LA Times: Undoing the Great Mistake of 2016

In a reasoned main editorial The Los Angeles Times makes the case of why it is absolutely essential that Donald Trump be defeated in 2020 if he manages to avoid removal from office via impeachment thanks to Senate Republicans who have sold their souls to Trump and/or are as morally depraved as he is.  In the tussle to win the Democrat nomination, too many candidates seem to forget that "Medicare for All" and other policy pitches and differences pale in comparison to the most important goal: defeating Trump and hopefully many Republicans along with him.  Here in Virginia, in 16 days Virginians can fire the opening salvo in this repudiation of Trump and everything that he and the Republican Party have come to represent: open racism, religious extremism driven by hate, not the gospels, and, of course greed and envy.  Greed on the part of the wealthy and envy on the part of those who blame others for their poor life choices (including voting for Republicans who have consistently worked against their base's economic best interests and, of course the embrace of ignorance).  In its editorial, the LA Times is too kind to Trump voters, in my view, and says they were "hoodwinked" rather than face the reality that race, religious extremism, and greed and envy were the real motivations behind their votes.   That said, here are editorial highlights:

As the 2020 election approaches, the United States is deeply and bitterly polarized, shaken by acts of random and not-so-random violence, with wages still rising too slowly, income inequality continuing to increase and the American Dream feeling more and more out of reach for too many people. Despite low unemployment and a frothy stock market, voters feel a deep anxiety about the future and a dark anger at the political system.

With just a year to go before election day, global alliances are fraying as the U.S. turns inward. The culture wars are raging on campus and off. For only the fourth time in American history, a U.S. president is being investigated by the U.S. House of Representatives with an eye toward impeachment. Immigrants are being demonized and detained . . . .

Flitting above this chaotic landscape — fomenting, provoking, preening, spewing, tweeting, blustering and bullying — is President Donald Trump, the worst, most dangerous president in modern history.

All presidential elections are uniquely consequential, but a good case can be made that the next one is the most important of our lives. The time has come to undo the great mistake of 2016 and drive Trump out of office at the ballot box. It is time to pull our country out of the illiberal abyss into which it is sinking and put it on a path toward reason and fairness and empathy and constructive engagement with the world.

Voters need to keep their eyes on the prize: defeating Trump state by state, issue by issue, vote by vote in November of next year.

But stopping him is not going to be nearly as easy as common sense says it ought to be. The country is profoundly riven: More than 60 million Americans consciously chose this [narcissistic demagogue]  president over his opponent four years ago. And many voters remain entranced — hoodwinked, in our view — by his blunt, cocky, overpromising style. He may be coddling dictators, selling off the planet to oil, gas and mining interests, cynically stirring racial resentment and animosity toward immigrants, and provoking an angry trade war with a rising China, but his base remains steadily, stubbornly supportive.

Trump is temperamentally unsuited to be president . . . . Lies, threats and empty promises are his weapons of choice; enemies are mocked and belittled while the dumbly obedient are rewarded. Ignorant and incurious, unmoved by reasoned argument, contemptuous of laws and institutions, Trump is in thrall to exactly the special interests you would expect, he is schooled at the university of Fox News, he is on a constant search for adulation and short-term advantage. He must be defeated in November 2020.

[O]n two issues, we hope the [Democrat] candidates will agree: first, that the top priority has to be defeating the incumbent, who is too irresponsible to be allowed another term; and second, that his defeat is only a first step. Even before Trump was elected, the country was divided and the old system wasn’t working. Political paralysis was already on the rise well before November 2016 . . . Anyone who is not convinced of that should just remember the name Merrick Garland.

In this series we will seek to answer some basic questions: What is our brief against President Trump and why is it so important that he be defeated? . . . We’ll begin to look at some of the policy issues arising in the race, we’ll examine the battle between progressives and moderates, and we’ll consider the importance of race and racism in the election. For Californians in particular, whose policies are especially loathed by this president and who have so often felt the brunt of his disdain, this election is supremely important.

Now is no time to watch from the sidelines. Voters must become engaged, learn the issues, choose sides, speak out. Removing Donald Trump from office in November 2020 is absolutely essential — and yet it is by no means a sure thing. So do not sit this one out. Join in, and make America America again.

Trump must be defeated and/or removed from office by any means necessary.  Hopefully, the lazy and indifferent who stayed home and failed to vote in 2016 will not repeat their mistake and will make sure they go to the polls and cast their vote against Trump and Republicans in general.

The Frightening Prospect of a Pence Presidency

The Pences - members of the American Taliban.

No one knows where the impeachment train will end up, but one political writer and veteran of the Hill believes Trump has at last met a scandal that he will not be able to survive.  If this proves to be a correct forecast, then the LGBT community will be faced with a true enemy and anti-LGBT fanatic in the White House for what hopefully would be a brief stint. Pence is a darling of the Christofascists and would likely retain their support but many question whether Pence could retain the support of Trump's white supremacist cultists.  Then too, Pence's extreme anti-gay stances and long history of hateful statements - all of which will be dredged up and help depict Pence for the extremist that he is in fact - could prove to help to be his undoing. Here are highlights from a piece in The Advocate:

A prediction from a political veteran and junkie: Trump is going to go sooner than we think. The evidence seems clear and conclusive. Republicans can’t sustain him anymore, and their tepid reaction to impeachment on Tuesday and the Senate’s unanimous consent for the Whistleblower report are forewarnings. The partial transcripts implicate the attorney general; now it seems there was a White House-wide cover-up. It will get worse. Much worse. The Speaker has always maintained that she wouldn’t move on impeachment until the evidence was clear and it could succeed in the Senate. She knows far more than she’s saying. 

