Trump, Being Trump, As Always

DONALD TRUMP, being Donald Trump,is back at it, in full swing, in rare form, as the expression goes, only, for him, it aint rare,its parr for the course, to borrow another cliche. In one of his maniacal MAGA hate speech rallies, a favorite format of his conservative Christian cult, he stood before a flaming crowd in Iowa, and delivered. The topic, as it often is, was that with which he launched his political career of terror and hatred; immigration to America. Not undocumented immigration, but immigration, legal and otherwise. In his racist xenophobic fury, he, Der Fuhrer, has long since abandoned any pretext of defending America's borders in the name of law, order, and oganized documentation, and has gone all out against all immigrants, dropping his previous pretexts in his manicial zeal. Legality no longer matters. Racial identity and ethnicity are everything. Recall his escalatorial descent in the summer of 2015, when he informed us that "they're sending their rapists, murderers, and drug dealers to America, while magnanimously allowing that some, he assumes, are good people. (Some, but not many). Fast forward to Iowa, December, twenty twenty three. Now, the blood of America is being poisoned by immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Taking a page straight out of Hitler's racist rhetoric, the blood of America is being posinoned, screeches Trump, not by immigrants from, say, Norway, but from those regions populated by people of color. During his presidency, Turmp made it clear specifically that he actually wanted and welcomed immigrants from Norway, but not from those "shit hole countries of Africa". (his exact words). Welcome those tall, handsome, light skinned Norwegians, and, presumably, all Scandanavians, but not Asians, Africans, or Latin Americans. Left wing people are "vermin", says Herr Trump, and darkly pigmented people are poison, poisoning America's pure, white, Aryan race with color. Confederate flags, Swaztikas, and MAGA ball caps fly high. Hitler's slogan was, by the way, "Make Germany great again!" Great, before its blood was poisoned by Jewish blood. America's blood was pure white before black civil rights, before mass immigration from shit hole countries. Trump, like his father, spent much of his life claiming to be of Swedish descent, rather than German which he actually is,but,as World War Two faded into the background of history, and the stigma attached to being of German descent receded proportionately, he tended to temper that. Germans are, after all, Aryan, pure, white. As always, the attention must at some point turn to his supporters, most of whom are of the consrvative evangelical Christian kind. There are black Christians,and white Christians. They worship in different churches. Dozens of books have been written and published about Trump, by close associates and family members. They all say that Trump is indeed a racist, and that in private conversations with people close to him, he incessantly uses the "N" word.If you enable a racist by supporting, with zealous enthusiam, his political ambitions, what are you? If you enable by supporting an insurretionist president who attempted to violently overthrow the American government, thus becoming a traitor in fact if not intent, what are you? Why, a conservative evangelical Christian, among other things.

Choosing A Movie

THE LADY ON FACEBOOK, the effusive one, posted,in living color and huge font-enhanced letters, announcing to the online world her intent to watch a movie on "Netflix" that very evening. She invited recommendations. I considered myself fortunate that her posted square included no pictures of her swimming pool, pool deck, indoor or outdoor Christmas trees, indoor or outdoor cat, lunch, or dinner. Nor did she regale the world with photographs of the day's gourmet coffee or evening cocktail, as usual. Temporary that the reprieve would surely be, it was, if nothing else, a brief respite from too much information. People chimed in with Christmassy suggestions, appropriate to the season. "Miracle on 34th Street was among them. Spontaneously insired, I decided to take the plunge,and think outside the box,as we say. "The Alamo", starring Billy Bob Thornton, I typed. At least mildly intrigued, she said "I've heard of the Alamo. Tell me about it". Knowing not whether what she had heard of was the movie or the actual event, or both, adverse to extensive typing, I replied: "It is a reasonably reliably accurate depiction of an iconic event in American history". "Tell me more", she pressed on. "That would require an essay, which I could publish as soon as tomorrow, I rejoined". With freshly rested, freshly motivated fingers, I decided to throw her a couple of nuggets. "Davy Crockett hated being called 'Davy'", I offered. "He always used "David". He was famous before his heroic death at the Alamo, and immediately became a legendary figure afterwards." The Facebook lady responded with an emoji conveying care and compassion. Emboldened, I went on: "During the 1820s and early 1830s, the "white" population of the Mexican province of Texas swelled, and in Eastern cities, abandoned apartments were emblazended with the letters "GTT" on their front doors; "Gone to Texas". This time her emoji conveyed shock, or surprise. I could have told her more, much more, since I am a huge fan of David Crockett, and I know a fair amount about him. There are two versions. The mythological "Davy" Crockett who could leap over mountains and whip his wieght in wildcats, and the real, historcal "David" Crockett, a warm hearted, charming fast talker who took up all the air in the room, and was a muhh better politician than hard fighting military hero. According to the one woman who was spared by the Mexicans and survived the massacre, Crockett said that he would be tempted to climb over the wall and sneak away from the beseiged "fortress", were it not for his reputation for superhuman feats of bravery. It was his fame which preceeded him, doomed him, and outlived him by centuries, enhanced further by his dramatic, if overblown death. During his three terms in Congress, which contribued to his fame, his hillbilly charm endeared him to the masses, but made him the object of ridicule among the eastern, educated, wealthy elite. He never got a bill passed, but dramatically championed noble causes, such as Indian rights and squater's rights with funnny, fiery speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives. After his death, his son, John Crockett, was elected to his father's seat, an succedeed in passing some of his famous father's agenda, notably a bill permitting poor frontier farmers the right to remain on the land owned by eastern banks that they had settled on without permission. David (Davy) Crockett was a fun living, funny, charming, kind hearted man of intelligence who taught himself how to read, and turned an impoverished childhood into a successful political career, and, mostly by sheer chance, positioned himself to become among the most legendary figures in American history. His autobiography, which he wrote by speaking the words to a ghost writer, became an instant best seller, has remainded in print ever since, is readily available, and is a masterpiece of early American literature. When I finish informing the Facebook lady of all this, I hope, even if her interest in Davy Crockett isn't stoked to a bonfire, that she will, if nothing else, post me a heart shaped emoji. She ended up watching a Christmas themed movie, appropriately, sidestepping, for the time being, The Alamo. Maybe she'll give it a try later. Meanwhile, I can continue to ply her with tantalizing hstorical nuggets. As Crockett wrote: "I'll stand up to my rack, fodder or no fodder, and the devil take the hindmost."

