Advice For Democrats on How to Win the Midterm Elections From My Barbershop

It's a small barbershop on the ground floor of a two-apartment flat in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.  The gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood has transformed what was once a one-chair shop on the ground floor of a two flat where the owner was the only barber to a three-chair operation that stays busy seven days a week and which, lucky for me, doesn't close until 8 p.m.  I'm in there five or six times a year, usually in the late afternoon of a weekday so I can just stop off after work.  

The neighborhood is, perhaps one of the most economically diverse in the city, where property values and rents are high, most of the houses built between 1900 and 1930 have been renovated, but there is still a large working class presence of mixed ethnicity, a primarily white population with some of Eastern European descent, many of them Ukrainians from the time this area was known as "Ukrainian Village," along with Latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans, and a scattering of people from the Middle East.  It's mainly professionals who work in Chicago's booming banking and finance, marketing, insurance and wholesale supply business, a scattering of public service professionals like teachers, firefighters and police officers, and the small business owners who populate the neighborhood, known for its cozy cafes and small shops. 

Does politics ever come up in the discussions that take place among the barbers and their customers?  

All the time.   Let me set the scene for you.  

Sam is the barber who owns the shop where he has worked for thirty years.  It's on the main floor of the apartment building where he and his family live on the second floor.  Because the neighborhood has grown and revitalized, so has his business, and he's added two barbers and two more chairs.  Sam is a naturalized US Citizen, a Muslim from Lebanon.  

His longest serving partner is Oleg, who is Ukrainian, and also a naturalized American citizen.  Oleg was a teacher in Ukraine, and came here to do the same, but found out he could earn double the salary as a barber, so he trained at barber college and came into this business eleven years ago.  The other barber is a friend of his, Alex, also a Ukrainian who is a naturalized American citizen.  Alex was cutting men't hair in a corner of the beauty salon that his mother and aunt own, about ten blocks away, and decided this would be easier for his customers.  

I was in there yesterday, and the political conversation was already going when I got there.  This shop is very busy, open seven days and until 7:00 on weeknights, which makes it easy for me to stop on my way home from work.  The themes of the discussion are very similar to what I'm hearing on talk radio recently.  Maybe Democratic party leaders need to listen to these kinds of conversations in places like this and it will help formulate some kind of unified strategy for the party to win control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. 

In this part of town, I've never heard anyone in this barbershop bring up anything that would indicate they are a Republican or a Trumper.  In most of the precincts around here, Trump got less than 15% of the vote in 2024, and in the atmosphere of the barbershop, it's probably better not to bring him up in any discussion.  

So What Advice to the Barbers and Their Customers Have For Democrats? 

Much of yesterday's discussion centered on all of the speculation surrounding Trump's involvement with Epstein.  Of course, there's more there than meets the eye, and among the barbershop crowd there is no doubt that the worst that can be imagined is more than likely true.  The conspiracy theorists and cult admirers who make up Trump's MAGA base are not likely to accept the truth when it comes out, whatever it is, because it's becoming clear that there's no evidence to support their contentions, but among those present yesterday, there was no doubt about Trump's involvement, not just in the sex trafficking, but in the mysterious circumstances surrounding Epstein's "suicide" when he was in DOJ executive branch custody during Trump's first term.   

Yesterday's discussion also included the fact that Steve Bannon recently asserted that Republicans may lose as many as 40 seats in the House at the midterms as a result of what he sees as the unpopularity of just about everything Trump has done since he's been back, from confusion about tariffs and how they are dispersed, to the "big beautiful" budget bill that gives billionaires another tax break.  

What's being said in these barbershop discussions matches what I'm hearing on talk radio's call-in shows, like Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann, and our local hosts here in Chicago on WCPT.  There is a very strong populist movement pulling Democrats back to their working class roots.  There's general agreement that taxes are out of balance, and that billionaires, who have become the wealthiest 1% in the country because of benefits they enjoy provided by the government, such as favorable legislation, tax breaks and protecting their interests, are not paying their fair share.  There are complaints that they are disproportionately favored in Congress and by the President, and the anti-oligarchy sentiment runs high among the customers in this barbershop.  

All of the barbers are concerned about where the cost of their health insurance is going.  The two Ukrainians are single, and young enough to be able to benefit from joining a group that includes other hair stylists, beauticians and barbers, and get health insurance through a non-profit group HMO, so as long as they stay within their system, the out of pocket costs are reasonable.  But the premiums are set to go up considerably in October, and while they are doing well, and have as much business as they want to handle, they are still concerned.  

Sam, who has relatives in Chicago, gets most of the group to agree that if America had a universal health care system like Canada, where most of his relatives now live, we would be getting better care and the taxes required to support it would be half of what we now pay in health insurance costs.  He and I both have relatives who are Canadian citizens, and he gets no argument from me about the cost and quality of the health care they get.  None of the other customers disagrees with us. 

Discussion of the lost 2024 election has faded, but the blame falls equally on Harris' campaign and on Biden's failure to announce he would not seek re-election until well into the campaign season.  There is almost universal agreement that this is what he should have done, stepped down and left the door open for a primary to choose a candidate.  There is strong agreement, among the customers and the barbers, that Biden did an excellent job as a transitional President, but that he should have made it clear he wouldn't run again, and let the party decide on a candidate through a primary.  Most believe that there would be a Democrat in the White House had he done that.  

And there's not universal approval of Harris.  It's not that she is a woman, which is a sentiment the media has interjected into the discussion.  Many of the barbershop customers say it's that her campaign focused too much time and energy solidifying their social issue platform, placing an emphasis on LGBTQ+ issues, especially on transgender issues, which represent less than 10% of the party's constituency, and only spoke in generalities about the bigger issues that concerned the voters, like inflation, health care and the host of working class issues that have caused a lot of marginal voters to support Trump.  

Everyone saw the commercials the Republicans ran, showing Harris' endorsement of gender affirming care, including surgery, for prison inmates.  

"She may have changed her position, but she didn't make it strong enough, or clear enough, to counter the negative publicity," say the barbershop customers.  

"I'm for equal rights for all Americans, regardless of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation," said one customer, "But that can't be the centerpiece of a campaign at a time when inflation is running over 5% and billionaires are stuffing their pockets at the expense of the working class," he said.  "I still voted for her, not so much because of her campaign promises, but because I wasn't going to vote for Trump," he said.  

The Party Needs a Leadership Change

In agreement with those who are expressing the opinion on talk shows, and with the general tone of the protest movement being organized against Trump by groups like Indivisible, there is consensus that the Democratic party needs to make some leadership changes.  The most favorably mentioned Democrat in this particular group, considering it is a barbershop in a heavily liberal, well educated, Democratic party dominated neighborhood of Chicago,  is J. D. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois.  General consensus is that he'd make a great President.  The other frequently mentioned name for the job is Pete Buttigieg.  

There's no animosity toward Gavin Newsom, and people seem to like him, they just aren't as familiar with him as they are with the local politicians.  When I asked about Ken Martin, as the new DNC chair, there was a lack of enthusiastic response from the two or three customers in the room.  Two didn't really know who he was, and one, who is as active in party politics as I am, wasn't really happy about the choice.  They were all enthusiastic about David Hogg, however.  

When it comes to Congressional leadership, the mood is dark.  The conclusion among the barbershop customers is that Schumer has overstayed his effectiveness, and needs to step down now, well before the midterms, turning the senate minority leadership over to someone else.  Tammy Duckworth, Mark Kelley, or Jon Ossoff were among those mentioned.  And there's not a high level of enthusiasm among this group for Hakeem Jeffries continuing on in the House minority role.  They aren't seeing the kind of pushback and interference from Democrats that we get from Republicans when they are the minority and they think we need someone a little pushier and shrill.  No misogyny is present in their suggestions that Jasmine Crockett or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Pramila Jayapal step into this role.  

Bernie Sanders has garnered the most praise the last two or three times I've been to get a haircut.  There are regrets that we didn't choose him in 2016, when we could have had eight years of a Sanders Presidency that this crowd universally thinks would have solidified working class Americans as a sound constituency of the Democratic party. 

"Democratic socialism is the friend of the worker," says Alex, the barber from Ukraine.  "Americans are pathetically ignorant when it comes to their use of the word "socialist."  Democratic socialism is the exact opposite of totalitarian Communism," he says, "And trust me, I know."  

It's Anectodal, But it Matches the Current Sentiment of Democrats

It's hard to say whether this barbershop customer group is representative of all Democrats.  Most likely, from its geographic location, it tilts heavily toward the core of the party.  Racially, from my observation, it's a mostly Caucasian group, with a few Chicago natives, mostly older men, and a lot of men like the barbers, from a different ethnicity and national origin.  Most are Ukrainian, Greek or Serbian, with a scattering of Polish, Hungarian and Russian natives, almost all of whom are naturalized American citizens now, or in the process.  Most are open about their political sympathies for the Democratic party, and I've not met anyone at this barbershop who openly claims to be a Republican or a Trumper.  

