Note to readers: Here is a fictional takeaway from our week learning about “Russia and the West” at Chautauqua along with reflections from our travels there in 1993 and 2015.

My name is Boris Smirnov, and I love Vladimir Putin.

Contrary to what most of you in the West believe, we get plenty of news here in Russia about what is going on in the U.S. and we know what you think about us. You can’t understand why we overwhelmingly support our president and write us off as a bunch of stupid lemmings. There is a lot you do not understand.

The main thing you do not understand is what we have been through and why we are distrustful of the U.S. Our history is long and rich and proud. From the middle of the Sixteenth Century when Russia was first unified under Ivan IV, whom  the West calls the “Terrible,” we became a formidable power and culture. We became the largest country in the world and remain so.  It is true that the vast majority of the Russian people have suffered over the years as have, I might add, many in your country, especially slaves and people of color. But we also have produced the world’s greatest literature, its finest novels, short stories and poems, its most exceptional music and dance. There is no country that surpasses us with regard to the  intellectual and artistic legacy that we have given to the world.

We are also a people of extraordinary courage  and willpower. We are survivors. It is no coincidence that we were the country that stopped Napoleon and that stopped Hitler. Can you imagine any city in the U.S. that could hold out under siege, as did the people of Leningrad, for almost three years, with over 1.5 million people, half the population, dying from bombing, starvation or freezing to death? Can you imagine the U.S. tolerating losses of 40 million people in two world wars without surrendering? We as a nation do not give up. We are proud people. As a country we have never been conquered.

Now I and many other intellectuals like me acknowledge that the Communist Period was a mixed bag. To our credit we did away with the class system, practically eliminated illiteracy and created from whole cloth a first-rate, educational system, second to none in science and engineering. Our military might was close to being equal to that of the U.S. Communism eliminated serfdom and raised the standard of living for most Russians. But this came at a great cost. Perhaps as many as 20 million people—most of them innocent civilians—died from starvation caused by ill conceived five year plans or were murdered by the state or exiled to gulag work camps in Siberia.  Free speech did not exist. We are not proud of this part of our history, but it illustrates another important part of the Russian character: we know how to adapt. We know how to keep on going with our lives when you have a system that is hostile to its citizens or you have a ruthless dictator running the country. Perhaps you Americans could learn a thing or two from us as you try to adjust to life under your own president.

Now fast forward to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Many in Russia welcomed a change from a failed system. Note that this may be the most significant “revolution” in all of human history where an old system fell apart with so little bloodshed. Many were hopeful that Russia could become a true democracy, but make no mistake: we never wanted to become a clone of your system. We wanted our own Russian democracy, which would take into account the uniqueness of the Russian experience and the Russian soul.

What did we get? What we got was chaos. What we got were Americans  coming into our country, thumbing their noses at us and telling us what we should do when most of these so called experts had never been to Russia and could not speak our language. Beginning in 1991 and lasting for almost a decade, the country teetered on the edge of catastrophe. Food disappeared from stores. Even worse, vodka was in short supply. No one was sure what was going to happen  next. There was no such thing as the rule of law. Gangs emerged, and the riches of the country were  pillaged by “free enterprizers” and a new class of bandits  called “oligarchs.” In 1994 there were more Mercedes Benz limos in Moscow than in the  rest of the world combined. But the life of the ordinary citizen was worse than it was before, and the period of chaos called into question the endless sacrifices made over the centuries by those at the bottom. Plus we witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Empire as the Baltic states, Georgia, The Ukraine, and others suddenly gained their “independence.” Can you imagine what the reaction would have been in America  if your government had collapsed under its own weight, and a bunch of Russians arrived scolding you for your stupidity and failed economic system and telling you that Communism was the only answer?

Enter Vladimir Putin in the year 2000. Here is the bottom line: Putin has stabilized Russia. But Putin has done much more. He has revitalized the Russian Orthodox Church, restored our national pride and regained  our proper seat on the world stage. You could say he has “made Russia great again.”

Are there issues? Of course there are, and there is much about Putin that many, especially intellectuals like me, do not like, but you can’t help coming back to the threat of disorder and chaos that is still fresh in so many minds. What realistic alternatives do we have? Furthermore, to say that Putin is another Stalin is a total misunderstanding of the current situation in Russia. While more limited, there is still at lest some freedom of speech and the press. We are technically a democracy and have a constitution. And by the way, Russia has never functioned successfully  without some kind of strongman leader, be it a czar or a communist dictator. Maybe given our vast size, it is the only kind of system that can hold the country together. Perhaps it is the other side, the dark side, of the Russian soul.

