The Guilty Verdict: Bittersweet

The verdict is in; the former president has been found guilty of all 34 counts levied against him in the New York “hush money” trial.

I am glad for the guilty verdict, but my soul is not quieted. I am glad because this man has successfully eluded legal sanctions for his behavior over the years if what has been written about him is true, and has finally been held accountable. That is justice.

But my soul is uneasy. I find no comfort in the verdict because, in listening to this man, I have grown more disappointed in and disenchanted with the American system of government. The people in power have made a mockery of “the law” and the concept of “law and order.” They have supported disinformation and participated in the dissemination of disinformation. Although they talk about the United States Constitution, they are hell-bent, it seems, on dismantling and destroying it.

And if anyone was looking for a voice of morality to come from the church, more specifically the “Christians,” I am sure they are as disappointed as I am. The church – most especially white Evangelicals, but not exclusively so – has not only been silent when one would have thought it would speak up, but it has been painfully complicit in spreading the word that this man is the answer to the woes of our country. They see him as a savior, this man who is now a convicted felon, and many still plan to vote for him.

Their version and conception of Jesus have led them to believe that the former president has been picked by God to lead this nation. (https://apnews.com/article/trump-christian-evangelicals-conservatives-2024-election-43f25118c133170c77786daf316821c3#)

Even as I write that sentence, I shiver. I wonder how anyone who has read the story of Jesus can possibly believe that what the former president is doing is something of which Jesus would approve. How can anyone, who declares that he/she lives by the Bible, support what this man is doing? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/10/27/house-speaker-mike-johnson-evangelical/)

His followers do not care that he was accused of all that he was accused of in the hush money trial, and they are furious that he has been found guilty of those charges. They have made him the ultimate victim and they are not backing down or away. They are not concerned that he wants to be a dictator; in fact, many say that democracy has to end.

If he is re-elected, democracy will end and many will be happy.

We have all been “indoctrinated” with the American story – that this is a land where there is “liberty and justice for all,” that our system supports “one man, one vote,” and that this is the greatest experiment in democratic government that has ever been created.

But it is just that – indoctrination. There has never been “liberty and justice for all” because that was not the vision of the country’s founders. This country was conceived and designed to favor wealthy white men. Those in that group never believed that, according to Thomas Jefferson, “all men are created equal.” Jefferson’s lofty words placed him at odds with the wealthy, white men who had all the power and wanted to keep it, which was ironic because Jefferson never mean “all” men to include men who were not white. People of color were certainly not even considered when Jefferson wrote those words.

This country was all about money and power, from its beginning. The politicians and the clergypersons knew it. The state and the church leaned on and depended on each other for verification of their policies and ideologies. Jefferson’s words were not a consideration.

The church and its leaders fully bought into the idea that God created this country – or led them to create this country – to make it easier for men to make money. The politicians did not have to worry about opposition from the church! The beliefs of the two institutions became mortally intertwined, so that even today, religious leaders say and teach things like “Free market capitalism is God’s blueprint for growing a nation’s economy.”( https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/us-republicans-and-fallacy-biblical-capitalism). These religious leaders have aligned the church with the state – despite the fervent declaration that the U.S. Constitution demands a separation between the two. The church has always needed the government and the government has likewise always needed the church to support and increase the wealth of the nation. Jesus’ name is used, but Jesus’ commandments are not practiced. Too many Christians have a Christianity in which Jesus is absent.

The core of this nation – which was cracked from the beginning – was never strong enough to support the pillars of hypocrisy that made up its foundation. The power brokers were never satisfied with the “all people are created equal” narrative, and whenever it seemed that equity was creeping into the society, the more they used their power to squash it. (https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/nov/10) https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wilmington-massacre-2/) They never lost their belief that their whiteness and their money gave them carte blanche to do what they wanted with the lives of the people on whose labor they depended for their wealth.

