at that time, which would make him a late-comer to the party. In 1999, he switched to the Independent Party; in 2001, he became a Democrat; in 2009, he returned to the Republican Party for two years before deciding in 2011 that he wanted no party affiliation. In April 2012, he registered once again as a Republican–just in time for his 2015 announcement that he wanted to be the party’s presidential nominee. What a coincidence! Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, whom you may recognize as senior advisers to the current “president,” were unable to vote for him in New York’s Republican primary because they were not at that time registered as Republicans.

Why does any of this matter? This family’s loose connection to the party which they ostensibly represent says a whole lot, I think. First, it says that Donald Trump is an opportunist who would have resurrected the Whig Party or run on the Magic Dragon or Purple People Eater ticket if it would have gotten him elected. He has no loyalty to the GOP yet demands the party’s unquestioned loyalty to him. Pre-Tea Party Republicans, those still trying to be the standard bearers for the Party of Lincoln, are beginning to admit defeat and abandon the ship before it hits bottom.

Mark P. Painter, a 30-year judge and author of six books, explains his reasons for leaving the GOP:

This was once my party. And even when the wingnuts took it over, I had hopes for a return to sanity. I had worked for many candidates, was president of the 11th Ward Republican Club for 10 years, and was a candidate and officeholder myself. . . . . . .

I took pride in belonging to the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

Now we have a Republican Party that stands for cruelty, hatred, bullying, proud stupidity, trade barriers, science denial, massive deficits and strangling debt. The president wants to build a colossal boondoggle of a wall to keep ‘them’ out. If Reagan were here today, he would say ‘Mr. Trump, don’t build that wall.’

Trump is a danger to our nation and a disgrace to our party. But he can’t accomplish this perversion of America alone. The Mitch McConnells and Paul Ryans are equally culpable. They are fellow travelers with disaster. The next generations will pay for their folly.

Paul Best, who says “Trump was the first Republican nominee I did not vote for in a presidential election,” is also finding the exit, according to a letter he published in the Chicago Tribune. Steve Schmidt, prominent and widely respected Republican strategist, this week announced his departure from the party he has served because of Donald Trump’s policy on separating children from their parents as a deterrent to those crossing our southern border in search of asylum. On June 20 2018, he tweeted:

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

In a series of tweets written on the same day, he added:

It [the GOP] is corrupt, indecent and immoral. With the exception of a few Governors like Baker, Hogan and Kasich it is filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders. This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history. It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated. Our country is in trouble. Our politics are badly broken. The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities. I do not say this as an advocate of a progressive agenda. I say it as someone who retains belief in DEMOCRACY and decency.

Those are damning words from a lifelong Republican voter and public servant.

George Will, well-known Washington Post columnist, renounced his GOP membership in 2016, switching to “unaffiliated” and urging other Republicans to do the same. Will cited Paul Ryan’s endorsement of Trump for the 2020 election as the trigger for his decision. Mary Matalan, another long-time strategist, left the party in May 2016; her departure, she says, was not related to Trump. I would add that Trump, as I have said many times, is the result–not the cause–of the problems in the Republican Party; so it doesn’t much matter whether one leaves directly because of Trump or because of the internal rot that caused Trump to become the party’s nominee.

I come from a Republican family, and most of my extended family are still Republican. My stepfather joined our clan in 1973 and was the first Democrat in the immediate family. My sister switched her party affiliation when the GOP nominated Ronald Reagan; my mother, the first time George W. Bush was elected; and I, the second time he was elected (I gave them one more chance to get it right).

The Republican Party freed the slaves while the Democrats fought against the passage of the 13th Amendment, yet today it’s the Republicans who are holding over 2000 children hostage in cages and in some cases can’t return them because they forgot to keep track of who and where their parents are, while the Democrats are calling for their release. Don’t misunderstand. I think some of our Democratic officials are rather feckless in their opposition and at times more talk than action, but at least none of them are supporting the continued internment of these innocent children.

The dilemma for today’s intelligent, responsible, morally upright Republicans–now that many analysts agree the GOP has become fully the Party of Trump–is whether to stay and attempt to save it and return it to its former position of respect or to save their own reputations by dropping out. Those choosing the latter option feel they can do more good by joining forces with like-minded people of other parties and political persuasions.

Perhaps the most confusing, misunderstood, and misused words in the jumbled jargon of today’s politics are the words “liberal” and “conservative.” The website lps.org offers a comparison of “liberals” and “conservatives.”

Liberals generally believe in governmental action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the duty of the government to reduce community issues and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Also believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people’s problems. Liberals are often referred to as being on the LEFT when put into a political spectrum. Democrats are often viewed as more liberal.

In contrast,

Conservatives generally believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Also believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals. Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems. Conservatives are often referred to as being on the RIGHT when put into a political spectrum. Republicans are often viewed as more conservative.

Although there are clearly shades of blue, I think they may not be quite as confusing as today’s shades of red. A favorite article, which I review periodically, especially during election season, is called “Why Voters Should Turn from the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession,” by Louis Guenin.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), widely regarded as the Father of Conservatism, wrote that conservatism ‘advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition’ (paraphrased by Louis Guenin, Huffington Post, 24 Dec 2012).

Guenin adds:

Today’s Republican Party consists of pseudoconservatives, wearers of the ‘conservative’ mantle who repudiate conservatism. Rather than esteeming government, they disdain it. They seem to delight in ridiculing government’s failings.

Mr. Guenin further suggests that liberals and conservatives have somewhat switched places in today’s politics:

The politicians who now travel under the banner of ‘conservatism’ happen to espouse views and methods that . . . are incompatible with the philosophy bearing that name. Meanwhile members of the opposing political party have imbibed a dose of the wisdom conveyed by conservatism.

Other standard definitions of “conservatism” include this one from an online dictionary:

Conservatism (or conservativism) is any political philosophy that favours tradition (in the sense of various religious, cultural, or nationally-defined beliefs and customs) in the face of external forces for change, and is critical of proposals for radical social change.

Today’s conservatives also belie that definition; but then, according to Corey Robin in The Reactionary Mind, the conservative movement has always been characterized by “racism, populism, violence, and a pervasive contempt for custom, convention, law, institutions, and established elites.” Now THAT sounds like the conservatives I’ve talked to lately! “From its inception,” says Robin, “conservatism has relied on some mix of these elements to build a broad-based movement of elites and masses against the emancipation of the lower orders.” He goes on to call Donald Trump “the most successful practitioner of the mass politics of privilege in contemporary America.”

Not only can Donald Trump not be called a Republican in the historic sense, he can’t be called conservative either, unless you agree with Corey Robin’s assessment that the movement is characterized by “racism, populism, violence, and . . . contempt for” all that forms the foundation of our country, our government, and our culture. By that definition, he’s the most fitting standard bearer ever born.

Today, our “conservative” leader stood on a stage in Helsinki, Finland, and denigrated our own intelligence agencies, previous government leaders, and the work of independent counsel Robert Mueller while heaping praise on our chief adversary and proclaiming that he accepts at face value the words of Vladimir Putin who says he did not interfere in our 2016 election. Even if Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016 (and I believe he absolutely DID!), he’s colluding now. He’s destroying every pillar of our democracy under the flag of “conservatism,” supported and defended by the “conservative” masses. This treasonous man and his treasonous followers need to find another label for themselves, because they are not conservative. True conservatives want to conserve, not destroy.

The Free Dictionary (online) offers this definition of “conservatism”: “The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order. Caution or moderation, as in behavior or outlook.” Never in the history of our country have leaders acted with less caution or moderation or exhibited less respect for the existing or traditional order. Donald Trump would burn the whole country to the ground and sell the ashes if doing so would further enrich him and make him more powerful, and his base of deplorables would cheer him on, even as they themselves were being destroyed. The fact that all of this is happening in the innocuous-sounding name of “conservatism” makes it all the more sinister and deceptive. We liberals, in the prevailing view, are the evil ones who want to steal their guns, allow immigrants to come in and kill our citizens, and allow Muslims to establish sharia law.

One of my favorite quotations from Ralph Waldo Emerson is this: “A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a [person] from the vexation of thinking.” I think he nailed it. Religious affiliations and political parties allow us the security of being surrounded by like-minded people and the luxury of having someone else articulate the beliefs to which we profess allegiance, whether or not we know or understand them. Our country has reached a crisis; this is emergency mode. We no longer have the luxury of letting someone else do the thinking and tell us where to sign our names. Every single citizen has to think and act. Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative–whatever those terms mean!–the only label that matters now is “American.” Americans have been attacked by a common enemy, and it’s up to each of us to respond. Either we ALL win or we ALL lose. I’d like to win!

 

Categories
Politics

Walking on Quicksand

Not much surprises me these days, and I fear I may be suffering from what some are calling “outrage fatigue”: the state of exhaustion that results from daily bombardment by too many outrageous events. I do, however, still feel a mild shock every time I think our polarized citizenry may have finally found some common ground only to discover once again that it’s just another patch of quicksand.

The Columbine High School massacre, almost twenty years ago (April 20, 1999), was the first mass school shooting to shock the nation. Images were seared into our memories of terrified teens being led from their school, a place which should have been a haven of safety where young people could prepare for their futures, knowing they were leaving behind twelve classmates and one teacher whose chances for a happy future had just ended. It seemed we as a nation had reached a crisis point at which we could no longer ignore our broken gun laws and that there could surely be no resistance to having a bipartisan discussion about how to keep our children safe. Children’s safety is, after all, a universal concern. Right?

The intervening years have proved that assumption wrong. Nothing happened after Columbine to prevent future tragedies, and so the massacres have continued with increasing frequency, each bringing the hope for uniting Americans against a common enemy, each time followed by more disappointing partisanship.

On December 14, 2012, when 20 children barely old enough to tie their shoes and zip their own pants were shot to death in their little school desks, it was assumed that surely no self-respecting person could resist supporting changes to our gun laws to ensure such an atrocity would never happen again. Six adult staff members rounded out the total, making it the deadliest mass school shooting in U. S. history. Five- and six-year-old babies’ bodies torn apart by bullets would rip the heart out of any decent person, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. Right? Finally, we would find the common ground on which we could unite. Finally, Congress would take bipartisan action to end these atrocities. Wrong again. The parents of those murdered children are still petitioning Congress, and still nothing has been done.

On June 12, 2016, the violence shifted from school to a place of entertainment. At the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, 49 people were murdered. The victims were mostly Latino and LGBT, so I guess Congress figured they don’t count. So much for “All lives matter.”

On October 1, 2017, a crowd was enjoying a Sunday-evening concert in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from a nearby hotel, killing 58 and injuring a whopping 851. The dead included at least one toddler. A toddler! I think we’re seeing the pattern by now: what should have caused universal outrage and calls for action elicited nothing but “thoughts and prayers.”

On February 14, 2018, when 14 students and three staff members were mowed down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, once again the pathos of distraught parents and friends weeping over the massacre of these children seemed a sure fix to our polarization. The bitter irony of this horrific event occurring on Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate love, was not lost on hearers of the tragic news. How could anyone not agree that action must be taken quickly? Yet in spite of the surviving students’ passionate pleas and political activism, Congress has still done nothing. No thing. Instead, David Hogg and other survivors who made pleas for action were accused of being “crisis actors.” But this is not who we are as Americans, is it? We don’t make light of our fellow citizens’ pain and heart ache. Apparently now we do.

A little out of chronological order, but on a different subject, on October 7, 2016, the Washington Post uncovered and published a 2005 video now known as the Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump and Billy Bush were overheard having “an extremely lewd conversation about women.” They were together in a bus on the way to film an episode of Access Hollywood. With less than a month to go before the presidential election, it was widely assumed that this would be the end of Trump’s candidacy. He would do what every decent presidential candidate has done when evidence of his moral turpitude has been made public: he would, of course, resign from the race. Donald Trump, however, was not a decent candidate and has never been a decent human being, so his response was that there was “zero chance” of his resigning. And he didn’t.

Okay, but naturally, the Republican Party would insist he withdraw and not further sully their name? Wrong. Well, then he would definitely lose all of his support and no respectable person would vote for him? Wrong again. Instead, we for the first time in our history heard news anchors and panelists use the word “pussy” on cable TV. Since then, we’ve heard them use “shithole,” again quoting our esteemed “president.” But, but no one believes presidents should behave this way or talk this way in public. Presidents don’t make fun of people, attack private citizens, or call other national and international leaders childish names. We all know presidential behavior when we see it, don’t we? Sadly, what we previously thought was bedrock universal standards has turned out to be just more quicksand.

Then there’s the Russia probe, which has been ongoing since Trump’s election–actually before the election. The entire U. S. intelligence community–consisting of 17 separate agencies–agreed that Russia acted to interfere in our 2016 presidential election. Horror of horrors! Even those who voted for this catastrophe would be outraged by the thought that a foreign adversary helped determine the results of our “free” election. And if there is even the slightest possibility that any American cooperated with that foreign adversary and happily accepted the benefit of their interference, we would all agree that no stone should be left unturned to determine the facts so that such a thing could never happen again. Those would seem to be safe assumptions, but not any longer. When Donald Trump says an investigation is a “witch hunt,” millions of people write it off as a witch hunt, without question; and the enemy becomes the special counsel in charge of ferreting out the truth, not the potential criminal occupying the West Wing of the White House. Attacks against Robert Mueller are a classic case of shooting the messenger.

