Crawling Out From Under a Rock and Getting Out of the Bubble

 Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.  When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.  Psalm 146:3-4 ESV

The election is over.  Trump lost.  There is no credible evidence of "massive voter fraud."  The election officials who handled the process in their respective states did as good a job as they have ever done.  Trump's call for poll watchers produced what has become the most observed election process in American history.  And what we are seeing now, in the President's behavior and in the response of those who have had to buy into his political support for their own survival, is the pitiful proof of what his critics have said about his complete unfitness as a leader and the awful corruption of his administration.  End of story.  

This President's most ardent supporters, the conservative side of Evangelical, Protestant Christianity, are in deep trouble and open denial.  Denial to the point where you have to wonder if some of these people are living on the same planet with the rest of us.  Trouble in that self-proclaimed "Evangelical Christian" leaders are saying and doing things that undermine virtually every doctrinal and theological point they preach to their congregations.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to take some of these pastors, preachers and ministry leaders seriously because of what they are doing and saying when it comes to Trumpian politics.  Sure, this is America and free speech and expression are constitutionally protected, but there are consequences for lying and no excuses for these self-appointed leaders not to check the facts first.  Their credibility is gone.  

When Christian leaders get away from preaching the gospel and venture into secular politics, losing credibility is a risk they run.  When those leaders become so caught up in partisan politics that they deny the truth, the consequences can be disastrous.  And the fact of the matter is that the alliance that has formed between the Trump administration and some Evangelical Christian leaders is wreaking havoc on churches.  Offerings are down, attendance is down, membership is declining.  But beyond that, an increasing number of Christians, and I put myself in this group, are losing the trust they once placed in many well-known, self-appointed Evangelical Christian "leaders."  And there is more than just anecdotal evidence that this is happening.  

For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.   Matthew 24:24 NRSV

When the author of this verse used the term "great signs and wonders" he was most likely referring to things that were miraculous or supernatural in nature, or at least appeared to be that way to those who were observing.  There are those within Trump's Evangelical base who indulge in "signs and wonders" and who claim that these things point to God's favor being bestowed upon this presidential administration.  That may be more widespread than it appears since it isn't theologically or doctrinally "correct" to admit to the presence of Pentecostal-type signs and wonders in some Evangelical circles. There are others who, without any substantiation or evidence, wrap themselves up in the lies and deceptions of conspiracy theorists like "Q Anon."  But whatever path they may take, I believe that Evangelical Christians who support Trump have indeed been led astray by a mirage reflecting things that do not exist, ignoring the evil that has been done.  

The evidence that is clear points to the truthful evaluation of the Trump administration as the most corrupt in American history, undermining the very roots of this constitutional republic and bringing us a close to the brink of a dictatorship as we have ever experienced.  It has eroded trust and confidence in institutions of our government on which its ability to function has rested.  It has been motivated by greed and self-interest, evident in the lopsided tax benefits given to Trump's wealthy friends and in the pardons handed out to self-confessed criminals who were deliberately obstructing the constitution and the rule of law for the personal benefit of this President, not in the best interests of this country. 

"Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.  Ah you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight!  Ah you who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant at mixing drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of their rights.  Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten and their blossoms go up like dust, for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts , and have despised the word of the Holy one of Israel."  Isaiah 5:20-24, NRSV

Trump had a long legacy of corruption, business failure and fraud, adultery and lying, earning most of his personal fortune off entertainment businesses like strip clubs and casinos.  He literally glorified his womanizing, used it to build the kind of worldly reputation that he sold to the entertainment industry.  He gloated and celebrated the corruption he was able to get away with in business, and he brought it to his administration, resulting in multiple investigations and an impeachment.  Those who provided the testimony to, and evidence of, this corruption are his own business associates, lawyers and political appointees.  Check your facts on where all of the information in those investigations came from.  It didn't get "made up" by Democrats, it came from people who knew Trump personally and who accepted his offers of jobs, his business and now his political allies and associates.  Evangelicals who say "I'm not electing a pastor-in-chief" are hypocritical in their denial of the truth. 

It could be that we are seeing, in Biblical terms, the chaff being separated from the grain.  Evangelical Christian leaders have been like the proverbial frog in the kettle when it has come to seeing the signs of church decay and decline that church researchers were pointing out more than a decade ago, and have been loathe to admit it.  But the declining attendance and membership is also being mirrored in collection plates which is being followed by staffing cuts, elimination of programs and reductions in the number of missionaries being sent overseas.  The venerable Southern Baptist Convention, largest of American Evangelical denominations, has finally admitted that many of its state bodies, along with its own seminaries and mission boards, have burned through reserve funds and most are going through a massive reorganization, restructuring and downsizing process to adjust to the reduced income.  

Is it coincidence that some of the most monstrous scandals among Evangelical Christian leadership has happened during this same time frame and has beset some of Trump's most ardent admirers among the self-identified Evangelical community?  The scandal that hit the Falwell empire is as tawdry and twisted as some of Trump's antics have been.  Falwell has been as ardent of a supporter of Trump as he was a judgmental critic of Bill Clinton.  His recent actions show us that, for him at least, it was all about the politics and never about faith in God.  The silence about both Trump and Falwell from most of those considered leaders of the Evangelical political right is a demonstration of widespread hypocrisy.  Remember that the next time you hear one of them preach.  

Revival isn't coming as a result of electing the "right" politicians, notwithstanding the fact that someone who has made a public career out of indulging the flesh like Donald Trump would never qualify as the "right" politician in any case.  There's a commonly held belief among many American Evangelicals that they and their churches will be the vehicle through which America will experience a spiritual revival and a "return to God" so to speak because many of them think of themselves as being more doctrinally and theologically correct and closer to Biblical truth than other Christians.  But how "correct" can you be when your discernment has been so bad and you have been, and still are, blind to the reality that is staring you in the face?  No prophetic word is coming out of that kind of confusion. 

If Evangelical Christians have any hope at all of being part of any spiritual revival that God brings to America, if that's his will, they will have to crawl out from under the political rock that is powerfully holding them down and robbing them of their credibility.  Repentance, perhaps collectively in the case of some churches and denominations, is in order, from the sin of believing that political power is mightier than God's power and of acting like that is the source of truth.  A true spiritual revival, something that is talked about frequently but which is rarely seen, doesn't start in the voting booth.  It starts with humility at the foot of the cross.

