Why Religious Institutions Should Not Receive Taxpayer Funds

The Founding Fathers wanted no established church and a clear separation of church and state being mindful of the wars of religion that had wracked Europe and witnessed the abuses of the Church of England which was the established church in much of colonial America.  Their concept has been perverted over the years and the Trump/Pence regime and a recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court have made the situation even worse as bigoted and discriminatory denominations have sought to gorge themselves at the trough of taxpayer funds.  Indeed, churches, including the immensely wealthy Catholic Church, received PPP loan funds - an example of how far we are from the Founder's intent. Another area where taxpayer funds are wrongfully given to discriminatory religious institutions is the federal funding of sectarian colleges and universities which gobble up taxpayer money even as they discriminate against members of society.  The test should be simple: discriminate and you receive zero taxpayer funds. Such a rule in no way restricts institutions' ability to practice their so-called religion yet doesn't make the public underwrite their bigotry financially.  A situation involving a Southern Baptist - a denomination founded on racism and bigotry - college underscores why such institutions should not receive a penny in taxpayer funds.  A piece in the Charlotte Observer looks at the expulsion of a gay student by Union University in Tennessee for the mere fact that he is gay.  Here are highlights:  

Alex Duron was slated to attend a master’s program in nurse anesthesia this fall at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, about midway between Memphis and Nashville.

But days before classes started, the private Christian college sent him a letter rescinding his acceptance.

“Your request for graduate housing and your social media profile, including your intent to live with your partner, indicates your unwillingness to abide by the commitment you made in signing (the university’s community values statements),” the letter states.

Those community values include a reference to “sexually impure relationships” and the acknowledgment that God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, according to the student life handbook.

“The promotion, advocacy, defense or ongoing practice of a homosexual lifestyle (including same-sex dating behaviors) is also contrary to our community values,” the value statements read. “Homosexual behaviors, even in the context of a marriage, remain outside Union’s community values.”

Duron — who is gay — shared the letter in a Facebook post Tuesday, telling Union “that bigotry masked as religion is not Christian at all.”

In a statement to McClatchy News, spokesperson Tim Ellsworth said “as a Christian institution,” Union has certain “standards of behavior for its faculty, staff, and students”

Union University — which touts itself as “the oldest institution affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention” — is home to roughly 3,100 undergraduate and graduate students, according to its website. Tuition and fees for the average undergraduate total close to $45,000 a year.

To help students offset that cost, the university receives federal funding from the U.S. government.

According to the Treasury Department’s data lab, which tracks federal spending, Union received more than $40 million from the government in 2018. The vast majority went toward student aid with a small chunk — about $90,000 — allocated for nursing and health professional grants.

As a recipient of federal funds, Union is subject to Title IX regulations, which bar K-12 schools and institutions of higher education that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex — including sexual orientation.

But there’s a catch: They can claim a religious exemption.

Union University President Dub Oliver applied for such an exemption in 2015, citing the university’s oversight by the Southern Baptist Convention and beliefs against homosexuality and abortion, according to letters filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

It was accepted that year.

The Title IX religious exemption has long been used to protect colleges and universities from complying with federal discrimination laws that go against their beliefs, though it can be hard to keep track of which institutions have sought one, Teen Vogue reported in 2018.

Campus Pride, a nonprofit advocating for the rights of LGBT+ students, keeps an updated list of colleges and universities that have sought a Title IX exemption or otherwise discriminated against LGBT+ students.

It’s called the “Shame List.”

Union University is one of more than 100 campuses across the U.S. on the list.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled businesses can’t discriminate against employees who identify as LGBTQ+, and a lawsuit filed in California last year challenges religious exemptions to Title IX.

Two former students at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena have accused the evangelical seminary of unlawfully discriminating against them in violation of Title IX after they were expelled for being apart of same-sex marriages, media outlets report.  Christianity Today reported the lawsuit “is believed to be the first of its kind.”

 Hate and bigotry masked as religion remains one of the great evils in the world.  Such religious exemptions from non-discrimination laws need to be eliminated. If these bigoted institutions cannot survive without taxpayer funds, then good riddance. Taxpayers should not be indirectly support hateful institutions.

Today'se GOP Stands for All the Wrong Things

Years ago when I was a Republican, most party supporters thought the GOP stood for certain values: fiscal sanity, free trade, strong on Russia, and that character and personal responsibility count to name a few.  Those days are long, long gone and the GOP - especially the elected officials - are more akin to a crime syndicate focused solely on retaining its power and enriching those at the top.  Trump, of course, is the embodiment of this rejection of moral values. Worse yet, he has opened the Pandora's box of legitimizing - at least in the minds of the immoral - that hatred of others and greed are positive things. A column in the Washington Post by a long time GOP political consultant looks at the death of positive, defining values in the GOP.  Here are column highlights:

Does anybody have any idea what the Republican Party stands for in 2020?

One way to find out: As you are out and about marking the new year, it is likely you will come across a Republican to whom you can pose the question, preferably after a drink or two, as that tends to work as truth serum: “Look, I was just wondering: What’s the Republican Party all about these days? What does it, well, stand for?”

