Democrats Must Learn to Control the Narrative and Figure Out How to Use the Media Again

Joseph Stiglitz in The Guardian: Democrats Must Drop Neo-Liberal Economics

New York Times Guest Essay: Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party

Check out both of the links.  Post election analysis by alleged experts who seem to have figured out what went wrong for the Democratic party and who have singled out the one thing they believe could have made the difference in the election.  Both of these sources have an opinion, and they are mainly going after their own pet peeve.  I have my opinion, too, based on observation.  I don't make any claim to being any kind of a pundit, I'm just an ordinary American, fairly well educated and reasonably observant.  

What Cost Democrats This Presidential Election Cycle 

We have the strongest economy, by all of the standard measurements, since the 1960's.  When President Biden came into office in 2021, he inherited an economic mess that was only going to get worse as a result of the failure of his predecessor to be prepared for, and handle all of the aspects of, a global viral pandemic.  A generally uniformed, ignorant population did what could be expected from ignorant, uniformed people, they panicked, and started to believe all of the conspiracy theories that were circulating around.  

The hands-off, do nothing approach that characterized every aspect of Trump's Presidency failed to do the job the constitution expects of the executive branch, which is to lead and to protect.  Trump did neither.  So the United States experienced one of the fastest spreads of COVID, which would have been even worse had Democratic governors in blue states with the largest population centers in the country not taken steps to protect from the spread.  More than a million Americans died as a result, one of the highest death rates among nations with high quality medical facilities.  And, of course, the high number of cases wreaked havoc with the economy.  

Recovery came in the form of the Biden Administration.  Steps were taken to resolve supply chain issues, distribute vaccines, and provide resources to businesses, saving literally millions of jobs that would have been lost otherwise.  More jobs were lost under Trump than any previous Presidential administration since Hoover.  The recovery, something which required, and got, leadership from Joe Biden, saved most of those jobs, and his economic expansion, including the infrastructure bill, added even more.  

On top of that, when global inflation affected the American economy, we had a leader who stepped up and took action against that as well.  As a result, the effects of inflation were not nearly as bad in the United States as they were in most other places.   

And as another result, few Americans are aware of any of this.  They are either self-isolated in their own information bubble, or they are bored with politics, economics and "all that stuff," and pay little attention.  And even if they really had wanted to find out what was going on, their limited attention span wouldn't have allowed them to stay tuned in long enough to get past all the Trump news they were hearing and seeing every day.  

If an honest survey could be conducted and reported, it would find that Trump, as an ex-President, got ten times the coverage that the sitting President of the United States got in the mainstream media.  I counted, one night, back in 2021, during the Congressional investigation into Trump's incitement of the insurrection against the Capitol and against Congress and the American people, during the one hour broadcast of one of my favorite commentators, Lawrence O'Donnell.  He's not Trump-friendly by any means.  The name "Trump" or "Donald Trump" came out of his lips 34 times in that one hour broadcast, about once every two minutes.  

And if that's what we got from Lawrence in one night, imagine what was happening on the other networks.  I did some spot checking.  I don't have the ability to research hundreds of news shows, but I watched about 10 minutes of each major network, plus listened to PBS and Associated Press broadcasts, on about 20 different samples.  I could not randomly locate even one full half hour of news in which Trump wasn't mentioned at all, and in every example I tracked, he was mentioned more than once, and got more than 5 minutes of the broadcast time.  

I'd accept absolutely accurate research that proves otherwise, but I doubt that it exists.  Trump was clearly the number one topic on all major news outlets every single day from the time he left the White House in 2021, until he was re-elected November 5th.  Every single day, multiple times a day.  And I'm absolutely certain that Joe Biden wasn't mentioned one tenth of that amount of time.  

There are several reasons why Democrats may have lost this election, including suspicion of tampering with vote counts and more foreign influence this time.  But the main reason we lost is that the mainstream media in the United States kept Trump in front of everyone every day, 24 hours a day, for the whole four years since he left the White House in 2021.  

Gaza and Neo-Liberal Economic Policy are Side-Show Issues

If what President Biden initiated as economic policy is considered "Neo-Liberal," then Democrats don't need to abandon it.  It has proven highly successful in generating economic prosperity, wage increases, stimulating trade and giving us a balanced economy.  Inflation is caused by prosperity, and whatever opinion one may hold about how much, or little, regulation of the economy is the government's responsibility, the way this administration managed to handle the inflation problem without triggering a recession was remarkable.  

The problem is that most Americans have absolutely zero idea about any of this, don't understand it and can't explain how it works.  And most Americans aren't interested in knowing.  Why change an economic approach that is successful, just because the majority of the electorate is not educated or interested enough in it to care?  Instead of changing the policy, why not change the messaging?  

That's the case with both of these issues.  There was very little Democratic messaging about Gaza, and when it did happen, it was too little, too late.  American Arab and Palestinian voters wanted something no politician on the Presidential ballot could, or would, give them and that was a cease fire and a halt to supplying arms to Israel.  So their response was to cast a ballot for the candidate whose policy and position would be the least favorable to their position.  Jill Stein is a zero, a nothing and a nobody who has no power or platform to do one thing for the people of Gaza, and I doubt  she's contributed to their humanitarian need.  Trump, of course, will give Netanyahu everything he needs to level Gaza and send the remaining population into the desert as refugees.  But the Democrats failed to control that narrative.  

Neo-Liberal economic policy has led to the greatest periods of prosperity in American history, and has, in more than one case, turned out to be the best way to manage the national budget, cut the deficit spending and reduce the debt.  It recognizes where the inequities are in the economy and develops policy to resolve them fairly.  Democrats, however, have been unable to put that into the kind of simple, populist terms and make it stick.  

Use the Media, Because We No Longer Have a Free Press

I could make a list of about ten independent news media sites where a decent picture of American politics is presented, fairly, without bias or prejudice, and in accurate, understandable terms.  But none of them are commercially operated, which means they do not have the means to compete with the billionaire controlled media that runs United States politics now.  We have a corporate owned media that has a political agenda and they will use whatever deceitful means they have at their disposal to get what they want.  

There are few of the "old school" journalists left anywhere.  There are a few, in the current generation of commentators, who exhibit critical thinking skills, which no longer seem to be taught in college journalism courses, or indeed anywhere in college these days.  Some of the newer crop of reporters can't pronounce some place names, or common terms correctly.  And the amount of coverage they have given to Trump is the biggest indicator of bias that they exhibit, regardless of what they might say.  That's quite telling, as far as I am concerned, they wanted Trump back, and they did everything they could to make sure it happened.  

In resigning ourselves to the fact that we have lost our free press, Democrats must figure out not only how to simplify the narrative so people actually understand how it works for them, but they must do things to get enough attention to make media outlets turn their cameras off the orange headed buffoon onto Democratic party candidates.  I know it's not in our nature, but the only way we're going to be able to do any kind of mass saturation of the media with a clear, easy to understand message, is to do things to get the kind of attention Trump gets.  

We must consider the mainstream media propaganda, not journalism, and use it that way and not feel guilty about it.  Only then will we be able to explain, in the simplest of terms, how much more we have to offer the American people by making government work well, than they do, by destroying it.  

So Just Exactly What Are We Supposed to Believe About What's Right and What's Wrong?

One of the most high profile criminals in all of American history is not just walking away scot-free, he is headed for a second term as President of the United States.  If I were writing a novel and I wanted to create the most incredibly unbelieveable problem for the characters to resolve, I could not have come up with a theme as crazy, and as incredible as this.  

He attempted to overturn the results of a state's election by intimidating election workers and threatening state officials, corruptly asking to "find me 11,000 more votes."  He took classified documents from the White House, an openly illegal crime, and then attempted to hide them from the FBI.  He tried to cover up an illicit affair with a porn star by putting the payoffs into his business budget.  And worst of all, he attempted to overthrown the results of a legitimate election, and thus overthrow the government of the United States, by inciting a violent riot that intended to commit murder to do so, and in fact, did just that.  

And he walks away from all of it. This isn't something hidden in some corner, it's something the whole world can see, and it is an utter embarrassment to the United States. It is a message to the rest of the world that there is no rule of law in America, and that we have, by default, become an oligarchy of the rich, even as our form of government goes through the motions.  The constitution has failed in one of its core objectives to protect the American people.  

The Message That Has Been Delivered to the American People

"The law is meaningless."  

Getting to this point has been inevitable.  We've been electing politicians for decades now who have helped put legislation in place to make it possible for some people, those who have the money to hire lawyers capable of manipulating the law in their favor, to avoid the will of the people, expressed through the law.  We have allowed the open bribery of Supreme Court justices who, once on the court for life, have ruled against the original intentions of the founding fathers, and mainly, in a corrupt way, to protect the President who appointed them as a quid pro quo.  And while there is an outcry about it, our politicians claim powerlessness and have done nothing about it.  

What Trump has gotten away with is the result of inexplicable failure to take action and do the right thing when it counted, and when it could have made a difference.  Trump was identified, correctly, as an existential threat to American democracy eight years ago.  After he'd been in office four years, it became the responsibility of the Biden administration to clean up all of the messes, from the Covid disaster to the Trump insurrection to the stealing of classified documents from the White House and deliberately misleading the FBI in their recovery.    These all involved crimes against the American people.

