Author Archives: Sheila

Where The Real America Must Go

We’ve just had a crushing blow to our belief in American goodness. Like many of you, I am frantic not for myself–I’m 83, and my likely duration in the Dark Ages won’t be long. But I have children and grandchildren, who are suddenly faced with a world far more precarious than the one we all thought we occupied.

I’m fortunate that one of my sons lives in Amsterdam, and one of my granddaughters lives in England. While the wave of fascism that is sweeping the globe will undoubtedly affect them to some extent, and the global consequences of electing an ignorant lunatic as U.S. President will be significant, their prospects aren’t as bleak as they would be here over the next years.

Or as daunting as the landscape that faces the rest of the family.

My youngest son–parent of the younger two grandkids–has taken what I believe to be the only rational position available to those of us who still occupy a sane and humane America.  With his permission, I’m sharing the message he sent to his son and daughter, both of whom are currently in college, and both of whom were blindsided by the (previously) unthinkable results of the election.

Kids, I’m still struggling to process the election results and to contextualize it in a way that is not entirely negative. I keep coming back to a handful of facts and themes. First, WE (our family) are likely to be OK. While we are psychologically traumatized by the implications of the election — and the thoughts of how bad Trump might be for vulnerable people, minority communities, and non-citizens — our daily lives are unlikely to be directly or irreparably affected by Trump’s election. In saying this, I am not discounting the genuine risk to women — particularly young women of childbearing age — but WE are fortunate enough to have resources and options that likely mute those direct threats.

Second, and really based on the first point, WE now also have a greater obligation to help those who aren’t as fortunate as we are. I don’t know how or in what ways those opportunities will present themselves, but we have an obligation to help those who are going to be attacked or adversely impacted by Trump and Trumpism in the years to come.

Finally, as horrible as many people have shown themselves to be, know that OUR community is still OUR community, and made up of all the same loving, caring, funny, positive-values-holding people. I am trying to focus on these facts in the days, weeks, and years ahead… OUR community will help us weather the dark storms ahead, and we must do our part to help our family and friends weather it as well.

I love you! We will be OK, even if we are currently suffering deep psychological wounds from this election and its implications.

I can’t add to that.

I think that message sums up both the challenge we face and the obligations we must now assume. The challenge is a concerted effort by a cohort of people who believe Hitler “had some good ideas” to remake the United States into a 21st-Century fascist state. There are far more people in that cohort than most of us recognized or still want to believe.

Our obligation is twofold: first, to resist that transformation with every fiber of our beings, with every tool we can muster, with every grassroots organization we can create or support; and second, for those of us who are privileged, who are fortunate that our circumstances (or religions or skin colors) buffer us from the full effect of authoritarian animus, to work wherever and whenever we can to ameliorate the adverse impacts on those less fortunate.

Speaking of community: I’ve been doing this blog for several years, and have been gratified by the genuine sense of community that has grown up among the regular commenters, few of whom know each other personally. With the exception of a couple of trolls who weigh in now and then, you disagree with civility, share your knowledge freely and offer each other–and me– much needed moral support. You are one of the communities my son referenced in his text to my grandchildren.

Like many of you, I am still in shock. But when we emerge, we need to figure out how to save our world–how to gift our children and grandchildren with an America that is recognizable and future worth inhabiting.

Comments

What It Was All About

Those of us who have taken the American Idea seriously have to face what has previously been unthinkable: the racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny weren’t bugs–they were features. As sick as it makes me to confront that truth, it’s inescapable: the bigotry (and the accompanying ignorance) were what most Trump voters were endorsing. 

In case there is any doubt, Project 2025 will be the roadmap to a second Trump administration. In addition to what that will mean for women’s rights, for LGBTQ+ people and people of color, let me remind readers of its major “promises”–promises that will affect the entire world, not just the United States.

A  Trump administration will ” Restore warfighting as the military’s sole mission” and end what it calls “the Left’s social experimentation in the military” by halting the admission of transgender individuals. It will increase the Army by 50,000, bring overseas troops home, grow the Navy and Air Force, and triple the number of nuclear weapons—while withdrawing America from all arms reduction treaties, and from NATO.

In other words, Trump will make the entire world unsafe (except, of course, for Putin and other autocrats).

 USAID will defund women’s rights provisions in foreign aid initiatives, withdraw from all multi-lateral trade agreements, and stop providing financial aid to Ukraine, which will be gift-wrapped for Putin.

Trump wants to institute 60% tariffs on Chinese goods and 10% on all other imports. (Every reputable economist—conservative and liberal—has pointed out that tariffs are a tax on Americans, and that imposing them would cost American families thousands of dollars a year and throw the country into recession. The economy that President Biden has made the envy of the world will tank.