Busing For Spite

MUCH FUSS has been made in recent months about the extensively implemented project in which undocumented immigrants from the Republican governed (burdened) states of Texas and Florida are being packed into buses and sent packing to northern American cities which are governed and majority populated by Democrats. The victims of this are not being told in advance about their fate,are being given no choice, and little or no assistance with food, clothing, and money before their departure, despite claims by their deporters to the contrary. Governors DeSantis of Florida and Abbott of Texas, buffered by legions of mainstream MAGA Republicans, whose antipathy for umdocumented immigration and immigration in general have a distinctly dark skinned pigmentation, are tragically but predictably motivated by hatred and spite, rather than by any honorable, compassionate sentiments. They are exploiting human suffering and desperation for political capital and gain, pandering to the inherent racism and xenophobia of their trumped up voter base. This is yet another example of extremist Christian conservative hypocrisy, among many others. Welcome the stranger, give unto the poor, in reverse. Conservative evangelical Republican Christianity hard at work, exposing their duplicitous malignancy. They are making their point; that if you bleeding heart Yankees up north want to maintain open borders, which you deem compassionate, why then, you can paricipate in suffering the consequences of your compassionate ideology, and share the burden of their presence among you, fincncial, and otherwise. The confused, deveived victims of Republican hatred, spite, and perfidy are and have been arriving in places like New York City by the tens of thousands, overwhelming the city's infrastructure, straining its financial resources. How could it be otherwise? NYC is straining and depleting its resources precisely because of its compassionate approach; damned Yankees, actually expending resources attempting to feed the hungry and assist the poor, something Texas and Florida are refusing to do. American Christian conservatism in action. Ironically, appropriately, it is the besieged northern cities which will have the last laugh, and reap the rewards of their compassionate approach. Chaotic and burdensome that the situation is now, it will change, with time. The new arrivals will sooner or later settle in, become employed, assimilate culturally, and stimulate the local and national economy by creating jobs, paying taxes, and spending disposable income on consumer goods and services,stimulating supply with increased demand, creating business growth, including for large corporations. It is well documented that immigration, undocumented included, enhances rather than diminishes a nation's wealth, culture, and general prosperity, expanding the work force, the consumer base, and tax revenue. This documentation derives from decades of extensive research by economists and other experts, and is clearly explained in several recently published seminal studies on the subject, such as Zeke Hernandez's monograph: "The Truth About Immigration", (see essay below: "Telling the Migratory Truth"). More ironic still is that conservaitve southern states, in their unwavering dedication to capitalism and the free market, could be sharing in the economic blessings of immigration, merely by adopting a cooperative, compassionate approach, with northern cities, and with the immigrants themselves. Busing both documented and undocumented immigrants to various locations all across the country is actually a good idea, if properly implemented in an organized, cooperative manner. But of course, such an approach, being intelligent, has never crossed the borders of their barricaded, walled off, conservative Christian minds.

Incisively Savaging Trump

CHARLIE SAVAGE is a writer/reporter/journalist who works for the New York Times and has Harvard and Yale credentials. His area of speciality is national security, with a related interest in the American presidency,and the expansion of its powers in the twentieth century. He has written two books on this topic, "Takeover", and "Power Wars", about he expansion and attempted expansion of the powers of the chief executive during the presidencies of Geroge Bush number two and Barrack Obama. (This expansion may be said to have begun during the Johnson administration, when LBJ greatly expanded America's involvment in the Viet Nam War without explicit congressinal approval, and the Nixon administraion, infamously dubbed "the imperial presidency"), ran amok in its determination to skirt the law as a means of disabling Nixon's "enemies", perceived or real. Most recently Savage and two co-authors con-researchers have been devoting their energies to speulation, about what a second Trump administration would look like, whether it would be more extreme in its ruthless pursuit of power than the first, and the forms this power grab would likely take. This speculative endeavor becomes increasingly relevant as Trump maintains a huge lead among all other Republican candidates for the 2024 G.O.P. nomination, and, in some, polls, a slim lead over President Biden in a hypothetical election. Savage concludes that if indeed Trump again becomes president, he would almost certainly embark immediately on an unrelenting quest to greatly expand his own presidential powers, without regard to the impact upon future presidents and presidential policies. Unfetterd by the constraints imposed upon him during his first administration, aware that his second term would be his last, unconstrained by any evident moral values or concern for his lasting impact on the country or the office of the president, Trump, says, Savage, would pull out all the stops. The most obvious indicator of this, so says Savage, are comments Trump himself has made quite recently. With the past week Trump, handed a softball question by Sean Hannity, who was giving Trump an oportunity to deny any desire to assume near dictiatorial powers, instaed used the opportunity to assert that he would only act like a dictator on his first day in office. During his first term Trump surrounded himself with cabinet members and advisors who, despite their questionable competance, tended to place loyalty to the country above personal loyalty to Trump. On many occasions they strongly advised Trump to refrain from taking actions which would have indeed been dictatorial in nature, and succeeded in persuading him to so refrain. During the "Black Lives Matter" protest movment of the summer of 2020, for insance, Trump wanted to use the "Insurrection Act" to declare marshal law and illegally disperse the preaceful demonstrations and protest marches with military force. (Donald J. Trump, defender of the nation against violent insurrections; but only imaginary ones).There are many other examples. He has already indicated that he wouldn't make the same "mistake" again. Next time, he would surround himself with sycophantic loyalists of the first order, people would would do nothing but meekly accede to and tacitly agree with any and all of Trump's nefarious, bizarre, power grabbing schemes. Trump, a frim believer in something he calls "the deep state",which in fact does not exist, has indicated that hew would completely empty the federal bureauracy of competant career workers, and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He woudl appointe a MAGA special prosecutor to go afer the entire Biden family, despite a compete lack of evidence of any wrong doing by president Biden, as retribution for what he falsely perceives as the weapizing of the Justice Department against him. Indeeed, Trump would, he has implied end the traditional independence of the United States Department of Justice, and place he Attorney General directly under the control of himself. One can scarcely imagine the measures a lame duck Trump would take to not only eliminate his lame duck status and remain in power indefinitely, i.e. for life, but also, to silence his critics and opposition. Its happened before. As MAGA folk might say as they scream and wave their Confederate and NAZI banners; all hail Trump.