Republicans now partly define their party simply as an alternative to that other party, as in, “I’m a Republican because I’m not a Democrat.”

In a long-forgotten era — say, four years ago — such a question would have elicited a very different answer. Though there was disagreement over specific issues, most Republicans would have said the party stood for some basic principles: fiscal sanity, free trade, strong on Russia, and that character and personal responsibility count. Today it’s not that the Republican Party has forgotten these issues and values; instead, it actively opposes all of them.

Republicans are now officially the character doesn’t count party, the personal responsibility just proves you have failed to blame the other guy party, the deficit doesn’t matter party, the Russia is our ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party. Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.

A party without a governing theory, a higher purpose or a clear moral direction is nothing more than a cartel, a syndicate that exists only to advance itself. There is no organized, coherent purpose other than the acquisition and maintenance of power.

Trump didn’t hijack the GOP and bend it to his will. He did something far easier: He looked at the party, saw its fault lines and then offered himself as a pure distillation of accumulated white grievance and anger. He bet that Republican voters didn’t really care about free trade or mutual security, or about the environment or Europe, much less deficits. He rebranded kindness and compassion as “PC” and elevated division and bigotry as the admirable goals of just being politically incorrect. Trump didn’t make Americans more racist; he just normalized the resentments that were simmering in many households. In short, he let a lot of long-suppressed demons out of the box.

This paranoid element in the party has existed for decades, since the Joe McCarthy era, when some Republicans who saw dark forces threatening the country argued that only radical action by “true” Americans — white, Christian, conservative — could safeguard the nation. . . . . I worked in every Republican presidential campaign from 1996 through 2012 and assumed that those guys had long been vanquished and that optimism and inclusion had prevailed. I was wrong.

This impeachment moment and all that has led to it should signal a day of reckoning. A party that has as its sole purpose the protection and promotion of its leader, whatever he thinks, is not on a sustainable path. Can anyone force a change? I’m not optimistic. . . . I know the seductive lure of believing what you prefer while ignoring the obvious truth.

Which is this: We are a long way — more than a half-century — from 1968, much less 1952. The United States is now a diverse, chaotic collection of 330 million people, a country of immigrants and multiculturalism that is growing less white every day. It is not some gauzy Shangri-La of suburban bliss that never existed.

I’d like to say that I believe the party I spent so many years fighting for could rise to the challenge of this moment. But there have been too many lies for too long.

The Republican Party That is Dead and Gone

From time to time throughout history nations have faced a point where they have to determine who they are and what they stand for.  An obvious example is 1930's Germany when everyday Germans failed the test and chose evil and depravity.  Now, America stands at a point where a similar decision must be made.  As it now exists, the Republican Party is the enemy of decency, morality and Americans must decide if they will go the way of the 1930's Germans or defeat the GOP and disavow its agenda.  Sadly, the Republican Party was not always a toxic threat.  A piece by Joe Scarborough, a former Republican member of Congress. reminisces about the days when the GOP was responsible and had not become a force that at best shrugs its shoulders at inhumanity towards others.  Scarborough, myself, Steve Schmidt, Jennifer Rubin, and many other former Republicans supported the Republican Party of yesteryear. Now, its defeat is an existential test for Americans as Scarborough notes.  Here are column excerpts:

There was a time when conservatives supported limited government, balanced budgets and less debt. Not so long ago, conservatives also championed free trade, lower tariffs and the spread of democratic institutions across Europe and the world. And yes, conservatives spent the past generation championing an American exceptionalism with values casting our great country as a city shining brightly on a hill for all the world to see. 

Ronald Reagan launched his historic 1980 presidential campaign with the Statue of Liberty as his backdrop . He framed America’s relationship with immigration in 1981 this way: “Our nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other country, our strength comes from our immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands.” Reagan took a position on immigration that most Republicans today would consider heresy, yet voters rewarded him with a decisive victory and a landslide reelection a few years later. Far less popular has been President Trump’s politically toxic policy of ripping children from their mothers’ arms. That depraved stance, adopted as a bargaining chip to use against Democrats, garnered support from only 17 percent of Americans . But it did earn him the antipathy of our closest allies, Pope Francis and every living former first lady . With the incarceration of more than 2,300 infants, toddlers and children unresolved, Trump’s policy of breaking up families remains an open wound on America’s character and a political crisis for the few Republicans who still believe they can salvage November’s midterm elections. A conservative former intelligence operative grimly recounted to me on Thursday how much the handling of these displaced children reminded him of the CIA facilities where terrorists were secretly held and interrogated after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: “This reminds me of our black sites, except we were holding 100 or so adult terrorists for the killing of American citizens. Now 2,300 kids are held in unknown locations with unknown individuals inside and absolutely no outside observation.” [Trump’s] personal cruelty and political ignorance have created a crisis that will kill conservative immigration reform and lead to future Democratic majorities. More troubling is the harsh reality now staring Americans in the face: Their president is a brutish political boss who has cheapened conservatism, sullied the office of the presidency and called into question the very character of a country once seen as the envy of the world. That so many Republicans still support this depraved man and his malignant movement could be the most damning element of this tragic American tale. 