There is no institution to which to turn for help. The church, for the most part, has been compromised; church leaders who might speak up are silent; others are boldly in support of the former president and his policies. This impotent church is not new; Dr. King wrote of it in the 60s. (https://www.interfaithamerica.org/article/martin-luther-king-jr-s-hard-words-for-white-christians/)

The US Supreme Court – and many of the federal courts – have been compromised. Despite the cry against having “activist judges” the GOP/MAGA people are hell-bent on getting activist judges on the bench and those already on the bench are reducing the capacity of those in need of justice to trust the courts.

Without genuine Christianity – i.e., a religion that knows and practices the precepts of Jesus, without a society that believes in the worth of all people, without protection from the courts and law enforcement, including judges who rule against those who fight for equality liberty, and justice for everyone, America is in a dangerous place. The MAGA supporters want a man who has shown us who he is – and his supporters are all right with that. If those who believe in justice, equality, and fairness for all do not step up, the man found guilty yesterday on 34 counts will continue to walk in the arrogance of his whiteness and wealth, and mow down the possibility of there ever being “liberty and justice for all” in this country. There has never been, but this man will cement the pillars of injustice that have long characterized our government.

I hope people realize what is at stake and will do the work to make sure this convicted felon and any felon who comes after him will never step foot again in the White House. And I hope people who believe in the precepts of the Christ will take this existential threat seriously and work as they never have before to honor and respect the ways Jesus taught us to build community.

If we do not, we will reap a horrific harvest.

A candid observation…

Confronting Evil Clothed in Christian Rhetoric

I was surprised to read that the approval rating for the president has moved into the positive range for the first time since his election. (https://www.npr.org/2020/03/27/822043781/trumps-approval-hits-new-high-but-a-rally-around-the-flag-effect-is-small) In light of the coronavirus, and its reign of terror throughout the world, this president has been less than admirable, expressing more concern for the stock market than for the people who are suffering and who may die because of the disease.

And yet, there are those who are throwing lavish praise on him, saying he is the best president this country has ever had. This, in spite of his downplaying the power and virulence of the virus, in spite of ignoring warnings about it as early as December 2019, in spite of calling it a “Democratic hoax,” and in spite of his promise that it would “disappear.” His concern about it seemed absent until the stock market took a fall, thrusting the country into economic chaos and heading possibly to a recession. (https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/trump-cabinet-bible-studies-coronavirus/)

When that happened, all bets were off. He didn’t have time to waste. The booming economy has always been his calling card for re-election. His pandering to corporations, giving them huge permanent tax cuts, reducing and/or cutting government regulations, and siding with causes championed by the Religious Right made it appear that he was untouchable.

And he may yet be, but what is really interesting is that so many of his followers are still calling him the modern-day messiah. While the president has made it an art form to blame any and everybody for things which happen and which are a poor reflection on his presidency, he has the backing of the Religious Right who now point to God as the reason for the virus.

God, says Ralph Drollinger, a favorite of conservative evangelicals, is angry at the world and is showing His wrath through the virus. “Relative to the coronavirus pandemic,” said Drollinger, this virus is evidence of a “sowing and reaping” wrath of God. People who are displeasing to God, he posits, have “infiltrated” government, education, the media, and entertainment,” says Drollinger, and God is not pleased.

Drollinger is a well-known personality in Washington. He believes that Conservative Christians, based on the words of Jesus found in the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19 are mandated to “take Christ” to political leaders. The leaders, he believes, are to use “Biblical principles” to rebuild America, which, he believes, has fallen because of the influence and presence of liberal secularists.

Drollinger has set up Bible studies in 34 states and in 24 countries. He leads the White House Cabinet Bible Study every Wednesday at 7 a.m. attended by Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, among others. (His politics and his religious beliefs seem to have a symbiotic relationship (as is the case for us all,) (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/magazine/ralph-drollinger-white-house-evangelical.html) but his beliefs, clearly conservative and evangelical in tone and substance, are deeply ingrained in him as God’s will, and he views his job, his calling, as that of spreading “the Good News” according to Drollinger.

Not that he doesn’t use and refer to the Bible. He makes the case for God, through Paul, wanting political leaders to become followers of Christ. He cites verses in the Bible, in the book of Acts and in other places, primarily the Pauline epistles, where the disciples are being told to take “Christ” to the political leaders.

