Tag: Trump

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Politics

It’s Almost Midnight

The recent chatter about Donald Trump’s declining mental state and increasingly erratic behavior has me thinking of the legend of Faust. Isn’t everyone? In the classic German legend, an eminent scholar, Faust, becomes bored with his life, unable to sate his desire for something beyond the scope of his studies. Enter Mephistopheles, servant of Lucifer, who grants Faust 24 years of unlimited knowledge and pleasures of the flesh. In exchange for Mephistopheles’ favors, Faust signs a pact to surrender his soul to Lucifer at midnight on the last day of the 24 years. The legend, originally written down in the 16th century, has known many retellings, including those by Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Hollywood actor and director Richard Burton.

Although the various renditions change the names a bit–Faust is also Dr. Faustus–and alter the ending, the story has become a metaphor for any situation in which a person is willing to exchange their morals and values, in other words sell their soul, to test the bounds of human limitations and gain a greater share of earth’s power, wealth, and pleasure.

Donald Trump is certainly no scholar, but he shares with Faustus the insatiable craving for more, the drive to overcome human limitation. The title of his niece’s book, Too Much and Never Enough, is a fitting epitaph for his life. Our tragic hero, Trumpus, was teasing the idea of a presidential bid as far back as 1988, bantering about the idea with Oprah and Larry King over a period of years. His hunger for power and prestige led him to leave his home borough of Brooklyn and cross the river into the more glamorous and highfalutin Manhattan, the place his more frugal father would never venture into.

Trumpus’s appetite for the pleasures of the flesh is also well known. Conquests of beautiful women, both willing and unwilling partners, have stoked his ego and caused him to brag to Howard Stern during an interview that sex should count as his Viet Nam and he should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for having avoided contracting any STDs in his numerous liaisons.

He had money, he had fame of a sort (mostly the supermarket tabloid sort), he had his name in tall gold letters on buildings across the globe, he lived in ostentatious penthouses, he had wealth (though not as much as he claimed), he had success as a reality TV star, he had power as the CEO of the many companies that comprise the Trump Organization, he had the appearance of success as a businessman (convincing enough to dupe millions of people into voting for him to run the business of our country), and he surrounded himself with beautiful women, including Miss Universe contestants.

But, like Faustus, Trumpus’s restlessness drove him to take great risks in his quest for the salve that would soothe his itch for more. Rising to the highest office in the land and wielding the authority of the most powerful position on earth felt to him like the last mountain to be climbed. With it would come the adulation of millions and the opportunity to destroy the legacy of the man he envied and hated; and as the CEO of the country, he could expand his wealth by making his private enterprises venues for government business.

It was the perfect plan, but there were obstacles. He was inexperienced in politics, he was completely uneducated in the constitution, foreign policy, the economy, global alliances, geography, or any other subject that might have given him knowledge and insight needed for the job. Moreover, he lacked the basic intelligence and intellectual curiosity to learn any of those things. He even had to pay someone to sit for his SAT so that he could earn the required score for admission to the Wharton School of business. What to do? Well, he could summon Mephistopheles.

And so he did. In this version of the tale, Mephistopheles is named Vladimir Putin. Putin, with the complicity of the Republican Party, would grant Trumpus the presidency–with all of the glamour, power, wealth, and ego inflation–in exchange for complete control over Trump and freedom from the inconvenient sanctions that would be imposed on him by any real president. I would not presume to make suppositions about Donald Trump’s eternal soul, if he ever had one, but it has been clear to all with eyes to see and brains to process information that he is beholden to Vladimir Putin in ways detrimental to him and to the country gullible and stupid enough to elect him.

There is throughout the tale a sort of madness to Faustus, like the character in Edgar Allen Poe’s story who is strapped down and unable to move while the pendulum that could slice him in half inches its way closer. Trumpus’s base level madness shows itself in his frenetic tweeting, bragging, and lying about such things as crowd sizes and his ability to handle things: “I alone can fix it.” Trumpus knows his time is limited, unless of course he can incite his base to make him the kind of life-term authoritarian ruler he so admires in other countries.

Whether it’s four years or eight years, midnight is coming, and he sees the bottomless chasm opening to swallow him up: that deep pit of legal troubles over which he is dangling, which must be every bit as terrifying as the mythical hell flames. As long as he can remain in office, he will continue to have the immunity to prosecution and unveiling of his deepest secrets that he has so far enjoyed. At the stroke of midnight, however, he will be open to exposure–the threat of which is driving him further into madness, just as Faustus descends into madness during his final moments.

Former CIA Director John Brennan said to MSNBC news anchor Joy Reid, on October 12: “Things have gone from the abnormal to the surreal.”

One reason it’s been difficult to recognize and chart Donald Trump’s descent into madness is that he’s never been sane. Abnormality has been the norm: the lies, the tweeting, the flouting of tradition and norms, the disrespect for his office, the ignorance, the utter lack of compassion for other humans, the refusal to treat his supporters and his critics with equal respect and responsibility, the refusal to condemn white supremacist groups, the inner circle of felons and the lowest level of humanity, the willingness to do anything to boost his ego and retain power and adulation. Tragically, this is the base line.

How could things get worse? When the guy who signed the deed (made the deal with Lucifer) is looking at possible debt collection time (November 3), even the thinnest semblance of control is going to be next to impossible to maintain.

Hence, the infamous tweets appear to be escalating in both number and recklessness. This one, posted on October 5, 2020, could win awards for misinformation, insensitivity, and shameless self-promotion:

“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

Yes, misinformation, insensitivity, and shameless self-promotion are his primary characteristics on his best day; but this tweet hits a new low.

In the most inane report of the week (so difficult to single out just one), it’s been widely reported that he had cooked up this stunt and discussed it with several people as he was preparing to leave Walter Reed Medical Center. In his always-delusional, now drug-enhanced extra-delusional brain, he saw himself walking out of the hospital in his usual button-down shirt and suit coat. Then at just the perfect moment, he would rip open his shirt, revealing a Superman T-shirt underneath. Really. This was his fever dream for demonstrating his strength and virility. With 210,000 Americans at that same moment having lost their lives to the disease he claims to have beaten, he wanted to do a Reality TV stunt to show how strong he thinks he is.

His scattershot efforts at voter suppression expose the desperation which drives him. Tampering with the postal service, raising unfounded alarm about mail-in voting, putting up roadblocks to make voting more difficult, and lying about ballot fraud are all aimed at suppressing votes for his opponent and creating enough doubt about the legitimacy of the election to set the stage for the Supreme Court to decide the winner. And he’s orchestrated, with his complicit Republican senators, the greatest sham hearing in history to railroad through a SCOTUS nominee, to be sure he has a majority on the bench when the election case is presented.

In a move typical of banana-republic dictators but not of the republic to which Americans pledge their allegiance, he is using the power of his office and of our government agencies to attempt punishment of his political rivals. During the week following his release from Walter Reed, he launched a series of tweets demanding the imprisonment of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and excoriating his own Attorney General Bill Barr for not acting fast enough. The tweet storm culminated in an all-caps scream:

“DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!”

I’m trying to imagine what congressional action would have been taken against any other president who made such an unhinged demand.

To prove he’s an equal-opportunity employer, he also attacked his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not having declassified and released all of Hillary Clinton’s emails (groan!). CNN’s Jennifer Hansler reports:

“’She said she had 33,000 e-mails,’ Trump told Fox News on Thursday. ‘They’re in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo is unable to get them out, which is very sad actually. I’m — I’m not happy about him for that, that reason. He was unable to get — I don’t know why. You’re running the State Department and you get them out. But they’re in the State Department.’”

My mother always said, “Any port will do in a storm.” And Trump’s storm is rising, so he’s frantically throwing out whatever might appease the storm gods and find him safe harbor.

So what is it that may await our tragic hero when his days in the White House end? What does he see in that chasm that is slowly opening beneath his feet? Among other things, exposure of his crimes and misdeeds and most embarrassing moments, a wave of lawsuits, and if justice prevails, prison time.

Parts of the Mueller Report which have so far been redacted could be made public, further information about his tax fraud may be published, whatever Vladimir Putin is holding over his head may be exposed, evidence may be revealed to substantiate parts of the Steele Dossier, more aides and administration officials may feel free to tell what they know and write more tell-all books, he could face even more lawsuits than are already pending against him from families of COVID patients who have died, and worst of all to his narcissistic mind he will stand naked before the world as the thing he hates most: a loser.

Individual lawsuits are already too numerous to list, but they can be organized under a few general headings: finances and taxes; violations while in office, including the Hatch Act, the  emoluments clause, and using White House property for political gatherings; possible lawsuits arising from the Mueller Report; campaign violations; sexual misconduct and assault, of which he has been credibly accused by 20 women, including one who was only 13 years old at the time of the alleged assault; and contractors whom he has refused to pay money he owed. This is just a small sampling of what he and his family may face when he can no longer retreat to the safe harbor of the White House.

Our job is to be sure midnight comes on November 3, 2020–not November 5, 2024. As Senator Amy Klobuchar so passionately argued during the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett,  “This isn’t Donald Trump’s country, it is yours.” I’m ready to take it back. Let Donald Trump pay for the bargain he made, and let us restore our country. By 2024, it may be too late.

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Politics

False Equivalence and Other Fallacies

Have you ever been in a situation when someone was being a real jerk to you, and you tried to  engage calmly and reasonably in a conversation with that person? Then a third person came along and said, “Okay, you two, break it up. You’re both out of line here,” or something to that effect? And you wanted to protest, “NO, not you TWO! That ONE! I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll admit I might be a jerk sometimes, but today was not my day! “

Did one of your parents ever break up a fight between you and a sibling by pronouncing you equally responsible and sending both of you to your rooms, when you were not at fault (that day)? How about a teacher who came into the room to find pandemonium and then penalized the whole class when a little investigation would have told them the problem was the work of two or three instigators?

How did those experiences make you feel? Each one has happened to me, and I have felt angry and resentful, and I still feel a bit resentful when one or two of the incidents come to mind. When I am at fault, I will accept responsibility for my actions; but when I get called out simply for engaging with someone who’s being unreasonable, it’s frustrating because the accusation creates a false equivalence between the jerk and me, which in that particular instance is unjustified.

Last night, I along with millions of others around the globe endured 90 minutes of the meanest, most childish, most shameful and embarrassing behavior ever witnessed on a presidential debate stage. The spectacle was a new low, even for a “president” who had already broken nearly every norm he possibly could and certainly a new low for the dignity of our republic.

Within a half hour after we were all put out of our misery by the “closing bell,” I began seeing social media posts about how abominably the two candidates conducted themselves, how they were more like two naughty school boys than candidates for our country’s highest office, how the moderator was forced to act like a school principal trying to corral these two hooligans.

Wait a minute! If that is not a false equivalence, there is no such thing. As Frank Bruni so aptly put it in his next-morning NYT column, although Joe Biden flung a little mud, when you’ve been dragged into the pig sty, there’s not much else you can do.

Joe Biden came prepared to debate, as he has many times during his career. Joe has never been known as a stellar debater or public speaker, but he has a firm grasp on the facts and an understanding of the world and of how government works, and he presents that information in a clear and coherent way. You know, complete sentences and stuff like that. He draws on his 47 years of experience, does the debate prep ahead of time, and expects to face a worthy opponent. Of course, he knew in this case what he’d be up against, but I don’t think anyone anticipated the depth to which Trump would stoop (not that anyone thought him incapable) or the utter chaos and havoc he would wreak onstage.

Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact he does little to no preparation for debates. In this case, his only prep seems to have been determining to  consume all of the oxygen in the room, and at that he succeeded. Trump, from the first moments of the “debate,” bullied and abused both his opponent and the moderator, abused the process, abused his office, and abused the public trust we should all be able to have in our elected officials.

Chris Wallace was, in hindsight, not a good fit for moderator. He’s too genteel, soft spoken, and conciliatory to handle the likes of Donald Trump. Trump behaved the only way he is capable of behaving: insecure, angry, hostile, and combative. Chris Wallace behaved the only way he is capable of behaving: a gentleman who expects others to be as genteel as he is and to honor the process and the rules as he does. If there must be another debate, I’d like to recommend Samuel L. Jackson as moderator. Perhaps one or two of these lines would help shape things up: “English, mother*f^%er, do you speak it?” (Pulp Fiction) or “Hold onto your butts” (Jurassic Park) or “Given that it’s a stupid-ass decision [substitute ‘statement’ here], I’ve elected to ignore it” (The Avengers). End of digression.

All three made errors, but to call this an “everybody-was-wrong” situation is irresponsible. There are many reasons for drawing false equivalences, but there is no justification for such lazy thinking.