 When Christian religious extremists and white supremacists are the base of a major political party it underscores that something is seriously wrong with America/Americans.  Each of us has an obligation to reclaim our nation and oppose Trump, Pence, Sessions, Ryan, McConnell and others who are destroying America's soul.  Sitting on the sidelines is not an option.  Inaction equals complicity in evil. 

Virginia Republicans Kill LGBT Bills, Give Amazon the Finger

Anti-gay bigot Del. Jason S. ­Miyares (R- Virginia Beach)

One hears Republicans ad nausea claiming to be the party of business and economic growth yet yesterday a small cabal of  Republicans on the House of Delegates General Laws subcommittee (i.e., Delegates Fowler, Wright, Knight, Bell, Richard P., Miyares) voted to kill four pro-LGBT bills and prevent them from getting a vote by the entire committee much less the full House.  And this was done in an atmosphere where Amazon is under growing pressure to turn down sites for its second headquarters with 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion investment. One of the bills killed would have afforded non-discrimination protections in housing. Another would have protected state employees from employment discrimination.  The excuse for action?  The usual bull shit about "protecting religious liberty" as if protecting bigots isn't a form of attack on those with differing religious beliefs.   With today's GOP, it is all about self-prostitution to the modern day Pharisee Christofascists.  The rights of so-called "Nones," Hindus, Muslims and others not subscribing to Christofacist hate and bigotry simply do not matter.  The lesson from this is that LGBT Virginians, their allies and Millennials MUST get organized and turn out at the polls in November, 2018, and again in November, 2019, and defeat Republicans in every election contest possible.  Locally, Del. Jason S. ­Miyares (R-Virginia Beach) and Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach/Chesapeake) need to be targeted for defeat in 2019.  The Washington Post looks at yesterday's disgusting event.  Here are highlights:

Bills meant to protect gay and transgender people from housing and employment discrimination died in a Republican-dominated House panel Thursday, prompting jeers of “Shame!” from activists who packed a Capitol hearing room.

On a straight party-line vote, members of a General Laws subcommittee voted 5 to 2 to kill four bills, some of which had already cleared the Republican-controlled state Senate, which tends to be more socially moderate than the House.

“The vast majority of fair-minded Virginians support these long-overdue protections that were passed with strong bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled Senate,” said Marty Rouse, national field director of the Human Rights Campaign. “House Republican leaders are completely out of step with what voters made clear at the ballot box in November.”

Opponents of the bills contend that they could have interfered with religious freedom, with some suggesting that religious institutions such as Liberty University could be forced to let gay couples occupy its dorms for married students.

Only one Republican on the panel spoke to the measures before the votes. Del. Jason S. ­Miyares (R-Virginia Beach) said he was torn between the desire to “treat everybody with dignity and respect” and the need to protect religious freedom. He said he would be willing to work toward a compromise, but not this year. The four bills were all brought by Democrats, Sens. Adam P. Ebbin (Alexandria) and Jennifer T. Wexton (Loudoun) and Dels. Marcus B. Simon (Fairfax) and Mark H. Levine (Alexandria). Ebbin and Levine are two of only a few openly gay lawmakers. Last month, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) signed an executive order shortly after his inauguration banning such discrimination in government employment. One of the bills would have codified that into law. Jeff Caruso of the Virginia Catholic Conference said the bills could force faith-based colleges and organizations to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. . . . Bill Janis of the Family Foundation suggested the measures were unnecessary because the largest employers in Richmond already prohibit anti-discrimination in hiring. 

Note the toxic influence of the Catholic Church which remains an enemy of LGBT individuals and The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group, to whom Virginia Republicans bow and genuflect. 

Quote of the Day - What's Wrong With Republicans

I typically disagree with almost everything columnist Ross Douthat says and believes, not the least because he sees religion, especially "conservative" Christianity,  as a positive good, whereas I see it as a net evil.  Much of the success of the Republican Party has been because of playing upon the hatred and bigotry that I see as being synonymous with right wing Christianity in America.  While Douthat still hasn't woken up to the reality of the negative effects of religion, he seems to have woken up to the evils of today's Republican Party under Der Trumpenführer: 

Thirteen years ago, in the midst of a different Republican administration, the liberal book of the moment was Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” In answering his title’s question, Frank argued that hardworking heartland Americans were being duped by a Republican Party that whipped up culture-war frenzy to disguise its plutocratic aims. Middle-class and working-class Republican voters, he insisted, were voting against their own economic self-interest and getting worse than nothing in return.

Trump has essentially become the Frankian caricature in full, draping the rhetoric of populism over an agenda that so far offers little or nothing to the middle class, making appeals to the religious right that are notable in their cynicism, and rallying his base through culture-war controversies distinguished mostly by their ginned-up phoniness.