But the goal that Drollinger seems to embrace, and which many of his followers also believe, is the building of political power, aided and supported by capitalism. He pushes the belief that Christians need to “speak truth to power,” but their truth and that of other Christians are radically different.

The focus of Drollinger and others who are advising the president is the acquisition and the keeping of political power – the Great Commission – but not taking care of “the least of these” also stated by Jesus, the focus of the “Great Commandment,” found in all three synoptic Gospels and the Hebrew scriptures as well.

If there is shock or dismay or concern about the president’s apparent lack of concern for people who are suffering, even as he is determined to get the economy back on its feet, it may well be because his focus is being driven by a group of religious people who say their “biblical principles” are those taught by Jesus the Christ. If some people die because of the virus, well, then it’s God’s will, a result of God’s wrath. There is no need to worry, only, work must be done to save the economy, save capitalism – for the good the country and for the children of those who die, making the supreme sacrifice.

Drollinger writes in his book, Rebuilding America: The Biblical Blueprint, “Within the Great Commission exists the priority of reaching political leaders for Christ.”

That goal is on track, it seems, even as the nation and the world gasp for breath. The president’s actions and his words, be they true or not, are OK, it seems, because he is just doing the will of God. And the fact that so many people believe that is a scary, scary thought.

A candid observation.

A Presidency Which is Making the Nation Ill

When news surfaced that the US Justice Department intervening in the sentencing of Roger Stone, asking (demanding?) that his sentence be reduced, a friend of mine wrote, “this government is stressing me out. I am resorting to eating, I mean, overeating, to try to cope. I need help.”

She is not the only one. One friend said she has a headache all of the time; another said she is drinking more wine than usual. Yet another said, “I feel like I am a tightly wound coil, getting tighter all the time.”

What is bothering people is this administration’s flagrant disregard for and disrespect of “the rule of law.” People who once felt protected by America’s system of government no longer feel that way. They are frustrated and frightened because none of the institutions in place that were supposed to assure that America’s democracy never descends into Fascism or some variation of that system are working.

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The fear and frustration of people are helped along by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Attorney General William Barr, as well as the GOP which is shuffling meekly behind their leadership, in effect sanctioning the breakdown of this government.

The smirk which Leader McConnell displayed after the president’s acquittal was hard to see, but it’s probably fair to say that it is a smirk that African Americans have seen and experienced for generations in this country. While some of my white friends are appalled at what they have described as the trashing of justice, my African American friends take the deep breaths we have always had as justice has eluded us. The white idea and ideal of “justice” have never applied to black people. The “justice system” has never been concerned with making sure black people get justice for the wrongs done by individuals, corporations, or governments. The trauma that the lack of justice has caused has been passed down through generations. Studies have shown that internalized trauma, especially if it is repetitive, produces physiological, emotional, and sociological effects. (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/trauma-inherited-generations/573055/) In order to survive, black people have had to learn to cope, to swallow deeply and keep breathing every time they have not gotten justice, but white people, especially those who believed in the purity of justice, have not built up those political antibodies. We are all suffering; I would suppose that white people are suffering even more.

What is different now is that many white people are now feeling what it feels like to be walked over by the justice system. Some white people are appalled and disturbed – and traumatized – as they are watching the attorney general of the United States help a president circumvent the law, helped along by the Senate. This president is getting away with butchering the very concept of “justice” as he chips away at the “rule of law.”

The things that he has been accused of – lying, sexual impropriety, engaging the help of an enemy of this country to win an election – were once things that would have spelled doom for a sitting president, but not this one, and the people who love the idea of justice are watching, appalled, troubled, and worried.