I've made a couple of friendships that have carried on outside the barbershop, too.  I had lunch on Friday with one man, who emigrated here from Turkey when he was two years old.  His mother is Maltese, and he's probably the most outspoken liberal I know at the moment.  He got a scholarship and majored in political science at Northwestern, and we had a good, long discussion about the Gaza War, at a table in the corner of the restaurant, occasionally looking over our shoulder.  When you see my comments here about Merrick Garland, or about the Gaza War, some of the information comes from him.  

Another friendship I've made, through our shared liberal politics in the barbershop, and now in the Indivisible chapter to which we both belong is a guy whose first conversation with me was an attempt to convert me to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  I did, in fact, attend a couple of services at the Greek Orthodox cathedral he belongs to, and we've had lunch several times, to which he always invites his priest.  Democratic politics is our common ground, discussions about his Orthodox faith and my Quaker values are secondary to that.  

So I don't know how "mainstream" or "grassroots" all of this is when it comes to what the Democratic party needs to hear from its constituents.  But what comes out of these barbershop discussions is a strong desire to see the Democratic party's message return to its working class roots, and to set itself apart from Republicans by our strong disapproval of having a morally bankrupt, valueless, criminal and sexual deviant serving as President of the United States, and by the fact that we think they have been corrupted by him to a point where they have nothing left of value to offer the process of governing the United States.  

America is, in most places now, exactly like the crowd that shows up in my barbershop.  It is a mixture of native born, lifetime Americans with a wide variety of individuals, mostly naturalized citizens from all over the world, who came here to tap into the freedom and stability that is offered by living here, not to "take" anything from anyone who already lives here.  Those who are foreign born tend to understand their role as a contributor to this country, more than those who simply take it for granted, and in a democratic society, they are making a contribution that benefits all of us.  

It's interesting how the urban environment contributes to Democratic party values and participation.  Communities form around common interests and common needs.  Education isn't disdained or considered as false promotion of ideology, it is something to be valued as an uplifting element of society that helps people live better lives.  And out of this mix of diverse populations comes a vision which sees the need for the Democratic party to make a strong return to its working class values.  

I'd suggest some of our party leaders look up from the attention they are paying to their fundraising efforts and go spend some time in a barbershop or beauty parlor, and listen to the conversation.  

The Shameful Partisan Legacy of the Roberts Court

Today, I was looking through the two workbooks and textbook that eighth graders in Illinois use to help study the United States and Illinois Constitutions, and American History.  The history text is a thick tome, which covers most of the events that helped shape the development of the United States going back to the settlement of Jamestown and Plymouth.  The constitution workbooks are each about eighty pages of information, simple, but thorough.  I wondered, as I looked at the American History text, if it would be the last objective source published on the subject, revised and released in 2023, when Joe Biden was still President.  

The content in the two constitution workbooks is thorough.  Personally, if the opportunity to revise educational objectives ever comes around again, I hope this nation considers doubling the history and social studies requirement, especially with regard to the constitution and its interpretation.  But even with the skills we give our eighth graders now, they can figure out that this current Supreme Court doesn't follow the rules.  

I started teaching Constitution and American History to eighth graders, and to high school students, in 1979.  I've been through the curriculum changes that have been necessary as court rulings were made interpreting the law, and I've been in multiple class discussions where students were following these developments as well, debating the "constitutionality" not only of laws passed by Congress, but of the rulings of the Supreme Court.  And I've noticed, just as many of my students have also noticed, that the Supreme Court, along with the federal judiciary, has moved into much more partisan territory.  It wasn't common, even back in the 70's when I was in school, to identify Supreme Court justices with the party of the President who appointed them.  Now, their votes follow the party line.  

And the current Roberts court will go down in history as the most partisan, and the most corrupt.  

Call it a White, Chritian Nationalist Agenda, Setting Up the Development of Project 2025

The influence of the Heritage Foundation and the agenda of white, Christian nationalists has been behind the last three Supreme Court appointments made by a Republican President.  All three of Trump's appointees were on their list at some point, and it was a favor he returned to them in exchange for their support at the ballot box.  And all three of them, in their testimony before Congress, as they campaigned to be confirmed, lied.  

Well, deception and dishonesty is a core value of white, Christian nationalists, and of Trump.  And it is also a core value of six of the nine members of the Supreme Court.  

So how is it possible for this constitutionally established republic to function as the Constitution directs, when the judicial branch has become as partisan as Congress?  The answer to that question is simple.  

It can't.  

But that's exactly what the Christian nationalists want.  They don't want a government of, by, and for the people, and they certainly don't want one that represents the will of the people.  They are setting it up to be their tool for control.  And the Supreme Court, according to one of their chief prophets who advocated for Republicans to make the most radical, unconstitutional judicial appointments they could find, Rush Limbaugh, saw this as the way to get around the dilemna they face when it comes to elections, which they lose as often as they win.  

Limbaugh pushed Republicans to take advantage of Democrats and their lack of emphasis on control of state legislatures, and to make the most partisan judicial appointments possible, to lifetime positions, when they had the power to do so.  Democrats, on the other hand, choose candidates who tend to be non-partisan, and more fair in their ruling on the law, rather than on partisan principle.  The Republican court appointees almost never find themselves in agreement with a ruling made by those appointed by Democrats, while the latter rule on the law, and are in agreement with their colleagues more often than not.  

Democrats Never Seemed to Be Able to Wrap Their Minds Around This Happening

The push to make the federal courts tilted toward GOP politics started with Reagan.  The original litmus test was how a particular judiciary candidate would rule on abortion.  But it has gone way beyond that, at this point.  We've had some of the most unconstitutional, un-American rulings come out of recent Supreme Courts, and they have all done their part to weaken the results of national elections and take away from the power of the legislative branch, especially to keep Democrats out.  

The whole election process has been tainted and tilted to the right by the Citizens United ruling, which now permits the billionaires who hold 99% of this country's wealth to control its elections.  And this ridiculous and completely unconstitutional ruling did its job, allowing Elon Musk to become one of the first to buy influence with the national government for the purpose of making himself even richer than he already is.  Look into what he's done, and where his money has come from.  Some of it came out of my pocket, and yours.  

Perhaps the most unbelievably unconstitutional ruling from this court, one that goes against every American value when it comes to the rule of law, is the one giving a sitting President immunity from prosecution for any crime that he or she may have committed while performing their duties.  This completely violates the whole principle of the balance of power, written in by the founders, because of their disdain for Kings, and their conclusion that all men are equal under the law.  

If these six Republican appointed justices were in my eighth grade Constitution class, they'd get an F for their lack of understanding of the principles upon which the Constitution was based.  

So why, when the opportunity presented itself, in 2020, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, did they not show some political savvy, and exhibit some bold risk taking in their politics that would have prevented the nightmare we are now forced to endure from occurring?  The power was there to amend the judiciary act, create five, or six, or eight, new seats on the Supreme Court, and give those appointments to President Biden.  Without playing politics, he could have appointed younger, more liberal justices who would outlast the current duds, and who would have, in short order, overturned Citizens United, the immunity ruling, saved Roe, and fast-tracked Trump's insurrection and documents theft trials into a verdict and prison time long before the 2024 election rolled around.  

If it's not apparent, this is one of my chief frustrations with Democratic party leadership right now.  They just don't seem to get it, that the Republicans are no longer interested in compromise, it is winner take all, and when they get the power, they are going to do things exactly like this, in order to make sure it can't be taken away while they turn the United States into a Christian nationalist dictatorship.  

The Heritage Foundation and their Republican allies are now just six states away from their goal of calling a constitutional convention, and changing the constitution to get what they want, a billionaire-controlled oligarchy.  Democrats don't even seem to be aware, in their individual, isolated, turf-protecting fund-raising appeals, that this is happening, or that efforts are underway to make sure Democrats don't get a mid-term advantage in the Congress, while the orange turd is still in the White House.  

And most Americans won't take this seriously.  

The Pseudo-Christian Cult Behind White Christian Nationalism is Achieving It's Agenda

Project 2025's takeover agenda is progressing nicely.  While Democrats in Congress are raising their individual treasure chests for a possible mid-term election run, and at the same time, avoiding any real "rock the boat" kind of behavior, anything that might be misconstrued as genuine and possibly effective opposition to Trump, and a few organizations, centered around raising money, are also pushing dates for protests, marches and rallies, and the nation is distracted by the possibility that its chief executive may have been much more deeply involved in the child sex trafficking, raping, and subsequent "suicide" of Jeffrey Epstein, white Christian nationalists are checking off the boxes of the list of things which must be done to dismantle the American democracy as it exists, in order to bring about their desired reconstruction of the republic.  

Nationwide Protests, Marches and Rallies are Fine, Up to a Point, But Those Opposed to Trump Need to Make Themselves Aware of Christian Nationalism to Effectively Oppose It

Any progressives or liberals who are interested in saving this country's constitutional democracy need to educate themselves about what is happening, and about the ideology and philosophy that is behind the agenda of white Christian nationalism.  This group of individuals, operating inside a pseudo-Christian veneer, have established a blueprint for taking over the government of the United States, ostensibly, because they need the support of conservative Evangelicals to tip the electoral balance in elections, because as the "chosen" agents of God, they are charged with the responsibility of preparing the world for the second coming of Christ.  