What’s the matter with the Republican Party? Many things, but right now above all this: Far too many Trump supporters, far too many conservatives, have seen the then-inaccurate caricature that Frank painted 13 years ago brought to blaring, Technicolor life by Trump — and they’ve decided to become part of the caricature themselves, become exactly what their enemies and critics said they were, become a movement of plutocrats and grievance-mongers with an ever-weaker understanding of the common good.

Charles Pierce - Quote of the Day

In keeping with the previous post, I want to address those who continue to tell me to show "respect" for others' beliefs and to have "patience" and try to politely and quietly educate them as to the errors of their political allegiances.  Patience has never been one of my virtues, especially with those who support politicians working to deprive me of civil rights and equality under the law. In a piece in Esquire, Charles Pierce sums things up well in the wake of Roy Moore's victory in the Alabama GOP primary.  Pierce's remarks apply equally to Trump supporters. Here are excerpts:

[W]hen it comes to the people who voted for Moore, I don’t have to “respect their beliefs.” I don’t have to “understand where they’re coming from.” I don’t have to “see it from their side.” These people are preparing to make a lawless theocratic lunatic one of 100 United States Senators, and that means these people are about to inflict him and his medievalism on me, too. If you think that Roy Moore belongs in the Senate, then you are a half-bright goober whose understanding of American government and basic civics probably stops at the left side of your AM radio dial. You have no concept of the national interest and very little concept of your own, unless, as I suspect, you’ve made your own fears, and hating people and hawking loogies in all directions, the sum total of your involvement in self-government. You are killing democracy and you don’t know it or care. If you had any real Christian charity in your hearts, you’d keep Roy Moore in the locked ward of your local politics and not loose him on a nation that deserves so much better than him.

I’m out of empathy for this stuff. I’m out of pity. I’m out of patience. And, not for nothing, but Moore’s opponent is a guy named Douglas Jones. In 2001, Jones convicted two men for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, one of the iconic white supremacist terrorist acts of that period. One of those bastards already died in prison and the other keeps getting denied parole. If you’d rather be represented in the Senate by a lawless theocratic lunatic, rather than a guy that finally got justice for four murdered little girls, well, you deserve anything that goddamn happens to you.

Yes, I may "play the game" when required in social settings, but I will not respect beliefs that involve bigotry, hate, homophobia and/or racism.

The Trump Effect: Significant Drop in Tourism to the United States

Among the many things that Der Trumpenführer claims he will do is bring back jobs to America. Like most of what the man says, the claim is untrue, especially in terms of coal industry jobs and manufacturing jobs.  And in one industry, the travel industry, Trump is undermining jobs and  could be the cause of job losses.  It seems that many foreign tourists have no desire to visit America given the hate, bigotry and discrimination that Der Trumpenführer have unleashed.  Frommers reports that there has been a "devastating drop" in tourism to the USA.  Indeed, the husband and I are headed to the UK in August to visit a much more LGBT welcoming country.   Here are highlights from travel experts at Frommers:

Though they may differ as to the wisdom of the move, the travel press and most travel experts are of one mind: They are currently drawing attention to an unintended consequence of the Trump-led efforts to stop many Muslims from coming to the U.S., pointing to a sharp drop in foreign tourism to our nation that imperils jobs and touristic income.  It’s known as the “Trump Slump.” And I know of no reputable travel publication to deny it. Thus, the prestigious Travel Weekly magazine (as close to an “official” travel publication as they come) has set the decline in foreign tourism at 6.8%. And the fall-off is not limited to Muslim travelers, but also extends to all incoming foreign tourists. Apparently, an attack on one group of tourists is regarded as an assault on all. As far as travel by distinct religious groups, flight passengers from the seven Muslim-majority nations named by Trump were down by 80% in the last week of January and first week of February, according to Forward Keys, a well-known firm of travel statisticians. On the web, flight searches for trips heading to the U.S. out of all international locations was recently down by 17%.  A drop of that magnitude, if continued, would reduce the value of foreign travel within the U.S. by billions of dollars. And the number of jobs supported by foreign tourists and their expenditures in the United States—and thus lost—would easily exceed hundreds of thousands of workers in hotels, restaurants, transportation, stores, tour operations, travel agencies, and the like.  

According to the Global Business Travel Association, in only a single week following announcement of the ban against certain foreign tourists, the activity of business travel declined by nearly $185 million.  Other observers, including local tourist offices, have reached similar conclusions. In referring to New York City’s $60 billion tourist industry alone, the head of the city’s tourist effort complained that his agency’s effort to portray the United States as a welcoming destination to foreign citizens “was all in jeopardy.” Several other tourist officials have made like statements. . . . .  there is plenty of evidence for a negative conclusion.  

As I have long said, hate and bigotry carry a heavy economic cost.  Given Virginia's heavy reliance on tourism, this is not welcomed news. One can only hope that Trump hotels are especially hard hit - a number of bankruptcy would be a form of divine justice.  Are you paying attention Rep. Scott Taylor?

