Category: politics

Lamentation for the 2024 Presidential Election

Listen to the post (3 minutes)

On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?

Psalm 137:2-4, RSV

Whatever my aversion to partisan politics has been in the past, it’s stronger than ever. Putting age aside, as well as a highly forgettable VP, I find little encouraging in the Democratic ticket. The Democrats no longer promote the view that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare, but that they should be affordable and accessible (making them common). If I didn’t think the unborn were human beings, I wouldn’t object. But I cannot see the difference. After conception, it’s all shades of gray, lines drawn in the sand.

Meanwhile the Republicans—the majority of them—celebrate a man who lies profusely, who is a known sexual predator, who seldom speaks factually, who relentlessly spews superlatives, and who promoted the ruin of the democratic process in the 2020 presidential election.
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The Irony of Mr. Trump’s Rhetoric

An entire book could be (and perhaps has been) written on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, something like Trump’s Towering Rhetoric.

I agree with Jim Gaffigan in a rant he posted when Mr. Trump was President: “Trump is a great salesman. Possibly the best salesman I’ve seen in my lifetime.” I agree. Although many people critical of Trump describe him as an idiot, dumb, or stupid, I believe he knows what he is about and succeeds very well in convincing about half the American population that he is what he says he is. Continue reading “The Irony of Mr. Trump’s Rhetoric”

Civil War or War on Civilians?

“I admit that political polarization may bring it all to an end, we’re going to have a hung election and a civil war.” Bill Gates, September 2022

This is my third, and I hope last, article on the woeful condition of politics and “Christianity” in the United States. Earlier, I remarked with shock and sadness on the conservative Christians’ penchant for conspiracy theories. Later, under the influence of heterogeneous sources, I predicted the violence likely as a result of the November presidential election—but never thought anything like the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 would occur.

Update 6/11/24: Nearly two years after publishing this article, I realize I was contaminated by fear mongering when I referred to “hundreds of thousands of mostly armed people truly believing they and their families are about to lose their livelihood.” The leap from being armed and upset to opening fire in the streets on a grand scale remains inconceivable. Perhaps the most durable bit of this article is the Civilian Manifesto toward the end.

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Christians and Conspiracy Theories

“Just because I’m paranoid,
doesn’t mean they are not after me”
We say this with a wink… and then glance over our shoulder

“Just because it’s a conspiracy theory,
doesn’t mean it’s not true”
We say this straight-faced… and then take another sip of Kool-Aid

This article’s focus is deliberately narrow: to explain to myself and perhaps to others how it is that so many politically and theologically conservative Christians entertain so many conspiracy theories. Following are a discussion of what’s so bad about Christians being conspiracy-theory prone, a definition of “conspiracy theory,” a short list of conspiracy-theory candidates, and a two-prong argument to explain the Christian proclivity.
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Perfect Political Storm

We’ve got God on our side
We’re just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear’s a powerful thing, baby
It’ll turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
          (Bruce Springsteen, “Devils & Dust”)

Update 1/6/21: the storm has broken. Early this afternoon, the House and the Senate were carrying out their 12th Amendment duty of counting the certified electoral votes. Thousands of protestors had gathered outside the Capitol to protest what President Trump frequently described as a fraudulent election, where he lost both the popular and the electoral vote. Around 2:20 p.m., protestors broke through metal barriers at the foot of the stairs to the Capitol. Police sprayed tear gas. Around 2:30 PM, a large number of protestors, some violent, some carrying weapons, forced their way into the Capitol. “Protesters could be seen marching through the Capitol’s stately Statuary Hall shouting and waving Trump banners and American flags” (Associated Press Timeline of events at the Capitol). The building was locked down, but not before one woman was fatally shot by the police. Three other people died from currently unspecified medical emergencies.[§] Congresspeople were eventually escorted out of the building. Around 8:30 p.m. the Senate resumed the electoral vote. Several Republicans withdrew their objections in light of the siege.

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Man from Oklahoma on Trump Supporters

Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump (about a 2:1 ratio). Accordingly, I  provide a short guest post from Charles Anderson on Trump supporters. This might be useful where I live: some of my friends in Colorado have never knowingly met a Trump supporter.

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Cost of Voting One’s Conscience

Although the President of the United States is an idealized office that has less power than the emotional tide leading up to an election suggests, I am concerned about what I see as a train wreck with two possible outcomes: the train stays on the track or the train leaves the track. In either case, the train isn’t the little democracy that could, but is instead the fact that, as Chris Hedges stated, “We do not live in a functioning democracy, and we have to stop pretending that we do.”

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Anti-white, No-deal Rhetoric

As often is the case, the attempt to correct one ill in society creates a second ill. To point out the second ill, of course, is not to minimize the one ill, but, rather, to prevent a perpetual reciprocity of ill for ill.

In this case, the critique of white privilege as the cause of economic and racial inequities in the US may ultimately reinforce the problems the critique attempts to resolve. At least that is the point of David Marcus’ “How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism” (May 23, 2016). He writes, “In reducing all phenomena to a question of race, both the alt right and the progressive left ensure the dominance of racial resentment as the lynchpin of our society.” He argues that the more white guilt is stressed, the more likely whites, who are trying to ignore race, become sensitized to it, with the result that some of them are drawn into the polarization that the critique intended to dissolve.

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