I’m listening to a re-hash of the Supreme Court’s hearing of the 14th Amendment/Colorado State election case and I am appalled by the fact that no one there wanted to make a decision about the 14th Amendment. One of the male justices, in fact, said something like, “You don’t expect us to make a statement, do you?” Why the heck not?!?! You are the highest court in the land! It’s only your job to make the decisions when no one else can! That’s why people go there!

Instead, after taking the case, they spent pretty much the entire session looking for a way not to decide anything substantive! It seems to me that the court was being asked were three questions:

1) Did Donald Trump engage in an insurrection?

2) If he did, is he disqualified from running for office?

And 3) Isn’t that what the law says?

Their answers seem to be 1) we don’t know or can’t say;

2) We don’t know or can’t say;

3) We don’t know or can’t say.

Why? Bad things could happen if we do. Donny’s minions could get violent. Is there any proof that they could? Yes, they could, but that’s the future and there is no way to know for sure. They are not responsible for how we and his minions act!

So much for being the wisest court in the land !

Ok, the court doesn’t want to act. What about Jack Smith? Is he going to answer those questions? No. No, he is not. Trump’s not on trial for insurrection.

Ok, before that, the January 6th Committee? They were brave and answered the first question in the affirmative. Beyond that, nope and nope.

Ok, before that, Impeachment #2? Maybe, sort of, yes, but not really; we could have died, literally, but no, it wasn’t an impeachable offense. We’ll turn it over to the legal system and let them decide. Maybe there’s a 14hh Amendment, but that was a law to enfranchise Blacks and we don’t agree to that either.

Ok, Impeachment #1? Certainly not! He’s not that bad!

The Mueller investigation? Even if he was guilty of something, the law doesn’t cover it, this little rule of the DOJ takes precedence! Say what? Huh? Who ever heard of that?

Then, magically, there’s nothing to see here! Total Exoneration! Total Exoneration! We had to fire the last Attorney General to get a guy who could pretend that nothing happened and, if it did, it didn’t matter anyway.

So, to repeat, a man can destroy people’s lives left and right. We can all see what happened, we can feel violated, just the Capitol was, and no one in the government will acknowledge the 14th Amendment?! At All? No one can stop him from hurting people?! Why do we have a Justice System if it, by definition, acknowledge a crime, can’t punish a person for breaking the law, and don’t even acknowledge that a law exists lest it offend the criminal?!

But the woman who thought she could vote and went to jail? The people falsely accused of any crime but weren’t in the government? The people who went to jail and stayed because they couldn’t afford bail? The Supreme Court owes those people an explanation for their lack of courage.

They could still rule about the existence of the Amendment. They could hold Trump responsible. The could develop courage and “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”. We haven’t seen it yet.

Resisting with Peace,

John

What I Learned On My Europe Trip

In no particular order, here are some things I learned on my recent trip to Europe:

Just like in Prague, Belfast, London and Paris, America is not the center of the universe. People in Italy mostly care about Italians in their news.

They could use the Americans with Disabilities Act here. There is so much walking, but very little handicapped access to things here.

Leonardo DaVinci didn’t get his first choice job in Milan. If DaVinci could “fail” at a job interview, so could you or I. He’s Leonardo DaVinci, for goodness sake!

The Last Supper melted about 4 years after it was painted. It has had to be restored ever so many years since it was done.

The system of locks that make ships on canals go up and down? invented by Leonardo DaVinci.

Our tour guide just assumed we all knew that DaVinci was hard to get along with.

I don’t know what Italian diabetics do. There are way too many pasta dishes here to not eat.

I don’t understand American processed foods. Fresh veggies in food taste so much better. And nothing on a tomato says “polysorbate 80” either.

When I was a kid and my grandfather would take me to a parade, he’d make me salute each and every flag as it went by. He never went to war. Non-veterans Americans don’t know anything about war compared to Europeans, with the exception of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and possibly January 6th. That’s 3 days of destruction. Israel, Palestine, and Ukraine have that every day. In Italy, the building that housed The Last Supper was destroyed on 2 sides and the roof was blown open. An air-raid shelter held 400 people, and it was built under a fountain.

When we talk about Israel and Palestine, we don’t have a clue. I suspect the Russians don’t have a clue about Ukraine , either, as I think about it.