"And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time."--Peter, the Apostle, First Epistle 5:5b-6 NRSV

An American Election Primer From a Long Time Civics Teacher

This morning, I decided to stop looking at social media.  I taught Civics, Government, US Consttution and History for the better part of 35 years and it hasn't been very encouraging to observe most of the comments, wondering if any of my former students are saying some of what I'm seeing.  And I have to wonder, if all of these people finished high school in this country, how effective our social studies curriculum has been for the last half century.  From what I'm seeing on social media, we really need to make some drastic changes in what we teach and how we teach it.  

What's so hard to understand?  

Elections are Delegated to the States

There is only one "federal" election, the Electoral College, and even it is subject to rules made by the states.  All other elections are delegated to the states who then divide up the responsibilities to counties and municipal units which set up the logistics according to their own plans.  State legislatures make the rules for conducting elections, determining voter registration, how ballots are verified, cast, delivered and counted.  Most are fairly consistent but there are differences from state to state and those differences are responsible for some of the confusion that is happening now.  

Remember Florida in 2000?  The disaster that occurred in that state wound up holding up the results of the presidential election for over a month.  Every county had its own way of doing things and several of them used a "punch card" ballot that no one noticed was not really efficient until the close nature of the election required scrutiny of every single ballot.  But they learned something from the embarrassment of being labelled as "Flor-i-duh."  The legislature approved early voting.  People can vote in Florida for up to a month before the actual election date.  They introduced mail-in voting prior to the 2016 election, requiring ballots to be mailed in so that they can arrive before election day.  As soon as the early voting and mail-in voting starts, the ballots are verified and counted.  On election night, Florida's counties released the results of the 75% of the vote that had been cast by mail or in early polling locations before 9 p.m. Eastern time.  The election day tally was all that was left to count and they wrapped that up before 10 p.m.  

Pennsylvania's legislature is a little more old fashioned.  They do not allow any early polling locations.  Just this year, reluctantly and because of COVID, they decided to allow mail-in balloting, but they determined that no votes could be opened, canvassed and counted before 7 a.m. on Election day.  Most Republicans followed the President's rhetoric about both COVID and mail-in ballots and waited until election day.  But Democrats are a majority of registered voters in Pennsylvania and they, along with almost 60% of independents, opted to vote by mail.  That means more than half of what looks like it will be somewhere north of 7 million votes, have to be opened by hand, have the signatures checked and then the ballot flattened so it goes into the counting machine and then counted.  And that is why it has taken three days to count most of the ballots.  

If they had canvassed the ballots and checked all the irregularities prior to the election, all they would have to do now is run them through the machines.  But to make sure the count is accurate, and that there is no fraud, it takes about sixty seconds to process each ballot.  That's six million envelopes because each ballot is enclosed in an inner envelope with a signature inside the one in which it is sent.  

Even at that, most counties in the state are small in population and in the rural areas, there are more Republicans than Democrats and Independents, so maybe a fourth, or a third, of the ballots came by mail.  But the majority of Pennsylvanians live in clusters of counties around urban areas.  A fourth of the voters live in Philadelphia or one of the four counties that surround it and another 10% live in Allegheny County, which is Pittsburgh and its suburbs.  Smaller urban areas, Allentown-Bethlehem, Scranton, Erie and Harrisburg, account for another 20%.  So that means 11 counties have to count about 80% of the more than three million mail ballots that were sent in and they can't touch them until election day.  That's why Trump let by nine points at the end of the day Tuesday, and why his lead dwindled and then evaporated as mail ballots are counted.  Over 75% of the mail in vote has consistently gone to Biden, because over 75% of Pennsylvania's Democrats and independents voted by mail. 

The same phenomenon is visible in other states where there were high numbers of mail-in votes.  There is even more pressure in Wisconsin, for example, because the majority of its Democratic voters live in just a few counties and almost half of them live in the city of Milwaukee.  Wisconsin does allow early voting but the bulk of their mail-in vote was turned into boxes at polling locations the week before election day, so it took longer on election night to count.  Biden's margin in Wisconsin depended on the Milwaukee vote, which is why it appeared to "flip" in the middle of the night.  They counted all of their ballots then reported the results of over 100,000 of them at about 1 a.m.  Biden got over 80% of the vote in Milwaukee, so he went from being behind by a couple of percentage points to being ahead by a fraction of a percent. 

Social Media Distortions

The President gave broad hints weeks before the election that indicated he knew he was likely to lose it.  Social media picked up on his themes.  It really amazes me how, after four years of being caught having told some of the most outrageous lies that people still fail to question everything he says.  He has been setting up the narrative about not trusting the ballots since the last election.  But there's only fraud if he loses.  If he wins, then there's no fraud.  A sixth grader can see how ridiculous that is.  

Social media already had memes and posts available to start posting on election night to perpetuate the image that Trump was right about election fraud.  One post put up a list of official looking voter registration numbers and claimed that the vote totals in Wisconsin exceeded the registration.  It wasn't true, about 80% of the registered voters in Wisconsin cast ballots.  But that didn't stop the post from circulating.  Then there were the videos from people claiming to be poll watchers, telling of mysterious vans pulling up in the middle of the night, dropping off boxes of ballots to vote counting locations "after they had already counted all the ballots."  There's no shot of the van, the boxes or the votes being counted, it's just an allegation.  One of the videos claims it is in Detroit.  

It is certainly feasible that vans dropped off boxes of ballots at odd hours all night because over 100,000 voters dropped their mail-in ballots off on election day at the collection boxes scattered all over Wayne County.  Precinct workers bring the boxes from the polling places to the counting location, accompanied by one Republican and one Democrat poll watcher.  But the election board has to send workers to pick up the drop boxes and they also must be accompanied by one Democrat and one Republican poll watcher.  Since they can't open the boxes, they have to have vans to transport them and workers to load the boxes into the vans.  Wayne County was the most heavily observed vote counting location in all of Michigan so it is not likely that a van could pull up and secretly deliver thousands of phony ballots with over a hundred Republican poll watchers, double the number of Democrats, all over the room and 24 hour live camera streaming of the whole process.  

