I read the conversation between David French and Ross Douthat yesterday.
It’s called Two Christian Conservatives Debate the Merits of Voting for Kamala Harris. It was published on September 6, 2024 in the New York Times.
First of all, let me say that I am not here to win. I say to myself, to set the right tone. Because everyone knows, and I most of all, of my legendary violence — and I know, additionally, that it doesn’t help, that it goes too far, that it is not the way I seek and it is only the way I find when I cheat, when I slide past my truer self and deeper concerns.
Now, then:
What planet are you two on?
And what are we to think when two columnists who have watched Donald Trump blow by blow for the last eight years have to debate whether or not they should vote for Kamala Harris?
I will permit of no argument that you, or anyone else, is anywhere fundamentally different than where I am.
For to permit of such an argument would permit the assumption that humans are not fundamentally the same and/or that they cannot relate meaningfully to the spiritual Love they require to be meaningful to themselves and/or they cannot relate that Love to the universal values (aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving-kind, joyfully-sharing) they also require to be meaningful to themselves and/or they cannot communicate meaningfully with others (which would both make life more lonely than anyone could bear, and would also make everything we learn from others fundamentally meaningless).*
*[Humans learn via empathy. My mother stubs her toe, I map her face and actions and sounds onto my own conscious space and so recreate the experience and animate the words “owe” and “hurts” and “goddamn chair!” with meaning. And from these little pieces of meaning I build up my sense of words, ideas, self, other, the surrounding cultural and physical reality, et cetera.]
In short, to argue that we are not all fundamentally the same and do not all share one Reality and cannot therefore relate our various realities meaningfully to ourselves and each others is to argue that we cannot think anything meaningfully: That is a fundamentally self-defeating logos.
Years ago I read an essay arguing that Christians live in a fundamentally different reality than other people, and therefore the outsiders couldn’t judge the insiders, and the insiders couldn’t judge the outsiders.
Such arguments are clearly wrong because they assume that people are more fundamentally the things they think they believe, when they are actually more fundamentally just people — limited creatures that require a foundation in infinite spiritual Love to be meaningful to themselves: creatures that must straddle Goodnight and the mundane to be meaningful to themselves.
As such, people can and should venture beyond their beliefs and rituals to the core of the human experience, and use that spiritual grounding to assess their own interpretations of their own beliefs. None of us are God; we all can but interpret our experience; and — being conscious moments within both a moment deeper than feelings and ideas and the motion of feelings and ideas — interpreting our own experience means estimating what is wider and deeper than ideas and feelings into ideas, feelings, words and deeds: and that implies an imperfect, ongoing self-analyzing and -critiquing quest; or else (to the degree we skip out on that ongoing, open-ended, victory-free quest — as any quest to relate what is prior to what is post must be — [it’s not so bad! It’s just the human condition!]): lying to ourselves about the most fundamental things more and more and thus grasping tighter and tighter at ideas and feelings that mean less and less to us.
To argue that a Christian cannot meaningfully relate their worldview to that of a non-Christian is to overlook both the fundamental sameness of all humans and our fundamental need (if we are to meaningful to ourselves) to be honest with ourselves and our fellows.
One’s own worldview is only meaningful to oneself to the degree one relates what is deeper than ideas and feelings to that worldview. It may sometimes appear easier to relate to people who claim to share one’s own worldview, but the truth is that people with more insight into their own worldviews have more insight into the fundamental sameness of all humans and thus more insight into both people who share their own stated worldview and people don’t share their own stated worldview. Therefore, two people who are more grounded in their own conscious moment will find it easier to communicate meaningfully (regardless of their stated worldviews) than will two people with less insight into their own worldviews (again, regardless of their stated worldviews).
Indeed, what is less meaningful than two people agreeing with desperate certainty upon dogmas that they neither truly understand nor care about? Don’t they generally use their supposed shared insights as a pretense to imagine themselves somehow fundamentally different from other people? And isn’t that the opposite of insight into human life?
For a Christian to argue that Christians are fundamentally different from other people is particularly disorienting. After all, people did ask Jesus what the most important commandment is; and he did tell them, and they did ask for clarification, and he did give it.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
[Mark 12:28-34]
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
[Matthew 22-36-40 NIV]
Before we go to the version recorded in Luke, let’s quote Ross Douthat at the close of the above conversation:
“So to end this on a religious and providentialist note, I think it’s also important to accept that the Trump era will end when God decides that it’s going to end. And God only knows when that will happen.”