A teacher or parent might find it more pragmatic to discipline everyone involved than to do the work of investigation or to face the ire or risk the retaliation of the one or two trouble makers who really deserve correction. One might cover for a spouse or child by attempting to spread the blame for the wrongdoing rather than admitting that the loved one was really the sole guilty party. A follower of a political candidate may be unwilling to admit they’ve been fooled by the person they admire, so they’d rather equalize the situation by making everyone wrong.

In a broader sense, however, the tendency to draw false equivalences is symptomatic of lazy thinking and a misguided desire to maintain neutrality, both of which are always dangerous but now more so than ever before. We’re living in a time for which there is no map, no historical precedent; we can’t afford to pretend otherwise.

The lazy thinker who doesn’t want to do the hard work of thinking, reading, listening, and evaluating finds comfort in affixing broad labels to groups: lumping every member into one large category, rather than recognizing a broad range of categories. “The media,” “religion,” and “politics” come to mind.

Media bashing is an Olympic-level sport, and the criticism is often well deserved. But pick up a copy of the New York Times or the Washington Post and lay it beside a copy of the National Enquirer or Star, and it would be impossible to place them all under one heading, except that they are all part of “the media.”

Investigative journalism is essential to democracy. Investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down a corrupt president. From the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the Panama Papers published in 2016 as well as many other information troves, investigative journalists have done what few others could have achieved, exposing corruption and toppling leaders across the globe. Every day, reputable journalists are at work bringing us the information we need to remain informed citizens and to maintain our democracy–information we would have no other means of accessing. To equate them with writers and publishers of salacious gossip and conspiracy theories or of carelessly researched and sloppily reported purveyors of political biases is both insulting and irresponsible.

How often have you heard generalizations about religion, churches, ministers, and politicians? The reason, I think, is that it’s easier than having to think and make distinctions. But it’s also dangerous, because such generalizations create public distrust in institutions essential to our survival as a nation.

Another outcome of false equivalence is somewhat akin to the “two wrongs make a right” thinking. One person points out a fault in a public figure, such as a presidential candidate, and another immediately responds with “Well, your candidate does that too” or “They all do that” or “That’s true of both sides.” As long as the second speaker feels they have tied the score, they can dismiss the entire issue without the inconvenience of having to do any further thinking about it. One of my favorite quotations from Ralph Waldo Emerson is this:

“A sect or party is an elegant incognito designed to save a man from the vexation of thinking.”

For an example, see the masses who believe and follow Donald Trump’s every word. It’s so much easier and more comfortable to simply carry the party line than have to reason out every issue for oneself. The same is true of anyone who espouses a religion or political affiliation without ever questioning its precepts.

The most dangerous effect of false equivalence is that it enables neutrality, and no one can afford to be neutral in these perilous times. If Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Democrats and Republicans, or liberals and conservatives are equally corrupt, no one has to do the work of promoting truth, because there is no truth. Serious truth seekers must discern between good and evil, between right and wrong, between bad and really bad. And then they have to be willing to stand on the side of good and right, no matter the cost. It’s the truth that sets us free; neutrality keeps us in bondage.

Lumping together Donald Trump and Joe Biden as badly behaved school boys and Chris Wallace as an equally bad performer ignores several crucial facts.

Only one person on the stage did a shout-out to white supremacists, calling one group by name and telling them to “stand back and stand by.” Within an hour or so after the debate ended, the Proud Boys had crafted themselves a new logo out of Trump’s words and published it. They then pledged their allegiance and their eagerness to serve with the statement “Well sir, we’re ready.” How does anyone see this as acceptable? In what world do these words seem fitting for a “law-and-order” president, or for any president or any American citizen? That’s not even a dog whistle inciting violence, it’s a bull horn. Neither Joe Biden nor Chris Wallace said any such thing, so where’s the equivalence?

Only one person on the stage attacked another of the men’s sons, one of whom is deceased. Only one man mocked the dead son and his service to his country and brought up the other son’s struggle with drug addiction. Even the most callous and insensitive among us have some limits; most of us would instinctively hold back from exploiting a father’s grief. Neither Joe Biden nor Chris Wallace did that, so where’s the equivalence?

Only one person on the stage degraded the esteemed office of President of the United States of America. Donald Trump has never respected the office to which he was elected, but never has he disrespected it more appallingly than he did last night. Neither Joe Biden nor Chris Wallace holds the office of President (yet), but nothing they did could equal the disgrace Donald Trump heaped upon our nation, so where’s the equivalence?

Since I began writing this article, I’ve learned a new word: “both-siderism.” Anthony B. Robinson, in a September 29 article, says the temptation is strong to “play ‘both-siderism.’”

“To declare that both former Vice President and President Trump were equally at fault for this depressing spectacle. It is a comfortable move. It allows those who make it to appear to take the high ground. ‘They’re both at fault.’ ‘They both did it.’ But it wasn’t equal. Both men did not behave like ill-mannered brats. Trump did. The President of the United States did.”

There is indeed no virtue in neutrality or both-siderism; such a stance is not moral high ground, it is dangerous quicksand. I’ve cited this quotation by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel many times, but it’s never been more relevant than it is right now:

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”

So do some interfering already. Take a side. There’s no virtue in neutrality, and there’s no virtue in supporting and encouraging the death of our democracy. To quote another more familiar leader:

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

As Thomas Paine wrote so many years ago, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” What you and I do right now will determine the future of ourselves, our children, our children’s children, and our democracy. We can’t afford to be neutral.

Categories
Politics

Demon Sperm, Hydroxychloroquine, and Demonized MDs

In case you may have been vacationing on Mars these last few months and haven’t quite caught up on the news here at home, we’re in the midst of a pandemic and the United States of America is losing badly in its fight against a disease called COVID-19. Our White House squatter, Donald Trump, has botched the government’s response to the point that finding a way out of the mess we’re in seems depressingly out of reach.

Part of the problem is there’s so much conflicting information and disinformation being circulated, and Americans don’t seem to be doing a good job of sorting through the deluge of facts and opinions and deciding which ones to believe. And who can blame them? It’s hard to know, especially since we had never heard of COVID-19 until 2019, so we lack the advantage of prior experience as we strive to understand and respond in ways that will help keep us alive and healthy.

I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I do have some knowledge of critical thinking processes. For me, step one is establishing my basic premise, which is that my medical expertise is zero; therefore, any opinions I form or actions I take will have to be based on what I learn from people who have more expertise than I do, which in this case just means they know something. But since even experts often disagree, deciding which ones have greater credibility is a challenge and requires sharpening those critical thinking skills I mentioned.

Adding to the confusion, often experts disagree not only with other experts but also with their own previous positions. Many people, when they see that a recognized expert has changed a previously held position throw up their hands and exclaim “See, this is all a hoax!” They then dismiss everything the person has ever said and label him/her a fraud. But let’s think about that. Does a professional’s changing their mind diminish their credibility, or might it enhance our confidence in them? Many people would never admit to having changed their minds because they fear looking foolish, so they’ll double down on disproven ideas for the sake of saving face. One who admits having been influenced by newly discovered information should be applauded for having the honesty and courage to accept and act on new ideas.

In George Washington’s time, “medical theory of the day recommended that bleeding be administered in conjunction with emetics to produce vomiting and purges such as calomel (mercury). The idea was to debilitate the body to the point where the disease had nothing left on which to work” (encyclopedia.com). President Washington was bled, with his consent and at his request four times during the illness that preceded his death. Bleeding, or bloodletting, was sometimes done by leeches (yeah, the creepy-crawlies) and sometimes by making small incisions in the body. Joseph Kennedy–patriarch of the Kennedy clan that included a President, a Presidential candidate, and a long-serving Senator–ordered a lobotomy done on his then 23-year-old daughter Rosemary to “fix” the behavioral problems caused by her “mental retardation.” The results were not good, and Rosemary lived the last 63 years of her life in an institution.

Doctors today would face malpractice suits and have their licenses revoked for such treatments, but doctors in the 1700s and early 1900s were not committing malpractice; they were simply acting on the best research available to them.

Even in my own lifetime, much has changed. Castor oil and enemas were my mother’s go-to home remedies for pretty much whatever ailed us; I did not use those treatments on my children. When my children were babies, everything they touched was supposed to be sterilized: yep, in a pan of boiling water. By the time my grandchildren were born, washing things in hot water or running them through a dishwasher cycle was deemed sufficient. When I was a child, the treatment for a fever was to wrap up tight in flannel pjs and several blankets to “sweat it out.” When my children were feverish, I was instructed to remove clothing and blankets to allow excess body heat to escape.

Today’s medical science progresses by the day, not the year; therefore, theory and practice can change quickly, making it even more crucial that we learn to be discerning about whom and what we choose to believe.

Scientific research is a complex, time-consuming process for which most of us lack knowledge, skill, or patience. I think most of us would do well if we simply follow this checklist: (1) Who said it? (2) Who published the information and what is the date? (3) What are the person and the publisher’s biases? (4) What supporting evidence does the writer or speaker offer as the basis for their positions? And does that evidence pass the “smell” test?

That’s enough for my limited attention span, so let’s talk about those four questions.

First, who said it? Personal credibility is everything. What do you know about the writer or speaker? Do they have a reputation for honesty and integrity? Are they known for their expertise in the medical field? No one in the world is an expert on everything, though I’ve known a few who purport to be. Some people have a way of speaking that says “You have just heard the final word on this subject. There is no need to look further or check out my answer. I reside among the sages of the ages and I’m always right on every subject.” Remind you of anyone you know? I could name a few, but I won’t digress. The point is, some people can sway you to believe them simply by the confidence and authority with which they speak. Don’t be swayed. Look them up. See what else they believe or have done or what credentials they possess.

When a doctor stands on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building, wearing her white coat and surrounded by her medical colleagues in their white coats, and makes this statement, it might seem to carry authority.

“This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need masks. There is a cure. I know they don’t want to open schools. No, you don’t need people to be locked down. There is prevention and there is a cure.”

Wow! In just nine short sentences, she has contradicted everything the experts have been telling us for months: We don’t need masks, there is a cure and its name is hydroxychloroquine, and we don’t need to practice social distancing. There’s a choice to make here. We can believe this doctor, because she is after all a doctor, and doctors don’t lie to us, right? She has the credentials, so I should assume she knows more than I do. But still, she’s going against Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the CDC, and the WHO; so shouldn’t I at least check her out a little further?

Google, who is Dr. Stella Immanuel?

One of Google’s responses, from an article in The Daily Beast:

“Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.”

Oh. Well, in that case, I may as well call my neighbor of years ago who had a tradition of rewarding himself for surviving another work week by drinking himself into a stupor every Friday night. Though he did provide some neighborhood entertainment, no one would have gone to him for information, even when he was sober.

So now it’s Dr. Fauci vs. Dr. Immanuel. Dr. Fauci’s education, experience, and high honors could be an entire article on their own, so I’ll sum them up with this link: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director. Among other things, he has directed the National Institutes of Health and served under six presidents from both parties, and she believes medical conditions can be caused by dream sex with demons. I’ve made my choice: I’m with him. Yet the “president” praises her and goes on Tweet rants against him.

Choices are not always this clear cut, however, even for me. Maybe my local doctor is a skilled, ethical professional who tells me something which does not agree with mainstream positions. I’m still going to go with the guy who has the  broader scope of experience and access to more relevant data and therefore the wider lens through which to view the situation. At the very least, I won’t discount what the higher-ranking expert says based on one bit of information even from another person I respect.

Next is the publisher and currency of the information. Just as individuals have reputations, so do publishers. It’s unfair to paint any group with a single brush stroke, including “the media.” Certain media outlets are known for adhering to journalistic ethics and standards, and some are not. Know which are which. Look up the publication if you’re not sure. Then look at the date on the material. If it was published in March of this year, it’s highly doubtful that it’s still relevant. We’ve lived ten years since March 2020. Whatever the date, keep looking to see whether you find newer information.

Third is the question of bias. And don’t say they don’t have any biases; we all have them, so having a bias is not always bad. I’m pretty biased toward my own children and grandchildren. My grandchildren are definitely cuter and smarter than yours. That bias is harmless enough, because you’d say the same thing to me. Media biases are a bit more problematic. When CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News present a story, we expect them to give different slants on the story determined by their corporate biases. Fox News is well known for supporting Donald Trump, whereas MSNBC is equally well known for disdaining him. CNN falls somewhere between the other two, though it’s moved far closer to MSNBC. It helps to know that. It also helps to bear those attitudes in mind when we hear stories from them about COVID-19. Fox News will echo Trump’s latest bluster: it’s a hoax, it will magically go away, or whatever. CNN and MSNBC will present the stories as they have researched the facts, though with a heavy dose of personal opinion from the anchors and guests.