Assisi really is a hard sell. How does “the poverty of St. Francis” become a tourism theme? It doesn’t. But the place is gorgeous, even without cartoon characters running around. There is so much spirituality going on here.

Francis was a failed saint in a couple of ways: His first vision of his call was a misunderstanding. God wanted Francis to rebuild the entire church of the time. Francis and his friends rebuilt a local church building. Did a nice job, too, but it was a misunderstanding. Also, Francis’ movement worked too well. Within a few years, there were like 50,000 Franciscans. Francis would meet them on the road, ask who they were. They would say, “followers of brother Francis” and he had never met them before. By the third “rule” on how to be a Franciscan written by him, he was dismayed at how out of control the whole thing had gotten. Still, there are so many things that he got right Christ’s way of being, and his clarity about God was so full that, yes, he’s a saint.

Lest you think I like bringing down saints and heroes, DaVinci is still a genius and Francis is still a saint. I like flawed saints and geniuses, because it means there’s a chance for the rest of us.

Assisi is 1,000 feet above sea level. That’s really hard on someone with asthma. The view is incredible, but it’s harder to enjoy it if you can’t breathe. If you go, rest a lot, stay hydrated, and bring a puffer.

Rome is a lot smaller than I expected. You could see the Coliseum from our hotel in one direction and , I think, the Vatican in the other.

Just like in The Blues Brothers movie, “the trains run so often” past your room, you hardly notice them after awhile”. Luckily, though, Carrie Fisher didn’t try to destroy our hotel with a missile.

Also, in regards to the Blues Brothers: the driver, on the way to the airport, played “Think” from the soundtrack, and then the rest of the”Aretha’s Greatest Hits . It’s nice to think of American culture here being soul / Rhythm and Blues.

Did anything happen while we were away?

Resisting with Peace,

John

Last night, the Supreme Court of Colorado decided that: a) Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection and b) the 14th Amendment says that insurrectionists can’t run for office and c) Donald Trump can’t be put on the ballot in Colorado (this part was stayed legally until Trump’s team can make a legal challenge).

Shortly after that, Trump’s rivals were asked to weigh in. Instead of agreeing with the court and taking the win to put them in contention for their party’s nomination, they said, almost to a person, that they don’t want to win this way, that the court was wrong, and they’re against the ruling.

Here’s the problem with that logic. He’s ahead and no one cares what you say because he’s so loud. Haley, Christie, DeSantis, and that Indian-American fascist guy (whose name I won’t say, because he already has enough attention) — whether they have a good case or not — can’t make their case if no one cares. With Trump out of contention, their voices and the policies behind them can be heard. No debate needs to make reference to Trump. He’s not the elephant in the room with this decision. He doesn’t matter anymore. If you actually have ideas, here’s your chance. Make your case.

In the meantime, let me try to explain your behavior:

1) You’re so used to worrying about Trump’s base of angry, stupid, or crazy people that you don’t want to rock the boat. If they can’t vote for him, they don’t matter. They either have to vote for you or vote for no one. Those are their choices. Oh, well.

2) You’re thinking too hard. You’re thinking like lawyers, and bad lawyers at that. For the last six years, we have seen a country ruled be unscrupulous lawyers and a litigious system that no one except the very rich could even imagine. “Delay, Delay, Delay” only works if you can afford the lawyers. Trump can afford the lawyers — even if he doesn’t pay them. Bill Barr’s use of a DOJ rule that no one ever heard of can only be gotten by Trump, because Barr was clever. We have lived for too long thinking that clever mattered more than right. That’s Trump’s game. He likes to play it. The entire country has been trying to figure out his next move, but it always comes back to this: We think too much and while we’re thinking too much, he does what is wrong.

I’m not an athlete, but I hear all the time “don’t try to play their game. Make them play your game”. Trump can’t, won’t, or doesn’t care to, play by the rules of the Constitution. Too bad. That’s his problem, not yours.

Remember those “elite” college deans who just got embarrassed by Congress for apparent anti-semitism? They, too, were stuck in a type of legalese for their thought. They’re bright people. They should have known better. The question being asked of them wasn’t “How smart are you?”. The question was “How moral you are?” They simply couldn’t adjust to another way of thinking fast enough in public to answer the real question being asked. The woman from UPenn who did resign, oddly, answered the right question when she had time to think about it.