Racial Slurs

The focus on ballot counting in cities like Milwaukee and Philadelphia, and in Wayne County, Michigan and Fulton County, Georgia is a subtle way of saying that African Americans can't be trusted when it comes to counting votes. Trump's call for supporters to crowd into places where votes were being counted, aside from demonstrating inexcuseable ignorance of the vote counting process by a President who should know better, not only created confusion and chaos, which was one of his goals, but he was saying "you can't trust Black Democrats with the election process because they cheat."  This from a guy who knowingly accepted Russian help with his first election.  

There were not many other places in the country where the ballot count was watched as closely as it was in those counties.  Most states have strict laws requiring a Republican, a Democrat and an Independent voter to be present when ballots are counted, especially when mail-in ballots are opened and counted.  They must be involved in any decisions regarding handling ballots that are rejected by machines, witnessing signatures, transcribing ballots that are spoiled or won't go through the machine and everything is verified down to the time that poll workers take breaks and go to the bathroom.  Polling locations are watched just as closely.  

Of course, large cities with large African American populations have had some highly publicized incidents when it comes to attempts at voter fraud.  But the bigger picture is that voter fraud is rare, more legend than fact, and there has been more of it in rural areas and small towns, especially in the South, than in the large industrial cities of the Northeast and upper Midwest.  It has only been in the past three or four decades that African Americans have registered to vote in similar percentages to whites.  The number of incidents of voter fraud are tiny compared to the number of votes that are cast and the verification processes have become virtually foolproof. 

Of course, as the cities and their suburbs have become the centers of political power, resentment among those in places that can't match the vote totals grows and making accusations that "shenanigans" are going on is a way of venting frustration. As far as reported incidents of irregularities goes, smaller counties and rural counties have a disproportionate share of them. There will always be people who try to cheat, but there has not been any evidence at all of "massive voter fraud" in this election.  

If you want to read about real election "shenanigans" andwhat that looks like, check out The Mueller Report. 

   

George Washington was Right

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

This paragraph is from George Washington's farewell address given at the end of his second term,, right before he retired to his home at Mt. Vernon.  At the time, most Americans couldn't imagine the country without Washington as its President and having to serve in his shadow made things rough on his successor, John Adams.  Washington was an accomplished statesman, a figure behind which Americans, in spite of already looming regional, cultural and political differences, could unite.  He saw his main responsibility as one of setting trends and traditions which would be of benefit down the road to the new government.  Perhaps more than any other political figure of his time, Washington had seen first hand the bitter and deadly conflict that erupted between people of similar racial and cultural backgrounds over differences of opinion regarding the way human beings should be governed.  

There is nothing that illustrates the wisdom and truth of Washington's statement better than the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first 20 years of the 21st.  As a history teacher for over 25 years, these words of Washington are included among the more memorable contributions he made to this nation.  They tend to come to mind frequently in this period of time when political parties have become so uncompromising and insistent on their own way that they have disabled the government to the point where it cannot function as it was intended, on the backs of negotiation, compromise and mutual respect.  

I was just a junior in high school when Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency after his role in engineering the Watergate Scandal, which was perhaps the largest single government scandal in American history up to that point.  In school we were always taught that the principles upon which the country was founded were anchored in the Constitution and that a government "by the people" was virtually safe from crisis or tyranny.  Nixon's resignation, while providing a good example of exactly how the Constitution could work in a crisis, also created a sense of uneasiness.  My American history teacher pointed out that while Nixon's guilt was openly evident, there were those who supported him anyway, hard line partisans who shared his suspicions of media bias and promoted unfounded conspiracy theories, including one of the senators from my home state.  

Watergate was nothing compared to the Trump Administration.  When the Republican members of the Senate, except for one, determined that they were not willing to hear evidence in Trump's impeachment trial, they were doing exactly what Washington warned us about.  They set aside the Constitution in the interest of their own partisan agenda.  

If you want to read the evidence, there is a mountain of it.  The Mueller Report contains over 400 pages of documented evidence, almost all of it provided by individuals who worked for Donald Trump as part of his campaign or were appointed to his administration.  These are people who had to come to a point where they had to make a choice between loyalty to country or loyalty to Trump and to political party.  There were enough true patriots among them that they chose loyalty to country.  The same is true of the investigation into the Trump Ukraine scandal.  

Look at what has happened to those who left the Trump administration because their consciences could not support remaining in it.  John Bolton was one of the most respected, and most ambitious, politicians in the Republican party.  Quite partisan himself, Bolton was highly respected among Republicans for his hard-line positions when it came to the Middle East in particular.  Branded as a "war monger" by Democrats, Bolton had served as US Ambassador to the UN during the Bush Administration and as National Security Advisor during the Trump Administration.  Read his book.  It's an eye opener.  Coming out against Trump's corruption by publishing a book full of undeniable facts has put him on the outs with most Republicans.  Personally, I was never a big fan of Bolton but clearly, he's a patriot.  His facts, mostly eyewitness accounts, are irrefutable. 

And what's happened to General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who served as Trump's Secretary of Defense, and General John Kelly, who was White House Chief of Staff?  Mattis, who was widely respected by members of both parties for his integrity was forced out of his position by Trump who refused to listen to his advice, resulting in the disaster which occurred when the US withdrew from Syria and abandoned our Kurdish allies who had basically defeated ISIS for us.  Kelly, a retired Marine Corps General, served initially as Homeland Security chief in the Trump administration, but as people kept leaving and getting shuffled around because they couldn't get along with Trump, Kelly became White House Chief of Staff, replacing Reince Preibus when he quit.  

It did not take long for Kelly to realize what a terrible position he had placed himself in. His influence diminished quickly as he clashed with his boss who refused to treat him as an advisor and who demanded that he be a "yes man."  He has become one of Trump's most vocal critics.  The way Trump treated these men and the derision he continues to hurl at them is perhaps the best example of what Washington was referencing when he spoke of "cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men who will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and will be able to usurp for themselves the reins of power."  Bolton, Kelly and Mattis were genuine obstacles in Trump's way.  Partisan distortion has made them goats, when they should be honored as true patriots.  