Trump Regime to Rescind Transgender Student Protections

It appears that today the regime of Der Trumpenführer will begin its assault on LGBT rights by first taking aim at transgender students who under the Obama administration enjoyed protection by the Department of Education and Justice Department which construed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination as a form of sex discrimination.  Enter newly confirmed Education Secretary and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, each of whom have decades long histories of being vitriolically anti-LGBT, and that supportive position is seemingly going to be flushed down the toilet.  I suspect that this will be but the first shoe to drop and that the GOP backed "First Amendment Protection Act" will take the war against the entire LGBT community.  Those "friends" and acquaintances who voted for hate and bigotry by voting for Trump/the GOP who have said "don't worry" or "you'll be OK" will obviously be shown to have been liars or utterly clueless.  The sad reality is that under the misrule of Der Trumpenführer, only white, heterosexual conservative Christians will have full civil rights.  The rest of us will be lucky if we are second or third class citizens.  Here are details on this development from the Washington Blade:

Despite pleas from parents of transgender children and LGBT employees, the Trump administration is set Tuesday to rescind Obama-era guidance to schools barring discrimination against transgender students and ensuring they have access to the restroom consistent with their gender identity.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told the Washington Blade on Monday she’s heard from “reliable sources” President Trump has green-lighted the plan for the Justice Department and Education Department to send a “Dear Colleague” letter to schools rescinding the guidance.

“This is the first day of the president’s second month in office and he is now fully coming after LGBT people,” Keisling said. “I’m angry; I’m outraged. This is about kids who just want to go to school who just want to be themselves, and to hear the president a week or two ago talk about how supportive he is of LGBT people, it’s just outrageous that he go after trans kids this way.”

Removal of the guidance would fulfill a campaign promise from Trump, who pledged to rescind the guidance after it was issued, but still “protect everybody,” amid outcry from conservative-leaning states.

Jointly issued in May under the Obama administration by the Justice Department and Education Department, the guidance asserts that denying transgender students access to the restroom in accordance with their gender identity violates the prohibition on sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Rescinding the guidance is consistent with a legal brief the Justice Department filed earlier this month in litigation against the guidance filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on behalf of 12 states.

Transgender advocates took the change in position at the Justice Department as a signal Trump would soon fulfill his campaign promise to reverse the guidance.

A decision to withdraw the guidance could be an initial signal of the Trump administration’s position in the case before the U.S. Supreme Court known as Gloucester County Schools v. G.G., which resulted from transgender student Gavin Grimm suing his high school to use the restroom consistent with his gender identity. The questions before the court are to evaluate the guidance and whether the prohibition of sex discrimination under Title IX applies to transgender students seeking to use the restroom in school consistent with their gender identity.

The Trump administration would be rescinding the guidance weeks after the White House issued a statement declaring Trump is “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights” and would preserve a separate order from President Obama barring anti-LGBT workplace discrimination among federal contractors.

“Transgender young people face tragically high rates of discrimination and bullying, and they need a government that will stand up for them — not attack them,” Griffin said. “It’s shocking that this kind of harm would even be a subject of debate for the president.

Things are going to only get worse under this right wing homophobic regime.  I cannot help but wonder how many needless LGBT youth suicides will occur during this foul regime - much to the delight of the Christofascists.   

Are Americans Acting Like 1930's Germans?

The previous post looked at the sins of the media in the 1920's and 1930's in acting in a manner that ultimately normalized Mussolini and Hitler until it was too late to stop the horror that they unleashed. But the media wasn't the only part of society that failed to stand up for the rule of law and decency. Much of the German population went right along with Hitler and the Nazi policies.  Later, many feigned ignorance about the worse atrocities and the death camps.  Now, frighteningly, many Americans are acting just as Germans did as Hitler rose to power and upended the constitutional order. Theorist Hannah Arendt described the phenomenon well and made it clear why we must hold our "friends" accountable: The problem, the personal problem, was not what our enemies did, but what our friends did. Friends ‘coordinated’ or got in line.” Many Americans are "getting in line" with no thought to the long term consequences.  Americans, especially on the right, like to see themselves as exceptional.  What we are seeing shows that many Americans are only too happy to close their eyes, get in line, and be guided by base instincts and hate and bigotry.  Germany ultimately paid a horrible price and millions lost their lives.  Are we headed toward a similar disaster?  Here are highlights from a piece in Huffington Post on this issue:

[R]eactions to Trump and his supporters have a way of separating ideas that usually move in tandem. Facts and truth are suddenly unrelated. Power no longer implies responsibility. Legitimacy and decency are now somehow passengers on separate ships. In this dynamic, People magazine can champion both the perpetrator and the victim and see no contradiction or betrayal. Lilla can use the victory of a campaign steeped in identity politics to highlight the ineffectiveness of identity politics. And Lerner can argue that a campaign “advanced” by sexism, racism and xenophobia can tell us much about the targets of that bigotry, i.e. that they need to behave differently, but little about the supporters of that campaign.

