Americans are weary, especially progressive-minded folk, as we watch in disbelief at what has happened to our beloved country. We’re taxed, and not just by paying taxes. We’re emotionally taxed by a devious and dangerous president. I’ve never seen an American president be this divisive, and I hope we never do ever again.
Ironically, we’re taxed two-fold, financially and emotionally, while this president has paid virtually no income taxes over several years. Note that I won’t use his name because I don’t care what his name is. I only care about his conduct and how it has the capability of destroying this country.
He takes no responsibility for anything he does or says. Below you will find summary news reports from just over the last few days regarding the most concerning aspects of his policies and behaviors. So many disturbing events occur these days that it’s difficult to know where to start.
Reuniting Children Separated from their Parents, a Daunting Task
Yesterday, MSNBC reported that 545 migrant children have missing parents due to the “no tolerance” border separation orders by the current federal administration in 2018. Attorneys appointed by a federal judge reported that the search for these parents is arduous because most were deported to Central America, while their children remained in detention. They still need to locate about 325 sets of parents.
Astonishingly, former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions supported this separation of children even as infants and toddlers, and in his official capacity, has used the Bible to justify it. Sessions used “Romans 13:1-7 — a controversial verse that demands that Jewish Christians resist political action against the Roman Empire — to argue that the Trump administration had the political and Biblical right to enforce family separation policies for migrants.” The president’s evangelical advisors, Paul White and Robert Jeffress, frequently suggest that because this presidency has divine mandate, that the president can do as he pleases.
As COVID-19 Cases Spike, Relief Programs are on the Chopping Block
Yesterday, Politico reported it obtained documents revealing that the federal administration wants to cut funding for many federal programs in what the president calls “anarchist jurisdictions.” Not surprisingly, he refers to Portland, Oregon, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and New York, all strongholds for the Democratic Party.
Such programs in jeopardy include coronavirus relief, HIV treatment, and screenings for newborns. These cities will lose “programs that serve their poorest, sickest residents after the president moved last month to restrict funding, escalating his political battle against liberal cities he’s sought to use as a campaign foil.”
As reported by the New York Times yesterday, the president has financial holdings in China although he vilifies China and its government. His bank account information did not get included in financial disclosure statements because they are held by a corporation.
Interestingly, he repeatedly calls COVID-19 the “China virus” instead of dealing with it responsibly from the start in January when he first learned of it. Contrastingly, his rival for the Oval Office has no financial dealings in China. It raises questions about his allegiance to the US and if he trades on his position for profit.
Why Isn’t this President Losing in the polls by 40 Points?
What drives this unwavering support of a man who dodges paying his own taxes; is racist, misogynistic, adulterous, and vindictive; puts babies in cages; cuts COVID-19 relief; and is a pathological liar? He has no concern for the most vulnerable in our communities. Alarmingly, this president could care less about the US Constitution he vowed to protect and uphold.
I suggest that civil religion propels the popularity of this odious man.
What is civil religion?
What is civil religion? To recognize and identify it, use a three-pronged test:
- Civil religion emerges when a political value it prizes becomes sanctified;
- Civil religion then takes this sanctified position and develops it into a common creed of sorts;
- Civil religion imposes this creed onto the rest of us, whether we want it or not.
Here’s an example of the kind of “white civil religion” being practiced in America right now. The “sanctified political value” is that white people are exceptional and their power must be preserved:
- White people are exceptional, and we settled the country because God “chose” us and “blessed” our Manifest Destiny.
- Non-white people must be kept from positions of power and influence to maintain white supremacy;
- Everyone must believe in and support this “creed” and all actions done to establish and further it are justifiable.
We know that Evangelical Christians comprise the president’s primary political base, composed of white, non-college-educated groups, living in mostly rural places and the South. They suffer from “White Fragility,” a term coined by professor and author Robin DiAngelo. In her book, she describes why it is so difficult for white people to talk about race because it makes them uncomfortable when facing the reality of racism in America.
