Author Archives: Sheila

Heritage, Again

As Trump continues to disintegrate before our eyes, and special elections confirm what the polls have been telling us, I think Americans can begin to breathe again. Granted, this evil and incompetent administration will continue to wreak havoc for three more years, but there’s reason to believe that the midterms will put a halt to much of the destruction, and that the political pendulum will swing back from Trump’s gulag to support of something more closely resembling the America we thought we inhabited.

What happens then, however, will depend upon what we’ve learned from this horrifying episode. What rot within the body politic allowed the ascent of people so morally and intellectually unfit for public office? I think there are three interrelated answers to that question. An unfair, “gilded age” economy and a fragmented, politicised media landscape have combined to facilitate the re-emergence of bigotries that had been suppressed but obviously not eliminated.

Research has confirmed that the single most potent predictor of support for MAGA and Trump is racial resentment. But racism is almost always accompanied by other hatreds: of women, of Jews, of Muslims, of immigrants (at least those with Black or Brown skin). Those attitudes haven’t just been fostered and encouraged by “Christian” nationalist churches, publications and social media posts, but also by (mis-named) think tanks. The election of America’s first Black President lit the flame of the rancid ideology they had carefully nurtured during more civil times.

And that brings me to the Heritage Foundation.

With the publication of Project 2025, Heritage shed its disguise as a research institution, and identified itself as a purely ideological enterprise, intent upon remaking American society into one dominated by White Christian males. Minorities aren’t the only elements of the population who would lose status should its fever dream be realized–women would be returned to subservient status too.

The Atlantic has recently documented Heritage’s misogyny. As the article noted, Heritage’s current unmasking may have begun with Kevin Roberts’ defense of anti-Semitism, but disclosure of the nature of the “Heritage” it is trying to protect includes the recent decision to hire Scott Yenor to lead its Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. The author says the choice “poses serious questions about the institution’s beliefs concerning the equality of women in the workplace and perhaps even as citizens.”

In a 2021 speech at the National Conservatism Conference, Yenor labeled professional women “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome.” He frequently uses the term AWFLs (short for “affluent white female liberals”). He was ejected from a position as chair of the University of West Florida’s board of trustees when even Florida’s MAGA Republican-controlled state Senate wouldn’t confirm him.

Yenor believes that employers should be legally permitted to discriminate against women in the workplace, and has advocated for legal changes that would allow businesses “to support traditional family life by hiring only male heads of households, or by paying a family wage”—that is, denying women jobs solely on the basis of their sex or paying men more for performing the same job as women. He also believes that “governments should be allowed to prepare men for leadership and responsible provision, while preparing women for domestic management and family care.”

Yenor’s ideas are rather obviously outside both the American and conservative mainstreams–and not just his opinions on employment discrimination. He has also dismissed women’s suffrage as “a feat of social engineering.” Feminism, he has asserted, weakens the all-important institution of marriage–a situation that calls out for policy change.

So Heritage now faces an uncomfortable question: Does it agree with its new director of American studies?

What makes the question particularly pressing is Heritage’s “one voice” policy. “While other organizations may have experts advocating contradictory points of view,” the institution explains, “Heritage employees are always rowing in the same direction.” If this is Yenor’s view, and he’s now a Heritage director, does that make it Heritage’s official view?

Heritage was founded in 1973 by Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., Joseph Coors, and Paul Weyrich. Despite the obvious political ambitions of those founders, until very recently the media has portrayed it as a legitimate, albeit Right-wing, think tank. And that brings me to the role played by the media in MAGA’s capture of our government.

One of the thorniest problems we will face as we try to repair the systemic flaws that allowed bigotry and misogyny to drive  political behavior will be what to do about a media landscape that abets false equivalences–a landscape that allows Americans to avoid “inconvenient” realities and  choose “news” that confirms their biases.

I have no idea what we do about that.

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Onward “Christian” Soldiers

It has become increasingly obvious that there are two kinds of Christian–the ones who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, and the ones who use the label in their quest for political hegemony. I identify the latter group by placing quotation marks around the word Christian.

And that latter group is on the march, both locally and nationally.

In Indiana, where we have long had a legislature dismissive of the First Amendment’s Separation of Church and State, we currently have a Lieutenant Governor who is an out and proud “Christian” nationalist. And in Zionsville, a bedroom community north of Indianapolis, a newly formed organization called “Zionsville Men of Truth” wants the local library to stop endorsing “LGBTQ+ ideology,” by removing books and limiting accessibility to “GLBT inclusive” events like Pride.

According to the Indianapolis Star, the group wants to protect children and teens from “content that blurs moral boundaries or exposes children to adult themes.” And of course, they’ll decide where those “moral boundaries” lie.