The question for the Trump presidency has never been, “how clever are your lawyers?”. It has always been “how decent, how trustworthy, how moral are your lawyers?”. That question has never been answered by his administration. That is the question you — and all leaders — now have to answer. Can we trust you? Will you do right by us? Can you not hurt us or condemn us to death because you want power or money?

The 14th Amendment is powerful in its moral clarity and simplicity. If you have tried to hurt the institutions of democracy, you shouldn’t get another chance at it. If you support others who want to hurt the country or democracy, you shouldn’t get another chance at it. The 14th Amendment simply says, “NO”. There is no fight, no argument, no cleverness to it. As my mother used to say, “What part of “no” don’t you understand?”. That’s the question that nobody’s ever asked Donald Trump, and it’s the question that you have the right to ask him, on behalf of all of us — left, right, and center.

Think about it, Republican candidates. Think with your heart this time. Answer the questions Americans really want an answer to. Then ask that question of Trump. Thinking like him — with no heart — will kill us all. Please, take the win!

Biden is a — whether the press will say it or not — a very moral man. The idea of having to choose between two moral candidates would make a great race, and would make every one of us a lot safer, and a lot saner, as well.

Resisting with Peace,

John

• Wise Supreme Court Justices
• Logical Supreme Court Justices
• Justices who like the country and all of its people.
• Justices who believe in justice
• Presidents who have integrity
• Presidents who don’t like to use violence.
• Presidents who tell the truth
• Presidents who don’t go to war for lies or to make money.
• Presidents who admit their mistakes, give reasons for them, and learn from them.
• Presidents who believe in America and believe in government
• Presidents who work for the people of America, not against them.
• Presidents who don’t have policies designed to hurt people either in America or around the world.
• Congresspeople who care about people outside of the beltway and listen to them more often than not.
• Congresspeople who lead morally, when the crowd is wrong
• Congresspeople who can — and do — explain why they voted in some way or another.
• Congresspeople who represent the people they are supposed to represent
• Congresspeople who aren’t in for the fame or noteriety.
• Congresspeople who don’t lie.
• Congresspeople who don’t steal.
• Congresspeople who don’t make more money than their salary for the work they do.

I remember a time when I believed this was true of all the people in government. I expect it now. I think this is what most of us expect from government.. If you don’t live up to these reasonable expectations, I won’t vote for you. I don’t believe you should be in government, and I don’t know anyone who does.

As voting time gets nearer, remember these goals, not the ones politicians seem to have now.

Resisting With Peace,

John

I spent an hour this afternoon listening to Nichole Wallis, Eddie Glaude, and Pete Budegieg speak about political violence, chaos, Fascism, and today’s news that a man — twice — brought a gun to a state capital with plans to kill that state’s governor. Their question: can we go back to having a respectful government and, more importantly, being a respectful nation? Clearly, hate seems to be winning in a section of our government, and chaos reigns there. Do we think it’s going to be any better out here, on the streets of America? I don’t think so.

Where is the rot coming from? Some leaders, some media, and a populist “base” that is exactly that: the most base of our natures. If they can hate, they’ll hate. If they can lie, they’ll lie. If they can yell, they yell…. even when the situation doesn’t call for it. MAGA Republicans got what they wanted — power — in the last election. That wasn’t enough. They wanted power over others. Then they clamored for top position among them, and McCarthy won. He tried once — and took it back — to be bi-partisan, to make the the government work at all. That wasn’t powerful enough, mean enough, harsh enough for his rivals. His rivals removed him from office.

My wife and I watched the Republican debate the other night, and got stuck watching FOX for ten minutes before it. I think it was The Five, but I’m not sure. That panel, with the exception of a younger woman, was so angry, so aggrieved, and so full of lies and vitriol, we almost didn’t make it through. To describe the ten minutes, it went like this: “Government blah, blah, blah, Joe Biden is old, society blah, blah, blah, Joe Biden falls a lot. Barbie, gender, blah, blah, blah… Joe Biden isn’t stong enough to be a leader, blah, blah, blah… and now for the debate”. Again, to be clear, one woman wasn’t having any of it, but the rest of the cast clearly didn’t like or trust her for saying what she said.

So, some of our leaders don’t have the answer. Some of our story-tellers doesn’t feel like they have the answer. A large core of their fans don’t have a way to make things work, either — unless, by “making things work” you mean “blowing up the situation“.

