Is Christian Nationalism Just The Tip Of The Iceberg?

 As we all know, an iceberg is larger than what can be observed above the water. In fact, the part of the iceberg that we can see is the smaller, and least threatening, part of the iceberg. According to the AI used by Google, around 90% of an iceberg is submerged.

The above pertains to Christian Nationalism because of the growing authoritarian movement in the U.S. This authoritarianism has already captured the Presidency. And because of the influence that Christian Nationalism has had on some of Trump's key people and the public attention that it is receiving, the question being considered here is whether Christian Nationalism is just the tip of the threat being posed to America's democracy or is there is something more dangerous lurking below the surface.

Christian Nationalism not only threatens to replace our democratic processes for determining our representatives and how they make decisions; it opposes equality by granting religiously conservative Christianity a privileged place above all ethnic and ethnic-religious groups in determining who will be governing our society. We should note what has been previously claimed in this blog. That what we are seeing in Europe and North America is a battle between Democracy with equality vs Authoritarianism with hierarchy. And the first sign of the latter is when an individual/group/ideology attacks equality for others. For without equality, we have no democracy, which, in contrast to authoritarianism with hierarchy, would be the rule of the people--the 'demos' means people. With the onset of Christian Nationalism here, what we seem to have, as Jeff Halper pointed out in his book, An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, is an ethnocracy--the rule of an ethnocity or selected set of ethnocities over all of the people,

And so what is most apparent about the current authoritarianism in America is its Christian Nationalism character. But is Christian Nationalism the only threat to our democracy? And if the answer is 'no,' then what other threats are there to our democracy?

We need to realize that religiously conservative Christians do not have to be Christian Nationalists to threaten our democracy. That is because religiously conservative Christians have a strong penchant for favoring authoritarianism. Consider the following 2 video clips of John MacArthur speaking on Christian Nationalism and then on the freedom of religion:

AND

Outside of the abortion issue, which is really a social justice issue if the unborn child is a human life, note that MacArthur opposes both equality for the LGBT community and religious freedom. One could summarize his opposition to both equality and religious freedom by noting that he seems to conflate supporting the right to choose with supporting the choices made. That is because Christians should not support people chosing homosexuality, transgenderism, and the practice of other faiths than the Christian faith, he believes that Christians should oppose giving people the option to choose those alternatives. And so in attacking the freedom to choose, MacArthur is attacking the equality of people from the LGBT community and those who hold to nonChristian religious faiths. A Christian approach to supporting equality for the LGBT community and those who hold to nonChristian faiths would be to support people having the right to  choose options that we religiously conservative Christians don't want them to choose. Such a perspective protects the equality of those mentioned by respecting their right to choose unbiblical alternatives. And then we could add that we Christians could then offer different choices through evangelism.

Note that MacArthur does not support Christian Nationalism. And yet, he is attacking the equality of some who think differently than he does. And the same goes for others, my fellow religiously conservative Christians in particular, who use code words to justify their opposition to equality for certain groups. Their opposition is based on traditional Christian beliefs that sprang from Christendom, which was an authoritarian time period when Christianity had a privileged place of influence and power over all other faiths throughout Europe and much of the Americas.

These code words are often used to obligate the civil authorities to ban certain practices that are condemned in the Scriptures. Code words like 'natural law' or the 'moral law' can be defined a number of ways. But when referred to by many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, what they refer to are Christian definitions of those words. In fact, because Christian Nationalism is a diverse movement, sometimes what those religiously conservative Christians use code words want ends up being the same laws that some Christian Nationalists want to exist. Now it is obvious that Christian Nationalists are far more visible than these other Christians in terms of posing a threat to our democracy. But is Christian Nationalism the only threat to our democracy? 

So what else could be attached to the iceberg that has Christian Nationalism as its tip? As this blog has pointed out before, oligarchy also threatens our democracy. And in a nation that celebrates Capitalism like America does, and especially like this President does, to follow what motivates those in our government, we need to follow the money. And in this case, that means we must look at the influence that certain sets of financial and corporate elites have on our government.

Here, we should note the past. And by the past, we should note Russia's influence on our President. Why? It is because Russia's Putin not only significantly contributed to Trump's 2024 election win and his other campaigns, he is greatly admired by Trump. And in terms of Putin's contribution to Trump's win in 2024, we don't know how much Trump owes Putin for his victory. In terms of admiration, Timothy Snyder, who is the author of the book, The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Trump's strong concern with having Putin's approval began in 2013. In addition, at one time, Trump chose to believe Putin regarding his attempts to influence our elections over what our intelligence agencies said.

This blog used the question of how much Trump owes Putin along with his admiration of him to predict what would happen if Trump was elected: Russia would be America's future. And what is Russia? It is a corrupt oligarchy run by a strongman where the national identity is tied to the Russian Orthodox Church even though most Russians do not regulary attend worship services.. That while Putin's government tosses out enough culture bones, such as its strong opposition to LGBT lifestyles, out to the Russian Orthodox Church to garner its support, it is mostly Putin, and then his oligarchs who are running the nation and primarily benefitting from its rule.  

What do we see in America? At Trump's inauguration, elite tech leaders were given seats of privilege. We see how Trump and his family has been financially garnering hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth. We see corporations receiving tax cuts, secured through the "Big Beautiful Bill," and cuts in regulations. And some are receiving higher government contracts. We see Trump removing Congressionally approved funds from charitable, educational, social safety net funds. In addition, there is the power that Trump gave to Elon Musk, who contributed around $250 million to Trump's campaign. And who did Trump take with him in his trip to China?