We are in this mess largely because our educational system has failed to give its students the kind of foundation in history and civics that is necessary to keep the electorate informed.  The video clip of Trump mocking a reporter with cerebral palsy should have ended his candidacy and resulted in his complete censure by the Republican party.  The fact that he is, today, in political rallies, praising and joking about some extremists who tried to run a Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road in Texas should tell you everything you need to know about his moral bankruptcy and that of anyone who thinks that was funny.  

Hopefully, it is not too late to heed Washington's warning and save our country.  

 

Proud to Cast My Ballot in 2020

I am looking forward to casting my ballot tomorrow.  I plan to vote early, mainly because I've observed the social distancing inside the early polling location and I am comfortable with that.  As far as my choice for President goes, my mind has been made up for a long time.  The decisions I've had to make have to do more with local and state offices and ballot propositions and on those, I'm ready now.  I

I like to consider casting my ballot in a positive way.  Politics in this country has become so divisive and the rhetoric so negative that I make it a point to make sure that I am casting my ballot in favor of something, not against something.  To be sure, there are things I will be voting against, but I will start with the positive points.  

I am voting for law and order.  That starts as the top with a President who does not consider himself above the law.  I'm voting for a candidate for President who won't ask his subordinates to choose between personal loyalty to himself or loyalty to the people who elected him.  I'm voting for a candidate who will carefully select the people who serve in his administration and cabinet and won't wind up with a long list of convictions, prison time and resignations on top of resignations when they were forced to choose between their job and their integrity.  

I'm voting for a candidate who believes that there is a lot more to law and order than just calling out the National Guard and arming police departments with assault weapons.  This is America, not Russia,  and I am voting for a candidate who is able to discern the root problems behind crime, social unrest and violent protest and is willing and able to use the law enforcement powers of the Presidency to resolve them.  I'm voting for a candidate who has been part of a Presidential administration that succeeded in seeing a drop in the rates of crime and violence as a result of their initiatives while in office.  The social unrest and violence that has erupted in the wake of a recent cluster of killings of African Americans by police is happening on the current President's watch.  It's not something he can blame on his opponent.  The problems that are causing the violence are clear.  I'm voting for the candidate who has clearly discerned how to resolve them.  

You can't be for law and order, and then turn around and pardon someone like former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich or commute sentences for your political allies.  

I am voting for the 20 million Americans who finally secured health coverage under the ACA and for the 180 million who have pre-existing conditions.  I am one of them, and in this particular regard, I am not willing to vote against my own interests.  Health care is a basic human right and in a country with a government that derives its power from the people, should be the same shared obligation for protecting its citizens as the common defense.  There are multiple successful models for doing this everywhere.  There is no reason why our government cannot come up with a health care plan that makes it possible for every American to access our health care system when they need it.  And I am voting for a candidate who has been involved in the success of the previous administration in this regard, and has a plan for going beyond that success in the future.  His opposition has been bragging about "the best health care plan you will ever see" for four years now.  We've seen nothing.  So I'm voting to move forward on this.  

I am voting for truth, character and integrity in the Presidency to matter again.  Back during the Clinton administration, a number of prominent Evangelical leaders were critical of the President because of his lack of faithfulness to his wife.  One of them, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Adrian Rogers, preached a sermon in his church that linked the trustworthiness and character of the person who held the office of the presidency to the behavior he exhibited in his moral life.  Republicans were quick to jump on that argument when Bill Clinton was in the White House.  "How can you trust someone with the leadership of the nation who lied to and cheated on his wife?"  It was a good question then, and I think it is still a good one.  Somehow, it's been turned around to "We've not electing a Pastor-in-chief but a commander-in-chief."  And so a man who cheated on and lied to three wives, and bragged about them to enhance his reputation in the world is now embraced as a political ally.  

The end result of his leadership is quite visible for those who have taken off their blinders and allowed themselves to see.  Over a hundred administration officials have resigned their jobs and left, people appointed by the sitting President who refused to do things that were unethical including admired and trusted military leaders like General John Kelly, who resigned as White House Chief of Staff, and General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who quit as defense secretary.  Virtually all of the evidence in the investigations against the sitting President, from Mueller to the impeachment came from the President's own administrative appointees and staff members, not from his opposition.  Eight of his advisors and associates are in prison.  What does that tell you? I'm voting to drain the swamp. 

I am voting for Black Lives to Matter.  That's not to say all lives don't matter but let's get to the heart of the issue.  Systemic racism still exists and it is not enough to say that things for African Americans have come a long way.  Until opportunity is genuinely equal, and African Americans are treated equally under the law, we can't quit.  And it doesn't stop there.  We need leadership in office who recognizes that a problem exists and is capable of uniting the people who have the power and leadership ability to work on the root causes of it, and respond with a solution instead of violence.  

As a Caucasian male, there is no way that the life experiences I've had can lead me to understand the experiences of most African Americans who grew up in this country.  So we have to be willing to listen and understand and think of everyone as Americans who have citizenship in this country together, accept differences and then actually do something to make it better.  

I'm voting for a candidate who cares about the Presidential responsibility to protect and defend. We have seen no leadership at all from the sitting President when it comes to the coronavirus.  Over 200,000 people have died, many of them because hospitals are swamped and medical care is stretched to the breaking point.  

I am voting for experience, a proven record of success and leadership ability. 

The facts are the facts.  Tenure and experience are assets, not liabilities, especially when it comes to the Presidency.  I am voting for a candidate who has earned the respect of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.  During his term of service, more than 50 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate are on the record praising his leadership ability, his willingness to work across the aisle and his desire to be of service and benefit to the American people.    

Senator John McCain didn't always agree with the current Democratic nominee in the senate, often engaging in debates from the opposite side of issues.  But the fact that they shared a friendship and a personal admiration for each other shows that they understood the unproductive, divisive nature of partisanship and were capable of rising above it when it was necessary to benefit the American people.  I have the utmost respect for Senator McCain, though I didn't often agree with him, one of the best reasons I can think of to vote for the current Democratic nominee is the endorsement given to him by McCain's widow, Cindy.  The next presidency cannot succeed if it is buried in the divisiveness and hatred that gets tweeted out daily from the current occupant of the White House.  It's time for a genuinely Bi-partisan spirit to take over.  