It will all come together fast, and the band-aid will be ripped off. Polling numbers for Trump against most of the Democratic field are dismal. He's bringing down the Republican ticket and races across the board. When Trump becomes toxic, people cut ties, and the Republicans will soon, and then we’ll have a new President from Indiana, probably before the year is out.

Back in the late 1980s and early '90s when I worked on the Hill, there was always a legitimate fear that if something happened to President Bush, we would be left with another pseudo President from Indiana, Dan Quayle.  

Quayle was as scary as Pence. He believed homosexuality was wrong. “That is not gay bashing…I’m just saying that from my point of view and from the view of most Americans, they think that lifestyle is wrong. That’s not saying people don’t have the right to make that choice.” 

Sound familiar? Consider who might have uttered this gem around the same time Quayle was lobbing lunacy: “I do not choose whether I am a black American ... the great vast majority of the psychological community says homosexuality at a very minimum is a choice by the individual, and at the maximum, is a learned behavior," said the future vice president we have today.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the Indiana vice presidents’ tree. If Donald Trump is impeached, Mike Pence, the queer-quashing, choice-chastising, trans-trashing vice president will assume the presidency. And, we, as a community, must prepare ourselves for Mike and Karen Pence, the new first couple of straight America. But it won’t be for long.

I don’t feel like bringing you, and myself down by listing all the ways Mike Pence's policy beliefs discriminate, dishearten, and deceive our community..

And that agenda will only come further to light when/if he assumes the presidency. This impeachment scenario is moving at warp speed, and that means Mike and Karen Pence better call a mover or at least start carrying their membership plaques for the Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, and their autographed 8” x10's" of Jerry Falwell, Anita Bryant and the Reverend Fred Phelps from the Naval Observatory to 1600 Pennsylvania.

My guess is that if the impeachment does happen, and the Pences move into the White House, they won’t be there very long. The Pences' beliefs are far removed from those of most Americans, and the main issue that would cost him a longer stay in the White House is ironically their anti-LGBTQ stances.

A spokesman for Pence, told CNN recently in a statement that the vice president "has always opposed discrimination in any form and defends the Constitution's protection of the rights of all Americans regardless of race, sex or religion." A pointed omission of sexual orientation or gender identity was made.

Plus, there will be a stinking stench from, and revolting reaction to, all the criminality of the Trump administration. And, Mike Pence ain’t no Donald Trump, so would the Republicans even nominate him, with other GOPers already pursuing the nomination? Possibly not.

Let’s prepare ourselves because the impeachment stories will get worse, deeper and then theoretical, i.e.,“What would a Pence presidency look like?” And inevitably, how he’s treated our community will be a hot topic, because the Pences have made it that way. We might have to be the whipping boys and girls for a brief Pence presidency, and for the duration of a general election that Pence is at the center of — it that ever happens. However, if it does, it just might help us get a president we want — and one we deserve.

Mike Pence Is Not a "Decent Guy"

Joe Biden has a knack for making verbal gaffes.  Last week he made a major gaffe when he called Mike Pence a "decent guy."  Pence is anything but a "decent guy" and has a long track record of viscous homophobia that has cost lives and fueled bigotry and hatred. Being familiar with Pence's record, better descriptions of him might include, cold, cruel, hypocrite, dangerous or, as actress/activist Cynthia Nixon noted, insidious.   In an op-ed Nixon demonstrates why Pence is not a "decent guy" and, in my view, should be shunned by truly decent people.  Anyone who cares about LGBT family members or friends or who supports freedom of religion for all, not just Christofascists, should view Pence with horror. Many conjecture that Pence and his long time allies among anti-gay hate groups may in fact be behind much of the Trump/Pence regime's war on LGBT rights.  Here are op-ed excerpts:

Speaking at a forum in Omaha on Thursday, Joe Biden called Vice President Pence “a decent guy.”

When a chorus of progressives and LGBTQ activists, including myself, pointed out that a man who has built his career on homophobia and misogyny cannot possibly be considered “decent,” some dismissed it as just outrage Twitter. While Biden later walked back his comments and acknowledged that “there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights,” I think it’s important to explain why calling Pence “a decent guy” is an affront to the real meaning of the word.

While I like and admire much about Biden personally and politically, especially his championing of the Violence Against Women Act, when he talks about Pence being “a decent guy,” he is putting politeness over policy. In effect, he is saying that Pence’s record doesn’t matter. So let’s talk about that record. As governor of Indiana, Pence signed a “religious freedom” bill that would have allowed LGBTQ discrimination. He refused to lift a ban on needle exchange programs until a preventable HIV outbreak reached epidemic levels. On the website for his 2000 congressional campaign, Pence suggested support for so-called conversion therapy, which is associated with higher suicide risk for LGBTQ youth. During Pence’s tenure as head of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, it ran an article that suggested that women should have to be married to obtain birth control. He published an article urging businesses not to hire gay people, and his congressional website said that "homosexuality is incompatible with military service.”

Pence played a leading role in the Trump administration’s efforts to ban transgender people from military service, and he serves in an administration that seeks to define transgender Americans out of existence by stripping federal recognition of their gender identity. This is a man whose abhorrence of queer people is so notorious that even President Trump reportedly once joked that Pence “wants to hang them all.” (The White House later denied it.)

Pence has also made it his mission to take down Planned Parenthood, leading the GOP’s war on one of the nation’s largest providers of reproductive and transgender health care.
These are not the actions of a decent man. The fact that Pence does vile, hateful things while well-coiffed and calm doesn’t make him decent; it makes him insidious and dangerous.