Hijacking American Conservatism

JIMMY CARTER once said that if Jesus were to show up on the doorstep of your average modern evangelical Christian conservative, he would probably be scorned and turned away. Although rather conservative by the standards of post World World Two liberalism, Carter, in context, ranks as a liberal or slightly left of center Democrat, if not a progressive one. He offered no elucidation of his remarks, other than to infer that the modern evangelical movement had been, in a sense, "hijacked" by far right political extremists, whose anti-taxation anti redistribution pro profit ideologies stand in contrast with the essential teachings of Jesus Christ. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, give unto the poor, render unto Caesar; these admonitions, central to the fundamental Christian message, are largely missing from modern political conservatism, a movement dominated by evangelical Christians. Carter is not alone in his unfavorable assessment, but he was talking more about the church than the political arena. Much the same viewpoint is articulated about the modern conservative movement in a fascinating, provocative new book by journalist and author Joe Conason: "The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds hijacked American Conservatism". A cursory glance at the official Republican party platform of 1956 clearly demonstrates that the Grand Ole Party has, in recent decades, moved much to the right. Eisenhower, and even Nixon seem moderate to slightly liberal by comparisoon to their political descendants. In the 1960 presidential race, Nixon was the "liberal", and Kennedy was the "conservative", though both could be described as essentially moderate. In those days, Republicans wanted to raise taxes, mainly to support cold war military expansion, and Democats wanted to cut taxes. Then came the era of Reagan, and Republicans evolved in their thinking, wanting to both lower taxes and increase military spending. The two didn't mix, and the national debt ballooned out of control. While Jimmy Carter was a politically liberal evangelical Christian, Reagan was a politically conservative evangelical Christian, and the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties witnessed the entry of politically conservative evangelical Christians into the political arena in huge numbers, the so called "moral majority", (which was in fact neither exclusively "moral" nor an actual majority of the electorate), into the Republican party, transforming it. This is the era, and the phenomenon, about which Mr. Conason writes. His use of the descriptors "swindlers", "grifters", and "frauds", by their very harshness, sets the tone for Conasons harsh assessment of the current conservative movement. He pays particular attention to the wave of extreme conservative talk show hosts and audiences which infiltrated the radio industry following the corporate consolidation of the radiio industry and abolition of the "fairness doctrine", and its impact on America's right wing. Essentially, an insidious "perfect storm" of converging circumstances led us to our present precarious point, at which Donald J.Trump, prevaricator in chief, a true carnival barker, as Barrack Obama described him, is the face of the Republcian party and the conservative community, despite his aborted but violent attempt at reversing his own election defeat by denying its reality and his consequent well orchestrated attempt at overthrowing the Amerian government through violent insurrection. Swindlers, grifters, and frauds indeed.

Telling the Migratory Truth

NO TOPIC OF CONVERSATION ignites American passions more than immigration. Like nearly every other topic, opinions divide along ideological lines,librals being more amenable to welcoming the stranger, conservatives less so, evangelical Christians less still. No matter how often we are reminded that the United States was largely founded upon the migrations of and populated by illegal fair skinned immigrants from Europe, the left - right ideological schism proceeds unabated. When Donald Trump clumsily articulated his opinion that the U.S. would benefit more from receiving immigrants from, for instance, Norway than, as he put it, "shit hole countries" in Africa, it became apparant that the chief complaint about North American immigration policies and circumstances has more to do with racism than anything else. This is no less true of Trump's generally white Christian conservative followers. All other expressed concerns about immigration into the United States can be viewed as cover stories for underlying racism. White protestant Canadians come and go across America's northern border, often illegally, at a prodigious rate, without American complaint. Correcting and dispelling these common negative assumptions about brown skinned immigration from the south is the purpose and theme of a seminal new volume on the topic, "The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers", by Wharton School of Business professor Zeke Harnandez. If the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania rings a bell, it may be because it was attended by Donald J.Trump, descrbied by two of his still living professors as "the dumbest son of a bitch I ever had in my classes". Zeke Hernandez is of an entirely different ilk. Intelligent, knowledgeable, himself the son of immigrants, his book is a model, as one reveiwer described it, of presuasive, lucid, fact based prose. He weaves together a convincing fact based, data driven narrative, oriented towards economic realities, with a compelling personal narrative, to prove that not only are all the prevalent negative sterotypes about immigrants simply incorrect, but that, quite the contray, immigration into the United States from Latin America and all other places is not only harmless to the United States, but actually greatly increases its health and well being, economically and otherwise. The prevailing negative misconceptions are; that immigrants steal jobs and reduce the wages of native local workers, that they contaminate, pollute, and forever change the culture and cultural values of the indigenous population, and that they contribute to an increase in the crime rate in America. Or, as Trump falsely stated in his announcement for the presidency, that they are "sending" us (as if by design) rapists, drug dealers, and other types of criminals, including murderers. In fact,immigrants from Latin American countries pay a disproporationate share of taxes, from the very beginning of their entry into the U.S., they create the jobs with which they are employed, thereby greatly expanding the economy and American prosperity generally, and not only do they strengthen and enrich cultural diversity, they tend to blend seamlessly into the existing cultural context, especially second and third generation immigrants. Perhaps most surprisingly of all to some, they commit crimes at an actually far lower rate than "native Americans", including their white conservative Christian detractors. Hernandez provides a litany of fact based reasons supporting the efficacy of "welcoming the stranger", but cannot by himself overcome the ignorance, bias, hypocrisy, and sheer hatred of those who falsely proclaim themselves witnesses of Christ, in particular, the above mentioned "Christian" conservative community.