Mr. Glaude said we need a new vision, and new way that works. I want to suggest something. As a liberal, it’s not anything people might expect. Or maybe it is exactly what liberals expect: taking personal responsibility for our actions (sounds like Reagan)… towards others (sounds like Carter, or Obama)…. and expecting our leaders to do the same.

But the change is on us,

until we vote on leaders, and then it’s still on us to be a bunch of voters who expect a decent government that does what it needs to do (stay open, pay our debts, have reasonable discussions, and come up with solutions) .

There’s a type of psychology known as “solution focused” psychology. It’s a simple process and it works. Here are the steps:

1. Ask “What are we doing now”?
2. Determine the opposite of that.
3. Do the opposite of what you’re doing now.
4. See how it goes and make corrections as needed.

Here’s what I see us doing now:

Hating others, lying, and yelling about not getting our way. This leads to preparing to fighting against others and getting nothing done.

The opposite is trying to love others, telling the truth, and calmly looking out for others.

Let’s try that.

1. in Judeo-Christian terms, Thou shall not covet. Don’t want anything just because someone else has it… or you think someone else has it. Assuming an even society, (yes, BIG assumption:) if minorities have special provisions (aka affirmative action) and you think “that’s cheating” and “I should be able to do it”, why would you want to cheat? If you can get it with a normal amount of work, you can still get whatever it is. Why does it bother you that someone else has something? What business is it of yours?

Once a year, on my birthday, I get gifts. Do I deserve them. Maybe. Maybe not. Does that mean you have to get gifts ? Not unless it’s your birthday. Is it fair to you if you don’t? Yes, it’s fair that I do because it’s my turn. It’ll be fair when you do; Should I be jealous on your birthday? Of course not! I should celebrate your getting gifts on your birthday, and maybe celebrate by giving you gifts then. We could be jealous or we could be celebrating. It’s our choice Celebrating is a lot more fun.

The point of “what-about-ism” in politics is jealousy. Jealousy doesn’t help. Let’s not engage in “what about ism”, as a start. And lets not let our leaders engage in it either. That should calm things down a little bit anyway.

2) “Thou shall not bear false witness against your.brother or sister”. In other words, don’t lie. Magazines years ago said that “we live in a post-truth society”. There is no post-truth. The only thing that matters is truth when making decisions about life. If you make a decision based on a false premise, you’re going to go the wrong way. Based on a lie, our society didn’t fix the climate. Based on a lie, we went to Iraq to fight a war and thousands died needlessly Based on a lie, our entire country is in chaos and hundreds of people went to jail because of January 6th.

if you’re in a position of power, don’t lie. Just don’t. It kills us. If you’re not in a position of power, don’t support people who lie. Certainly don’t give them money.

3) Thou shall not kill. Jesus adds, “Love your enemies”. Hatred without any reason is just stupid. If you say, I hate X group without having met them, how do you know what you’re hating? What a waste of energy that is. Hating people you don’t even know is bullshit! And it makes the world worse — angrier all the time. If you’re going to hate someone, hate somebody who actually did something to you. That, at least, makes sense.
And if you must hate them, don’t kill them. We can’t have a civil society if people get killed. If people get killed, the murderer feels bad because they were out of control — at least the first time. The victim is dead — the ultimate loss of liberty — and people that cared for them want revenge, so the cycle never ends. If you want to live in a safer world, don’t kill people.

This is how we get our world, our democracy, and our lives back. These aren’t new ideas, but we seem to (or our politicians seem to have) forgotten them. Holding ourselves to these principles gives us a reasonable chance to calm down the anger in our society, feel safer, and let democracy flourish. It also gives people a chance to say, with a clear conscience, “hey, leader, hey boss, hey bully…. Don’t do that. It’s not helping and I won’t vote for it”.

But it’s got to start with us . If these things work for us, we can believe that they will work for our leaders, our bosses, our oppressors. If we can do it, so can they.

So let’s start now.

Resisting With Peace,

John

Today, the Supreme Court voted to end a section of my dream for America — Affirmative Action, and raced-based help in college admissions. One may, I suppose, see this as bringing the pendulum back to center if you’re a conservative or Republican (and I don’t take those things as the same, but here they might be). It’s a sucky place to be, because we are less balanced as a country than we’ve been in a while. While President Biden seems to acknowledge “it’s not normal” on MSNBC’s “Deadline White House”, he believes that we will right the ship. I sure hope he’s right. To me, it seems the more we know, the less the Supreme Court understands.