But if those facts are not enough, Trump's Presidency provides enough evidence to show that we have already entered some level of oligarchy. Trump's personal criteria for success is based on domination and acquisition. As mentioned before, programs of 'social uplift,' as Martin Luther King Jr. called them, are easily sacrificed because there is no profit being made. Trump has said that the federal government can no longer support Medicare, Medicaid, and some food assistance programs because the government can't afford to support those programs and pay for  what Trump sees are new defense needs to a tune of $600 billion being added to the defense department. As with USAID, Trump is threatening to cut federal assistance to state unemployment funds because of Trump alleged fraud. But that increase in defense spending is despite the fact that the Pentagon continually fails audits. And so it is the Military Industrial Complex, along with Trump's Presidential power that are the main beneficiaries of that increase in spending. This should remind us of what Martin Luther King Jr. once said:

'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death'

Or look at Trump's military aid to autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Or look at how Trump supports Ukraine in its war with Russia. Trump supports Ukraine by selling needed weapons to Europe to give to Ukraine. Do you see the transactional basis for his policies. While criticizing Biden for freely providing some weapons for Ukraine, Trump is seeking an economic profit for corporations here as the basis for helping Ukraine. In short, and an early blog article has already made this point, Trump is the culmination of all that is wrong with Capitalism according to Marx.

We should include that some of the programs that are being cut or are threatened with being cut enable greater social/economic mobility for those who are the have-nots. Here, we should note what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1967 interview by Xander Vanocur. What  King stated was that he was afraid that his 'dream' was turning into a nightmare because of the lack of economic improvement for many blacks. Much of the above should help us see some degree of connection between financial well-being with civil rights

At the same time, Trump portrayed himself as the savior-defender of religiously conservative Christianity in America. And he has appointed people who have been strongly influenced by Christian Nationalism to certain key positions in his administration. In the meantime, Trump has been waging a "Christian" crusade against wokism, both here and abroad, to the extent that he is violating the free speech of those in the education systems of our nation.

Yes, Christian Nationalism should be a concern for us.  Some of it is just the tip of the iceberg while the rest is the part of the iceberg that that threatens our democracy. We are right to be concerned about it.

However, it is too easy to become so focussed on Christian Nationalism that we blind ourselves to the threat that oligarchy poses to our democracy and way of life. Here we should note that most of the dangers posed by Christian Nationalism lie in the future. In contrast to that, oligarchy is not just posing current dangers to our democracy, it has been damaging our democracy for a while. And so again, according to this blog, the current authoritarian movement in America is using a religious façade to garner the votes of religiously conservative Christians to support something in addition to Christian Nationalism. And though the iceberg that threatens to sink our democracy consists of both Christian Nationalism and oligarchy, it is time that we start paying more attention to our oligarchy, to the large part of the submerged iceberg, that has been gouging huge holes in the hull of our democracy some time now.

How Can America Be A Christian Nation?

 A national Christian prayer event occurred in our nation's capital this past weekend. The basic concern of the event was about how to rededicate our nation to Christ. Such an event sounds harmless enough, but was it really?

Rededicating the nation to Christ meant that those in the event want our nation to return to being what it used to be: a Christian nation. And so, the event was really about Christian Nationalism.

How was our nation a Christian nation? It certainly wasn't the aim of The Constitution. We should notice that not only was there an absence of any statements in that document which affirms America being a Christian nation, there are a couple of statements that contradicts such a notion. In addition, the Constitutional debates indicate that basing the nation's federal government on any religion was something to be avoided at all costs.

But what we should note, however, is that in several of the state constitutions, were statements that endorsed some form of Christianity as a state religion. In addition, we should note that in terms of culture and the religious self-image of many of the people, we could call our nation a Christian nation.

There is something else we should note, however. That our nation's Christian self-image was due to demographics. That is that, because of Christendom, the demographics were so affected so that many people identified as Christians. And this is an important point because our nation's religious demographics ain't what they used to be. And so how close can should we return to the past.

There is something else to note. That if we claim that America was a Christian nation at its beginning, then we Christians own some unsavory history from the past. That dubios history revolves around racism. Our nation was at least partially based on racism. It's in our early practices such as race-based slavery and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land. It was in the federal laws governing citizenship.  They stated that only free white men could become citizens of the U.S. And even after Black men could become citizens, which was after the Civil War, we had Jim Crow and Redlining among other practices. 

And so if America was to return to the good old days, would we also include a return to the racism of the past? Or would we employ new forms of racism? We should note that we don't call the current move toward Christian Nationalism in America, we call it 'White Christian Nationalism.' 

There are two ways by which we could call America a Christian nation today. The first way is if the majority of Americans were actual Christians. The problem with that way is that we cannot manipulate people into becoming Christians. Making a person a Christian is the work of the Holy Spirit and we have no control over the Spirit. And so we have no control over making the majority of Americans Christians.

And so the second way is to change our nation's laws so that they resemble Church laws to a significant degree. And though there are Church laws that are already a part of the laws of our land, not all are.

The above has always been a challenge for the Church. What Church laws should also be laws governing society? And this is where it gets sticky for Christian Nationalists and society because not all agree on the same set of laws. Do we want so many Church laws to also be a part of the laws the govern society? At what point in instituting Church laws, are we showing privilege to Christianity over other religions? And which Church laws would cause people to violate their own religious practices?

When answering those questions, we should note again that religious demographics ain't what they used to be. That we don't have the Christian consensus in America that once existed. And so we have to then consider the amount of control that we Christians should have to exert over unbelievers to pass and enforce the Church laws that we want to become the law of the land. Such is an important consideration because both Jesus and Peter tell us not to 'lord it over' others.

In addition, the Apostles' approach to fulfilling the Great Commission was through teaching and preaching only. Jesus once said that if people do not accept the preaching of the disciples, that His disciples were to move on. There is also a misreading of the Great Commission as seen below (click here for the reference):

16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated to them. 17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The issue here has to do with the Greek word for 'nations.' For some take that to mean to force each nation to be Christian. The Greek word for nations here is 'ἔθνη.' According to the Greek-English lexicon of Bauer, Arendt and Gingrich, the form of the Greek word there means outsiders. That instead of talking about discipling each nation, the disciples were ordered to preach to those outside their group. And, indeed, the use of the form of the word for nation, 'ἔθνη,' often means outsiders both in the Greek Septuagint, which is the Old Testament in Greek, and in the New Testament. And such an understanding would relieve the pressure to feel compelled to make each nation a Christian nation, since such is not in our control in the first place.  