I'm voting for the reporter with cerebral palsy who was mocked by the sitting President during his first campaign.  It should have ended there.  Partisan divisiveness is the only reason it didn't.  

I'm voting for the best chance we have to overcome partisan divisiveness.  There are always multiple issues at stake in any election which make it difficult to prioritize their importance.  Partisan loyalty, something George Washington had the foresight to warn against, requires buying the whole package just to get the things that are in it that you want.  Third party choices and single-issue voting are both ways to exercise your constitutional right in this regard, but neither of those options will eliminate the larger issues that exist.  

I do not support the concept of abortion on demand.  However, I also do not see that there is a viable government-imposed mandate against it that will succeed.  I see almost no real effort on the part of those who want to eliminate it by government mandate to do anything about it otherwise.  Evangelical Christians, who are the most vocal opponents of it, have spent all kinds of efforts to elect candidates who will end it and have nothing to show for it since those efforts began.  They spend billions of dollars on building large church facilities that are used, in most cases, for a couple of hours a week and millions more in interest on the loans they've taken out to build them, but they spend very little on meaningful ministry that would impact the root causes of abortion and lead to a decline in the numbers.  

But some of the health care initiatives of the Obama administration did indeed deal with root causes of abortion.  The numbers went down significantly while these initiatives for women's health were in place.  Government should not be the only means by which the abortion totals are reduced but it appears that at the present time, there isn't a viable Christian ministry option.  And as long as the President's only genuine interest in the issue itself is how to use it to get votes, which seems pretty clear, it nullifies the single-issue voting argument.  

There are some things I am voting against.  I am voting against the most corrupt political administration in American history, documented by evidence given, not by Democrats who are his political opponents, but by the people he hired and appointed to work in his administration who came forward and reported the corruption they saw happening and who testified to what they saw.  Virtually ever bit of information documented in the Mueller investigation and in the Ukraine bribery investigation came from Trump supporters and appointees. 

I am voting against conspiracy theorists, deep-state antagonists and their media propagandists.  Trump didn't start this mess, but he has supported it by being a contributor to it and  by having several who are involved as part of his White House staff, most notably Steve Bannon.  The Republicans complain about "Antifa" but these people are just as dangerous because the false content they produce motivates anarchists, white supremacists and other extremists to violence. 

They've fallen flat on their face by trying to create a scandal that doesn't exist around Hunter Biden.  There's nothing criminal there and against the backdrop of the kind of corruption that is common in Ukraine, Hunter Biden's business involvement looks like a Sunday School picnic compared to some of the Trump scandals.  Other than being his son, there's no business connection to Joe Biden which is the lie the conspiracy theorists are pushing.  They've had to offer bribes to get anyone to come forward and the one guy who did sure didn't give them their money's worth.  The narrative has changed to more blaming of the "mainstream media" for not putting the story out there.  

Free speech doesn't mean the freedom to lie without responsibility.  Apparently, it is up to the American people to hold this administration and President accountable for its lies and for generating fear and suspicion with phony conspiracy theories without credibility or support.   

I am voting against the racism and white supremacy that is such a visible part of the current Presidential administration.  

I'm voting against a President who has attempted to use COVID-19 as a political issue and has failed to provide any measure of leadership that would have helped the country get through the crisis.  I am voting against his failure to use the power of the Presidency to organize a nationwide effort of awareness and prevention and to coordinate the production and distribution of essential materials and supplies needed to protect front line workers and treat those who were sick.  

I am voting against a President who, while participating in the rhetoric attempting to pin the labels of socialist and Marxist on Democrats, has extended credibility and recognition to two of the world's most notorious Communists, Kim Jung Un and Vladimir Putin.    

I voted.  And I'm proud to have exercised this constitutional privilege, especially in this election.

Modern American Mythology

The ancient Greeks produced a very creative and imaginative world that existed only in the mind.  Human problems and issues were magnified to extremes and common fears were resolved by the unlimited scope of imagination of the human mind.  While mythology was a very real part of their life, as much as any religion can be part of anyone's life, the narratives were fictional and reality turned out to be a much different proposition.  At least, from our perspective of looking at it more than two thousand years into its future, it is at the very least entertaining.  

The mythology that has developed in this country in recent years is not nearly as entertaining, though there are times that the things it causes people to say, with a straight face into a television camera with millions of people watching, cause people to, as the modern text communication expresses, ROFL!  Unfortunately, misleading and deceptive are much more descriptive adjectives, especially when the myths roll off the twitter feed of a public official or show up in a televised debate where the presence of a fly was the highlight of the Vice President's presentation.  

The modern American mythmakers are not nearly as imaginative and creative as the ancient Greeks, who blended their mythology with a theatrical flair and wrote scripts for plays they presented in the theater to help bring myths to live in the only way possible.  Today's mythmakers, people like Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity,  Laura Ingraham and the Tweeter-in-Chief are lacking that theatrical flair.  Their presentation is pretty dull, the misinformation is predictable and the myths are dangerous, especially with instant and immediate communication.  Facts are their enemy, so let's put a few out there and watch the mythological bubbles pop.  

Mail-in voting will create the opportunity for massive voter fraud and give the Democrats the opportunity to steal the election 

Mail-in voting has proven, by all evidence and measurements, to be the safest way to deliver ballots in an election.  It is safer and more secure than machine voting, makes it easy to track exactly where the ballots came from and actually prevents fraud because once the mail-in ballot is requested, the voter's name is recorded, the ballot is in the custody of the postal service once it is sent and using the voter's residence address allows the registration to be cross-checked in order to make sure it is coming from the person who sent it.  Several states have been using mail-in balloting for more than a decade and there isn't a single shred of evidence of any "massive fraud."  Trump himself has voted by mail-in ballot more than once.  

Given the Trump campaign's own record of attempts to use outside influences to steal an election, if there's a risk that the Democrats would use mail-in balloting to steal the election there is at least an equal, if not greater risk that the Republicans would also try it.  And the pure fact of the matter is that a percentage of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents will all vote by mail in this election.  