When Affirmative Action first came in, I understood it to be a help up for people who might not normally get the chance to go to college, or get a job, or buy a house. That was the late 1960’s and it seemed like a good idea. Then, in 1978, the Bakke decision came in and said, “Hey, I’m White. Where’s my help up?”. People began to think of “reverse racism”, which meant that people were denied college placement because they were White. I don’t know Mr. Bacce or his situation, but I don’t think he couldn’t go elsewhere to college, couldn’t get a good job, or couldn’t live where he wanted. In fact, if he knew lawyers and could afford them, I suspect he could do anything he wanted except apparently get into that school.

White folks thought, “They’ve had 10 years or so to fix things. Racism must be over by now. Let’s see what happens”. Around the same time, I think, Proposition 8 came in in California and the “patriots” who started it weren’t going to pay any more property taxes to support State spending for things like fire departments, police, or education. They weren’t gonna take it anymore! Whether we knew it or not, these two things marked the beginning of the end for a caring America — the American Dream I thought we were signing on to. The late 1970’s/early 1980’s were about “Where’s mine?” for White America.

Bakke was “I want to go to that school”. Prop 8 was “I don’t want to pay for anybody else’s school”. Even then, there was some unconscious-to-Whites connection between education, class, and race. I bet that it wasn’t all-that-unconscious a connection for many folks — especially anyone who couldn’t get a place to live or a good school or a job — not people who knew or could afford lawyers, just regular folks who believed in loving each other and sharing things. “This land was your land/this land was my land… This land was made for you and me” or so we thought. Then, fear and the sense that there wasn’t enough to share made a dog-eat-dog hierarchical society where White Men could and should rule everything.

Since those days of love and sharing, the greed and inequality have gotten worse until a crook led our nation and people loved him for it. Along the way, fear caught hold of those who oppress’ hearts. They worry, “What if they did to us, what we did to them?. What if (in theological terms) there is no grace, there is no mercy, there is no redemption for our actions”? That’s when, in psychological terms, “projection’ starts. That’s why Jim Jordan runs a committee on “The Weaponization of Government” and it never finds anything.

America’s pendulum has begun to swing back among the regular, not-particularly-partisan folks, while swinging the other way in the government and courts. We get poison rulings based on the poisonous fruit that was put on the Supreme Court. Some people still love crime and corruption and they think no one will notice. We’ve already noticed. The money, the red, the lust for power, the exclusion, all yield nothing once the well of ideas has dried up. These things eat themselves over time until there’s nothing left. If you limit yourself to only the ideas of old, White, straight, men, you will — over the course of time — run out of ideas. That’s why the Trump Republicans have no platform and had none in the last election other than Donald Trump’s will-to-power. In case no one has mentioned it, that leaves only one person — Donald Trump, but it could be any narcissist — maybe Elon Musk, or Ron Desantis. White, male, heterosexual, Christian Supremacy is a dead end. All the resources going to one person and expecting all the ideas from that one person does not work. The world is too big and too complicated for one person to run it — even if they think they could.

So here’s what’s happened in the meantime: We’ve learned about Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and so many others. We’ve learned about “the talk”. We’ve learned about Juneteenth. We’ve learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre. We’ve learned about “Urban Renewal” splitting communities with the “progress” of highways. All of these things explain what we’ve missed and why things are the way they are. They urge a political analysis that is angry and with every right to be. But these things have always been wrong. Killing one person because they’re Black or killing a town full of them, or stealing from them at some time when when we had other, more moral, choices is, was, and will always be wrong. We White folks have always known that in our heart of hearts.

The “-isms” have always led to death and destruction and they’re all interconnected. The idea that Blacks should lose their rights and women and trans folks and everyone else isn’t next in line is lunacy. The idea that my part of the human race has chosen to not care for others — or, worse yet, do evil to them — doesn’t make me want to love or care for those who have been hurt any less. It makes me want to share even more of what I have. If you beat someone up, and I have the choice who to pay attention to after that, you or the person who’s been beaten, you’re going to lose.