I won't link it here, but one of the best primers on white Christian nationalism and its plan for the reconstruction of the American republic has been laid out in book form and published under the title, The Reconstruction of the Republic, by Harold O. J. Brown.  Brown's primary angle as a Christian nationalist and reconstructionist is that he is one of the most influential apologists for the pro-life movement.  

Within American conservative Evangelicalism, this is actually a theological position in the area of eschatology, which is the broader subject involving what they refer to as the "end times," their belief that the world will come to an end, be judged by God for its wickedness and destroyed.  The Second Coming of Christ will be the final redemption of the saints, those who have remained faithful through the increasing wickedness of the world, following a series of events they claim to have discerned from the Bible, mainly the Old Testament book of Daniel, and the New Testament book of Revelation.  Christian nationalists like Brown hold a view known within Evangelical ranks as "Postmillenialism."  

These are people who see themselves as being "chosen" to be on a mission for God, and as a result of that mission, and their "chosen" status, the basic principles of the Christian gospel, like the Beatitudes, Jesus' stating that loving one's neighbor is the only pure demonstration of one's love for God, and all of those values around which he taught that the church was to identify itself and testify about his salvation from sin, can be set aside to achieve that mission.  After all, God allowed his chosen people, the Jewish nation in the Old Testament, to brutally conquer Palestine, under the mandate that the only good pagan was a dead pagan.  The pagans were the Canaanite population that occupied Palestine when the Jewish nation, under Joshua, the successor to Moses, conquered them.  And that's where Christian nationalists get most of their ideology and their alleged mandate, from a gross misinterpretation of the old covenant that Jesus claimed he came to fulfill.  

So, in pursuing their mission from God, which involves preparing the world for the second coming by taking over the United States and using the power of its government to cleanse the world of those who are predestined to be reprobate, a Calvinist doctrine that dominates the whole Christian reconstructionist movement, they have a mandate to destroy whatever they need to in order to achieve their purpose.  It will be, by their definition, a "just" cause.  And it will be deadly.

Are They Really on a "Mission From God," or is That Just an Excuse to Seize Power?  

I have a couple of my own theories regarding this movement, based on my own upbringing and the experience of having been raised in a conservative, Evangelical church and denomination, and then attenting a denominational college, where I took several theology and Biblical studies courses.  I think the "mission from God" talk is just cover for their real motives, and they are only using Christian nationalist influence in the church because of the power it gives them.  Baptist News Global, a publication in partnership with the Baptist group that split off of the Southern Baptists because they had been taken over by fundamentalists and right wing political extremists, published this piece by former fundamentalist Baptist and current freelance author and musician Rick Pidcock, which shows how Christian nationalists distort, twist, and outright misinterpret passages from the Bible to justify their means to an end, in this piece, 10 Bible Verses Christian Nationalists Take Out of Context to Seize Power.  

Christian nationalists aren't interested in true, Biblical Christianity.  They are simply interested in using the commitment and sincerity of millions of Christians, many of them completely ignorant and unaware of how some of their own pastors and church leaders are being manipulated, or are manipulating them, to bring this about.  If they do succeed in gaining control of the United States, an outcome that seems more likely as each day passes, they'll drop the Christian veneer pretty quickly, except for what they think they'll need to hold on and stay in power.

And Trump, at least, and perhaps Vance as well, is also just a means to an end.  His immorality and complete lack of any semblance of a Christian lifestyle is an embarassment to those who are genuine and sincere in their belief and practice of Christianity. His agenda is the destruction of America's constitutional democracy. Once he's done the dirty work of destroying and dismantling the Republic, they'll find a way to dump him in short order.   

In reality, once they achieve control of the massive wealth and power the are after, the second coming talk will fade away.  That's just superstitious folk religion to the leaders of this movement, all of whom are highly educated men.  It's the temptation to control massive wealth and power that is their motivation, the "rule of the world" that was the third temptation offered to Jesus.  And once they have it, the pseudo-Christian veneer they are using as a tool will no longer be necessary.  Once they get control, the second coming of Jesus won't be part of their narrative.  Some of the means they will use to achieve their ends cannot be justified within the framework of Christian theology, ideology and morality.  So they will let that go.

They are using Trump as a means to their ends.  He'll do as much destroying as he can, and leave them in position to take over.  His vulnerability is his gross immorality and lack of character, and his usefulness, to them, is his ability to marshall enough support to get to the political office they need to do their work.  Their real ideological allies already have the influence and some are already in the government, like Stephen Miller, and Mike Johnson, while others, within the group known as the Heritage Foundation, continue to fine tune the plan, which is making steady progress.  

Trump is a political liability they can't afford.  

This Movement is Coming Right Along

To be effective in opposition, attacks on this ideology, and on the people who are pushing it, must be exposed.  J. D. Vance and Mike Johnson are monitoring moves within the states to call Constitutional conventions in order to alter the Constitution itself for their benefit.  They are six states away from acheiving this Rush Limbaugh dream.  Look at the damage Trump has done to this country in six short months in office, most of it because he is so pathetically incompetent when it comes to performance of this job, and because he listened to the Christian reconstructionists, and put the most destructive people available in American politics into positions of responsibility in government. 

I haven't seen any signs of effective opposition.  The Heritage Foundation has done a great job of hiding its agenda, knowing that if their motives and methods were exposed, there would be a horrified reaction from the American people that would actually empower the opposition and very likely thwart any attempt by Christian nationalists to take over the government.  But the opposition isn't really opposing them.  Think about it. How many people are aware of the movement to call a constitutional convention with the power to actually change its contents, and eliminate the rights it protects, and that doing so is as close as the power of two thirds of the state legislatures ratifying the changes?  Or how close we are to having two thirds of the state legislatures being favorable toward those kind of changes?  

This is a simultaneous attack on all fronts.  And what is the opposition doing?  Protest marches, loud angry speeches, and protecting their own turf by raising money individually for a mid-term election that the Republicans are already planning to steal in every possible way.  

What am I suggesting?  

Well, I would suggest that everyone who is opposed to the whole scope of what the Republicans, and Trump, are scheming, educate themselves on white Christian nationalism, the Heritage Foundation and its history and philosophy, and get familiar with the elements of Project 2025.  Those who are involved in a church should find out where their own pastor and church leaders stand with regard to this draconian, evil entity and take away financial and intellectual support.  Leave, if that becomes necessary.  

It's time to ramp up the protests and marches, and make the presence of this opposition, which has grown exponentially, known.  Oh, come on, I know Democrats do things with decorum.  And see how well that is working.  The Republicans and MAGA extremists have already made a violent attack on the Capitol.  I'm not suggesting we do that, but there are ways to make a point without being violent and destructive.  I'm hearing and seeing a lot of frustration among those who are showing up and going to these protests, desiring to ramp up the volume and attention they are getting.  They've turned out, like asked, so why not?  

I am glad to see some initiative finally coming from the DNC.  I wish it were more directed, and had a lot more punch behind it, and had the ability to pull candidates together and unify the message instead of all of this scattered "send me money--no, sent ME money" fundrasing.  Seems like we're still showing up to the gunfight with a knife.  We have received some clear political messages over the past six months.  One is that a whole lot of Americans don't like the things that Trump is doing.  His ineptitude and incompetence, and that of the advisors he has chosen, is evidence of that.  The other is that there are leaders who are naturally rising to the top of the opposition that haven't needed the sanction and crowning of the party leadership, and they're probably successful because they are listening to the people and getting the messaging right.  

Someone better be keeping an eye out for massive voter fraud being committed during the midterms, because they're telling us exactly what they are going to do.  Can someone tell me who is responsible, among Democrats, for that not happening?  They think they are going to lose, 40 seats in the House is the number their goons throw around.  They're not going to sit down and take that.  So are we ready?  Where?  How?  Who?  

And if we do get lucky, somehow, and a new Congress can overcome the Christian nationalist regime being set up by our own Supreme Court, who, among the Democrats, is willing to take the bold risks that will be necessary to make sure we can protect this country for the rest of the orange menace's term, and save the democracy?

  

Checks, Balances and Political Opposition: Nothing Appears to Be Working

The Law and Order television series is perhaps one of my all time television favorites.  Now in syndication, it runs repeated shows all day long and even into the night on a couple of cable channels.  And if I have the time, I can sit in front of the television and watch every episode, even the ones I've seen five or six times.  

What's so fascinating about a television drama that focuses on the police and prosecution aspect of our justice system?  It's the creativity of the writers who came up with all kinds of twists and turns, a show that is never predictable, turning scenes that would be unimaginable in real life into drama that captivates viewers.  It exercises the mind, trying to follow along, picking up early hints of where things will go wrong, and then turning the plot in a different direction.  Over the course of multiple seasons and multiple episodes, the writers always managed to come up with something fresh, exciting, and they also manage to throw in their opinion of the politics going on at the time.  