Personally, I had a feeling that nothing was going to come from all of the crimes he committed, and I was actually surprised that investigations were conducted and indictments handed down.  We were teased into thinking his crimes were taken seriously, as a Congressional investigation laid out the evidence in prime time on national television.  I operated under a major mistaken impression that the evidence discovered by Congress would go directly to the Justice Department where a case would be brought in federal court.  The man instigated an insurrection against the Capitol building while Congress was in session for the purpose of overturning the electoral count that was happening.  Members lives were in danger, the intention of the mob being to completely disrupt the proceedings by violent means.  

I still fail to understand how it could be that a mob could attack the Capitol, at the instigation of the President, and he was not arrested, charged and taken into custody the day after the insurrection, when it was clear he incited it.  That's what should have happened, and why it did not happen is something generations of Americans will pay for with their individual rights and freedoms.  I've heard all of the Justice department apologists and they can keep their defensive rhetoric.  This was a monumental failure of justice, of the legal system, the courts and of the Department of Justice.  

And the message that has been delivered to the American people, and to the world, is that America is no longer a nation that lives by the rule of law, and it no longer has a government capable of the administration of justice.  Our court system is so clogged by a legal bureaucracy of its own creation, to find ways to get around the law,  that it no longer has the ability to defend the truth, or even know what truth is.  

Justice in America can be bought with enough money, power and influence.  We know the exact purchase price of some Supreme Court justices, exactly how much the bribery needs to be worth to get them to sell out their oath of loyalty to the constitution and do the bidding of the one who bribed them.  The foot-dragging, obfuscation, interminable delays and incompetence of an Attorney General who was appointed by the Democratic administration charged with repairing the damage caused by Trump's first term is an inexplicable and appalling failure.  The sense of urgency that should have accompanied the knowledge that Trump was an existential threat to American Democracy was never part of any of the actions taken by the Justice Department.  

The message that is being sent to the nation, and to the world, is that equal justice under law does not exist.  We have, indeed, done the thing that our founding fathers feared the most, and we have created an executive government post in which the occupant is above the law.  

And here is what people will figure out, in short order.  If he doesn't have to respect the law and obey it, why should I?  Let the implications of that set in.  The President of the United States is an office the founders intended to be the most public example of a law abiding citizen.  We've turned that upside down, and those who were responsible for doing so are going to be the ones who must shoulder the blame for the disaster this is headed toward becoming.  

I Don't Think This Can Be Fixed

We've been told, by our own justice department, and by several judges, that the law is meaningless.  It carries no weight or authority to protect the people any more.  We saw how much of our constitution and our rights eroded away during Trump's first term, and when Joe Biden started to put things back together, there was hope, and a lot of talk that the law, and the courts, had "held."  But they haven't held.  They've failed.  

We've been told, by our corporate controlled media that this is what people voted for.  They are either completely ignorant of what the man has done, or they think he's being persecuted, or they don't really care.  We no longer have a free press.  People voted the way they did because every public media outlet in the country covered every move Trump made and every word that came out of his mouth 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  If Biden got ten minutes of coverage once or twice a week, that was lucky.  

The courage and boldness that was needed to make sure we got things back on track and didn't let this happen again were needed in the first two years of Biden's term, when we had both houses of Congress under our control.  The topic came up but it got shut down.  We knew what we were dealing with on that Supreme Court.  It would have been risky, and a bold move, to revise the Judiciary Act, then break the filibuster in the Senate to pack this Supreme Court, but we are certainly going to pay a huge price now for not doing that. 

Go ahead, be critical.  But if we'd done that, we would not now be facing a Trump Presidency with blanket immunity for any crimes he commits while President.  That essentially bypassing the constitutional provision for impeachment.  And a packed court, with progressive judges, could have struck down any Republican changes to the Judiciary Act to keep them from packing the court.  That's the way they've played politics since the days of Rush Limbaugh.  Why can't we do the same? 

They now have a very narrow, razor thin margin of control of Congress.  And if there's a person in the country who is depending on any of those Republican members of Congress to do the right thing, they are going to be incredibly disappointed.  They're not.  

This country has resisted every attempt to force it, by law, to get over racial prejudice and bigotry, misogyny and complete the vision of the founding fathers.  It took a Civil War to reset the racial prejudice, and that didn't do anything except create even deeper resentment because no matter what the law says, it takes a change of heart and a transformed character to overcome racism and understand human equality.  

Every time we move one step forward, we move ten steps back.

Alabama Political Reporter: America Has Trouble Coming

Alabama Political Reporter: America Has Trouble Coming 

A government operated by the worst, most incompetent people results in the worst, most incompetent government.  Just ask Alabama. --Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter, November 22, 2024. 

This is an excellent editorial, not surprising that it comes from Alabama, arguably one of the most politically backward and provincial states in the country, next to West Virginia, Wyoming and Mississippi.  

I'd put my home state of Arizona in that group as well.  The state that produced Barry Goldwater, and which holds the record for having more governors convicted of felonies while in office, does not have a great record of government for the people.  It's trying to come out of that daze, but still has a legislature that got lost on a road somewhere in the 1950's, and hasn't found its way out yet.  

Some of the author's perspectives are a better analysis than I've seen in the propaganda....eh, ah, mainstream media.  

"It's hard for me to believe that people voted for this."  

In the 49 years I've been a  participant in the American political system by voting, in every election at every level wherever I've lived, I've never seen a more deliberately misinformed electorate, with more people deliberately choosing not to watch or listen to anything that will contradict their already formed opinion, or unable to access media that will tell them the truth, or simply not able to discern what's true through the plethora of information with which they were bombarded.  

Trump's name and facial recognition is not as a politician, or even as a businessman in real estate.  It's as a reality television star.  No one sees the real Trump, the one before his hairstylist is through, or his makeup is on, or the help he needs getting up and down stairs (which is why there were no platforms at his rallies, and the podiums were on the floor).  And the media, which covered his every move from the time he left the White House in 2021 until election day and now beyond, refused to include his gaffes, stumbles, evidence of dementia, and "sanewashed" every report about him while giving the sitting President less than a fourth of the amount of coverage and pointed to every mistake he made.  

So, 2024 produced the most uneducated, uninformed, misinformed, lied to, abused, confused, deliberately ignorant electorate we've had, probably at any point in our history, including long before we had the ability to get today's news today.  Telling people that if Trump were to be elected, and that the people he would put in charge of government would, like him, be convicted felons, rapists, sexual abusers and have "the morals of an alley cat," wouldn't do any good.  His supporters either wouldn't believe it or wouldn't care. 

If we are able to get through the next few years without his or his cabinet's incompetence leading us to another major disaster, as it almost certainly will, the same thing will happen this time as happened last time.  People will associate all of the bad stuff going on with Trump, and by the time the mid-terms roll around, they'll flip Congress back to the Democrats.  That's been his pattern all along, the result of depending on image, with no substance to back it up. 

"The worst people imaginable in charge of everything...the most grift you've ever seen."

I really don't think Trump's supporters give a damn about any of the lack of moral character, the dishonesty, the lies, and the grift.  His conservative, Evangelical supporters give him a pass, and they've invented cutsie little saying and statements to excuse the immorality and try to disconnect themselves from it.  "I'm not electing a pastor-in-chief, I'm electing a commander in chief," is one of the statements I hear, rendered invalid by most everything Evangelical leaders have said about Democratic party leadership.  

Or the excuse that King David, whom God used to achieve his purposes, wasn't perfect either.  No, he wasn't.  But that's a false comparison on so many levels.  According to the narrative, when David was confronted with his imperfection and immorality, which included adultery, lying and murder, he experienced conviction, was repentant and submitted himself to every requirement set out to be forgiven.  Trump, when confronted by some of his Evangelical preacher lackeys to be repentant and ask God for forgiveness, is hostile in his defiance, claiming he's committed no sin requiring God's forgiveness, something that is at the core of Evangelical theology.  But their response is to give him a pass, which undermines their credibility, as if it wasn't already in the toilet, and make them look like the hypocrites and sycophants they are.  

So don't expect the conservative Evangelicals who support Trump to hold him accountable or to be concerned about the grift.  They're in on it, they've sold out to it, they own it and they are just as incompetent, immoral and lost as he is. They are part of the group of the "worst people imaginable." 

"Government...defends us from threats every day."  

This is what scares me the most.  I'm on social security and medicare now, and I don't trust the incoming administration to care about that, or to protect it.  If we thought we had inflation under the Biden administration, strap yourself in for this ride, because it's going to get a lot worse when the tariffs are passed and he starts deporting farm workers en-masse.  

But it's our safety and defense of the nation that has me most worried.  Incompetent civilian leadership of the military is one thing, but having the country taken over by Russia from the inside is something else.  I sure hope there are enough Republican senators who don't want to be wondering what will become of them if the Russians get their hands on our military secrets and pull a coup without firing a shot because his incompetent and traitorous intelligence chief opens the door and lets them in.  And I hope the military leadership also has enough influence with enough Senators to stop the appointment of a Fox News Commentator and rapist from becoming defense secretary.  

"Trust me on this, I'm from Alabama...A land with tons of potential, fantastic natural resources, and good, hard working people, but one that is constantly undone by a government operated by self-serving, self-enriching, pandering, uncaring, ignorant and downright cruel leadership."