There is another issue to consider here. The modern movement toward Christian Nationalism promoted by some of my fellow believers in Christ, was given its greatest impetus by the Obergfell decision in 2015. Many Christian ministers and leaders opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage. Some said that it should be prohibited because such would interfere with the flourishing of society. After the decision was announced, many Christian leaders advocated that Christians should take a semi-monastic approach to society, which is they sequestered themselves into groups of like-minded believers, until such a time when they could be assured that society no longer had a negative view of the faith. The Benedict Option was such an example. We should note that Aaron Renn described Christianity as going through 3 stages of acceptance by society. According to him, the negative perception of the Church started in 2014 , which was part of the time when the Obergfell decision was being considered.

That decision recognized a greater equal status for the LGBT community in society. Apparently, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians then feared that if same-sex marriage was considered equal to heterosexual marriage in society, the property values of marriage would drop. In addition, many of my fellow Christians feared that if society welcomed the LGBT community as equals, that such an acceptance would have a corrupting influence on the Church

But it was also more than the fear of what would happen to heterosexual marriage. With the emergence of the LGBT community from the margins of society came a shock to many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. Society had changed too much and too quickly for them. Many of my fellow believers no longer recognized the nation in which they were living. And considering how patriotic many of those fellow believers are, they were not just in shock, they were grieving for the loss of what once was. This loss speaks predominantly to white religiously conservative Christians because for many Black fellow believers, what had been also lost over time was Jim Crow culture and laws. It's not that there is no more systemic racism with the current gerrymandering at the expense of representation for Blacks in the House of Representatives serving as just another reminder that systemic racism lives. That is  because the loss of representation for Blacks in the House was not enough of an impediment to stop the current gerrymandering in red  states. It is that even though there was less systemic racism, thing had been changing. In the end, more whites felt negatively about the drastic changes in society.

Christian Nationalism concerns itself with societal laws that affect culture for both unbelievers and believers. What garnered such a high percentage of Evangelical votes for Trump is that he took the side of many religiously conservative Christians, as well as that of Putin (or wannabe Emperor Putintine), in the culture wars. The emergence of the LGBT community from the margins of society created the same reaction in my fellow Christians that the bourgeoisie dictatorship did in Marx. Marx thought that the only way to overthrow the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie was to replace the bourgeoisie dictatorship with a proletariat one. Such was an example of Marx's black-white thinking on that oppression. He never, that I know of, thought that one way of eliminating the oppression by the bourgeoisie was to get the bourgeoisie and proletariat to collaborate together. And so for many of my fellow believers, the appropriatae response to the emergence of the LGBT community from society was to return that community to the margins of society.

An alternative response would be to replace the culture wars with cultural coexistence as equals and then depend on evangelism and other forms of teaching, as well as discipline in the Church only, as ways of fulfilling the Great Commission. Such a dependence seems to be the way of the Apostles to fulfill the Great Commission.

The tragic thing here for the conservative Church in America, this call to some degree of Christian control over society just might be a front for installing an oligarchy. For that seems to be the battle in Europe. That Democracy with equality is being challenged by authoritarianism with hierarchy that take the form of ethnocracy. And not all examples of ethnocracy are religiously based. But regardless of the form, using ethnocracy as a façade appeals to many conservative voters.

And so some leading the charge for Christian Nationalism are using that label to monopolize conservative votes to support oligarchy. And that would make oligarchy a preferable form of governing to Democracy with equality.

Welcome To Atlas Shrugged The Mulligan

For those who are not familiar with the game of golf, a mulligan is a free do-over for a shot that a player does not like. And so the golf shot that went awry is not counted in the golfers score.  

Atlas Shrugged is a book written by Ayn Rand who escaped from Russia during the Russian Revolution. Her book, which she saw as being the best of her novels, tells how business leaders who felt too controlled by government escaped the country and eventually started their own city..

What we are seeing today under Trump's second presidency is not the fleeing in horror by today's wealthiest corporate leaders to start a 2nd America. It is quite the opposite. What we are seeing is the wealthiest corporate leaders standing behind and supporting Trump as he replaces American Democracy with a kind of Russian oligarchy. That is the rule of a limited number of rich people under a wannabe dictator who employs a religious façade in order to secure the political loyalty of the predominant branch the Church in America. In other words, instead of fleeing, this small group of wealthy corporate rules get to impose their agenda on America. And that agenda includes cutting more and more social responsibility ties that they have with  the nation that enabled them to become so wealthy.

Thus, what we are seeing today is a remake of Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged, where a group of the super wealthy come to rule over rather than flee from the nation. And when I say that they are here to rule over the nation, I am not just referring to the gutting of regulations governing business and manufacturing processes; via  Trump's Presidency, they are looking to rule over many areas of American life. They are looking to control education including from grades K-12 to all levels of college and university educations. They are looking to cut social safety nets in order to help "fund" their tax breaks. Of course the projected increase to our National Debt shows that such cuts do not fund those tax breaks. They are trying to suppress the press and relegate the Judiciary Branch to a lesser branch of government than the Executive Branch.

And with the rejection of science and rationalism, as evidenced by most, if not all, of Trump's policies and Cabinet picks, Trump's attempted authoritarianism is becoming an American version of 1933 Germany when Hitler started to rule over Germany. Even the chaos that has a come with Trump 2.0 echos the chaos of Hitler's governance. And should anyone protest the comparing of Trump with Hitler, Trump was the first to suggest that comparison when he stated that he wanted the same kind of generals that Hitler had.

While Hitler had the Gestapo, many of the practices of I.C.E are starting to remind us of that secret police force.  Conservative Evangelicalism, which is the predominant branch of the Church in America, is acting like it has its own Konkordat with Trump. Its support for Trump are primarily because of how his Executive Orders address enough culture war issues.

In the place of burning books, we have the banning of books and Trump's war against DEI.

In addition, while Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag to seize absolute power in Germany, Trump is looking to relegate the position of the Judicial Branch to that of an advisory board so that collection of his Executive Orders and bills he has signed replace The Constitution.