The attacks on the integrity of the election process by Trump, and now by Pence, are unconscionable, especially since there is absolutely no evidence to support those claims.  Voting is sacred in this country, and no patriotic American would ever refuse to accept the results of an election and submit to the peaceful transition of power, which is one of the major strengths of our democracy.  So we're seeing Trump's true colors here.  

Nothing demonstrates to the voters the fact that Trump knows he is going to lose this election more than his whining about the trustworthiness of the electoral process.  

America is not a Democracy, it is a Republic

A Republic is one of several forms of indirect Democracy.  Yes, America's form of government is a Republic, but a Democracy is not a form of government, it is a principle of government based on the idea that political power is derived from the will of the people.  

The American Republic has always had difficulties keeping itself democratic and avoiding autocracy or even authoritarian practices because no government is perfect and there are cultural influences dragging it the other way.  When the Constitution was ratified, the phrase "all men are created equal" did not apply to all women, Native Americans, African Americans or those who earned wages by working for others instead of owning their own land.  Over time, through some extremely difficult circumstances, the American Republic has moved closer to the Democratic principles it claims are the foundation of its existence, but inequality still prevails and there are those who see that being more democratic may disadvantage the privileges they have because they are still among those who use their perceive elite status to gain benefits for themselves at the expense of others. 

Those people are recognizable in government because they are the ones who favor policies and actions which suppress the voter turnout, place restrictions on participation in government, gerrymander the drawing of congressional districts.  That runs counter to the idealistic interpretation of "all men are created equal" which does not recognize gender, racial, social, economic or educational differences.  If you want to see which political party and politicians are advancing that idealism, take a look at the racial, ethnic, economic, gender, social, religious and educational diversity of the two major political parties and tell me what you see. 

America is a Democracy.  It has a Republic for its form of government. 

The polls were wrong in 2016 so they're going to get this one wrong, too.  

Polls and pollsters do not make predictions.  They gather data, run models and calculate the odds.  Most of the major polling organizations in the US, including those used by the major news networks, were within one or two percentage points of the actual outcome of the election in 2016 from the top to the bottom of the ticket.  

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes.  That is a "moderately" close margin, but even with the variances that fall within the polling data, all of them were within the margin of error and most of them were within a fraction of a percentage point of predicting the actual percentage of the vote that each candidate would get.  In the three states where the electoral votes put Trump over the top--Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania--the difference in the percentage of the vote between Clinton and Trump was a fraction of a percent, in Michigan and Wisconsin, a microscopically small difference which would not have shown up in any poll's data.  

The composite pollsters, like 538, RealClearPolitics or 270 to Win, did not make "predictions," they used the polling data and the other data they roll in to gauge the potential outcome of an election and they provide "odds of winning."  Just prior to election day, Clinton's odds of winning came in between 53% and 56% to Trump's 47% and 44% respectively.  They weren't wrong.  In fact, a difference of under ten percent between the two candidates would reflect a vote margin of less than 4 million votes in any national election.  And Clinton did wind up getting 3 million more votes than Trump.  The odds in each of those three states that Clinton would win were much, much closer, less than 1% in Michigan and Wisconsin and 2% in Pennsylvania, which are well within any margin of error.  

"The polls got it wrong" can easily be translated "It's looking more and more like my guy is going to lose this election."  Trump continuously points this out, more than 300 tweets from him over the past week are critiques and lies about the polling data that rolls out pretty much by the hour these days.  As Biden's lead grows to 13% nationally, and his lead in several swing states is big enough to take them out of the "swing state" category, his odds of winning not only the popular vote, but the electoral college, have grown considerably larger than Clinton's were in 2016.  There's not any way to compare the two elections, they are totally different. 

If you elect a Democrat, America will erupt in social unrest and will turn toward Marxism

America has been erupting in social unrest, which is a sign of a sharp divisions in the perception of the direction the country is heading and a sign of a government which is lacking in responsiveness and competence when it comes to getting at the root of problems and fulfilling its constitutional obligations and expectations.  Those scenes of burned-out neighborhoods in Minneapolis, boarded up stores and shops in multiple cities and violence occurring all over the country are scenes from Donald Trump's America, not Joe Biden's.  Pointing to something that is a current reality and blaming it on the person who is campaigning to take your job is an indication of a lack of respect for the intelligence of your own supporters.  

"Law and order" requires far more than just sending in military armed to the teeth and shooting people who are exercising their first amendment rights.  The fact that this President thinks his solution to the problem, the use of brute force, will resolve anything is more than enough reason to make sure he does not get re-elected.  If you're for "law and order," then you subject yourself to that law, you don't use your power to live above it.  You also don't selectively pardon criminals just because they are your friends and they commit their crimes while working for you.  

All the "socialist" and "marxist" talk is billionaire blabber.  The only move in this country toward "socialism" is a proposed takeover of a health care system that is a disaster.  

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is incompetent and not impartial. 

I find is somewhat fascinating that the exact same FBI under the exact same director was praised and lauded for its thoroughness and effectiveness in its investigation of Hillary Clinton's potential breach of internet security policy (not law) of the state department, but was criticized as being politically one-sided, corrupt and ineffective in its investigation of Trump's potential collusion with the Russian government, and subsequently in its investigation of the attempted bribery of the Ukraine, especially after they turned up evidence resulting in plea deals and convictions of Trump officials and obstruction of justice by the President.  

Trump's tweets through all of that remind me more of a verse from the book of James than they do of anything from Greek mythology.  Can fresh water and salt water come from the same spring?  Even after being called on it on multiple occasions, Trump has still not come up with the promised evidence of the FBI's "corruption."  And the director he fired, James Comey, has gone from relative obscurity to celebrity status.  

To date, in spite of hundreds of tweets, dozens of accusations and false statements to the press, no evidence, not one shred, not even something that hints at something else, has turned up which supports Trump's claim that President Obama was "spying" on his campaign, waiting for him to do something wrong.  The FBI remained, as it has always been, independent and its director just did his job.  It was Trump's own associates--people he hired and appointed to work in his own administration--who handed the FBI the information they needed to complete their investigation and which eventually led to an evidence supported, legitimate impeachment.  