I don't think the imaginative writers of Law and Order could have ever written a scenario with as many twists, turns and as much drama as this second Trump administration has turned out to produce.  There is no way the most creative drama writer could have come up with a scenario in which a large enough segment of the population of the United States would elect a President whose entire public life has been a demonstration of deviant sexual behavior, narcissism, corruption, dishonesty and psychotic emotional disability.  

Into this mess drops the news that the man who is now President of the United States may have been deeply involved with a notorious pedophile in the sex trafficking of minors, and subsequently had something to do with his alleged suicide while in the direct custody of the Department of Justice during Trump's first term in office.  

To quote what has become a common byline these days, "You can't make this stuff up."  

The fact that someone like this has supporters at all, aside from having enough to get elected President, is a sign of serious dysfunction in American culture and society.  Things are breaking down, and that includes our educational system from top to bottom, and the influence of more orthodox forms of Christian practice as conservative Evangelicals become more or a pseudo-Christian, right wing extremist political cult.

The safeguards that the founders put in the constitution to protect the democratic republic that it created were based on their assumption that the American people could be trusted when it came to judging the kind of character in people that was a necessary qualification to serve in public office.  They could not imagine that a corrupt, dishonest psychopath would ever earn the trust of enough of the population to make it to public office.  Those of dishonest and untrustworthy character who did actually get elected did so because they managed to do a good job of hiding their corruption, and deceiving people about their character, not flaunting it or making it their trademark.  

The World has Turned Upside Down 

The idea that Trump is "God's man" for somehow restoring America to its "conservative, traditional values" would be laughable, given the man's complete animosity toward God, exhibited in his lifestyle.  Those who have made this claim, mainly from the Charismatic and Pentecostal branch of conservative Evangelicalism, are obviously depending on complete ignorance of the Christian gospel, and of Biblical history in general.  They want to follow Trump, so they are manipulating unconnected theological concepts from completely different paradigms to make it sound "prophetic."  

It's simply redefining the terms "good" and "evil."   

The claim is that God sometimes uses "imperfect" men to achieve his will and purposes, and like King David, whose moral behavior included some spectacular failures, Trump is one of those imperfect people.  

Well, no.  

First of all, the United States is not a theocracy, and there's no comparison between the Jewish kingdom of Israel, and subsequently of Israel and Judah, in the Old Testament, and the United States, which is not a theocracy and is not in a covenant relationship with God.  In Christian theology, attested to by both major apostles Peter and Paul, all government exists because of God's authority, and none have been given any kind of evangelistic, theocratic mission and purpose.  That exists in the spiritual realm, which is evangelistic, and is where the purpose is fulfilled for which God made ancient Israel a theocracy.  

In order for Trump to be "God's man," in a legitimate comparison to King David, he would need to experience the full force of conviction for his sinful life, recognize the power of Jesus Christ as the savior of humanity from its sin, turn in full submission and repentance to receive grace that brings forgiveness, and then, live a life fully submitted to the will of God, which purifies.   

It's the thought of Trump submitting to anything that's laughable.  He has openly denied his need for forgiveness because, in his words, "I have done nothing that requires God's forgiveness.  

So he is not God's man at all, he is, by definition, a blasphemer of the Holy Spirit and anti-Christ.  

His political clout being used by Christian nationalists undermines their credibility.  Choosing a leader who has no respect for the values, principles and practices of the Christian faith, and who, in fact, denies them and proclaims his own religions beliefs are superior, says that the theology, doctrine and practice of Christianity are not what they are trying to establish.  They're trying to ride the coattails of a  billionaire to their own millions and billions.  

American Patriotism Has Turned Upside Down 

Do we have such contempt for our Constitution, and for the democratic republic that it establishes, that we would elect someone as dishonest, and as ideologically incompatible with American idealism as Trump is?  Something in this country has gone horribly wrong if there are enough Americans who are simply not able to see how corrupt and evil this guy is, and from his first four years in office, how unqualified and inept he is as a leader.  

The value that we are missing, collectively, as a nation, is integrity.  

The checks and balances aren't working because those safeguards that were in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening have failed, since they require a level of integrity to work properly.  That was something the founding fathers seemed to think would never be lacking in this society and culture.  

One of the powers of the President is the appointment of judges to the federal court system.  The appointments are for the rest of the individual's lifetime, until they determine to retire, or die.  The safeguard in place to make sure these appointments are fair and non-partisan, and will uphold the law rather than play politics, is that they must be approved by the Senate.  But that safeguard has been corrupted by a Republican majority that has determined to follow the President's agenda in appointing judges who will serve their partisan insterests rather than uphold the law.  

Trump, and his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, corrupted the Supreme Court by making their appointments based on political, rather than legal, qualifications.  From Bush we got John Roberts, the weakest, least effective, most partisan chief justice ever to serve on the court.  And we got Samuel Alito, corrupt in his willingness to be affected by various forms of unethical behavior--we call it bribery--and also a right wing idealogue. And we got Clarence Thomas, more affected by bribery than any previous justice ever has been.  From Trump, we got the college drunk and playboy rapist Bret Kavanaugh, another right wing activist, Neil Gorsuch, and the darling of the Project 2025 Christian nationalist influencers, Amy Coney Barrett.  

So the check and balance provided by the Supreme Court is no longer in place.  We have a court that has disgraced itself by its partisan bias.  

Judges who are committed to serving Trump's interest and who are chosen for their loyalty to him rather than their legal expertise and respect for the rule of law have now "Cannonized" the federal court system.  That's a name used this way in reference to Aileen Cannon, a federal appeals court justice appointed by Trump who is the poster child of federal judicial corruption.   

Lifetime appointments, which are the result of a high level of integrity and trust assumed as essential parts of a workable justice system, have become the biggest obstacle to draining this swamp of corruption.  It takes what is seen as an impossible two thirds vote of the senate to remove corrupt justices, something unattainable now, simply because the integrity and trust required no longer exists among Republicans.  

Ramping Up the Opposition

It may be anecdotal, but I have time, commuting to and from work, to catch a rundown on progressive talk radio that may be revealing the level of frustration with Trump, not only from the rank and file Democrats who are opposed to him, but from others who were on the fringe, and who didn't have the ability to discern just how inept, incompetent, incapable of holding office and corrupt he is, and may have voted for him because of media misinformation, or their own stupidity [and yes, that's what I mean].  I'm hearing, on both local programs, such as Joan Esposito and Patty Vasquez here at WCPT in Chicago, and on programs like Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller, a call for Trump opposition to get out of the "gather for a rally and let's count the numbers and make some speeches for local news channels that cover it" approach, to ramp up the pressure in specific places where it will be noticed, felt, and where it may get more of a reaction in response.  

There's a bit more of a shrill tone in the disgust and frustration with the fact that Trump has not faced a direct confrontation, nor had to deal with the opposition directly, beyond early morning rants on his own social media site, and his responses to perceived criticism that go off on conspiracy theorizing and unrelated tangents.  

We've never had to deal with the kind of corruption and attempts to dismantle the Constitution like we are seeing now with Trump.  We have far too many Americans who are not educated enough or informed enough to know their own history, and to know what democracy looks like, or to recognize an open attack on it.  We've reached a level of prosperous self-interest that has induced national apathy, turning away from unjustified wrong committed against others, simply because it isn't being committed against us.  We have no moral standards or ethical convictions.  And so we are willing to let some people be tormented in order to protect ourselves from the same torment.  At least, for a while, anyway. 

So the frustration level is rising.  It's the extremist right that has shown a willingness to violate the rule of law, disrespect the principles of the Constitution, and use illegal violence, including a full blown attack on the Capitol, to try and get their way.  The fact that the left, with the organized groups like Indivisible, gathering a growing group of marchers and protesters, has shown restraint when Trump and the Republicans have pulled their shenanigans is a remarkable demonstration of respect for the rule of law.  

I hope that holds, that it continues, and that we can restore constitutional democracy and clean the house without violence, and within the boundaries of the rule of law.  The effects of this kind of political oppression, however, are only beginning.  As the real effects of the crazy, back and forth, tariff today, no tariff tomorrow, up and down, indecisiveness on economic policy, like inflation and unemployment, begin to rise, so will the frustration.  

For Republicans, the result was a violent, deadly attack on the Capitol.  For Democrats and Trump opposition, so far, it's been a call for leadership change in Washington, and for the protests to become more directed at those who are prodding the frustration, including the Supreme Court.  We lost our chance to change this court constitutionally when we had a majority in both houses and the White House, between 2020 and 2022.  That's one of the reasons why those who are calling for leadership change, like David Hogg, are raising lots of money while the status quo at the DNC is not.  It why people like Pete Buttigieg, Zoran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are drawing crowds, interest and support.  

Once They Get Back in Control...

How often was it said, in the waning days of the first Trump administration, that if they were ever allowed to get back in control, they would change the rules to make it far more difficult to pry them out, or to stop their agenda, and we would have a real mess on our hands.  

Those were, for the most part, just words.  Except, now we are here, and those words were accurate.  