And so while Trump is no Hitler of the latter 1930s, the similarities  are growing between Trump and the 1933 Hitler. Those comparisons tempt many to see Trump as instituting Fascism. Personally, I believe that Trump wants his government to be very similar to the model of government employed by Putin. In either case, what we are dealing with is a wannabe totalitarian leader who can tolerate neither opposition nor even mere disagreement.

With the above focus on Trump, it would be fair to ask why bring in Ayn Rand's book here and mention the super wealthy. It is because they play a vital role in Trump's takeover as Elon Musk demonstrates. In addition, when Apple got a dispensation from Trump's tariffs on China, we should note how muc money that the CEO donated to Trumps inauguration. 

Or perhaps the best example can be found when Microsoft blocked the email account of ICC prosecutor who is looking to prosecute Israel's Prime Minister, Ben Netanyahu for war crimes. In addition, Trump had his bank account blocked. It isn't just Trump and his Republican minions that is the problem here. It also includes those who financially enable Trump and sat where real dignitaries  were suppose to sit during Trump's inauguration. They are not just using their wealth to support Trump, they are also using their businesses to support Trump.

If we are to resist, we need to PEACEFULLY protest certain individuals from both the public and private sectors. In other words, we need another Occupy Movement. Not that we need encampments, it is that Occupy protested against both Wall Street and the Federal government. In other words, it's like a Lite-Beer commercial that says that 'it tastes great' and that 'it's less filling,' it is both.  But we need an Occupy that learns from the mistakes that the first Occupy committed.

From what I saw, the first mistake that Occupy committed is that it sought to use police interventions as an object for publicity. For the most part that I know of, Occupy used peaceful means to provoke police reaction, but we were hoping that the police response would get us the publicity that we wanted. If we are going to successfully oppose the Trump and the current oligarchy, it is necessary that we protest in ways that merit respect from the police as well as the military should they be called in. But we also need to protest in such ways because, despite all of their faults and bad apples, the job of a police person merits our respect. And so we should not use them as an object. Instead, beside earning their respect for how we protest, we need to show that we are defending their freedom and rights as well as our own. Here we need to study why one of the reasons why Otpor was successful in overthrowing Slobodan Milošević.

The second mistake that Occupy made is that we attempted to scapegoat the wealthy. And by doing so, we put the burden of proof for our claims on ourselves. Had we invited the wealthy to join the rest of society, to stop their societal apartheid that is enforced by laws, social values, and financial disparities, people would lean more toward looking at the wealthy to prove that they are not building a financial Berlin Wall that separates the economic classes with their wealth. And here, we must point people to the direction well described by Martin Luther King Jr in his speech against the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

'Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'

In short, we need to passionately embrace a people-first ethic as a primary social value of society if we are going to successfully oppose the current oligarchy. For the oligarchy's current thing-oriented approach to life has been put on steroids. And so we need to push the oligarchy to also adopt a people-first ethic.

The reason why we should take at least some of the Occupy approach that was taken around 14 years ago is because we are dealing with the same kind of problem only one that is currently far more intense than what Occupy challenged. The past oligarchy was content to hide in the shadows so that claims of oligarchy had to be made by researchers (click here for an example). But now, run-of-the-mill news reporters can point out the power that wealth has over our government because this mulligan taken by Atlas Shrugged.

A good example of protesting oligarchy can be found in today's boycotting of Tesla vehicles. That boycott is one of the reasons why Musk appears to be paying more attention to his businesses and less attention to our government. Note here that we need peaceful ways of protesting. The deliberate burning of Tesla vehicles both is immoral and does not serve our protests against oligarchy. Such violence against Tesla vehicles actually fits the military definition of terrorism. And so such violent reactions serve the oligarchy and its leader.

And so the above describes much of the problems that we face now. We have an oligarchy that has come out of the closet via a President who knows little to no self-restraint and wishes to lead a government that provides little to no legal restraint on his Presidency. It's not just Trump and his new Republicans whom we need to protest, it is the whole oligarchy.

Inaction Can Also Speak Louder Than Words Too

 After Trump expressed anger at Putin's attitudes toward Ukraine in his war against it, something went missing. For after Trump threatened additional tariffs against Russia, no additional tariffs came even after Trump declared a trade war with the world and Putin's persistence in attacking civilian targets and slaughtering children. Tariffs against America's now former allies were put into place; but, again, no new tariffs for Russia could note even be seen on the horizon (click here).

What does the above mean? It should be quite clear by now. We have been witnessing a geopolitical shift. America is no longer a reliable ally of the NATO nations. It is even no longer an ally of its dearest and closest friend, Canada. Canada and the rest of NATO are all now America's exes. Perhaps now is the time for those exes to write a tell all book about what it is like to have America as a partner.

But where is America heading? The way Trump is acting as President, it should be abundantly clear. Trump is acting like America's CEO and Americans are his employees. He is reserving the right to fire any of his employees (a.k.a., even deporting those who have legal green card status) which is a right he will most probably assume when he deports American natural-born citizens whose parents were American citizens.

Another way to look at where America is going is to look at Russia. Why? One reason is because we just don't know how much Trump owes Putin for his election; but we have seen signs of how much Trump admires him. We know that Russia was using disinformation during Trump's previous two Presidential campaigns to help Trump. My own experiences on the internet says to me that I ran into Russian interference during this most recent election. I saw Russian meddling on those  who were on the Left and the Right. The goal of the Russian internet ventures during the last Presidential race was to make Trump look preferable to Biden first and then Harris second regardless of Trump's faults. Evidence for this claim is in the efforts of a self-allegedly conservative Christian website writing at least one article justifying Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, because of both Russia's help in electing Trump and the words of some fellow believers in Christ, I had predicted that if Trump was elected, that Russia would be our future. I predicted that Russia would be our future because it is an oligarchy while granting the Russian Orthodox Church just enough privileges and considerations  to keep it in the fold. And indeed we are on the way there.

Trump's lack of additional tariffs on Russia despite their conduct in their War against Ukraine should at least indicate, if not imply, that Trump is moving the U.S. closer and closer to Russia both in terms of being its ally and in terms of becoming more and more like it. 