Viewers must also beware of confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information because it agrees with our own biases and not believe information, regardless of how credible the source, because it forces us to question our previous ideas. Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century French philosopher and writer, in his 1957 book Existentialism and Human Emotion, defends the premise “Existence precedes essence,” by which he means each of us chooses our own existence and shapes our own reality strictly through the choices we make. Sartre doesn’t use the term “confirmation bias,” but he suggests it repeatedly by arguing that humans do not help themselves by seeking advice or direction from others because they will always interpret what they find to suit themselves. Confirmation bias indeed, and it applies to our choice of news and information sources as much as to anything else.

Fourth, we need to examine the evidence presented as proof of the writer or speaker’s claim. No matter how well credentialed a person is, their word is not enough. My mother’s favorite saying, “Because I said so,” is not a convincing scientific argument. Actually, it wasn’t very convincing for my mom either, but that’s a subject to take up with Oprah. Never accept any information based on the word of one person. If they can’t cite evidence, they aren’t worth listening to.

Always ask “Where did you get this? What is your source?” Any responsible person will willingly refer you to their sources. If they don’t have any, disregard whatever they say–even if they have a string of letters after their name or an impressive title. When Donald Trump speaks into a microphone “This will go away. It’s going to go away,” without offering any evidence of how it’s going to go away or what anyone is doing to make it go away, pay no attention to that person behind the mic–even though he’s the “president.” Or especially because he’s the “president.” The higher the office the greater the duty to speak responsibly. No one’s word stands alone as proof.

And since all evidence is not equally credible, it’s important to weigh the evidence presented. What is the source? Is it current? What is the bias? Is it politically motivated? Motive is key when examining evidence. When it becomes clear that information is being presented in an attempt to gain political advantage, that is a red flag. Even if the information is factual, the part that’s relevant to public health has to be looked at separately, apart from the political spin. When Donald Trump says over and over “It will go away,” it should be clear to anyone with normal intelligence that he’s working on getting himself re-elected, not on protecting your health and mine.

Rarely is one piece of evidence a sufficient basis for an important decision. The legal terms “preponderance of evidence” and “beyond reasonable doubt” suggest that evidence needs to be weighty enough to persuade reasonable people that a wrong has been done, and typically, Exhibit A all by itself is not enough to do that.

This week, I was out exploring walking paths around my new home and came to a place where I saw a possible route that was on the other side of the road from where I was standing. Trying to decide whether I should cross over, I looked around and observed there were no vehicles in sight. Based on that bit of evidence alone, it should have been perfectly safe to cross the road. It was a fact, not fake news, confirmed by my own observation–a primary source. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, there were a few other pertinent facts: (1) I was close to a sharp curve in the road, so I couldn’t see more than maybe 20 feet beyond where I was standing; (2) it’s a main road, heavily traveled; (3) I’d estimate the average speed of the vehicles I see go past me is maybe 50-70 miles per hour; (4) I do not move at 50-70 miles per hour; (5) therefore, because of the speed difference and the limited visibility, by the time I could see a vehicle coming toward me, it’s highly unlikely I could get out of its path; (6) because of the limited visibility, by the time a driver could see me, it would be difficult to avoid hitting me. The preponderance (weight) of evidence was not sufficient to remove reasonable doubt that crossing the road at that particular place was safe, in spite of the initial fact that I saw no cars coming.

Americans are an independent lot; our rugged individualism, though prized by many, is actually one of the main obstacles right now to our conquering this crisis. Lots of people are fond of saying “I’m entitled to my own opinion.” I would say yes and no to that. Yes, I am entitled to think for myself, but no I am not entitled to follow my own inclinations when my actions may negatively impact others. Citizens of more collectivist societies understand that principle, and those are the countries which currently have COVID under control, while we’re in the midst of a raging forest fire.

An opinion is not just whatever thought pops into my head or what I read in an Internet meme or some isolated article from a marginal “news” outlet or what I feel in a given moment. An opinion is a carefully considered interpretation of facts. Two or more people may look at the same facts and reach different conclusions, but opinions to be valid must begin with facts (not just one fact), not feeling and not hearsay.

We’re in dangerous times. What you and I do today will determine whether some people will live to see tomorrow and will shape the lives of those who do survive this crisis for years to come. Making a few sacrifices now seems a small price to pay for a healthier future. I saw a clever meme today on social media: a picture of two dogs with talk bubbles over their heads. One dog asks “Why are humans wearing muzzles?” The other dog replies “Because they couldn’t sit and stay.” Surely we can be better than this.

Don’t believe everything you hear and wear the damn mask.

Categories
Politics

Absolutely Wrong

What this country sorely lacks right now is moral absolutes. We’re long on opinions but short on facts, long on rants but short on reason, long on talk but short on action. Until we challenge the idea that everyone is “entitled” to an opinion and all opinions are entitled to equal respect and air time, finding a route out of this moral morass looks pretty hopeless.

One might think that zero tolerance for killing people would be a moral stake that could be driven into the solid earth and around which every last person would rally. It’s absolutely wrong to kill people; therefore, finding a solution to the gun problem–which we alone among the civilized countries of the earth possess–would shake citizens to their knees. It would sound the alarms in the halls of Congress, and finding a solution would be the first item on their agenda in the aftermath of yet another mass shooting. Taking action would be the only moral course; and failing to take action in the face of such preventable tragedies would be the gravest of moral failures, leaving no room for debate or contrary opinions. One might think.

In 21st-century America, however, nothing is absolute. Republicans, Democrats, victims of gun injuries, families of fatal shooting victims, the National Rifle Association, and people who pay no attention to what goes on beyond their own walls have an equal say in how the problem is treated. Or not treated. The Pew Research Center reports this:

“In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC.” That number is double the population of the town in which I grew up. That’s two Troy, Ohios wiped out in one year.

Of the 39,773 deaths by gunshot in 2017, 60% (23,854) were suicides; 37% (14,542) were murders; 486 were unintentional; 553 involved law enforcement; and 338 had “undetermined circumstances.” I concede that many of those deaths could not have been prevented, but many of them could have been. What’s our buy-in number that makes it worth the effort of having a conversation, sacrificing some of our individual “rights” and freedoms, and taking action even though we know we’ll never satisfy everyone or eliminate the whole problem? Would it be 30,000? 25,000? 20,000? 1,000? Would 100 saved lives be enough for us to care?

What’s your number? I’m reminded of the Old Testament tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Before beginning to rain fire on those communities, God warns Abraham of what’s about to happen. Abraham, whose nephew Lot lives there, begins negotiating to prevent the destruction. God has determined to destroy the cities because of the exceedingly evil people living there, but Abraham points out that there must certainly be righteous people also, people who do not deserve the same fate as the wicked. He begins by asking God to spare the cities if he can find 50 righteous people; apparently lacking confidence that 50 righteous people can be found, Abraham continues to negotiate, reducing the number to 45, then 40, then 30, 20, and 10. Each time, God agrees to withhold destruction to spare the lives of those who don’t deserve punishment, even if it’s just ten. You remember the end: only Lot and his family can be considered righteous, so they are allowed to escape just ahead of the fire.

What’s your number? How many good, innocent lives would make it worth changing your attitudes, your votes, your principles, your personal lifestyle? For all too many families, just one saved life would have been enough; but lack of moral conviction on the part of their fellow citizens and their elected representatives has left gaping holes in their families that no amount of time will close.

Here’s the point. If we as a people genuinely believed that killing is morally wrong, we’d have done whatever was necessary to save lives years ago. All we have to do is look at how other civilized countries have done and follow their lead. If as I sit here at my computer, I begin to smell smoke, I’m going to take immediate action: leave my seat, check every room of the house, and if I do find smoke or flames, call 911 and get the hell out of here.

I live in Florida, so I know all about hurricane warnings, and I’ve spent a few hours of my life making hurricane preparations, sometimes for storms that never showed up and other times for storms that damaged my home and created a huge mess in my yard. I have rarely regretted making the preparations, even for those which proved to be false alarms, because I know what it looks like when a hurricane actually hits, and I’d rather prepare for nothing than not to prepare for something.

People with moral conviction and courage take action. People who do not take action but who allow themselves to be swayed by “opinions” and false equivalents are willing to accept death as a reasonable trade-off for holding onto some imagined “right.” Even the deaths of children just sitting in their school desks.

I ask again: What’s your number?

It’s not just guns either. For 957 days, we’ve had a “president” who, by all sane evaluation, is a criminal and a con man; is the most uninformed, ignorant person ever to disgrace the office; has  no moral compass; has the emotional stability and the vocabulary of a 5-year-old (sorry, 5-year-olds!); has told over 12,000 lies publicly, in the carrying out of his official duties; has attacked citizens, law makers, and dead people; has been on the grounds of his golf courses 229 times (thegolfnewsnet.com); has blatantly violated the Emoluments Clause of our Constitution by using his own properties for official events and diplomatic visits; was the subject of an extended FBI and special counsel investigation; has a number of close associates now serving or about to serve prison terms; has close associates who have allegedly committed the most vile crimes; is a racist; is xenophobic; is cruel to refugees and other immigrants, both legal and undocumented; stirs division and hatred everywhere he goes; can’t complete a coherent sentence; and is in charge of our country’s nuclear codes. He has alienated our allies and cozied up to our adversaries. He “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un and has never said a single word in denunciation of Vladimir Putin.

Everything in the preceding list is on public record. We know all of this, we discuss it over dinner, we grouse about it at work with colleagues, and we rant about it on social media. We listen to the talking heads parse and dissect it all on the nightly news. Yet we collectively don’t believe any of this is morally wrong, because we have allowed this person to remain in our highest office for 957 days, one of our major political parties is going to nominate him to do it all again for another four years, and millions of our fellow citizens can’t wait to cast their votes for him.

Our Congress says they’ll think about impeachment, take a look at the evidence and see where it goes. So befriending murderous dictators, pissing off our allies, and telling 12,000 lies is not “evidence”? What kind of moral code is that?

Donald Trump famously said after the Charlottesville tragedy that there were “good people on both sides,” and he’s been lambasted for that. But are we any better? We look at life-and-death controversies and take no action because many of us apparently believe there are good people and valid opinions on both sides. Anyone showing too much outrage against a morally outrageous event is judged equally wrong and hateful for calling out wrong and hatred when they see it.

False equivalence keeps us wallowing in the mud of inaction. Every person, every group of people, and every political party is guilty of wrongdoing, but all wrongs are NOT equal. Supporting a criminal POTUS is wrong. Allowing thousands of people to continue being killed by gunshot every year is wrong. Speaking out against those wrongs is NOT wrong. Pointing out a POTUS’s lies is not wrong and not an act of hatred. But unless we draw some lines in the sand, unless we’re willing to declare moral absolutes by which every reasonable person is willing to abide, we’re in a perilous state.

Our house is on fire. A Cat 5 hurricane has already made landfall. Yet we continue to act as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, as if this is just business as usual, another regular administration to be judged by the regular criteria. Talk is cheap. Right now we have too much talk and too little action.

Establishing moral absolutes requires moral courage, and having moral courage means taking action when action is demanded. Your stated convictions are only as sincere as your willingness to act on them. Some things are absolutely wrong, and if we believe that down deep where it counts, we’ll do something about it. What’s your number? Where is your line in the sand?

I leave you with a few thoughts to ponder.

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Thomas Paine

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

 “The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others.”
― Iain M. Banks, Complicity

 “Have I, have you, been too silent? Is there an easy crime of silence?”
― Carl Sandburg

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'” –Martin Luther King Jr.

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

Categories
Politics

Racist Is as Racist Does

Everyone is familiar with the words of that immortal philosopher Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” My mother had a similar saying which she used any time she felt we were placing too much emphasis on trying to make ourselves physically attractive: “Pretty is as pretty does.” Both sentiments serve to state what seems too obvious even to need saying: what we do is who we are. Talk is cheap. Words can be deceptive. My mother also frequently reminded us “Actions speak louder than words.” Another well-known teacher, Jesus, said it this way: “ You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?  In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:16-17).

In the current war of words over who is racist and who isn’t, what we’re learning is that in today’s political climate, the word “racist” is more offensive than the racially biased actions are. A person who says racially degrading things may be described as unwise, crude, or careless; but anyone who calls him racist is the real villain. It’s considered racist to call out a prejudiced person and give a name to the person’s actions. We’re lost in a maze of circular reasoning, with no sign of finding our way out any time soon.

One of the reasons we’re not going to find a quick or easy solution to our nation’s polarization is the nature of today’s “conservative” movement.