It’s easy to say nice things about Pence when you’re not personally threatened by his agenda. If Biden were being directly attacked in the same way that our community is, I think he would see Pence from a very different vantage point.

When politicians of a certain age reminisce about the “civility” that used to define Washington, it’s telling that the old guard conveniently forgets that this decorum has never been extended to all.

[T]he problem isn’t getting along with Republicans. The problem is legitimizing an agenda of hateful discrimination. It’s about the fear that someone who would give Pence the benefit of the doubt in the name of civility might also be willing to bargain away our rights in the name of bipartisanship.

There is a sense among genteel Washington that partisanship is rude and boorish. But when you’re fighting for the rights of marginalized communities who are under attack, it’s okay to stop being polite. This is not a time for hollow civility. This is a time to fight.

If Democrats are too wedded to the collegiality of the Senate dining room to call out the Republicans who espouse homophobia, how are we ever going to stop them?

Christian Nationalists' 2019 Anti-Gay, Special Rights Legislative Playbook

As I have often noted, in my more than 25 years tracking "Christian" "family values" organizations, with the exception of perhaps Donald Trump, no one lies more often and disingenuously.  Currently, the favored ruse for gaining special rights for themselves and exemptions from the laws that govern everyone else is the false flag of "religious freedom." The evangelical/Christofascist definition of religious freedom is in reality, the direct opposite of true religious freedom and aims at forcing all of society to accept their poisonous religious beliefs or, failing that, to allow the Pharisee like Christofascists to ignore non-discrimination laws, public accommodation laws, and in the realm of health care, to refuse to treat those they dislike.  Gays, of course, are a favored target, but by extension every other minority group can be targeted through cherry picking bible passages to justify what in truth is nothing more than unvarnished hate and bigotry. As we near 2019 and a new legislative year, the enemies of true religious freedom are preparing to try to turn some of the hate-filled policies into law.  Sadly, one of the architects of this ugly agenda is a Chesapeake, Virginia organization headed by former Congressman Randy Forbes.  A piece in Rewire looks at this anti-religious freedom for all endeavor.  Here are highlights:

State legislatures across the country became showcases for Christian nationalist legislation in 2018. Leading the charge was the ominously named Project Blitz—a coalition of Christian Right groups that are unambiguous about their intentions for the short and long term, to restore America to a Christian nation that never was. The Christian Right groups behind Project Blitz—The Chesapeake, Virginia-based Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation; the National Legal Foundation; and the Wallbuilders Pro-Family Legislators Conference—have published a new state legislative playbook for 2019. [A]bout 74 Project Blitz model bills were considered in 2018. “More than 60 percent involved promoting Christianity in public schools; more than a third were ‘In God We Trust’ display bills,” according to reporting from Church & State.   [O]thers sought to provide religious exemptions (or refusals) from the law in ways that would affect access to reproductive and LGBTQ health care. These included versions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) which had been rebranded as the “Preserving Religious Freedom Act” and the “Marriage Tolerance Act.” . . . . bills are intended to pave the way for far more serious legislation involving religious exemptions from civil rights laws such as FADA, which may be seen as decisive moves towards a theocratic state. Indeed, the 2019 manual, “Report and Analysis on Religious Freedom Measures Impacting Prayer and Faith in America,” is as clear as the previous version in its promotion of a Christian nationalist view of history and a long-term Dominionist political vision that’s profoundly at odds with what most would consider a reasonable approach to religious freedom. While there’s usually some room for religious tolerance on the part of Christian nationalists, there is no tolerance—at least not in the long run—from Dominionists who sustain a long-term vision of organizing all of society and government according to their understanding of the Bible. [A] . . . . Prime Focus, “Resolution Establishing Public Policy Favoring Intimate Sexual Relations Only Between Married, Heterosexual Couples” was published in the current and previous playbooks. The apparent purpose of the nonbinding model resolutions is to help to persuade legislators and executive branch program administrators that not only religious, but also public health, exemptions from the law need to be created, and perhaps litigated, to chip away at marriage equality so that not all marriages need be treated equally under the law. In addition they aim to more generally erode the rights of LGBTQ people. Resolutions on heterosexual marriage, birth gender, and adoption are, they assert, intended to advance “biblical values.” The claim is that there’s sufficient social science data and research in support of their view . . . . refers to pages of material of questionable scientific value about LGBTQ people, leading to the conclusion that LGBTQ people are diseased and dysfunctional. These are used in their argument, for example, in the anti-adoption and foster care bill, to suggest that LGBTQ people are a threat to children. This led them to title the model bill the “Child Protection Act.”   Finally, there is a new section titled “Talking Points to Counter Anti-Religious Freedom Legislation.” This section insists that there cannot be inherent civil rights regarding “sexual orientation” because the term is too vague and there is too much disagreement over its meaning. Similarly, the manual declares: The term “gender identity” has no fixed meaning and, by definition, is the product of an individual, subjective determination that may conflict with how the individual objectively appears to others. Because of its subjectivity, the term can be used by an individual in a temporally inconsistent manner, and legislation based on its use is vague and violates due process.

The manual goes on to detail arguments against bans on “conversion therapy” that have been enacted in several states and against repeal of state RFRAs. 