So, why the rush to defend Trump’s supporters? Why the self-recriminations? Why the willingness to stretch the bounds of legitimacy to accommodate Trump’s antics? Much has been written about Trump’s demagoguery and its similarity to totalitarian leaders of the past, but what about Trump’s opponents? Are many of us borrowing a page from totalitarianism without realizing it? Are we empowering him? Are we coordinating?

The word Gleichschaltung is often translated from the German as “coordination” and refers to the process of ― politically speaking ― getting in line. It often appears in books about the Nazi era. German Jewish philologist Victor Klemperer and German journalist Joachim Fest wrote about the personal cost of coordinating in their respective memoirs. German author Sebastian Haffner and Americans including journalist William Shirer wrote about the propaganda and politics of coordination.   

German-born Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt, in one of her last interviews, explains it best.

“The problem, the personal problem, was not what our enemies did, but what our friends did. Friends ‘coordinated’ or got in line.” And this coordination was not necessarily due to the “pressure of terror,” said Arendt, who escaped Germany in 1933. Intellectuals were particularly vulnerable to this wave of coordination. “The essence of being an intellectual is that one fabricates ideas about everything,” and many intellectuals of her time were “trapped by their own ideas.”

People rejected the uglier aspects of Nazism but gave ground in ways that ultimately made it successful. They conceded premises to faulty arguments. They rejected the “facts” of propaganda, but not the impressions of it. The new paradigm of authoritarianism was so disorienting that they simply could not see it for what it was, let alone confront it.

The faulty premise that empowered Hitler and helped place him in the German mainstream was called the Dolchstoss or the legend of the “stab in the back.” It argued that, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Germany was winning World War I only to have politicians surrender prematurely. 

Hitler, as a political figure, was the embodiment of this hack theory. While many rejected Hitler’s anti-Semitism and bellicosity, his deep sense of having been wronged by Germany’s surrender in World War I ― a war in which he fought ― gave him authenticity. It also created a hole in the German Republic’s legitimacy that he and his followers barreled through.

Before there were the camps and murders ― and the euphemisms to hide all of the camps and all of the murders ― there was this feel-good lie that should have been dismissed ― along with the people telling it, from the beginning.

In today’s United States, the suggestion that illegal immigration is the cause of the economic struggles of working-class whites is an American Dolchstoss. Mechanization, globalization and the decline of unions have affected working-class whites to a far greater extent than illegal immigration ― or immigration of any kind. And this is not an obscure fact or liberal talking point. Yet many who supposedly reject Trump’s scapegoating of illegal immigrants seem willing to concede it. 

In his 1940 book, Germany: Jekyll and Hyde, Haffner explains this relationship between impression and propaganda, even for those opposed to the Reich. He writes, “Outside of Germany people often wonder at the palpable fraudulence of Nazi propaganda, the stupid incredible exaggerations, the ludicrous reticences concerning what is generally known. Who can be convinced by it? They ask. The answer is that it is not meant to convince but to impress. It addresses emotion and fantasy. Nazi propaganda seeks to create in our minds tenacious ideas and fantasies.”

In Haffner’s time, the tenacious ideas and fantasies were the subhuman images of the Reich’s enemies. Many Germans rejected the “facts” of this propaganda: that Czechoslovakia or Poland posed existential threats to Germany and the German people, but the impression of the propaganda remained. “The image,” Haffner wrote, “of the Czechs and Poles as a snub-nosed, unpleasant, dwarfish half-ape brandishing a revolver, whip or rubber truncheon at a number of barely clad women, children, and blond men bound to posts.” Who could trust such a person? Why risk it?

Trump’s propaganda about Mexican rapists and Muslim terrorists operates in a similar way. 

While on the campaign trail in February, Trump urged followers to “knock the hell” out of protesters, promising to pay their legal bills if they were arrested and charged. That same February in Fort Worth, he promised a crowd that he would “open up our libel laws” so that news outlets can be sued for writing “false” or “purposely negative” articles. In July, he urged Russia to interfere in the election on his behalf, later saying he was joking. In September, he urged still other supporters to “monitor” polling stations. In October, he promised when victorious to throw his rival, Hillary Clinton, in jail. And just recently he advocated revoking the citizenship of Americans who burn flags.

So, in the last year, Trump has flirted with or, maybe more his style, groped and pawed at totalitarianism, yet the advice from many is to “give him a chance” ― or to coordinate. 

“Divided government” became a trick card in Shirer’s 1960 history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, when Hitler pushed through the Enabling Act and, “In five brief paragraphs,” took the power to legislate, approve treaties, and initiate constitutional amendments away from Parliament. A divided government essentially “committed suicide,” according to Shirer, and bequeathed its power to a dictator.  

There were many others, but “dominance” made them difficult to recognize. Joachim Fest writes in his memoir Not I, “At first, the countless violations of the law by our new rulers still caused a degree of disquiet. But among the incomprehensible features of those months, my father later recalled, was the fact that soon life went on as if such state crimes were the most natural thing in the world.” Those months would turn to years. Not the thousand years that Hitler had predicted, but enough to cause millions of deaths.