When we had the chance to change the rules to make it more difficult for them to do it, if and when they got back into power, we didn't do a damn thing.  We played the game in Washington by the same old rules it has always been played by, giving the other side advantages they didn't earn at the voting booth.  

Now, they are changing the rules, and they are working in every devious possible way to make sure than an election no longer has the ability to bring the kind of change we are looking for.  When Steve Bannon proclaims that the "big beautiful bill" is going to cost Republicans 40 seats in the House, that is a signal to those working behind the scenes to use whatever power they have at their disposal, including control over the balloting in a majority of counties in the United States, to make sure that they are able to cheat in every possible way.  Trump has told us how they are doing it, by whining about how he believes the Democrats did it to him.  

And they know we're not going to do much about it.  Why?  Well, we never have.  There's enough evidence from 2024 to indicate that they probably succeeded in throwing out, or not counting, several million votes that might have made the difference.  But there was no challenge offered to this at all, and they've taken this as a sign that we're not going to complain when they do it again.  And they will. 

So if we happen to be fortunate enough to get back some of what we have lost, instead of playing the old game, we need to turn the tables and use whatever power we have to our full and complete advantage.  Those who want to maintain the status quo are going to learn the hard way.  Not succeeding in being able to make progress, as soon as 2026, will lead to an awful alternative that I don't even want to think about.  

The Politicizing of American Conservative Evangelicalism is One More Chapter in a Long History of Hijacking Religion for Political Purposes

Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.  For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.  Jude, v. 3-4, NRSV

These words are believed to be those of the early Christian Apostle Jude, written sometime before 70 A.D. since he does not mention the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.  Even at that early point in the history of Christianity, an apostle had to step in and warn a group of Christians about the possibility that intruders, whose intentions are to use the church for their own purposes, not only existed, but were already out there, figuring out how to get inside a church, and get control.  

In the first century of Christianity, its primary enemies were trying to snuff it out, before it got going.  The Jewish Sanhedrin's interest was to protect its own institutional religious structure, since most of the early converts to Christianity came from Judaism.  The claims of Jesus to divinity as the Christ, or Messiah, was blasphemy to them, and there were multiple attempts to subvert the Christian church in its early years which came out of the synagogues in the same communities.  Gnosticism, which appeared in the late first century of Christianity and proved to be a particularly complicated and destructive heresy, may have been the object of Jude's assertion of the doctrine of the humanity and deity of Jesus as the Christ.  

The Romans, in the first century of Christianity, were well on their way to considering that Caesar, whoever held that position, was divine.  That, of course, clashed with the Christian teaching that Jesus was both human and divine.  It became the source of much more intense persecution of the church, prophesied by the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, which lasted over two hundred years.  As church history and wisdom points to the "blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," by the time Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, about half of the population of the Roman Empire was Christian.  

And that started a whole new kind of intrusion.  Now, instead of attempting to stamp Christianity out, Roman emperors turned to attempts to gain the favor of the church, infiltrating it in order to use its political power to support their reign.  When Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, making Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire, a whole new intrusion of political power and influence invaded the Christian church.  Somewhere in that history, and the thousand years that followed prior to the Protestant Reformation, are the roots of Christian nationalism that now plagues American conservative Evangelicals in particular, making Jude's warning about intrusion and licentiousness as relevant today as it was when he wrote it.  

A Cult is Blind to It's Own Heresy and Apostasy

The current strains of Christian Nationalism, which have led to the introduction of Project 2025 as the groundwork for turning the American republic into a Christian nationalist oligarchy, has its roots primarily in the work of reformation theologian Jean Calvin.  In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin brings back the Old Testament idea that God, as an infinite and all powerful being, has foreknowledge of the ultimate destiny of every human being.  Therefore, there are human beings, who are the highest order of creation, according to the Old Testament narratives, that are chosen for redemption and to receive God's favor by being given grace to forgive their sin and reconcile with God, and those who are chosen for damnation, who, no matter any effort they might make, remain reprobate and unredeemed.  

Calvinism has been a persistent presence in many of the Protestant denominations that emerged from the Reformation.  It is practiced by Presbyterians, and by the Reformed Church in America.  The degree to which Calvinism becomes heresy falls along a very much debated and argued line of interpretation of a few passages of the New Testament, combined with some Old Testament doctrine about the nature of the Jews as God's "chosen" people.  The evangelical branch of American Christianity historically considers Calvinism as false doctrine, and in some cases, outright heresy, when the New Testament is exposed to an academic interpretation that makes the words of Jesus himself the criterion by which all other scripture is to be interpreted.  

One of the primary influences on what we consider conservative Evangelicals in this country especially, is a theological movement based on a literal exposition of the Bible, ignoring its historical, cultural and theological context which existed at the time of its writing and which is necessary to discern the Christian gospel out of the New Testament, and which is committed to the militant exposure of any deviance. [1] The combination of an over-emphasis on the doctrine of God's sovereignty, against the responsibility of humanity, and the literal interpretation of scripture, using the King James Version rather than any Greek text, has produced a Christian nationalist perspective that has taken over a good portion of conservative Evangelicalism.  

And while Jude's warning applies to just such an intrusion of doctrine that is based on a completely faulty premise and interpretation of the New Testament, based on an inspiration theory and interpretation that ignores the criteria present in the words of Jesus, in the development of the Christian nationalists who brought forth Project 2025, I think the application is much simpler.  

The intruder identified by Jude is Trump, and MAGA Trumpism.  It is that simple.  

A Pseudo-Christian Cult That is a Complete Departure from Biblical Christianity

The Christian gospel begins with the Beatitudes, and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, not with the Ten Commandments.  In fact, in clarifying his gospel message, Jesus often started out a statement by saying, "You have heard that it was said," and then identifying the misinterpreted or false doctrine, finishing with "but I say unto you," as he corrected the misinterpretation.  When he was asked, as an expert, to answer the question, "What is the greatest commandment?" he equated the first and the second, making one single theological concept.  

The way that true Christian faith can be identified is demonstrated by a Christian in the way that they treat all other people.  In fact, in one gospel account, Jesus went on to define the term "neighbor" in a parable in which he made a Samaritan, a man who came from the most hated ethnic group of the Jewish population of Judea and Galilee, the hero of the story, and the example of one who loved his neighbor, while the villains are the established religion's leaders.  Not only was the Samaritan from a hated ethnic group, but because of his identity, to Jesus' Jewish audience, he would also have been a pagan, his idea of who God was being far separated and primitive when compared to theirs, at least in their mind.  But the point is clear.  "Neighbor" means "fellow human being" and Jesus did not distinguish ethnicity or race as a qualifying factor, nor did he separate "the chosen" from "the reprobates."  

Trump's MAGA cult has distinguished themselves clearly by those they hate, and by the cruelty, insensitivity and inhumanity they promote and advocate as a means of handling and controlling those who are the objects of their hate.  There is nothing of Christian theology or doctrine in that kind of hatred.  They are reflecting the attitude of their leader, Trump, who is yet another intruder bringing licentiousness to the church, using its influence, but denying his own need for repentance, a core doctrine of the Christian faith.  

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people--for kings and those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  This is good, and pleases God our savior, who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.  I Timothy 2:1-4, NIV  

Do you disregard the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience... Romans 2:4, NIV

For God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I Thessalonians 5:9 

My point here is not to evangelize.  It is to point out the blatant, uncontrolled hypocrisy of those who claim that MAGA Trumpism has anything to do with Christianity.  Charlie Kirk and Turning Point, who have been at this for about eight years now, have made it very clear that they submit to no Christian authority, but they have created their own pseudo-Christian theology and doctrine, and are using that to support this cult.  Conservative Evangelicals are going to pay dearly for this, apparently many pastors and leaders are either unable or unwilling to stop it, and are blind to the fact that this is a movement that is quite anti-Christ in its approach.  Some of their church members do see it for what it is, and they are taking the back door out.  Trump doesn't have the emotional or psychological ability to show submission to Jesus or to acknowledge his need for repentance.  And that, according to correctly interpreted scripture, makes him an anti-Christ.  

I didn't say The Antichrist.  All of that involves more error in interpreting the Bible than there is space here to cover.  I said, an anti-Christ, which the apostle John identifies in his church epistle, I John 4:1-3, and says that the definition of anti-Christ is denying that Jesus is Christ.  He says that many of those have gone out into the world.  Trump's ego makes it impossible for him to acknowledge Jesus as Christ.  

Christianity should not be identified by, or controlled by any politics.  It should be the salt and light in culture and society that is its identified mission and purpose.  If you are in a church where the pastor is a Trumper, and that gets mentioned in gatherings, then that is a sign that the congregation is apostate, and it is time for you to get out of there.  There are plenty of churches and pastors who have not bowed the knee.  

[1] A Brief History of Fundamentalism, Shepherd's Theological Seminary, shepherds.edu/a-brief-history-of-fundamentalism

Baylor University Takes a Disappointing Step Backward

Chris Seay: When the Ones You Love Get it Wrong

Baylor University is the oldest university in the state of Texas.  Founded in 1845 under a charter during the last year of existence of the Republic of Texas.  It's Texan, and Baptist roots are deep.  It remains one of the largest, and most influential Baptist universities in the world, certainly in the state of Texas.  Its approach to educating students in an environment that includes the core values of Christianity.  