In order to destroy America’s fidelity to the rule of law, Trump plans to replace 50 thousand civil service employees with Trump loyalists. The Heritage Foundation is currently “vetting” individuals in order to facilitate that replacement. 

The media has reported on the proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, Head Start, Title 1, & school lunch programs. The less-reported portions of their “education” policies are equally regressive: they would eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, post the Ten Commandments in all school classrooms and eliminate any books addressing race or gender from the nation’s classrooms.

RNK, Jr isn’t the only medical moron likely to be dictating “health” measures; Project 2025 proposes to withdraw federal funding from any school requiring vaccinations. (Not sure how they’re going to remove flouride from the nation’s water supply, but reality hasn’t been a big part of Rightwing ideology.)

Kiss goodby to Medicare (they’d privatize it), the EPA, OSHA, the EEOC and the FDIC.

But it’s with the bigotries that we really see the animating message of the worldview. 

Trump has echoed the Project’s promise of immediate mass deportation of (dark-skinned) undocumented persons, a massive effort that would wreak havoc with the economy. (Think groceries are high now? Watch what happens when there’s no one to pick crops.) The Project proposes internment camps and limiting lawful immigration to 20,000 annually. They’d also deport all the Dreamers (who came as children with their parents, and most of whom have never known another country. They want to ban Muslims and Haitians from entering the country, roll back gay rights, invalidate same-sex marriages, and outlaw both transgender rights and no-fault divorce.

Then there’s the effect on the already precarious environment.

Authors of the Project say—and I quote– the “climate is not changing and schools are not to teach that it is.” Since climate change is just a liberal myth, they would eliminate climate and environmental protections, eliminate the regulation of greenhouse gases, and defund FEMA. They’d dismantle the National Hurricane Center and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, halt all climate research, revoke the Global Change Research Act of 1990, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Accords, halt research into electrical vehicles and revoke tax incentives for clean energy.

That’s just a small part of what the bigots have voted for. Of course, courts would once have declared much of that roadmap blatantly unconstitutional, but Trump’s appointment of rogue Justices has removed that pesky impediment.

And of course, his election will allow the first convicted felon to be elected President to escape accountability for his crimes.

Welcome to the new Dark Ages.

Comments

Who We Are

Four days before election day, Dana Milbank wrote a column that said it all. 

His point was simple: unlike the election in 2016, no sentient American could fail to be aware of who and what Donald Trump is. As he said, in four days, we will look in the mirror and see who we are.

Have we become so coarse that we would choose as our head of state a man whose climactic campaign rally at Madison Square Garden was a grotesque collection of four-letter words, vulgar sexual references and explicitly racist attacks against Black people, Latinos, Jews and Palestinians?

Have we become so disoriented by disinformation that, even though the economy is booming, inflation and illegal border crossings are sharply down, and crime is below where it was when Trump left office, we accept as reality Trump’s preposterous inventions about America being “destroyed” and an “occupied country” under the control of immigrant criminals?

Have we lost so much of our democratic muscle memory and civic culture over 10 years that we no longer flinch at a presidential candidate who talks of suspending the Constitution and imprisoning political opponents?

Have we become so numb to brutality that we no longer notice his support for vigilante violence and for using the military to attack Americans?

And are we willing to risk everything on a man who has clearly become more erratic and dangerous with age?

That was the question on our ballots yesterday.

Milbank followed that question with a litany intended to remind readers of Trump’s actual threats and “promises”–to go after his personal enemies, to remake the Justice Department into an instrument of his personal vengeance, to jail his opponents, to free the “patriots” that have been convicted of insurrection…the list went on. He reminded readers of the neo-Nazi rhetoric: migrants are “poisoning the blood” of good White Christian Americans, immigrants are “animals.”

Milbank noted the unprecedented number of Republicans–not just from prior administrations, but from Trump’s own–who warned that he is a fascist who should never be allowed to exercise power. And he compared the candidates’ closing messages.

The warm-up acts for Harris included a woman who nearly died because she couldn’t get an abortion despite severe complications; a daughter of refugees; a woman who gets health care for her son through the Affordable Care Act; Republican farmers from Pennsylvania; and the brother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died from strokes the day after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6. “I’ve had enough of Trump’s politics of chaos, anger and hate. It has real and dangerous consequences for all of us,” Craig Sicknick said.

The warm-up acts for Trump? Tony Hinchcliffe, a supposed comedian, called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and said: “These Latinos, they love making babies. … There’s no pulling out; they don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.” He mocked a Black man’s do-rag in the audience (“What the hell is that, a lampshade?”) and spoke of Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. He remarked: “Rock, paper, scissors. You know the Palestinians are going to throw rock every time. But you also know the Jews have a hard time throwing that paper,” referring to money.