Donald Trump’s supporters fall into three main categories, as I see it: white nationalists, evangelicals, and the types of people who are most likely to join a cult. As diverse as those three categories may seem, they actually have several common characteristics. Essential to survival for all of them is maintaining an us vs. them mentality. For the white nationalists, it’s white people (specifically white men) vs. everyone of color; for evangelicals, it’s the real Christians (as they see themselves) vs. nonbelievers, Muslims, and Christians who have a different view of Christianity than they have. They are God’s chosen; they are the insiders. For the cultists, it’s the members vs. the outsiders, obviously. But it’s worth enumerating here the characteristics which make people prone to joining cults and the fulfillment they find in membership.

Carolyn Steber (June 21, 2018 on Bustle.com) lists these nine personality traits as the primary markers of those most likely to join cults: wanting to feel validated, seeking an identity, being a follower (as opposed to a leader), seeking meaning, having schizotypal thinking (more on that in a moment), being highly suggestible (falling for conspiracy theories, e.g.), constantly blaming others, having very low self-worth. Important note, Ms. Steber defines “schizotypal thinking” as “walking along the edge of schizophrenia, without actually having the delusions or disconnection from society that’s associated with the disorder”–yet still falling prey to “alien-type,” “conspiracy-type,” or “supernatural-type” beliefs.

I think the cult-like nature of Trump’s base has been well established, but when you add in the characteristics of the people who are attracted to cults, you have a pretty clear picture of who these followers are and the futility of trying to reason with them.

A second distinctive which all three legs of the Trump Base share is reverence for authoritarian leaders. White nationalists, evangelicals, and cult members all exhibit fanatical devotion to their grand exalted leaders, even at times following the leader into their own graves.

A third distinctive, and the one which makes the currently existing critical mass of these types most problematic, is the utter lack of reason in their thinking and their actions. All are taught to accept only what they hear within the group; outsiders are the enemy and are out to steal their brains and deceive them into denying their allegiance to the group. Attempting to present facts or to reason with them has the adverse effect of causing them to cling more fervently to the ideas with which they have been brainwashed. The person attempting to engage them in discourse and expose them to logic becomes the face of the enemy who is trying to lead them astray from the truth. When you consider what’s lost by leaving a cult (one’s identity, validation, meaning, and self-worth), it’s not hard to understand why members cling so frantically to their membership.

A fourth distinctive shared by these three groups is fear: fear of losing their racial majority, fear of going to hell, or fear of being disconnected from the social order. Fear keeps them loyal, keeps them chanting, keeps them deceived, because listening to reason would lead to having to completely revamp their world view and let go of their safety net. And that’s scary for anyone.

All three of these groups, in their fervent devotion to their authoritarian leader, will defend that leader against all critics, no matter how outrageous the leader’s actions. This is how it becomes acceptable for a fascist dictator to tell women of color to go back where they came from, even though they came from here, but not okay to give a name to his statements and his attitudes. Those who do call a spade a spade become the enemy because they have assaulted the untouchable, so they are in fact the ones who are prejudiced.

But racist is as racist does, so here’s what racists do. You may be a racist if . . . Wait, no, you ARE a racist if . . .

. . . you think there are degrees of citizenship.

The United States of America was founded on this premise, written by Thomas Jefferson as the introduction to our declaration that we were claiming our rightful place as an independent nation:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

What does it mean for a truth to be self-evident? It means it is or should be obvious; it doesn’t need explanation, justification, or defense. It just is. In other words, Thomas Jefferson was not stating ideas or personal opinions; he was putting into words a fundamental principle: there are no degrees of humanity. Of course, we can’t escape the fact that Jefferson’s definition of “all men” was different from ours. It didn’t include black men, and it didn’t mean all humans; it literally meant men, not women. However, as enlightened citizens a couple of centuries later, when we say “All men are created equal,” we mean all human beings. To believe differently assigns degrees of humanity, and assigning people of color to a lower caste is racist, because racism is a form of prejudice, and prejudice is the prejudgment of people based on a particular characteristic. When that characteristic is race, the judgment is racist.

The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to Jefferson, are given by our Creator (more room for discussion there, but let’s save that for later); they are not given by the government, and because they are “unalienable rights,” they can’t be taken away by the government. Depriving certain people of their God-given rights because of their race is a racist act. Causing certain citizens to feel “less than” because of their race is a racist act; placing certain citizens’ lives in danger because of their race and because your fanatical followers have been so whipped into a frenzy that they say a woman of color “deserves a round” is racist, dangerous, and evil.

. . . you agree with and defend other people’s racist statements.

Spreading dangerous and degrading attitudes requires the cooperation of many people, not all of whom agree with the attitudes being spread but some of whom lack the courage to take a stand against them. We have as a culture too long held the belief that discussing politics in polite company is inappropriate. Conventional wisdom teaches that in social gatherings, at Thanksgiving dinner, in school classrooms, and in church, politics and religion are taboo (with the obvious exception of discussing religion at church). In the 21st century, add social media to that list. Make too many political posts and see what happens to your friends list.

Politics is life; it’s our communal beliefs about how we join ourselves into a civil body, how we relate to each other within that body, and how our government should facilitate our peaceful and harmonious existence. How did those subjects become taboo? They should be discussed frequently, and what better places than with family, friends, faith community, and educational institutions. Why can’t a family have a rational conversation around the Thanksgiving dinner table without its ending in a mashed-potato fight? Why can’t a minister point out ungodly government actions without expecting a tirade from a parishioner as he greets people at the door, an angry Monday-morning phone call, or a letter of notification that some parishioners have found a different congregation where they’re not challenged to think about matters of national importance?

. . . you treat people differently–or excuse their inequitable treatment–depending on their race, color, religion, country of origin, or length of residence in the U. S.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar are citizens of the United States of America. Representative Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, New York; her father was also born in the Bronx, and her mother was born in Puerto Rico, which–contrary to Donald Trump’s belief–means she also was born a citizen. Representative Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised on the north side of Chicago. Does it get more American than that? Representative Tlaib was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants, making her the first generation of her family to be born in the U.S. Representative Omar was born in Mogadishu and lived in Somalia until forced to flee to escape the war. The family arrived in New York in 1992 and were granted asylum, when Ms. Omar was ten years old. The family moved around a bit before settling in Minneapolis. Of the four young elected officials who have been the objects of unprecedented vicious attacks by the POTUS, Ms. Omar is the only one who is not native born; she has, however, been a naturalized citizen since 2000, when she was 17 years old. In addition to her skin color and foreign birth making her a target, she also wears the hijab in respect to her Muslim faith.

Donald Trump is only the second generation of Trumps born on American soil. His grandparents migrated here from Germany. On his mother’s side, he is the first generation native born; she was from Scotland. In other words, his roots in this country don’t go deep. He has been married to two immigrants: Ivana from Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and Melania from Yugoslavia (now Slovenia). Melania, the First Lady of the United States, migrated here in 1996, a mere 23 years ago. She became a citizen in 2006, a mere 13 years ago. A recent Huff Post article points out that Ilhan Omar has been a citizen six years longer than Melania Trump has, yet so far, Donald has not ordered Melania back to where she came from.

When the person who holds the highest office in our land goes on an unprecedented rampage against four young elected officials, the fact that all four are people of color can’t be a coincidence. To say that he is not motivated by racism is to be either mentally deficient (using my nice words) or so blindly devoted as to be incapable of admitting the obvious. Maybe both.

. . . you ignore or reject the legal parameters governing interaction with people of different race and different national origin.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone because of the person’s national origin:

“It is unlawful to harass a person because of his or her national origin. Harassment can include, for example, offensive or derogatory remarks about a person’s national origin, accent or ethnicity. Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.”

Based on that definition, Donald Trump’s protracted attacks on those four women would get him fired from Applebee’s, Macy’s, or Walmart. We’ve reached a sad stage in our history when the qualifications for POTUS are lower than for a supervisory position at McDonalds.

We’re in a mess, and we’re not getting out of it any time soon, but complacency is a luxury we can ill afford right now. Truth is our only refuge during troubled times, and we must keep proclaiming it. Silence is complicity.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor

Categories
Politics Religion

Not Your Old-Time Religion

One of the most baffling, perplexing, even maddening questions of our time is how the “Christian right,” “the far right,” “the evangelicals” have become such a powerful political force and how on earth that movement has thrown its considerable clout behind such an unlikely standard bearer as Donald Trump. I have wrestled with this question, as have many others, for the past several years; and finally I’m ready to offer my answer: The “Christian right” has ceased to be a religious tradition and now exists only as a powerful political movement. In its current expression, evangelicalism bears no resemblance to a faith community except in its use of the Bible and religious dogma as weapons with which to clobber anyone who disagrees with them.

Let’s look at a little history which may shed some light on what has brought us to the place where we now find ourselves. Many of us would have little reason to care about the history of evangelicalism, what evangelicals believe, or whom they will vote for in the next presidential election. That all changed in 2016, when Russia and the evangelicals (the oddest of odd couples) chose our president. Evangelicals were the largest demographic group among Trump supporters in 2016, with 80-81% being the official number compiled from exit polls of self-professed evangelicals who cast their votes for Trump. Evangelicals continue to stand by their man, and a recent Public Opinion Strategies poll reports that 83% of them intend to vote for him again in 2020. Without this group’s overwhelming support, it’s highly unlikely that Donald Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today. Therefore, I think it behooves us all to take a closer look at who these people are who can’t get enough of guns, cruelty toward refugees, and the most unfit person ever to disgrace the office of POTUS.

Two religious groups in the United States which are often conflated are fundamentalists and evangelicals. According to NPR’s Steve Waldman and John Green, these two groups are not the same but do have certain elements in common. Evangelicalism is a broader movement, of which fundamentalism is a stricter, more conservative, far less tolerant subset. So I think it’s accurate to say that all fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. The National Association of Evangelicals’ website quotes historian David Bebbington’s summary of four core distinctives which define evangelical belief: conversion (being “born again”), activism (missionary and reform efforts), biblicism (the Bible as the ultimate authority), and crucicentrism (Jesus’ death as redeeming humanity).

Fundamentalist evangelicals also believe these four distinctives but add to them. Whereas all evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamentalists also believe in a literal reading of the Bible; not only, in their view, is the Bible the final source of truth, but they believe every story, metaphor, and poem are literal historic records. Fundamentalists are also, among other things, far more isolationist than other evangelicals. They take literally the New Testament command to “ come out from among them and be ye separate” (II Corinthians 6:17). “Them,” by the way, fundamentalists interpret to mean “the world”–which incorporates everyone who does not share their worldview. They cannot recognize the legitimacy of Catholicism as a Christian faith because it is so different in theology and practice from their own narrow view of what constitutes Christianity. An overriding attitude of judgment against even other evangelicals who take a broader view of certain subjects further isolates fundamentalists into a tight-knit community whose primary goal in life is to avoid being “defiled” by anything which contradicts their beliefs.

The term “evangelicalism” has defied precise definition or agreement on its origin, but many see its roots in early 17th-century changes in the church. Fundamentalism is generally seen as a late 19th-, early 20th-century offshoot that arose in response to social and academic developments such as Darwinism, liberalism, and modernism. Leaders’ attempts to articulate and define the non-negotiable core Christian beliefs resulted in the 1910 publication of a multi-volume set of essays, edited by Reuben Torrey, titled The Fundamentals. Those who accepted this distillation of Christian theology came to be known as fundamentalists.

This little history is greatly over-simplified but serves to provide a general framework for the rise of the movement which has now given us a reality TV show presidency. It’s important to add that not all who call themselves Christians fall into either of these two camps, evangelicalism and fundamentalism. These two just seem to comprise the vocal, disruptive element that has co-opted the modern Republican Party.

Fundamentalists have earned the reputation of being anti-intellectual because of their rejecting  Darwin’s findings and other scientific information which doesn’t coincide with their literal reading of the Genesis creation account and the great flood story among others. Witness their current denial of climate science, and no more needs to be said.

Fundamentalist thought has been widely influenced by leaders such as Dwight Moody, Bob Jones Sr., Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham. What all of these men have in common is their belief in a literal, inerrant Bible; their disdain for anyone who deviates from their narrow view and their dismissal of such people as  not “real Christians”; and their view that the United States is a Christian nation and should therefore be ruled by Biblical precepts–or should I say, their interpretation of Biblical precepts.