Amazing

MAN IS A SOCIAL ANIMAL, spake Aristotle, presumably referring equally to woman. Imitative creatures that we are, not only do artistic and clothing styles spring into being and proliferate throughout culture; words and phrases do too. It is what it is, so to speak. Whatever. Enter the oft overused word "amazing". Nobody, said Goethe, is fortunate enough to avoid praise and blame. Amazingly, sometimes we find other people praiseworthy, and the qualifier of current choice is "amazing". You look amazing. This food is amazing. Amazing this, amazing that. We all have "issues", another word of popular choice. Einstein said that either everything is a miracle, or nothing is. Cogito ergo sum, everything is either amazing, or nothing is. Assume, for the sake of argument, that some things are more amazing than others. Here's an example: Less than one year before the next American presidential election, former president Donald Trump, insurrectionist supreme, recipient of no fewer than ninety one felony indictments, currently leads in polling by a forty seven to forty three percent margin over incumbant Joe Biden. It has been said by astute political observers that this means nothing. Maybe, maybe not. It does in fact mean something - It means that Biden is very unpopular, that his accomplishments are being ignored, that he is being blamed for economic inflation which as actually caused by a pandemic, and it means that we the American people, though at times wise, are at this point burdened with an electorate half of which is either morally bankrupt, intellectually vacuous, or both. Adding to the irony is that the pandammic of 2020 and 2021, which is actually ongoing, was exacerbated by Trump, whose recommendations that folks afflicted with Covid 19 cure it by ingesting bleach, horse pills, or...whatever. Trump doubtless hadn't and hasnt the foggiest awareness that by facilitating the premature deaths of upwards of a million Americans, he was, presumably unintentionally, enhancing his chances of returning to the presidency. Wonders never cease, as we like to say. Everything is a miracle. Itis utterly beyond the comprehension of any reasonable person how an American president can be impeached twice, refuse to acknowledge his loss in his attempt at reelection, motivate millions of his supporters to do the same, then organize in detail a violent attempt to reverse the election results,overthrow the government, remain illegall in power. Two weeks prior to the twenty twenty election, Trump told his daughter, according to his daughter, "No matter what happens in the election, well just say that we won. Fuck it". Again, the planning was precise and thorough, including that thousands of supporters would be summoned to Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, the day of certification of the electoral college, would be well armed,and would be sent to the Capitol by Trump to, as he said: "fight like hell". "Turn the metal detectors off", said Trump."They aren't here to hurt me." Of the more than twelve hundred convicted of rimes for participating in the insurrection, all twelve hundred maintain to this day that they did it because they thought the president wanted the to. In fact, he did. P.T. Barnum, a hustler nearly on lar with /trump, said: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people". Nobody ever did. Everything is a miracle. Seven people died during the Trump's insurrection. It is a miracle that more than forty perent of the American people evidently approve of their demise.