It makes me believe in equity and equality and openness to ideas even more. It’s almost like Jesus was on to something, believing that we are all neighbors. It’s almost like Paul might be onto something with the repentance and forgiveness thing. It’s almost like caring for each other works better than what we’ve been doing that got us here. Let’s try sharing the planet because sharing with each other, believing in each other, respecting each other, might actually work.

Let’s try it… because this is not the America I signed up for.

Resisting with Peace,

John

As one who has been on the Committee on Ministry numerous times, (the local version of “the people who ordain” for my denomination, the United Church of Christ), I want to step into the fray with the Southern Baptist Church and its understanding of women preachers. You in the SBC can, I suppose, not allow women to be preachers. You can rely on tradition, and patriarchy, (those often being the same thing) if you want. I just think you’re “cutting off your nose to spite you face”, as my mother used to say. Remember that thing about every time you point a finger at someone else, you point four back at yourself? It’s not that bad, but making one decision means that you don’t make another. Choosing to exclude any part of the church from participating is just plain self-defeating. Excluding half of the population seems to make a bad decision much, much worse. That’s just statistically speaking.

Then there’s the whole Biblical argument. When Paul says, “Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house”, doesn’t that suggest leaders, more than house owners? Also, when Mary Magdalene ran from the tomb, wasn’t that preaching? And what did Jesus’ mother do with the rest of her life? Did she talk about her boy after her death? Wouldn’t that be preaching?

Finally, since I started by talking about the Committee on Ministry, let me tell you how I go about sizing up a possible ministry candidate. First, I remember who I am, and who I work for. God is God and I… am not. God does the calling. I just check the credentials. When people ask me,
“Can women preach?”, my response is, “I don’t know. Put them in the pulpit and let’s find out”. Can gays preach? Same response. Can any group preach? Same response. It is my job not to limit God’s will. It’s to see if it’s there.

I encourage you to do the same. I have been happy with my results. I think you will, too. More than that, I think God will, too.

Resisting With Peace,

John

First, a mea culpa: I didn’t even know that Mr. Steele had a podcast. I looked on You-Tube for Mary Trump ‘s podcast just after the E. Jean Carroll verdict of her uncle, our former President. I was curious about her response to that verdict. Though what I found wasn’t that, I’m glad I saw it. Now that I have found the podcast, I have downloaded and subscribed to it.

Who is Michael Steele? Mr. Steele is a Black man who used to be the Chairman of the Republican Party, back when there was a (non-Trump) Republican Party.  In fact, after a recent election (Obama’s first vs. George W. Bush?), Mr. Steele led an “autopsy” on what went wrong for the party and how to win again. He suggested that modernization (seeking younger voters) and diversity was the way to go. As has become apparent, that suggestion was not taken by the party, and they have gone the opposite way with what Steele would probably say are obvious results. Instead of putting out a wider tent, the party took in the tent poles, limited themselves to straight, White, old men and women until they could purify that to very White, seemingly straight, angry men who don’t particularly like women, women’s bodies, women’s rights, women’s autonomy. They, as he could have told them, lost elections that they should have won, appealing to fewer and fewer voters.

Steele is no longer Chair of the party, and is a guest commentator on MSNBC, frequently working with the more “moderate” hosts – Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe, Nichole Wallis of Deadline White House, and so on. Just prior to his interviewing Mary Trump, the Tennessee Three thing happened. Three members of the Tennessee State Legislature were castigated for daring to call for the gun control that their constituents demanded after many mass shootings. Of the three, two were Black, and one was a White woman. Two of the three were expelled and, just to point out the bigotry in the power structure, those two members were the Black members.

In listening to the radio broadcast as it happened, Mr. Steele seemed to be having flashbacks to the Old South, recognizing “dog whistles” for dogs long thought to be dead by White America. The passion and hurt in his voice as he discussed the events happening in real time were great signs of his humanity and, to be sure, his Christianity, (the one that likes Jesus’ words, not megachurch theology). I’ve liked to hear his thoughts on many things of political interest

Who is Mary L. Trump? She has fascinated me on any number of things. Yes, she is Donald Trump’s estranged niece, and that may be what started this journey for most of us. She is a psychiatrist who wrote a book: “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” which described the development of a narcissist in her family over the years who later became President. Her great-uncle (Trump’s father) was a narcissist and a powerful bigot in New York City who made his money by keeping (or throwing) Blacks out of their apartments in the big city. The former President followed in Dad’s footsteps, of course, while Mary’s father was ridiculed for having his own life, succeeding as a pilot on his own terms until his alcoholism got the better of him.  It is a great psychological study of an incredibly (self) destructive family. As one who likes psycho-biographical books, I found the book a great read, and it gave me insights into the man’s psyche  that allowed me to keep relatively sane during his tenure in office.

