Category Archives: Random Blogging

The Great Regression

We are about to see whether changes to the culture–changes that most Americans have welcomed–can withstand a furious and focused effort to take the country back to the 1950s (if not before).

The federal government is in thrall to a racist maniac pandering to his base of White Christian Nationalists. His minions and his “co-President”–the unelected Elon Musk–have scrubbed federal websites of references to inclusion and fairness, to a variety of minorities and any mention of climate change. They have waged war on America’s humanitarian instincts–choosing to begin their war on the “deep state” by terminating programs that offer food and medical care to impoverished populations in other countries. People are already dying as a result.

The war on “DEI” is just new terminology for the persistent war on racial and gender equality–much like the nonsensical, hysterical assertions that primary schools were teaching Critical Race Theory (a complicated legal theory actually being explored in a few law schools). Facts–as usual–are irrelevant.

Here in Red Indiana, our GOP overlords (who owe their dominance to gerrymandering–aka cheating) have “settled” a lawsuit brought by forced birth organizations by agreeing to open abortion records–violating the privacy of women who have terminated pregnancies. The Governor’s budget proposal has axed monies for the Commission on Women and Martin University, the state’s only majority-Black institution of higher education, and proposes tax “reforms” meant to cripple the governments of (Blue) urban areas. The VA is eliminating its gender neutral bathrooms…the list goes on.

It is anyone’s guess what will happen to the United States as Musk’s young techno-nerds attack sensitive computer systems and Republicans in the House and Senate prove spineless. (Here in Indiana, Senator Jim Banks is a known Christian Nationalist/White Supremacist ignoramus, but Senator Todd Young is even worse, because he clearly knows better but lacks the moral fiber to be true to his oath of office.)

Numerous organizations and individuals have filed lawsuits challenging the illegality and unconstitutionality of the Trump-Musk assaults. Whether adverse rulings will deter the felon and the plutocrat is anyone’s guess.

The larger, longer-range question is: what will happen when the forces of bigotry and regression come into conflict with the widespread cultural changes that characterize today’s society?

In today’s United States, during the last two or three generations, women, people of color, gay folks and others have made enormous progress and assumed numerous roles once exclusively held by straight (or closeted gay) White Christian males. Young Americans are used to working and living with diverse companions. Over 70% of Americans tell pollsters they support same-sex marriage.

Americans have elected a Black President. Black and Jewish and gay celebrities have millions of fans.

It is, of course, precisely that cultural shift that has so enraged and terrified the MAGA bigots who elected Trump. Their fear and hatred makes them a cohesive movement, unlike the people who comprise what I am convinced is the majority–rational Americans of good will. The existence of a media ecosystem constantly pumping out White Christian Nationalist propaganda has been enormously consequential in shielding the members of the MAGA movement from information that might challenge their prejudices.

Worse, traditional media sources have been far too willing to “sane wash” and normalize very non-sane and non-normal behavior. As a result, massive numbers of Americans have remained unaware of the threat to our governing institutions and social progress. Americans who didn’t see a threat, didn’t recognize the danger, also didn’t bother to vote.

We are currently facing multiple, existential threats: to efforts to curb climate change, to the civic inclusion of women and minorities, to public health, to government programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and assist suffering people around the globe, and to national security. (The changes being made to national computer systems are likely to allow unfriendly foreign governments to hack into critical information.)

Even if a massive uprising by rational citizens brings a halt to the worst of what we are experiencing, America’s role in the world has taken an enormous hit. Trump’s clown car of bizarre and unqualified appointees, his fixation with tariffs, his ridiculous announcements that he wants to take over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and now Gaza, his unconscionable termination of humanitarian aid, his constant threats of war on (nonWhite) immigrants–all have dealt a serious, perhaps fatal blow to America’s global credibility.

There’s nothing sane people can do about that loss of stature–but we can and must rise up to protect the progress we’ve made toward realizing the American values our Founders bequeathed us. We sure can’t count on the Todd Youngs of the country to protect those values.