Project Blitz . . . . also reflects the central anti-abortion politics of our time. . . . one bill, (“Licensed Professional Civil Rights Act”) on conscience clause exemptions in professional licensing standards has implications for health workers and pharmacists (who might seek religious exemptions for their role in providing contraception or abortion care), as well mental health practitioners who refuse to help LBGTQ patients. It should also be noted that versions of state-level  RFRAs and FADAs include generous religious exemptions for both institutions and individuals on matters related to reproductive health care. The 2019 legislative session has not yet begun, but Project Blitz is already getting attention. . . . . Platt stressed the importance of preventing the Christian Right from distorting the meaning of religious freedom and bending it to their purposes. She stressed that “it’s really important to … remind ourselves what religious liberty really is, which is the freedom of individuals and communities to practice their religious beliefs, or to practice no religion, in a pluralistic society, free from government persecution, discrimination, or coercion. So this is a foundational constitutional value, and it’s a progressive value.” “They’ve managed to conflate that term [religious freedom] with particular, narrow protections for conservative religious beliefs about sex, marriage, and reproduction, while totally ignoring the enormous variety of views that we know people of faith—including Christians—have had on these matters. And, of course, ignoring completely the very existence of LGBTQ people of faith.”  “My takeaway from all of this would just be don’t play on their turf,” Platt said. “Don’t buy into their idea that all religious exemptions enhance religious liberty, and don’t buy into an inherent conflict between religious liberty and civil rights. These exemptions are … actually violating religious liberty.” 

Stop Calling America’s Right Wing "Conservative"

One of the most maddening things most of the news media does is to call evangelical Christians "conservative" Christians or right wing political extremist s like those found at CPAC "conservative."  Neither group is conservative in the historic sense of the word and both groups push an agenda that is radical and anything but truly conservative.  In the case of the falsely labeled "conservative Christians", they want a theocracy and they want to place themselves above the laws that govern others and an unlimited right to discriminate against others.  The "political conservatives" likewise are pushing a radical agenda that would undermine constitutional government and undo decades of non-discrimination policies.  In the final analysis, the two groups are religious fanatics and white supremacists and worse.  A piece The Raw Story makes the case that they must cease being labeled "conservative" since the term gives them far more outward respectability than they deserve. Here are article excerpts:  

Modern Western conservatism came into being in response to the American and French Revolutions. Like liberalism, it has waxed and waned as a political movement during the decades since. According to some historians, the origins of contemporary American conservatism can be traced to the 1920s, only to fade during the New Deal. Its subsequent resuscitation is probably best dated to 1950s and 1960s. Some key historical signposts then and after include the following: The founding of the National Review magazine in 1955, and the publication of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in 1957. White Southern reaction to the Civil Rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, which ultimately led to majority-white affiliation with the Republican Party. But what is political “conservatism”? And are self-styled conservatives really conservative?Merriam-Webster defines conservative” as “tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions.” Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary defines a conservative as “a person who conserves or preserves something; an adherent of traditional values, ideas, and institutions; an opponent of social and political change.” These definitions are unhelpful and misleading. Self-proclaimed political and social conservatives are not necessarily inclined to support or maintain the “traditional” social order – that is, long-standing majority views, conditions, institutions, or legislation. These include government regulation of corporations, banks, and Wall Street, progressive income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, civil rights, voting rights, environmental regulations, and public-lands conservation. Self-identified conservatives also oppose other traditional institutions, practices, and measures, such as the United Nations, international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war, labor unions, collective bargaining, fair labor standards, and, for some, public fluoridation of water. The measures conservatives oppose were legislated, created, or practiced 50 to 100 or more years ago. Nor do many self-proclaimed conservatives embrace the 242 year-old, traditional proposition in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” – i.e., “men” as in “all humans,” including people of color and women . . . . . Moreover, so-called conservative Constitutional “originalists,” such as the late Justice Antony Scalia, were and are ever ready to reinterpret the US Constitution to serve their prejudices or benefactors. Nor are self-proclaimed conservatives always opponents of social and political change if overturning current social and political norms serves their own beliefs and interests. To be sure, there are factions of conservatives: the far Right (e.g., American Nazis, fascists, and Breitbart owners, writers, and readers), paleocons, neocons, the religious right, libertarians, Tea Party populists, the Freedom Caucus, “moderate” Republicans, . . . . Nonetheless, somewhere in their minds, they share a common conservative core of ideas, notions, and emotions. In his book, The Reactionary Mind, political scientist Corey Robin argues that there is a fundamental “reactionary thrust” in conservatism – namely, the conviction that “some are fit to rule others.” Conservatism in all its forms is oppositional and reactionary at its core. As Karl Mannheim argued, they oppose “other ways of life and thought that appears on the scene.”

It would be better for all if self-styled conservatives heeded the advice of the early nineteenth-century English churchman and academic, Arthur Stanley, who observed that “conservatism . . . destroys what it loves because it will not mend it.”

An Evangelical Republican Calls it Quits

Peter Wehner, a heretofore Republican and evangelical who served in the previous three Republican administrations, has seemingly reached the point I reached long ago: the Republican Party and Christianity as defined by evangelicals, are now a toxic threat to American society. It's the same conclusion reched by Millennials, a super majority of which despise the GOP and over a third of whom have walked away from Christianity.  In a sane world such data would cause concern for the long term viability of bot the GOP and Christianity, but sanity no longer defines either one.  Today's GOP is sadly defined by a mentally unbalanced sexual predator in the White House and a core base that consists of religious extremists and white supremacists.  I's often questioned how decent moral people can remain a part of this toxic cesspool.  In Wehner's case, he has publicly stated that he can no longer be a part of such ugliness.  Here are highlights from an o-ed column he wrote in the New York Times:

There are times in life when the institutional ground underneath you begins to crumble — and with it, longstanding attachments. Such is the case for me when it comes to the Republican Party and evangelicalism.

I’ve been a part of both for my entire adult life. These days, though, in many important ways they are having harmful effects on our society.