Pointing out that Alabama is at the bottom of the 50 states in health care, life expectancy, education, infant mortality, maternal mortality and infrastructure is an indication of exactly where the rest of the country is headed under another Trump administration.  Remember when Trump, speaking in Detroit, said that if Harris were elected, she'd turn the rest of the country into Detroit?  Better Detroit than Alabama, I guess, huh? 

Conservative Evangelicals claim that government and education are not the answer to these problems of humanity, that the Christian gospel is the answer.  Alabama has one of the highest percentages of Evangelicals among its population of any state in the nation, with the highest percentage of residents who are members of Southern Baptist churches.  What have they been doing for all of these years that the state's government, a "state being run by inept brothers-in-law who need a job," according to the author?  Why, then, are these church folks turning to an inept, incompetent, idiot like Trump to do their work for them?  

"But I fear that America is about to find out."  

After four years of a Trump presidency from 2017-2021, we should have learned our lessons.  We had two years of a Democratic controlled Congress, and that would have been the time to put some guardrails in place to keep this disaster that is rolling toward us from happening.  We knew what the Supreme Court, corrupted by bribes from billionaires, was capable of doing.  But apparently four years of grift and corruption wasn't enough to break the filibuster and pack the court.  Had we done that, this demagogue would never have been able to be nominated by the GOP.  

We can't depend on things going back to the way they were.  Rush Limbaugh and those in the media of his ilk, helped to destroy compromise in partisan government, which was the key to the survival of democracy in America.  So we've been on this road for a while.  Our ability to survive with both our sovereignty and our democracy intact now depends on a handful of Republican senators who might not be in Trump's back pocket, and who have the kind of guts that so far I've only seen in Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney among Republicans.  Honestly, I trust no Republican to do the right thing but that's one of the few choices this country has now.  

You're Damn Right I'm Angry!

As a former high school history and government teacher, I followed the January 6th Trump insurrection hearings in Congress with great interest.  I sometimes left work around the house undone, and stayed up late to finish leftover office work in order to watch virtually every minute.  I've been a legislative advocate for a specific group on several occasions, and I've even testified before hearings in a state legislative situation, but there were a few things about these hearings, and what occurred as a result, that I didn't know before and was surprised to learn.  

For all of the seriousness and the attention paid to getting a committee in place, and determining how it would move forward, I was surprised, and disappointed, that such groups really have very little clout when it comes to taking action based on the evidence that the hearings uncover.  I realize that much of what they were doing was to bring facts to the light of day, to keep people informed about what was happening, and to investigate possible legislation that could be developed to prevent such things from happening again.  But, really, how many people in this country paid any attention to a congressional hearing?  Perhaps 10-15% were informed by the very public presentation, no more than that. 

What's happened during, and since the January 6th Trump Insurrection has been nothing short of appalling.  I have no vocabulary strong enough or condemning enough to express my utter disgust and disappointment with that group of Americans, displaying their appalling and obtuse ignorance and their total abandonment of reason and critical thinking in attacking the Congress while in a dual session for the purpose of certifying an election in which none of the alleged "fraud" could be proven.  Those who showed up demonstrated total lack of respect for the constitution's provisions for the separation of powers, operation of the federal government and the peaceful transfer of power. 

This was the most heinous attack on American government since the Civil War.  In all honesty, those who participated in it should have had their citizenship revoked, and required to go through the process of learning about the constitution, like foreigners who want to become citizens, before being allowed back into American society.  

Why "We, the People" Didn't Demand That Trump Be Declared Ineligible for Public Office For Inciting This Insurrection? 

The congressional investigation was impeccable.  Evidence was laid out in front of anyone who cared to take a look at it.  The committee was virtually flawless in their presentation and remarkably unified in their conclusions.  I was quite baffled at the fact that four members of the House were able to defy subpoenas, and allowed to get away with it.  This is a clear indication Republicans no longer have any respect for the rule of law, or the constitution, and that is something that we, the people, need to correct by making them suffer the consequence of not being allowed to participate in government if they won't cooperate.  I don't know how it was that members of Congress didn't get that message when we had a majority in both Houses.  

The inability of the justice department to take that evidence, make a case with it and get it moving in a timely fashion is simply inexcusable incompetence.  I'm angry at the foot-dragging, delaying obfuscation that went on at the DOJ for a couple of reasons.  One is because we were left with the impression that they were moving as quickly as they could, given the deliberate and cumbersome nature of a legal system slanted to favor the rich who can afford good legal representation that slows down the process and makes a strategy out of interminable delays and legal minutia.  The other is because they were lying about it, and they weren't actually doing anything at all, and had it not been for this being discovered, almost a year later in the process, and there having been a public outcry over it, no charges might ever have been filed against Trump for leading an insurrection.  

And this is where my anger burns a bit hotter.  The prime narrative of the Biden campaign, and his administration, along with his aims for re-election, emphasized that Trump was an existential threat to American democracy, and that the coming elections were crucial to the preservation of our democracy and the most consequential of our lifetime.  Yet, they had the power, and the evidence, to have Trump permanently declared ineligible for public office by charging him with insurrection and making that verdict stick, because that's all it would have taken and it would have been the easiest case to prove.  

Somehow Merrick Garland, who managed to get Hunter Biden indicted in relatively short order, either couldn't, or wouldn't grasp how serious it was to get Trump to trial, and get guilty verdicts for all of his crimes.  And I'm really angry about that, including that he's still there, in the justice department, collecting a check made up of the dollars of taxpayers he betrayed with his delaying, obfuscation and incompetence.  And that's what it is, until someone changes my mind.  

Let me tell you, this has really tested my loyalty to the Democratic party.  If Trump really was the existential threat to American democracy that we've been hearing since the first time he took office, then they needed to show us they believed that, too, by prosecuting him.  The fact that they had four years, and couldn't get this done not only makes me furious, but it makes me question whether or not they really believe their own rhetoric. The impending disaster which will result from losing the most consequential election of my lifetime to a demagogue who is going to destroy the constitution could have been prevented.  And it wasn't.  

And that's not the only incompetence and lack of courage displayed by the Department of Justice, which is a misnomer.  

The hottest topic of discussion this week was centered on a member of the United States Congress from Florida, a man who should aspire to, and reflect, a higher moral character than the culture at large, because of the responsibility he had in making and upholding the laws of this country.  This particular congressman had already earned a reputation as a smart-mouthed, disrespectful, arrogant loudmouth who is incapable of reasonable conversation and compromise required of lawmakers because he makes his points using lies and by refusing to listen to other points of view, rudely continuing to talk over them while they are making their point.  His whole demeanor, including facial expressions, says "I'm an ugly person, inside and out."  

So how is it that our justice department, headed by an attorney general appointed by a Democrat, quickly and effectively came up with a special counsel and investigation to charge the son of the President of the United States, a Democrat, but not Matt Gaetz, a Republican, who, as everyone in the country now knows, engaged in illegal sexual activity with a minor?  

If there is no justice in this country for everybody, then there is no justice in this country.  

We've Lost Our Free Press

The motto of the Washington Post has been, "Democracy dies in darkness."  Well, the sun went down on November 5th.  It was already setting, the inevitable end already visible and apparently unstoppable.  It's been dark in the mainstream media for a long time, and it took just four more years to kill democracy.  

It's dead, and whatever speculation or hope or "best guess" is still making the rounds about righting the ship during the mid-term elections, or who Democrats might run in 2028 is nothing but empty talk. We do not have a free press anymore, we have corporate media outlets that run the chatter of a billionaire oligarchy.  

Democracy is dead in the alleged votes of 76 million Americans who displayed either their complete ignorance of it, or their disdain for it, by voting for Trump.  That's not quite half of those who voted, and far short of being half of the American electorate, some of which demonstrated their disdain or ignorance by simply not voting.  We have failed two generations of American students now by removing the requirement that they not be allowed to either quit school or graduate until they can articulate a working knowledge of the Constitution, and explain how a constitutional democracy works.  Immigrants who apply for American citizenship know far more about our country than our own students do.  

Democracy is dead as a result of a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week campaign the allegedly "fair and balanced" news media conducted on behalf of Donald Trump.  It is not possible to find one single day since January 20, 2021, in which Donald Trump was not prominently featured in the news, far more coverage than the sitting President ever received.  It's dead because the media did not tell the truth, or expose Trump's flaws, gaffes, inconsistencies and mental breakdowns, and rarely ran fact checks on his thousands of outright lies.  

John Dewey, the educational reformer of the early twentieth century, once said that an educated electorate was the key to the preservation of the Republic and also to progressive social reform which would eventually overcome the inherent problems of humanity.  So far, no society has yet been able to achieve the level of education necessary for full social reform, which would prove Dewey's thesis correct.  But in this country, we are now proving that the opposite is true.  We have seen the development of a populist line of thinking that is hostile to education because it does produce social reform, and in the process of preventing that from happening, an uneducated electorate is dismantling constitutional democracy, because they are ignorant of it.  Some are ignorant because they choose to be, while the media promotes ignorance in order to profit off of it.  

The outlets and groups that now constitute America's free press are small, run on tiny budgets and are in danger of being snuffed out and overwhelmed by corporate media and, under a Trump administration, by the government itself.  

This Mess is What Young Americans See as an Example

I'm far more concerned about the effect this is having on an entire generation of American children and youth, than I am simply angry about the politics, and the stupidity.  These are not just politicians and lawmakers we are electing, they are people who are in a position to set an example for the young lives in this country, that is its future.  