Now to Luke’s account:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Yeah, sure, I guess. But I think the larger point that we need to keep in mind is that God is in charge and if that guy is supposed to be helped, then God will help him out of that jam; and if not, then God will let him lie there dying of his wounds, dehydration, and the afternoon sun. So, all in all, everybody did what they were supposed to do — being, as they after all were, but pawns of the all-doing God.”
[Luke 10:25-37 NIV]
Actually, funnily enough, the gospel writer clearly made an error and had Jesus instead give these theologically over-simplistic concluding remarks:
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Jesus didn’t even waste time saying, “That’s the right!,” he simply said, “Go and be like the Good Samaritan.” It was as if Jesus wanted people to take action in this world. Why would Jesus want that? Given that everything is decided by God?
You might think here I mock Ross Douthat. Well maybe perhaps a tiny bit. But not his claim that God is in charge of everything. After all, Julian of Norwich — who I cannot fully scrute but whose wisdom I feel I taste enough to know that I should not question the core and thrust of her thought — wrote:
And when God Almighty had shewed so plenteously and joyfully of His Goodness, I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that I loved, if it should continue in good living, which I hoped by the grace of God was begun. And in this desire for a singular Shewing, it seemed that I hindered myself: for I was not taught in this time. And then was I answered in my reason, as it were by a friendly intervenor: Take it generally, and behold the graciousness of the Lord God as He sheweth to thee: for it is more worship to God to behold Him in all than in any special thing. And therewith I learned that it is more worship to God to know all-thing in general, than to take pleasure in any special thing. And if I should do wisely according to this teaching, I should not only be glad for nothing in special, but I should not be greatly distressed for no manner of thing: for All shall be well. For the fulness of joy is to behold God in all: for by the same blessed Might, Wisdom, and Love, that He made all-thing, to the same end our good Lord leadeth it continually, and thereto Himself shall bring it; and when it is time we shall see it. And the ground of this was shewed in the First [Revelation], and more openly in the Third, where it saith: I saw God in a point.
All that our Lord doeth is rightful, and that which He suffereth is worshipful: and in these two is comprehended good and ill: for all that is good our Lord doeth, and that which is evil our Lord suffereth. I say not that any evil is worshipful, but I say the sufferance of our Lord God is worshipful: whereby His Goodness shall be known, without end, in His marvellous meekness and mildness, by the working of mercy and grace.
Rightfulness is that thing that is so good that [it] may not be better than it is. For God Himself is very Rightfulness, and all His works are done rightfully as they are ordained from without beginning by His high Might, His high Wisdom, His high Goodness. And right as He ordained unto the best, right so He worketh continually, and leadeth it to the same end; and He is ever full-pleased with Himself and with all His works. And the beholding of this blissful accord is full sweet to the soul that seeth by grace. All the souls that shall be saved in Heaven without end be made rightful in the sight of God, and by His own goodness: in which rightfulness we are endlessly kept, and marvellously, above all creatures.
And Mercy is a working that cometh of the goodness of God, and it shall last in working all along, as sin is suffered to pursue rightful souls. And when sin hath no longer leave to pursue, then shall the working of mercy cease, and then shall all be brought to rightfulness and therein stand without end.
And by His sufferance we fall; and in His blissful Love with His Might and His Wisdom we are kept; and by mercy and grace we are raised to manifold more joys.
Thus in Rightfulness and Mercy He willeth to be known and loved, now and without end. And the soul that wisely beholdeth it in grace, it is well pleased with both, and endlessly enjoyeth.
Chapter 35, Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich.
Let us accept that God is in charge and that God leads all things to a perfect end and that all was, is, and shall be well.
But still, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” He must’ve had a reason. He must’ve had his reasons.
To return, reluctantly perhaps to our essay — after that pleasant respite in higher minds and their wider vistas —
For followers of Jesus Christ, it is easy to keep first things first. Jesus is recorded as saying what the most important commandment is:
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”
And he’s recorded as agreeing that following this commandment is greater than any ritual or burnt offering.
And he’s recorded as stating that all the law of the prophets hangs upon these two commandments.
And he’s recorded as telling people to go and be a neighbor to anyone who needs your help.
What is spiritual Love? Who is the Lover within that deserves all our love, who deserves to be joyfully handed all that we are? And how are we to live in a world filled with others who deep inside shine with that fundamental spiritual Love just as brightly as we do?
What conclusion can we draw from this joyful mystery?