When asked how a group, which professes to believe in the literal interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible and labels themselves the sole upholders and defenders of Biblical conduct and morality, can so enthusiastically embrace and defend the likes of DT–who violates every moral principle they claim to hold dear–their only answer is that “God often used imperfect instruments in events recorded in the Bible.” No argument there. The Old Testament gives us King David, who lusted after another man’s wife while she bathed on the rooftop, sent his servants to fetch her, had sex with her, impregnated her with a son, sent her military husband off to the front lines where he was sure to be killed, and then married her. In the New Testament, we learn that David was an ancestor of Christ and “a man after God’s own heart.”

David alone would make it pretty clear that, if all accounts are accurate, God’s not looking for perfection. But just to strengthen the case, we have Noah who celebrated safely landing the ark by getting passed-out drunk; Abraham who–impatient with waiting for God to fulfill the promise of giving him an heir–took the matter into his own hands and had sex with the maid; Rahab the prostitute, also in Jesus’ bloodline; Jonah who ran from God’s command to warn the people of Nineveh because they were wicked and, in his opinion, unworthy of God’s mercy; Matthew the tax collector, a profession generally thought to employ the scum of the earth; and Saul the persecutor of Christians who became Paul, the greatest missionary of his day for spreading the Christian faith. I think we get the picture.

Yet if the only thing that can be said in defense of electing a person to the office of president is that he’s no worse than a few people in the Bible, that’s some very thin ice.

What makes evangelicals tick? How can they be won over to a cause or a candidate? For one thing, they have long been conditioned to follow the rules out of fear: fear of hell (real flames here), fear of shame, fear of disapproval by bigger-than-life leaders, fear of ostracization. Donald Trump tapped into that fear in his very first speech, when he broad-brushed all Mexicans as murderers and rapists and continues to stir up fear to persuade supporters to go along with his cruel policies. Never mind that most mass shooters in this country have been white male citizens and we’ve done nothing to curtail gun violence, let’s build a giant wall to keep all of those Mexicans out because a few have committed horrible crimes. Fear is a powerful motivator.

Evangelicals have also been conditioned to accept their literal reading of the Bible over the hard evidence of science. The flood really happened, and the earth really was created in six days, just 6000 years ago–science be damned. Anything not specifically covered in the Bible can easily be  “proven” with a cherry-picked verse or two. Thus, the exclusion of LGBTQ people because . . . Leviticus. And some have validated their prejudice against black Americans with the story about the black race being descended from Noah’s son Ham, who was cursed for some not altogether clear reason and his descendants supposedly doomed to a life of servitude–to the end of time. Yeah, that really was taught.

With so much credence given to faith over fact, revelation over reason, is it such a stretch to understand why those same people would take the word of the person they’ve been told was sent by God over the words of fact finders, scientists, psychologists, journalists, and other smart people? Is it any wonder that they view all intellectuals with suspicion? With their conditioned response of separatism and superiority to those who see the world differently, of believing they’re the ones with the inside track to God, their blind loyalty to a criminal “president” shouldn’t be the least bit surprising.

Another characteristic of the modern evangelical and fundamentalist movements is their adulation of rock-star leaders. Although many outside those circles may know the names of only the most notorious–the Grahams, the Falwells, maybe the Joneses–ask any fundamentalist about Bill Hybels, Jack Hyles, Tony Perkins, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, and there will be instant recognition. Different groups will give more or less respect to different names, but the names are known and revered by at least some subgroups. These are the gurus whose word is truth, whose pronouncements set policy, and whose approval is oxygen to  their followers. [Update: Some of these names, such as Jerry Falwell Jr. have fallen out of favor since this article was written.]

Should it then come as any surprise at all when one of those esteemed celebrities puts his arm around a man who in no way represents their stated beliefs or anything they ever learned in Sunday school and says “This person is sent by God to protect and preserve our nation,” the masses accept that pronouncement as divine truth and follow that man as fervently as they follow the leaders who anointed him? Sadly, the leader who gets lost in the process is the one they profess to believe above all others: Jesus, who never endorsed any of this baloney.

Donald Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, gave the clearest statement of his Christian faith I’ve ever heard from a sitting president. And he backed up his words with a moral and scandal-free life, a ready knowledge of Christian belief, and even a spontaneous rendering of the hymn “Amazing Grace” at a funeral. Contrast that with Donald Trump’s mention of “Two Corinthians” as the only evidence of biblical knowledge he could muster on the spot. Yet President Obama is reviled by evangelicals as a non-citizen Muslim, and Donald Trump is hailed by “a significant portion of his supporters [as] literally . . . an answer to their prayers. He is regarded as something of a messiah, sent by God to protect a Christian nation” (Bobby Azarian, Ph.D., in Psychology Today).

The so-called “Christian Right” has ceased to be Christian. Although they claim unquestioned allegiance to the Bible, I’m going to venture a guess that most have not read much of the Bible; and the parts they have read are twisted to support preconceived beliefs. If they bothered to read the book they claim to follow, they would have run across a few passages which define what the Christian faith actually is. When your only reason for reading the Bible is to find support for what you already believe, you’re missing a lot.

If one wanted to know what the Christian faith is really all about, Micah 6:8 is a one-verse primer: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think locking children in filthy cages with no access to hygiene supplies, adequate food, human touch, or even a real blanket qualifies as justice, kindness, or a humble walk with God. Then again, these children are brown, so perhaps they’re excluded from the general rules? Somehow I can’t imagine those same fine Christian people looking the other way or sending their attorneys to court to defend such treatment of white children.

James 1:27 echoes Micah’s summary: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” “Care for the orphans and widows in their distress.” Yet allowing Puerto Rican Americans to languish in distress after a hurricane, desperate for the bare essentials of life, isn’t given a place on the “conservative” agenda. Nor are the children in the concentration camps or the families without health insurance or the minimum-wage workers who can barely exist on their paychecks and who would be wiped out by one unanticipated expense.

Then there’s Jesus’ own quick summary of what faith is meant to be. Asked by a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest,” Jesus responded: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, the whole Old Testament is summed up in 28 words, further reduced to “Love God and love your fellow humans.”

Jesus reiterates those points a few chapters further on, in Matthew 25. There he gives a metaphorical description of a judgment of the nations, in which the nations will be divided into two groups: sheep and goats. The sole criterion for the division is the way in which the nations have treated the disadvantaged, “the least of these.” The sheep are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner. The goats are the ones who have not done any of that. Those examples illustrate what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice the pattern here? What do all of these passages have in common? Each one defines faith as the acknowledgment of God and the loving treatment of one’s fellow humans. Nothing else. Nada. Not abortion, LGBTQ people, public bathrooms, right to bear arms. Nothing but loving God and loving each other. Anything added to those two distinctives is politics, not faith. It’s the attempt to weaponize faith as a means to gain power and control.

When fundamentalists formed not only their own churches but their own schools–pre-K through college–they made it possible to immerse a large enough population in their so-called theology to gain the numbers needed for the political clout they strove for. Today their information network has expanded to include news outlets, mainly one: Fox News. It’s like a virtual commune in which it’s possible to live and die without ever being exposed to any other ideas than those spouted by their powerful leaders. And just recently came this announcement:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed legislation permitting Briarwood Presbyterian Church to establish its own police force for its church and school campuses. The law approved two weeks ago allows the Birmingham-based church to set-up a private law enforcement department to make arrests when crimes are committed on its properties. (Patheos.com)

Legitimate concerns about this move include the strong possibility that such a police force would lead to further cover-up of crimes like sexual assault, since the enforcers would be guided more by their loyalty to the church than by their loyalty to the law of the land.

It should be clear by now that the modern evangelical movement has divorced itself from every religious principle on which it was established and has devoted itself to the accumulation of political power. This phenomenon is nothing new. Theologian Richard Rohr says this:

“Christianity is a lifestyle–a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a ‘religion’ (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s ‘personal Lord and Savior’ . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

The Christian church has often stood on the wrong side of history. The church did not act to oppose either slavery or the many years of violence against the freed slaves and their descendants. Martin Luther King Jr., in a section of his well-known “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” delivers a strong rebuke against the white church in 1960s America:

I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its Spiritual blessings, and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows. In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother.

Abuses of power in the name of religion are not new, but we must never cease to call them what they are. Today’s evangelical movement is built not on faith but on white supremacy and white nationalism. Why else would a grifting, immoral, cruel, ignorant white con man be revered while an intelligent, honest, morally upright, kind, generous black man is reviled? Why else would a pious Senate Majority Leader be allowed to get away with violating the Constitution in whatever way is necessary to continue promoting the “conservative” agenda of discrediting and destroying the legacy of our only black president?

Frank Schaeffer Jr., former evangelical leader turned reasonable person, author of numerous books and articles, offers this history of the modern evangelical-political movement:

The 1970s Evangelical anti-abortion movement that Dad (Evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer), C. Everett Koop (who would be Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general) and I helped create seduced the Republican Party. We turned it into an extremist far-right party that is fundamentally anti-American. There would have been no Tea Party without the foundation we built.

The difference between now and then is that back then we were religious fanatics knocking on the doors of normal political leaders. Today the fanatics are the political leaders.

You can’t understand why the GOP was so successful in winning back both houses of congress in 2014, and wrecking most of what Obama has tried to do, unless you understand what we did back then.

You see, in the late 1960s Dad published the first of many best-selling evangelical books. When Dad toured evangelical colleges and churches all over North America, I often accompanied him while Mom and Dad — unbeknownst to them at the time — were gradually being elevated to Evangelical Protestant sainthood. This meant that a few years later when Dad took a “stand” on the issue of abortion, a powerful movement formed almost instantly, inspired by his leadership, and the evangelical-led “pro-life” movement (and the religious right) was born.

(My Horrible Right-Wing Past: Confessions of a One-Time Religious Right Icon, published in Salon)

Opposition to abortion became the rallying cry for a group also described by Schaeffer: “Evangelical Christianity was now [in the 1980s] more about winning elections than about winning souls.”

Saving unborn babies sounded much more Christian and noble than barring black students from universities such as Bob Jones University and forbidding interracial dating. Make no mistake, though: it’s always been about white male supremacy and the fear of losing that advantage to the influx of other races. Underlying all of the noble-sounding rhetoric, the one-issue litmus tests, and the religious veneer is the belief that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville tragedy and the claim that the Civil War was not really about slavery.

People who follow the simple precepts of loving God and loving each other don’t defend the “right” to own arsenals of deadly weapons; don’t shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing we can do when the owner of one of those arsenals goes on a rampage and commits mass murder; don’t condone locking children in concentration camps; don’t laugh and applaud when an orange-haired cretin mocks war heroes, women who accuse him of sexual assault, handicapped people, the press, and anyone else who gets under his very thin skin; and they sure as hell don’t vote to elect that person to yet another four-year term as president. People looking for political power and the perpetuation of white nationalism do all of those things.

Let’s call it what it is.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Devil We Know

You’ve heard the expression: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” It’s meant to explain why people choose to remain in uncomfortable, even dangerous, situations rather than free themselves, when freeing themselves means moving out into unknown territory. Will they really be better off? Will their problems really go away, or will they just be replaced by new, possibly worse, ones?

As a nation, we’re now two-and-a-half years into what is frequently being called the Age of Trump, and plenty of us find ourselves feeling like something between abused spouses and subjects of an unscrupulous autocrat. So why are so many still afraid to speak the “I” word? Why does our Congress continue to treat the subject of impeachment as if it’s something to be explored or investigated? And why, for the love of God, is there still one citizen of this country who wants to elect this disaster to a second term? Why are we so afraid to seek escape?

Sure, there are plenty of unseen and unknown devils along the path if an actual impeachment inquiry were to be launched and Articles of Impeachment filed. But here’s the devil we know: the person who currently occupies the People’s House is a pathological liar, an unscrupulous businessman, a person ignorant of every bit of knowledge necessary to be president, a person with the morals of a barnyard animal, and a “president” who every day places our democracy in greater jeopardy by his flirting with foreign adversaries and alienating allies. And those are only his most conspicuous flaws.

For over two years, our nation waited eagerly for Robert Mueller to complete his investigation and issue his report. Some anticipated the report for its proof that the investigation was, as their leader tweeted daily, a Hoax, a Witch Hunt. Others of us waited for it as evangelicals await the “rapture”–as the Jesus in the clouds who would remove us from the ugly morass in which we’ve lived for over two years, the official document which would provide the conclusive evidence that our White House squatter is a criminal who should be handcuffed and transported immediately to a maximum-security prison where he would live out his remaining days.

The long-anticipated report satisfied neither side. Although Donald Trump and his staunchest allies read “complete and total exoneration,” others read plenty of criminal activity which could not be substantiated to the level necessary to win a court case and which couldn’t be reported anyway because of the precedent that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. That’s a long, long way from exoneration but also a long way from getting our wishes of seeing this grifter fitted for an orange jumpsuit.