So that is why I say I Iove Putin. Do I really love him? No, but given where we are now, he is the best we have. I can tell you right now that there was hardly a Russian who did not get some satisfaction from the now infamous press conference with your own version of a strongman leader. He rolled him. Long live President Putin!

And one last comment: I believe I forgot to say to you Americans with your President Trump—welcome to the club!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Chautauqua is an old fashioned religious retreat center started in the 1870s in upstate New York on the shores of  Chautauqua Lake.  Embry and  I are spending a week in a tiny apartment nestled next to gingerbread, Victorian structures among aged hemlocks and abundant laurel and rhododendrons. It is surely one of those rare spiritual vortexes you stumble upon occasionally. We had heard about it, as have, I am sure, many of you, but we keep asking ourselves why  did it take us so long to get here.  It was started as a venue for teaching Sunday school teachers but has evolved into something closer to a life-long learning center. Every day there are dozens  of lectures or classes to choose from along with music, dance, poetry readings and worship services or religious discussions. Virtually every mainstream Protestant domination has its own “cottage,” as do Catholics, and Jews, and there is a big emphasis on interfaith dialogue with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others including “Nones.” It is all here. Just take your pick. And then there is tennis, golf, sailing, swimming, camps for kids, and many places to eat and relax. Put this place on your bucket list.

The theme this week is “Russia and the West.” They set the schedule over a year in advance, but it could not be timelier. At the first morning lecture Senator Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware, spoke at exactly the same time that the Putin/Trump Summit was happening in Helsinki. Coons was eloquent and powerful. He said that should Trump miss the opportunity to confront Putin on the meddling issue, this would amount to a catastrophe. Only minutes after he completed his talk, we learned about Trump’s now infamous press conference. There were also two afternoon lectures that day by college professors and scholars, one titled “The Fall of the American Empire” and the other “The Putin Regime and Political Murder.” You get the gist.

But the word on Russia was not all doom and gloom. Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, and a Princeton PhD and  professor at the New School, painted a much more nuanced picture of  a complicated and paradoxical country, much more like our understanding of the country we visited in 1994 and 2015. We in the U.S. often fail to understand how the chaos following the collapse of the  Soviet Union affected the Russians and their strong desire to regain their national pride.  The World Cup was a  milestone for them in regaining their self respect, and life for ordinary  people is far better now than it was in the economic chaos of the 1990s.

She was followed the next two days by two other expat intellectuals from the former Soviet Union, Alina Polikova and Masha Gessan, neither of whom was optimistic about the future. The hopeful but chaotic Nineties have morphed into a kind of totalitarianism-lite where Putin remains hugely popular and basic freedoms sharply curtailed.

The most disturbing presentation came from a professor from Arizona State University, who is an expert on technology and artificial intelligence. Social media and targeted assaults like the Russian meddling are just the beginning of a sea change where he believes there will no longer be any such thing as “truth” or “facts.”  We are retreating into a new kind of tribalism where because of technology we can screen out anything that does not conform with our own view of the world. The new technology can be and is being weaponized to shape the way people think and act. Pretty scary stuff. This guy was quite pessimistic and had no more clues than the rest of us as to how we get through these troubling times and keep and open and democratic society.

All the lectures we attended—over a dozen—were excellent, several extraordinary. I could not help wondering where did they find all these people. But this is the Chautauqua Institute, with a rich history of over 140 years of giving platforms to the best and the brightest.  Alexander Graham Bell, Franklin Roosevelt, Margaret Meade, Thurgood Marshall and Elie Wiesel all spoke from the stage of the massive amphitheater (not the current one, which amidst intense controversy replaced the original two years ago) . My two favorites this week were William Burns, now president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former diplomat and Ambassador to Russia,  Avor Towles, author of A Gentleman In Moscow. Burns made me realize just how important diplomacy is and how it can and often does produce great benefits. Sadly not what is happening now. And Towles, witty and charming, provided an insightful context for his best seller about the triumph of the individual spirit under Communism, a book that I truly loved.

So if you have the time and the money (Embry refuses to tell me how much it cost.), plan to come here. On any given day during the nine week program, I am told that there could be as many as ten thousand people scrambling to classes and lectures, attending concerts or just milling around the lakefront or strolling along the car-free, narrow streets, dodging kids riding bicycles. It is  a cross between a university, a summer camp and a retirement community as a whole lot of people—I would guess over half– are about our age. And that there are so many engaged, gray-hairs like us intensely listening and discussing the great themes and ideas of our time is in itself inspiring. We humans just keep squeezing as much juice out of the lemon as we can until the last drop.