As I write this article, approximately 3000 would-be immigrant children and babies (100 of whom are under the age of 5) are being held in cages and tents at our southern border, having been torn from the arms and breasts of their frantic parents, who came here to escape the violence in their home countries only to be met by more violence in the “land of freedom and opportunity.” One would think this would be that proverbial “last straw.” No one disagrees that families shouldn’t be separated, right? Everyone condemns child abuse, right? Nope, wrong again. Social media comments and memes prove we are deeply divided even on the treatment of children and our country’s role in providing sanctuary for desperate people seeking asylum.

The children of God who are being brutalized at our border are not “criminals and rapists” sneaking into our country to join gangs and murder U. S. citizens. They are human beings fleeing violence and seeking a safe refuge for their families. What kind of monsters have we become when we imprison their children and threaten to deport the parents without due process? As I’ve said before, this is not the USA’s first rodeo when it comes to human rights abuses, but have we learned nothing? How can we “civilized,” enlightened citizens still be capable of such cruelty and inhumanity to fellow children of God?

One opinion being expressed right now on social media is that folks who don’t want to lose custody of their children should stay the hell away. They know what’s going to happen, so if they come here anyway, it’s their own damn fault. This attitude comes largely from those citizens who like to insist that we are a “Christian nation.” I know enough about Christianity and the Bible to know these attitudes are found nowhere, least of all among the teachings of Jesus, who must surely be weeping over Jeff Sessions’ and others’ perversion of the scriptures by which they attempt to justify ungodliness and brutality. One social media user did point out that Pharaoh, Herod, and Pontius Pilate are biblical figures who separated families. Perhaps those guys are the new “conservative” heroes.

What is becoming clearer with each passing day is that this is no longer a country where people simply have differences of opinion, where Republicans have a party platform which is different from the Democrats’ party platform but where shared values based on our common history and heredity supersede party differences. Shared values and common ground have all but disappeared from our national discourse–if what we’re doing can even be called discourse.

I taught my college writing students, when writing persuasion, you have to look for common ground. You and your audience disagree on x, y, and z; if you agreed on everything, there would be nothing to persuade them of. So you have to look for things you do agree on: find your common ground and base your appeal on that. When we discussed using credible evidence to back up the points of the argument, I instructed them to look for evidence that’s universally accepted and respected. I always told them, for example, to avoid quoting the Bible as evidence since many people don’t accept its validity and would therefore remain unconvinced if the writer were to quote the whole book.

The problem in our current social and political climate is that there is no common ground, no universally respected source of information, because finding common ground requires an acceptance of facts; there have to be some absolutes. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is often quoted as saying, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” That was then. We have since entered the age of “alternative facts”: if you don’t like the facts you’re presented, you can simply make up your own. Truth no longer exists, because truth is an absolute. Many today have no desire to know what is true; “research” is the process of finding information that validates their “facts.” Marco Rubio, in a June 28 tweet, said, “It’s not good that people increasingly get news & information only from sources that confirm what they want to hear. It’s terrible that there is increasingly no space for nuance or 3rd way on any issue.” I immediately stashed this gem away in my file, since it’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with Marco Rubio. I would note, however, that Senator Rubio is as guilty as anyone of the behavior he condemns.

Snopes and other widely respected fact-checking sources no longer serve as “proof” of authenticity; many on the Right scoff at Snopes as a tool of the Left. Journalists now are “the enemy of the people,” so nothing they say is valid. Old, trusted publications such as the New York Times are now labeled “failing” and “fake” because they dare tell the truth about the corruption in our government.

American citizens in opposing parties no longer have differences of opinion; what we have is a difference of values, of character, of humanity. We are fundamentally different people. Kayla Chadwick, in a June 29, 2017, article titled “I Don’t Know How to Explain to You that You Should Care about Other People,” put it this way:

“But if making sure your fellow citizens can afford to eat, get an education, and go to the doctor isn’t enough of a reason to fund those things, I have nothing left to say to you.

I can’t debate someone into caring about what happens to their fellow human beings. The fact that such detached cruelty is so normalized in a certain party’s political discourse is at once infuriating and terrifying.

I cannot have political debates with these people. Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society, how to be a good person, and why any of that matters.”

Last week, CNN reported that after nearly two months in immigration detention, a 7-year-old child was reunited with her mother. The mother’s message to other mothers is, if you’re thinking of claiming asylum here, find another country. “The laws here are harsh. And people don’t have hearts.”

I can’t relate to anyone who can read those words and not be crushed in spirit by the fact that our country is now being seen as the place where people have no hearts.

I have nothing in common with people who can look at terrified children in cages, separated from the only safe people they’ve ever known–their parents–and say “Serves the parents right for coming here. Don’t want to lose your kids? Stay away.” And do what? Go back to the places where they are subjected to all manner of violence, where there is no safety? Anyone who would send those asylum seekers back where they came from rather than allowing them a place of refuge is simply cut from different cloth. We don’t just have a difference of opinion; we have a difference of basic human decency and compassion.

I have nothing in common with people who can watch videos of detained children “representing” themselves in court–children whose feet don’t touch the floor from the chair they’re sitting in; children who don’t understand what the judge is saying to them because they don’t know the language and even if they did, they’re too young to have any understanding of legal procedures. Anyone who is unmoved by those images is a fundamentally different person than I am, and we have no ground for a conversation.

I have nothing in common with people whose first response after hearing news of the latest mass shooting is “Blah blah blah Second Amendment. Leave our guns alone. Guns don’t kill people. We have to have guns in case our government goes crazy and deprives us of our rights.” Yeah. Because private citizens’ weapon stashes, no matter the size, would protect them against the resources of the U.S. Military: war planes, drones, tanks, machine guns, and whatever else they have. Anyone who defends their imagined “Second Amendment right” in the face of human carnage is someone with whom I can’t have a conversation. I and people who think this way don’t have a difference of opinion; we have a difference of character and values, values like why it’s important to learn to live in community.

I have nothing in common with people calling for an end to Robert Mueller’s investigation, people whose loyalty to a demagogue supersedes their desire to know the truth about an attack on our democracy and the certainty of continued attacks.

I have nothing in common with people who are not outraged by our government’s gross negligence in supplying aid to the American citizens in Puerto Rico who for almost a year now have lived without basic necessities and of whom thousands have died. The “I’ve got mine, screw you” attitude is not part of my worldview.

I have nothing in common with people who can listen to our “president” lie every day and either deny that he’s lying or rationalize why it’s okay or why his statements are not really lies. His total number of lies to date well exceeds 3000, and the number grows every day. I have nothing in common with those who accept and make excuses for such behavior.

I have nothing in common with those who oppose every effort to provide affordable health care for all Americans. Anyone who would allow their fellow citizens to die or be debilitated by curable conditions and who would make cost a factor in people’s treatment choices is not someone with whom I have a difference of opinion; it’s someone who has fundamentally different values than I have.

I have nothing in common with my fellow citizens who can listen to our “president” attack private citizens, call our elected leaders and the leaders of other nations childish names, and mock the brave women who have spoken up and begun the “Me too” movement and respond with uproarious laughter, applause, hoots and hollers, and chants to lock somebody up. And what’s more, I don’t want to have anything in common with them. In fact, I don’t even want to know them. The only person who should be locked up is the clown at the podium delivering his lame stand-up comedy act under the guise of a presidential address.

I am a Christian, but I have nothing in common with others who claim that name and use it to justify degradation, immorality, and cruelty. I respect the Bible, but I have nothing in common with those who use it as a weapon against their fellow human beings. I have nothing in common with those who quote scripture to suggest that a God of love supports and defends their cruel, racist agenda.

I have nothing in common with my fellow citizens who see our current situation as a normal he-won-she-lost-getthehell-over-it election outcome. Those who normalize Donald Trump and try to shut down the search for truth and the attempts to save our democracy are not our friends. Yes, they are in many cases our neighbors, our co-workers, our family members, our fellow church members, and our erstwhile close associates. But they have fundamentally different views of who we are and who we ought to be as a people.

Please don’t misunderstand. In case you think I’ve painted myself as a saint in these last few paragraphs, allow me to put your mind at ease. I am NO saint, and I am the first to acknowledge that fact. People who think like me are not saints either; we simply have different views of what is good, true, and decent than those among us who think electing a racist, xenophobic, lying, heartless demagogue as president is a good idea.

Every human being has the same core nature. We are all capable of immense good, and we are all capable of immense evil. The line that divides us is our own choice of which side of our humanity we will live on, and that choice is determined by what we accept as truth. In what has often been labeled the “post-truth era,” many have been deluded into accepting evil as good and the unthinkable as normal.

There is no more common ground, only quicksand. The only option left to those who would have us remain free and retain our democracy and defend our constitution is to resist with all our might. We cannot become weary in well doing; rest is not an option. Accepting the status quo is unthinkable. November is coming. Resist, resist, resist. And then vote.

 

 

Categories
Politics Religion

A Mother’s Tale

This photo was taken by the United States Coast Guard in 1994. The woman, Rosaura, is handing her four-year-old son over to a member of the Coast Guard after having just survived the treacherous journey from Havana to Miami, through the 90 miles of shark-infested water in the Florida Strait. Rosaura, her husband, their four-year-old son, and their seven-year-old daughter set sail–along with others–in a rickety, tattered old boat, knowing there was an equal chance of finding freedom and prosperity in the United States of America or going together into a watery grave. The only sure things in Rosaura and her husband’s minds were that they no longer wanted to live in a country oppressed by Fidel Castro and that they wanted a better life for themselves and a better place to raise their children.

They were not invited to the United States; they had filed no papers, made no official request. They simply embarked on an uncertain journey, desperately hoping for the best; their courage was rewarded with kindness, compassion, and welcome assistance. Here’s how their now-grown daughter, Zuly, describes the outset of their venture:

“The memories of the last night in Cuba were recorded forever in my memory. Dense darkness and surrounded by mosquitoes that stung so hard we had to cover our heads with javitas cubalse to protect us from their horrible bites. As we walked through the marshes, I was strongly held by my mother’s hand. Finally, we boarded a small, old wooden boat that would bring us to freedom or death at sea. Crushed by huge waves, we use plastic bags to vomit and prevent sharks from surround the fragile boat.”

Then, at the end of the grueling journey:

“The Diecisietes aboard the 20-foot ship were rescued by the United States Coast Guard. After taking the fingerprints and interrogated, they took us to ‘the house of the boatman,’ where we get food and a hot bath. With the gift of a barbie doll they welcomed me to America-my new home.”

What touches my heart so deeply in this photo is the expression on the mother’s face and the calmness of her four-year-old son. This photo stands in sharp contrast to the recent heart-wrenching photos of families arriving at our southern border, not to be given a meal, a hot bath, and a toy for the children but to be ripped apart by border patrol agents. The photos of crying children and desperate, frantic parents will forever be part of our national history and symbols of this shameful era. This child is not crying; there is no panic in his eyes. The woman does not appear to be assaulted or coerced; she looks relieved and hopeful as she willingly and confidently places her son into the hands of their rescuers.

She had fled in desperation, believing that even death at sea was preferable to living any longer in bondage, and she survived. She survived to be rescued and welcomed to a land of freedom and opportunity. She survived so that she and her husband could–through hard work, perseverance, and education–regain the professional status they sacrificed to leave Cuba. She survived to see her children become educated, professional adults who are driven to pay forward the love, compassion, and generosity that was shown to them. Rosaura’s seven-year-old daughter is now 31 and in her last year of a dental surgery residency at Mayo Clinic. I know and love this family because the mother, daughter, and son were among my students at the community college where I taught when they were just beginning their education in the United States.

During these recent days when we’ve had our hearts ripped out by the photos of desperate people who have not been shown such warm welcomes to our shores, the comment I’ve read over and over is “This is not who we are.” Unfortunately, that’s not true. It is exactly who we are, because this latest flagrant human rights and family rights violation is, sadly, not America’s first rodeo.

We have only to look back 399 years, to the very beginning of European colonization of the North American continent, to find dark-skinned families who were kidnapped and brought to our shores to be sold to white plantation owners, without regard for family unity. They may as well have been hunks of meat plopped on the butcher’s scale and then sold to the highest bidder. Often, a husband went to one plantation, wife to another, and each child old enough to be of use to some white owner sold to whoever would pay the asking price. These were not isolated incidents.

One reason Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin made such an impact on pre-civil war readers is that it focuses on a mother who fights to remain united with her child after overhearing a conversation between her owner and a slave-trader who wants to buy her young son. For many readers, this novel raised awareness for the first time of the fact that those dark-skinned people had the same emotions that white people have. Slave mothers were as fiercely protective of their children as the white owners were of their children. Slave mothers were as distraught and desperate when threatened with separation from their children as white owners would have been if separated from theirs. In Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn, the goal that drives Jim, the run-away slave, is the hope of finding freedom so that he can then buy back his wife and child who have been living and working on another plantation.