When Mr. Mueller did finally issue a public statement, he said, “If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” They didn’t say so. Therefore, they obviously did not see Donald Trump as an innocent person. And let us not forget these statistics reported by Time Magazine on March 24, 2019:

Along with a team of experienced prosecutors and attorneys, the former FBI director has indicted, convicted or gotten guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies, including top advisers to President Trump, Russian spies and hackers with ties to the Kremlin. The charges range from interfering with the 2016 election and hacking emails to lying to investigators and tampering with witnesses.

It’s difficult to see as innocent a person who has been surrounded by and benefited from the work of so many guilty people. My mother always said–and I bet yours did, too–“Birds of a feather flock together.”

Elizabeth Warren, who read the entire redacted version of Mueller’s 448-page report as soon as it was presented (finally!) to Congress, summed it up succinctly. She said three things are unambiguous: Russia made multiple efforts to tamper with our 2016 election for the purpose of helping Donald Trump be elected; Donald Trump welcomed that assistance; and Donald Trump has made countless efforts to shut down the investigation, to block the report’s release, and to discredit the findings. Nothing in those statements would lead a reasonable person to conclude that Donald Trump has been exonerated of all wrong-doing.

We needed the Mueller Report for its thorough investigation, its carefully chosen language, its documentation of evidence and findings which will allow both prosecutors and historians to find a more accurate picture of these events, and the proof that our “president”–though not conclusively proven a criminal himself–has surrounded himself with criminals. For all of that information, the Mueller Report is a vital legal and historical document.

We did not need the Mueller Report, however, to know who Donald Trump is. Since that iconic escalator ride on June 16, 2015, he has been telling and showing us exactly who he is. Even before the tragic night he was elected, we knew he was a racist, a misogynist, a compulsive liar, a person with shady companions, an ignorant person, a draft dodger, a sexual predator, a nonreligious person who claimed Christianity as a political tool, and the most immature person ever to take the national stage. This is the Devil We Know–and have known from the beginning. For decades before he announced his candidacy for president, we have watched him grift, con, sleaze, marry, commit adultery, boast about his sexual exploits, do TV shows, host beauty pageants, and anything else he could think of to keep his name in the tabloids. We didn’t need the Mueller Report to tell us any of this.

Most damning of all is the complete absence of any attempt on Trump’s part to find out to what extent Russia’s interference in our 2016 election was successful and to hold them accountable for their actions. Somewhat reminiscent, I’d say, of O.J. Simpson’s declaration that he would devote the rest of his life to finding the “real murderer” of his wife and her friend–except that Donald Trump hasn’t even given lip service to seeking justice and protecting our future elections. He has publicly stated his belief of Vladimir Putin’s word over the word and the evidence of our own intelligence agencies. Does that not in itself constitute treason?

In Trump’s narcissistic universe, he is the sun and everything else revolves around him. Believing the obvious and demanding its investigation might possibly incriminate him, and only he knows precisely what he is hiding; therefore, the security of all future elections must be sacrificed on the altar of his ridiculous ego and our country placed at ever-increasing risk just to avoid the inevitable revelation that his election is illegitimate.

This is the Devil We Know. Can the Devil We Don’t Know really be worse than that? What keeps otherwise seemingly intelligent people from all-out support of removing this national menace from power? Undeniably, there are risks to impeachment. Trump’s base is so rabid and so well-armed, it’s not difficult to imagine their resorting to violence. Our electorate is already so polarized, it’s easy to imagine another national split like the one which led to the civil war. At the very least, a failed impeachment could have the adverse effect of enhancing Trump’s credibility and support, which could doom us to yet another four years of hell. That’s the Devil We Don’t Know.

The core question lies in who we are as a people, who we want to be, and how we want to be remembered by future generations. Historians, guided by the ethics of their profession to record the truth and freed from the political warfare that currently engulfs us, will portray Donald Trump as a liar and a fraud. The running tally of his lies since taking office is now at almost 11,000. That’s 11,000 lies in less than three years, and Bill Clinton was impeached for one lie: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Many Americans in the 1990s said it wasn’t the infamous blow job that they resented the president for; it was the lie they just couldn’t forgive. Now we have a “president” who has told almost 10,999 lies more than that, and people just shake their heads and move along when they hear the latest. Do we want to go down in history as the people who decided honesty and facts don’t count?

Historians, with the advantage of hindsight, will present an honest record of Trump’s profound ignorance. They won’t laugh at “covfefe,” “hamberders,” or “smocking gun” or call them simple typos. They’ll probably label them what they are: evidence of an uneducated, sloppy, careless person impersonating a president. Those who excuse these should apologize to Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush’s Vice President, for the uproar over his not knowing how to spell “potato.” Stacy Conradt reports that Quayle was embarrassed and “later wrote in his memoir Standing Firm that ‘It was more than a gaffe. It was a ‘defining moment’ of the worst imaginable kind. I can’t overstate how discouraging and exasperating the whole event was.’” No such angst for Donald Trump. For him, it’s all in a day’s tweets.

Historians, looking at the entirety of our experience as a nation, will struggle to understand how Donald Trump’s illiterate speeches fit in with those of the great orators who have held the office. They will wonder how a large percentage of our electorate could possibly have had confidence in a “president” who daily calls his opponents “losers,” who attacks the man who portrays him on Saturday Night Live, and who struggles to form coherent sentences. Those speeches we humorously call “word salad” will to future generations probably lose their humor and speak the real tragedy of this era.

Historians, with a firm knowledge of our founding documents and how our system of laws has evolved, will be challenged to explain how we for two-and-a-half years–or 4 years or 8 years–allowed a “president” to live above those laws. Knowing that America was founded as a nation where people didn’t need a king, they’ll surely wonder why–after 44 presidents who to a greater or lesser extent upheld our laws and kept their oath of office to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”–we allowed our 45th “president” to anoint himself king, ignore the rule of law, scoff at the Constitution, and profit off the presidency–all without consequence.

Historians, with their deep reverence for the past and the lessons to be learned from it, will surely shudder when they have to record the way this “president” has cozied up to our adversaries and alienated our allies. They’ll certainly feel like weeping as they search for records of any other president who was so reviled by people in other countries, so flummoxed by Americans’ sudden loss of national pride and unity. There will be photos, I feel certain, of the giant “baby Trump” blimp that flies over London each time Trump visits, the toilet tweeter inflatable also on display, and the vast crowds of protesters carrying the most unflattering placards. Do we really want the history of the era during which we were responsible for our nation’s welfare to be represented by a photo of a diaper-clad, pacifier-holding baby? God help us!

Historians, I think, will also be hard-pressed to explain how a religion turned into a political movement and then abandoned its founding theology. Perhaps this is the area in which hindsight will lend insight to the trail which led to the weaponization of theology and explain that the election of Donald Trump is the effect, not the cause.

We have a “president” who says things like “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest–and you all know it” and “This [Puerto Rico] is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.” Of course, it takes a person with an extremely high IQ to recognize that islands are surrounded by water and to know that the moon is part of Mars. We have a “president” who insults other Americans while he stands on foreign soil. We have a “president” who sat for an interview with the gravestones of our fallen D-Day troops as backdrop and insulted and attacked the Speaker of the House of Representatives. We have a “president” who mocks the fact that Russia interfered in our most recent presidential election and has done nothing to ensure they won’t do it again.

Worse than all of that, we have a political party and a lot of citizens who support, promote, and plan to reelect the person described above. We have millions of voters who can’t understand anything beyond winning and losing elections, who think those of us who are appalled by the current state of affairs are just “sore losers.”

Remember the often-quoted words of President Lincoln:

A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

We–the adults who are alive right now–are the ones who get to decide which way we’re going to go. Will we become a whole nation of liars, bigots, misogynists, people with no regard for truth, hypocrites using religion as a political tool? Or will we heed some other words of President Lincoln:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

In the more recent words of Representative Elijah Cummings, current Chair of the House Oversight Committee, “Republicans need to stop circling the wagons around Trump and start circling the wagons around this country.”

It’s too late to erase the ugliness and division of the last three years; our portrait in history is already well underway. What we can do, however, is acknowledge the Devil We Know and stop being afraid of the Devil We Don’t Know. Donald Trump is at little risk of being removed from office because of the evil leadership in the Senate, but that shouldn’t stop the House from placing their stamp of disapproval on him, pinning on him the scarlet letter so that at least we’ve asserted our moral stance as a people and condemned the corruption that’s happening right before our eyes.

Since neither Donald Trump nor any of his cohorts (yeah, I’m looking at you, Mitch McConnell) has any sense of shame, the scarlet letter may not have the desired effect on them. But failing to impeach Trump means that WE wear the scarlet letter, the symbol of our moral failure to stand against the destruction of our democracy. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne wore a scarlet “A” for adulteress. We will wear a “C” for coward, or maybe a “D” for derelict of duty, or maybe an “H” for hypocrite.

We didn’t need Robert Mueller to tell us any of this. We all knew what we were electing–even those who elected him. The only remaining question is what we’re going to do about it.

Categories
Politics

America the Beautiful?

On Thursday morning, I awoke to the anniversary of the day I was born. It was not one of the much-discussed “zero birthdays,” but one nonetheless that gives one pause to reflect on one’s mortality and where approximately one is in the overall game. As I thought about that sobering number (I still can’t say it), I realized I’m in the fourth quarter. I’m heartened by the fact that some of the most outstanding touchdowns have been made in the final quarter, often with minutes or seconds left on the clock; so sitting out this quarter on the bench (or rocking chair) is not an option, and I’m excited about what treasures remain to be discovered.

On Saturday morning, I stood at attention in the bleachers–where I was about to watch my two grandsons’ baseball team win a decisive 13-5 victory–listening to a recorded voice belt out the words to our national anthem. The national anthem has always brought a lump to my throat. With all of our country’s problems and moral failings, I’ve been grateful for the privilege of being born here and enjoying the benefits of citizenship in a country which so many have risked their lives trying to reach and be granted the citizenship which I and my fellow Americans may often have taken for granted.

On that particular Saturday morning, however, the lump in my throat and the tears that stung my eyes were inspired not by my pride in the USA–though I am still proud of my country–but by the awful reality of things that are happening which I could never have dreamed possible in my earlier life. I have lived under 13 presidents, not including the impostor who currently lives in the White House. I have lived through four wars, the Cold War, the Jim Crow era, the battles for social change in the 1960s, the assassination of a president and the murders of a presidential candidate and a beloved civil rights leader, the riots of 1968, the Watergate scandal, the impeachment of a president and near-impeachment of another, more recently the mass murders of hundreds of innocent people by crazed gunmen, and plenty more. I’ve witnessed the signs marking whites-only territories, separating them from the spaces relegated to people of color, and I’ve seen those signs enforced. I know that I live in a country stolen from its native inhabitants.

I’m under no illusions, nor have I ever been under any illusion, that the country of which I’m proud to be a citizen is a model of moral rectitude. What has given me hope, however, is the values to which such a plurality of my fellow citizens ascribed that they became known as our defining American values. However dark the day, I believed that there were more good people than bad, that my government would eventually correct its course and move in the direction of greater justice and equality for all, that a champion or hero would always appear on the scene who could grab the confidence of enough people to start a movement which would make things better. Our president has for years been granted the title “leader of the free world,” because so many other countries look to the USA for leadership and support.

The first presidential election I can remember is the contest between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. I recall chanting on the school playground, “We like Ike! He’s our man! We threw Stevenson in the garbage can!” From that time on, I’ve liked some presidents and disliked others, agreed with some and disagreed with others, wished some could have remained in office longer, and counted the days until others would finally leave. I watched through tears, holding my 8-month-old firstborn baby on my lap, as Richard Nixon made his resignation speech. No president had ever resigned during his elected term, and I wondered what kind of country we were leaving our children when such a thing could happen.

With such deep scars on our history, what is it that makes today different from any other time? Why do I suddenly feel I won’t live long enough to see my country restored to its previous level of respect and leadership in the world? What is so much worse now than the way things have always been?

Those questions can be only partially answered at this time; historians will wrestle for years to come to put the events of this so-far young century into perspective and to trace the long-term effects of today’s morass of corruption and scandal. For starters, though, the presidents I can remember–the best of them and the worst of them–have been men of knowledge and principle. They have been bred to conduct themselves with a level of decorum that befits the leader of a great country and of the free world. With notable exceptions, they have acted in what they at least believed was the best interest of our country. More importantly, when leaders have failed, citizens have taken it upon themselves to speak out and take action against injustice and corruption–sometimes in mass demonstrations. Things have always seemed to get better; the good guys usually win. Until now.