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

This post is from dear friend and blog follower, The Reverend Roger Wikely, partially-retired Anglican priest and a Faux News stringer, living in his native England.

No reporter from Faux News was seen in London this week to record the historic meeting of Her Gracious Majesty (the Queen) with President Tramp (spelling intentional).
It is reported that the President was determined to ignore courtiers’ advice and to greet Her Majesty with a kiss, but this proved to be beyond him since, he, being oversized and she, being petite, he couldn’t stoop low enough to fulfil that particular ambition.  Asked if she preferred him to address her as Liz or as Queenie, her response was such that no reporters could hear it.

It is hoped our reporter will come immediately to the UK to cover what is left of this visit.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

The big summit will not happen until next week, but Faux News has inside information regarding how the historic event will unfold as described below:

The two men enter the room alone with no one else present. They shake hands, embrace and then shake hands again, then embrace and shake hands a third time.

Trump: Vladdy!

Putin: Donny-Boy!

Trump: At last alone. Nobody but us.

Putin: Mr. President, I have to tell you how much I admire—and yes, love you. You are  a great leader of a great nation, and it is my distinct honor to be alone in the same room with a man who will go down in history as the greatest leader of all time.

Trump: Except for you, Mr. President.

Putin: Of course, but let’s get down to the basics since we have so little time. First, Donny-Boy, the sanctions. I want them removed and removed now.

Trump: I know, Vladdy. I am working on it, but you see I have this pesky congress.

Putin: You have got them where you want them.  McConnell and Ryan will do anything you want as will everyone else who is a Republican and not retiring. I am beginning to lose patience. You must not forget that you have made America great again. You have pulled your country out of the Obama sewer, and the whole world respects and fears you. You can do whatever you want.

Trump: I know, but I also have these pesky mid term elections coming up.

Putin: No worry, Donny-Boy. We have already taken care of that. You will  gain four Senate seats and grow your majority in the House. You will be the most powerful president in U.S. history.

Trump: No kidding? You are going to do it again? Thank you so much, Vladdy. You know how grateful I am for what you did in 2016. And to help me again? How can I ever thank you enough?

Putin: You know how, Donny-Boy. Sanctions first, then abandon NATO, and do not pester me when I am acting in our combined national interests. Remember, we have 50 times more nukes between the U.S. and Russia than the entire rest of the world combined. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want and wherever we want. But we must work together.

Trump:  You are right, Vladdy. But there are some, even in the Republican Party, who do not like you or trust you.

Putin: Deal with it Donny-Boy.

Trump: I  will try but…

Putin: Donny-Boy, I still have the Kompromat photos of the Moscow whores.

Trump: But you said…

Putin: And I still have the all the info on the business deals, the casino, the golf courses and the bribes that went with them.

Trump: I understand, Mr. President.

Putin: But also understand that I would not have done what I have done for you for anyone else. You are the smartest, the bravest, the best looking, and the strongest of anyone on this planet…

Trump: Except for you, Mr. President.

Putin: Of course.  I think we fully understand each other. And, oh yes, one other thing. My informants tell me Mueller has the goods. Kill the investigation and destroy the evidence. Do it now! Do you think for one moment that we would allow anything like this to happen in Russia? If you can’t take care of it, we surely can.

Trump: Understood. Will get back to you on this. But rest assured, we have a deal.

 

Meeting concludes with two embraces and three handshakes.

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Today we celebrate the independence of the United States from Great Britain. This is my 77th  of being alive on this day, when we Americans gather for picnics, watch fireworks, see parades, and celebrate what it is to be an American. There is indeed so much to be thankful for on this day. This is a special country. We Americans are blessed. I would not want to live anywhere else.

Yet this Fourth of July seems eerily different from most of the ones that have come before over the past 77 years that I have been alive. A battle is raging as to what kind of country we are becoming and want to become. The nation has never been more divided except during the Civil War.

On the one side there is the Party of Trump, no longer recognizable as the proud  Republican Party it once was. Trump rode the populist wave of “throw the bums out”  with a little help from a weak campaign by his opponent, her email saga, and perhaps the Russians. He won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by over three million votes.  Since becoming President he has waged war on the press, alienated our allies, tacitly and not-so-tacitly supported racists and hate groups, and pursued trade policies that many economists think will trigger a recession. He has not supported  gun regulations. He has seen his tax cut pass the Republican-controlled Congress resulting in huge windfalls for the rich and a soaring deficit that is unsustainable. He is  anti-environment, anti-immigrant, anti-poor people,  and anti-people of color, promising to make America great again just like the good old days—as in Jim Crow.  His foreign policies are inconsistent and unpredictable. If any of his current list of Supreme Court nominees get confirmed, it is likely to be the end of Roe v. Wade, possibly gay marriage, and most of the remaining civil rights laws. 