What this makes one ask is, “what now?” School children are mimicking and imitating the words, the spirit, and the behavior of the president. Non-white children are being bullied. White school teachers are feeling emboldened to let their biases show. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/school-bullying-trump-words/) (https://www.mediaite.com/news/stunning-report-reveals-hundreds-of-child-bullies-have-used-trumps-racist-and-xenophobic-words-to-attack-other-kids/

Police are continuing to engage in the behavior which has traumatized black people for generations, using their power with a sense of entitlement. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/6-year-old-arrested-orlando-florida.html) A black teen who was a member of a swim team was falsely arrested by police as his team returned from a meet. The description of his encounter was painful to read, and more painful for him to experience. (https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/black-college-swimmer-sues-illinois-police-over-false-arrest/2219215/)

It’s not just black people who are seeing and experiencing injustice; it’s people of all walks of life. This president’s administration is adversely affecting the rights and the lives of women, immigrants, Hispanics, Muslims, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community. His policies are traumatizing the poor, the elderly, and anyone who is not, as Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, “guilty and white.” (Stevenson has noted that in this country, one is more likely to get justice if he/she is guilty and white than if one is innocent and poor.”)

Stress causes horrible health problems, and from what I hear, more and more people are experiencing the kind of stress that comes from being traumatized. None of this bodes well for this country. Many people are pretending that things are not as bad as they are, but those feeling the stress are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore this new reality.

A candid observation…

Requiem for America’s Mythical Democracy

The debacle of the Trump impeachment process ended, for all intents and purposes, with the GOP-led Senate refusing to allow witnesses and documents which were said to support the charges of the president’s abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

In spite of some very few die-hard optimists who hoped for a miracle of justice, the GOP senators followed the lead of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In spite of some Republican senators admitting that the president had, in fact, done something wrong, his offenses did not rise to the level of deserving impeachment.

When the president is acquitted of wrongdoing, he will be free to continue his disembowelment of the American democracy as we have known it, but he is not the primary source of this state of being in this country. If the truth be told, even the Founders did not wholly believe in the concept of democracy, where everyone, rich and poor, black and white, male and female, would have an equal voice and equal rights. The concept of “one person, one vote” was understood from this country’s birth to mean “one white wealthy man, one vote.”

The Founding Fathers had problems with what the phrase “we the people” meant. While it was an idealistic goal to have all of the people of the nation participate in its governance, the truth of the matter is that many of the founders thought that to be not only impossible but impractical. The problem was that the country was set up to be run by a small group of wealthy white men. The masses of people, who steadily increased the ranks of the poor, were a threat to what the founders wanted this country would be. Alexander Hamilton said “the people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give, therefore, to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government.” (Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States)

It was the wealthy, therefore, wealthy, white, Protestant males who set this country up with the firm belief that this country should function as an oligarchy.

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Democracy, they thought, was a problem, because a true democracy required something of the masses that they often did not want or could not handle. In the end, the masses were not able to govern themselves, and hence, would lean toward an authoritarian government. Hamilton’s assertion that the masses were turbulent and changing supported the contention made years later by Shawn Rosenberg who said: “human brains are not made for self-rule.” (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045) The chasm between the poor and the wealthy makes the capacity for more turbulence all the greater, leading to the poor fighting against each other and blaming each other for a piece of economic power that was never intended to be passed on to them.

We in America have basked in a sort of pseudo-democracy for years, but the powers that be, the very wealthy, have always been in the middle of government, leading the way and calling the shots. Presidents, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson have all exercised excessive power – an abuse of power according to the US Constitution, yet people have acquiesced and given in because they (we) have trusted wealth and the dream of becoming wealthy more than they (we) have trusted our collective power. Democracies die, say experts, not from guns and missiles, but through the acquiescence of people, people who vote them into office and keep them there.

The United States Senate’s refusal to call witnesses in the impeachment of the current president is not surprising, given that they represent the power class and have grown wary of so many people of color coming into the country and, they believe, threatening their power and therefore, their wealth. Making America “great” again is about fixing what many believe to be the skewing of the American government model – where wealthy, white men govern the masses and it seems that many in the ranks of the masses want to be controlled and led rather than taking on the responsibility of living and working in a true democracy.

With the president’s almost sure acquittal next week, one thing is certain: the façade of this government being a well-oiled, functioning democracy will finish the crumbling that began years ago, only to be accelerated by the Trump presidency. America the mythical democracy is in decline. What will rise up in its place is yet to be seen, but it will surely not be a place where “one person, one vote” is the norm, and where “all” people are considered to be equal.