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Attention!

Ezra Klein recently wrote an essay exploring–and explaining–the new American currency: our attention.

Yes, money continues to be important. But as Klein points out, what is different about the early days of Trump’s second term is that “attention, not cash, is the form of power that most interests him.”

Plenty of his billionaire backers didn’t make the cut at his inauguration. The catbird seats were occupied instead by the titans of attention. It was the leaders of Facebook and Instagram and X and TikTok and Amazon and Google that Trump was so eager to see arrayed before him.

It isn’t as if the corruption enabled by money–the lobbyists, the political donors, etc.–no longer matters. Of course it does. But–as Klein also notes–Americans have become somewhat inured to that corruption. And we have rules that are intended to constrain it (albeit with debatable efficacy).

The same cannot be said for attention. If Trump saves TikTok and, in return, TikTok boosts pro-Trump content before the 2026 elections to help it go viral, would that be illegal? Perhaps. But would we even know it had happened? If Elon Musk turns the dials on X to tilt the conversation in the Republican Party’s direction before the 2028 elections, who will stop him?Attention, not money, is now the fuel of American politics.

It seemed clear in 2022 that Musk had overpaid when he bought Twitter for $44 billion. And if it’s judged as a business transaction, he probably did overpay. X’s revenue is far from justifying its purchase price. But we did not know then, and we do not know now, how to value the attention he bought. In terms of attention, Musk’s purchase of Twitter turned him into the most powerful person in the world, save perhaps Trump. What is that worth?

Talk about corruption; Klein notes that Musk isn’t just seeking to keep profiting immensely from his contracts with the government. He wants widespread influence and attention. And attention is what he is offering Trump..

To Trump, of course, attention is everything. As his six bankruptcies proved, he knows little or nothing about the actual real estate development business. He was able to monetize the attention he garnered from the Apprentice–his false persona as a savvy businessman– to sell his “brand” to the credulous. He learned nothing about government during his first term, but he did learn how to stay in the public eye and how to use the attention he generated to punish those on his growing enemies list.

His monumental ignorance of government has now collided with his insatiable need to capture the public eye. As Dana Milbank recently wrote in the Washington Post in the wake of his effort to freeze trillions in federal spending, “The Trump White House has no idea what the Trump White House just did.”

In just eight days on the job, Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the federal government, and he and his aides apparently couldn’t be bothered to give any thought to the damage and chaos that would ensue. It’s not just the spending freeze. It’s the willy-nilly, and probably illegal, firing of federal employees, the federal hiring freeze, the moratorium on foreign aid, the threats and bullying unleashed on allies, and the moves to muzzle government agencies to eliminate accountability.

The focus on attention, and Trump’s ability to command it, is particularly concerning given the information ecosystem we inhabit. As I have repeatedly noted, the Internet is a wild west of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. People wanting to affirm the righteousness of their political preferences and beliefs can confirm their biases with a simple google search (aka “research.”) When a madman controls the majority of public attention, the availability of that “research” strengthens his ability to create and sustain an alternate reality.

And let’s be honest: Trump is a madman. The past week has removed all doubt.

Even worse than the fact that American voters have once again empowered this senile and delusional man is the fact that– when attention is the coin of the realm– it is the owners of the platforms that provide that attention who stand to gain the most.

We face a new avenue for corruption. As Klein concluded:

As absurdly concentrated as wealth is in America, attention is even more so. As powerful as money is in politics, attention is even more so. We have largely failed to regulate the role of money in politics. For attention, the problem is worse — and we have not even begun to attempt solutions.

We are barely aware of the problem, let alone possible solutions.

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WWJD?

Remember those bracelets that were so popular some years ago–the ones that had “WWJD” on them? It stood for “What Would Jesus Do?” Granted, I’m not a Christian (and I certainly don’t play one on TV), but I’m pretty sure the White Supremicists and Nationalists posing as Christians are definitely not doing what Jesus would do.