In other instances, the Trump Administration has failed to act on Federal judicial rulings. The most infamous one concerns a man who was mistakenly sent to a maximum security complex in El Salvador. Though the Trump Administration admitted that sending the man there was an error, with the bigger error being that they sent even one person to a prison in another nation without due process of any level, it argued that it has no right to demand that El Salvador has to return the prisoner. In fact, though admitting the error, the Trump Administration has made no voluntary effort to have the man returned. Instead, it argued that the man had ties to MS-13. The man's lawyer denied the claims as well as claimed that the man in question had no criminal record.

Think about the implications here. The Trump Administration can can send anyone to an El Salvador maximum security prison or a prison in any other nation and then wash their hands of the mistake regardless that it was a mistake. That isn't just an ominous position for legal migrants, it applies to American citizens as well. That means any of us could be arrested and sent away with no legal recourse to have the mistake corrected.

And so is the Trump Administration putting America first here? Perhaps the question should be this: Is the Trump Administration putting Americans first? Regardless of the claims made by the Trump Administration, it isn't just actions that speak louder than words, it is inaction as well.

Now that we have pointed out the sins of others, what does our own inaction say about what we really believe? As we reflect on how we have sometimes been inactive in the presence of injustice, especially when we were unjust to others, in addition to urging people to become active in ways that speak out against injustice, we need to have empathy with those who don't. That is because we've done what they are doing now.

We Need Presidential Candidates Like 1968 Robert Kennedy

Perhaps the only Democratic Presidential candidate I would vote for on his own merits would be Robert Kennedy from 1968. 1960 Robert Kennedy would not qualify nor would his brother from the same year. The main reason to vote for JFK in 1960 was that he was not Nixon. If it was Nixon who had to handle the Cuban Missile crisis, we might not be here today.

Neither LBJ, regardless of the year,  nor 1976 Carter would have earned my vote on their own merits. Nor would either Clinton nor Obama qualify either.

Why would 1968 Robert Kennedy have earned my vote on his own merits? It is because if Red Riding Hood had met him at Grandma's house, she would have said: 'What big ears you have.' For more than any candidate I've seen, 68 RFK listened to people and he especially listened to those who were being marginalized. No matter where he traveled in the US or why he was there, he listened. This was especially true when he went to California to check on the striking farm workers. He listened to them and Cesar Chavez, who was one of the most amazing human rights leader in our history, and he joined them.

And while many, like 1968 Nixon, stressed law and order, '68 RFK wanted to address why there was rioting. Though rioting is always wrong, so much more wrong can many of the conditions that lead to rioting. Thus stressing law and order without addressing the conditions leading to the rioting is often nothing more than an exercise in self-righteousness by those who are privileged against the marginalized.

Listening to others as much as '68 RFK not only distinguished him from the candidates of yesteryear, it continues to distinguish him from today's list of candidates. With the Democratic Presidential selection lottery beginning to appear as a Cecil B. Demille production on one hand, and the Twitter Trantrum & Chief who will virtually run unopposed on the other, today's list of candidates consists of those who talk much more than they listen. And each of our candidates campaigns with long lists of promises so that choosing someone to vote for for is much like choosing who to date: we pick the person who flatters us the most and makes the biggest promises. What we don't see is that regardless of which of that kind of candidate we pick, what we get is an authoritarian leader who first protects the financial base of his/her campaign.

Of course, not all of those leaders exercise the same degree of authoritarianism, some are more authoritarian than others. But they are all authoritarian who already offer ready-made solution while being evasive in answering questions that are sensitive to them. And all that can be said about our Presidential candidates is also true about our candidates for the Senate and the House.

And then there are the 3rd party candidates. They too try to appeal to us as potential dates would. Only most of our 3rd party candidates lack the experience and competency to work in government let alone be the President. One of the reasons why we vote for them is because they are the only ones offering a new direction. But their lack of experience and apparent competency prevents them from competing with voter apathy for votes let alone being able to draw enough votes away from the candidates from our major political parties.

In the end, we need a government that allows us to participate on a high level. And until we can change the structures of our government to create a more participatory system, we need candidates who listen to all of us, especially to the marginalized, at least as much as they talk. Currently, voting for big listeners is our only life preserver that can save us from today's rising tide of authoritarianism. Our problem is that we don't have enough, if any, candidates who listen more than they talk.




 

Where Will The Road That Led Us To Trump Lead Us Tomorrow?

While in a book store, I saw at least one book that discussed Trump's road to the White House. I believe such a title has the cart before the horse. Why? I don't believe that Trump was elected because of any path he consciously chose as much as I believe that the American people elected Trump because of the path we chose. So we shouldn't be discussing Trump's road to the White House as much as we should be discussing America's road to electing Trump.

Today is a reason why we should be discussing the road that led us to Trump. Why? Because today is election day and we are still pretty much traveling along that same road. That road has a couple of characteristics that define American democracy. And what those traits point to is the fact that for all of the freedom we boast about having, we Americans still find change as not only the road less traveled, but the road never chosen. 

There are understandable reasons for our resistance to change. Psychologically speaking, because of the energy it requires, change is often our last resort. We are willing to believe almost anything before we are willing to change. Americans' reaction to the overwhelming evidence pointing to man-made causes of climate change provides a perfect example. To accept what the vast majority of scientists say about climate would entail making many changes to our economy and our way of life. But since it is easier to deny what scientists and the evidence say than to change, we pick the former.

And so it is with our democracy. We have grown comfortable with a bipolar, lazy democracy that even when the choice of Presidential candidates become as poor as they have been during this century, we still cling to our present approach to democracy.

We can call our democracy bipolar because we rely on a two-party system. In that system, we have two political parties that portray themselves as vanguards while actually working as proxies for those with extreme wealth. The Republican Party portrays itself as a vanguard for what is regarded as traditional America while the Democratic Party portrays itself as a vanguard for the marginalized. In reality, both major political parties serve those with extreme wealth (click here for some evidence). That degree of service to those with extreme wealth has caused some to reclassify America's political system from a democracy to an oligarchy (click here). And yet, the only negative reaction that any significant number of Americans have expressed toward our political state is to refrain from participating. There are very few Americans who are willing to support third party candidates despite the fact that the two party system causes many to often vote for the lesser of two evils.