As the article notes, a number of Republican-led states have experienced book banning and other restrictions of access, thanks to lawmakers’ passage of legislation making it easier to do so. “Men of Truth” is described as a group of local religious men who “want to see that truth be proclaimed in our communities and to restore those biblical values that our nation was founded upon.”

It’s their “truth” that must be proclaimed of course. And permit me to observe that Madison and Jefferson, among others, would be surprised to find that they’d crafted the Constitution using “biblical values”…

It isn’t just Indiana. Other Red states are experiencing equally “Christian” episodes.

There’s Oklahoma, for example, a state that ranks 50th out of 51 in education. A recent report from the New York Times set this former academic’s hair on fire.

At the University of Oklahoma, a student claimed to be the victim of religious discrimination because her psychology instructor gave her a zero on an essay in which she cited the Bible and called “the lie that there are multiple genders”  “demonic.” The instructor explained that she had deducted points because the essay “does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”

Those certainly sound to me like permissible reasons to deduct points, but–hey! Onward “Christian” warriors–the University has suspended the instructor. Not only that, they’ve assured the student that her poor mark on the essay won’t affect her grade. She is identified as a psychology major and pre-med student who intends to go to medical school. (The prospect of a doctor who elevates “biblical truth” over science is rather chilling…)

The student’s cause was taken up by Turning Point USA, which has posted about it on X (of course!) and drawn 40 million views and thousands of online comments. (Granted, many of those views were probably bots, but still…) Oklahoma’s “Christian” governor weighed in, mischaracterizing the university’s reaction as protection of the First Amendment’s Free Speech provisions, calling the situation at the university “deeply concerning,” and demanding a review by the university’s regents to “ensure other students aren’t unfairly penalized for their beliefs,”

This ridiculous framing of the issue evidently forbids instructors from penalizing answers that are non-responsive to the questions, at least if the student invokes “Christianity.” As even a conservative political scientist observed, evidently “You have to pass students who only cite religious faith for their opinions now or they’re victims of discrimination.”

In this case, the class had been assigned a scholarly article on “gender typicality, peer relations, and mental health,” and told to write a “thoughtful discussion” of some aspect of it. The student wrote that “The article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms. I do not necessarily see this as a problem. God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose.”

When her instructor failed to accept a response that relied on “biblical truth” rather than psychological research, the student contacted Ryan Walters, currently the chief executive of something called “the Teacher Freedom Alliance.” Walters called the student “an American hero,” and said that any university employees who were involved in giving her a bad grade should be fired.

It may explain Oklahoma’s education ranking to note that Walters recently stepped down as the Oklahoma state superintendent of schools.

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The Phoenix Declaration

What–you may ask–is the Phoenix Declaration, recently adopted by Florida educators? 

The Declaration is a product of the Heritage Foundation, and a recent post in Lincoln Square pretty much summed it up.

The Phoenix Declaration smuggles a theocratic worldview through pleasant, familiar vocabulary—turning words like “truth,” “freedom,” and “the good life” into vehicles for a single religious ideology. Once you decode that language, the stakes clarify fast: a public education system where scientific method is replaced with biblical literalism, where civic history is rewritten through a sectarian lens, and where moral autonomy is redefined as submission to someone else’s theology. The danger isn’t just Florida’s adoption of the document—it’s how easy it would be for unsuspecting school boards in other states to nod along…

The Declaration is firmly rooted in Heritage’s Project 2025, which probably tells us all we need to know. Both documents are products of Christian nationalism. Both explicitly frame education as a process of eliciting a student’s “God-given potential,” and inculcating (their version of) virtue, moral formation, and the “Judeo-Christian tradition.” The Declaration says its educational mission is “helping children achieve their full, God-given potential,” by educating them in “truth and goodness,” civic virtue, character formation, and a love of country– echoing the Christian-nationalist belief that America is a “Christian nation,” and that public life should reflect that Christian “heritage.”

The Declaration appears to be part of Project 2025’s effort to institutionalize its worldview through a takeover of public education.  That certainly is the view of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which has noted that several of the declaration’s principles echo those of Project 2025–for example, proposals to expand school vouchers, promote religious instruction with public funds, and curtail diversity and civil rights efforts.

The declaration includes several statements that appear benign on their face but reveal a deeper ideological agenda when read in context.

On “objective truth” and morality, the document states: “Students should learn that there is objective truth and that it is knowable. Science courses must be grounded in reality, not ideological fads. Students should learn that good and evil exist, and that human beings have the capacity and duty to choose good.”

Language like this has been routinely used by Christian nationalist groups to cast evidence-based teaching about gender, sexuality and modern science as “ideological fads,” while elevating religious beliefs about morality as neutral “truth.”