I do not see how someone like Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, can stand in his pulpit, and tell the younger members of his congregation about the moral values that are a visible expression of the Christian gospel, after returning from the election celebration at Mar-a-Lago of a man who has declared publicly to him that he has done nothing requiring God's forgiveness, not the rapes and assaults he committed, the highly publicized adulterous affairs that ruined two of his three marriages, the hush money paid to a porn star he was sleeping with while his third wife was pregnant, the fraud in business and the incessant lying.  

I'm sure there are plenty of young people in his church who see all of this.  How can he stand in the pulpit and proclaim the Christian gospel, while fully supporting, with his presence and his proclamation, a man who denies every point of that very same gospel openly, and in a way that actually mocks Jeffress, and every other conservative Evangelical leader who grovels at his feet?  Does he think his congregation, and the younger people in it, are too stupid and ignorant to see this?  Or does he think they don't have minds and thoughts of their own, and they simply listen to and believe everything he says?  

In fact, among the 16,000 or so members of First Baptist Church of Dallas, there are only about 3,000 of them who attend church regularly, which tells us something about the confidence the rest of the membership has in the truthfulness of what's being delivered from the pulpit on Sundays.  So does the fact that fewer than 5% of those actually in attendance on any given Sunday are families with school-aged children or young adults.  Why would parents, trying to teach their children to make good choices and introduce them to the Christian gospel attend a church where the pastor bows his knee to a man whose immoral behavior openly contradicts everything they're trying to teach?  

But Christians don't have a corner on the morality market.  It should not come as a surprise that in a religious denomination where the vast majority of the pastors bow the knee to Trump and tacitly approve of his criminal immorality, there is a widespread sexual abuse scandal involving pastors and staff members of churches.  Nor should it come as a surprise that the denominational leadership, because of the provincial, backward way they view women, is stymied in figuring out a way to resolve the problem, because of resistance to even acknowledging it exists, and denying the root causes, and is turning on the victims instead of ministering to them.  

The one good thing which may actually come out of the next four years is that American Christianity has an opportunity to redefine itself, and separate itself from this cult that has formed by once again mixing church and state, politics and religion, and has produced nothing of value, but has produced corruption and violence.  

So Yeah, I'm Angry! 

What we could have done and should have done makes me angry that we did not do it.  Had we been bold, and did some outside of the box thinking, setting aside traditional rules and practices like Republicans have done ever since the days of Rush Limbaugh, we could have gotten rid of the filibuster in the Senate, and appointed five additional Supreme Court justices, restored Roe, and over-ruled the ridiculous immunity ruling.  

The traditionalists said, "No, we can't do that, because the consequences of doing it would prompt the other side to take advantage of it if they ever got the reins of power back."  

Well, the other side got the reins of power back, and they are certainly going to do as much of this sort of thing as they can, including breaking the filibuster, because that's how they do things.  We would at least have had our gains, and we could have reset the law to prevent further abuse of it.  Whether the other side ever gained power back or not, we could have put Trump on trial, found him guilty of inciting insurrection and prevented him from ever holding public office again.  That, I think, would be worth the risk. 

I'm angry that we didn't take the risk to save the democracy.  Now, the means do not exist to do it. 

 

Stephanie Miller Exhibiting Rare Courage Among American Media

 The Stephanie Miller Show

If it were not for three hours of sanity, from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. Central time each morning, I do not know how I would be handling this election and its results.  For me, it's on an AM radio station, WCPT in Chicago, which is the only radio station to which I now listen, since the music station I used to put on in the afternoon has CBS news on the hour.  The steadfast beacon of reason and hope through what I see as impending disaster for this country has been the Stephanie Miller show.  

Like anyone in the media who is opposed to Trump and everything he stands for, when a politician has declared his intention to use the political power of the Presidency to go after anyone who has opposed him, they have reason to be fearful.  And it has not taken long, on this side of the election, to see those who have lost the courage of their convictions.  We've been told that this election was the most consequential one of our lifetimes, that our constitutional democracy, no less, was the issue that was at stake, and that Trump was the biggest threat we've seen to our democracy since Adolf Hitler and Nikita Khrushchev.  

I didn't have to be sold on that argument, I was able to see it for myself, when he started his first serious run for office prior to the 2016 election.  But unfortunately, there are 74 million people in this country who are not only unable to see it, but are deliberately misinformed and deceived, and another 30 million who aren't well enough informed to know how they feel about it.  And now, after we have seen clearly and precisely that he is the greatest threat to constitutional democracy in America, and that he intends to destroy it and is systematically setting about to put together the people who will do it for him, we have some in the media who are tucking tail and running, and some who are being duplicitous and trying to curry favor with him.  

I'm more disgusted with them than I am with him, if that's possible.  People without real convictions are cowards.

Stephanie Miller stands to lose as much as anyone in the media on the left.  People sometimes look at me driving in traffic like I'm an idiot because I'm fist pumping or applauding some pithy, insulting thing they've said about Trump.  There have been mornings when I've laughed so hard, I've had to pull over and get out of traffic because I literally couldn't see or hold my composure well enough to drive.  Who'd have ever thought that political reality could be so terrifying and yet so funny at the same time?  

She is one of just a few media personalities whom I now trust to tell me the truth.  She hasn't backed down.  She's shared the same fears and feelings we all had when the election results were announced and the same sense of being lost, not knowing what to do, and wondering where we are headed.  But she's remain steadfast in her convictions, and her approach, the manner in which she delivers her message, and the truth she tells, and nothing has changed in spite of her clear awareness of any and all possibilities as Trump's administration settles in.  

When I tuned in and listened to her program the morning after the election, I cried.  Not because I was disappointed in the results, though I had cried about that earlier, but because I was listening to some truly genuine people who thought like I thought, and who were expressing the same feelings, in public, on the air, as I was feeling at that very moment.  I've been tuned in every morning since then.  I work in an environment that would get pretty hostile and uncomfortable quickly if I had her show on the radio in my office.  I have a hearing device and I can connect it to the live stream from my phone and listen that way, and no one else even knows.  

I've committed, as a private citizen, to resist the incoming administration in every way that a private citizen can resist.  So I'll support the local radio station that carries her broadcast, and respond to any request she has for help when the time comes.  Keep telling the truth, it is helping thousands of Americans get through each day.

 

Will America's Constitutional Democracy Hold For Four More Years?

John Dewey, known as the founder of American progressive education, declared that "Democracy, and the one ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."  As an educational reformer, and one of the most prominent American scholars in the early twentieth century, Dewey believed that an informed and educated electorate was the key to preserving America's constitutional democracy.  

Dewey was right.  Events leading up to and including this 2024 election in the United States have proved his words to be correct.  If the election is an accurate reflection of the political will of the people, then this one is a reflection of appalling ignorance about the issues at stake, and of the ability of sheer propaganda to penetrate and saturate the electorate to achieve a result not consistent with reality.  We have an electorate that is blatantly apathetic, appallingly ignorant and inexcusably uneducated that has just allegedly elected leadership bent on the destruction of American Constitutional Democracy.  

And the clown that was elected is lining up a group of individuals whose incompetence and inability to manage the parts of the executive branch to which he plans to appoint them will destroy what they don't intentionally ruin when they get there. For anyone who might be placing hope in a group of Republican senators to stop this clown show, and demand that the people appointed to these cabinet positions at least be competent and capable of doing the job, and not flawed by a criminal record, or by a subversive, treasonous relationship with Vladimir Putin, or by their own deviant sexual behavior, I'll tell you now you will be disappointed.  No Republican anywhere in that party's leadership has integrity any more.  They're just protecting their assets at this point, like pathetic Lindsay Graham, who trots around after Trump with toilet paper and tissues, to wipe his ass and blow his nose.  

Don't Count on Any Republican to Display Any Integrity or Conviction

The Republicans are weighing their chances of survival and thinking of themselves.  Who, among the Republicans, has the guts, or should I say the balls, to step up, block Trump's appointments, demand better, and let this lame duck President know that they won't help him destroy the American Republic?  Mitch McConnell?  He'd dismantle it himself, in his own way, if he had the chance, and he's the chief enabler.  Thune?  Barrasso?  Ernst?  Moore-Capito?  If these Senators actually had integrity, they'd have spoken up before the nomination started and instead of vacillating, they'd have been decisive when it counted.  They've all clearly chosen party over country, and over the people.  

Mitt Romney is gone.  Not that he would have had the courage or resolve to right what he repeatedly called wrong.  He put out a lot of words, and did nothing to back up what he said.  There was a time when I thought his Mormon convictions might actually be real, and heartfelt, and that he would follow them and not allow the stain of Trump's worldly evil splash itself on the Mormon Church, but they're complicit, just like conservative Evangelicals.  They've been deceived and deluded by a demon posing as an angel of light.  Romney has clearly made it known how he feels, but is not courageous enough to step up and do anything meaningful about it.  Trump won the Mormon vote, undermining their credibility as a true faith, and by it they are declaring their own racism, misogyny, bigotry and prejudice.  

The only senators who have spoken up about this are Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.  And I have no confidence in their discernment, given the way they were talked into voting for Supreme Court justices who lied to their face and told them they would not vote to overturn Roe, which made them, particularly Collins, look foolish.  No kudos are in order for just speaking up.  Let see the strength of conviction in actions, not words.  