I want to argue, friends,
I want to first and foremost argue that we are all friends in the One Reality,
I want to argue, friends, that representative democracy is a spiritual good, and that the most fundamental task of citizens in a representative democracy is to work together to serve as a final check on madness, corruption, and evil in government. We should never take our eye off this fundamental duty as we fulfill our other primary duty of working together to simultaneously grow our shared conversation and nudge our shared government towards the better and away from the worse. And I want to argue, further, that Donald Trump’s behavior represents a kind of soft, gentle, underhanded practice pitch to We the People of the United States of America. By so thoroughly and unrepentantly trampling over the rules, norms, and standards that are required to maintain a healthy democratic republic, Donald Trump is giving us all the perfect opportunity to remember what is to be free people in a free nation — to remember what it is to share the rights and the responsibilities of a free people in a free nation.
In fact, the rest of the essay writes itself, as surely as your heart of hearts writes
“Yes”
to a system of government that allows people to peacefully safeguard the universal values:
Keeping one’s nation free of tyranny (that is to say: top-down crime) doesn’t just make for a pleasant place to live and a good place to do business in, it also keeps people from being forced into the evil situation of having to choose between (A) protecting their loved ones and (B) openly following the universal values (aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, joyfully-sharing) and supporting a government that rewards rather than punishes clear honest accurate competent loving-kind and joyfully-sharing thoughts and actions.
A core evil of Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China is that people are forced to turn reality on its head to keep themselves from being financially, socially, or even physically harmed by their own government. Don’t give me this nonsense about how that’s already going on here! That’s the kind of empty noise that people who have not even imagined living under real political evil would use here and now. Having people disagree with you and sometimes win political victories over you is not political evil or oppression; it is a functioning democracy.
The only place in the USA today where reality is completely upside down — where if you don’t agree with might-makes-right and fear-proves-lies-true, then you’re out in the cold and maybe (before too long! You just watch yourself!, ‘cause Donald’s Cool Crew is coming for you, you dirty traitors!) worse — is in Donald Trump’s Republican party, where politicians have to find a way to honor Donald Trump’s anti-democratic lies, tirades, and openly-aired intentions in order to have a voice in today’s GOP.
Many rising stars in Donald Trump’s Party of Patriotic Heroes Who Will Put You In Your Place, of course, don’t even have to do fancy footwork to skirt around his lies: they are very comfortable echoing them. A corrupted heart selects for more corruption; a corrupted human selects for more corruption; a corrupted political party selects for more corruption; and corrupted power selects for ever-more corrupted power and ever-less earned, deserving, other-serving power.
The rest of the essay writes itself as easily as we can sample hour upon hour of Republican politicians from Donald Trump’s own administration detailing how they thwarted his attempts to lie and cheat his way out of his 2020 presidential election loss.
And the rest of the essay writes itself as surely as we can witness his double-down not just on lies about the last election, but also on promises to use the power of government to silence dissent and pursue political antagonists.
And it writes itself as surely as we can also witness the Trump GOP removing those members who refuse to cooperate with the clear political evil of Donald Trump, while also making plans and rosters for a second administration where Trump would have not just yes-people on his political team, but would also replace a big chunk of the bureaucracy with people more interested in pleasing this amoral and anti-democratic politician than they are interested in maintaining our democratic republic. Not to mention those hoping to ride on Trump’s coattails to shove through a set of laws based on their understanding of Christianity — laws that they know cannot win in a democratic setting because they are not popular with the average voter of this time and place.
Come on, America!
Do you really think anyone wins when a political party that has bowed to an incompetent, amoral, and antidemocratic man is given the keys to our shared government?
Maybe billionaires win because they skirt the conversation about how the wealth gap hasn’t been this high in the United States except for directly before the US Civil War and directly before the Great Depression?
Maybe pro-life voters win because instead of having to convince their fellow Americans to vote for laws restricting abortion, they can just force those laws into being and keep them there?
No, nobody wins when free citizens fail to keep themselves and their fellows safe from tyranny.
Tyranny is fundamentally incompetent: It’s goals are maintaining power at all costs, not at governing well and then making their case to the people.
And living in a land where you have to choose between being honest and decent and being able to take care of your loved ones: No riches and no momentary policy victories are worth that — not if here and now you could continue living in a country where honesty, competency, and meaningful contributions are rewarded.