During the following years of our history, our ancestors continued their abuse of dark-skinned children of God in their genocide of the Native Americans. Assuming themselves superior to the indigenous people of this land, white European settlers fought wars and killed thousands, leading finally to the Indian Removal Bill of 1830. The bill was championed by then President Andrew Jackson, whose reasoning went like this:

“In Jackson’s thinking, more than three dozen eastern tribes stood in the way of what he saw as the settlers’ divinely ordained rights to clear the wilderness, build homes and grow cotton and other crops. In his annual address to Congress in 1833, Jackson denounced Indians, stating, ‘They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race…they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere [before] long disappear.’”

The story continues:

“From 1830 to 1840, the U.S. army removed 60,000 Indians—Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee and others—from the East in exchange for new territory west of the Mississippi. Thousands died along the way of what became known as the ‘Trail of Tears.’” (from History Stories on history.com)

Well, now we know Jeff Sessions and the Trump Cult are not the first Americans to claim that evil and inhumanity can be ordained of God when it suits their own greedy purposes.

Moving along through the history book, we come to February 19, 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the deportation and incarceration of children of God of Japanese descent. Between 110,000 and 120,000–of whom about 62 percent were U.S. citizens and some of whom had family members serving in the U.S. military defending the very country that had incarcerated their relatives–were moved into internment camps. Some were housed in barely-converted horse stables. For a graphic fictionalized account, read the book or watch the movie Snow Falling on Cedars.

With a history like this, we don’t get to clutch our pearls when we see photos of crying children who’ve been torn from their parents’ arms and exclaim “This is not who we are.” The facts prove otherwise. Cruelty to children of God with darker skin tones and knee-jerk reactions against all members of a race or ethnic group or religious group because of the actions of a few of its members (Japanese after Pearl Harbor, Muslims after 9/11) are all-too-well-documented evidence of who we are and who we have always been as a people.

Yet there also exists within us what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” As a people, we have committed great atrocities, but we have also done great good. We have welcomed the “tired,” the “poor,” the “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,” “the wretched refuse of [a] teeming shore,” “the homeless,” the “tempest tossed.” We have given people hope who had never known hope. As the strongest nation in the world, we have with often the best intention sent our own troops to the far corners of the world to champion the cause of freedom and to defend oppressed peoples. Although these ventures have not always ended well and one may rightly question whether the intentions were always pure, they demonstrate in many cases our belief that we are those to whom much has been given and therefore those from whom much is expected.

Since World War II, many countries of the world have looked to us for moral guidance and physical protection. The title “Leader of the Free World” emerged during the post-war period, when President Harry Truman gave us the Truman Doctrine, which he defined to Congress as “The policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Although our dominance on the world stage is rapidly eroding because of our government’s current state of chaos, we can call upon our “better angels” to fix the mess we’ve created and to be the people whom others expect us to be and whom we ourselves know we can be.

The photo at the beginning of this article is a compelling reminder of who we CAN be. Yes, we are a nation of laws; and yes, some of those laws govern immigration; and yes, for the sake of safety and security we must exercise control over who comes into our country. But laws without compassion and humanity are simply computer algorithms. Laws are made by humans and must be continually interpreted by humans to keep them in tune with the times and circumstances. Judges are humans who must use discretion and wisdom; and like parents and teachers who have to know when to enforce the rules and when to extend grace, those keepers of the law must know that laws have to be applied with large doses of empathy, grace, and mercy.

If Jeff Sessions had read a bit further beyond his cherry-picked verse, Romans 13:1–“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (NIV)–he’d have found Romans 13: 10: “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” It should also be noted here that the document on which our government is based is our Constitution, not the Bible; but if someone wants to cite the Bible, he or she should do so with understanding.

I dream of my grandchildren growing up in an America like the one portrayed in the photo of Rosaura and her son: an America that extends love and compassion to desperate people and where those people, through their own motivation and perseverance, can not only survive but also thrive and prosper. We can’t erase the sins of our past, and it’s going to take some time to repair the shame of our present; but we have within us what it takes to create an America where skin color is not a determiner of one’s value, where laws are enforced with grace and mercy, and where no one has to live in fear because of oppression and prejudice. Maybe the photos of crying children at the border really do represent who we ARE, but Rosaura’s photo represents who we CAN be if we’re willing to appeal to the “better angels of our nature.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics

The Trump Cult

He’s a political genius. He’s a master strategist. He’s doing this or that seemingly insane thing to distract the public from the Mueller investigation or something else he doesn’t want us to think or learn too much about. He may seem crazy, but he’s really crazy like a fox. So goes the nightly drone of well-paid news anchors and political analysts trying to explain the day’s chaotic events and make sense of the incomprehensible.

So many complex explanations for such a simple fact: Donald Trump is a narcissist with enough money to buy power and influence. That’s it. No, he’s not a genius. No, he’s not a master anything except liar and con man. Yes, he probably is trying to distract us from hearing any more facts about his criminal activity, but to assign logical thought to his actions is stretching too far. He is simple, not complex. He is driven by instinct, not logic. His basic instinct is to protect his gargantuan but fragile ego, and he will do whatever it takes and destroy whatever and whomever he must to accomplish that goal.

Then why does he have a following? Why does Congress not take action to counteract his destructive force? Why do religious leaders give him a pass on his immorality that violates every one of their stated beliefs? There’s only one explanation that makes sense: The branch of the modern Republican Party dominated by right-wing extremists is a cult, and Donald Trump is the cult leader. He’s the Jim Jones, the David Koresh, the Cyrus Teed. You think that sounds extreme? Okay, let’s take a look at the nature of cults and the parallels between those groups and today’s far-right Republicans.

Let’s start by looking at the defining characteristics of cults. There is some difference of opinion here, but several distinctives span the various lists. Although the term “cult” is most commonly used to refer to outlying religious groups which are not part of a mainstream denomination, the word may also be used to designate any group which is formed around a core set of characteristics. Here are the three most agreed on:

First and most obvious, every cult is founded on authoritarian leadership, “an authority figure who exercises excessive control on cult members. As prophet or founder, this leader’s word is considered ultimate and final” (Andy Naselli, Six Sociological Characteristics of Cults). Janja Lalich and Michael Langone describe it this way: “The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.”

Matt Slick adds: “Leaders are often seen as prophets, apostles, or special individuals with unusual connections to God. This helps a person give themselves over psychologically to trusting someone else for their spiritual welfare. Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.”

And Rick Ross describes the cult leader as a charismatic figure,

“who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.”

The word “Messiah” also shows up in most of the lists.

The second important characteristic is psychological control exercised by the leader over the cult members. Independent or rational thought is discouraged, sometimes punished, and is the surest way to get oneself shunned by or excluded from the group. According to Rick Ross, “A process of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform (commonly called ‘brainwashing’).”

Third, every cult is exclusivist and elitist; part of the brainwashing or mind control performed by the leadership is making members believe they alone know the truth. Thus, they become impervious to criticism from outsiders, because those critics are simply not in the inner circle that is privy to the truth. Exclusivity produces increasing isolation, thereby shielding members from any possible reality check the outside world might present. Janja Lalich and Michael Langone say, “The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being .  .  .  and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).”

Other characteristics mentioned in at least one of the lists include the following. “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group” (Janja Lalich and Michael Langone). Matt Slick includes “group think”: “The group’s coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority. There is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward ‘proper’ behavior, and those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion and acceptance by the group.” Matt Slick also includes persecution complex: “When someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.”

Now what do all of these things have to do with Donald Trump and his followers? Well, let’s start with authoritarianism. Ya think? Has any other president ever demanded such unquestioned obedience or behaved more like a dictator than the kind of president described by our constitution? Every leader enjoys the admiration of his or her followers, but has any other leader ever been so shameless as to require praise and adulation from his staff as this one does? Our constitution outlines a tripartite government; the branches are executive, legislative, and judicial. And our founders wisely established a system of checks and balances to prevent one of those branches from assuming too much power. Each day that the Republican Party enables its authoritarian leader to assume more and more power, it continues to erode the checks and balances that have stabilized our democracy for more than 200 years.

Unlike many other dictators, Trump doesn’t (yet) have his critics murdered; but he kills their influence by delegitimizing them. He calls our free press and reputable journalists “fake news”; through Twitter and the stump speeches at his “rallies,” he viciously attacks those who dare criticize him; he spreads lies and conspiracy theories about those by whom he feels threatened, such as  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Early on, he justified his failure to say anything negative about Vladimir Putin: “He says nice things about me, so I’ll say nice things about him.” The single determining factor for winning this “president’s” approval is “saying nice things” about him. Egomaniac much?

While we’re discussing disposing of critics or people perceived as disloyal, let’s talk about how many officials Trump has fired or driven off in a mere 18 months. The count, as of April 11, 2018, was 47 who have either been fired or have left because they were forced out or could no longer stand being associated with this administration. And let us not forget that he’s been itching to fire Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller but hasn’t yet figured out a way to pull off firing those two without repercussions that even he doesn’t want to face.

For comparison, NPR says Trump’s turnover rate in his cabinet alone has set records: No president in the last 100 years has had the rate of turnover in his cabinet that Trump has had. Reagan lost four cabinet members in his first two years, but Trump tied that number in a mere 14 months. Yet, as with everything else the Supreme Leader does, he casually brushes off the statistics, claiming that change is good: “’There will always be change, and I think you want to see change,’ Trump said on March 15, not quite tamping down the latest rumors of possible Cabinet departures. ‘And I want to also see different ideas’” (NPR). Come on, Donald, we all know the part about you wanting to see different ideas is a lie. The truth is you fire people because they have different ideas.

One of the most perplexing questions about this “president” is how he gets away with the lies he tells every day. And we’re not talking about subtle evasions of truth, little white lies, or slips of the tongue. We’re talking about big, out-in-the-open whoppers so easily disprovable that our fact checkers have probably become bored with their jobs. So if you lie and everyone knows you’re lying, how does it help? Remember the second characteristic of the cult structure and mentality: “psychological control exercised by the leader over the cult members. Independent or rational thought is discouraged, sometimes punished, and is the surest way to get oneself shunned by or excluded from the group.” I just googled “taking Trump figuratively or literally,” and the full page of articles that popped up is evidence of how much that topic has been discussed and of how his followers have attempted to justify his flagrant disregard for truth.

In a cult, truth is internal; the cult leadership creates its own reality. We might call it “alternative facts.” Wow, that sounds so familiar. Members are undeterred by evidence presented from the outside, because they have been convinced (brainwashed?) to believe only their reality is legitimate and that they alone possess truth. Consider the Koreshan Cult, led by Cyrus Teed, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just a few miles from my home here in Southwest Florida stands a state historic site, the preserved community built by Teed and his followers. This group believed they were living on the inside of the globe rather than the outside, science be damned! It would have done no good to present these faithful followers with scientific evidence, because anything that violated their truth was a lie. Sound familiar? How can anyone reject the science of climate change or claim not to “believe in” it? Well, your cult leader tells you it’s a hoax, and so that “fact” becomes part of your alternate reality. When “believing” becomes “believing in,” the subject has become part of a system of truth which cannot be logically refuted.

The expression “drinking the Kool-Aid” is familiar to every modern American because on November 18, 1978, 900 people participated in a mass suicide led by Jim Jones, America’s most infamous cult leader. There is some doubt as to whether all 900 willingly swallowed the poison, but the fact that so many people followed a demented leader to Jonestown in the first place is evidence of the powerful mind control at the heart of cult culture. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Jones had built a large following for his People’s Temple; and they followed him right up to the Kool-Aid table.

So powerful is cult members’ belief in whatever their alternate reality is that, even when faced with factual reality, facts mean nothing. Truth is falsehood, and falsehood is truth. When Cyrus Teed died, his followers refused to believe he was permanently dead. The allure which enticed them to join Teed’s cult was the promise of immortality, so it was understandably confusing when their trusted leader died. According to the State Library and Archives of Florida, “When Teed died in 1908, his followers, expecting his resurrection, laid out his body until county inspectors later insisted something else be done. His body was placed in the mausoleum and watched 24 hours a day for his return until 13 years later when the mausoleum with Dr. Teed’s remains washed into the sea during a hurricane on October 23, 1921.” Bummer. Hate it when that happens.

Achieving the elitist aura around the Trump Cult has been greatly simplified and expedited by the marriage between the Republican Party and the Religious Right, without whom the Republican Party’s numbers would be greatly decimated and without whom we would not have known the nightmare of a Trump “presidency.” Evangelicals have long indoctrinated their followers with the elitist belief that they alone know the truth and that theirs is the true religion. Arguments and fact checks which might prove otherwise are simply dismissed and scoffed at because they come from outsiders who are not privy to the truth of which they are the sole owners and guardians.

Such blind adherence to an alternate reality requires the ability to silence critics, and what better ally to have on one’s side than God? Who’s going to argue with God, right? Through extensive cherry picking, these keepers of the truth have managed to assemble a definitive list of everything God likes, dislikes, hates, rewards, and punishes. Each item, of course, is accompanied by one of the cherries picked usually from the Old Testament. For example, God hates gay people. How do we know this? Leviticus. End of argument. Don’t bother us any more.