What Can Democrats Do At This Point? 

Democrats started talking about 2024 as the "most consequential election of our lifetime" shortly after the mid-term elections in 2022.  I'm still trying to get past the shock and disappointment that occurred on November 5th, I remain unconvinced at this point that we lost solely because bigotry, racism and misogyny are more important than core political issues.  We lost our free press, who gave Trump four straight years of 24 hour a day, 7 day a week news coverage, far more than they covered the sitting President.  We lost because they had an open, free platform to convince their supporters that the lies they were telling about every single thing they addressed were true.  We lost because hardly any Americans, even a lot of Democrats, were aware of the remarkable achievements of the single most accomplished President since Lyndon B. Johnson.

And I am extremely difficult to be convinced, at this point, with all of the shrieking and lip flapping and caterwauling that Trump and his loyalists have done about how the 2020 election was stolen, that they didn't start planning and organizing to steal this one, beginning on January 21, 2021.  I'll need conclusive proof those votes are real before that's settled.  And that doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist, it makes me one of 75 million Americans who are also not convinced this wasn't rigged.  I hope there are Democrats who hear this from their constituents and don't just let the other side roll over us for the sake of making a big deal out of a peaceful transfer of power.  I'd expect that much follow-up from leadership of the party that convinced me this election was the most consequential of my lifetime. 

So what should we now expect from the leadership of the Democratic party, after losing an election they convinced most of us to believe was the most consequential of our lifetime?  Is it politics as usual?  Is is an attitude of, "Well, at least I won my election and I'll be able to take my seat and collect my government paycheck and expenses."  If this election was so consequential, and our democracy is now in the most danger it ever has been in, then I need to hear from the party leadership, and I need to see something that convinces me that they don't just think this is all intense election rhetoric aimed at getting contributions and votes and now we're all just going to hunker down and endure until the next election gives us a chance to change things.  

If our democracy really is in danger, there may not be a "next election."  

I'm going to need to see more than what I'm seeing now.  If, somehow, someway our democracy does survive the next four years, the person who gets my vote will be the one who led the way through this darkness, confusion and terror of what's coming, shows no fear of Trump, challenges any moves he makes to abuse the law to get even with his enemies, and leads a genuine resistance movement that I will gladly volunteer to join and financially support.  

There are those who stand to lose a lot if they become a target of Trump's vengeful anger.  I've always enjoyed Stephanie Miller's daily program, blending politics and news with a good dose of humor and lighthearted fun.  Obviously, her program is dependent on getting the air time it needs to be heard, and I'm sure there are corporate owners in the media upon whose good graces her show is dependent for its freedom.  She's not backing down, or taking steps to circle the wagons and tone down the rhetoric, watering down the truth for the protection of her program.  She's still speaking out, and it makes it worth listening to her program as a result.  Trust what you hear there, it's the truth, and unlike Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, she's not running for cover.

That's the kind of example we need to follow, people.  And if Stephanie Miller asks for my support, she's got it.

The Trust and Integrity That the Founders Assumed Would Always Be There, and Which is Required for Constitutional Democracy to Work, is Gone 

Were they able to see what is happening now, I believe our founding fathers would have written a much more detailed constitution, including restrictions on holding any office in government at all by a person who was a convicted criminal.  They would have put more teeth in the enforcement of conclusions determined by Congressional investigations.  They would have determined how corrupt judges and public officials could be removed without impossible to obtain two-thirds majorities of votes of Congress, because they would have been more visionary when it came to the idea that loyalty to political parties would develop and be more divisive than boundaries between countries on the ground.  

As a result of what was, in 1789, a high level of trust, integrity and respect among the founders, who believed in the values that distinguished the United States of America, we have a constitution that depends on those things needing to be defended when they are no longer characteristic of our politics, or present in our society.  People had to be informed, reasonably educated and skilled in critical thinking.  Ironic, isn't it, that in an age where communication is instant, and prolific, in every corner of life, people can be completely uninformed, unaware, and dangerously ignorant and apathetic.

I listened to a radio interview tonight with a voter who couldn't possibly have been more misinformed, gaslighted might be a better word, unable to cite a single fact, not even one, in defense of casting a ballot for what she claimed was a return "to the way things used to be."  She was completely lost when asked to explain exactly what that meant, and vehemently denied that Trump was going to appoint RFK Jr. to anything.  She had no idea who any of his other proposed appointees were, couldn't identify one of them, and was sure the media was "just lying about it."  She was baffled and unable to discuss the January 6th insurrection from 2021, did not know what the host was talking about, and had no idea that there were wars going on in Gaza and Ukraine.  

If she's a good example of the electorate that put Trump back in office, and I think that's probably right on the money, then the odds of the constitution holding out for the next four years are not even close to 50-50.     

An Educated Electorate is the Key to Preserving Democracy

I'm a former high school American History and Government teacher.  I patiently tried to help my students learn how to think critically, to get the information they needed to make informed decisions and to know everything they needed to know about how our government works, and how the Constitution protects precious, vital individual rights, limiting the government's intrusion and preventing the imposition of tyranny.  I also taught them the basic principle of human equality, and the value and sanctity of human life and I tried to set a personal example by demonstrating love for my neighbor, respect for the rights and opinions of others, and to invest in an effort to use what I know to make the world a better place, starting in my own corner of it.  

I started teaching in 1979.  As I look out over the former students I've been able to keep up with, as they have gone out into the world, I can point to some shining examples who have made the choice to use their talents, abilities and their education for the benefit of others.  They got it.  I've had the privilege of sitting in a doctor's office at a teaching hospital, and when the door opened, the resident department fellow who walked through the door for my initial examination was a former student.  I got called to jury duty about ten years ago, and when the district attorney who was prosecuting the case walked into the room, I recognized her as a former student, and I smiled, not just because I was about to get out of jury duty, but because she had pursued ambitions she expressed to me when she was a student.  

I ran into a former student in the Metro in Washington, D.C.  I heard my name being called behind me on the escalator, and when I got to the bottom, turned around and greeted a former student who was serving as an intern in the US Senate, for a Democrat, which was a shock, because his parents were staunch Republicans.  And I have a former student who got into education as a history teacher, always a point of pride, and who is now the director of diversity and inclusion at a major state university in a southern state.  I can only hope I made a difference.  I'm just glad to know that they are thinking people who saw an opportunity to serve in a place where they make a difference.  

That's the kind of electorate we need.  It is, unfortunately, not the electorate we have.  I am now hoping there is enough critical thinking, appreciation for a constitutional democracy and desire to protect our freedom to sustain us through this inside attack on our own values.  

Not Speaking Out Makes Conservative, Evangelical Christians Complicit in the Immorality and Worldliness of Their Endorsed Politicians

 Baptist News Global: Matt Gaetz is a Southern Baptist Who Appears to Get a Pass

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  John 3:19, NRSV

The world is full of false, phony religion, scams which play on people's fears and superstitions, and become means by which control over the lives of people can be achieved by manipulation, brow-beating, guilt-tripping and outright misrepresentation and lying.  It's very difficult to come to the realization that something in which so much faith and trust was invested is not really taken seriously by some of the very people whose influence led to making a commitment to the practice of Christian faith, through a particular denominational, sectarian interpretation.  

Growing up in a Southern Baptist church, it's not difficult to figure out that one of the primary themes in children's and youth ministry is sexual purity.  Remaining chaste until marriage was a core doctrine that ranked right up there with the inerrancy of the Bible and the divinity of Jesus.  About the only thing worse, the way it was taught and idolized, was becoming gay or lesbian.  It was taught as a sin against oneself, something that, once it was done, could not be restored ever again, a potential marriage-busting secret that would be a lifelong scar.  

For all the effort put into this emphasis, research into the subject never showed an appreciable difference in the rates of premarital sexual activity between conservative religious youth, and those who were not raised in a church.  For all the emphasis and the talk, the high-mindedness and almost turning sexual purity into an idol, what we see transpiring in the Southern Baptist convention, and in most conservative, Evangelical, far right wing Republican circles, is rank hypocrisy in practice. 

Part of the problem is that this isn't a branch of Christianity that has a high regard or respect for women. They can't seem to see the inconsistency between the way they view women, which is that they are always in a role that is subservient and submissive to men, and the fact that they don't have a handle on controlling sexual purity.  They've picked up the ancient cultural biases that were present when the New Testament was written, but they ignore the actual text of the Christian gospel which, while noting unique roles for both men and women in the church, also elevates women to a position of equality with men, in terms of humanity, intellect and conduct.  And yet, the cultural biases are what seem to be read into the text for the purpose of defining the role of women in the church, rather than the intention that Jesus clearly stated, and left open to his apostles to clarify.  

The Southern Baptists just had a major sexual abuse scandal exposed by two Texas daily newspapers, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express News.  This particular expose only dealt with cases that had been reported, verified and adjudicated.  Tipped off by victims who had reported abuse that had occurred at the hands of pastors and church leaders, and had their reports covered up at the denominational level, the denomination's leadership has delayed, resisted and obfuscated when it comes to getting to the bottom of what's going on.  The rank and file membership of the denomination has demanded action with overwhelmingly huge affirmative votes at their annual convention, only to have their desires stymied by a balking bureaucracy bent on protecting the reputation of some of the denomination's prominent, prestigious pastors and denominational leadership.  