I’ve previously posted about the book “The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory,” written by Tim Alberta, an authentic and clearly devoted Evangelical who spent two years visiting Evangelical congregations and interviewing pastors. I’ve also posted about the film “Bad Faith,” a documentary which traces the takeover–and transformation– of American Evangelical Christianity by the (very) far Right. Those investigations are being joined by a number of other inquiries into a movement that has been some fifty years in the making, but has only recently become too obvious, too powerful and too frightening to ignore.

Persuasion recently published an essay by Jonathan Rauch focusing on the dilemma faced by the pastors who are clinging to their convictions about the centrality of Jesus message to their religion in the face of congregants who reject Jesus’ “wokeness.” As Rauch explains, in his conversations with these pastors, the words have varied “but the tune is the same. Christian witness is in trouble in white evangelical America. And the biggest challenge is not from the secular world; it is sitting in the pews.”

Many prominent evangelicals (and some ex-evangelicals) believe the same thing. Writes Peter Wehner: “In important respects, much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism has become antithetical to authentic Christianity. What we’re dealing with—not in all cases, of course, but in far too many—is political identity and cultural anxieties, anti-intellectualism and ethnic nationalism, resentments and grievances, all dressed up as Christianity.”

I have long believed that the rise of the MAGA Christian Nationalist movement is rooted in fear. As American demographics have shifted and the broader culture has become more accepting of women, gays, and people of color, White Christian males have panicked over their perceived loss of dominance and status. As the author notes,

Don’t be afraid is one of the Bible’s most frequently repeated commands. Yet today’s white evangelical world seems consumed by fear. There is fear of the left: “Fear,” as historian Paul Matzko has said, “that if Donald Trump doesn’t win in 2016, isn’t reelected in 2020, that is the end of American Christianity as we know it, that the godless humanists and feminists and civil rights activists are going to swamp America and destroy what makes us great.” There is fear of cultural change. More than three-fourths of white evangelicals say the country is in danger of losing its identity and culture—by which they mean their identity and culture.

Above all, there is fear of loss of status. “They realize they no longer have numbers on their side,” the historian Kristin Du Mez told me. “They see that the democratic process will not secure their aims for them. We’ve lost the culture; they’re coming for us; we’ve got to defend the right to live as obedient, faithful Christians.”

Christians have been told to emulate Jesus, but the pastors interviewed for the article report that the transformation of their religion into a political movement has caused their parishioners to ignore Gospel messages. Exhortations to love the marginalized, love the foreigner, “Those words, said one, fall on deaf ears.”

The essay describes a new wall of separation, but it notes that this wall isn’t between church and state, but between what Rauch terms “personal Christianity and public Christianity.”

This wall rationalizes political conduct whose cruelty Christians would abhor in their church lives; it sets up two incommensurable moralities, an absolute one in the personal realm and an instrumental one in the political realm.

Roush quotes one Southern Baptist pastor for the belief that the next great “mission field” will not be abroad or among nonbelievers, but within the American evangelical church and its members.

Given the transformation of much of the Evangelical church into a MAGA political cult, Rauch asks the obvious question: has White Evangelical Christianity, in its embrace of MAGA values, repudiated itself? It certainly seems that way, and if that is the case, can we expect the secular world not to notice?

MAGA “Christians” no longer ask what Jesus would do, because the answer is obvious. And very inconvenient.

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When Ignorance Meets Arrogance

In Federalist No. 1, Alexander Hamilton wrote

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Reflection and choice require something entirely absent from Trump, Musk and their respective clown shows: knowledge and understanding.

MAGA’s ferocious assault on knowledge, expertise, and factual communication has given us today’s constitutional crisis–a crisis that reflects not just the massive civic ignorance of the general population, but the arrogance of the White Christian Nationalists who can–thanks to the Internet–choose such “facts” as they want to believe. Of course, as Hamilton would tell us, choosing false facts is not “reflection,” and ignoring both inconvenient facts and laws does not facilitate rational choice.