That air of superiority is intrinsic to cult culture. Members see themselves as living above the noisy critics who attempt to present factual evidence to counter the error of the group’s thinking. According to Lalich and Langone, “The leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, . . . and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity.” Enter Donald Trump, “God Emperor” (Yes, some of his followers actually call him that) who is obviously ordained of God because he won an election against such overwhelming odds. He is on a mission to make America great again, and he alone can do it.

Less often cited yet no less relevant is this characteristic, mentioned in paragraph nine: “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group” (Janja Lalich and Michael Langone). Now that has to sound familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention these last two years. Yeah, Trump might tweet a tad much, and his language is a little “salty,” and golly gee he can say some surprising things. And you’re right, we “Christians” don’t normally approve of adultery, crotch grabbing, and such. But he gave that stolen SCOTUS seat to our guy, he wants to help us overturn Roe v. Wade, and the NRA loves him so he’ll let us keep our weapons arsenals. He gives us permission to hate and discriminate against gays, blacks, Latinos, and anyone else we don’t like (and whom we know God doesn’t like). Obviously he’s God’s anointed, so how can we not support him?

Matt Slick includes persecution complex: “When someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.”  Has any president ever whined as much as this one about how badly he’s treated? No, but according to his faithful cult followers, he has been the most maligned president in history. I don’t claim to know which of our presidents has been the most persecuted, maligned, or disrespected; but if I had to make a wager, my money would be on Barack Obama. He and his family were subjected daily to vile, degrading, racist taunts; yet he never whined about his treatment or lashed out at his enemies on Twitter. He continued doing his job with grace and dignity.

And our hypocrite-in-chief led the charge against President Obama with conspiracy theories which he continued even after they’d been clearly debunked, and he has made the driving force behind his “presidency” the undoing of everything Obama did. Mention this to a true Trump cultist on social media, and the standard response will be that DT has done more in 18 months than Obama did in 8 years and that Obama will go down in history as the worst president ever. That’s another of those alternate reality “truths” which can easily be disproved to rational people but which the cultists will never believe because it conflicts with their internal reality.

What attracts people to cults? The most authoritarian leader is nothing without willing followers. Who are these people who willingly follow a leader right up to the Kool-Aid table? Fleur Brown, in an article titled “I Grew Up in a Cult and I Can Tell You Why ‘Normal’ People Join Them,” says his mother needed “a soft place to land” after losing her father at a fairly young age. “She found sanctuary in the Worldwide Church of God, an American fundamentalist religion that offered concrete answers for seekers; a road-map for the meaning of life, infused with a little self-help theory and some healthy eating tips.”

My own experience growing up in an out-of-the-mainstream denomination affirms that statement. A large percentage of the people I met had troubled pasts and welcomed a “safe” environment in which authoritarian leadership made their decisions for them, sparing them the painful consequences of continuing to make flawed decisions on their own.

Most psychologists agree that, although people who join cults fall into no one particular “type,” they do have some common characteristics. Shannon Quinn, in a Psychology Today article “10 Psychological Reasons Why People Join Cults,” says many are attracted to the seductive promises made during the recruitment process. Remember, Cyrus Teed promised his followers immortality; then he went and died. Quinn says, “More often than not, a cult will promise to solve an issue in society that no one else is offering a solution to. Cults also offer a very structured lifestyle, with absolute answers about what is right and wrong.” So does that mean if some guy tells a group of people how shitty everything in their country is and that he alone can fix it and promises to drain the swamp and make America great again, those people might make him president? I think we’ve seen this movie.

Quinn also says people join cults to find a purpose for their lives and a cause for which to fight: “Whether it is attaining eternal life in a spiritual realm, or working day and night to change a political issue, a cult can give a purpose in life to people who did not have their own strong goals.” Quinn cites Dr. Adriann Furnham:

“In times of confusion and uncertainty when people feel lost, extreme groups offer absolute answers to questions that people have. Many people find comfort in seeing the world in terms of good and evil, right and wrong. Cult leaders offer simple solutions in a way that makes sense, and they know how to motivate people to devote their life to the leader’s cause.”

Another reason people join cults, according to Quinn, is that they’re fed up with society. The leader promises change and gives members a platform from which they can make a difference. In another Psychology Today article “Why People Like Trump,” Jack Schafer offers this explanation:

“Finding common ground quickly promotes likeability. Most people have little in common with Trump but many Americans live vicariously through Trump. Trump’s success, popularity, and self-confidence fill the secret dreams of ordinary people. To reject Trump is to render the aspirations of most Americans meaningless.”

Elizabeth Esther, in “Top 5 Reasons People Join Cults,” begins with the disclaimer: “It’s not because they’re stupid.” According to Esther, cults exist “because NOBODY believes they’re in one!” (Her emphasis). That means some intelligent, well-educated people join cults simply because they offer something they’ve sought for but have never found anywhere else. She says cults give their members a sense of purpose and a sense of superiority. Gee, I guess if the president likes me and my kind and calls those “other” people “haters and losers,” that would make me feel kinda superior, huh?

I think Abraham Maslow gave us the answer to the question of why people follow cults, including the Trump Cult, a long time ago. In his Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs, he lists 5 needs which every living human has. Every human has belongingness and love needs and every human has esteem needs. We all want a place to belong and to be valued, and we all want to be respected by others and to be able to respect ourselves. People find the fulfillment of those needs in cults. Jack Schafer sums it up this way:

“Political correctness can stifle free speech but it cannot stop people from thinking forbidden thoughts. People who cannot express their true thoughts and feelings become frustrated. The more the forbidden thoughts backup behind the dam of political correctness, the more the frustration builds. Trump serves as society’s pressure valve releasing pent up frustration. Trump says what ordinary people cannot say for fear of losing their jobs, status in their communities, or their reputations. When built-up pressure is finally released, people feel good about themselves. The Golden Rule of Friendship states, ‘If you want people to like you, make them feel good about themselves.’ When Trump speaks, he makes people feel good about themselves and, as a result, people like him.”

Journalists would do well to heed Hanlon’s Razor in their daily attempts to find explanations for Trump’s behavior: “Never attribute to malice [or strategy or shrewdness or political genius] that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Sophisticated, convoluted explanations can be replaced by much simpler ones. When the “president” behaves like a toddler, he’s not following some clever political strategy; he’s just acting out, as toddlers do.

The modern Republican Party, with their unprecedently authoritarian leader, has all the marks of a cult. They have their own truth, their own reality, their own “alternative facts”; and no amount of reason will convince them they’re wrong. The only solution is to vote ‘em ALL out! We have a lot of momentum going right now, but recent history teaches we can’t become complacent. Ignore the polls, ignore the pundits, and keep fighting right up to the voting booth. Our democracy depends on it, as do the lives of our children and grandchildren and those precious caged children at our southern border.

Categories
Politics Religion

Putting Christ Back in Christianity: Thank You, Reverend Curry

Early on Saturday morning by East Coast U.S.A. time, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle delighted the world with a royal fairy tale, which from what I could see was perfect in every detail. One of the highlights of the morning was the sermon delivered by the Most Reverend Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church,  who fired up the pulpit of Saint George’s Chapel with a passion that stunned the royal audience, accustomed to much more stately orations. Media commentators scanned the congregation and remarked over the surprised and confused facial expressions.

I’m going to venture that the sermon was met with equal befuddlement among the most vocal branch of American “commoners” who claim Christianity as their religion yet seem to know nothing about the life of its namesake. Not only was this message a sharp departure from the sermons familiar at most royal events but it was also a sharp departure from the sermons and daily rants of the God, Guns, and Glory branch of what is currently being passed off as Christianity in the United States. If this religion bears a remote  resemblance to anything in the Bible, it would be the philosophy and practice of the Pharisees,  to whom Jesus said:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

This is Matthew 23: 23-28. The whole chapter is worth a read.

In sharp contrast to those modern “Christians” who merit this same admonition are the refreshing words of the Reverend Curry. For those who like your Saturday sleep more than strangers’ weddings, as well as those who watched and listened but would welcome the opportunity to peruse these words at your own pace and reflect on the beauty of their truth, here is Reverend Curry’s sermon. This, my friends, is Christianity in its undefiled state.

“The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, and I quote: ‘We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. Love is the only way.’

“There’s power in love. Do not underestimate it. Don’t even over-sentimentalize it. There’s power, power in love. If you don’t believe me, think about a time when you first fell in love. The whole world seemed to center around you and your beloved. There’s power, power in love, not just in its romantic forms, but any form, any shape of love. There’s a certain sense in which when you are loved and you know it, when someone cares for you and you know it, when you love and you show it. It actually feels right. There’s something right about it. There’s a reason for it. It has to do with the source.

“We were made by a power of love. Our lives were meant and are meant to be lived in that love. That’s why we are here. Ultimately the source of love is God himself. The source of all of our lives.

“There’s an old medieval poem that says: ‘Where true love is found, God himself is there.’ The New Testament says it this way. ‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; And those who love are born of God and know God. Those who not love does not know God. Why? For God is love.’

“There’s power in love. There’s power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There’s power in love to show us the way to live. … But love is not only about a young couple. The power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we’re all here. Two young people fell in love, and we all showed up. It’s not just for and about a young couple whom we rejoice with. It’s more than that.

“Jesus of Nazareth on one occasion was asked by a lawyer to sum up the essence of the teachings of Moses. He went back and reached back to the Hebrew Scriptures to Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Then in Matthew’s version, he added, he said, on these two, love of God and love of neighbor, hang all the law, all the prophets, everything that Moses wrote, everything from the holy prophets, everything in the scriptures, everything that God has been trying to tell the world. Love God, love your neighbors, and while you’re at it, love yourself.

“Someone once said that Jesus began the most revolutionary movement in human history: a movement ground on the unconditional love of God for the world and a movement mandating people to live and love.

“And in so doing, to change not only their lives but the very life of the world itself! I’m talking about the power, real power, power to change the world.

“If you don’t believe me, well, there were some old slaves in America’s antebellum South who explained the dynamic power of love and why it has the power to transform. They explained it this way. They sang a spiritual even in the midst of their captivity. It’s one that says there is a balm in Gilead, a healing balm, something that can make things right. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. One of the stanzas explains why: It says, if you cannot preach like Peter, you cannot pray like Paul, you just tell the love of Jesus, how he died to save us all. That’s the balm in Gilead. This way of love is the way of life. They got it.

“He died to save us all. He didn’t die for anything he could get out of it. Jesus did not get an honorary doctorate for dying. He wasn’t getting anything out of it. He gave up his life, he sacrificed his life for the good of others, for the well-being of the world, for us. That’s what love is. Love is not selfish or self-centered. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, become redemptive. That way of unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love changes lives. And it can change this world.

“Stop and imagine for a minute. Think and imagine. Think and imagine a world where love is the way.

“Imagine our homes and families when love is the way. Imagine our neighborhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce when love is the way. Imagine this tired old world when love is the way. When love is the way — unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive — when love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream, and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.

“When love is the way, poverty would become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way, there’s plenty of room for all of God’s children. When love is the way, we actually treat each other, well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are brothers and sisters and children of God. Brothers and sisters — that’s a new heaven, a new earth, a new world, a new human family. Let me tell you something. Ol’ Solomon was right in the Old Testament. That’s fire.

“French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was arguably one of the great minds, great spirits of the 20th century. Jesuit, Roman Catholic priest, scientist, a scholar, a true mystic. Some of his writings from his scientific background as well as his theological one, some of his writings said, as others have said, that the discovery and harnessing of fire was one of the great technological discoveries of human history. Fire, to a great extent, made human civilization possible. Fire made it possible to cook food and to provide sanitary ways of eating, which reduced the spread of disease in its time. Fire made it possible to heat warm environments and thereby marking human migration a possibility even into colder climates. Fire made it possible — there was no Bronze Age without fire, no Iron Age without fire, no Industrial Revolution without fire. … Anybody get here in a car today? An automobile? Nod your heads if you did; I know there were some carriages. Those of us who came in cars, the controlled, harnessed fire made that possible.

“I know that the Bible says, and I believe it that Jesus walked on water, but I have to tell you I didn’t walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here. Controlled fire in that plane got me here. Fire makes it possible for us to text, and tweet, and email, and Instagram, and Facebook, and socially be dysfunctional with each other. Fire makes that possible, and de Chardin said fire was one of the great discoveries in all of human history. He went on to say if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if humanity ever captured the energies of love, it will be the second time in the history that will have discovered fire.

“Dr. King was right. We must discover love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world.

“My brother, my sister, God love you, God bless you. And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love.”

Thank you, Reverend Michael Curry, for telling millions of early-morning TV watchers that the Christianity of Jesus is still alive!

 

Categories
Politics

The Myth of the Presidency

“He’s so unpresidential!” say many Americans and other thinking people around the globe. “He disqualifies himself every day by his crass, undignified, vulgar behavior.” You’ve heard it and probably said it. The question this claim raises, however, is what it means to be “presidential”; and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that word takes on a different definition with every group who weighs in. Every new president is compared to his predecessors, and his (some day her) performance is judged by the composite measuring stick of the, at this time, 44 men who have held the office of POTUS during the history of our country.