Covid-19 is a hoax. 

As more than 20 White House and Trump Administration staffers have come down with Covid-19 in the past couple of weeks, including the President and First Lady, this one can just kind of sit there. It will go down in history along with his statement, "I'm not taking any responsibility for that" when he confirmed that he wasn't going to lift a finger to take any action to protect American lives or help handle the threat of the pandemic.  

Covid-19 is not a hoax, but the President's leadership sure is.  He can rail about this being the "Chinese virus" all he wants, but the fact of the matter is that his incomprehensible, unconscionable failure to demonstrate any kind of leadership is a fact that will, more than any of the rest of his corruption, moral failure and incompetence, be responsible for the fact that Americans have become the country in the world that has suffered the most and been affected the most by this viral pandemic.  His legacy will always be his failure to lead and COVID-19 will be the most vivid reminder of that indisputable fact.  

America: Love it or Leave it!

 This is a phrase that I most frequently hear from people who consider themselves conservative American patriots.  They are generally referring to protesters, people who complain when a Republican President is in office and who generally are vocal about their discontent with conservative policy.  Oh, yeah, I get that they are just venting frustration and attempting to change the topic of discussion because they can't handle criticism of their favorite politicians.  

But after events in Michigan today, and some of the rhetoric that is now swirling around Washington, DC, it is taking on a new meaning.  

We live in a country with a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people.  Until recently, I thought that it might be next to impossible for a tyrant to emerge here, but the current Presidential administration is giving me second thoughts about that.  So if you're a patriot, and I mean a true patriot, there's nothing wrong with being critical of your government.  You have a recourse for change.  It's called "voting."  If you don't take advantage of it, well, then that's your fault.  If you don't like the results it produces, then if you're a true patriot, you accept the fact that people who think differently than you do have exactly the same rights, privileges and ability to make a change that you do, and when the time comes around again, you go vote again.  

You're not always going to get your way.  In some circumstances and some places, change doesn't happen frequently.  If you aren't happy with liberals in charge of the government in your state, move to one where conservatives are in charge, or accept the results of the elections and go on with your life.  At the federal level, this is a big country and public opinion is going to shift over time.  Chances are good that for about half of your lifetime, you'll have to endure a Presidential administration and a federal government that is dominated by a party that you disagree with.  If you're a patriot, you understand that's part of what comes with being an American.  But you don't make false claims about unfair and "rigged" elections without proof or evidence and you don't threaten to ignore the will of the people if they don't vote like you think they should.  If that's the way you feel, then you need to pack your bags and go somewhere else.  But don't stick around here and mess it up for the rest of us.  

Governor Gretchen Whitmer was elected by the people of Michigan.  After having a governor in office whose policies hastened the state's economic collapse, decimating its cities, his administration's blunders let to contaminating the drinking water in one of its larger cities, Flint, and then he failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership necessary to resolve the crisis, failing to repair the damage that had been done and leaving it without a drinkable water supply for years.  Tired of his failed leadership, the voters overwhelmingly elected Whitmer and provided her with legislative support.  

Faced with another crisis, this time the spread of COVID-19 which hit Michigan hard, Whitmer demonstrated the kind of leadership that the former Republican governor of Michigan never demonstrated.  Exercising her constitutionally-given emergency powers, her leadership helped the state weather the crisis.  Her actions led to slowing the spread of the virus, making sure there was adequate hospital care for the more serious cases, securing adequate testing to help with quarantine efforts and helping the state get through a nasty "peak" period of its spread.  Michigan is now one of the states that is safely opening, recovering nicely and putting people back to work thanks to her efforts and she enjoys a high job approval rating among the state's voters.  

No matter your opinion of her handling of the situation, there has been absolutely no excuse for the criticism she has received from right wing extremists who have bullied and attempted to intimidate state leaders because of the restrictions.  You don't have to like them, but this is America so you have a choice.  You can either decide you're going to live with the situation, because the state government is acting according to the expressed will of the people, or you can leave and go somewhere without those kind of restrictions.  And good luck with that, since the places that have failed to provide the kind of leadership for their state's people that Whitmer has done for Michigan are seeing infection rates and death rates soar.  But there's no tyranny involved here, just a whole lot of ignorance and selfishness.  And some dog whistling from a President who is now suffering politically because he has failed to do what Governor Whitmer has done--protect the people of the United States by taking leadership during a crisis caused by a viral pandemic.  

Americans have frequent opportunity to make whatever changes in their government they want.  They can do it every time they go vote.  The people of Michigan did just that in 2018 and the governor has followed the law in every step she has made to protect the people of her state from the spread of this virus.  If people aren't happy with it they can vote to make a change.  If that doesn't work out, well, if you don't like living under a government "of, by and for" the people, then you are free to go elsewhere to pursue happiness.  Moderates, liberals and progressives are just as entitled to win elections and run the government as conservatives are and when they do, you either live with it, stop complaining and go vote, or leave.  But you don't take up arms and commit treason.  

And if you're occupying the White House, you don't publicly encourage that kind of behavior on twitter.  Voters, take note and hand out some consequences for that, too.  It's your government and you can do it if you want to.  

I'm Not Voting for a "Pastor-in-Chief"...

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.  Isaiah 5:20

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save.  Psalm 146:3

I've pretty much stopped looking at social media over the past month.  As the election approaches, and the tension mounts, the rhetoric is getting pretty ugly.  Most people don't seem to be able to find words to express themselves, so they just post memes which are really statements which are missing rational thoughts.  

One that was particularly annoying tried to make note of the fact that Christians can't vote for a Democrat and be true to their faith.  If you feel that way, you've completely missed the point of the Bible's writers have to say about what it takes to become a Christian.  Aside from the fact that to make such a statement is an incredibly insensitive personal judgement which falls outside the scope of acceptable Christian standards, anyone who would make such a statement is either completely ignorant of what is going on politically, or has made a willful decision to compromise their convictions based on narrow political self-interest.  