We should not waste our time or imaginations trying to reconfigure Trumpism to explain why all of the “good people” supported him. It is more important to see it for what it is and resist. Hopefully, they will join us. If not, it will not be necessary to call them names, they will have named themselves.

Some argue that America can survive four years of Trump and Trumpism.  I am not so confident that such is the case.  History tells us otherwise.

Trump's Agenda of Making America "White" Again

White nationalist Trump supporters

Like many in the wake of the results of the 2016 presidential election and the disaster that the Electoral College has foisted on America, I cannot get over feelings of depression and dread.  Suddenly, views and behavior that were once deemed offensive and to avoided by decent, moral people are in ascendant and some Trump supporters have even yelled out "Heil Victory" and at an alt-right gathering of white nationalists a speaker "railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized . . . "  This is Donald Trump's America and his cabinet appointments confirm that he is not disavowing this extremism.  One almost wonders when he will give a nod to forming his own version of Hitler's brown shirts.  A column in the New York Times looks at the frightening administrations in the process of formation.  I fear that the nightmare will only worsen with time.  Here are column highlights:

This may well be the beginning of the end: the early moments of a historical pivot point, when the slide of the republic into something untoward and unrecognizable still feels like a small collection of poor judgments and reversible decisions, rather than the forward edge of an enormous menace inching its way forward and grinding up that which we held dear and foolishly thought, as lovers do, would ever endure.

So many of President-elect Donald Trump’s decisions herald a tomorrow that is bleak for anyone who held hope that he could be a different, better man than the one who campaigned (I was not among that cohort), or those who simply assumed that the gravity of the office he is to assume would ground him.

Hard-line Trumpism isn’t softening; it’s being cemented.

Increasingly, as he picks his cabinet from among his fawning loyalists, it is becoming clear that by “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant some version of “Make America a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy Again.” It would be hard to send a clearer message to women and minorities that this administration will be hostile to their interests than the cabinet he is assembling.

He has promoted Stephen Bannon, an alt-right, white nationalist cheerleader and sympathizer, to chief White House strategist.

He has chosen the extreme anti-Islam hyperbolist Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — who also happens to be a stop-and-frisk apologist and has tweeted that “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL” — as his national security adviser.

Then there was the choice of Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general. In 1986 Sessions famously became only the second nominee in 48 years to be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, due to racist comments and behavior.

When confronted by the committee about remarks he was accused of making about the N.A.A.C.P. and the A.C.L.U., Sessions responded: “I’m often loose with my tongue. I may have said something about the N.A.A.C.P. being un-American or Communist, but I meant no harm by it.”

But not all of Sessions’s issues regarding minorities have a 30-year vintage. . . . he has associated with anti-immigrant groups we consider to be deeply racist, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Security Policy.” . . . “FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population . . . .

Trump is making a statement that it would behoove America to heed: The America he envisions, and is now actively constructing from his perch of power, is not an inclusive America. It is a society driven by a racial Owellianism that seeks to defend, elevate and enshrine the primacy of white men and is hostile to all “others.”

That orange glow emanating from the man is the sun setting on America’s progress, however slow and halting, on race and gender inclusion and equity.

 Only a little more than 25% of registered voters voted for Trump.  I keep wondering when the majority will wake the Hell up and realize that this move to fascism and authoritarianism and Russian oligarch style corruption must be stopped. 

White Nationalists Continue to Celebrate Trump Victory

While those who voted for Donald Trump and the equally scary Mike Pence continue to make up lame and disingenuous excuses for what motivated them to vote against decency and equality, some of their fellow Trump supporters seemingly have no shame in admitting that they are racists and misogynists.  This was on display in Washington, D.C., where white nationalists continue to celebrate Trump's election victory and viewed themselves to be in political ascendancy.  Many did every short of wearing Klan robes to show their contempt for a racially diverse America.    A piece in the New York Times looks at what frighteningly may become a common occurrence in this country.  Here are highlights:

For years, they have lurked in the web’s dark corners, masking themselves with cartoon images and writing screeds about the demise of white culture under ominous pseudonyms. But on Saturday, in the wake of Donald J. Trump’s surprising election victory, hundreds of his extremist supporters converged on the capital to herald a moment of political ascendance that many had thought to be far away.

In the bowels of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, three blocks from the White House, members of the so-called alt-right movement gathered for what they had supposed would be an autopsy to plot their grim future under a Clinton administration. Instead, they celebrated the unexpected march of their white nationalist ideas toward the mainstream, portraying Mr. Trump’s win as validation that the tide had turned in their fight to preserve white culture.

“It’s been an awakening,” Richard B. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right, said at the gathering on Saturday. “This is what a successful movement looks like.”
[L]eaders of the movement argue that they are merely trying to realize their desire for a white “ethno-state” where they can be left alone. Mr. Trump, with his divisive language about immigrants and Muslims, has given them hope that these dreams can come true.

“I never thought we would get to this point, any point close to mainstream acceptance or political influence,” said Matt Forney, 28, of Chicago. “The culture is moving more in my direction.”

Emboldened by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, Mr. Forney said he expected people openly associated with the white nationalist movement to run as candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. The rise of populism and the decline of political correctness, he said, present a rare opportunity.