About 40 percent of the voting population strongly support Trump. Many adore him. He represents change from the status quo; and no matter how  how outrageous  his behavior or tweets are, his popularity does not  seem to budge. He has said that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue, and it would not make one bit of difference.

There are reasons for his popularity. Most I believe have to do with the fact that a lot of Americans are struggling financially, feel abandoned and dissed by the liberal elite, and are fearful of the changing complexion of America. Some of his popularity, but certainly by no means a majority, has to do with old-fashioned racism. The irony is that many in his base are hard working, white working class people, some former Democrats, who  could not be any more different from a man like Trump, who was born into great wealth and has been anti union and anti worker throughout his real estate career.  

One the other side, there are the rest of us. About 40 percent  of the voting population are people like me who despise the man and what he is doing to our country. We embrace the idea of growing diversity in our country, gay marriage, civil rights, environmental protection, affordable health care, a strong social safety net, heavy investment in infrastructure, affordable higher education, and higher taxes on the rich. We are the hard-core opposition. We are mostly Democrats, but some independents  fall into this category.

The other twenty percent –mainly Independents but some traditional Republicans—are not happy with Trump and the way the country is going but are not a sure thing to vote against him when election day comes around. Some have tended to turn a blind eye to Trump’s  outrageous behavior in exchange for tax cuts  that in the short run make them wealthier. Others  see him as the lesser of two evils. A good number of these people, however, will vote anti-Trump. How many  vote for a Democrat in 2018 will determine the future of our country.

 I am hopeful that the midterm Congressional elections will at least put the Democrats back in control of the House. The Senate is a long shot, but  having at least one House of Congress to balance Trump could make a huge difference. The biggest hope appears to be white, suburban, married women who have tended to vote  traditional Republican in the past. But given Trump’s misogyny and the #Me Too Movement, they will vote for Democrats to counterbalance the Trump Administration.

But what if this does not happen? What if the Trump opposition does not turn out to vote in great numbers? What if the enthusiasm  among Trump’s  base results in a much stronger turnout—a Red Wave as Trump is calling it?

This is what causes me to stay awake at night. This is why July 4, 2018, is different. Trump is unique. There has been no President like him in all of U.S. history. Our democracy is fragile. We see countries like Turkey, Poland, and Hungary inch closer to totalarian  governments. Neo fascism is starting to brew in Germany and other European countries. Could this happen here?

So on this Fourth of July we should rejoice and celebrate our proud history but at the same time keep in mind just how fragile and how serious the current situation is. Yes, we have had great failures in the past—slavery and Jim Crow topping the list—but have managed to come through them, at least somewhat. We have been though a  revolution, a civil war and two world wars. We have faced hard challenges in the past. We  are facing hard challenges now. I pray on this Fourth of July, 2018, that we will come through our dark night of the soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Have you ever had a close call, barely averting disaster? I think one reason we old codgers tend to more conservative when it come to personal risk taking is that we have lived long enough to have experienced a number of close calls.  We know that life at times can be a matter of inches. We also, as the saying goes, “thank our lucky stars” that we have managed to survive these close calls and to have lived as long as we have.

One close call for me occurred this week on Tuesday when Embry and I were tubing on the Shenandoah River with our granddaughter, Josie,  age 10. I have done a lot of canoeing, but this was the first time I had ever floated down the Shenandoah River in an inner tube. In a lot of ways it is easier than a canoe. You just sit there in the inner tube and let the current take you where it wants to. But that also turns out to be the challenge. It is very hard to steer an inner tube. You go where the current takes you.

 The outfitters warned us that due to heavy rains the water was two to three feet above normal and very swift. So when we approached the take out spot “just below the mile 11 marker,“ we should maneuver the tubes to be very close to the shore to avoid being carried down a long rapid. Since the takeout spot was “below” mile 11, as in “down stream,” I assumed that after seeing the 11-mile marker, we would have a little room to maneuver before we reached the spot where we needed to get out. The takeout spot was below the marker alright, directly below the sign, which we did not see in time to splash our way as close to the shore as we needed to be. Embry jumped out first, landed on the bottom with barely the necessary depth to allow her to pull her tube and Josie’s to shore. I waited another 10 seconds, which was just long enough to send me swiftly floating toward the first “V,” marking the beginning of the long rapid. I bailed out, lost my footing and desperately grabbed for a rock to try to hold my position, still hanging on to the tube. I could make no progress up stream. I quickly realized that there was no way that Embry could get to me without being washed down the rapids herself. No one was visible on shore.