Buying Lunch

YOU ARE HONORED AND EXCITED to receive an invitation to dinner at the home of a close friend. You arrive early, enjoy cocktails and appetizers, then sit down to a delicious, home cooked, full course meal, including salad, entree, side dishes, desert, and wine.The table settings are complee, with folded napkins, silver ware properly positioned, even, curiously, finger bowls. After enjoying your surpassingly delicious meal, you compliment the chef, your best friend, rise from the dinner table, and repair to the living room for post dinner conversation and decaffeinated coffee. You even suspect that a professional cook has been brought in for the occasion, and remains sequestered in the kitchen. Your offer to help with the dishes has been brushed aside;the dish washer will due. When at length you remark that you should be heading home to feed the cat and complete some online work in preparation for tomorrow's visit to the office, your host smiles pleasantly, and hands you a piece of paper as you walk sleepily towards the foyer. On it is printed the host's name and address, and beneath that, an itemized list of the items you had for dinner, and, below that, a dollar amount, which, to your relief, does not include any taxes. It is a bill for the dinner, payable immediately in cash, or later that evening by electronic transfer. A gratuity is presumed. Late payment, it is written, will result in an extra late fee. Failure to pay, it is implied, will result in legal action. The amouont is substantial, akin to what you might expect from a fashionable five star restaurant, upwards of a hundred dollars. Your first reaction is to asume that your friend is joking, and you laugh approvingly, but with a slight apprehension. You make eye contact with the host; she is not laughing. Astonished, you hastily bid farewell, offer your sincere thanks, and indicate that you will be in touch, soon. As you walk out the front door, you quickly glance around, looking for a possible hidden camera. You do the same outside, but see nothing unusual. This is not some stale sitcom, nor a furtively filmed episode of some "Candid Camera"-like reality television show, but rather, stark, hard, unassailable reality. You are being charged for dinner at the home of your best friend. Neither is this a purely ficticious senario, taken fronm some dystopian novel of social criticism or Kurt Vonnegut book. It is, as folks like to say, "trending", trending in real space, real time, real dining out. All across America's excessively fruited plain, in the land of plenty and generous abundance, the trend is insinuating itself into the warped fabric of 'murican culture; that of inviting people to dinner, then charging them for the privilege, without even the courtesy of an advance notice. A private home become restaurant for profit, without the courtesy of prior notification of capitalistic intent. One might wonder whether the scheme is entirely legal; there is, evidenly, no provision for the payment of sales taxes by the home-restaurant owners to the government. It may never be known precisely where and how this ostensibly, arguably heinous behavior got started, who exactly was the first opportunist to conceive and implement this "pay to eat" at a friend's house operation. Undeniably, it has taken hold. Whoever did it first has either taken no action to keep their profiteering a secret, and sees no reason to, or, more likely, its first vicitms have "spilled the beans", so to speak,spread the word, word has gotten out, and the inevitable imitations have commenced. The early consensus seems to be negative, that this is entirely innapropriate, a form of behavior which should be nipped in the bud. Only, the bud has already bloomed. The cow, as it were, has lef the barn. You almost wish you had not left a bit or two of uneaten food on your plate as a compliment to the host; now you feel that you have failed to ingest full value... We can now expect more of this behavior which, only a short time ago, would have been thought unthinkable, condemned as ruthless profiteering. For explanation, we are left with the only reaonable conclusion at our garbage disposal; that, after all, we live in a society in which all things are and always have been considered possible, no stone is ever left unturned in the passionate pursuit of money making ideas, and that, at rock bottom, lies the reality that we are deepy ensconced within the United States of Avarice.

Taking An Oath, and Failing To Honor It

IN SEVERAL STATES, legislatures have been and still are grappling with the question of whether it is constitutional to allow Donald Trump to appear on their state's ballots in the twenty tweny four presidential election, presuming he actually secures the Republican nomination and represents the party as their nominee. Presumably, he will. According to the constitution, in the fourteenth amendment, anyone guilty of leading or participating in an insurrection to overthrow the American government is ineligible to be president. The emerging conclusion seems to be that Trump is, as of now, indeed qualified for candidacy, since,in point of fact, he has not yet been convicted of incitement to insurrection in the infamous events of January 6, 2021. It seems almost preordained that he will at length be convicted, before the election, and will thereby become ineligible. This, aside from the question of whether he will be convicted of any or all of the ninety one separate felonies of which he is currently charged. Of these,only an insurrection conviction would actually disqualify him from serving as president. Such a conviction would appear inevitable; millions of Americans witnessed, in real time, Trump's act of incitement, his exhortation to an angry assembled mob to "go to the Capitol and fight like hell", which is precisly what it consequently did. It seems likley that never in history had so many people witnessed the commission of a high crime. The sequence of events leading to this precarious national set of circumstances is succinctly detailed in a just released book by former Congressperson Liz Cheney, in her book: "Oath and Honor: A Memoir and A Warning". Cheney's inside perspective derives not only from her membership in Congress during the whole sordid affair, but especially that she was one of only two Republican Representatives who participated on the Congressional subcommittee which thoroughly investigated the events leading up to, including, and after the violent attempt to allow Trump to illegally remain in power by force. Cheney emphasizes that the entire plot to overturn the election results was constructed in detail, as a contingency measure, well before the actual election, that Donald Trump was indeed the instigator, and that he and his close associates, in the White House and in Congress, cooperated closely in the planning and implemention of the attempted coup, and that there remains no doubt that Trump was well aware immediately after he lost the election that he had indeed lost the election. Cheney further asserts that only a handful of Republican Congressinal members ever truly believed in Trump's blatant election lie, and that, of the vast majority who did not and still do not, the main reason why they have failed to speak out has everything to do with their desire to keep their political careers intact by appeasing Trump, and nothing to do with honor or integrity. This book is thus far the most thoroughly researched and written explication of these tragic events to have appeared, for the obvious reason that its author was intimately involved with these events at the most fundamental level. Her warning is clear and simple; that Donald Trump must never be allowed to possess political power again,as president, nor in any other elective office. She confesses to have voted form him both in 2016 and 2020, a mistake for which she still harbors regrets of the deepest sort. She pledges to herself and to her country that she will never do so again, and her expressed determination to keep Trump out of office has cost her her own politial career,and membership in her former political party. She says that her misguided votes are her only regret.