A False Dichotomy

Abortion rights are not the only issue in this campaign.  Personally, I'm opposed to allowing abortion to be practiced as a legal means of birth control, and have always been pro-life, from conception to the grave.  But I'm not willing to support the election of a politician whose corruption and narcissistic behavior undermines the integrity of the office he holds as well as the principles of our constitutional free Republic.  This President's incompetence, corruption and lack of integrity are far greater liabilities for the United States of America than the ability of a woman to abort a fetus.  The former is completely undermining the nation.  The latter can be resolved in other ways when those who are opposed to it are willing to get past the idea that a political solution to the problem is the only solution to the problem. 

The evidence of Trump's corruption is documented fact.  Most of the facts which support charges of obstruction of justice by this president came from individuals he himself appointed to office, his own cabinet members and associates who worked with him during his campaign and during the first months and years of his administration.  Is that a surprise?  Prior to becoming President, this man had a reputation wrapped up in years of debauchery and immoral behavior, fraud, lying, cover-ups and crooked business dealings.  

His political enemies have a lot to talk about, but the evidence of his corruption and incompetence has come from those within his own party and his own White House administration.  Some of them realized how bad it was and got tired of carrying the burden associated with it, walking away when they had the chance and saving at least some of their dignity and personal reputation.  Others had to be threatened with indictment and prosecution for their own crimes, well, in fact, some of them were prosecuted but they still provided us with the information.  What Trump has done, which turned up in both the Mueller investigation and in his impeachment, outweighs any possible political benefit that might come out of his dubious position on abortion, about which he has no personal conviction except for its use as a political wedge.  You're not advancing your cause by supporting Trump if this is the reason.   

Some Perspective on Abortion as a Political Football

Abortion isn't going away just because a President has appointed a few conservative justices to the Supreme Court.  The current chief justice has committed himself to the position that the Roe v. Wade decision is, in his own words, "the settled law of the land."  I've never heard Justice Roberts actually articulate any personal conviction about abortion as a practice.  He's Catholic, which is not an indication of his view on abortion one way or the other.  His rulings and comments would indicate that he leans heavily toward the "liberal" perspective on the court with regard to Roe.  He's the gatekeeper, so it is unlikely that under his leadership, the court will ever hear a precedent-setting case that would either take the guts out of the Roe decision or overturn it.  

Trump's two current Supreme Court appointees both testified before the Senate that they hold a view similar to that of Roberts when it comes to Roe v. Wade.  Both have a record which would indicate they are not likely to rule in a way which would overturn previous precedent-setting cases.  Both specifically addressed the issue of Roe v. Wade in public statements in front of both the judiciary committee and the entire Senate that they believe the Roe v. Wade decision is "settled law."  

That kind of zaps the reasoning for Christians to support Trump.  Beyond that, what do you have?  A man who has lived his life and made his fortune capitalizing on his lack of moral conviction and character integrity and flaunting his crude, immoral behavior, the kind of lifestyle every Evangelical Christian pastor preaches against every Sunday.  It's either inexcusable, willful ignorance or a deliberate choice for Christians to support him.  It's hypocritical to excuse it by claiming to be "electing a commander-in-chief, not a pastor-in-chief". Collectively, those in the Evangelical right who bashed Bill Clinton because of his lack of character and immoral behavior have turned themselves into hypocrites and liars with their unqualified support of Donald Trump.  I won't put myself in that position. 

Where's the Church? 

Abortion isn't going away until the underlying causes of it are addressed and resolved.  The church, and particularly the Evangelical Conservative American branch of it, has had decades to do something about it besides whine about who is on the Supreme Court.  While spending literally billions of dollars each year on the Christian entertainment industry, and billions more on the principle and interest payments for capacious, luxurious edifices in which people gather for a few hours a week, it spends next to nothing on ministry that would reach into the communities where abortion is rampant because of the lack of education and the presence of poverty and deprivation.  

The Obama administration, of which Joe Biden was a member, invested some real cash in communities where long standing systemic poverty and crime were rampant.  The result was a decline in the crime rate, and a noticeable decline in the number of abortions performed in this country in a year.  Isn't that what we're after?  Yeah, it's a government program but if it helped change hopelessness into hope, provided a light at the end of the tunnel, and helped someone see their way clear to keeping and raising a child instead of aborting a pregnancy, isn't that the desired result?  Better to spend tax dollars that way than on tax cuts for people who are already too wealthy to notice.

And from a Christian perspective, aren't we supposed to be chasing away the kind of ignorance that causes people to make poor decisions by leading them to know Jesus?  Why can't we spend the kind of money on ministry to people where decisions about aborting pregnancies are made based on whether they have a roof over their heads or food to eat, which is why most abortions happen?  Why are we leaving that kind of ministry to the "liberal" churches?  If you want to be taken seriously, then your actions need to be consistent with your words, and on this particular issue, action is sorely lacking.  

Take Some Initiative

Several years ago, I encountered a Christian "children's services" agency operated by a major Evangelical denomination that had an adoption agency as part of its "ministry."  You would think that an agency operated by conservative Christians would be pro-active in making it as easy as possible for good, stable, Christian families to adopt children so that those women struggling with the decision to have an abortion would at least have an option.  That was not the case.  

It was financially impossible for a middle class, working family with a moderate income and not a whole lot of debt to afford an adoption through this agency.  Not only did they not offer any financial assistance at all, but they expected the family to finance the adoption by adding to their debt.  This was in the early 90's, and the cost would have been more than $20,000 in legal fees plus the agency's cut of $12,000 for facilitating and processing the adoption.  Only a small percentage of the families in any given Christian church could afford that and the alternative would be getting in the line to adopt a child through the state, a process which took anywhere from two to five years.  

If conservative Christians are serious about reducing abortion numbers, the should start spending some of the billions they now spend on music, movies and $50 a ticket "Christian" concerts to help their adoption agencies provide the funding for more families to adopt children instead of seeing adoption as a means of making money.  

Do that, and then you might have a reasonable complaint about those of us who aren't supporting the re-election of an immoral, inept, incompetent, unqualified President.  I'm not voting for any of his enablers, either.  Casting a ballot for Biden and against Trump's other Republican enablers leaves me with a clearer conscience and a better perspective on being consistent with my Christian moral values.  Other Christians who feel this way should take note of the same.  You're not voting for a pastor-in-Chief either.