Mr. Trump has shrugged off any suggestions that he has connections to the alt-right. But his hard-line views on immigration and his “America First” foreign policy have captivated members of the movement. His appointment as chief strategist of Stephen K. Bannon, who has called Breitbart News, the website he long ran, a platform for the alt-right, has reinforced the notion that the incoming president is on their side.

The white nationalist embrace of Mr. Trump was on display Saturday at the gathering, which was the annual conference of a group called the National Policy Institute. Guests . . . discussing ways to reorient America’s demographics. Many of the attendees, who were mostly white men, wore red “Make America Great Again” hats. T-shirts emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s face sold quickly.

While the enthusiasm inside the conference was evident, the resistance to the alt-right remains powerful. A recent surge in hate crimes and reports of verbal and physical assaults on minorities are putting new pressure on groups that promote racism.

[A]lt-right leaders said they planned to use their newfound influence to pressure Mr. Trump to take more “heretical” policy positions, such as a moratorium on net immigration for the next 50 years. White Europeans, Mr. Spencer said, would be given preference.

My mother always lectured us children that we would be known by the company that we kept.  To those "friends" who voted for Trump, you have shown your true selves and it is very, very ugly.

What It Means to Be a "Christian" In Trump's America

While Donald Trump received the votes of a little more than 25% of registered voters and lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a significant margin, don't tell that to Trump and his giddy supporters, especially the 81% or so of evangelical Christians who voted for a trice married, serial adulterer, sexual predator who also happens to be a pathological liar.  If there is any silver lining to be found in the dire situation America now finds itself, it may be that the hideousness of fundamentalist Christianity has been laid bare for the world to see.  In its own way, it is just as toxic and poisonous as fundamentalist Islam, and Donald Trump seems only too happy in helping construct a Christian version of Sharia law here in America.  A column in the Washington Post looks at what a "Christian" - or a least one that voted for Trump - now means.  Here are column excerpts:

“What is a Christian?” grows out of an article this week by The Post’s Julie Zauzmer, which described jubilation among some Christians over Donald Trump’s victory — a win supported by more than 80 percent of white evangelicals.

“It really makes you feel great to be a Christian,” one person told The Post. “I think Christians took a big stand this time and said we’re going to stand up for our faith,” said a second. Referring to Trump, a third said, “I feel like we actually have an advocate now in the White House.”

Those attitudes are reflected in a Pew Research Center analysis of exit poll results, which show that high numbers of white, born-again evangelical Christians, as well as a majority of Catholics, went for Trump.

That notwithstanding, CNN exit polls also showed that 59 percent of nonwhite evangelical Protestants, 45 percent of Catholics and 71 percent of Jewish voters backed Hillary Clinton.

Their embrace of Trump isn’t, however, what prompts the “What is a Christian?” question.

It is raised because of “A Declaration by American Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump,” a statement posted on change.org that has been signed by more than 22,000 evangelical leaders and their supporters. . . . Trump, they declare, “fueled white American nationalism with xenophobic appeals and religious intolerance at the expense of gospel values [and] democratic principles.”

They charge him with mocking women and the sanctity of marriage vows, disregarding facts, worshiping “wealth and shameful materialism,” and taking an already-weakened “culture of civility to nearly unprecedented” depths with his vulgarity and ugly personal attacks.

Hence the conundrum: A racially diverse community of evangelical Christian denominations and their supporters puts down Trump, beloved by a majority of white evangelical Christians, as “morally unacceptable.”  What is a Christian? What does it mean to be one?

[Martin Luther] King expressed disappointment at seeing white church leaders, in the midst of blatant racial and economic injustices, “stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.”

King, . . .  saw segregation as morally wrong and sinful. Why didn’t his white co-religionists in the South see segregation statutes the same way?

In truth, some of the white Christians who professed belief in the authority of the Scriptures and the “good news” of the gospel were the backbone of racial segregation. They elected and reelected to public office some of the country’s most sexist, racist and religious bigots.

[L]ooking back at the election night outcome, a different, haunting question recurs: What is a Christian?

I have an answer that Christians of all stripes will not like.  On the one hand, the "Christians" who backed Trump are in truth bigots and racists of a modern day Pharisee mold that make the Pharisees of the Bible look upstanding and decent in comparison.  They make a mockery of the Gospel message and are defined by the hypocrisy and hatred of others, meaning anyone who isn't a white fundamentalist Christian.  On the other side, we see a group of timid, hand wringing folk who actually follow some of the Gospel message tenants but rarely do so outside of their churches and church halls which serve more as social clubs than messengers of what Christ allegedly preached.   They talk a good game, but shrink in fear in the face of hate and bigotry and act akin to the "good Germans" who stayed silent, sat on their hands, and allowed the rise of Hitler.  Neither form of "Christian" is a social positive.  Hopefully, more and more of the younger generations will recognize this reality and simply walk away from Christianity entirely.  The sooner Christianity is a dead religion in America, the better off the nation will be.