But Baylor's approach to the Christian influence that is part of its core identity is almost the exact opposite of Liberty University, the other large Baptist university in the United States. Liberty uses rules to dictate the behavior that it believes reflects Christian values, forcing students to comply to a uniform set of behaviors that university leaders have determined are necessary signs of being "Christian."  

According to the author of the linked article, Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia, which I would describe as a very progressive, conscience-driven church highly successful at attracting millennials to its membership, and also a Baylor alum, Baylor is one of the few Christian universities that takes a completely different approach.  

"It's one of the few Christian universities that doesn't lead with fear or rigidity," he says.  "It's not like most Bible colleges, where everything is a rule, and every rule is a dare.  When something is off limits, young people will run straight at it," he added.  

"At Baylor, faith isn't enforced through shame," he says.  "It's lived out in a culture of trust, curiosity and grace.  And what I've always loved is that Baylor never seemed afraid of science," he said.  

Baylor's approach to being a Christian university, and its prolific influence among the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the state branch of the Southern Baptist Convention, is visible in the fact that the Texas branch of the denomination is far more progressive, and far more focused on the core principles and values of the Christian gospel than the rule-bound, legalistic fundamentalists who control most of the rest of the denomination.  

Baylor saved its independence and autonomy when fundamentalists were taking over trustee boards of the Southern Baptist seminaries and universities during their "Conservative Resurgence," in the 80's and 90's by appealing to its original charter, which predates the existence of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the Southern Baptist Convention.  Making sure its trustees were mostly alumni, who reflected that part of the Baptist community that believes in soul freedom, separation of church and state, and salvation by grace, rather than by following a set of rules, Baylor preserved both its integrity in adhering to the core values of the Christian gospel, and its intellectual and academic freedom.  

A Disappointment Caused by Political Influence?

The disappointing step that Baylor recently made was in rescinding a grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation for the purpose of funding research into "how religious communities--often unknowingly--have contributed to mental health struggles among LGBTQ+ individuals and how churches can play a role in healing, rather than harming."  The grant was for research to be conducted by the Diana Garland School of Social Work at the university.  

As the author of the linked article states, this is not some progressive campaign.  "It was pastoral.  It was humble.  It was meant to help."  

It was also completely consistent with the values of the Christian gospel, and the kind of thing a Christian university ought to be doing, educating the church's members in what the practice of Christianity, inclusive of Matthew 7:1-5 as a core principle (judge not, unless you want to be judged by the same standard,) and Romans 3:23, (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)  

I certainly get the fact that the poisonous political atmosphere that exists in this country can have an impact on student choices regarding the university they attend, and that Baylor is still the leading choice among faith-based universities in Texas, and indeed, nationally as well.  It would be very easy for its critics to misconstrue the university's purpose in receiving this grant, and claim that the school was "pro-LGBTQ" rather than seeing the humanitarian ministry issue that this involves.  

In the limited way most religious conservatives have in considering the Christian faith, the idea that churches ministering to sinners constitutes an endorsement of the sin is faulty. The Apostle Paul acknowledges the reality of slavery as part of the culture of the day, a mark of oppression, but he doesn't endorse the practice.  He simply realizes that people who are slaves, and those who are slave owners, are caught in the culture, and he instructs them to practice the same core principle of Christian faith, to love your neighbor as you love yourself, treating each other accordingly.  

But this is disappointing, and it does represent a setback.  Ironically, the majority of Southern Baptists in Texas are affiliated with the group that has kept its distance from the fundamentalist, conservative, legalistic denomination, and has charted a path of independence in adhering to historic, traditional Baptist values including the kind of freedom of conscience and separation of church and state that their Baptist forebearers convinced Jefferson and Madison to include in the first amendment.  

The Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation Supports Core Christian Values Consistent With Traditional Baptist Practice

Longtime members of Second Baptist Church in Houston, moving their membership to Tallowood Baptist when the former became a more conservative megachurch, John Baugh was the primary owner of Sysco Foods.  Their foundation has been a major contributor to those Baptist universities that still teach and follow traditional, historic Baptist practices that are consistent with the Christian gospel. 

Among their stated values are: 

• Caring for the most vulnerable in society.
• Intentional inclusivity.
• Seeking the truth in religious texts in an academically rigorous way.
• Guarding church-state separation by protecting freedom of religion, for religion, from religion.
• Freedom of individual congregations or faith groups to govern themselves.  

This foundation has, up to this point, given millions to Baylor, and to other colleges and universities which reflect the academic study of the Bible, and interpret the gospel in the context of its history and tradition.  That tends to eliminate a lot of the walls within Christianity and bring people together in a way that is intended to be uplifting, encouraging, forgiving and graceful.  

Too bad they couldn't get together with Baylor on this particular issue, it would be an ideal partnership.  

 

 

Of Course Politics Will Invade the Tragedy of the Texas Hill Country Floods

Houston Mayoral Appointee Removed Over Remarks Made About Camp Mystic Campers

Inexcusable.  

I don't care if she's only an appointee to the Houston Food Insecurity Board, and that's a minor political post at best, it's still a board position requiring a measure of public trust, and it also requires a sense of personal responsibility and judgment.  Sade Perkins' comments, insensitive at best, racist at worst, have no place in her realm of responsibility, and they are about as irresponsible as anything a public official could say under the circumstances.  

It's a heartbreaking tragedy, that 27 campers and staffers at Camp Mystic, a hundred year old Christian camp for girls, located among dozens of other similar camps scattered along the riverbanks, creeks, and small lakes of the Texas Hill Country, died as a result of circumstances well beyond their control and well beyond the grasp of the adults who were in charge of the camp to comprehend.  Race, in this case, is immaterial and irrelevant to the circumstances and the best judgment that Perkins could have exercised would have been to simply keep her opinions to herself.  

This kind of attitude, attempting to make an issue out of race, because of an observation this woman made as a result of the fact that all of the victims who were at Camp Mystic that had been identified so far were white, is the reason why Democrats sometimes get themselves into trouble, and why we lose votes.  We lose sight of the real issue at hand, which is the horrible suffering caused by a tragedy inserting itself into the middle of a summer camp which is supposed to be fun, inspiring and a time of personal reflection and growth.  Turning it into accusations of racism, based on photos of victims, was an exercise of incredibly poor judgment that warrants Perkin's ineligibility for any future public appointment, and also should include a public apology.  

All I know about Camp Mystic is what I've learned about it from what's been reported in the news media over the past several days, and what I learned from looking it up on the internet.  That's not enough to make any accusation about who they are when it comes to their social or cultural attitude.  Summer camps are popular in Texas, a lot of them are single-gender, the Hill Country is a popular place for them because of the unique character of the landscape, which includes intermittent, normally small rivers that are excellent for canoeing or kayaking.  The politics of summer camp can be discussed somewhere else, at some other time.  Right now, the focus is on helping those who lost their loved ones in this tragedy grieve the loss.  

Yet Another Example of Skimping on Public Works to "Cut Government Budgets"

Texas State Leaders Neglected Flood Control as they Put Money Elsewhere 

Texas is a hard state to figure out when it comes to state government and budget priorities, and it is even a more difficult place to figure out, and to live in, when it comes to natural disasters.  The state government can't decide whether it wants to be "less government," in a traditional Republican style, by allowing powerful home contracting companies to build subdivisions of thousands of homes below the flood plain all up and down the coast, or "more government" when it comes to invading women's health care by ridiculous claims which make it almost impossible for doctors to perform medical procedures involving the female reproductive system when she is pregnant, out of fear of being charged with murder for performing an abortion.  

I lived in the state for 26 years total, which included moving away and then winding up moving back as job opportunities from previous employment presented themselves.  During those years, I purchased and owned a home in a suburb of one of the large cities, and discovered the quirks of living in a place with confusing priorities, and a confusing tax system.  We did not pay a state income tax.  However, because the state proudly proclaims that it doesn't have one, it does allow dozens of other entities to levy taxes to replace money that would normally come from the state budget.  This includes school districts, municipal governments, county governments, an entity in rural, unincorporated areas called a "MUD district," which stands for "municipal utility district" which provides water, sewage, garbage collection and other services, a "county road and bridge tax" which pays for the statewide system of "farm to market" roads, rural hospital districts and the port authorities in coastal cities.  

By the time it all adds up, the amount of tax that is paid by private citizens in Texas exceeds what would be paid if there were a state income tax with limits placed on tax rates and tax increases.  In Texas, of course, the only limits placed on the taxing entities is how much they can raise corporate taxes each year.  That's a good example of how Texas looks at state government and its responsibilities to promote the corporate good at the expense of everyone else.  And that's why there is no effective flood warning system on the rivers of the Hill Country.   