The latest example is in Alabama, where Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate, stands accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct by nine women, including one who was 14 years old at the time. Mr. Moore leads in most polls, and solidly among most evangelicals, heading into Tuesday’s election.

A bit of personal history may be in order here. . . . . Both the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union, and evangelicalism, a transdenominational effort to faithfully represent Christ in word and deed, shaped my life and outlook, helping me to interpret the world.

I don’t mean to imply that politics and religion are a perfect fit. Often they’re not, and over the years Christians, myself included, have not gotten the balance right. But overall I felt that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement were imperfect forces for good, and I spent a large part of my life defending them.

Yet the support being given by many Republicans and white evangelicals to President Trump and now to Mr. Moore have caused me to rethink my identification with both groups. Not because my attachment to conservatism and Christianity has weakened, but rather the opposite. I consider Mr. Trump’s Republican Party to be a threat to conservatism, and I have concluded that the term evangelical — despite its rich history of proclaiming the “good news” of Christ to a broken world — has been so distorted that it is now undermining the Christian witness.

Just the other day I received a note from a friend of mine, a pastor, who told me he no longer uses the label “evangelical” to describe himself, even though he meets every element of its historical definition, “because the term is now so stained as to ruin my ability to be what evangelicalism was supposed to be.”

Another pastor who is a lifelong friend told me, “Evangelical is no longer a word we can use.” The reason, he explained, is that it’s become not a religious identification so much as a political one. A third person, who heads a Christian organization, told me the term evangelical “is now a tribal rather than a creedal description.”

I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures.

Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

Both have been credibly accused of being sexual predators, sometimes admitting to bizarre behavior in their own words. Both have spun wild conspiracy theories, including the lie that Barack Obama was not born in America. Both have slandered the United States and lavished praise on Vladimir Putin, with Mr. Moore declaring that America today could be considered “the focus of evil in the modern world” and stating, in response to Mr. Putin’s anti-gay measures in Russia: “Well, maybe Putin is right. Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.” Both have been involved with shady business dealings. Both have intentionally divided America along racial and religious lines. Both relish appealing to people’s worst instincts. Both create bitterness and acrimony in a nation desperately in need of grace and a healing touch.

I hoped the Trump era would be seen as an aberration and made less ugly by those who might have influence over the president. That hasn’t happened. Rather than Republicans and people of faith checking his most unappealing sides, the president is dragging down virtually everyone within his orbit.

In the latest example of this, a rising number of Republicans are attempting to delegitimize the special counsel’s investigation into whether there were links between Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and Mr. Putin’s Russia because they quake at what he may find. Prominent evangelical leaders, rather than challenging the president to become a man of integrity, have become courtiers. What’s happening with Mr. Moore in Alabama — with the president, the Republican National Committee, the state party and many white evangelicals rallying around him — is a bridge too far for many of us. Where exactly is the bottom? And at what point do you pull back from associating yourself with a political party and a religious term you once took pride in but that are now doing harm to the things you treasure?

[A] solid majority of Republicans and self-described evangelicals are firmly aboard the Trump train, which is doing its utmost to give a seat of privilege to Mr. Moore. So for those of us who still think of ourselves as conservative and Christian, it’s enough already.

How Racism Carried Trump to Victory

Trump supporters at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan

In some ways the ongoing Virginia 2017 statewide campaigns are a mirror of what happened in the 2016 presidential election with Republicans pandering to racists, religious extremists and aging, reactionary rural white populations, especially in Southwest Virginia and the southern tier of the state exclusive of the Hampton Roads region.  Meanwhile the Democrats are running inclusive forward looking campaigns.  Hopefully, Virginia's demographics will prevent GOP victories and hopefully Democrats will recognize the fact that ultimately the outcome of the 2016 presidential contest ultimately hinged on rural white racism and animosity toward non-whites.  It is far past time that the false meme that "economic uncertainty" is what flipped prior Obama voters to Trump in key states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  True, many in the mainstream media do not want to call these voters out for what they are: racist bigots who are outraged over their declining white privilege and by extension the fact that their backwardness is increasingly causing younger generations to migrate to liberal urban areas where employment opportunities exist and accepting communities abound.  But reluctance to speak the truth does not change the facts.  A column in the New York Times looks at the data that confirms racism and hatred towards immigrants were the key motivation for these Trump voters.  Here are excerpts:

What Democrats missed was the profound political impact recent immigration trends were having on the more rural parts of the once homogeneous Midwest — that the region had unexpectedly become a flash point in the nation’s partisan immigration wars.

In a Brookings essay published last month, John C. Austin, director of the Michigan Economic Center, a local think tank, writes that the region is experiencing a “steady stream of immigrants from Mexico, Central America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.”
As a result, Austin continues,

Immigration has become an unambiguous factor in this racially charged Midwestern landscape. While immigrant-rich states like Arizona, California, and Florida are often at the center of immigration policy discussions, the political debate about the role of immigrants burns hottest in the heartland.

Austin went on, in an email, to provide more detail about the power of immigration to move white voters into the Trump column:

The "rural” voters here are some farmers, but more likely, as in the hinterlands outside Flint, Monroe, Toledo, Erie, or Janesville, Wisconsin, they are mostly white, working class blue collar workers or retirees, many, sadly, who fled their small cities to escape blacks. They are anxious about the economic prospects for their future, their aging communities (the kids have fled), making folks mad. And now all these immigrants come and are changing the society!! Just as Macomb County, where working class white voters fled Detroit in advance of blacks, now sees nearby communities like Hamtramck becoming (in their view) a Bangladeshi bazaar — and they don’t like that. And they are easily fanned to blame those folks.