Failing to recognize systemic racism when it stands right in front of our faces
Our country suffers from what I call “Yankee-Doodlism,” because our society wears a giant pair of rose-colored glasses whenever our societal wrongs confront us. Pretending makes it all go away until another police encounter ends in the death of a black person. We have a knack for believing that America does not have systemic racial discrimination, or gender discrimination, or LGBTQ discrimination, and so on. But, we do.
Take for example, Christian Cooper, an avid birdwatcher in Central Park. He serves as a board member for the New York City Audubon Society, and he holds a Harvard degree. And, on the same day that police officer Derek Chauvin lynched George Floyd, a white woman called the police on Christian Cooper. She mentioned the phrase “African American man” three times as she reported him as threatening her in Central Park’s Ramble area.
Christian Cooper had asked her to leash her dog according to the ordinance. It’s videotaped, so you can check it out along with 40 million other people who have seen it. The encounter highlights the psychic fear living in most white people.
According to Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor and a retired federal judge, “To the extent that this woman was arguably deploying racial stereotypes and weaponizing them, it will make people think twice. It is a big deal.”
As an explanation, the woman stated, “I reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions when, in fact, I was the one who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash.”
The vestiges of slavery and lynching are embedded in our societal DNA
But what drove the woman’s emotions and false assumptions that day? It stems from long established beliefs that white people are better than black people, who cannot be trusted and are criminal and carnal by nature.
The woman was in the wrong in the first place by not having her dog on a leash. Habitually, she has walked in the park with her unleashed dog in the past. White privilege kicked up its ugly little head.
Our sins of the past dovetail with the present every single day
The president feasts on our historical fodder of slavery and lynching, and then regurgitates it like a mother bird and feeds it to his brood. He chirps, “Make America Great Again (MAGA).” It satisfies the second prong of establishing civil religion — “Make America Great Again” is their creed, their rallying cry.
Was America truly Great at every level of society?
To return to that “Great America” requires that we roll back all of our essential social gains, and I think the president would go all the way back to pre-Civil War days. That erases emancipation of slaves, women’s suffrage, eradicating Jim Crow laws, the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s, and LGBTQ liberation. This creed has been forced on me and millions, and we do not want it.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
I’m convinced what the president does intentionally parallels Nazism far more than his pride of this country. The slogan really means “Make America Germany Again.” He whispers in the ears of his faithful, “Give me the power, like Hitler, and you will be great with me.”
That “Thousand Year Reich” lasted a scant 12 years because it was so flawed, so very evil. Yet the carnage done during the Nazi reign of terror did incalculable damage. The devastation rippled across the globe.
We’re treading right behind those ripples, as he establishes veiled concentration camps, called “detention centers,” and as he scapegoats Muslims and Arabs. His lust for power through authoritarian-style “leadership” dismisses the US Constitution as archaic and unnecessary.
The president tears a page from the Josef Geobbels songbook by composing Fox News as his media play toy. All other news gets discredited as “fake.” He demands unquestioning loyalty and trades out his inner circle like dirty socks.
He breaks up peaceful assemblies to petition the government for the redress of grievances, chiefly police brutality. He uses multiple military and police entities to dispel that crowd like Brown Shirts but by using rubber bullets, flash-bangs, and tear gas rather than bayonets.
This s/creed, “Make America Great Again,” does not reflect what I want my country to be and to do. I’m taxed by this man at a deep emotional level. I want my America back. It has major problems, I know, but we were far better off before he took office. And now, our democracy literally hangs in the balance of this election. Let us restore our democracy by voting him out of office in a big way. On November 3rd, we will collectively say,
“You’re Fired.”
Image: Jorge Alfonso, 56, of Miami, waits in line outside of the King Jesus International Ministry church where President Donald Trump is slated to hold a rally for evangelical supporters [Lynne Sladky/AP Photo]