The tears that welled up in my eyes during last Saturday’s playing of the national anthem were caused by the bitter reality that none of those things are currently true. We have an impostor living in the people’s house who is okay with ripping apart families, putting babies in cages, and then sexually assaulting those babies. He’s okay with the fact that the thousands of children are living in these obscene conditions may never be reunited with their families because no one thought it important to keep track of which child goes with which family and where all of the families are. He refuses to speak out against white supremacists who commit acts of horror, calling them instead “very fine people.” He threatens and encourages violence against his political opponents, most recently speaking these chilling words to a Breitbart News interviewer: “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of Bikers for Trump — I have tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point and then it would be very, very bad.” Bikers for Trump? Really?

Never before have we had a thug or a mob boss in the White House who is profiting off the presidency. Never before have we had a president who lies every day and whose lies are obvious and easily disprovable. Never before have we had a president who daily attacks private citizens, members of his government, and other national leaders. Never before have we had a president who prefers receiving his information from Fox News instead of classified intelligence briefings. Never before have we had a president too illiterate and intellectually incurious to read daily briefings. Never before have we had a president under FBI investigation since the first day of his presidency. Never before have we had a president who it is credibly reported got elected with help from a foreign adversary.

President Obama is known as the first social media president, since those platforms were just coming into common use during his terms in office; but not until Donald Trump have we had a president who uses Twitter as a weapon to attack his opponents, send dog whistles to his “base,” and incite insurrection. Not until Donald Trump have we had a president with the temperament and vocabulary of a toddler, who expresses his disdain for opponents by calling them childish names. And not until Donald Trump have we had a president who surrounds himself with the most vulgar and criminal element of society. Never before Donald Trump have we had a president cited by a mass murderer as his hero and inspiration.

Yet as sobering and appalling as all of this is, these are not our country’s worst problems. Even worse than having a thoroughly corrupt “president” is the fact that this morally degraded con man has an enthusiastic following that just can’t wait to vote for him again! Trump’s approval ratings have pretty consistently remained somewhere in the 40-something-percent range. While those of us who stay awake at night wondering when and how this long national nightmare may end take comfort in the fact that he has less than a majority, it’s not much less. And given the number of people who don’t give a crap and the number who support third-party candidates and the nonsense of the electoral college, 40-something is enough to win an election. It already did. Those of us who might like to console ourselves with the thought that even if Mueller doesn’t come through, Congress doesn’t impeach, and the Southern District of New York’s actions don’t come to fruition before 2020, our fellow citizens are intelligent enough and morally upright enough to soundly vote him out of office are fooling ourselves.

We’re also fooling ourselves when we lamely recite such mantras as “This is not who we are” and “We’re better than this.” The ugly truth is that when forty percent or more of a country’s citizens look at a corrupt government and applaud it and enthusiastically await their opportunity to extend that government another four years, this IS who we are. We’re not better than this; we really are this bad.

Every day I ask myself the question, “How on earth can that many people see the same things I’m seeing and think they’re okay or good or a dream come true?” How on earth can the people who live in the same country I live in praise the same things I abhor? How can they be okay with a president who attacks dead national heroes and praises dictators and white supremacists? How can they excuse the ignoring of presidential duties such as speaking on behalf of our country to express sincere condolence when another country is reeling from the murder of 49 citizens?

The short answer to all of those questions is that Trump’s supporters share his degraded values; morally, he is one of them. The racism that’s written into our national DNA, that so many gave their last ounce of energy and devotion to overcome, never really went away; it just went underground. This 40-something percent of our fellow citizens seethed the whole time at the restraint of “political correctness” which prevented them from uttering racial epithets and denying citizens of color the rights they deserve. Then along came a candidate who spoke their frustration out loud: Damn political correctness! Every vile, vulgar word that comes out of their leader’s mouth perfectly articulates their own prejudices and frustrations and their fear of losing the only power most of them have: the superior position given them by the accidents of birth, white skin and male gender. They’re terrified of losing their majority, and this leader promises to help them retain it. What’s not to love?

We’ll never have a better president until we become better people. Donald Trump is the people’s choice (and Vladimir Putin’s); and for all of his ignorance, rage, tweet storms, threats, attacks, childish tantrums, and moral corruption, close to half of the people in this country support him. They support him because they are him. There’s no other reason. We’re not better than this; we are this. The tragedy of America is not Donald Trump, it’s the fact that people love Donald Trump, approve of his vileness, and want to extend the nightmare an extra four years. Now what do we do about that?

Trump is who he is; that won’t change. He doesn’t want to change, and nothing any of us can do will change him. The only thing we can change is ourselves. How do we correct the failure of our schools that have neglected to teach students critical thinking skills and left them vulnerable to the rantings of a madman? How do we address the corruption in our churches that have so perverted their theology as to make a Donald Trump not only acceptable but a gift straight from God: a tool of the Almighty to wield justice and usher in the long-sought theocracy? How do we finally once-and-for-all get to the roots of our racism and all of the other isms and cleanse ourselves from these darkest parts of our human nature?

Healing must begin by heeding the appeal of President Lincoln:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

John Winthrop, one of the leaders in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its governor for 12 of the first 20 years of its existence, said in 1630:

“For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world . . .”

Now almost 400 years later, the eyes of the whole world are still upon us; and what they’re seeing is pretty embarrassing some days. Winthrop’s lofty metaphor of a city upon a hill comes with a stern and sobering warning: “We could become a story and a byword through the world.” In other words, don’t take this privilege and position for granted; if you do, you can squander the opportunity to demonstrate that the government our founders envision is capable of succeeding. Those founders saw our nation as a great experiment which was supposed to determine whether humans could live as equals and be trusted to govern themselves, to prove that we didn’t need a monarch. Governor Winthrop warned, however, that if we failed to live out the best  parts of our human nature, our name could become synonymous with the failure of a great human experiment and proof that evil will triumph over good in the end.

Evil hasn’t triumphed yet, but it’s gained way too strong a foothold for my comfort. Forget Donald Trump! He won’t be around forever (it will only seem that way), but our children and grandchildren will live in the world we’re creating right now. I don’t expect to see the full undoing of this corrupt period in my lifetime, but I want my grandchildren and your grandchildren to live in a country governed by men and women in touch with their better angels. What can you and I do right now to help create that kind of world for our grandchildren and their grandchildren? The eyes of the whole world are watching us.

Categories
Politics

What’s in a Name?

Shakespeare’s Juliet raises the question in the often-mislabeled “balcony scene” (there is actually no balcony, just a window). A little earlier, she is spotted by Romeo across a crowded room at her family’s big party to which he has obviously not been invited. He approaches her and makes a romantic speech replete with religious metaphors, they kiss twice, and both are in love. Only then do they learn that they are members of the two Verona families who have been enemies for as long as anyone can recall. Having returned to her room, Juliet laments to the moon, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore [that’s why, not where] are you Romeo?”

Unaware that Romeo has scaled the garden wall and is listening to her lament, she continues:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name, which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

So in 21st-century parlance, the speech would go something like this:

Dammit, why do you have to be a Montague? ANY other family in the world would be fine, but YOU had to come from the one family that’s off limits! And why should that be a problem anyway? You are who you are, regardless of the name you’re called. If we called a rose a skunk, it wouldn’t change the sweetness of its fragrance. The essence of a person or an object is in itself, not in the word assigned to identify it. This romance isn’t going to end well because I’m a Capulet and you’re a Montague, but those are only words, not who we are.

Well, as usual, Shakespeare nailed it; yet 400 years later, we’re still put off by words. When my daughter was a child, she hated potatoes; she wouldn’t touch a baked potato, mashed potato, or au gratin potato. But she loved French fries, couldn’t get enough of them. I long debated whether I should let her in on the secret that French fries are potatoes cut into sticks and dunked in hot oil.

When reality is unpleasant, we resort to euphemism to ease the discomfort of talking about it. We often say someone has “passed away” because it’s less jarring than saying the person “died.” I had a hair stylist years ago who one day ended his own life. The person who informed me of his death said that he had “passed away.” I’m not criticizing her attempt to be sensitive, but somehow the language didn’t fit the reality. Dying peacefully in one’s own bed seems more consistent with “passing away”; hanging oneself in one’s place of business is a whole different feeling. In fact, death can be referred to euphemistically by many expressions: “bought the farm,” “bit the dust,” “kicked the bucket,” and a long list of others. The question is why we feel the need to use alternate words for the same reality.

Saying you were let go from a job is easier on the ego than admitting you were fired. Having a negative cash flow sounds so much less catastrophic than being broke. Calling someone frugal or economically prudent sounds more flattering than saying they’re cheap. Breaking wind sounds classier than farting. Over the hill is easier on the vanity than admitting to being old. Calling a jail a correctional facility puts a more positive spin on a negative reality. When parents decide to “have the talk” with their children, “the birds and the bees” induce less nervousness than “sex.” And our high school friends who had been intimate were more likely to confide that they had “gone all the way” than that they had “had sex.”

Language is powerful. Not only can it mask reality, it can sometimes shape reality. I heard a sermon this morning about attitudes 40-50 years ago toward countries like Viet Nam and Cuba. Many of us were taught that people from those countries were our enemies because they were communists. “Communism” is such a trigger word that the very mention of it creates animosity and enemies where they don’t otherwise exist. We now trade with both Viet Nam and Cuba, love our Vietnamese nail techs, and have opportunities to forge friendships and partnerships with people on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles from the southernmost American city.

Since taking office in January 2017, Donald Trump has had journalists searching their thesauruses for ways to describe the lies he tells every day. In these uncharted waters, journalists are struggling with a new reality and how best to label that reality in terms that both respect the office which all of us have been taught must be respected, yet also tell the truth about the current occupant of the office. It just doesn’t feel right to say “The president lied,” so we get the whole thesaurus list of alternatives: falsehoods, false statements, untruths, and many others. With the New York Times tally of provable lies now topping the 8000 mark, most journalists are opting for the raw truth: the president lies.

So call it a French fry and it’s yummy, call it a potato and “No, thanks!” Call it escargot and the connoisseurs will line up at your door, call it sautéed snails and ewww. An omelette du fromage sounds way more elegant than cheese and eggs. The same people who order mountain oysters might pass on a plate full of bull, pig, or sheep testicles; but surprise, surprise: they’re the same thing. Black pudding might sound divine when you’re picturing a rich, creamy dark chocolate confection, but you’d probably change your dessert order quickly when you learn it’s really made from pigs’ blood. Words matter!

The biggest lie most of us were told when we were children is “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me!” We’ve also told that lie. We said it to the bully who taunted us, but little did we know how those words would haunt us. A broken bone hurts, but it heals; flesh wounds are painful, but they grow together leaving barely a scar to show where they were. Unkind, hateful, or spiteful words can linger in our memories and cause pain years later. A hard punch might feel good by comparison to harsh, soul-crushing words. Words matter a lot!

As the 2020 primary race is heating up, the bugaboo word of the year is “socialism.” The very mention of it stirs fear and anger in the hearts of millions (mostly Republicans) and evokes visions of peace, prosperity, and equality in the minds of millions more. Some see bread lines while others see enough for all; some see free loaders living off the state while others see health care and peace of mind for every citizen; some see a welfare state while others dream of a place where no one has to worry about how they’re going to pay for basic necessities and human rights.

The problem is not so much with the facts and concepts as with the word. It doesn’t help either that many people these days have no capacity for analysis, critical thinking, or seeing a subject from more than one angle. The world runs on talking points, not logic. We talk but we don’t listen, or when we do listen, it’s really just a polite pause before launching our next talking point. Conversation has virtually ceased to exist, if by conversation we mean listening to what another person says, absorbing it, understanding it, giving it a moment of serious reflection, and then uttering a thoughtful response. Hence, calling one’s philosophy “democratic socialism” makes about as much impact on those for whom “socialism” is evil as announcing that you’re serving “Moroccan Fried Beef Liver and Onions” to a table full of confirmed liver haters. Dress it up, give it a fancy name, and it’s still liver–or socialism.

Many fear socialism because they equate it with communism. Socialism, simply defined, is “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Ideally, of course, such a system would insure an equal slice of the pie for every individual citizen, but we all know that things don’t always play out according to the ideal. Communism, simply defined, is “a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.”