This is  exactly the kind of spot you do not want to find yourself in. I did not fear for my life, however. The water was fairly shallow, and I had on a life jacket. But at the same time I realized that if I did go down the rapid, it would be quite a challenge to make my way back to the outfitters. There was no way I could stumble up stream, fighting a ferocious current, and the shoreline quickly turned into a steep bluff. I was stuck with no obvious solution.

That is when the kayakers appeared as if from nowhere. We had been on the river for over two hours. Except for the family that started at the same time we did (and who were still way up the river), we had hardly seen a soul—maybe two or three tubers, and that was it. Where did these kayakers come from? Four blue boats  paddled by  fit, mostly 20 to 30-something-year-olds. Two paddlers jumped from their kayaks into the water, grabbed me by my arms and pulled me and my inner tube upstream to safe and secure footing. No problem, all in a day’s work.

So what are the odds that four experienced kayakers would show up at exactly the same time I got into trouble? Maybe during a weekend there would be enough boat traffic so it would not have been that unusual, but this day we had seen virtually no one on the river. And yet here they were, guardian angels, showing up, out of the blue, physically fit and smiling, pulling me out of harms way like it was nothing.

“Glad to help out,” one of the young men said, smiling, as the four of them casually pulled their boats out of the water.

Another one of those “lucky star” moments.

How many of those have you had? I must have had at least a dozen, some of which I remember, but most I have forgotten. We tend to take life for granted, not realizing that the difference between business-as-usual and catastrophe can often be measured in centimeters.

Do you believe in guardian angels?

Life is indeed mysterious and the longer we live the more aware we are of its mystery and the wonder of it all.  I naturally thanked my rescuers profusely, still puzzled as to how they could have appeared at the exact moment that they did. Then I remembered a quote from a book I recently read (can’t recall the title) that went something like this: “A coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Faux News has learned that Trump has been nominated for and will receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This was confirmed today in a hastily-called press conference by Sarah Huckabee  Sanders, who spoke to a small group of skeptical and surprised reporters.

Ms. Sanders began her remarks by making the announcement that the President will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his courageous and bold decision to prohibit the inhumane treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers started by  Woodrow Wilson and supported by every   president since that time and was the centerpiece of Hillary Clinton’s emails and tweets. This law, passed by Democrats, requires law enforcement officials to rip children away from the parents seeking asylum  and place them indefinitely in cages. When asked if she could provide any proof or corroboration of this inhumane treatment administered at the hands of public officials during prior administrations, she said that there were so many that it could fill a New York telephone book, when they had telephone books, and that any reporter asking such a stupid question must work for one of the fake news organizations.

The surprise, of course, was that the Nobel Committee had chosen Trump for his humane and courageous acts related to the toddlers and infants of immigrants and asylum seekers rather than his bold and courageous initiatives with Kim Jon Un. When questioned by one reporter as to why Trump had not received the award for his actions in North Korea, Sanders replied that he would surely be awarded a second peace prize for getting Kim Jon Un to denuclearize immediately and to make several sites available for Trump golf resorts, hotels, and casinos.

 She boasted, “It would be the first time in history anyone has won two Nobel Peace Prizes in one year, and for this honor the President will go down in history as the greatest world leader of all time.”

Reporters then quizzed the Press Secretary regarding the recent caging of infants and toddlers ripped from the arms of asylum seekers. Sanders said that the treatment was only a holdover from the evil Obama Administration, and the minute that Trump became aware of it, he stopped it.

She scolded the “fake press” again for spreading lies and falsehoods and said that the White House is working on laws and regulations that will put a stop to this un-American activity and eliminate the fake press for good.

Ms. Sanders concluded her remarks by emphasizing that this courageous action should be viewed as a sign of strength and power, not weakness or giving in to crocodile tears from bleeding heart, namby-pamby, do-gooders or Republican Senators up for reelection in November.