One of the denomination's most prominent pastors, who served as its President for two terms, and then was promoted into leadership at its North American Mission Board was implicated in the investigation, and confessed to an "inappropriate relationship."  He then got four of his close friends to take him through what they called a "restoration," in which he became repentant, and they pronounced him "restored" to his conference and preaching ministry business, which nets him millions in annual income.  

Sound familiar?  

No wonder these people are not all that upset with the bankrupt moral character of Donald Trump and the cronies he is assembling to make up his administration.  Their own moral character is lacking, and whatever power or influence they are after is more important to them than character.  So they've invented all kinds of excuses to justify their association with evil, and they're ignoring the pathological lying, deceit, misogyny and abuse of women, and the complete and utter moral bankruptcy of Trump and his entourage.  

In spite of known character flaws, moral impurity, illegal conduct and being untrustworthy liars, all things which the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, a highly respected Southern Baptist pastor and denominational officer, said disqualifies any candidate running for political office in the United States. So their support makes them complicit in his evil, and guilty of the sins they condemn in others. 

A Briefing for Those Who Are Uninformed About the Inner Workings and Beliefs of the Dangerous Evangelical Religious Cult Now Coming Into Political Power in the United States

Baptist News Global: False Prophets Have Hijacked Evangelical Christianity in America

For those who have avoided entanglement with the religious right, or the Evangelical right, as it has become known in its merger with extreme right wing politics, it might be a good idea to get informed about who these people are, what they believe and what in particular drives their attraction to a politician and leader who exhibits absolutely no characteristics of their faith at all, nor any real interest in its beliefs, beyond how he can use them to get votes.  I've been criticized by friends and acquaintances I've tried to educate on this subject for calling them "dangerous," and implying that they are capable of more than just benign, intellectual disruption.  

But let me tell you, they are dangerous.  I was raised in an Evangelical church in which the preaching was driven more by personal prejudices and cultural influences than it was by any biblical text.  From the earliest memories I have in church to the time I graduated from high school and went off to college, our church only had one pastor who had earned a college degree, and he was a part time pastor and full time high school teacher.  The contrast between what I learned in the university's theology classes that were required for graduation at the denominationally-related school I attended was mind boggling.  It wound up causing an entire deconstruction of what I believed, and it made me unwelcome anywhere in the church when I went back home.  I had become, in their eyes, an educated liberal.  

Had I been able to see where all of this was headed, I'd have taken the exit ramp from that whole branch of American Christianity back in 1989, when I finished my first graduate degree.  But there were places to "hide," I guess, including being fortunate enough to find and join a theologically liberal church that took Christianity seriously, and integrated the practice of its values and virtues into congregational life.  As a results, the overwhelming majority of the congregation were Democrats, including a member of Congress, a local county supervisor, and a former governor.  It was a Southern Baptist church that had welcomed black and Hispanic members for most of is more than 100 years of existence, and was one of the first to ordain and call women to the ministry, long before even some of the more liberal Mainline denominations did.  It thrived, as a result. 

The church itself took the exit ramp out of affiliation with the denomination, shedding any potential identification with conservative Evangelicalism, in the late 1990's.  But it's still a vibrant, growing congregation, with a pastor who identifies with the progressive left wing of the Democratic party.  That's a byproduct of its commitment to the Christian gospel, unlike the cult that most conservative Evangelicals have become with their worship of money and power. 

We're not a threat to progressive liberalism, we are progressive liberals. It was Baptists, and other Christians, in this same tradition, back in the late 1700's who championed religious liberty, along with the principle of the "free church in the free state," and influenced the founding fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, convincing them to include the establishment clause in the first amendment, setting both church and state free from each other's control.  Our freedom of conscience, our ability to worship as we choose, and to function as the Christian church is protected by American constitutional democracy, and we will fight to protect those things.

We're not going back, either.

Give Some Thought to What a "Christian Nationalist" America Would Look Like

Oklahoma School Superintendent Announces "Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism"

Prohibition made its way into the United States Constitution in the form of the 18th Amendment, ratified in 1920, just after the First World War.  It lasted 13 years, was one of the most difficult restrictions to enforce, and literally created an entirely new criminal class that wouldn't ever have existed, had it not been for this ridiculous intrusion into personal liberty, based on the premise that America was founded as a Christian nation, and that somehow the consumption of alcohol represented sinful rebellion against it.  The Women's Christian Temperance Union, organized in 1874, was primarily responsible for the 18th Amendment.  

That's where we are now headed, with the blending of conservative, fundamentalist and Pentecostal Christianity with the extremism of right wing politics.  The Heritage Foundation is the modern day Women's Christian Temperance Union, and it aims to reform the Constitution in a way that imposes its own version of Christian faith and practice.  

Christians in America have been as free as any in the world, at virtually any time and place in human history, to practice their faith as they see fit, and to become its evangelists, with the goal of "winning souls to Christ."  There is no point or place in the history of the Christian church where it has enjoyed anywhere close to this level of virtually unrestricted freedom.  If not a "Christian nation" in the sense that the authority of the state compels Christian faith and worship among the population, there is no other place in the world where Christianity has had such a pervasive influence over the culture and society of a nation as in the United States.  

It is, in fact, the pervasive influence of Christianity in America that is largely responsible for the inherent social problems which exist, which conservative Christians blame on the influence of progressive liberalism.  Collectively, even though the atmosphere of complete freedom the Christian church in America has enjoyed led to its splitting and splintering into a myriad of denominational clusters and groupings, all centered around the idea that each specific group thinks it is more privileged by God and more "chosen" or "elect" because of some distinctive doctrine or theological point they've come up with, Christianity exerted far more influence over all aspects of American culture, politics, social behavior, business practices, and education, than any other cultural influence.     

As long as this pervasive influence was felt in American culture, and in some cases enforced by law, such as required prayer and Bible teaching in public schools, invocations at school events and school baccalaureate services prior to graduation, blue laws that prohibited some kinds of businesses from being open on Sunday, and restricted the sale of alcohol, along with a lot of blurred lines between church and state that permitted tax dollars to find their way into church budgets, and virtually no restrictions placed on the ability of churches and church organizations to evangelize or "proselytize," the push for Christian nationalism wasn't part of our politics.  It's only been since the steady decline in church membership and attendance which began with mainline Protestants back in the 1960's, and which has now caught up to the less educated, more conservative groups which use a literal interpretation of the Bible, the fundamentalists, who are legalists, and the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, steeped in mysticism, that the movement toward Christian nationalism has revived. 

These people believe that the prosperity and peace of the United States is directly affected by the collective "morality" of the nation, and if we get to the point to where we have more sinners than saints, making us do "worldly" things as a nation, such as give rights to LGBTQ persons, or allow abortions, then God will judge this country and remove its prosperity as a blessing.  

I'm serious.  That is, in a nutshell, what we are looking at with these people.  The test of righteousness is shutting down a measurable amount of immorality in order to get back into God's good graces so he keeps the money streaming along, feeding our prosperity.  

They have a very distorted view of the Christian gospel.  They see themselves as agents of God's righteousness, and are not adverse to ignoring what Jesus claimed are the very core values of the Christian gospel to achieve a very different end.  They no longer see non-Christians as "lost people" in need of saving redemption, they see them as enemies of God deserving of death.  They believe people who are not intently committed to Christianity are reprobate, chosen by God for damnation, and unworthy of life.  

I've told friends of mine for decades now that if the United States ever had a dictatorship in which Evangelical conservatives were determined to have a prominent role, they would be as merciless and brutal in their attacks on and elimination of their perceived enemies as the church of the middle ages was in pursuing and burning heretics at the stake.  It's time to pay attention to "Seven Mountains Dominionists" and the kind of rhetoric being thrown around by people proclaiming themselves to be prophets and prophetesses.  They subvert the Christian gospel by claiming that their words are a new revelation, replacing that which was preached and taught by Jesus, that what Jesus said then, pertained to that generation then, and what they say now pertains to this generation now.  And they see their mission and purification of the world which makes them more than willing to murder to achieve their purpose. 

But don't take just my word for it.  The Oklahoma state school superintendent is giving a good primer in what's coming.  The Women's Christian Temperance Union showed how religious intimidation worked.  Today's Charismatic prophets and Fundamentalist legalists are angrier and more full of hate.   I'm just saying, we better be ready. 

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is Still There. Does it Require a Court to Enforce?

The first time I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I experienced an emotional reaction to being in that place that brought me to tears.  Standing there, with the small group of people that had been in the tour group to which we were assigned, I was listening to the park ranger describe the atmosphere in that room during the writing of the Declaration of Independence, each one of those Patriots sitting there just across that small hallway from the courtroom, which represented the justice system of the King, one of the motivating factors behind the Revolution.  

I'm glad they preserved that room as well, because the description of the trials that took place there is chilling.  Justice, at the discretion of a monarch, is not justice.  It is cruelty designed to remove any motivation in the will for liberty.  It was a constant threat when the Declaration was being drafted.  It was the example of how not to administer justice when the Constitution was drafted, in the same room across the hall from that chilling courtroom.  