A website called Investopedia offers the following comparison among the systems of communism, socialism, and capitalism:

Communism and socialism are economic and political structures that promote equality and seek to eliminate social classes. The two are interchangeable in some ways, but different in others. In a communist society, the working class owns everything, and everyone works toward the same communal goal. There are no wealthy or poor people — all are equal, and the community distributes what it produces based only on need. Nothing is obtained by working more than what is required. Communism frequently results in low production, mass poverty and limited advancement. Poverty spread so widely in the Soviet Union in the 1980s that its citizens revolted. Like communism, socialism’s main focus is on equality. But workers earn wages they can spend as they choose, while the government, not citizens, owns and operates the means for production. Workers receive what they need to produce and survive, but there’s no incentive to achieve more, leaving little motivation. Some countries have adopted aspects of socialism. The United Kingdom provides basic needs like healthcare to everyone regardless of their time or effort at work. In the U.S., welfare and the public education system are a form of socialism. Both are the opposite of capitalism, where limitations don’t exist and reward comes to those who go beyond the minimum. In capitalist societies, owners are allowed to keep the excess production they earn. And competition occurs naturally, which fosters advancement. Capitalism tends to create a sharp divide between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest, however, with the wealthiest owning the majority of the nation’s resources.

As you can see, both communism and socialism have their downsides, but capitalism doesn’t come off looking so good either. The United States today is seeing the end result of centuries of free enterprise. The divide between the richest and the poorest is the widest it has ever been, and the middle class has virtually disappeared. The Willy Lomans who have spent their entire lives chasing the American Dream find themselves in old age without the ability to retire or to pay their bills, not for lack of hard work but as the result of a system that has rewarded the wealthiest and penalized the poorest.

Yet those most affected by the inequity are the loudest critics of any changes that might better their quality of life, because they are often the most easily duped by rich, powerful leaders who want to preserve their wealth and power at the expense of those on whose backs their wealth was amassed. Those who want to keep the 99% poor and vulnerable are evil but not stupid; they know what buttons to push to keep the masses voting against their own best interests. Just label an idea socialist and you’re guaranteed a majority vote against it.

A February 24, 2019, article in the HuffPost bears the headline “Republicans Have Been Smearing Democrats as Socialists Since Way Before You Were Born.” The latest round of accusations from Trump and others that this or that progressive idea is socialist may seem new to many; but according to the article, it is “the oldest trick in the book.”

Contemporary political conservatism has been focused on blocking social change that challenges existing hierarchies of class, race and sex since its founding in response to the French Revolution. Socialism emerged as the biggest threat to class hierarchies in due time and conservatives have called everything they don’t like socialism ever since.”

”Every single political actor since the late 19th century advocating for some form progressive social change ― whether it be economic reform, challenging America’s racial caste system or advocating for women’s rights or LGBT rights ― has been tarred as a socialist or a communist bent on destroying the American Free Enterprise System.

Examples begin with William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and center on the president most famously accused of socialism: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who by the way was elected to four terms and was the reason term limits were imposed on the presidency. So it would appear that not everyone was frightened by the accusations that the New Deal was a socialist agenda aimed at destroying America.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to further deceive and control his base, Donald Trump is tossing around the S-word a lot these days. Just this week, in his two-hour speech to CPAC (two hours of his rambling, whining, and childish, churlish attacks would send me to the psychiatric ward!), Trump made lavish use of the S-word to discredit congressional Democrats–certain ones in particular–and any proposal that threatens to upset the imbalance of power that keeps people like him in control. Among other things, he said:

“Socialism is not about the environment, it’s not about justice, it’s not about virtue. Socialism is about only one thing — it’s called power for the ruling class, that’s what it is. Look at what’s happening in Venezuela and so many other places.” (reported by CNN)

Power for the ruling class? Isn’t that what we have now and what he’s determined to protect?

So you want to kill an idea? Want to defeat a progressive candidate? Call them socialist, and millions of people will jump to your side. Yet how many citizens and voters know what they’re objecting to? A March 29, 2012, article in Daily Kos lists 75 organizations and programs that currently exist in America which, by definition, are socialist. The list includes our taxpayer-funded military; our public schools which guarantee equal access to education and are paid for by tax money; public libraries, also funded by tax payers; police, fire, and postal services; congressional health care, provided by your tax money for the people who spend their days and nights fighting to be sure you don’t have access to the same quality healthcare you buy for them; Social Security; Medicare and Medicaid; public parks; sewer systems, which I’ve never heard anyone complain about; public street lighting; and about 62 other things which most people would never think to label as socialist but in reality are just that.

So what is it about socialism that makes it so scary? Is it the individual benefits of it? Obviously not. It’s the word. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and socialism by any other name is still socialism and would still bring the benefits of equal access to necessities and human rights. What’s in a name? A lot of power but not much logic.

I’m not advocating for the United States to become a fully socialist country; I am advocating for my fellow citizens to start thinking and stop the knee-jerk reactions to words that scare them because they’ve been conditioned to fear rather than think. I’m advocating for my fellow citizens to reject either-or/black-white comparisons and consider reasonable shades of gray alternatives. Our democracy depends on it.

Categories
Uncategorized

You Can’t Argue with God

Barry Goldwater said this in November 1994:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

No matter what you think of Mr. Goldwater, you’ll have to admit he nailed this one!

Now, 25 years after this statement was made, “these preachers” (the evangelical leadership) have taken control of the Republican Party, and we’re witnessing every day that it’s “a terrible damn problem.” While 800,000 hard-working Americans have now gone a whole month without paychecks and charities are pitching in to feed our public servants, an unknown number of migrant families (thousands) have been separated and their children held in detention, the United States continues to lead the world in gun deaths every year, Russia chose our last “president” and the recipient of those favors may have been in cahoots with those granting the favors, our national security is being threatened on every level, the GOP cares about none of these things. Or at least they don’t care enough to take action and pass legislation that would change the laws and reverse at least some of the damage being done.

Others may continue to remind them of the dire state of emergency our country faces, but their Teflon shells shed those reminders like rain water, while they continue parroting their favorite talking points: stop abortion, denounce LGBTQ people, and build a wall (fence/barrier/whatever) on our southern border. Oh, and take the country back to the good ol’ days when white men were in charge and everyone else knew their places. I think that pretty much sums it up.

Since the Republican Party has become synonymous with the Far Right/Christian Right (and sadly, the Alt Right)/evangelical establishment, it’s necessary to examine that group to gain any understanding of the state of our union. Is the Christian Right a religious affiliation or a political movement? Good question. Let’s think about it.

For starters, we can eliminate the idea that this movement is in any way Christian. A Christian is one who vows to follow the teachings of Jesus, to the best of his/her ability. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, even though homosexual people existed in the ancient world, long before Jesus’ time. He just never says a word about it. Paul mentions it and the writer of Leviticus mentions it, but Jesus is silent on the subject. Another thing Jesus never mentions is abortion. On the other hand, Jesus does say a great deal about immigrants, but what he says is the opposite of what today’s Republicans are saying. It’s enough to make one wonder if these self-identified “Christians” have ever read the New Testament or know anything at all about their professed Leader.

Here are a few things Jesus said about how to treat “the stranger” among you (a common biblical term for non-native born residents of a country). First is a familiar, often-quoted passage from Matthew 25, although the context of the passage may be somewhat less familiar. Verses 31-46 of that chapter are labeled “The Judgment of the Nations” and talk about humans giving account to God for their actions on earth. I don’t claim to know much about that subject, but the context clearly says those who do the following things will find favor in God’s eyes and those who don’t will not find favor. In fact, the verses immediately preceding the ones I’m about to quote talk about separating sheep from goats, and the passage clearly states that the criteria for making that division are humans’ treatment of their fellow humans.

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[a] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

There’s plenty of room for discussion here about what’s literal and what’s not literal, but one thing is crystal clear: what separates human beings into sheep and goats, good and bad, righteous and unrighteous–in Jesus’ view–is how we treat those less fortunate than ourselves. Full stop.

And for those who prefer Leviticus, here’s another passage:

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).

Now let’s look at how these so-called Jesus followers are measuring up to the standards set by the text they claim to believe and live by. They cheer a “president” who mocks a disabled reporter and dishonors a Gold Star Family. They condone imprisoning thousands of children (according to this week’s reporting, far more than we previously knew about), they condone holding 800,000 federal workers hostage to the demands of their ill-chosen “president,” they shrug their shoulders at the thousands of gun deaths reported every year, they turn a collective blind eye to those still suffering from natural disasters without adequate government assistance, they increasingly revert to racial attitudes of our country’s shameful past, and those are just the most egregious examples.

Isn’t that interesting? If these “Christians” didn’t get their attitudes from Jesus, and they clearly didn’t, from whom did they get them? Evangelicals have for decades been following authoritarian figures. Thinking for oneself is discouraged; accepting as gospel the words and interpretations of their esteemed leaders is the only way to avoid being shunned or ostracized. Such leaders as Charles “Chuck” Colson (Watergate criminal turned evangelical guru), Jerry Falwell Sr., Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, et al. wield full mind control over their followers. These guys rely on cherry-picked Bible verses for their stances on issues and rebuff any attempt at disagreement, conversation, or placing the cherry-picked verses into proper historical context.

The people who willingly accept the edicts of these authoritarian leaders are the ones who have always accepted the words of their own authoritarian local pastors, many of whom are not accountable to boards of church ruling elders but who simply lead by edict in their small communities, taking their marching orders from their nationally recognized religious leaders. These are also the same people who were taught to accept the authority of the Bible as a literal book, penned by the hand of God and dropped from heaven fully edited. Never mind what inconsistencies they may become ensnared in as a result of this untenable position; these biblical literalists accept the authority of the Bible because God told them so in the Bible. No, that’s not a typo.

What happens when people so oriented hear from their authoritarian leaders that Donald J. Trump is God’s hand-picked choice for president, a prophet ordained for this time in history? I guess you already know the answer to that one. Never mind that the previous president gave a clear statement of his Christian faith and led a life much more in keeping with the standards evangelicals profess to adhere to. Nah, he’s not one of us! “He’s a Muslim, a danger to our country,” they repeat in unison as their leaders dictate. Then along comes this person whose verbal professions and lifestyle have nothing in common with their professed beliefs, but who their authoritarian leaders tell them will advance their pet causes which they believe are ordained of God even though God says little or nothing about them, and they’re cheering and chanting for the Messiah.

Fiction writers would be challenged to match today’s headlines!

Not only is this movement not Christian, it’s not conservative either, although that’s what the members like to call themselves. “Conservatism” is a term that defies concise definition, but historically it has been applied to those who value and strive to preserve (conserve) the best values of the past. Today’s “conservatives” are returning to the worst values and practices of the darkest parts of our country’s history.

Returning to Senator Goldwater’s assessment, the core problem here–and the reason our Republican-led government is stalled–is the refusal to compromise. Each of us as individuals has a few bedrock principles which are so deeply ingrained in our souls that we are not willing to consider compromise on those values. As a nation, we also should have a few of those defining values; but  they should not include treating certain people as less than human and refusing those people equal rights. And if they do, we don’t get to call ourselves a Christian nation. And the party most espousing the mistreatment of certain people groups does not get to call itself conservative or the family values party.

I enthusiastically agree with Senator Goldwater that “Politics and government demand compromise.” The compromise, however, can’t be accomplished by conceding core values; it has to be brought about through intelligent dialog on the methods by which we uphold and live out those values. For example, everyone I know–Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative–believes our borders need to be secured and that we must monitor what kinds of people are allowed to enter and take up residence in our country. Border security is an issue on which we should not compromise; but there is much room for conversation, research, and compromise on the best way to achieve secure borders. Authoritarians readily accept their leader’s edict that only a very large wall will do. More critical thinkers listen to research and facts which show that a wall will accomplish little or nothing and that the real problems are occurring at places other than the southern border and therefore require different solutions.

Two obstacles keep our government from moving forward on border security. One is the black-white fallacy so commonly a part of today’s dialog. I’m not talking here about race but about the logical fallacy which draws a sharp divide between two extremes and considers no other options. Those citizens who oppose building a stupid, expensive wall are accused of wanting open borders and caring nothing about national security. Um, no, we’re just willing to listen to the facts which support other methods of achieving the security we ALL want.

The other obstacle that has brought us into the quagmire in which we now live is the authoritarian thinking through which millions of minds are controlled by a few powerful voices, voices which now are submitting themselves and lending extreme and dangerous power to the one voice of Donald Trump. There are dire consequences for rejecting the group think and holding a divergent opinion: Exclusion from the tribe threatens our basic human need to belong to and be esteemed within a community. And when one has been convinced that God has chosen one’s tribe–however shaky the evidence on which that premise is based–any door to dialog and compromise is slammed shut and dead-bolted.

Anyone who has attempted to reason with a Trump supporter has learned the painful lesson that reason doesn’t work. Changing supporters’ minds would require citing a more persuasive authority, and no such being exists, because God will trump your authority, and they have God in their own little box from which there is no escape. You can’t argue with God.