In February 2017, Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster and strategist, conducted four postelection focus groups with white voters who had cast ballots for Trump in Macomb County, Michigan, an area he has been studying since 1985. The participants were not Republicans. They were whites without college degrees who identified themselves as independents, as Democratic-leaning independents, or as Democrats who voted for Obama in 2008, 2012 or both.

Three developments are taking place in the rust belt simultaneously.

First, as recently as 2000, many of the key Midwestern counties that moved from blue to red in 2016 had very few minority residents. Since then, their immigrant populations began to increase at a rapid rate well above the national average. Second, at the same time that immigrants are moving in, younger native-born residents are leaving in droves to seek employment elsewhere, while the remaining white population is aging and is often hostile to change. It is the perfect formula for cultural conflict, and Trump proved to be the perfect candidate to exploit it. Finally, these changes are taking place in a region that Austin points out is home to “15 of the nation’s 25 major metro areas with the sharpest black-white segregation,” making it even more unreceptive to nonwhites than other sections of the country.

Arrayed on a diversity index, Michigan with an index of 42, Wisconsin at 35, Ohio at 36, and Pennsylvania at 41, all rank in the bottom twenty — i.e., the least diverse — of the fifty states. The diversity index for the entire country is substantially higher at 63. Examples of states with very high diversity indexes include California at 79; Nevada at 73; Texas at 70; and New York at 70.

A rapid rate of growth in the percentage of immigrants in communities that have in the past experienced little diversity is particularly explosive.

In other words, communities that are close to 100 percent white will react intensely to a modest increase in foreign-born residents, while highly diverse communities will shrug it off.

Exit poll data from 2016 shows how critical opposition to immigration in the Midwest was to Trump’s victory.

In Michigan, for instance, exit poll data showed that those who believe immigrants to the United States “hurt the county” voted three to one for Trump. Those who said illegal immigrants should be deported voted for Trump by better than five to one. The same pattern can be seen in exit poll data from Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which, while not part of the Midwest geographically, resembles it politically.

At the same time, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania, have each experienced a net out-migration of native-born residents. The effect of this exodus is twofold.

First, the people leaving tend to be younger and more open-minded, willing to risk moving to a faster growing section of the country. Second, those left behind tend to be older, more closed-minded and more set in their ways.

William Frey, a demographer at Brookings, emailed me:

These “left-behind” populations tend to be older and more backward rather than future oriented — less likely to embrace the nation’s new diversity and the emerging global economy. This was surely the case among 2016 voters in rural parts of swing states that helped to elect Trump as president.

Further compounding the rightward movement of these white voters is their animosity to nonwhites. . . . The task for Democrats is how to come up with a non-xenophobic, non-racist answer to this problem.

Many of these Trump voters pack the pews of their churches every Sunday and regularly feign piety and give lip service to "family values."  But do not be fooled.  They are not nice or moral people and their most certainly do not follow the Gospel of Christ.   Structuring a means to reach out to foul and morally deficient voters will not be an easy task for the Democrats.  One obvious effort that is needed is to educate minority voters that they MUST turn out and vote every Election Day because those who hate them will be turning out.

P.S., yes, I may be biased since many of these same voters hold animus towards LGBT citizens. 

Trump Judicial Nominee Calls Transgender Individuals "Satan's Plan"

Trump's anti-gay extremist judicial nominee

The canons of judicial conduct which apply to federal court judges require that judges avoid the appearance of impropriety and that they recuse themselves from any case where their personal beliefs prevent them from being unbiased.  This is the case also under most state canons of judicial conduct. Even Virginia's canons of judicial conduct (not that they are always properly enforced) provide that a judge cannot allow his views on homosexuality and gender identity to influence his ability to render an unbiased ruling in a case or to allow opposing counsel the be disrespectful or biased against an LGBT party to a case before the court.  Despite these established rules and norms, two of Donald Trump's recent judicial nominees would seemingly willing flout these restrictions on judicial conduct. Perhaps the worst is Jeff Mateer, Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, who has voiced extremely anti-LGBT animus.  Metro Weekly looks at this frightening nominee who is yet another cog in Trump's promises to Christofascists to roll back LGBT rights and to make our lives a living hell.  Here are excerpts:

Jeff Mateer, Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, once described transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan.”

In a pair of 2015 speeches, Mateer, the first assistant attorney general of Texas, bemoaned the trend of states banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors, denounced transgender rights, and alleged that allowing same-sex marriage would lead to efforts to legitimize polygamy and bestiality, reports CNN.

In a May 2015 speech titled “The Church and Homosexuality,” Mateer discussed a lawsuit in Colorado where parents of a transgender first-grader sued her school to allow their daughter to use the girls’ bathroom.

“Now I submit to you, a parent of three children who are now young adults, a first grader really knows what their sexual identity?” Mateer said. “I mean it just really shows you how Satan’s plan is working and the destruction that’s going on.”

Mateer previously served as general counsel of the First Liberty Institute, a conservative advocacy group that has been involved in pushing anti-LGBTQ initiatives or opposing expansions of LGBTQ rights, such as passage of a nondiscrimination ordinance in Plano, Texas.

In November 2015, Mateer was speaking at a conference hosted by controversial anti-LGBTQ pastor Kevin Swanson [who has advocated for the execution of gays], during which he took issue with attempts to ban conversion therapy in New Jersey and California.

Unsurprisingly, Mateer, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, is facing criticism for his anti-gay statements.