 “Trump is not letting these immigrant murderers, rapists and thieves off the hook,” she said. “In fact his actions will extend the time for detention for immigrants and asylum seekers from 20 days to forever. The only thing that might be considered weak—but isn’t—is allowing the children to remain with their parents in make-shift tents, detention centers and prisons. We do not want these people here, and if they are here they are going to be locked up in prisons where they belong. This is what the American people want, why they elected Trump by the greatest margin of all time, and why the American people support him 100%. The November congressional elections will prove his popularity and power, and he will be reelected by the greatest landslide of all time in 2020. Just wait and see. He has already made America great again just like he promised he would. And have you checked the support he gets from his base? Need I say more?”

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Disguised as a cocktail waitress, our reporter was on the spot again, this time at a gathering of the Republican brain trust to map out a strategy for increasing their numbers in  the House and Senate. Here is her verbatim account as recorded on her secret iPhone:

Pence: Thank you all for coming. The President sends his regrets and best wishes. He is busy preparing his speech for acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The purpose of this meeting, as you know, is to map out  a strategy to destroy the Democrats in the November elections. Also, as  you know, the President is enjoying unsurpassed popularity among Republicans, he’s now buddy-buddy with Kim Jon Un, the economy is booming, the findings of the inspector general’s report show that the Russians worked hand-in-hand with Democrats to defeat Trump,  and that Comey should be jailed. So should Hilary. Mueller too.  It is a great day for us. We in the Party of Trump will dominate the country for decades to come. But we need a unifying theme, and the President and I think it should be, “We are the party of the family.”

Paul Ryan: Great idea! Everyone knows the Democrats hate families.

Mitch McConnell: I’m on board. Anything the President wants.

Rudy Giuliani: Could we pause for a moment to give thanks to the President for all he does and for his love and respect for the family?

Moment of Silence

Pence: Thank you for that. I beg the President’s forgiveness for not suggesting this myself. Before we lay out our family-first strategy, however, we have to address the over capacity problem we have with regard to all the children we have taken away from their no-good, law breaking, illegal immigrant mothers. We have got four or five kids, many of them infants and toddlers, in rooms designed for two. The detention centers are bursting at the seams. There is not enough staff to begin to take care of them all.

Ryan: Detention centers? I am not aware of any detention centers.

McConnell. Me either. Could we get back to the question of how we love families?

Giuliani: Well, we believe in pro life. We are anti abortion, and we believe birth control should be illegal. The Communist-inspired notion that family planning should be covered under Obama Care is outrageous and anti family. That will pick up a lot of votes. Furthermore we believe in slashing benefits to deadbeat moms who don’t work full time and in cutting all federal funding from childcare centers. Our goal is to make families independent and self-reliant. If that is not pro family, I do not know what is.

Pence cell phone rings.

Pence: Excuse me, this is from the President. Yes, Exalted One, I understand. I am going to address the issue of overcrowding right now. In fact I have already started the discussion. How many more prisons, I mean centers? Yes, Exalted One, brilliant.

Pence puts phone back in his pocket.

The President informs me that the number of detained children is now approaching 3,000, and we must expand capacity immediately. He believes we need at least 10,000 beds and suggests that we put this out to bid to the private prison industry. It would be a terrific opportunity for them because we could end up keeping these kids locked up for life. If we put them out on the street, all they would do would rape, murder and steal when they got older. Some could turn out to be terrorists.

Giuliani: Now that is what I call pro family.

Pence: So that settles it. Our big theme will be pro family and how we want to strengthen families by getting rid of all government benefits like Medicaid, TANF, child care subsidies, and minimum wage requirements. We are going to liberate them from the tyranny of government and make them stronger and happier.

Ryan: Fabulous! What I have been working for my entire career. And the savings will enable us to push though real tax reform.

McConnell: Agreed. But do you think that taking toddlers and infants from their mothers might raise a few eyebrows?

Ryan: What toddlers and children? 

Giuliani: Fake news. Democrats spreading lies.

Ryan: As I said, I don’t know anything about detention centers. We are the party of the family. But it is also important to keep the law. We are a nation of laws.

Pence: Good. I will get the ad people on it right now. “The Party of Trump is  the party of the family.” Love it. It will bring us victory in 2018.

Pence phone rings again.

Pence: What is that Mister President? Make it 100,000 beds? Time to go after DACAs and all the other illegals? Got it. RFP for the private prison industry goes out tomorrow.

Great meeting everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

On Friday religion–specifically Christianity– was on the front pages of major newspapers, which were covering the latest Jeff Sessions statement that The Apostle Paul’s writings in Romans 13 justify the Trump Administration’s policy of taking away infants and toddlers from their immigrant mothers when they are caught illegally crossing the border and placing them indefinitely in detention centers. Some estimates show more than 1,500 children now in these centers without their parents or guardians. 