I doubt that the founders envisioned a justice system paralyzed by motions for delays, frivolous appeals, diversions, lengthy time periods before trials begin, and more motions.  The whole idea of "speedy trials" was to expedite getting down to the facts of a case so that a defendant did not have to be held for any longer than necessary.  And I'll cut to the chase here.  The influence of people with money have helped politicians build so many complications into the justice system that it is no longer effective in actually administering justice.  Like almost everything else, it's become a partisan political tool.  

If the Justice System Can't Enforce the Law, It's Worthless

What does it say to the American people that our courts are unable to prosecute one of the most heinous crimes ever committed against the people, and the Congress, of the United States?  Whatever tactic existed for delay and obfuscation of the crimes Trump committed leading up to the January 6th insurrection could not be prosecuted by the justice department.  

What kind of message does that send to the people of the United States?  

It says that our laws are worthless, especially when a defendant who commits crimes against the people is prominent, rich, and a politician who gets partisan support to fend off justice.  It says, very clearly, that while we are a nation influenced by privilege and prominence and money, we are no longer a nation of laws.  It says that the people who run the justice department, which should be top quality lawyers and judges, are not capable of prosecuting a relatively simple case in which most of the evidence was handed to them by a Congressional investigation.  

Can The 14th Amendment Be Used in the Time We Have Left Before Electoral Vote Certification?

I don't care how complicated, or consequential, a case may be, there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for a justice department taking four years to prosecute.  Congress conducted an investigation and produced evidence.  The justice department should have jumped on that the next day, started the ball rolling and used its power to resist any attempt at delays.  It represents the American people and as one of those people, I'm damn disappointed in the way I was represented.  It was legal malpractice.  Insurrection is the worst crime that can be perpetuated against our country.  The fact that this insurrection, so obviously and visibly instigated by Trump, was let go and treated like any other case messed up by legal red tape, is a travesty.  

The Constitution, however, is still the constitution.  Is there a way to enforce the 14th Amendment without going through a cumbersome and ineffective justice department and court system?  We've been told Trump is an existential threat to democracy.  Shouldn't those who have sworn an oath to the Constitution be defending it by expediting a trial aimed at determining that Trump is not eligible to be President.  Nor is J. D. Vance, since he doesn't see the insurrection for what it is. 

So what recourse do we have at this point to bring about justice for the American people?  This is an amendment to the constitution, and we have an obvious insurrection, and an obvious instigator.  The courts have simply failed, due to their own lack of efficiency and effectiveness, to enforce the law.  These are questions that I hear are being asked.  

Was Trump even charged with insurrection?  And if not, why not?  Was there ever any real intention of holding him accountable, or were they just satisfied going after the peons who got themselves caught up in it?  

This is a huge issue for me.  Has anyone ever thought that one of the possible reasons for Harris losing this election was Democrats who sat at home and didn't vote because the Justice Department dragged its feet and never brought Trump to justice?  That was the first thing that came up in an informal discussion among my neighbors recently, a Polish immigrant brought it up and pointed out that when it appeared Trump would not be brought to justice for any crime he had committed, and that even the state of New York would back down in the hush money case, a lot of Democrats just felt it wasn't worth it to vote.  

Or, is this the first failure to enforce the Constitution before it falls completely on January 20?

Reaching a Consequential Decision: Leave the Church

"How can you call yourself a Christian, and vote for Kamala Harris?"

The fact that conservative Christians ask this question, and make that assumption is clear evidence of just how far away they have moved from the very principles of the doctrines they claim to correctly discern from their interpretation of the Bible.  I was asked that question many times this past election season, and I didn't let it sit there without a response.  

I could go into a theological discussion of the fact that there is no condition placed upon the doctrine of Christian redemption, and that nothing the Bible's authors have to say about it have anything to do with one's voting choices.  In fact, to make such a statement is to engage in judging the character and faith of a fellow human being, a practice which Jesus himself condemns in some of his more stronger terms.  And my response points this out, along with stating that if I can be judged for my choice of candidate, so can they, and if those are the ground rules, we can continue the conversation. 

Their main objection to Kamala was that she is a Democrat, and a liberal, and she was pushing abortion rights, gay rights and transgender rights.  So what?  This is America.  She can be a Democrat, and a liberal and neither of those things has anything to do with being Christian, except I have a problem, in my view of being Christian, seeing how that doesn't make one a liberal. This is the point in most discussions I have with conservative Evangelicals, where their argument breaks down.  I have a background in theology, from getting a B.A. and an M.A. at two universities affiliated with the Southern Baptists.  I can argue using the chapter and verse references, and the Greek text if necessary.  Most of those with whom I argue, surprisingly, have very little knowledge of the biblical text.  

Anger and Hostility Are Not Virtues of the Christian Gospel, But They Are Visible in Conservative, American Evangelicals

Part of the problem, when it comes to these issues, is that conservative Evangelicals are angry, hostile people when it comes to these specific issues.  From their perspective, the visibility of LGBTQ persons in the culture is a reminder to them of the failure of their evangelistic efforts to "bring revival to America."  Their numbers are dropping like a stone in a well, their churches are graying rapidly and emptying out and what that means is that the revenue stream that is exploited by what we used to call televangelists, the "corporate Christianity" of the media and book publishing businesses and big names with million dollar ministries like the Falwells, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, James Dobson, is drying up.  

But the point is that the Constitution gives all Americans freedom of conscience.  LGBTQ persons are a small percentage of the population, and they're not "taking over."  Nor is their presence in society something that has the potential to bring God's judgment on this country.  That would be something that a conservative Evangelical, reading and studying their Bible in its cultural, historical and theological context, should be able to discern.  America was never offered a "covenant" by God to exist as a theocracy in the same way as ancient Israel.  In fact, the Christian gospel is the only "covenant" that exists in biblical theology in the present age, and that's an individual covenant, not one offered to nations or countries.  So any judgment, for those who accept those terms, is individual, not corporate.

On Abortion Rights, It's Not Just About Birth Control 

It's impossible to discuss this issue with a conservative Evangelical in a reasonable manner.  They are so full of misinformation, they have virtually no understanding of what is involved and they resort to their simplistic accusations of "baby killing" as a means of ending an argument in which they cannot engage intelligently.  They have absolutely no understanding at all of the fact that these draconian abortion laws, which prevent doctors from performing life-saving procedures in the event of complications, will wind up causing the deaths of thousands of women, over 80% of which would be preventable otherwise.  That's not a mortality rate that we'd put up with in this country for anything else.  

Harris didn't champion the use of abortion as birth control at all, she championed the right of women to make health care decisions in consultation with her own doctor, and with her pastor, priest, rabbi or Imam, if that was her choice.  This is not an issue without complications.  We've seen some tragic examples of what can happen to women when doctors are restricted from providing treatment under some draconian, restrictive law that a state legislature passed without consulting a single medical professional.  

So, to those conservative Evangelicals who want to argue this point, my response is to put this back on them.  How many women are you willing to kill in order to have your abortion restrictions?  Are you willing to sacrifice the 80% of women whose lives could be saved by performing whatever measures the doctor deems necessary to save their life?  That's certainly not pro-life.  

The sexual behavior exhibited and advocated by the President-elect doesn't seem to support the conservative, Evangelical position on abortion.  Perhaps, if those who aspire to leadership set a better example in their own sexual morality, or lack of it, abortion used for birth control purposes would not be as much of an issue.  Conservative Evangelicals put a huge amount of effort into teaching and encouraging abstinence until marriage among their young people, and then go out and give their political support to a man who was in bed with a porn star while his own (third) wife was pregnant with their son.  

I see a lot of mixed messages here.  Get it straight, and then we'll discuss it. 

How Can You Call Yourself a Christian, and Vote For Donald Trump? 

It's only fair for me to ask, though my own integrity won't permit me to make the same kind of judgment about someone else's Christian faith, based on their political choices.  I'm more interested in the rationale that selectively criticizes a Democrat, and let's a Republican off the hook for what I see as infinitely worse bad character, immorality and political ineptitude.  

Starting with Trump's almost gleeful continued insistence that he is sinless, and has not done anything requiring God's forgiveness, because he does not see God the same way his Evangelical friends do, which is a direct mockery of their faith and what they believe, moving through the brand name he built for himself by getting on the front page of the tabloids to describe his bedroom antics with his wives or the other women with whom he had affairs, his fraudulent business schemes, his incessant lying, his backstabbing and betrayals, and his hateful thirst for vengeance.  

I'd suggest looking through the text of Jesus' words recorded in the New Testament, and the works of the apostles, and find anything but terms like licentiousness, impurity, fornication, idolatry, sorcery, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, to describe Trump's character.  There is no integrity and certainly no humility, both of which are high on the list of Christian virtues.  There's no humility or repentance, or any of the characters that define good leadership.  

The man incited an insurrection to disrupt Congress, intending to inflict pain and suffering while overturning the results of a legitimate election, based on a lie that, through over 60 attempts in court, he could not provide one shred of evidence to prove.  

The apostle John calls the kind of denial of the need for forgiveness Trump has repeatedly articulated in front of Evangelical leaders who are trying to goad him into saying something they can identify as a confession of faith, as the spirit of antichrist.  Not "The Antichrist," a figure from Evangelicalism's fantasy "end times" narrative, but antichrist meaning a full denial of the person of Jesus Christ.  

And those are things which qualify someone to be President of the United States?  No, not to mention Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which we are ignoring. 