On cultural transmission, the declaration asserts: “True progress comes only by building on what has been learned and achieved in the past. Students should therefore learn about America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions.”

This explicitly frames public education through a sectarian lens. The United States is not founded on “Judeo-Christian traditions” as a governing principle, and public schools cannot privilege one religious heritage over the nation’s actual pluralistic history.

FFRF points out that several members of the Declaration’s drafting committee and signatories are representatives of organizations openly committed to religious education, Christian nationalism or the dismantling of secular public institutions. (Moms for Liberty is a signatory. Need I say more?)

It isn’t surprising that Florida would adopt the Declaration–Governor Ron DeSantis has made his war on “liberal” education a high priority, in the process destroying the academic integrity of Florida universities. 10 Tampa Bay News has reported on responses to adoption of the Declaration, including that of the Florida Educational Association,

“This political campaign disguised as a declaration seeks to hand over control of our classrooms to political operatives and shift blame, pointing fingers rather than offering real solutions,” FEA stated. “Instead of chasing ideological agendas, the State Board of Education members should focus on what truly helps students: Making sure public schools are fully funded, addressing the critical teacher and staff shortage, and guaranteeing that every child has access to a strong, neighborhood public school.”

FEA was not the only organization to see past the Declaration’s ambiguous language. Julie Kent, the president of Florida National Organization for Women, pointed out that the Declaration’s standards “impose an ideology under the guise of neutrality, marginalize diverse perspectives, undermine public education and politicize curriculum reviews.”

The Declaration’s standards reveal the accuracy of the criticisms. That standard on “Truth and Goodness,” declares students must learn that there is “objective truth” –truth which the Declaration finds rooted in a particular version of Christianity.

I guess it’s not enough to send tax dollars to religious schools via vouchers. The Right wants to Christianize our public schools too.

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War On Drugs? Give Me A Break!

Will the administration’s obvious war crimes finally motivate Congressional pushback? We can only hope.

As I write this, the media is filled with stories about the attacks on fishing boats ordered by Trump and Hegseth, and evidence of their illegality. Trump has been ordering these vessels blown out of the water, and Hegseth has reportedly ordered survivors murdered, in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war.

These actions are being investigated by Congress, and we can only hope that partisanship will not distort that investigation, because the purported reason for these attacks is patently phony. 

Trump insists that the attacks are efforts to stop drug trafficking–that the boats that have been blown out of the water aren’t really fishing vessels. Of course, as is typical for this administration, the boats have been attacked and their occupants killed with absolutely no evidence offered or due process occuring. We’re supposed to take Trump’s word for it (despite ample evidence that when Trump’s lips are moving, he’s lying.)

What makes these allegations even more suspect than other Trump lies is the enormous hypocrisy of Trump’s claim to be against the importation of drugs. As Charlie Sykes–among others–has pointed out, his attacks on these fishing boats and his threats to invade Venezuela come at the same time as his pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, a Honduran ex-president convicted of cocaine trafficking who has boasted about stuffing drugs “up the gringos’ noses.”

The American public is evidently supposed to believe that Trump blew up fishing boats and is threatening  a military campaign in an effort to deter drug trafficking–at the same time he is ordering the release of a man convicted of taking “cocaine-fueled bribes” from cartels–a man convicted of using the full power and strength of his state — military, police and justice system–to protect drug traffickers, a man who–as prosecutors convincingly demonstrated– allowed “bricks of cocaine from Venezuela to flow through Honduras en route to the United States.”

As Sykes summed it up:

  • Trump declares war on drug kingpins.
  • Trump’s uses the war on drugs as the justification for extrajudicial murders on the high seas; and calls for the execution of six Democratic members of Congress who tell members of the military they do not need to follow illegal orders.
  • As part of Trump’s war against drug kingpins, SecDef Pete Hegseth orders Seal Team 6 to “kill everybody,” including unarmed survivors.
  • We are inching toward the invasion of Venezuela, because its president is allegedly a drug kingpin.
  • Trump pardons notorious drug kingpin.

Paul Krugman also addressed the obvious hypocrisy,

At first glance, the juxtaposition seems bizarre – Trump is either murdering or committing war crimes against people who are at worst small-time drug smugglers, and may be innocent fishermen, while pardoning a drug lord who was responsible for thousands of American deaths while savaging his own country, Honduras. But there is a pattern to this murderous madness, once one connects the dots between Trump’s mob-boss persona and the billionaire crypto/tech broligarchy.

According to Krugman, Trump’s vendetta against purported penny-ante drug smugglers is intended to set the stage for an invasion of Venezuela. And he reminds us that Trump “positively revels in his association with big-time criminals, whether it’s Putin or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman” or Ross Ulbricht, whose underground e-marketplace is known for drug trafficking, and whom Trump pardoned immediately after assuming office.