“President Trump has once again demonstrated his complete disregard for the LGBT community by nominating a person to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas who opposes LGBT rights and dignity,” David Dinielli, deputy legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement. “The nominee’s past statements prove that he cannot and will not rule fairly on issues affecting the LGBT community.

“Jeff Mateer has demonized the most vulnerable members of our community and expressed support for conversion therapy — the dangerous, fraudulent, discredited and inhumane practice that purports to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.There is no place on our federal bench for people who harbor this sort of extreme and dangerous bias.”

“It’s concerning that the Trump Administration is trying to infuse its anti-transgender ideology into our judicial system,” Jennifer Levi, transgender rights project director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said in a statement. “Our courts must serve as a backstop to President Trump’s divisive and exclusionary policies, not promote discrimination. Courts must treat all Americans fairly and promote equal rights.”

Another of Trump's disturbing judicial nominees is AmyConey Barrett, a right wing Catholic law professor who once suggested that one’s religious beliefs ought to take precedence over the U.S. Constitution. As Huffington Post noted, the Alliance for Justice (a progressive judicial advocacy group) called on the Trump regime to withdraw Barrett’s nomination because of her past writings on the role of faith in the courtroom. The organization also objected to her views on the matter of stare decisis, or the doctrine of legal precedent.  Stated another way, Barrett would seemingly ignore standing case law precidents that do no conform to her religious views. 

Pence to Hate Group: You Have President Trump’s "Unwavering Support"

Much of Der Trumpenführer presidential campaign focused on fomenting racial hatred among white voters and pushing the Christofascists' agenda of placing them above the law under the smoke screen of "religious freedom" - religious freedom for them and no one else.  Since taking office, Trump has sought to deliver on his promises to the Christofascists - numerous anti-gay executive actions and promises of special rights for churches - even as he breaks promises right and left on everything else, not the least, his promises that millions would not lose their health care coverage.  Both the Republican House bill and now the Republican Senate bill which Trump is lauding demonstrate just how big Trump's lie was in fact.  But back to the Christofascists.  Mike Pence recently attened a gathering of religious extremists at Focus on the Family - an anti-gay hate group with strong white supremacist leanings - and reassured them that they have an unwavering ally in Der Trumpenführer.  Here are highlights from LGBT Nation:

Vice President Mike Pence spoke at an event in Colorado today honoring the work of an anti-LGBTQ organization Focus on the Family at a celebration of its 40 year anniversary.

“The vice president is a man of faith,” Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, said in his introduction. “He’s one of us. And I’ve been asked by the media over and over again, why did you invite the vice president? It’s a simple answer: He’s a man of faith, he believes in life, he believes in marriage.”

Pence was then welcomed to the stage, alongside his wife Karen Pence.

Pence congratulated the organization on 40 years of work, and promised them that “you have an unwavering ally in President Donald Trump.”

“He was excited that I was coming here today and wanted me to give you all his thanks and regards,” Pence added to applause.

Pence called Focus on the Family a “cornerstone of American life for so many Americans” and called its founder, James Dobson, on whose radio program he appeared during the presidential campaign, a “friend and mentor to me.”

When Pence wasn’t talking up the work of Focus on the Family, he was promoting the administration’s agenda, and presenting Trump as a president who was one of them.
He pointed to the president’s words at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he spoke of the importance of so-called “religious freedom,” so often used as a license to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

Pence also noted Trump’s signing of an executive order going after the Johnson Amendment, which prevents nonprofits, including churches, from politicking for any particular candidate or party.

He asked those in attendance to rally behind the health care bill, to help get it “across the finish line.”  “While discussions will continue, let me be very clear that the president and I are very supportive of the Senate bill,” he added.

The Senate bill would make deep cuts to Medicaid, putting the lives of many at risk, including those living with HIV/AIDS.

To make matters worse, Trump’s proposed budget would cut $300 million from HIV/AIDS funding. The president’s obvious apathy on the issues led to six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) to quit in protest.

I Can't Be "Friends" With A Trump Supporter - Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted about my blogger friend Michelangelo Signorile's open letter at Huffington Post to a long-time, long-distance friend after he learned that she had voted for Donald Trump. Michelangelo's letter well summarized my feelings towards "friends" who had voted for Trump (and in my view, racism, bigotry, homophobia and neo-fascism) when he said that he had realized that he had never really known the woman addressed in his letter.  Like the woman Michelangelo addressed, many of my Trump supporting "friends" can not seek to excuse themselves by citing that they live in the Rust Belt and/or had experienced “economic anxiety” during the Obama years (most are actually quite well off financially).  Now, Michelangelo has a new post that looks at the reactions his open letter has evoked.   Like Michelangelo's experience, many of my "friends" seek to either depict me as "intolerant" or claim that this is only disagreement about "politics" and conveniently ignore the extremists and vitriolic homophobes Trump is placing in positions of power.  The reality is that I will likely never trust or feel comfortable with these "friends" some of whom I continue to see for the sake of neighborhood and social harmony.  Here are highlights from Michelangelo's latest piece:

There was a lot of response on social media and elsewhere, most of it positive, much of it from people in far more difficult situations ― people who opposed Trump and were struggling with relationships they’ve had with parents, siblings, children or closer friends who voted for Trump. Many expressed how the letter articulated thoughts similar to their own, no matter how differently (or similarly) they may navigate this in their own lives.

Then there were the Trump supporters who criticized the piece. They almost universally claimed they couldn’t believe anyone was breaking off a friendship over “politics.” This, to me, was both ludicrous and disingenuous ― if very telling ― particularly since I’d addressed it right there in the open letter.