Sarah Huckabee Sanders enthusiastically supported sessions during her press conference. And she should know, since her father is a famous Evangelical minister turned politician. It will only be a matter of time, I suppose, before Franklin Graham and other conservative church leaders weigh in supporting Sessions. As of this writing I am not  aware of any Republican who has come out against these remarks.

Of course, this is nothing new. Christian churches were split down the middle during the civil rights movement. I remember attending a church service in Birmingham’s largest, white, Methodist Church in 1963 and hearing the minister preach to a jubilant congregation about how the Bible supported segregation and how slavery was accepted by Jesus and was commonplace throughout the Holy Land.  Other churches, however, certainly the Black church, but also many Catholic churches and mainstream Protestant churches located  outside the South, were very much involved in supporting the “Movement.”

The civil rights movement was a watershed experience for me and for Embry, which I wrote about in Civil Rights Journey. But it also got me in trouble. I was studying at Union Seminary in New York City and had planned to become an ordained Episcopal priest. My bishop was a conservative, old school kind of guy, feisty and outspoken. I actually liked him though we did not agree on what it meant for Christians—especially ordained ministers—to get involved in politics or social reform movements. For me putting your life on the line for a cause like racial equality was the very essence of what it meant to follow the teachings of Jesus. For him it was not necessarily wrong per se but surely was a distraction from the job of being a pastor to  a flock of white people in an Episcopal church in the late 1960s in Tennessee.  And this was the job I was being trained for. It is easy to make the bishop into a foolish, backward old man, but in hindsight I can see that he did have a point. In any event we agreed to part ways, and  after graduating from Union, I headed to urban planning school and eventually pursued a career  building affordable and seniors housing. I have not regretted the decision for a moment.

I think that Christian churches should take a stand on social issues. But I also understand it is not all that easy. The Evangelicals have been doing this for decades. But the stand that they take is totally at odds with the stand I would take or that progressive Protestant  churches would–or at least should– take on many issues. They are also at odds with Catholic churches on issues related to social justice. Who is right?  Well, I am right! But others feel just as strongly on the other side. In short, it is a very delicate situation, which has divided churches and caused grief on both sides from time immemorial. If you are a pastor to a congregation, you have to minister to all of your flock. This means you are obligated to minister to people who may not share your views on social issues. It is a tough job. Developing housing is a lot easier.

The story that I like to tell about my parting ways with my calling to be an Episcopal priest is this: After hearing my bishop admonish me about the pitfalls of letting social and political issues stand in the way of ministering to a congregation, I protested vehemently that this was a true calling and that it should not keep me from being ordained.

Over the course of two years at Union Seminary I had had several sessions with the bishop, some of them dealing with theology and personal faith.

“Hell, son,” he responded one day, red-faced, “You are not even going to an Episcopal Seminary. You are going to a heretical, Protestant one, and from all our talks I am not even sure you believe in God!”

I responded,  ”Since when did that ever keep a self-respecting Episcopalian from being ordained?”

But, alas, that is fake news. We departed on good terms, and the rest is history.

Surely Sessions is dead wrong and is using Biblical text out of context to score political points. Surely there will be push back from Democrats and progressives. Hopefully some of these will be from church leaders. But just as surely life will go on in its muddled, complicated way: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

 

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Okay, I confess to the obvious: I am a bleeding heart Democrat, an unapologetic progressive/liberal, and a hapless do-gooder. And in case you have missed it, I hate Trump.

That said, I know, like and admire a lot of Republicans. My father was a loyal Republican, who as far as I know never voted for a Democrat. Most of my friends growing up and in high school and college were raised Republican and remain so today. Many of the clients of my consulting firm were real estate developers who were Republicans whose optimism, risk taking and chutzpa I really liked. I would guess that over half of my non-profit, mainly faith-based clients were conservative Republicans as well. I admired and respected them.

The kind of Republicans I used to know, however, are not the same kind of people who are lining up in praise and adoration of our Republican President, Donald Trump.

The kind of Republicans I used to know believed in self-reliance, hard work, personal responsibility for one’s actions, minimum government regulations, lower taxes and robust capitalism. They valued family and community institutions. Many were churchgoers. They believed in charity and outreach to others but did not think it was so much the government’s role to do this as it was the role of private citizens. They believed in a strong military and  distrusted autocrats.  They believed in order, predictability and fairness. While I believed many to be blind to racial and class issues, I would not call them racists per se—certainly not most of the ones I knew.