Dreaming

MOST HUMANS, I have read, have an attention span approximately equal to that of a goldfish of average intelligence. That would be, so some experts in cognition have determined, right at eight seconds. Not withstanding the details, it remains readily observable that, for the most part, humans much prefer speaking to listening, much prefer listening to themselves than to others. We are, above all else, inerested in ourselves. That's what we spend most of our hot air doing; talking about ourselves. This I use, whether correctly or not, to explain my recurring dream, my semi-nghtmare. The oft repeated scenario is this: When I go to bed at night, its barely night. As I age, I tend to pack it in ever earlier, and to awaken and arise ever earlier. A habit of long stanidng, I turn on the radio by my bedstand, and listen to classical music. Eventually, if I'm lucky, I fall asleep, the classical music playing all night. Sometimes I awaken during one of my favorite symphonies or violin concertos, feeling fortunate, determined to stay awake and listen to its conclusion. It never works. I'm always back in dreamland before the end, and annoyed at myself the following morning, which is of course nonsensical, to be angry about sleeping well. As sunrise approaches, the radio station, (NPR) concudes its overnight concert, and shifts to news. Human voices take over for orchestras. That's usually when I am in my deepest sleep, REMing, engaged in vivid dreaming. In my dream, I am in the presence of the people doing the talking, a listener in a room with people, listening, and wanting to talk, wanting to express my opinion about the topic at hand which is usually some news item of the day. Only I can't. Nobody wants or is willing to stop talking about themselves and listen to me. I raise my hand, I stand up, I make noises, but to no avail. On goes the conversation, in my presence,the participants seemingly oblivious to me presence, let alone to my desire to participate. First, in the depths of my slumber, I become frustrated, then angry, then frantic. What happens after that tends to vary, but the most frequent result is that I sit stonily in the corner, seething, or storm out of the room in anger and disgust, amazed at the rudeness of the other speakers. Then, I wake up, still in the same frame of mind. By the time I feed the cats I'm usually calmed down,and have reminded myself that "it was just a dream". A good hot cup of coffee helps assauge my injured feelings. By the time mid morning rolls around, it all seems to have been much ado about nothing. But it takes a while. The voices on the radio, talking among themselves, reading, discussing, and analyzing the news, have broken through to my dreaming subconscious, and taken over my dream. I estimate the number of times this scenario has imposed itslef upon my life at several dozen. Wy then do I persist in m yhabit of turning on the radio and leaving it on while I fall asleep, and all night? Why, because I love the classical music, it helps me relax and get sleepy, and by the time I atually fall asleep, its too late to turn it off. I have accepted the reality that this roughly recurring dream tells me something fundamental about myself. I tells me that out here in real life, I feel undervalued. I feel that what I have to offer is unwanted, unappreciated. Most conversations in which I try to participate do in reality take the same pattern. I mention something about myself which to me seems irresistably fascinating, and nobody cares. I try to steer the conversation away from the minor details of the lives of other people,and towards the minor details of my life or to make general, but oh so profound remarks about people in general, or about history, current events, or whatever. Almost invariably, the other person or people steer the topic right back to themselves, the topic about which they know most, and are most interested in, to the exclusion of nearly all else. It becomes a competition for attention and power, as all conversations ultimately are, it has been convincingly argued. My only recourse seems to be to go right on listening to classical music, and dreaming. So far I haven't figured out a way of editing out the news. My salvation is that my attention span is no greater than that of a goldfish of average intelligence. Or, as T.S. Eliot wrote in concluding a poem: "Till human voices wake us, and we drown"...

Entering, Leaving the Kingdom

WE LIVE in an age of right wing political extremism. Today's left wing political leaders are domonstrably more moderate than their forebearers of the early and middle twentieth century; our conservative political leaders, by contrast, are far more extremist than their predicessors. A cursory glance, for instance, at the 1956 Republican party platform, which on the surface resembles the agenda of Bernie Sanders, attests to this. Among the drivers of the new wave of far right political extremism is the evangelical community, which married itself to the far right during the Reagan era. In a recently released new monograph, journalist Tim Alberta, who writes for "The Atlantic", examines the role currently being played by American evangelical Christianity in "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism". More than eighty percent of evangelical Christians supported Donald Trump in 2016, supported him again in twenty tweny,and, despite the former president's obvious lack of traditional Christian virtues and values, still support him. It is the evangelical community which openly advocates installing the Christian religion officially into the American government, advocates "Christian nationalism". according to which America becomes a shining beacon of religious faith, and, more extreme still, "Christian dominionism", according to which the Christian faith would be injected into every institution, government and non government,in American society and culture. Evangelicals in general eschew the concept of separation of church and state, seemingly unaware, or unwilling to be or to become aware, that America's founders nearly unamimously embraced it, as both Jefferson and Madison put it, an "impregnable wall" between church and state. They go much further in their revisionist rewriting of history, prefering to believe that the nation was founded on Christian principles rather than secular enlightenment principles, preferring to believe that their God given mission on Earth is the restoration of America to a pure, Christian nation, an America which never existed, and, most likely, never will. Even the revolution against British rule they ascribe to freedom loving preachers who supposedly preached the message of a new nation, dedicated to the ministry of Christ, their ministerial political and religious exhortations, so they believe, having laid the foundation for the new nation. In point of fact, a single man, Thomas Paine, by publishing his pamphlet "Common Sense" in 1776, did more to inspire the revolt than all the ministers and all the pulpits in colonial America. Paine, of course, was an atheist, whose other seminal pamphlet, "The Age of Reason" was an attack on religion in general and the Christian religion in particular. But all is not well in the kingdom of the Lord. Not only is protestant Christianity declining in North America, support among fervantly religious people for Donald Trump is waning, as Trump's personal debauchery and political authoritarian populism begins to wear thin among both moderate and independant voters. Politically, the evangelical movement is beoming increasingly divided. Progressive Christianity, ostensibly much more deeply rooted in Christian teachings, is a growing movement, and more and more often ultra conservative political ministries are preaching to empty pews. They seem destined to become even emptier, a reflection of their misguided politics.