What keeps us stuck the mire we have created? My guess is that we tend to be an authoritarian lot who naturally resist change. That resistance to change keeps many Democrats and Republicans within both the two party system and in their respective folds. Erich Fromm provides some useful insights on what it means to be an authoritarian (click here). There, he talks about active authoritarians as well as passive authoritarians. And those American voters who continue to vote within the two party system regardless of the results they see could possibly be doing so possibly because they are passive authoritarians who give up their own interests for the sake of some political or ideological label and/or because of their political heroes.

But we also need to address what it means to call our democracy a lazy one. By that I mean that at the most our participation in democracy consists of voting every x number of years. That indicates the kind of candidates we want to vote for. We want to vote for political heroes whom we can ignore until the next election so that we can go on pursuing personal prosperity and happiness.  We don't think of democracy as something we should participate in all year long. BTW, this voting for heroes is another sign of the authoritarian of our society. Seeing ourselves as authoritarians would also explain the deep divisions that exist in our society. For authoritarianism is hostile and acts aggressively toward any challenges.

The American people have not significantly changed since the election of President Trump. Perhaps we might vote in the Democratic Party as the ruling party for one or both houses of Congress. But here we should note the codependent relationship that exists between the Republicans and Democrats. We can call the relationship codependent because their massive failures to truly represent the interests of most Americans ensures job security for each other. We elect Democrats to protect us from continuing the failures of the Republicans and visa-versa. As a result, neither political party has to change from acting as proxies for those with extreme wealth. And while we are focusing on the Republican and Democratic parties, we should note that a significant portion of those with extreme wealth have adopted an Ayn Rand, Me-First cultural mentality. Such a mentality objectifies all others in order to maximize personal profit.

Yes, we might elect a Democratic Party controlled House and/or Senate tomorrow. But whom will they really serve and how long will it be until the House and or Senate switches back to being Republican Party controlled House and/or Senate? Will we ever change? And will we ever see the irony of how people who brag about being the people from the land of the free and the home of the brave are too scared to change for their own good?

The Ism Whose Name Cannot Be Said

Certainly racism has grabbed the headlines and rightfully so. There were the protests and counterprotests in Charlottesville that turned violent where the violence produced one death. There is still the disproportionate exercise of police violence on and incarceration of minorities. In fact, there are some white people who never questioned the consistent abuse of power exercised by police until a white women was shot by a non-white police officer.

But racism is not only exhibited in flagrant examples, Blacks have been telling us for years that racism has been alive and well despite the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement and many of us have been ignoring them. In addition, inner city schools where the student population consists of a higher percentage of minorities have been suffering from never ending budget cuts. And finally, what many whites won't consider is that school performance can be linked to the economic hopelessness and the home instability such hopelessness causes, of the neighborhoods in which schools are located.

Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement knew that if there was no economic progress accompanying progress in the obtaining of legal rights, then minorities would become disillusioned. And yet, news about income and wealth disparities between races shows nothing but increases (click here, and there). But income and wealth disparities are also growing between the economic classes (click here, and there, and there again).

With the growth in income and wealth disparities comes a shifting of political power that also feeds the continued growth in income and wealth disparities. Those with wealth have access to more resources to ensure that the government pays more attention to their concerns than the concerns of others (click here and there).

Now what we should note is that the growing income and wealth disparities result in political influence based on wealth is part of what could be called economic classism. And the growing income and wealth disparity between the races sees the combination of racism with economic classism. 

We were promised by the Republican presidential candidate that he would employ the best people and work to represent the concerns of working Americans. But this same candidate who has become the President has shown nothing but an overeagerness to cut regulations that protect workers and the environment in order to please his economic peers.

We have an economic classism problem in our nation that is, at best, being ignored by politicians of both major political parties. And this classism problem is not totally separate from our problem with racism. 

From a Christian perspective, we should note that the most influential branch of the Church, Conservative Protestantism, is not addressing economic classism. Instead, it has done all it can to get us to focus our attention inwardly on personal sins while either defending or saying nothing to challenge the current economic system that is feeding the growing wealth disparity. Such a position shows that the Church, at least the conservative branches of it, is content with repeating history where the dominant branch of the Church supported those with the greatest wealth just before the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions. And because of that, revolutionaries had an easier time with portraying the Church as an enemy of the people. As a result, not only did many people suffer, but so did the reputation of the Gospel.



 

ONIM For November 7, 2016

Presidential Election

• List of Presidential Candidates
• Republican Platform
• Democratic Platform 
• Constitution Party Platform
• Green Party Platform
• Libertarian Party Platform
• America's Party/American Independent Party
• American Freedom Party Platform
• American Solidarity Party Platform
• Constitution Party Website
• Party Of Socialism And Liberation Website
• Socialist Party USA Platform
• Peace And Freedom Party
• Prohibition Party Platform
• Reform Party USA Platform
• Socialist Equality Party Program
• Socialist Workers Party Platform
• Veterans Party Of America Platform
• Workers World Party Program

Christian News

• Pope Francis Holds Mass For 1,000 Prisoners -- Christian Today (UK)
• Jesus, Marriage, And The Afterlife: What Can We Learn About True Christian Hope -- Christian Today (UK)
• London's Oldest Church Leaps Forward With 21st Century Technology -- Christian Today (UK)
• Top 10 Stats Explaining The Evangelical Vote For Trump Or Clinton -- Christianity Today
• Trump Ends Evangelicals And Catholics Together -- Christianity Today
• LifeWay Stops Selling Jen Hatmaker Books Over LGBT Beliefs -- Christianity Today
• The Kingdom Of God And The U.S. Presidential Race -- Reformed African American Network
• The High Cost Of Popular Evangelist Jen Hatmaker's Gay Marriage Comments -- Washington Post
• When Evangelical Clergy Oppose Trump, Their Flocks Listen. But They're Not Speaking Up -- Washington Post
• Black Church Leaders Have A Message For Hillary Clinton On Religious Liberty -- The Federalist
• Luther On The Christian Life: Cross And Freedom -- Mortification Of Spin
• What It's Really Like For China's Urban Christians -- Gospel Coalition