There is a chasm between the world inhabited by people who are capable of recognizing the current coup and the credulous souls and MAGA cultists who combine profound and visible ignorance with a wholly unearned arrogance–who take the laughable pronouncements from Trump and Musk at face value.

In a recent Substack letter, Paul Krugman described that chasm. 

Here’s where we are as a nation right now:

1. We may be in the middle of a trade war. Or maybe not

2. We’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis. No maybe.

3. We may be in the midst of a sort of digital coup, which might as a side consequence cause large parts of the federal government to cease functioning at all.

The unifying theme here, I guess, is that the federal government has been taken over by bad people who also are stunningly ignorant.

Krugman referenced the “concessions” made by Mexico and Canada, in return for Trump backing off his ridiculous tariffs.  Neither country agreed to do anything it wasn’t already doing--indeed, as Heather Cox Richardson has noted–these “concessions” confirmed agreements previously reached with the Biden administration.

As Krugman wrote,

The U.S., on the other hand, agreed to crack down on weapons shipments to Mexico. Trump will spin this as a victory; low-information voters and some intimidated media outlets may go along with the lie. But basically America backed down.

So is Trump the classic bully who runs away when someone stands up to him? It definitely looks that way.

Let’s be clear, however: this isn’t a case of no harm, no foul. By making the tariff threat in the first place, Trump made it clear that America is no longer a nation that honors its agreements. By caving at the first sign of opposition, he also made himself look weak. China must be very pleased at how all this has played out.

And as I argued the other day, the now ever-present threat of tariffs will have a chilling effect on business planning, inhibiting economic integration and damaging manufacturing.

Krugman described Musk’s effort to abolish USAID (which the man-child called a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America,”) pointing out that Musk not only isn’t president — he isn’t even a government official. Trump’s approval is irrelevant: shutting down an agency established by Congress is both illegal and unconstitutional.  Only Congress can legally abolish it.

This isn’t about saving money–USAID is responsible for a tiny fraction of the federal budget, although few voters understand enough about the federal budget to recognize how small a portion it is. Krugman observes that “in Musk’s worldview the mere fact of trying to help people in need makes you a radical-left Marxist who hates America.” And helping people is what USAID does; it funds humanitarian programs around the world. It feeds, medicates and vaccinates people. It saves lives.

Its termination–or even a pause–will cause many deaths.

And how many voters understand the enormity of the threat posed by the takeover of the Treasury’s computers by Musk’s interns?

Those systems control all federal payments, from grants to nonprofits to Social Security checks to salaries of federal workers. The potential for mischief is immense. 

Imagine that you’re a federal contractor who has made campaign donations to Democrats; suddenly the government stops paying what it owes you and brushes off inquiries by saying that they’re working on the problem. Or you’re a federal employee who, according to somebody in your office who has a personal grievance, has expressed sympathy for DEI; somehow your regularly scheduled salary payments stop being deposited into your bank account. Or even imagine that you’re a retiree who canvassed for Kamala Harris, and for some reason your checks from Social Security stop coming.

Don’t say they wouldn’t do such things. We’ve seen these people in action, and of course they would if they could.

As I type these words, America is in thrall to people who disregard the law, disregard court orders to stop, and whose arrogance deprives them of any understanding of the immense and long-lasting harm they are doing, as they play to the cheers of an equally ignorant cult.

Instead of “reflection and choice,” America is submitting to “accident and force.” And the rest of the world is watching.

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Bigotry Unbounded

There is no longer any way to mask what MAGA is all about: Christian Nationalism, White Supremacy and the “othering” of anyone who isn’t a White “Christian” male. The persistent attacks on the Constitution are efforts to overcome legal impediments to the goal of returning White “Christian” men to social dominance. 

The evidence is everywhere.