But then, that wasn’t the plan as the country was formed. As the guardrails of the myth of democracy come crumbling down, it will be interesting to see what kind of government America really is.

A candid observation.

The Cost of Denying What You See

The political climate in this country has many people angry, confused, and anxious. Even as the impeachment proceedings are going on in the Senate (I cannot call it a “trial” because it is so fraught with issues) there is no comfort that there will be a civilized end to the turmoil that has been the signature of this country for the past three years. Tribalism has become a live, virulent creature that seemingly will not be tamed or quieted.

I have been silent for weeks because I have not known what to say. What I see is the systematic unraveling of our country’s government as we have known it. I see values like honesty, regard for the law and for the Constitution, and political civility giving way to bold lies and sense of arrogance that dares anyone to try to stop what is happening. I see attacks on the press, manipulation of the concept of religious freedom to support one group of religious people at the expense of all others, and a disregard for this country’s allies.

I see the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, showing and using his considerable political acumen, in all of its ruthlessness. I see one group of politicians trying to show the country and the world what is happening to America’s democracy, and another group of politicians saying that what we are seeing and hearing is not, in fact, the truth or real.

It is daunting and exhausting to watch.

But what is bothering me most is that people are denying what appears to be the truth; they refuse to listen to or look at voices and/or documents that support accusations that are being made. And I see simultaneously others who do see what is going on and who are gnawing on their fingernails as the process of dismantling this democracy is happening right before our eyes.

Denial of a problem does not make it go away. We, as human beings, are good at denying. Wives and husbands who get all of the warning signals that their spouse is cheating deny what they see. Parents who sense that their child is in trouble, perhaps doing drugs or drinking too much alcohol, or hanging out with the wrong people, deny what they see, sense, and feel. Neighborhoods deny that there the trouble that plagues other places could ever come to their streets until a horrific tragedy happens. People deny that there is police brutality until one of their loved ones becomes a victim. Parents deny that their son or daughter is gay until that child comes out; they have “known” all along, but preferred to live in denial.

Denial doesn’t work. Truth always comes up and out, and usually at the most inopportune times.

We in this country have lived in denial for a long time, pretending like our foundation is not racist and pretending that we believe in democracy. In fact, a broad swath of Americans has never believed that people of color are “equal” or deserving of full American citizenship. In the 19^th century, white people in the North denied that they were racist until they were faced with scores of black people migrating North, looking for work and dignity. Being against the institution of slavery was one thing; granting black people full citizenship and saying that they were equal with whites was quite another. We still live in denial about our innate racism, but it is part of the foundation of this country. Some analysts say that what we are seeing is the move to “make America white again.” The push-back against allowing people of color to enter this country or stay in this country is part of the fear of white people no longer being the majority population in this country by the year 2044. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/us/white-americans-minority-population.html) White men are intent on staying in power by any means necessary, but many of us are in denial that their practices and policies are rooted in the belief in the need to preserve white supremacy.

It is exhausting to watch, and troubling as well, because it seems that the progression of forcing regression to an earlier America where there was less tolerance of all people, in spite of our claim of American exceptionalism is on a fast train speeding down a hill. Nobody wants to admit it or talk about it. Nobody wants to say out loud that the voter suppression tactics that are being put into place are racist in their intent, designed to keep black and brown people out of the polling booths. And yet, what we are seeing is the result of having denied since our inception that white supremacy is America’s cancer. And it is eating us alive in the present day, even as we pretend we do not see what is going on.

Audre Lorde, an African American essayist, who described herself as a “black lesbian, warrior, mother, and poet” wrote the words, “My silences did not protect me. Your silence will not protect you.” The silence that so many people are living in and trying to maintain, the silence that keeps voices of truth from being heard, is not going to save America. Silence is denial, and denial is only a temporary stop-gap to the problems around us. Sooner or later, the truth will push through like an angry geyser, spraying the area around it with drops of truth.

The geyser of denial is bubbling beneath us, even as this president and administration continue their work to stay in power. I’m not quite sure what this country will look like once it bursts through our carefully cultivated ground of denial, but I am fairly certain that the “carnage” will be significant.

A candid observation.