World News

• CNN Cuts Ties With Donna Brazile After Hacked Emails Show She Gave Clinton Campaign Debate Questions -- Yahoo News
• FBI Obtains Warrant To Search Newly Found Emails -- Yahoo News
• Clinton Challenges FBI, Declaring, 'There's No Case Here' -- Yahoo News
• American Irrationalism -- Truthdig
• The Navy's Use Of Depleted Uranium In Our Coastal Waters Threatens Humans, Wildlife -- Truthout
• US Vs. Russia In Syria: A Battle To Control The Truth -- Truthout
• Rights Groups Ask Facebook To Clarify Policies On Content Removal -- Yahoo News
• How Barack Obama Failed To Stop Israeli Settlements -- Aljazeera
• 70 Members Of Rival Motorcycle Clubs Brawl On Long Island At Car Show -- CBS News
• Prosecution, Defense Both Cite Video In Traffic Stop Killing -- Miami Herald
• Poll Shows Hillary Clinton Support Slips -- Yahoo News
• ICC Gets Support After 3 Withdrawals, But Kenya Is Critical -- Miami Herald 
• President Hillary Clinton And A Constitutional Crisis -- Forbes
• Palestinian Strongman Tipped To Replace Abbas Throws Weight Behind Marwan Barghouti -- Newsweek
• Colonial May Open Key U.S. Gas Line By Saturday After Fatal Blast --  Reuters
• Saudi College Student In Wisconsin Dies After Fatal Assault: Police -- Chicago Tribune
• Special Report: There Is Something Rotten In The State Of Pennsylvania -- Allied Progress
• Monsanto Loses GMO Permit In Mexico -- Embols 
• Wikileaks: Clinton Camp Called Nurses' Union "Fringe" And "Not Real" -- Democracy Now
• Colin Kaepernick Just Started A Black Panther-Inspired Youth Camp -- Huffington Post
• Shock Poll Puts Trump Ahead -- Yahoo News
• Why Clinton Has Stayed Mum On Corporate Tax Reform -- Yahoo News
• Suspect Captured In 'Ambush-Style Attacks' On Iowa Police Officers -- Huffington Post
• Susan Sarandon Endorses Jill Stein -- The Hill
• U.S. Militia Girds For Trouble As Presidential Election Nears -- Yahoo News
• Assange: Wikileaks Did Not Receive Clinton Emails From Russian Govt -- RT
• Forced To Divorce By Israel -- Electronic Intifada 
• Entire Obama Administration Exposed For Using Private Email To Avoid FOIA Requests -- Activist Post
• Look Out Below: Cuts Underway As Advertising Tumble Accelerates -- Columbia Journalism Review
• New Yorkers #Swipeforward To Protest Policing Of Fare-Beating -- Waging Nonviolence
• Horowitz Threatens To Sue Student Over Op-Ed Responding To Hate Posters -- Palestine Legal
• The Last 100 Days: How Much Does Saying 'Radical Islamic Terrorism' Matter? -- Yahoo News
• Rudi Giuliani Confirms FBI Insiders Leaked Information To The Trump Campaign -- Huffington Post
• In The Black Lives Matter Era, An Effort To Elect More Diverse Prosecutors -- NPR
• Readers Not Pleased With Hillary Clinton Endorsement -- Detroit Free Press
• Obama Strikes Back At GOP Senator Who Put Him Campaign Ad -- Yahoo News
• Boston 'Shadow Donor' Scandal Casts Shadows On Democrats Nationwide -- New York Post
• Clinton's Charity Confirms Qatar's $1 Million Gift While She Was At State Dept. -- Yahoo News

Standing Rock Sioux - DAPL News

• Solidarity With #NoDAPL Strengthens All Of Us -- Popular Resistance
• Fighting At Standing Rock With AIM Founder Dennis Banks -- Truthout
• NYC Council 'Stands United' With Standing Rock Against Dakota Access Pipeline -- Observer
• Stein/Baraka Campaign Condemns Police Actions, Calls To Honor Treaties With Standing Rock Sioux -- Jill Stein 2016
• Newly Released Court Documents Reveal Pipeline Approval Was Rushed Due To Political Pressure -- Counter Current News
• #NoDAPL Protests Met With Extreme Force: No Bail For Those Arrested -- Native News Online
• A Look At Key Players In Dakota Access Pipeline Fight -- Yahoo News
• Independent Analyst Concludes Environmental Assessment Of DAPL 'Understates Risks' -- Truthdig
• Obama: We're Examining Options To 'Reroute' ND Pipeline -- The Hill
• 'Pray': Armed Police Descend On Water Protectors At DAPL Site -- Common Dreams
• Life On The Pine Ridge Native American Reservation -- Aljazeera
• Public Servants Or Corporate Security? An Open Letter To Law Enforcement And National Guard In North Dakota -- Counterpunch
• A #NoDAPL Map: This Pipeline Could Endanger The Drinking Water Of Millions -- Huffington Post
• Cost Of Policing Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Swells To $10 Million -- Democracy Now
• Brexit Challenge: Court Rules U.K. Parliament Must Vote On Leaving E.U. -- Huffington Post
• The Human Right To Water At Standing Rock -- Truthout
• #NoDAPL Supporters Fight Facebook Surveillance With Solidarity Check-Ins -- Waging Nonviolence
• US Government Again Uses Militarized Response To Stand Of Native Americans To Injustice -- Common Dreams
• We Must Listen To Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters, Not Punish Them -- Guardian
• Time To Move The Standing Rock Pipeline -- New York Times
• Why Dakota Is The New Keystone -- New York Times
• 500 Interfaith Clergy And Laity Answered The Call To Stand With Standing Rock -- Episcopal News Service
• Dakota Pipeline Activist Gets Shot With Rubber Bullet During On-Camera Interview -- Yahoo News
• 12 Ways To Be An Effective Ally At Standing Rock -- Ouplift
• The Avengers Assemble To Support Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters -- Yahoo News
• 4 Ways The Dakota Access Pipeline Could Be Stopped -- USA Today