In my history and civics classes during my first twelve years in school, I learned a rather romantic image of the U. S. presidency; and I’m willing to venture many others were taught that same rosy-colored view. We were treated to stories of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, crafted to demonstrate those men’s exemplary honesty and integrity. Lincoln was known as Honest Abe, and every new teacher reminded us of Washington’s encounter with a cherry tree and his stand-up behavior in readily admitted his youthful misdeed to his father.

Presidents were portrayed as gods among mortals. They were of a scarce breed that rose above human norms and achieved a rarefied super-mortal status. Many a man who has aspired to join this elite group has been automatically disqualified when American citizens have been shown his feet of clay. And because of the power of the presidential myth over our minds, we are shocked and betrayed with each revelation.

Precisely what do we Americans expect of our presidents? And how can we say if one of them is behaving in a presidential manner or not? I recently heard a supporter of our current “president” answer the reporter’s question “How do you think things are going?” with this: “I think it’s going great. We finally got someone with some balls.” Well, who can deny the importance of “having balls”? Yet I have a feeling we’re also going to find different definitions among U. S. voters of what it means to possess that fine quality.

Our founders rejected the establishment of a monarchy, preferring instead a high leader elected by the people. Abraham Lincoln, about 75 years after the Constitution was ratified, called this concept “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and expressed the wish that such government “shall not perish from the earth.”

Leonid Bershidsky, in an article titled “The US Expects Too Much from Its Presidents,” published in the Sun Sentinel, quotes Walter Bagehot, 19th-century Brit who in his book The English Constitution made this distinction:

“The Queen is only at the head of the dignified part of the constitution. The prime minister is at the head of the efficient part. The Crown is, according to the saying, the ‘fountain of honour;’ but the Treasury is the spring of business.”

Since the American Constitution lacks provision for such a division of roles, our president has been expected to take on the ceremonial duties of a king or queen as well as the everyday in-the-ditch duties of a prime minister. Bershidsky says,

“The U.S. doesn’t have a system in which the various sets of duties can be distributed between a presidency or monarchy, a prime minister’s job and multiple faction leaderships in parliament. In the U.S., according to the Congressional Serial Set, ‘The president simultaneously serves to perform functions that parallel the activities of a king or queen in a monarchy and the prime minister or premier in a parliamentary democracy.’”

He adds, “The U.S. demands even more ceremony of its presidents than other countries in part because of the expectation that the head of state is also the moral-authority-in-chief where Christian leadership is prized and the president is expected to channel those attitudes.” And therein lies our conundrum! When I think of the presidency, I’ve always been reminded of a quote from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: “You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you.” Leaders born into royal families are bred and trained for the responsibilities they will bear. We take an everyday American and expect that person, after a brief orientation, to behave like a monarch; and when he doesn’t, the press and the history books “kill” him.

In an increasingly divided America, not all citizens prize Christian leadership; and what constitutes moral authority is even more difficult to agree on. I think the key lies in our expectation of the president to be a “moral-authority-in-chief.” The presidential myth that was such a part of our early education led us to believe exactly that: the president is the person we look to as a model of integrity and, if not Christian, at least extremely high moral values. So is “having balls” one of those high moral values? Let’s think about it.

In truth, our school-days romanticized view of the presidency has always been a myth. How many aspirants to the presidency can you think of who’ve been dismissed from consideration because of moral offenses, major or minor? Gary Hart and John Edwards quickly come to mind, and many others have lost their bids for lower offices because of moral scandals. In fact, Wikipedia lists a whopping 83 names of people whose political fortunes have been ruined or tainted by moral scandal in the history of our republic; and I’d venture to say there are plenty more.

Trump critics repeatedly cite his three marriages and numerous adulterous affairs as evidence that he’s morally bereft and unfit for the job; but what about Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, and even the sainted Thomas Jefferson? Many said they didn’t much care how many women Clinton screwed, but they were offended that he lied about one of them. John Kennedy had the benefit of being president at the dawn of the mass communication feeding frenzy, so most of us didn’t know about his multiple affairs; and since we’ve found out, the knowledge has done little to tarnish his image. And here’s what Trump supporters think of his moral scandals, according to a meme I saw on social media just this morning: “What President Trump did in his PRIVATE life as a PRIVATE citizen and NOT a PAID politician is NOBODY’S business.” All righty then.

If most Americans had to name the “Big Three” American Presidents, I daresay three names on everyone’s lips would be Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. I’m not familiar with any information that might taint George Washington’s image, but we now have credible evidence that Thomas Jefferson slept with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, and fathered some of her children. Does that make you think less of our third president or in your mind diminish his contributions to our republic? When you read the brilliant rhetoric in our Declaration of Independence, are you thinking of Jefferson’s moral compromise or of his role in achieving our independence from Great Britain? The highly revered and most often elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt is known to have had a mistress or three. And if that’s not enough, according to Dinitia Smith, in a 2004 New York Times article, “The subject of the 16th president’s sexuality has been debated among scholars for years.” Yes, you read that correctly. Many scholars believe Abe Lincoln was gay (which would have been scandalous in the 1800s), and they’re naming names.

Not only do we revere presidents who have fallen short of our high moral standards, but those who do meet those standards are not universally appreciated. Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama are the icons of the personal purity and scandal-free private lives that we claim to expect from presidents. Yet Carter was elected for only one term and was largely dismissed until his post-presidential years, during which he has gained recognition and respect as one of the greatest ex-presidents. Barack Obama–whom even his rival John McCain defended as a decent family man–while much loved by many, has been the most openly reviled president in our history. It would seem those moral purity points don’t really count much with some people. Possibly the same ones who place a high value on “having balls.”

So much for our high moral standards! What else do we say it takes to make a person “presidential”? Well, he/she should uphold the law and never have so much as a parking ticket on his/her record. In 1992, when asked whether he’d ever broken a law, Bill Clinton had to claim he “never inhaled” the marijuana he “tried a time or two” to gloss over his college drug use. Observers see even this incident as a lowering of the bar, since such an admission might previously have disqualified a potential presidential candidate on the spot. But does that mean no previous president had ever used drugs? Depends on whom you ask. Some say Saint George (Washington) himself relied on laudanum (same thing Edgar Allan Poe used) for pain relief. Others claim Honest Abe was known to use a “blue mass” or “blue pill” to treat melancholy. John Kennedy resorted to a number of drugs, legal and illegal, to control the constant back pain that was part of his life.

Since then, the Nixon Administration makes smoking a joint or popping a pill look like a Sunday School party. According to a 2005 New York Times article, a whopping 69 government officials were charged with crimes, and 48 of them pled guilty.

Our Constitution provides for impeachment and removal from office for a president convicted of “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” (Article II, Section 4). According to Robert Longley,

“The impeachment process in U.S. government was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Noting that the traditional mechanism for removing ‘obnoxious’ chief executives — like kings — from power had been assassination, Franklin glibly suggested the impeachment process as a more rational and preferable method.”

The wise Richard Saunders (Franklin’s pseudonym for dispensing advice in Poor Richard’s Almanac) couldn’t have said it better! Impeachment is indeed a “more rational and preferable method” for removing an “obnoxious chief executive.” Where is Ben Franklin when we need him? But to return to our tally, only two presidents–Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton–out of the 44 men who have held the office, have been impeached but not removed from office. One, John Tyler, had a resolution to impeach drawn up against him, but the resolution failed in Congress. And our guy Richard “Tricky Dick” “I am not a crook” Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment.

Okay, so perhaps we have been more forgiving of presidents’ adherence to the law than our rhetoric would suggest. But we really, really like a guy who can speak eloquently and represent us well on the world stage: someone who can charm a snake with his brilliant rhetoric and poignant words. Yeah, maybe not. Lots of people loved George W. Bush, known for saying “nucular” and “misunderestimate,” among his many malapropisms and sundry crimes against the English language. And those same people detested Barack Obama whose silver tongue could charm audiences and hold them in his magical spell.

Guess we’re a rather inconsistent lot. We have our standards, sort of, but they’re easily bent. And most notably, there’s not much agreement among the various tribal units comprising our society. Accusations of unpresidential behavior fall flat when supporters of the accused can cite a list of exceptions that expose the accuser’s hypocrisy. Well then, dammit, what do we want in a president? And how will we ever know if someone meets our standards? And how can we have a rational conversation without being exposed as hypocrites when we say someone is not conducting himself in a presidential manner? One thing which we may have to thank the current Republican Party for is forcing us to be honest about what really matters.

Our current “president” daily confounds his critics with his tweeting habit. Tweets have largely replaced official White House statements and ceremonial Rose Garden announcements. Instead, we watch for each morning’s “tweet storm.” Who among our ancestors, even if they knew what a tweet is, would believe that a “tweet storm” is something a president does? Each day, we say, “This one crosses the line! He’s done it now! Bye-bye, Donald!” But he’s still there the next morning when the next outlandish tweet appears. It’s hard for many of us to comprehend how he survived this one about Kim Jong Un: “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Crass, yes. Vulgar, yes. Sexual innuendo, yes. Supporters rushing to condemn, no. Supporters applauding his “balls,” probably. So there he is, and there it seems he will stay for the foreseeable future.

Surely we can all agree that no one who is regularly called an “idiot” or a “moron”–even by members of his own staff–can possibly be qualified to serve in this esteemed office. But Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, cautions Democrats against protesting too much against Trump’s obvious lack of intellectual acumen. He argues that Trump is “plenty bright,” though admittedly not in the way many of us like our presidents to be bright. He explains, “There are different kinds of intelligence that are useful for different purposes. The kind of intelligence I believe Trump has is enormously useful if you want to, say, be a politician — even better if you want to be a demagogue.” Oh, good! Now I feel better.

Begala continues, “He has a cynical, innate intelligence for what his base wants to hear. It’s like a divining rod for division, prejudice and stereotyping. His relentless rhetorical repetition (‘No collusion, no collusion, no collusion’) is brilliantly designed to tell folks who are predisposed to like him what they want to hear. . . . It’s like he knows what every barstool blowhard is about to say before he or she even says it.”

In his conclusion, Begala advises, “So, don’t call him ‘moron’ or ‘idiot’; call him what he is: a conniving, corrupt con man, a dangerous, divisive demagogue — and, most sobering of all, the man who carried 30 states in the last election, and may well do it again if Democrats don’t focus their fire more effectively.” Works for me, but I didn’t vote for him, and I loathe the sight of him. How do we “focus our fire” effectively enough to have a conversation with those 63 million of our fellow Americans who see this “conniving, corrupt con man” as the God-ordained leader who will make our country great again? And some of those refer to him as the “god emperor”? (I know, barf.) Judge Jeanine Pirro claims Trump is fulfilling Biblical prophecy. I guess in some folks’ eyes, it doesn’t get more presidential than that.

Our fellow citizens who think that way don’t want George H. W. Bush’s “kinder, gentler America”; they want Donald Trump’s hard-fisted, damn-the-liberal-elites America. And in their eyes, the guy who’s promising and working to give them that America IS presidential. They don’t care how many wives he’s had; how many porn stars, Playboy models, and God knows who else he’s slept with; how many crotches he’s grabbed; how many friends he has in Russia; how many days he plays golf; how many times he calls people childish names; how many people he mocks, ridicules, and disrespects; how long he ignores the pain of Puerto Rican Americans; how many innocent Palestinians are killed for protesting against his decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem (yet another building on which he has plastered his name). None of it matters. They don’t care, and they’ll tell you they don’t.

Michelle Goldberg, New York Times opinion columnist, defines the word “red pill” as a metaphor taken from the movie The Matrix: “the alt-right’s preferred metaphor for losing one’s faith in received assumptions and turning toward ideas that once seemed dangerous.” “Red-pilling” is something that’s probably happened to all of us a few times in our lives, and it’s not always bad. Coming to realize that Palestinians are not the default bad guys in Middle Eastern conflicts is, in fact, a large step in a positive direction. On the other hand, accepting as presidential a person whom our ancestors would be vomiting in their graves to see ensconced in the hallowed walls of the Oval Office is not good.

Goldberg says,

“To the alt-right, of course, being red-pilled means abandoning liberalism as a lie. It means treating one’s own prejudices as intuitions rather than distortions to be overcome. The act of doing this — casting off socially acceptable values in favor of those that were once unthinkable — creates the edgy energy that has, of late, attracted Kanye West.” She advises, “Because the red pill experience is so intense, progressives should think about how to counter dynamics that can make banal right wing beliefs seem like seductive secret knowledge. Attempts at simply repressing bad ideas don’t seem to be working.”

Amen to repressing bad ideas not working!

But what could possibly cause 63 million people, among them an influential group who see themselves as the standard bearers for God, to allow themselves to be so red-pilled that they have completely abandoned their previously stated etched-in-stone beliefs? In a May 14, 2018, Washington Post article, James Hohmann cites “a deep craving for respect among supporters of the president and an enduring resentment toward coastal elites.” This is hardly new or profound to those who have been paying attention the last two years, but it is yet another voice screaming, “You’re doing it all wrong!” If you want change or want to see a tribal truce, you have to admit you’re using the wrong tactics, and you have to find some new ones that work. It’s true what they say: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity. We’re living proof.