Reaching a Consequential Decision

Those who were raised in Evangelical churches eventually come to the point of having to make a consequential decision.  One of the distinctive doctrines of Evangelical Christianity is the belief that the Bible is inerrant, infallible in its content, and is the sole authority for the faith and practice of the church.  However, few Evangelicals show much evidence in their lifestyle of the effects of a Christian gospel that they claim is "transformational."  Their push toward Christian nationalism is an admission of failure on their part to reach the people of the United States with the gospel, and bring about a revival that will sweep away all of the immorality they see, and bring "God's favor" on the country.  And they're not going to let core principles taught by Jesus, such as "loving your neighbor as you love yourself," and "love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you," get in their way of bringing this about.  

Nor do they show any consistency between what they claim to believe and their politics.  They consistently vote for candidates based on partisan perspectives, and then attempt to explain it away with some convoluted, theologically distorted and twisted reasoning, like the mess being circulated now to defend voting for a visibly evil, deranged demagogue by comparing him to King David and claiming that sometimes God uses evil men to achieve his purposes.  David was described as "a man after God's own heart," not perfect, but always repentant, in contrast to the unrepentant, defiant, characteristically evil Trump, who is after his own good, and doesn't really believe God exists.  God doesn't ever use men like that.  

How could he possibly use someone filled with that much hatred for other people, and who is unable to acknowledge the existence of God because he thinks so highly of himself?  Not possible.

It's Time to Leave Now

Several years ago, right in the middle of a sermon, when the GOP elephant was starting to stampede its way in, I nudged my wife and said, "I'm done, let's go."  When we got to the car she thanked me for making that move, and said she couldn't have taken another second of it.  We'd been members of that church for five years, were good contributors, regular volunteers and active members.  They practiced "loving  your neighbor" so well, that weeks went by without a phone call, or even a postcard inquiring about our whereabouts.  The offering envelopes came, as usual, a reflection, perhaps, of their true values.  

While 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump once again this year, that percentage represents an actual drop in total number, as near as I can figure, about 8 million fewer votes.  Looking at membership figures reported by Evangelical denominations, and non-denominational churches in the US over the same decade, most of those people can be accounted for.  The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, has dropped 20% of its membership since its peak in 2006, with more than 2.5 million of those occurring in the years since 2016, according to their annual reports.  In just one year, prior to COVID 19, that number was close to 450,000.  

So here's a suggestion for anyone reading this who still belongs to an Evangelical church who may be part of that 19% of white Evangelicals that didn't vote for Trump.  

Leave.  And let them know why you're leaving.  Don't leave any doubt.  

It will liberate you in ways you didn't know were possible.  

The Hidden Presidency

We live in an age of instant video communication where individuals can access information in seconds, and communicate with each other in the remotest parts of the planet.  Virtually everyone you pass on the street is carrying or wearing at least one electronic device capable of accessing almost unlimited communication.  There are now segments of our population, younger people mostly, for whom a cell phone is their primary means of getting information.  

With all of that, it's frustrating to observe that few Americans have a clue about their politics, and can answer a simple question about the administration of President Joe Biden.  What people believe about the economy and the state of the union is nothing close to reality.  And that's not because they are choosing to believe fiction over fact, it's because they just don't know the facts.  

We have had the longest stretch of sustained job growth and low unemployment through the single term of a President in something like five decades.  Every month he's been in office, there's been reported job growth, and in most months, it has exceeded expectations.  The stock market has been setting monumentally high records all through his entire term, with very few re-adjustments and set backs, and is now in record territory, where it will be when Biden's term is over.  GNP has sustained growth through the entire four years he's been in office, strong, consistent stead growth and I believe the numbers on wage growth are also better than any Presidential administration going all the way back to Lyndon Johnson.  

Like most other developed countries, the United States was hit with a wave of global inflation.  It started in other world economies before reaching hear, so it was not due to anything the President had done as far as our economy was concerned.  It was largely related to re-expansion following the COVID pandemic.  The President told us it would be a long stretch, and there were no easy fixes, but they took action which did two things.  One, the impact was much less on the American people than it was on most of the rest of the world.  Two, the steps taken to managing it did indeed bring it under control and down to normal levels, as he said it would do, and their management of it did not lead to a recesession.  The US economy is not in recession at all, not even close to it.  That silenced a lot of economic experts.  

But few people will respond to questions about this economy with the correct answers.  A majority of voters believe we are in a recession, likely not even knowing what that is, in spite of the exact opposite being the case.  People think the stock market is crashing.  They think unemployment is high and they think they're making less money because of inflation.  

In addition to this, there's a long list of legislative accomplishments the Biden administration achieved, including getting a much needed infrastructure bill passed which created jobs and which actually increased the revenue received by the federal government as a result.  He's opened up pemits for oil drilling, increasing domestic production and engineered a deal which sold off a portion of the US strategic reserves at a profit, when the price of a barrel of oil was high, and refilled the gap with lower priced petroleum, earning the government a huge profit. He led the effort to increase Social Security, the largest increase in decades, and for benefits that are now part of Medicare, including a cap on the cost of insulin for seniors and the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices.  

That's just the tip of the iceberg.  

Are Americans Really Not Paying Attention, or Are They Being Deceived? 

My confidence in the collective intelligence of the people of this country dropped like a stone in a well on Wednesday, November 6th.  As an educator, it wasn't really very high prior to that, and through over thirty years of experience in education, I've seen almost nothing to convince me things are getting better in this regard, and plenty to conclude they are getting worse.  

It is a fact, provable with all available evidence, that the Presidential administration of Joe Biden will end on January 20, 2025 as the single most accomplished and successful Presidency of the 21st century, and since that of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's.  And that's saying a lot, when the accomplishments of the Clinton and Obama Administrations are part of that period of time.  

But his achievements and accomplishments have largely been muted.  After Jen Psaki left as his press secretary, unfortunately so did the ability of his administration to express its achievements and accomplishments to the media.  Biden called few press conferences, and his administration didn't seem to make much of an effort to get itself and its accomplishments in front of a media they knew wasn't necessarily friendly to them.  But that's what Presidents do.  After seeing Pete Buttigieg serving as a surrogate to the Harris campaign, almost exclusively with Fox News, I have to wonder if he was misplaced in the Department of Transportation.  He should have been in the role of spokesperson for the Biden administration and headed up their publicity efforts.  

But I have to wonder, after these past four years, if there was anything they could have done to get more attention focused on his achievements.  

I am certain that if an audit was made to determine how many days Trump got more media coverage than President Biden, since January 20, 2021, that number would be 1,389 days.  Because that's how many days there are on the calendar since then, up until today, November 9, 2024.  Even MSNBC covers him, even if it is in a negative light.  Lawrence O'Donnell has one of the best grasps of just how evil and corrupt Trump is, but I'd be happy if someone paid me a dollar for every time his program started out with the words, "Donald Trump."  

The corporately owned media in the United States is no longer part of the free press that is a necessary element for the protection of America's constitutional democracy.  When one of the extremists on the FCC board whined about Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live being a violation of its free and equal time policy, I laughted out loud.  Every network, every television station and radio station in America that is owned by one of the big corporations or media conglomerates, has blatantly violated "free and equal time" in giving Trump a 24 hour a day, four year long free commercial.  

So when you look at the election results, it's really pretty remarkable that Harris did as well as she did.  The media helped elect Trump in a big way, by giving him center stage, and by keeping Americans in the dark about the most accomplished President since the 1960's.  

Fitting Talent and Ability to the Right Place

Franklin Roosevelt once joked that his main responsibility as President was being like a traffic cop, directing the right men to the right jobs.  The legacy of his Presidency is preserved in history as perhaps the single greatest leader in American history, surpassing even Lincoln and Washington, was largely due to the high quality of those in his administration with whom he surrounded himself.  Roosevelt chose some of the best men he could find, including several who were known to have disagreed with some of his initiatives and actions.  He listened to them, which is why he is considered one of the best.  

I'm not saying that Biden didn't pick good people or listen to his advisors.  He also surrounded himself by some of the best, and listened to them.  And when Jen Psaki was his press secretary, an articulate communicator who was direct and understandable, we heard and saw a lot.  After she stepped down, not so much.  

I think Pete Buttigieg might have been misplaced as Secretary of Transportation.  I'm not saying he didn't do a good job there, he absolutely did.  But after seeing him serve as a surrogate to Harris' campaign, almost exclusively on Fox News, baffling and frustrating their propagandists with the truth, I wonder how much better Biden's reputation would be if he'd been the spokesperson for the administration.  

Biden's Place in History

The political perspective of the United States has changed.  We have spent the better part of the last fifty years, going back to the Civil Rights Movement, convincing ourselves that our values were changing and we were making progress in becoming the first democracy to recognize and establish basic human rights over all of the cultural barriers to them.  Race and religion continue to be divisive, as they are everywhere else in the world.  Evangelicals, angry that their efforts to evangelize the population and "cure " its sins and ills through spiritual means, are turning to the power of politics to get the job done in an admission of their lack of faith in God, and are unleashing the bigotry formed by their misinterpretation and idolizing an ancient religious text.  

By any past standard, Joe Biden should go down in history as one of the most achieved, euccessful Presidents in all American history.   We've had some real losers in the White House, haven't we?  The likes of men like John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and in more modern times, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Donald Trump make average look superior.  President Biden should rank up there with JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Grover Cleveland, and come out better than Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt.  

That's if the standards have not changed.