Many of these Trump supporters ― a lot of them traditional Republicans who went “home,” as political pundits nauseatingly put it ― are defensive about the fact that they voted for the unstable racist, misogynist and self-proclaimed sexual assaulter, and they’re fearful of admitting to themselves and certainly others that they tolerated hate and bigotry. They can’t face that they’re in bed with what appears to be a large swath of other Trump supporters who actually revel in their own racism, pushing white supremacist hate and feeling emboldened by what they view as Trump’s embrace: making Steve Bannon his chief White House strategist. So, they conjure up all kinds of rationalizations or whirl around in a sort of denial.

These are the Trump supporters that went bonkers over my open letter to my friend. . . . On several websites and on social media they portrayed me as the “intolerant” liberal. Of course, I’m proudly intolerant of bigotry -– but that’s not what they meant.

I’ve pointed out how Mike Pence is running the transition and is already getting the anti-LGBTQ agenda set regarding domestic policy, and that Trump’s cabinet picks who will run the government departments are a who’s who of homophobia. 

But even if that weren’t true, why would you give a chance (as this critic put it) to someone who pandered to those who hate you? Trump courted evangelicals and promised to appoint judges to overturn the historic Obergefell ruling on marriage equality (and he has publicly opposed marriage equality since 2000). Even if you believe he wouldn’t do that, why would you give even conditional support to a man who has given hope to the people who detest you and wish you harm?

The rationalizers can’t face the fact that there will be no peace because Trump is a bigot who ran a hate-filled campaign and has shown no remorse for doing so, nor is he making any attempt to heal any wounds.

Debating them about my personal choice regarding a friendship ― or even referring to them here by name ― would only be giving them an opportunity to attempt to legitimize the terrible choice they made in the election. And they surely don’t deserve that.

Trump and an Emboldened Christian Right

When he met with Christofascist leaders last summer in New York, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer, sold his soul - assuming he has one - in order to win the support of these foul theocrats and, more importantly, their networks that could be used to motivate their robotic followers to go to the polls and vote for Trump.  Trump has kept his promises to these hate merchants and, to date, his appointments have included a who's who of anti-LGBT zealots.  Therefore, it is no surprise that the Christofacists feel quite triumphal at the moment.  Long term, their willingness to support a Vladimir Putin backed candidate may come back to haunt them, just as happened to German denominations that rallied to Adolph Hitler. A piece in New York Magazine looks at the current moment and what I hope could be the longer term downfall of the Christofascists.  Here are excerpts:

Before the 2016 elections, amidst evidence of some stress in conservative evangelical leadership circles over the religious implications of the community’s strong support for Donald Trump, the possibility that this could represent the Last Hurrah of the Christian Right as we have known it was a pretty lively topic of discussion. Personally, after years of challenging the wishful-thinking premise of secular folk and religious progressives alike that the Christian Right was on the decline, I argued in October that the spiritual gymnastics associated with supporting Trump might stretch the alliance of religious and nonreligious conservatives to the breaking point.

The big question for those triumphant Trumpites of the Cloth will be whether and how quickly he delivers on his big promises to this particular constituency.

For conservative evangelical clergy, the shiny bauble held out by Trump that they most value is probably repeal of the Johnson Amendment that prevents outright ex officio electioneering by leaders of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. That will require a statute. But the fact that this involves the Internal Revenue Service will probably be enough to justify nestling the provision into one of the budget reconciliation bills congressional Republicans will probably seek to pass next year, making it both relatively inconspicuous and filibuster-proof. If Republicans fail to do this, it will be noticed with dismay by its intended beneficiaries.

The bigger item probably most valued by politically active conservative evangelical laypeople is a reliable vote on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and if possible Obergefell v. Hodges (the decision that legalized same-sex marriage) — though the latter is probably a stretch —while also strengthening “religious liberty” protections for conservative Christians who don’t want to contaminate themselves with same-sex marriage rites or access to contraceptives by women. Thanks to the current vacancy on the Court, this is one promise Trump will be expected to keep almost immediately, and if he double-crosses the Christian Right with a nominee that is less than 100 percent certain on these issues, its Senate allies could credibly threaten to prevent confirmation.

Aside from repeal of the Johnson Amendment, fully defunding Planned Parenthood will be a must-pass budget item for the Christian Right. And they will be very avid for Trump to back Education secretary Betsy DeVos (assuming she is confirmed) to the hilt as she tries to convert federal education funding into a lever for convincing states to move public-school dollars into private-school vouchers.

All in all, 2017 looks like it will be a happy, fulfilling year for the culture warriors of the Christian Right, but there are some potential stumbling blocks in the path of a renewed “marriage of convenience” with the GOP.

Evangelical leaders are divided over immigration policy, which is likely to be a hot-button issue after the inauguration, as it was during the campaign. And any fresh incidents of Trumpian crudeness and overt hostility to Christian values could serve as an irritant as well. You can expect Mike Pence to serve as a soothing ambassador to this constituency if the Boss gets all heathenish again.

But the long-term tensions between the religious and political interests of conservative evangelicals, and their tendency to conflate those interests, have hardly been dispelled by an election victory.

If in the next few years the Christian Right turns out to be “losers,” as Trump would put it — either losing in elections and policy fights, or by losing their own professed convictions — the crisis people like Moore sensed when the Trump candidacy slouched towards Bethlehem to be born could return in a big-league way.

Of course, the Christofascist ignore the reality that their homophobia, racism, and general misogyny are repulsive to the younger generations and that to the extent they "win" with Trump, they in reality only accelerate the flight of people from religion and Christianity in particular.  I continue to believe that the Christofascists will ultimately kill Christianity - which overall will be a good thing.