It seems there’s only one qualification we can all agree on as a must-have for our president: we all want a president who agrees with us. That’s why we have two major political parties, along with a host of minor parties and multiple factions within each of them. We want a president who will make our country into our image of what we think it should be. As I said in my last article, however, the core problem is we can’t agree on what we want to be, and the divide is growing wider and deeper. Obviously, having a president who agrees with all of us is not going to happen. Ever. Let’s go back to “that deep craving for respect.” Everyone has it. Abraham Maslow, in his five-tier model of human needs (which we all share by virtue of simply being human), lists two psychological needs: “belongingness and love needs” and “esteem needs.” Maslow, a respected twentieth-century psychologist, affirms the notion that all humans have a deep craving to belong to a group and to be respected and valued within that group.

Donald Trump, with all of his vomit-worthy, unpresidential habits, is for a large group of people meeting those very human needs: a place to belong and a community in which to be respected. As Michelle Goldberg says, trying to repress bad ideas with people who actually think they’re pretty damn good ideas isn’t going to work. And as Paul Begala says, pointing out Trump’s intellectual deficiencies gets us nowhere. It’s like quoting scripture to an atheist. Repeating the same accusations over and over only causes everyone to dig their heels deeper and deeper. What we’re doing is NOT working. Face it. Then start figuring out what will work. Hint: It’s going to have to start with some mutual love and respect. Treating each other as fellow citizens rather than members of warring tribes is a great place to start. Can we still do that?

 

Categories
Politics

A Man Is not a Piece of Fruit

The night was November 8, 2016. I and my Democratic Party associate cleaned our Get Out the Vote office, loaded all of the makeshift equipment into our cars, and headed over to Harborside Event Center to watch the election results. We went in expecting a victory celebration and came out in a state of shock which the intervening 18 months have done nothing to diminish; in fact, time has only deepened the disbelief. That night for me is epitomized in a facial expression. As the awful truth became evident, our group prepared to go to our homes to absorb the full impact of it. Just as I was heading toward the door, I saw a friend and former colleague across the room with his daughters. I made my way through the crowd to say hello and give him a hug, then turned to rejoin my group who was then halfway to the exit. As I looked back over my shoulder, my friend and I exchanged a parting glance which for me will always be the poster picture of that evening. I’ve rarely seen anyone look as dazed, confused, and utterly lost as he did at that moment.

In the 18 months since that evening, those of us in the majority of voters who did not vote to elect our current “president” have wrestled with many questions about what the minority group (who are so distributed as to constitute a majority in the Electoral College) could possibly have been thinking when they cast their precious vote for a con man? Couldn’t they see? Did they not hear the same whiny, childish, churlish voice we did? Are they not troubled by the behavior so lacking in dignity and decorum compared to every former president? Did that vocal group among them who claim the highest standards of religious and moral rectitude not see the Access Hollywood tape? Do they not know that he’s credibly accused by more than a dozen women of sexual harassment and assault? Did they not hear the part of the tape where he confesses to doing those very things? Are they really okay with the language he uses at public events? Have they forgotten that presidents don’t govern by tweet? Can they say they live by the ten commandments and still justify his daily lies?

We told ourselves they had just been swept up with the current of a populist movement and had been taken in by the bellicose rhetoric but that once the reality of day-to-day life in this twilight zone settled in, so would their buyers’ remorse. Then they’d hasten to demand their party impeach him. Yet here we are 18 months later and their support hasn’t begun to wane; the same people, the “base,” are now signing on for his 2020 campaign.

In 1949, playwright Arthur Miller introduced America to his fictional creation Willy Loman, a hard-working guy who chased the American Dream right into his grave: a grave he chose for himself. Miller called Death of a Salesman a tragedy, the tragedy of the common man. In classical tragedy, Greek and Shakespearean, the tragic protagonist is always a man of high standing–a king or a hero–who because of an internal weakness, or tragic flaw, is unable to withstand the onslaught of life and of antagonistic forces and in the end succumbs to them. The key to a play’s being a tragedy is that the hero’s downfall must be the direct result of his own internal flaw. Willy Loman is no hero. He’s a weak, self-deluded man who refuses to accept his status in life, believing he deserves more than he has achieved and blaming people and circumstances for his failure. Yet his downfall is every bit as heartrending as that of Oedipus.

The play depicts the final 24 hours of Willy’s life, when the walls are closing in on him and he can think only of the fact that he has “nothing in the ground.” Just before his suicide, having been fired by his boss Howard, Willy buys seeds to plant in the back yard in a desperate attempt to feel that his life has amounted to something. Earlier, when Howard fires him, Willy angrily shouts, “I put thirty-four years into this firm, Howard, and now I can’t pay my insurance! You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away—a man is not a piece of fruit!”

Arthur Miller, in a 1949 New York Times essay called “Tragedy and the Common Man,” wrote, “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were.” He explains:

“As a general rule . . . I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society.

“. . . Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.

“. . . The flaw, or crack in the characters, is really nothing-and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status.”

Further on in the essay, Miller says,

“The quality in such plays that does shake us . . . derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was. In fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best.”

Arthur Miller may have unknowingly written the most apt description of the group known as Donald Trump’s base and the most coherent explanation of what motivates them. Like Willy Loman, many of them have chased dreams; above all, they’ve believed in the American Dream. But the American Dream which motivated most of us through our youth has failed a large percentage of American people. We were told that America is the land of opportunity, that those who work hard and dedicate themselves to success will succeed and prosper, that we are a classless society where everyone is created equal, that this is the country where there is no monarchy and therefore any little boy (now any little child) can grow up to be president. Most of these beliefs were never true, but we clung to the promises anyway because our sense of personal dignity and our desire for our rightful status in the world demands it.

Those who so fervently cling to Donald Trump’s promises are the ones most likely to be screwed by his actions. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a con. But have they laid down their lives for this chance to secure that “sense of personal dignity”? Are they sustained by a “total compulsion to evaluate [themselves] justly”? Are they so desperate to avoid “being torn away from [their] chosen image of what and who [they] are in this world” that they’ll elect a liar, a cheat, a con man who promises to elevate them to what they believe is their rightful status? Miller claims that the fear of being displaced was stronger than ever in 1949, but he never saw 2016 or 2018.

Have you ever been in a setting in which you felt inferior? You felt like the least wealthy person in the group? The least intellectual? The least expensively or fashionably dressed? The least hip or savvy? What would you have done to alleviate those painful feelings of inferiority? What would you have given to see those people who, knowingly or unknowingly, made you feel worthless and insignificant get their comeuppance? How good would it have felt to see the tables turned and to be the “insider” while they looked on in powerlessness and frustration?

Whom would you have followed or accepted as your advocate to have your sense of self-worth restored, or to achieve that self-worth for the first time? Is it possible that millions of people would vote for a snake oil salesman “if need be, to secure one thing–[their] sense of personal dignity?” I think they would and they did. For the first time in their lives, their “president” talks only to them. He’s their champion. He chooses venting to them for a couple of hours at a “rally” over attending  stuffy events like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. They’re the inner circle now, and the snobby elitists are banging their heads on walls trying to figure out how to reassert their power. The Trumpsters have succeeded in, as we said in the ‘60s, “sticking it to the man.”

More recently, Julian Zelizer, CNN political analyst, wrote on April 29, 2018:
“The big myth about the 2016 presidential election was that economic suffering drove most of Donald Trump’s ‘base’ directly into his hands in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.” In his article “Democrats need to stop believing this myth about Trump’s base,” Zelizer rejects the notions, or “myths,” that the problems in 2016 came from the Democrats’ obsession with identity politics and the Republican base’s desperation for greater economic stability. He says instead, “It’s the culture, Stupid.” He goes on to say, “The nation is in the middle of a battle over what this country is about. Trump’s attacks on immigrants and other groups seem to sit well with white male voters who fear that other segments of society are gradually displacing them.”

In other words, white males fear they are losing what Arthur Miller calls their “rightful status”; and they will destroy their democracy, if need be, to secure that one thing, “their sense of personal dignity.”

In an April 23, 2018 article in The Atlantic–“People Voted for Trump because They Were Anxious, not Poor”–Olga Khazan concludes, “In other words, it’s now pretty clear that many Trump supporters feel threatened, frustrated, and marginalized—not on an economic, but on an existential level.”

To counter the idea that the 2016 election was about economic hardship, Khazan quotes political scientist Diana C. Mutz, who based on her extensive analysis says, “It was about dominant groups that felt threatened by change and a candidate who took advantage of that trend.” Mutz explains, “For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country, white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race.”

Khazan sums up Mutz’s conclusions:

“When members of a historically dominant group feel threatened, she explains, they go through some interesting psychological twists and turns to make themselves feel okay again. First, they get nostalgic and try to protect the status quo however they can. They defend their own group (‘all lives matter’), they start behaving in more traditional ways, and they start to feel more negatively toward other groups.”

According to Khazan, voters’ highest priorities are their “desire for their group to be dominant”; the feeling that “the American way of life is threatened”; and the belief that “high-status groups, like men, Christians, and whites, are discriminated against.” As for evangelicals, Khazan says, “White evangelicals see more discrimination against Christians than Muslims in the United States.”

So that brings us to one conclusion. It’s the culture, Stupid. Now where do we go from here?

Categories
In the News Politics

Swamp Report: It’s Time to Change the Conversation

I reel in disbelief every time I hear a news commentator, nightly panelist, newspaper writer, or social media pundit pose the question “Is Donald Trump unfit to serve as President?” Trump answers that question every long, scandal-filled day. YES, he’s unfit. Next question?

Trump proved his unfitness when he publicly mocked a disabled reporter. He proved it when he encouraged physical assault at his campaign rallies. He proved it in the Access Hollywood tape. He proves it every morning with his pre-adolescent tweets. He proves it every time he speaks, with his third-grade vocabulary and schoolyard bully tone of voice. He proves it every time he attacks another government official or private citizen. He proves his unfitness each time he is declined representation by a reputable law firm. He proves it again and again in his rambling rants and his inability to focus on governance. He proves it most stunningly in his gross and utter ignorance of governance and of our constitution. He proves it by his obsession with Fox News and his preference for receiving his information from Sean Hannity et al. instead of from classified intelligence briefings. He proves it by his multiple violations of the Emoluments Clause. He’s a pathological liar, a crooked businessman who’s not nearly as successful as he has always portrayed himself to be, and a person with no conscience. When someone shows you who he is, the intelligent thing to do is believe him.

And there’s the problem. Millions of American voters see and hear the same things, yet a large contingent of that body continue to defend Trump’s fitness for the highest office in our government. And the question that haunts the rest of us is “Why?”

I loathe Donald Trump and everything he represents. My soul longs for the days of intelligent leadership. I broke down in tears while watching David Letterman’s recent interview with Barack Obama. Hell, I even find myself getting nostalgic over photos of George W. Bush. But Donald Trump is not the problem. I didn’t always loathe him. Before the infamous escalator ride, he was the same con man he is today, but I vacillated between feeling disgusted with him and being mildly amused by his tabloid antics. Mostly, when his life had no effect on mine, I paid no attention to what he did or said or how many women he slept with.  Donald Trump was simply irrelevant.

Trump declared his intention to run for  president because he believes he is uniquely qualified for the position, but that doesn’t offend me. He’s a narcissist; of course he thinks he’s qualified. Delusional people throughout history have claimed to be Jesus; dictators have believed they were heaven-ordained to wield life-and-death power over millions. And narcissist or not, we’re all entitled to dream. Dreaming alone doesn’t win elections. What decides elections is supporters and voters who buy into someone else’s dream. To borrow a line from Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Bear with me here, but I’d like to say, “The fault, dear Americans, is not in Donald Trump but in ourselves, that we are in a state of chaos and in danger of destroying our democracy.”

So the real question is not “Is Donald Trump fit for the presidency?” (he’s not) but “Are we fit to choose a president?” Right now, the answer to the second question is pretty disturbing.

The obscenity of a Donald Trump presidency lies not in the person who occupies the Oval Office but in the electorate who put him there. The dark underbelly of American history and culture is on full display, and it’s ugly. There’s much to discuss about what’s wrong with Donald Trump, but protracting that discussion is futile and will do nothing to heal what’s really wrong with our country. The conversation that needs to happen now is what’s wrong with us and what we can do to heal ourselves. If we can answer those questions, we won’t have to worry about another Trumpian dictator being elected president.

The swamp that needs draining is not the White House; it’s not even Washington, DC. It’s every nook and cranny of this country where a snake oil salesman can win the electoral college vote. Where opposition to political correctness carries more weight in choosing a president than respect for knowledge and experience. Where guns are glorified and protected over children’s lives. Where being “pro-life” means opposing abortion but not giving a damn about people who are already born. Where the people who claim the inside track to God (Evangelicals) elevate to the level of spiritual prophet a thrice-married adulterer who brags about his exploiting of numerous women and who pays those women to stay quiet, does business with thugs, doesn’t pay his bills, lies as easily as he breathes, and displays no respect or compassion for other humans. It just doesn’t get any swampier than that.