I did not—and I do not—myself embrace all of the Republican the values, but I think I understand them. I get it. I know where they are coming from. I was brought up this way myself in a pretty fancy neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee.

What has happened to these people? Where are they today and what do they believe? Why are they keeping quiet?

I read today that Trump has the highest approval rating among Republicans ever enjoyed by any Republican president except briefly for George W. Bush following 911—well above 90%. Can these people be the same people that I knew who valued decency, personal integrity, and a healthy distrust of big government, bureaucracy, and foreign adversaries?

If they still believe in these conservative Republican ideals, how can they support Donald Trump?

How can they support someone who brags about groping women, who demeans immigrants and people who are physically handicapped, condones extremist racists groups, divides the nation according to class, race and ethnicity, who is an incorrigible narcissist, a perpetual liar, and who is ripping apart the fragile social safety net? How can they support his tariffs and trade wars and abandonment of free trade, his insults aimed at our most important allies, his war on science and denial of climate change, his embrace of dictators and totalitarians, his abusive and arrogant personality, and his war against the free press and government institutions like the FBI and the CIA? Trump has the personality of a strongman leader, a dictator, a despot. He is the first president to serve who unabashedly is more concerned about his business ventures than the state of the nation. Yet except for a brief moment which occurred for George W., this man is more popular among Republicans than any other president in American history.

How can this be? How can traditional conservative leaders like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, and Lindsay Graham line up behind a man who would appear to be the antithesis of what they supposedly believe in? Why is there no Republican opposition to his policies and outrageous behavior except from retiring senators like Bob Corker or John McCain or Jeff Flake? Why have the primary voters in Republican primaries voted overwhelmingly for Trump candidates over traditional Republicans?

To these questions I invite reader response.

My own take is that many of the people I call “traditional Republicans” have made  a  calculated Faustian bargain. They have agreed to tolerate Trump’s abhorrent, unpredictable and often dangerous behavior in exchange for getting conservative Supreme Court judges and other conservative appointees and large tax breaks for themselves and others of considerable wealth. As for the other stuff that Trump is doing, well, that’s the trade off. We don’t live in a perfect world. And besides, they could argue, “Look, we have already won. We have Gorsuch with more conservative appointees to follow, and we have our tax breaks. The economy is booming. Mission accomplished.”

But have they won? History will ultimately pass judgment on this Faustian bargain, and it will not be kind. By keeping silent, responsible –or rather formerly responsible—traditional Republicans have allowed Trump to create an atmosphere and environment of hatred and division where the basic foundations of our Democracy are at stake—such fundamental institutions like a free press, free speech, an independent Department of Justice, the rule of law, and equality of opportunity for all. Then there is climate change and the environment and alliances with dictators and despots at the expense of our North American and European allies. The huge deficit facilitated by the tax cuts will come back to haunt the economy and the country, and that will happen sooner than most people realize. And of course always the risk of nuclear war is present, albeit less for now, given that Trump and Kim Jon Un are best friends. The list goes on. The world order has changed. History will record Trump as one of the most significant of all who have served our country as president, a true game-changer, as the saying goes.  The traditional Republicans who do not like Trump or share his values will be held responsible for their complicity in what I and many others fear is a looming catastrophe.

But you are over reacting, some may say. We have a constitution, and there is only so much he can actually get away with. And after all the Republicans have gotten themselves elected. If you want things to change, you have to get your Democratic candidates elected, and that has not happened. So the people will decide, and for now the people have chosen Trump.

I am hoping that that argument prevails, that Democrats will retake the House and Senate. But what if it doesn’t? What if Trump, along with a decidedly conservative Supreme Court, limits what news media can write or say? What if Trump and a conservative Congress actually do begin massive deportations of dreamers and undocumented immigrants? What if Trump abetted by a conservative Congress continues to get tougher on crime with more minimum sentences and more private prisons? What if the modest social safety net gets ripped apart? What if our infrastructure continues to decline because there are no government funds to address the crisis? What if  Trump  remains in power for a second term and  others like him  follow? What if in a typical Trump tizzy, he pushes the nuclear button?

Couldn’t happen, you say. The same thing was said about Germany and Central Europe following World War I. Catastrophe couldn’t happen there–the most sophisticated and educated country in the world– but it did. Catastrophe couldn’t happen here either, but it could—if good people who disagree with Trump on many issues and abhor his behavior sit  on the sidelines and keep quiet as long as they see something in it for themselves. If there is anything good to come out of the Trump Presidency, it is a reminder of just how fragile our democracy is. Yes, good readers, it could happen here too.

Some would argue it is happening right now, before our very eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!