Another speaker raised his middle finger to Democrats and called Trump “the greatest f—ing president.” Others called Harris “the Antichrist” who, with her “pimp handlers,” will destroy our country, and labeled Doug Emhoff “a crappy Jew,” Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a bitch” and Democrats “a bunch of degenerates.”

Bottom line: the choice between Trump and Harris amounts to a choice of who we are. The election result will tell us how many Americans cling to the aspirations of our constituent documents– and how many angry, resentful people cast votes for hate and division.

Yesterday’s election really boiled down to one question: are we better than this?

When I went to bed last night, I didn’t know the answer to that question–but one fact had become undeniable. Realizing that so many people cast votes for this truly despicable man–a man who threatens every American value, not to mention global stability– has plunged me into a very dark place. There’s no denying the bleak truth: millions of my fellow Americans rejected civility, logic, and simple humanity…..

I guess I know who we are…..and it isn’t pretty.

Comments

Today

I recently saw a FB meme that said “On November 5th, the whole nation will be waiting to get the results of a biopsy.”

Today is that day.

This isn’t a normal election and normal tissue doesn’t get biopsied. Tomorrow, I’ll react to whatever the diagnosis shows, but today I’m off.

VOTE BLUE ALL THE WAY DOWN –for your future and that of your children and grandchildren.

Comments

Holding My Breath

Last week, as I previously noted, I spoke to a Unitarian Universalist congregation about Project 2025. (I posted those comments here.)

Ever since I was Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU and was first asked to address a UU church, I have enjoyed speaking to UU congregations. They tend to be composed of people committed to civil liberties, respectful of science, and welcoming of a wide variety of perspectives. As their “Welcome” text confirms, UU’s believe that religious faith is uniquely personal, and that attitudes of openness and tolerance are important. I particularly like the “covenant” this congregation recites, which affirms that spiritual growth provides the grounding for peace, ethical living and community service.

Prior to my talk, there is usually a reading, and I was so impressed with this particular one that I asked for a copy. This was a reading that directly addressed the fundamental issue of tomorrow’s vote, which, as the author said, will really be a vote on another covenant– the covenant we Americans have made with each other.

Democracy–as the reading pointed out–isn’t just a word or even just a system of government: it’s a “living, breathing promise.” A covenant.

This promise of democracy is one of collective power and shared responsibility. Many understand that this covenantal promise is not without its challenges. Democracy asks us to engage in issues, to participate in bringing about change, and to care deeply about one another. It is cultivated in small, consistent actions–in the conversations we have, the ways we listen to and learn from one another, as well as the votes we cast. It demands that we see beyond ourselves, recognizing the dignity of every person, and honoring the rich diversity of our lives.

This reading was part of a church service, so care was taken to avoid endangering the congregation’s tax exemption by the endorsement of a political candidate–there was no direction to “go thou and vote in such and such a way.” Instead, what struck me forcefully about this description of the choice we face was its emphasis on community, on the obligation that we humans have to care for each other.

That emphasis really highlights the vast difference between Trump’s MAGA Republicanism and the Harris campaign.

As the multiple Republicans who have endorsed Harris have pointed out, this election is not about our policy differences–it’s about saving the American Constitution and the rule of law, the essential foundations of the covenant described in the reading. Ours is a covenant that requires us to care about other people, to accept a commitment not just to an abstract nation, but to our fellow Americans.

Traditional Republicans and Democrats may have wildly different opinions about how to demonstrate that commitment, how to honor that covenant, but we recognize that it binds us. We may disagree about economic or social policies, but we share a fundamental belief that government exists to create a just environment that facilitates the human flourishing of all of us–including the neighbors who don’t look or think or worship as we do.

Tomorrow’s election is between all the Americans who believe in that covenant and want to protect it, and those who don’t. It really is that simple.

The Republican Party many of us once knew and respected has been replaced by a malignant cult in Donald Trump’s image, and the members of that cult reject the very idea of a democratic covenant. They are not motivated by care for their neighbors. They contemptuously reject the “demand that we see beyond ourselves.”

The brief closing paragraphs of the reading were poignant: they read

It is clear that at the heart of this democracy is the promise of the people–our hopes and dreams. We are the democracy and the stewards of this promise: the practitioners of this sacred work.

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe democracy is more than a political system; it is a shared journey, a collective responsibility, and a profound act of faith in one another. May we walk this path with grace, with purpose, and with phenomenal commitment to the common good.

That commitment–to America’s democratic covenant, to each other, to the common good–is what is on the ballot this year. That’s the choice to be made by We the People.

This Jewish atheist is praying with the Unitarians….

Comments