This is a state where school districts invest millions of taxpayer dollars into 20,000 seat high school football stadiums with state of the art locker facilities, artificial turf and the best equipment, but won't invest in replacing antiquated, crumbling old school facilities, nor in a public education system that ranks among the worst in terms of reading and math proficiency in the country.  When I lived there, one of the favorite lines of frustrated teachers, after mutiple revisions, known as "dumbing down" of the state basic skills test failed to produce good results, was "Well, thank God for Mississippi."  Or, as I often heard, "Texas should consider annexing Mexico, in order to improve our test scores."   

This is also a state that welcomes almost unrestricted real estate development, including the construction of homes in flood plains and flood-proned areas along the coast.  My home stood exactly 60 miles from the coast, at an elevation of 54 feet above sea level.  That placed it 4 feet above the flood plain of the Brazos River, which was about three miles to the west.  We were not required to have the supplemental government flood insurance that everyone who lived to the south and west of us had, but I got it anyway, along with additional "cyclonic wind damage" coverage.  It paid off.  We didn't ever flood, though on two occasions, water came within a few inches of the doorway, but we did have to replace the roof, rafters, decking and all, along with the back fence, after a tornado in 2006, and had some damage to repair after a Cat 3 hurricane in 2008.  

Our neighbors in Pecan Grove, Grand River, River's Edge, and Greatwood, were not so lucky.  They've endured the river's rising to "hundred year flood plain" levels four times since 2010, including a catastrophic flood with Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which took over 100 lives and displaced 30,000 people. 

So, in Texas, there exists this combination that has proven, once again, to be deadly.  The freedom that screams, "The guvmint cain't tell me I cain't build my lodge, RV Park or summer camp in the known flood plain of the Guadalupe River," is combined with the frugality that declares, "We don't have the money to build more flood control in the Hill Country, or to provide an adequate warning system for those who want to build their lodges, RV Parks and summer camps in the Guadalupe River flood plain."  

And that's why politics is going to invade the tragedy of these Texas Hill Country floods.  

The Current State Government Ranks Among the Worst Ever in the State's History

KSAT anchor goes viral for 'speaking the truth' about Texas leaders

It's hard to tell which MAGA minded government officials came first, Trump, or Texas?  

I always thought that the bumbling, inept, incompetent George W. Bush would go down in history as the worst governor of Texas.  When he came along, he only had the incompetent, and totally corrupt Bill Clements to compete with.  If there ever were a term in political office during which a politician got nothing accomplished during the whole time, it was Dubya's time as governor of Texas.  Sit back, sign a few bills, and campaign for President of the United States.  That's all.  

Then there was Rick Perry.  And nothing could be worse than that bag of scum, and the corruption that came with it.  It's harder to leave the office of Governor of Texas richer than when entering, though it is possible.  Perry showed us how.  

But Greg Abbott wins the "worst governor ever" title.  He's been in office in Texas long enough to cover up as much corruption as he has instigated. 

The attitude exhibited by Texas politicians explains it all.  Falling all over themselves to impress an inept and incompetent Trump administration bureaucrat, like Kristi Noem, who deliberately delayed the arrival of FEMA aid to Kerr County by the way, and who appears frustrated because this surprise flood interupted her agenda of promoting Trump''s corruption, they made it clear that tending to her needs outweighed the importance of search and rescue, now recovery, of flood victims.  

So thanks to KSAT reporter Stefania Jimenez for helping to redirect the misplaced priorities of Texas politicians. 

And Finally, the Politics of Camp Mystic

What to Know About Camp Mystic

In all the years I lived in Texas, and taught school, I never heard of Camp Mystic.  I knew that summer camp in the Hill Country was quite popular, but there are a lot of camps of all kinds along that thirty mile stretch of Guadalupe River in Kerr County.  Every major Christian denomination in Texas has a camp out there somewhere, along with boy and girl scouts, civic groups who reach out to the disadvantaged, athletic oriented sports camps, all there to take advantage of the normally intermittent, small rivers for canoeing and fishing, and the relatively dry climate in settings between the hills that provide a perfect outdoor camp setting.  

Along with the summer camps, there are multiple small lodges, and plenty of RV parks, to house the thousands of people who visit the area.  Tourism is the top revenue producing industry in the county, and the camps account for a lot of that revenue.  

It's not surprising to learn that Camp Mystic is a sort of uniquely Texas institution.  A camp exclusively for girls, which blends outdoor activities with instruction in things like cooking, dance and aerobics, along with instruction in inner and outer beauty, blended with both Catholic and Protestant camp activities, Bible study and worship, has captured the culture of Texas.  And while it doesn't appear that the program is overtly political, the camp has attracted the children of Texas politicians as diverse as those from the Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush families.  

The real questions about the camp are more about its location, and the emergency action plan, the most recent approved by the state just days before the flood.  It's become obvious, from the aerial photos, that the lower portion of the camp, situated on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, was well below the flood line.  The camp has flooded before, catastrophically, in fact.  And while the Hill Country is normally a much drier, more arid climate, the unique feature of the Coastal Bend puts it in the path of tropical moisture, causing heavy storms to form, and stall out, over the rocky, hilly landscape.  The rivers can swell to flows ten times their normal capacity in a very short period of time.  But, noting that there are literally tens of thousands of homes across the state that lie in flood plains, it's not surprising that this camp did as well. 

Taking weather warnings seriously is always a problem.  When I lived in Texas, on the coast, warnings about hurricanes never got much attention.  In 2003, the director of a Baptist encampment at Palacios, which was right on Matagorda Bay, got a lot of flack for ordering the evacuation of about 250 campers attending a week of youth camp, when a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico suddenly strengthened into a Cat 1 hurricane aimed at Matagorda Bay.  When the storm did make landfall, just a few miles west of Palacios, as a Cat 2 with 100 mph winds, it was not the storm surge, which did not overtop the 12 foot levee surrounding the camp, that caused damage, but an F-1 tornado that tore through the camp, lifting roofs off two main dormitories and causing the walls to collapse, and toppling the roof of the historic tabernacle where campers worshipped in the sea breeze.  

There were warnings.  And over the next few days, we will find out how seriously they were taken by the camp staff.  The focus is going to be on Camp Mystic, because of their high loss of life, but there are many other harrowing stories of escapes all along the river, from other camps as well as from RV parks and small lodges.  

But we aren't likely to hear or see much in the way of criticism of public officials as a result.  This is Texas.  Their local news media, and the local government officials will do their dead level best to cover up any mistakes or wrongdoing that makes Republicans look incompetent.  There will be little in the way of accountability for the chronic lack of flood control safety along these rivers, and no one will be blamed for the tragic loss of life, because Republicans don't accept that kind of responsibility.  Efforts are already underway to cover up the fact that Kristi Noem deliberately delayed the appropriated FEMA aid.  Was she trying to make herself look bad?  Too late for that, but does she want the government to look that way on purpose?  

I'll be curious to know if any of the parents whose daughters died in that flood will sue Camp Mystic for liability.  Right now, every effort is being made to make it sound like they did everything right.  If that's the case, then why did 27 campers and staff, potentially more to come, lose their lives?  

So of course, politics is going to invade this story, and it's appropriate, in those places where it is relevant.  But don't count on fair treatment or genuine transparency.  These are mostly Republicans we are dealing with.

The Unthinkable Has Happened: Welcome to the World of a Partisan, Biased, Supreme Court

The small university I attended, in its prudence and efficiency in the courses and majors that it offered to its students, offered courses that could be counted toward more than one major or minor.  So as a result of that, as a history major and English minor headed toward earning a secondary level teaching certificate, I took a course called "American Constitutional History and Law," which counted toward my major, but which pre-law students could also count toward theirs.  The small school had just one professor who taught upper division pre-law courses, and she was an outstanding expert in the field. 

Yes, she was a female, which, at that time, was unusual in a small, denominationally affiliated university where 80% of the faculty in every discipline except education, was male.  She was the only full-time professor who taught pre-law courses, the others being attorneys who were alumni, and were adjunct professors.  But it wasn't her law school background, or experience as a practicing attorney that I thought made her the expert in constitutional law that she was.  It was the fact that she was an immigrant, a Palestinian Christian refugee from the West Bank, who went through the process of studying the Constitution and learning about it in order to become an American citizen, which she did, during the middle of her teaching tenure. 

It was her experience in becoming an American citizen that gave her a deep appreciation for the freedom that her citizenship gave her, and her love for this country that was so visible in her teaching, and made her such an effective instructor.  She knew the Constitution, and the history of amendments and judicial rulings better than anyone I have ever met.  

All of Our Discussions About the Court Were Possibilities, Not Realities Back Then

My four years in college coincided with the four years of the Carter administration.  I started in the fall of 1975, a year prior to his election, and graduated in the spring of 1979, just prior to the beginning of his campaign for re-election, and just a few months prior to the Iranian hostage crisis that brought down his Presidency.  The court had Nixon's fingerprints all over it, through the justices he appointed were far less partisan ideologues than those appointed by any Republican President since then.  Justices White and Marshall, appointed by Kennedy and Johnson, were the only ones appointed by Democrats in the White House.  