That’s how she came to my attention, but Mary Trump is so much more than that, it turns out. She is a Democrat! in the style of old radical Democrats who said what they believed. She pulls no punches in dialog about what she expects from the party and the people in power. She is a well-to-lesbian from The Big City. As others try to be bipartisan and polite, Mary is a liberal who doesn’t have time for that. She wants to be a Democrat while living in democracy. She believes in liberal ideas and she gives voice to them.

She sees herself as a “Nerd” and has a podcast which features “the nerd avengers”. Again, she’s a psychiatrist – an intellectual by nature, who knows how the mind works and is curious about human nature because she has dealt with it for years in her daily life.

Finally, Mary wrote a book on racism in America and its impact on our culture. The book is called, “The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal”, In it she explains that unrepentant racism in our history causes trauma for so many and doesn’t allow us to heal when we cling to The Old Ways vs. dealing with them.

So that’s the set-up: a Black, straight, Republican Christian who grew up relatively poor in a Southern city (if one thinks of Washington, D.C. as Southern) and a White lesbian Democrat , who grew up intellectual, in a relatively rich, elite family in  a Northern city, had a conversation. In terms of categories, they couldn’t be much different. In regular news media they frequently talk in terms of sociological categories, which leads to polling and analysis of politics, and speculation about the possible Presidency of Donald J. Trump and the feelings about it on the Right and Left.

To my original disappointment. It turns out, they are both tired of Trump and his impact on politics, criminal (lack of ) justice, and immorality around women and their issues and would rather talk about anything else. That original disappointment turned to hope as they chose a better path: They were just going to be them and talk about things that mattered to them as individual people.

Since it’s Steele’s podcast, he starts right off with “I don’t want to talk about that guy”. I want to talk about what’s happening in the rest of America. I want to talk about why America is so crazy right now and what to do about it. I want you to psychoanalyze this country right now. How did we get here?”

As a recently retired therapist of twenty years or so, I watched as she did the therapeutic thing: she healed him by listening and by being honest about the trauma he goes through every day in America. I don’t now if he’d call it trauma exactly, but it certainly was healing. You could see his body relax, his pupils wide open, and his jaw relaxed, as he simply took it in. She acknowledged his pain. She acknowledged that she didn’t — and couldn’t — know all of it, because she wasn’t him. What she did know, and could understand, she lifted from him.

After that weight was removed and the pain acknowledged, and she gave him a “corrective emotional experience” by sort of repenting on behalf of those who hurt him in the past and present. Answers about what to do and ways to see it came pouring out of him. He spoke about more things and made more connections. Their connection/friendship deepened.

As she spoke about our punitive justice system, she explained that it was cheaper to give someone an education than to punish them for acting out in a society that made them fear. She said neither side healed by punishing the other. Steele stopped and said, “that’s very reminiscent of the words of Jesus”. My heart soared.

As a pastor for now thirty three years, I got it. The Spirit was flowing between them and he knew in his heart of hearts that he was onto something. His faith offered a solution for the problem of mass incarceration in a Truth that she couldn’t come to by herself. Psyche and Soul were joined in the room for each of them. Transformation was happening. He spoke of God as a male and she said, “She (God) wasn’t going to allow injustice”. They were both talking about the same Person. They had found common ground in a country that is so divided it hurts.

It was an incredible experience – like watching therapy and the Spirit moving at the same time, and both people being touched by it. It was a reminder of all the things I love in life being in one place and the healing power each has

This, this, is how we heal our country. Yes, it is possible. I recommend this particular episode of the podcast to anyone who wants to heal and heal others in the political realm.

Thank you to both of them.

Resisting with Peace,

John

I’ve been listening to the news for years now, and I’m fascinated/sad/angry by the difference between what Americans, on the whole, believe and what laws, policies, etc. actually look like.