The new Secretary of Defense, the unreconstructed (and thoroughly unqualified) Pete Hegseth, has ordered the military  to suspend all observances and/or recognition of the following holidays: Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Black History Month, Juneteenth, Women’s Equality Day, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Asian American Pacific Islander Awareness Month, and American Indian Heritage Month.

He has also indicated his desire to revert military installations to their former Confederate names.

Incoming MAGA officials have wasted no time before eliminating all DEI–diversity, equity and inclusion–programs. Trump’s fire hose of Executive Orders has been matched in red states like Indiana, where incoming Governor Braun undoubtedly delighted his Christian Nationalist running mate Micah Beckwith by ridding Indiana government of any DEI efforts to combat years of discriminatory practices.

Some DEI efforts have arguably gone too far toward what we used to call “political correctness,” and research has suggested that they have been relatively unsuccessful in erasing bias. But it is impossible to ignore the message intentionally sent by their wholesale erasure.

My Christian friends (including several in the clergy) tell me that “Christian Nationalism” is many things, but Christian isn’t one of them. Wikipedia agrees.

Christian nationalism has been linked to prejudice towards minority groups. Christian nationalism has been loosely defined as a belief that “celebrate[s] and privilege[s] the sacred history, liberty, and rightful rule of white conservatives”.  Christian nationalism prioritizes an ethno-cultural, ethno-religious, and ethno-nationalist framing around fear of “the other”, those being immigrants, racial, and sexual minorities. Studies have associated Christian nationalism with xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, political tolerance of racists, opposition to interracial unions, support for gun rights, pronatalism, and restricting the civil rights of those who fail to conform to traditional ideals of whiteness, citizenship, and Protestantism. The Christian nationalist belief system includes elements of patriarchy, white supremacy, nativism, and heteronormativity.  It has been associated with a “conquest narrative”, premillennial apocalypticism, and of frequent “rhetoric of blood, specifically, of blood sacrifice to an angry God”. 

MAGA evidences all of those elements.

Trump’s intemperate rage against immigration has always been directed against Black and Brown immigrants–those from “shithole” countries. Despite his rhetoric about expelling “criminal” immigrants, the recent ICE raids have swept up  undocumented people who had never committed any crime and people who are U.S. citizens.

MAGA’s war on women is in high gear. Christian Nationalists are determined to strip us of autonomy over our own bodies, and return us to a status subservient to–and ultimately dependent upon– males Having achieved their goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, they are now coming for birth control. In several states, Republican lawmakers are pushing to restrict access to birth control methods they claim are “really” abortifacients.

The escalating attacks on trans youth are part and parcel of MAGA homophobia. Given the broader culture’s about-face on LGBTQ rights generally, MAGA bigots have thus far focused on the tiny group of trans individuals who are less well understood.

And who can forget the rioters in Charlottesville– described as “fine people” by Donald Trump–who chanted “Jews will not replace us”? Or efforts to keep all Muslims out of the country?

Any and all efforts to move the American public beyond bigotry are met with claims that efforts to eradicate discrimination against any minority group really amounts to discrimination against White Christian men, and a retreat from “meritocracy.” Trump even blamed “DEI hires” for the recent plane crash–presumably, because “DEI hires” would be less competent than the pathetic assortment of unqualified clowns he has nominated.

Hegseth is an excellent example.

Lloyd Austin, Biden’s Secretary of Defense– a Black man– had a distinguished 41-year career in the U.S. Army, retiring as a four-star general. He held key positions, including Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Commander of United States Forces – Iraq, and Commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM). He was awarded the Silver Star for valor. Following his retirement from the military in 2016, he served on the boards of several companies, including Raytheon Technologies, Nucor, and Tenet Healthcare. 

Hegseth did serve briefly in the Army. He subsequently was fired from two nonprofit organizations for mismanagement, and became a Fox News host. Aside from those “accomplishments,” he faced credible accusations about extreme drunkenness and wife-beating. He also reportedly sports White Supremacist tattoos.

But hey! He’s a White “Christian” male, so obviously superior to the Black guy.

Welcome to MAGA world.

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