So it was, in that college level Constitution course, that the discussion often turned to possibilities that the potential existed for a Supreme Court to become partisan, and upset the delicate separation of powers that was one of the keys to democracy's survival.  Even in the fall of 1978 and the spring of 1979, my professor sensed that change was coming, and that events in the Middle East would push the United States toward a more conservative political atmosphere.  And the influence of that push would have its most profound effect on the American judiciary, including both the federal court system, the appeals courts, and the Supreme Court.  

"Those positions are lifetime appointments," I can still hear her say, "And so the ideology and partisan influences of Republican Presidents have the potential to last for generations after they are out of office, especially if they are re-elected."  

That was combined with her prediction that the United States was turning conservative because of fear of events occurring in the Middle East.  There would be a reaction, she insisted, to the Carter-led initiatives which brought about the Camp David accords, on the more radical side of Arab Islamic activism, something that she observed growing up in Beirut.  And she was convinced that an election, which included the effects of a right-moving reactionary influence, would lead to a more activist, more partisan, less impartial Supreme Court.  

To the students in a small, religious-affiliated college in what was a very red state at the time, the thought that Presidents would appoint justices for partisan political influence was difficult to grasp.  Presidents, regardless of partisan affiliation, were supposed to take care to preserve the separation of powers by appointing justices to the court on their merits and as an advancement of their achievement, not pluck them out of the federal judiciary because they had a more partisan reputation and might consider themselves obligated to the President who appointed them well over their qualifications.  Past history, at that point, could easily be forgotten or ignored.  

I cannot imagine what she would be saying in a Constitutional history and law class now, were she still teaching.  Our discussions of what a partisan Supreme Court might do were all theoretical.  But here we are, with a court that is no longer hiding its partisan favor, uniting as a gang of six to back a President who is openly abusing the powers of the office of the Presidency.  In her rebuke of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's strong language in the minority opinions she has written, Justice Amy Coney Barrett more or less admitted that this court doesn't care about the Constitution, it cares about what Trump wants to do.  

What Can Be Done With a Renegade Court? 

Our discussions in that college course often involved the difficulties that would occur when a group of justices, appointed for life, become unaccountable to the people, and obligated to the demagogue who appointed them.  It was difficult to imagine the kind of hard line partisanship that would prevent the most obviously corrupt and dishonest members of the federal judiciary from feeling the sting of impeachment and removal, but the fact of the matter is that this is exactly the position in which we find ourselves.  The two thirds majority necessary for removal, when Democrats hold a slim majority, means convincing somewhere between 12 and 14 Senators, give or take a few, with the evidence.  

I doubt that there is a single honest Republican Senator now, who would bother to look at the truth. 

The opportunity to change the makeup of the court, without waiting around for the bad ones to kick the bucket, came just once, between 2020 and 2022, when Democrats had the majority in both Houses and President Biden was in the White House.  Maybe hindsight has given some Democrats a better perspective on this lost opportunity of a lifetime.  It would have been a bold, and perhaps risky move to take the necessary steps to pack the court by amending the judiciary act to add five seats for Biden to appoint, neutralizing the conservative majority.  It would have meant parting ways with the undemocratic and stupid Senate filibuster for good, something the old school Democratic Senators seemed loathe to do.  

But it would have neutralized the Trump appointees bent on supporting his agenda.  Imagine the possibilities.  Trump's trials on indictments related to his incitement of insurrection, and stealing classified documents would have been expitited by a court that would have swept his delaying tactics out of the room and taken the case themselves.  They would have overturned the ridiculously unconstitutional immunity ruling they made, overturned Citizens United, and saved Roe.  Trump would likely be in prison instead of in the White House.  Whatever needed to be codified into law could have been taken care of before the 2022 elections rolled around.  

And I still have an open question about why we didn't do it when we had the chance?  Where was the boldness, the insight, the will, or do Democrats still not take this threat seriously? 

Winning the midterms, even getting control of the House back, would be a good thing, of course.  But the problem is the Supreme Court standing behind the demagogue fascist Trump.  Until the makeup of that court is returned to judges who have the integrity and character necessary to properly execute those duties, and these six imposters are impeached and removed, or forced to resign, we will never get our American Constitutional Democracy back.  

Republicans Are Helping the Democrats Campaign for the Midterms

With sixteen months to go before voters go back to the polls to cast ballots in what will be a referendum on Trump's second term, there are some signs showing that Democrats might wind up doing better than the poll numbers we are seeing at the moment would indicate.  Frankly, the poll numbers indicate that the American electorate is ignorant and unaware of what Congress is doing, and they are also frustrated by what they see as a lack of anyone actually doing anything except spending an inordinate amount of time raising money for their own campaign.  Congress is not popular right now.  

And for that matter, neither is the President, who is getting the worst polling numbers any President has received at this point in their term.  If these polls are accurate, once again that's a big "if", we are able to say that two-thirds of American voters are now against him.  And I'd say that's a good guess, given the fact that we don't know everything we think we do about the 2024 election, and by observing what has been happening around the country with regard to resistance.  

Let me clarify one thing for the sake of this discussion.  "Resistance to Trump," and "the Democratic Party" are not synonymous.  Yes, there are a lot of grass roots Democrats who are helping form the base of those who are resisting this convicted felon demagogue who sits in the White House now, but the movement has gone beyond the Democratic party's ability to control it, or to provide a political foundation for it.  It is based on opposition to the things this President is doing to undermine and destroy the Constitution and the democracy that established and ordained it.  

The Great Republican Foot-Shooting Contest 

I can't remember the last time one of the political parties passed legislation through Congress that they were afraid to let the American people know exactly what was in it, to the point where they started a legislative session in the middle of the night to hide what they were actually doing.  Deliberate dependence on the ignorance and willful unawareness of the voters is dangerous.  When voters are made aware of what this bill will do, in order to participate in an opinion poll about it, three fourths of them disapprove of it, including a majority of those who identify as Republicans.  

So, this can be a midterm campaign issue, provided Democrats are successful in their efforts to create widespread awareness of exactly what this bill has done, and tie the consequences of it to the Republicans in Congress who supported it.  There were plenty of Republicans who didn't want this bill, either, but they no longer have a functioning party.  Their elected representatives, right down to the few house members and senators who claim differently, are rubber stamps for this President, and that has the potential to end their power in Washington as a result of the 2026 mid-term elections. 

The Republicans have shot themselves in the foot, and now must work to try and undo the damage they have done by keeping American voters in the dark.  

What Democrats Must Do To Take Advantage of This GOP Blunder

 I'm not a big fan of James Carville, but he's a fairly accurate predictor of election outcomes.  He often gets off his own script, and lets himself get carried away, and he, like every other political pundit, can make some blunders, but he's usually pretty observant and he uses fact, not off the top of his head babbling.  Carville predicted that Trump's big bill will create a "mass extinction event" for Republicans, claiming that the Democrats could easily pick up 40 house seats as a result.  

"Political anthropologists are going to look back on this and it's going to be called a 'mass extinction event,' because there are a lot of them going to go extinct when people go to the polls examining on this," he said.  I agree with his assessment, provided the Democrats are unified in their messaging and keep hammering away at the theme that is killing the GOP, and that is they are giving tax breaks to billionaires, at our expense.  It cannot be simpler than that.  

And that's what worries me.  

The Republicans just invested most of their political capital in promoting one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation Congress has ever led get out.  The momentum is on our side, if we stay on task and on message.  Goodness, if Carville is optimistic, then the politics must be lining up with the Democratic party.  What could go wrong? 

We need an active, enthusiastic, visible Democratic National Committee.  Frankly, we haven't had this, and my optimism has dampened quite a bit with the criticism of, and then departure of, David Hogg.  Wrong move, there.  This moribund organization has still not been able to get its collective rear end in gear and become productive.  Sorry, but there's no evidence that can be pointed to which would change anyone's mind, and I see no plans and no follow through, even as this bill made it through the house this past week.  I'm still waiting for the "War Room."  

And while we are headed toward the midterms, now sixteen months away, who is keeping an eye out for massive voter fraud?  Of course they're going to try.  When a state like Georgia, for example, arbitrarily purges its voter rolls of what they call "inactive" voters, who gets in touch with those people and makes sure they register again?  And in those states where Republicans are, by every piece of polling data imaginable, underwater, who is going to make sure that all of the things they've charged have happened over the years will not be something they try to pull?  Because they are going to try. 

Sixteen months will go fast.  I get all kinds of emails from random candidates here and there asking for money.  But I see no real organized effort to get these candidates on the same page, and convince people to vote for them again.  There are three special elections coming up soon, in districts that Democrats held, and need to keep.  And I have that sinking feeling, once again, that no one is paying attention and the party is going to let these seats go for lack of trying.  

The other party has handed us the biggest political favor they could have done, in getting a lot of publicity for a bill of which the vast majority of Americans, something like 2/3 of them, don't like and believe is a mistake.  Democrats cannot affort the luxury of sitting back and protecting their own jobs and turf, but must, instead, make bold, risky moves to protect our Democratic government and keep it going.