And let’s go ahead throw in Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and all of the other corrupt leaders currently running our congress and serving in it. They’re reprehensible, but they are there because people keep electing them. If they were back home being private-citizen wackos, I might feel a tiny twinge of sympathy for them; but as long as they are leaders in our government, I can find only disgust for them and animosity for the people who elect them.

Donald Trump, and others in “the swamp,” have shown us who they are. Believe them. Then stop the endless conversation of analyzing and agonizing over why Trump does each little thing you hear about on the news. He does what he does because he is who he is. But who are we? That’s a conversation worth having.

Let’s take a moment to recap. So far, we have that Washington, D.C. is a swamp because the rest of the country–where the voters live–is a swamp. It’s us, not them. We need to talk about that. Spoiler alert: I have no magic formula to offer that will drain the Everytown USA Swamp. I do, however, have some ideas for conversation starters. First, a forgotten word in our culture is “compromise”; we should look into that. Second, the ground rules for our conversation should include forbidding the use of any of these words: “Democrat,” “Republican,” “liberal,” “conservative,” “left,” “right,” and any others that denote entrenched attitudes and opinions that are off the table. The conversation has to center on common ground, what we all want, not what one group wants; and nothing can be off the table.

Restoring a spirit of compromise requires letting go of the idea that we all have to hold the same opinions or live by the same rules. We need to find a lot more Barbara Bushes, who disagreed with her party’s stance on abortion but continued to support the overall party platform and its candidates–until they completely lost their minds and nominated the snake-oil salesman for president. Mrs. Bush’s pro-choice stance placed her at odds with both her husband and her son’s public positions; yet she passionately loved and supported them both. The singer and activist Bono once told George W. Bush that Bush’s mother helped diminish the stigma of AIDS and other diseases. Many who share Mrs. Bush’s stated religious beliefs are the ones who created that stigma, yet this noble woman was able to maintain her personal faith and ties to those who shared her faith while  also extending grace, compassion, and respect to suffering people. Mutual respect is the missing element in most of today’s conversations about divisive issues.

I’m a registered Democrat, and I don’t fully agree with my party’s position on abortion; but I support the Democratic Party and respect my fellow Democrats’ opinions because I believe we’re correct on more issues than not. I don’t need to agree with my tribe on every point; I can respect other liberals and hope they respect me and acknowledge my right to see certain things a little differently. It’s unrealistic to think everyone, even within a party, will see every issue exactly the same way.

I believe the government should butt out of people’s love lives. However, butting out means butting out, not just taking the opposite side. If a pastor feels deeply that he/she cannot in good conscience officiate a same-sex marriage, leave him/her alone! Plenty of pastors, justices of the peace, and friends willing to obtain an online officiant license will be delighted to perform the wedding. If I were part of the LGBTQ community and wanted to get married, I certainly would not want to have the joy of my wedding day dampened by an officiant who was there only because he/she was forbidden by law to decline. And in the case of a pastor, a pastor who declines performing the wedding is unlikely to welcome the happy couple into membership, so what’s the point? Many churches are inclusive; go find one. If a baker or florist doesn’t wish to be involved, find one that does. A wedding day should be a joyful occasion; everyone involved should share the joy and affirmation of the union. After enough bad publicity, those bakers and florists will see the results in their declining client base. So be it.

I hasten to add that pastors, bakers, and florists are private citizens, who I believe should be allowed to exercise and do business according to their private beliefs–however distorted those beliefs may seem to others. However, government officials, such as Kim Davis, the Kentucky woman who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, must be required to act in accordance with the laws, not their personal beliefs. I believe Kim Davis private citizen could refuse to officiate the wedding, bake the cake, or arrange the flowers; but Kim Davis public official had no right to use her government position to impose her personal beliefs on others.

Donald Trump ascended to the presidency by eschewing political correctness and inciting his rabid mobs to echo that line. For the most part, I believe the political correctness backlash was hogwash. What that group calls political correctness I call kindness, respect, and courtesy. Every now and then, however, I hear something that I think crosses the line between respect and absurdity; and on those occasions, I have a smidgen of appreciation for the Trump supporters’ scornful rejection of political correctness. Political correctness is disrespect for any opinion except the “correct” one. But who gets to decide whose opinion is the correct one, and what do we gain by fighting over it? Political correctness is in some cases a form of forced agreement, and why must we all agree? Can’t we find ways to respect each other without agreeing on every point?

If I were to hold the private opinion that all houses should be built of wood and painted yellow, lots of people would disagree with me and probably find me a bit wacky; but my opinion should be acknowledged and not denigrated, and I should not be made to feel like a defective person for my belief. If, however, I spray paint nasty messages on my neighbors’ brick or stucco houses, I’ve crossed the line between holding a weird opinion and abusing and assaulting my neighbors. The same is true if I take it upon myself to repaint other wood houses to my “correct” color. I shouldn’t be required to change my opinion in order to be respected, but I should be required to allow others the same right I claim for myself.

One of my favorite photos is the one in which Michelle Obama is hugging George W. Bush, and both are smiling with what appears to be genuine affection. It might be difficult to find two people with more divergent opinions on a wide range of social and political topics, but this photo captures the spirit of human beings celebrating what unites them, not focusing on what divides them. We need more such photos.

We need more friendships like the friendship between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, described by Mr. O’Neill’s son Thomas in a 2012 New York Times article titled “Frenemies: A Love Story.” The younger O’Neill writes about others who have observed the irony that “the relationship between Reagan and my father, a Democrat who was speaker of the House for most of Reagan’s presidency, should serve as a model for how political leaders can differ deeply on issues, and yet work together for the good of the country.” Let that sink in: “differ deeply on issues” and “work together for the good of the country.” Thomas O’Neill also writes, “While neither man embraced the other’s worldview, each respected the other’s right to hold it. Each respected the other as a man.” And those last two sentences articulate precisely what is missing today, not only in our nation’s capital but more importantly in Everytown USA.

The article makes clear that although Reagan and O’Neill couldn’t be considered close friends, they more than once sat down together at the White House for drinks after each had spent the day fighting adamantly for his cause. Their devotion to the common good didn’t prevent either of them from expressing an honest opinion about the other. O’Neill is quoted as calling Reagan “a cheerleader for selfishness” and Reagan as comparing O’Neill to the Pac-Man character, “a round thing that gobbles up money.”

But here’s the part we so desperately need today:

“Such unyielding standoffs [this follows a long list of examples] were, in fact, rare. What both men deplored more than the other’s political philosophy was stalemate, and a country that was so polarized by ideology and party politics that it could not move forward. There were tough words and important disagreements over everything from taxation to Medicare and military spending. But there was yet a stronger commitment to getting things done. That commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty is what . . . millions of Americans miss so much right now.”

Indeed we do miss leaders who are willing and able to compromise for the sake of “getting things done,” who are capable of “commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty.”

Now here’s the catch: We’ll never get leaders who respect each other and work toward the common good until the voters who elect those leaders can make the “commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty.” When citizens of Everytown USA cease to be “polarized by ideology and party politics,” we’ll start electing that kind of leaders. As it is, we elect leaders bent on carrying out our polarized beliefs; hence, Donald Trump. As I’ve often said, and many others have also said, Trump is the effect, not the cause. It’s high time we start examining the causes and turning the conversation toward fixing ourselves.

The DC Swamp is out of control, and there’s only one way you and I can change that situation. We have to start by draining our own little swamps, changing the conversation in our own corner of the world. Different world views have existed as long as the world has turned on its axis, and humans will disagree for as long as at least two people remain on the planet. The only thing anyone has control over is how those disagreements are handled. It’s time to change the conversation. It’s time to listen more and talk less. It’s time to allow others to hold opinions at opposite poles from our own yet extend to them the same respect we demand from them. It’s time, as Thomas O’Neill says, even when we can’t embrace another’s worldview, to respect the other’s right to hold it, to respect the other as an equal person.

If you’re saying to yourself right now, “Yeah, that’s what those other people need to do,” you’re part of the problem. Think about it.

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

A Short Grammar Lesson on the Second Amendment

Here’s the second amendment to our Constitution in its entirety:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Here’s the NRA version, also adopted by the far right, alt-right, white supremacists and sundry other anti-American, anti-intellectual elements of our population:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Obviously, when you don’t understand what something means, the logical thing to do is just ignore it and move on to the easy part that you do get. Problem is, the easy part is based on the confusing part and can’t be accurately interpreted without figuring out the confusing part.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” seems like unfamiliar syntax to modern speakers and writers of the English language, but it’s really quite familiar.

Gramatically, “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” is called an absolute clause. Absolute clauses are adverbial in function, meaning they modify something else in the sentence. A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a verb; an absolute clause is a group of words containing a subject and a participle (form of a verb) but not an active verb.

Here are a few examples in more modern English:

“The dinner being prepared, I had time to take a nap.”

“My last paper having been graded, I was ready for a relaxing spring break.”

“That being said” . . .

“Having said all of that” . . .

In each of these examples, the meaning is perfectly clear to modern audiences: the second part of the sentence is true only in light of the first part having been established. In the first example, I’m free to take a nap only because my food prep is done. In the second, I’m ready to spend a relaxing spring break because my paper work is done. When someone says “That being said” or “Having said all of that,” it’s clearly understood that the statement which follows is to be interpreted in the context of what has preceded.

Therefore, these examples could be written this way:

“Because dinner was prepared, I had time to take a nap.”

“Because all of my papers are graded, my spring break will be relaxing.”

“Because of what I just said, the rest of my statement is true.”

Back to the second amendment,

“Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Why are we giving you this right? Because we want you to be able to serve in a militia. Oh, yes, a well-regulated militia! According to this text, the right to “keep and bear arms” cannot be interpreted except in the context of citizens being needed to secure our nation’s safety and welfare.

We no longer have state militia. We have a federal army, something our founders wanted to avoid. But now we have it, and it does not require recruits to supply their own weapons. So one could say, as I do, that this amendment has long been outdated and in need of revision to make it applicable to 20th– and 21st-century life.

Here’s what is NOT included in the second amendment:

The number of firearms each person is allowed to own. Many have said that, in the absence of a stated limit, people can own any number they choose. Anyone should be able to see that’s not working out well for the “security of [our] free state.”

Also not included is a limit on the amount of ammunition any one citizen can stockpile. Again, those who prefer to take the route requiring the smallest amount of critical thinking have decided it’s okay for private citizens to own any amount of ammunition they please. Well, that’s not working so well either.

The amendment further does not specify the types of weapons that may be privately owned. On December 15, 1791–the date the Bill of Rights was ratified–the types of weapons available might have been counted on one or two hands. In the last 227 years, however, much has changed in the field of weaponry; and if the types of available weapons have changed, so should the laws and Constitutional provisions which determine weapon ownership. The first amendment has had to be refined since its ratification. Mass communication didn’t exist in 1791, so the founders couldn’t have possibly written into the first amendment provisions regulating radio, TV, and the Internet; we’ve had to develop and refine those provisions ourselves. Why have we not done the same with the second amendment?

Chief Justice Warren Burger, in a 1991 PBS News Hour interview, made this statement:

“The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies–the militia–would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.”

Notice again the line, “The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument . . . ” The analysis of language is grammar, so Chief Justice Burger agrees with my premise on the grammar of this amendment.

Until 2008, the Supreme Court and our gun-ownership laws acknowledged that gun ownership is not untethered; it is clearly tied to citizens’ role in national defense. In 2008, however, a case called District of Columbia vs Heller resulted in a decision which includes the following:

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

“The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.” [BS–that’s my note.]

It’s time for our SCOTUS to get a grammar lesson!

But before I conclude, because I’ve heard it so many times before, I know the next question will be “Do you think all guns should be banned?” NO. I think citizens should be allowed to own certain types of guns if they can pass a thorough background check and prove themselves sane and responsible. No citizen needs a military assault weapon, so all of those should be banned, as should bump stocks and anything else that increases the killing ability of a weapon. I believe people should have the right or privilege of gun ownership within those parameters, but their right comes from something other than the second amendment. Let the rotten tomato throwing begin!

Our SCOTUS needs to revisit the Heller decision, and it’s past time for a rewrite on the second amendment which reflects life in 2018, not 1791. That’s the least we can do to save our children’s lives.

Categories
Politics

The Real Tragedy of Donald Trump, Revisited

On July 9, 2016–after Donald Trump had declared himself a candidate for the presidency but before it became obvious that New York playboy, real estate mogul, and reality TV clown had an ice cube’s chance in hell of actually winning that esteemed office–I wrote an article for this blog, which I titled “The Real Tragedy of Donald Trump.” To date, it has been my most-read article. In it, I said this, among other things:

“The fact that a crazy person thinks he should be president doesn’t really disturb me. Look at all the crazy people who have claimed to be Jesus! As I said at the beginning, Trump is not the cause; he’s the effect. Donald Trump would not be where he is without the 13,000,000 people who have so far voted for him. And therein lies the REAL tragedy! In the greatest and richest country on earth, 13,000,000 people feel so angry, so betrayed, so powerless, so disenfranchised, so cheated, and so dehumanized that the rantings of a crazy man are words of hope and promise! If I were drowning, I wouldn’t take time to vet the person who threw me a rope. I wouldn’t care how morally corrupt or mentally deranged the person might be; I’d grab that rope! The fact that 13,000,000 people have reached the level of desperation that a rope from Donald Trump looks like salvation is tragic.”