Examining the Origins of Conspiracy Theory Culture

THANKS IN LARGE PART to the internet and its powers of information proliferation, we live in a world awash in conspiracy theories. Almost all of them, ceratainly, are unfounded, which only makes them more fun by inviting ever more hard to believe versions. The most prominent among them are well known to everyone; the deep state, stolen elections, and all manner of top secret government perfidy, including the notion that the United States government has long been aware of extraterrestrials and has a supply of captured alien beings stashed away, hidden from the general public. The list only grows. In an enticing new study, journalist Garrett Graff, author of seminal explications of the Watergate scandal and the Twin Tower tragedy of nine eleven, explores the origins of our modern conspiracy theory culture, convincingly, in the book: "UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search for Alien Life, Here - and Out There". As everyone who has ever been employed by or associated with the U.S. government well understands, if indeed the government were secretly housing alien beings, dead or alive, it would remain a secret for probably no more than a few minutes. It all began with UFOs, asserts Graff. Robert J.Goddard pioneered rocket science in the nineteen twenties, and Werner von Braun continued his work during World War Two, before coming to the U.S. after the war to head the newly created National Aeronatic and Space Administration. The commencement of the cold war after the hot war caused great concern that the Soviet Union might be ahead of the Unitd States not only in rocketry, but in he exploration of outer space, and with the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the paranoia only intensified. In 1947 two events precipitated the UFO craze, which has never subsided. An airline pilot saw unidentified flying objects near Mt. Ranier, and a weather balloon crashed to the ground in New Mexcio, the famous Roswell incident, and UFO culture and conspiracy theories were born. The American government has indeed conducted a decades long search for extraterrestrial life, through projects Ozma and SETI, without any tangible, reportable results. This lack of evidence not only failed to deter the rumors; it ony invited and enhanced them. The nineteen fifties and sixties were decades of UfOlogy. Millions of people claimed to have witnessed UFO sightings and landings, and a nearly equal number claimed, and many still claim, to have been abducted by extraterrestrials in flying saucers, as unidentified flying objects were called from the beginning for their usually circular, saucer shape. The government's research, usually through the Air Force and CIA, was quite serious and legitimate; the conspiracy industry engendered soon got totally out of control, and remains so today. There remains no evidence that millions of government bureaucrats have organized into a conspiratorial entity, nor is there, three years after the last presidential election, any evidence to support the outlandish claim that the election was stolen. And yet, these absurd ideas persist, just as UFO enthusiasts refuse to give up the ghost and admit that not only do we simply not know, but that we have not a shred of reliable evidence to substantiate claims regarding vivitors from other planets. But, so what? Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory. We are highly imaginative creatures, and the price we pay for our inquiring minds and lack of science education is a plethora of untruths, absurdities deeply embedded within our collective psyches, there to doubtless forever remain.

Paying For Play, Playing For Pay

AN EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD high school senior, the quarterback of his football team, signs a letter of intent to play football at a major university. By the time he arrives on campus, he is already a millionaire, although his family is poor. A millionaire who has not yet participated in a college football game, nor a single practice. In theory, his cash largesse has come to him because of his willingness to allow busineses interests to take advantage of his name, his image, and his likeness in image, for purposes of advertising. However, he has not taped or recorded a single commercial for any business, has promoted not a single consumer good or service, and no small or corporate business enterprise has approached him for his NIL services, since, as yet, he has insufficient fame and name recognition to merit his services. It might eventuate that during his entire collegiate athletic career, he will never actually endorse a single brand of beer or underwear. His millionaire dollar gift has nothing to do with his name, image, or likeness, but only with the fact that if the university he chooses to attend on athletic scholarship does not fork over the cash, some other institution of higher education will, and he will be playing football for the enemy, some other university. Nearly everyone agrees that student athletes should have the opportunity to earn an income. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake. Whatever university succeeds in obtaining his athletic services will fill their one hundred thousand seat football stadium six times a year for the duration of his stay, and will rake in tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars. If this arrangement proves unsatisfactory to the athlete, he has the option of merely transferring to another school, to offer his services on the free market,selling himself to the highest bidder, like people in all other professions. But surely he should have at least an opportunity to capitalize on his own bourgeoning fame. The university doesn't have to pay him a single penny; that will be left to the businesses which choose to employ him for their advertising, or choose to contribute money to the football program without any thing in return. Only, he does no advertising, and, in point of fact, it is the university, its supporters, and the fans of its athletic program, who will foot the bill for his services. Name, image, and likeness turns out to be nothing other than a play for pay arraangement. So, why not simply declare college athletes professional, and have them receive their pay directly from the university, rather than from private boosters and wealthy benefactors? The current situation, nearly everyone agrees, is chaotic, unsustainable. Ohio State University indicates that it will now require a thirteen million dollar annual budget, money to go to football players, to field a winning football team. The same approximate situation applies to every university in America wanting to win football games and fill their stadiums. Winning is what sells tickets and raises money. Colletives ar being formed, fans are being asked to join and contribute money on a monthly basis. For the "NIL" money, all universities will and already are milking their fans and boosters. Few if any commercials are bing made featuring athletes, few endorsements are being given by college athletes. The vast amounts of money simply change hands. All too soon, the money changing hands will become grostesque, insupportable, unsustainable. The rich will become vastly more wealthy, and the poor will sink ever lower economically...Suppose every university in the country were mandated by law to use, say, seven to ten percent of its gross revenue from athletics as payments for players, to be distributed among the student athletes in whatever way the university deems appropriate. The players could all be paid equally, from the star quarterback to the bench warming third string catcher, to every back up volleyball player on campus. Or, the star quarterback might be paid half of all the money, half the entire budget, which of course might prove divisive. Soon, very soon, circumstances will necessitate regulation and organization, as do all economic arrangements, even in a capitalistic economy. The current chaotic situation simply cannot endure...