First among the controversial issues that the government (judicial, legislative and executive branches) is abortion. While numerous states, courts, and legislators rush to judgement about abortion. Americans , by and large believe that women have a right to decide about their bodies and there are complexities involved in conception and childbirth that we have never faced or even considered. Americans don’t believe in either the pro-abortion or the anti-abortion position.

No woman wakes up one morning and says to herself, “I think I’ll have an abortion” or “I want to kill any life within me”. No woman says to herself, I want to be raped, have incest, or want to die so this baby can live without a mother. No woman wants to watch her child die — in her body or outside of it. No woman wants to see her child suffer in her body or outside of it.

Women are both capable of knowing who they want in their vaginal cavity. Because of that, they are capable of being responsible for anything that happens as a result of someone being there. Americans want to let them make those decisions and give them the tools and support to make those decisions. Americans also want them to make that decision by discussing it with good men who want the best for them, and medical professionals who know what they are doing. In short, most Americans are actually pro-life. They are not pro-pregnancy or pro-abortion. They want the best for the people they love and whom they intentionally create .

Next controversy : Americans, far and wide, gun owners and non- gun owners alike, want assault weapons banned. Every single day in America in 2023 there’s a mass shooting, There is no one who isn’t touched by this. The number of people that have lost their lives in the years since Columbine is absolutely huge.

Why? People around the world can tell us, people with no political axe to grind. Assault weapons do exactly what they are supposed to do — kill, and kill a lot of people. Why would we even make them for general use by your average person? There should be no market for civilians to buy them. No gun maker should be able to sell them. Period.

Yes, there will still be mental health issues here, but we won’t be creating them via mass trauma. Yes, a mad person could kill people with a knife, but it’s a lot harder to have the same impact. Yes, we have a Second Amendment which is part of our culture, so we can’t take away all guns. Yes, hunters use guns, and they should be able to. They are not the the problem. Real gun owners understand guns and know what they are doing around them. The look to be safe and responsible. Tragedies will happen, but most Americans want to stay alive and they want the people they know to remain alive.

Financially, the amount that we spend to protect ourselves from these weapons, the amount we pay out in insurance for the murder of those killed, the lawsuits involved — all of these things are caused by assault weapons which are designed for just such an occasion. People who care about money at all know that, in addition to the human cost (and that can’t be overstated, of course) should understand this.

Nearly every poll I have seen or heard about say that most democrats and most Republican voters want assault weapons banned. Again, if America was a democracy and the voices of the people mattered, the scourge of mass killings would end simply by banning the guns make war on civilians possible.

The last thing I see that is controversial in political circles, but not much at all among citizens is gerrymandering. The fact some politicians get to make any vote have less importance is a tragedy and yet when maps are drawn for districts, the point is almost to make one political party dominant. That’s not right.

There must be a way to have non-partisan groups doing the design. I don’t know how we make that happen, but we must. I know that former Attorney General Eric Holder and former-President Obama have been involved in fighting for such things, with a group called “All On The Line “. They are very clear that they want pro-democracy, not pro- Democrats re-districting.

That said, I’m not sure Republicans can buy into anything with the Obama name on it. In the meantime, look around and find someone who is doing the work and join them.

Right now, we have a government that doesn’t seem to be responsive to the majority of Americans. Last time I checked, we didn’t call that a functioning democracy. First, we have to force politicians to listen by giving them actual skin in the game. If they can’t be voted out, they don’t care what we think.

Once they actually are listening, far fewer people will die due to gun violence. That’s what the people want, and that’s what the government can provide. Doing something is better than almost nothing we’re doing now. Thousands not dying is a good thing, obviously, and a majority of people want that.

Then, a stable rule of government, figured out by elected representative who actually represent the majority of people, that keeps women (who are already alive) and deals with the fetus as respectfully as possible, taking into account all of the health issues of the mother, especially ones non-medical men don’t even understand or know about, and using the best medical advice possible. This might be as as simple as government backing out of the situation altogether, and letting doctors decide the best course of treatment, in consultation with the mother, the father and all involved parties. Whatever it is, we need to do it, and we need to do it as soon as we can, — most Americans want this as well. It ought not be that hard through a democratic process which respects citizens.

If America at this moment in time were a democracy, we’d have less deaths and less division, meaning culture skirmishes rather than culture wars.

Let’s make government work again, shall we?

Resisting With Peace,

John