That was then. Now, almost a year into this sham “presidency,” I feel no compassion for those still riding the Trump Train. They’ve had as many opportunities to witness the deterioration of our democracy, to weep over the shaming of our nation on the world stage, and to recognize that they will suffer the greatest losses if Trump’s me-and-my-rich-friends-only agenda is implemented as the rest of us have had. Yet they continue to idolize him, fill his rallies, and pledge to vote for him again. How is it possible that citizens of the same country can witness the same debacle and one group call for impeachment while another group continues to cheer on their idol?

And that question brings us to the tragedy of Trump revisited. Eleven months in, the real tragedy is what Donald Trump has revealed about the state of our Union, and it’s not pretty. The real tragedy of this year-long nightmare is at least three-pronged.

Perhaps most disturbing is the reality that our “president” is in fact a cult leader. He is not recognized as a legitimate president by the sane majority. And he doesn’t care! He is content to be the president of his “base” so long as they feed his gargantuan ego with all of the adulation it requires, mock the “enemies” in the press along with him, agree with him that the Russia probe is a hoax and a witch hunt, and perpetuate the delusional belief that he is “making America great again.” The definition of narcissism–a word most Americans have learned to define and spell in the last year–is the belief that the narcissist is the only person on earth who matters and that other people gain relevance only as they serve the narcissist’s purposes. So long as Trump can retain a base large enough to ensure another electoral victory, the rest of us are just so much excess baggage. Never mind that the cult followers stand to be the greatest losers when the dreaded tax bill becomes a law and the ACA is so stripped that it no longer serves the millions of people whose lives have been saved by it. The rabid “Lock-her-up” chanters will chant on because that’s how cults work.

According to International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), these are just a few of the characteristics of cult culture:

  1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
  2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
  3. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, and/or on a special mission to save humanity).
  4. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
  5. The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
  6. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group.
  7. The most loyal members (the true believers) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

This checklist will be published in the new book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias (Berkeley: Bay Tree Publishing, 2006). It was adapted from a checklist originally developed by Michael Langone.

Number 1: excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to leader. Check. Never in our history has a person wielded such unquestioned influence over so many Americans, with their full cooperation. Seems the only true words DT has ever spoken are the boast that he could shoot people in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose followers.

Number 2: Questioning discouraged. Check. Not only does this rule apply to the many people who have been fired for refusing to cooperate with the “boss” but it also seems to be part of what keeps followers in line. Cults give powerless people a place to belong, to feel more powerful by association with the exalted leader. The prospect of losing that newfound status is enough to keep most cult members in line–all the way to the Kool-Aid/suicide line.

Number 3: Elitist. Check. Trump followers belong to an elite group; they’re the only ones who are important to the “president” of their country. Therefore, they have influence which most of them have never before known. While the rest of us scream and yell about the devastation being wreaked on our democracy, these elites smile smugly over the turn of events which has made them the ones who are now heard in the highest chambers. Their “god emperor” (yes, sickening as it sounds, some of them give him that title) is hearing and serving only them. That’s a pretty intoxicating feeling!

Number 4: Us-versus-them mentality. Check. Not much commentary needed here. Just look at the deep divisions in our society–probably the greatest since the Civil War. Look and weep.

Number 5: Leader not accountable. Check. Possibly the most frustrating aspect of all is the president’s lack of oversight and accountability. I recall my intense frustration during the first few months of this administration as it became increasingly clear how much power is invested in our chief executive and how little restraint can be exercised against that office. If we learn nothing else from this debacle, we must learn how incumbent it is on us, the voters, to choose a leader who has the knowledge, experience, and temperament to be trusted with that level of authority.

Number 6: Ends justify means. CHECK!!! The party-over-country mentality of the current Republican party has caused women to vote for and support a confessed p—y grabber, a child molester, and a few indicted felons, among others. It’s caused men and women to see injustice as justice when one person in a lewd tape–the one who listened and laughed along with the joke (yes, I know that’s bad, too)–to lose his job and the one actually making the lewd comments to get a job promotion. A big promotion! It’s caused lawmakers to swallow hard at the blatant racist, xenophobic, misogynistic actions of the “president” and his followers but then do nothing because they don’t want to lose their power and control. Their new mantras are “anyone but a Democrat!” and “anything to advance the agenda.” The conscience is the first thing to go!

Number 7: Fear of leaving group. Check. Those powerless people I described in my first article as feeling “so angry, so betrayed, so powerless, so disenfranchised, so cheated, and so dehumanized” have found power, enfranchisement, and humanity as part of a sort of inner circle. The tables have been turned: now those “liberal elites” are the ones beating our heads on our desks trying to figure out how we can “take our country back.” The Trump Cult is a place to belong, a place to feel loved and accepted–however deceiving those sentiments may be. That Kool-Aid is tasting pretty sweet. Right now.

According to Adrian Furnham, Ph.D., in a Psychology Today article, group membership offers several seductive benefits: friendship, connections, identity, an opportunity to make a contribution. I get that. However, I feel only disgust and disdain for a “leader” who is willing to destroy the whole world to feed his own ego and bank account and equal disgust and disdain for those who blindly follow and give him the power to wreak his destruction.

How often have you heard the word “tribalism” used to describe current relations among the citizens of our country? The state of discord, division, and outright hatred among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents or liberals, conservatives, and moderates is the second prong of the real tragedy of life with Donald Trump as “president.” “Tribe” has a positive meaning in modern parlance: it means our group of friends, our “peeps,” the folks we look to for friendship, social engagement, understanding, and support. And that usage has a great deal in common with the negative form of tribalism which so defines our modern political landscape.

Writer and editor Elisha Madison offers this definition:

“A common definition for a tribe is a group of people that all have common ancestry, or a common ancestor, a common culture, and live in their own enclosed society. Other names for a tribe are a clan [sic], which is used in some European countries, and family. The idea of a tribe goes back to ancient times when Rome would create divisions within society due to class, family, and money. These divisions were tribes.”

The tribal groups which exist in modern-day America don’t necessarily share common ancestry, but each one clearly shares a common culture and a tendency to live in its own enclosed society. The divisions among the various tribes have become such deep chasms and so impossible  to bridge that any cooperation or coexistence among them has been rendered all but hopeless. I have come to detest false equivalencies: lying is okay because everyone does it, Democrats do the same thing, both parties are corrupt, etc. Hogwash! The modern Republican party is so off the charts, there is no equivalence in the Democrat party and perhaps none in American history. In this one aspect, however, that of demanding adherence to the tribe’s belief system, I’d have to say we are all guilty. A Republican who accepts abortion and a Democrat who questions it or thinks perhaps some restrictions should apply are equal candidates for censure and possible banishment.

Ms. Madison goes on to list core characteristics of a tribe. I’ve selected the ones which apply to this discussion.

The first is unity. Better a child molester than a Democrat is a perfect example. He may be a child molester, but he’s our child molester. He may be a genital grabber, but by god, he’s our genital grabber. As in the cult culture, repugnant values can become acceptable so long as those values serve to create and maintain unity within the tribe. Ancient tribes’ physical survival depended on unity, and modern tribes are no different, except that now we’re fighting for the survival of our agenda, our prejudices, our political dominance.

According to Ms. Madison, many tribes live in a specific territory. I think that sounds a lot like “red states” and “blue states.” President Obama tried to convince us to stop being red states and blue states and get on with being the United States, but lots of people didn’t buy that idea; so we remain red tribes and blue tribes.

A third characteristic is common language and culture; and although most of the people discussed here speak English, the tribes have clear differences in culture and in the language they use to encode their ideas, beliefs, and values. What one tribe calls political correctness, for example, another calls respect, equal treatment, and kindness.

This characteristic may be most significant of all:

“Another commonality is their belief systems. Most tribes will all worship the same god or gods, and follow the morality of the common religion. Another factor is internal government. Most tribes have their own political systems within their own people and usually do not recognize outside laws. They will vote for and appoint chiefs and leaders to help rule their communities. This means if someone breaks a law, they address it within the society . . . This is called tribal sovereignty.”

So how does a crotch grabber become “president” and a pedophile become a senator? They are held accountable only to the laws of their tribe, not to those of the broader culture or system of laws. They are judged and found innocent within the tribal unit, everyone else’s objections be damned. The common religion even allows the pedophile to keep preaching morality and asserting his moral superiority in the faces of his accusers. The opposing tribe members are held to far different standards than one’s own tribe members. Hence, the Democrats have lost a long-serving representative and a conscientious senator while the Republican “president” retains his office and a Republican pedophile prepares to step into the same august body that called for the expulsion of a Democrat who was careless and foolish, even though he expressed remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions. The only metric for judging these incidents is the internal law of the tribe; absolute moral standards do not exist.

Here’s Ms. Madison’s summary statement: “Ultimately, a tribe is a nation within a nation. They are people that have created their own societies and rules, and live by them.” Bingo! I think we know now what we’re dealing with.

Most tragic of all is the perversion of Christianity under the evangelical take-over of the Republican party. That problem may seem to be of no concern to mainstream Christians, non-Christians, and adherents to other religions; but make no mistake, we all have been affected by evangelicalism because without that group as a powerful voting bloc, we would have a different person sitting in the Oval Office today. And if we have any hope of restoring intelligent leadership to the executive branch of our government, we must–like it or not–confront this group.

Since white evangelicalism and republicanism are practically indistinguishable these days, it’s become imperative to recognize the stark reality that evangelicalism is as different from Christianity as ISIS is from Islam. Evangelicals can’t be allowed to peddle their deviant ideas as the will of God or as in any way a representation of Christian belief. The modern white evangelical movement is a political regime operating under the guise of a religious organization. The enemy here is not Christianity, religion, faith in God, or people trying to follow the example of Jesus. The enemy is extremism and the resultant hatred, bigotry, and injustice.

White evangelicals are a tribe, and their tribal laws supersede our national laws. Yet because they are in fact a political regime and a pseudo religion, they can’t be satisfied with simply living within their own tribal bubble. As supposed “ambassadors for God,” they must impose their superior laws on the larger culture, because that is the will of God, according to their cherry-picked passages from the Bible.

As a religion, evangelicalism is weak and pathetic. It’s a set of rules based on those cherry-picked Bible verses which in no way resemble the life of their namesake, Jesus Christ, and in no way lead adherents to follow Jesus’ example. Increasingly, evangelicalism is the polar opposite of Christian belief and conduct.

As a tribe, evangelicals have all of the core requirements: unity, strong “red” territories, their own culture and language, and tribal sovereignty. Leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Junior, and James Dobson stand as the unquestioned dictators of both religious tenet and political philosophy. It’s hard to fathom the depth of hypocrisy in statements such as these:

“Never in my lifetime have we had a president willing to take a strong, outspoken stand for the Christian faith like President Donald J. Trump has. Whether you are Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Catholic–all Christians need to get behind him with our prayers.” Franklin Graham

“I think evangelicals have found their dream president.” Jerry Falwell Junior

“Only the Lord knows the condition of a person’s heart.  I can only tell you what I’ve heard.  First, Trump appears to be tender to things of the Spirit.” James Dobson

Not one of these spokespersons for hypocrisy can offer a coherent defense of his statement, because of course every statement is pure malarkey (my favorite Joe Biden-ism). What is it about sexual assault, cooperating with a foreign power, employing felons, probably being a felon, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, tweeting out insults, provoking wars, and you know the rest of the list–what part of that screams “I’m a Christian”? What part of endorsing an accused child molester says “I believe in Jesus and strive to follow his teachings” or “I’m tender to things of the Spirit”?

And that brings us to the real reason we all have to pay attention to these twisted people: they are a modern political juggernaut. They’re the reason Donald Trump was elected. They’re the reason current congressional leadership is what it is. They’re the reason Neil Gorsuch now occupies a seat on the Supreme Court. They’re the reason our education system is being dismantled by Betsy DeVos. They’re the reason people are leaving the church in droves, weakening a vital voice in establishing justice and equality for all.

Christians are as appalled by these imposters as non-Christians are, so the answer is not to tax all churches or quiet the voices of those who call for justice in the name of their faith. The answer is to identify evangelicals as charlatans and do our best to unseat them from their places of power and influence.

What then is the real tragedy of Donald Trump? The tragedy is that a morally bankrupt person occupies the highest office in our land and daily degrades that office and degrades our country’s standing in the world. The bigger tragedy is that millions of voters still don’t see what is unfolding before their eyes. Cultism, tribalism, and evangelicalism conspire to keep people blinded to the evil that is transpiring. Our cultural values are being turned upside down: wrong is right, immoral is moral, evil is good.

No one is quite sure who said it, but we’ve all heard the quotation, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Martin Luther King Junior said, “Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent about things that matter.” Dr. King also said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

What can one person do in the face of such seemingly insurmountable obstacles? Show up, speak up, be the light, and be the love. And keep doing it all even when you see no results. Good is more powerful than evil, if enough good people have enough persistence and patience.