Voting On the Bible

MY SEVENTH GRADE Social Studies teacher from 1967-68 assigned year end grades for our class, locked his classroom door, left the building, and never returned. Chastened by our intolerable behavior, he made an about face career-wise, and pursued his true passion, the ministry, Episcopalian style. He was twenty five when he left the education profession, and, now in his early eighties remains active within his congregation. He looks even more handsome in his vestments than in teaching attire. Like everybody, we reconnected in recent years on, as you might suppose, Facebook. As Nietzsche said: "When thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee". That Facebook. Nearly all of his posts concern his ministry; pictures of churches with beautiful architecture, pictures of ornate alters, of himself in his vestments, and such. I never post enything: I only type in responses to the posts of others, only positive, to avoid trouble. He posted an image of a Catholic saint, and in his subtitle indicated that this particular gentleman had attended as a delegate, the Council of Nicea, courtesy the Emporer Constantine. Curious, I typed in the question: which way did he vote? By this I meant, which of the many versions of the gospel of christ did this particular gentleman prefer be included in the newly organized canon of the New Testament, which, after all, was the purpose of the Council of Nicea, to establish, once and for all, a scriptural canon, thus unifying the disparate local parishes into a single, uniform religious faith. (Constantine, like all new converts to religion, was zealous.) He ignored my question, arousing my concern. I messaged him, assuring him that my question was not intended to annoy or poke fun at his post, but rather, to educate me. To this he responded, rather patronizingly I thought, that he likes my inquiring mind, and that he assumed I was poking fun at him, and thought my question was funny. Alas, misunderstood again. I still want to know: who voted for what, indeciding what to leave in, and what to leave out. According to Chistian historian Bart Ehrman, no fewer than fifty seven versions of the gospels were considered for inclusion, and the fammoue fab four we have today are what was eventually included. Yes, the Holy Bible was assembled by a vote of the attending clerics at the Council of Nicea. How else? By divine revelation accompanied by a storke of lightning? Had the vote gone differently, we might now be reading the gospels of Barnabus and Mary, which indeed were extant, rather Mathew, Mark, and so on. All fifty seven of the proposed versions of the gospel, so I understand, were written by unknown authors, inclluding the ones finally settled upon. They first appeared in fluent ancient Greek, indicating that the various authors were all well educated scholars in some Greek city or another, possibly Corinth, among other possibilities. The fact that they were named after close associates of Jesus Christ demonstrates that, in the ancient world, if you wanted you writing to be read, you attracted attention to it by ascribing it to some famous person, somebody other than your own unknown self. Many if not most ancient documents are thus, in essence, forgeries. Nobody knows who actually wrote the gospels. Nobody ever will. We know which gospels were elected for canonization. But do we know for sure who was in in attendance at Nicea, and precisely which way the various attendees voted? I don't recall getting this information from Bart Ehrman. I thought my seventh grade social studies teacher might know more than I. For the first time ever, he disappointed me. I guess I'll never know. If only he had taken me seriously.

Sticking With Trump

WITH LESS THAN A YEAR before the presidential election, it is becoming eminently clear that Donald J. Trump will be the Republican candidate. Normally, this would seem an astonishing set of circumstances, but when you consider the state of the Republican party, the state of the American conservative community, and indeed the state of the nation, it becomes less so. One third of all registered Republicans endorse violence as a means of achieving political goals. Two thirds still insist that Trump actually won the 2020 election, athough they know he didn't, and the same percentage still insist that the Capitol insurrection was justified by circumstances. None of this has cnanged in months, nor is likely to change going forward. The extreme right wing in Germany elected Hitler in 1933, despite his having spent nine months in prison for attempting to overthrow the German government by violence. "Make Germany great again" was the NAZI slogan. There are other parallels, many of them. Only perceptive Republicans seem to be concerned that their presidential candidate is facing ninety one felony indictments. All the other fading Republican presidential candidates, except for one or two, have been unwilling to speak the truth about Trump; that he is a pathological prevaricator,that he cares only about his own personal fortunes, and that he is almost certain to be convicted of multiple felonies even while the presidential campaign unfolds. And yet, Trump may very well be elected, only becaue of Biden's unpopularity, unpolularity totally unjustified by Biden's accomplishmens and policies as president. Biden's biggest liability is his age, and his unappealing personality. The American people are, for anyone who wonders, sufficiently shallow to vote an effective president out of office based on such superficial considerations. Trump's "popularity" among conservatives, such as it is, is predicated on racism, xenophobia, and misperceptions about the state of America's economic health. Trump's largest and most loyal base of support remains the conservative evangelical Christian movement, among which racism and xenophobia are strongest. They number upwards of one hundred million citizens, more than eighty percent of whom support Trump, despite Trump's demonstrated criminality and his conspicuous unfitness for political leadership. Thus the conservative evangelical Christian community reveals its own moral and intellectual bankruptcy. The fact remains that the agenda of Donald Trump; diplomatic isolation, neo-liberal economics, opposition to non white immigration into the United States, a reduction of government assistance for the poor, the elderly, and everyone except the wealthy, is not supported by a majority of the electorate, and they know it. They cannot implement their agenda by democratic processes, thus they eschew democracy in favor of authoritarian governance, as did conservative Germans in 1933. It is frightening the agenda which would confront the country in the event of a return of Trump to the presidency, and an American Congress with a Republican majority and Republican leadership. The current Republican speaker of the House asserts that the Christian Bible is his only guiding influence. According to the Bible, Almighty God sometimes elevates reporbtes to positions of power and authority for his own purpsoes. That in and of itself is alarming. It may be that God can do that without negative consequences. The tragedy is that American conservatives, by and large, seem to think that they can do the same.