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• We Are The Means By Which Oligarchs Stay In Power: We Are Not Innocent -- OpEd News
• Islamic Circle Of North America Dallas Branch Wants To Set The Record Straight On Islam -- Dallas Morning News
• A Beloved Indian Bus Driver Was Set On Fire In Australia. His Family Blames Racism -- Washington Post
• WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton's Memo Accuses Saudi Arabia And Qatar of Supporting Terror Groups -- National Review
• Rebel Assault On Aleppo Slows As UN Slams Civilian Deaths -- Yahoo News
• Russia Says Resumption Of Syria Peace Talks Delayed Indefinitely -- Yahoo News
• Nigerian Soldiers, Police Sexually Abuse Boko Haram Victims, Human Rights Watch Says -- Yahoo News
• Black Mississippi Church Burned And Vandalized With 'Vote Trump' -- Huffington Post
• US Admits Use of Depleted Uranium In Syria -- Mint Press News
• Telling Poor, Smart Kids That All It Takes Is Hard Work To Be As Successful As Their Wealthy Peers Is A Blatant Lie -- Atlanta Black Star
• Noam Chomsky On Hopes For Democracy In 2016 And Beyond -- Truthout
• Profits Vs. Prisons: How The Largest U.S. Prison Healthcare Provider Puts Lives In Danger -- Southern Poverty Law Center
• Louis C.K. Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, And The Rise Of Benevolent Sexism In Liberal Men -- Vox
• Army Announces Iraq Deployment For 1,700 Soldiers -- Army Times
• Workers Allege Halliburton Knew Their Water Was Foul -- Washington Post 

  

Where We Are In The Election

I've known for a while that Conservatives are not big fans of Democracy. I've know that because they have told me up front that we have a Republic, not a Democracy. When I respond that the two can be synonyms, they then, and rightly so, point to the writers of The Constitution to show that they opposed Democracy because they regarded it as being destructive. Today's Conservatives tend to pejoratively call it "mob rule." I respond by saying that either we have what they call "mob rule" or we are governed by elites and thus we have "the mob rules." They don't always appreciate that point. 

But I have to give Conservatives points for their honesty and, perhaps here, their relative modesty during this election year. Why? Because, in this current election season, the Republicans are practicing democracy far more than their liberal counterparts.

Both of our major political parties are facing insurrections this election year. The Republican face of insurrection comes in the form of Donald Trump. While it appeared that Trump had no realistic chance of winning the nomination, no one cared. In fact, comedians celebrated his candidacy. But once the primaries started and Trump built what seems to be an insurmountable lead, the Republican Party establishment has been pulling out all the stops to prevent his nomination. That is they have pulled out all of the stops except to admit that they have failed their own constituents. And their pleas to Trump supporters to return to the fold have been fallen on deaf ears. 

The Democratic Party was also facing its own insurrection. However, there were two significant differences between the two insurrections. Whereas, the leader of the Republican insurrection appeared to have his party's nomination in hand, the Democratic Party's insurrection leader, Bernie Sanders, has been trailing the establishment pick in the delegate count almost from the beginning and that is even if we only counted the delegates bound by primaries. 

But the Democrats were not panicking like the Republicans. Why? They had two tricks up their sleeves that all but ensured a victory for the establishment's favorite daughter candidate. Their first trick was to implement the Southern Strategy. It isn't just that the estbalishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, was winning all of the southern states; it was that she was winning by such large margins that Sanders quickly found himself in a big hole.

But the Democrats had another trick up their sleeves. They had the election equivalent of Wall Street's Credit Default Swaps in that as those swaps allowed Wall Street manipulators to hedge their bets against faulty financial products filled with bad loans, the Democratic Party could protect itself from the desires of its everyday members. The Democrats called this protection 'superdelegates.' What superdelegates do is to do the bidding of the Party's elite. Thus, being a superdelegate means never having to vote for whom the people want.

How do you become a superdelegate? And, more importantly, do you get a cape and the ability to fly if you become such a delegate? The answer to the first question is a bit more obvious than the answer to the second. You become a superdelegate by being one of the elites in the Party. This year, the number of superdelegates make up almost 15% of the total number of delegates, but more importantly, they make up almost 30% of the total number of delegates needed to win the nomination. This is a large reason why the Democratic Party was not panicked by Sanders' success or his chances at catching up and winning. For so far, Hillary Clinton has secured 469 superdelegates to Bernie Sanders' 31. But more important than that around 209 of Clintons' secured superdelegates come from states where the Democratic Party has yet to hold a primary.

And here are a couple of other facts. Hillary Clinton has secured more total delegates than Bernie Sanders in two states in which Sanders received the popular vote (Wyoming and Michigan). In addition, there are around 16 states in which the difference between the percentages of votes received and the percentage of delegates secured is greater than 10% and in each case, that difference  favors Clinton. Yes, Clinton has earned more voter bound delegates than Sanders by 250. But when you add the superdelegates, Clinton's delegate lead becomes 688 with only with only 1,647 regular delegates left. Sanders would have to earn almost 80% of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination as opposed to having to win around 58% of the remaining delegates if there were no superdelegates. 

Certainly, Sanders' task would be quite difficult but possible if the Democratic Party employed Democracy to pick its nominee. But add the superdelegates and Sanders has no realistic chance of winning. 

So what will become of Sanders and what will his campaign mean? That depends on what Sanders does after Hillary has been annointed/nominated to be the Democratic Party's candidate for President.  If he supports Hillary, then many could legitimately suspect Sanders of merely being a sheepdog candidate. That means that Sanders was used to bring the stray voters back to the Democratic Party's fold. And what allows the Democratic Party to exhibit such muscle in selecting its own Presidential candidate with impunity? It is because American voters have blindly bound themselves to the two-party system and thus the only alternative to voting for Hillary is to vote for the winner of Trump vs Crus. 

All of this is just another reason why America is no longer considered to be a Democracy (click here). In addition, the Democratic Party's method of selecting a Presidential candidate makes the Republicans look like the champions of Democracy--which they are definitely not.

Links used in researching the delegate counts are

1. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-delegate-tracker/
2. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html