Still, why would Trump, whose poll numbers are cratering, generate even more negative headlines by pardoning Hernández, who was duly convicted of conspiring to send more than 400 tons (!) of cocaine to America?

The answer is the influence of the crypto/tech broligarchy. In fact, many of Trump’s pardons of the most egregious criminals are closely linked to their influence.

Krugman points out that Peter Thiel was a supporter of Ulbrict and that the ex-president of Honduras is also connected to  the titans of crypto-currency. Those ‘crypto-bros” were also behind Trump’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao, formerly the CEO of  cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Zhao pled guilty to charges of violating U.S. laws against money-laundering and was personally fined $50 million, in addition to Binance’s fine of $4.3 billion.

The revelations of wrongdoing go on. And on.

In one of the recently disclosed emails from Jeffrey Epstein, the predator wrote “I have met some very bad people … none as bad as Trump.” In several others, he referred to Trump as insane–and a danger to America.

Believe the predator. 

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An Inside Analysis

Those of us who loathe Donald Trump use a variety of words to explain that reaction. We note that he is ignorant, intellectually deficient and incompetent, that his maturation and vocabulary appear to have stopped developing around third grade, that he is mentally-ill, mean-spirited, selfish, vindictive and criminal…I could go on, but the bottom line is that he exhibits not a single redeeming human attribute.

But it has taken someone who actually worked with and for him to append the word that sums him up: evil.

As Lincoln Square has recently reported,

Ty Cobb, the former White House lawyer who once represented President Donald J. Trump, issued a public warning this week, saying the president’s conduct and his approach to the judiciary pose what Cobb described as a serious risk to the country’s constitutional structure.

“The Constitution really is not adequate to deal with a president as evil as Trump,” Cobb said in an interview broadcast on MSNow, adding that the president’s recent actions reflected “a desire to accumulate and abuse power.”

In the interview, Cobb expanded on his observations, noting that his concerns have sharpened as the administration has experienced setbacks in the courts. (An appeals court threw out Trump’s attempt to revive a defamation lawsuit against CNN; another federal judge found his deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., illegal; and yet another called the president’s cuts of millions of dollars of local government funding “probably illegal.”) Cox noted that–as we all now know– Trump reacts intensely to setbacks and perceived personal slights.

“Any insult tweaks his narcissism in a way that brings out a fight or flight instinct,” Cobb said, “and with Trump, the flight instinct really doesn’t kick in. It’s really just fight, and it’s fight by any means possible — legal or otherwise.” He said he viewed actions such as “sending in the National Guard” and “zip tying mothers and separating [them] from their children” as examples of this pattern.

Congress came in for its (richly deserved) criticism. Cobb decried that body’s lack of response to the administration’s lawlessness, and the reality that members have “neutered themselves through their cowardice and greed.” And he pointed out that the ability of the courts to constrain the administration is limited to constitutional violations. Only Congress has the constitutional authority to override policies, censure and impeach.

Trump’s contempt for both the Constitution and bodies of law is demonstrable. He continues to pardon people whose criminality (and lack of remorse for that criminality) is manifest. He’s committing blatant war crimes in Venezuela and Colombia.

Cobb concluded that “It’d be nice to have a Nuremberg trial of all these people,” although he admitted such a trial is unlikely. In his opinion, the judiciary is America’s only institutional safeguard– and if he acknowledged the corruption of the current Supreme Court, the article doesn’t mention it. The lower courts, at least, have been holding the constitutional line, and not every setback can be appealed.

So here we are. Recent polling shows that large majorities of Americans strongly oppose Trump and his administration, and it seems very likely that it will be up to We the People to exact whatever retribution or accountability is feasible. Most of us have come to realize that the only viable cure for Trumpism is political, As genuine public servants like Jamin Raskin have reminded us, We the People need to build and maintain a new coalition dedicated to serving the common good through the institutions of a democratic republic.

That–as we all understand–is easier said than done.

We need to be clear about how we got here. The apathy that kept some 80 million voters from the polls merged with the racial animus of MAGA Republicans to elect–albeit by a very slim margin– the vicious, dangerous man who is wreaking havoc with America’s legitimacy both at home and abroad. If survey research is to be believed, a significant portion of both those groups is experiencing remorse.

We have just under a year until the midterm elections, and the GOP is trying desperately to rig that election. Given public opinion, I don’t think those efforts will succeed, and I anticipate a large “Blue wave” in 2026. Between now and then, the resistance must increase the pressure in every way we can–through protests, boycotts, and lawsuits.

When we finally neuter this criminal administration, the first order of business will be to repair the structural flaws in our government that facilitated what historians will mark as a tragic episode in America’s history.

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