Not that things are perfect here. Far from it. But has gone wrong? It isn’t democracy that’s to blame. With two senators for every state, the electoral college, and gerrymandered congressional districts, the GOP has much more power than they have popularity. And as the politics has become more and more national, this has allowed them to exploit rules that make sense only when politics have a large local component to maintain political clout while not delivering results to the majority of US Americans. Add to this the tendency of political primaries to select for the most radical candidates (due to the kind of people who vote in primaries) and the never-ending culture wars and choose-your-own-reality media sources, and how both parties embraced neo-liberalism and together sided with the rich over the poor (a little redistribution doesn’t make up for embracing an economic game that fundamentally favors capital at the expense of labor; such solutions also forget that men are still even in these enlightened times desperate to be able to support their wives and children with the sweat of their brow — desperate to be worth loving and respecting) and created a wealth-gap comparable to that of the eve of the Civil War and the eve of the Great Depression; add all this together and you can see how the GOP could slide further and further from meaningfully representing any real majority of voters, while yet maintaining power. What they hadn’t thought of was that they could also dispense entirely with the democratic process. But Trump and the many acts of cowardice and self-service within their own ranks have shown them that they can be the post-democracy GOP. And maybe some think it’s a great idea and many others think maybe it’s okay since then we’ll be a Christian nation and impose Christian laws on everyone. But whatever people say, and whatever they pretend to think, in the end they will get only precisely what the vote for: A government of, by, and for Donald Trump and those who suck up to him.
Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe he’ll be kept in line. But why are you so sure that he will? Because we can trust the GOP with our democracy? Which GOP? And what is, in any case, clear is that if our fundamental duty is to work together to protect ourselves and our fellows from tyranny, then we should with one voice gently and firmly say No to this man and those who would help him use our shared government and resources to further his narrow aims.
Anyway, maybe today you’re the king’s favored oligarch. Maybe tomorrow you or one of your children accidentally start telling the truth and refusing to cheat for the side that always by always lying and always cheating, or maybe they just have something he wants more than he wants their continued service. And maybe today the regime outlaws abortion, and maybe in the fulness of time, it outlaws not having an abortion after your first child.
And, really, everybody: Where do you draw the line? Are you waiting until it is actually too late? Maybe we could just sample autocracy? After all, it would be such a shame to give up those political gains that we’d won via the undemocratic advantages of small states versus larger population areas. And, well, let’s face it: getting people to agree on our policies wasn’t working. So why not see if we can hand the keys to the kingdom to a king who will do our bidding? But you know that’s not how autocracy works. And you also know that Donald Trump is unhinged, unstable, and not even interested in doing what is best for everyone.
And if all this were not enough: If Donald Trump wins, this clear national security threat — a man whose open disdain for democracy and clearly unstable, dishonest, and mean-spirited mental landscape would guarantee that no conscientious secret service would give him either state secrets or nuclear clearance — will be given all the information that this nation gathers and the button that kills and destroys in ways we cannot honestly imagine.
How can a person of good-conscious give that information and that weapon to this man and to an administration purged of all dissent, purged of all who would check his whims—whims that seem to be getting crazier, and more erratic as he ages — ????
Come on, America! This is a lob ball.
This is our chance to do right by ourselves and our fellow Americans.
And in choosing to put democracy and its spiritual foundations — !!!We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights!!! — above momentary political gains, we work on that shared muscle: we remember, refocus, and retrain our shared work of safeguarding those universal values without which none of our worldviews are meaningful to any of us.
One of two people will be president in January 2025. It isn’t going to be “Mickey Mouse”. It will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. And all is, will, and shall be well; but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a job to do.
Being an essayist with some appreciation for irony, I cannot help but hear the essays that conservatives would be writing if the shoe was on the other foot.
“It is proof of their essential Godlessness. If there was ever a question, it is clear that this party — by choosing to not just tolerate but to actively support a man who has declared open war on our democratic republic, that rare precious gem of a government of the people, by the people and for the people — has fully turned its back on the Creator. For was it not the Creator who endowed us with inalienable rights? And is a government led by the people rather than a tyrant who — let us be honest, let us learn from history! — inevitably uses the power of government to commit crimes against his own citizens (“absolute power corrupts absolutely” may be too trite for our liberal friends, whose great intellectual insight allows them to understand how this is different, how they can trust this wild, uncaged dog, with his criminally permissive handlers, to not bite his master; but I’m too simple for their wisdom—I’m just some poor fool stuck here with the facts, and I can’t help but notice “absolute power corrupts absolutely” proven true time and time again) a Godly thing? And is choosing to abandon this Godly thing to the wolves not a sin against both God and man? I say to you: A vote for anyone but the opponent of this rabid dog that has learned how to tame his handlers and that it can get away with defying his master: I say that a vote for anyone except the person who has an honest chance of stopping that person is a vote in support of political evil. Mark my words: Sooner or later, the citizenry that refuses to rein this monster in here and now: Sooner or later that citizenry will find themselves at his merciless mercy. Afterall: Once the precedent is established that this nation’s voters will not take a stand against clear and obvious attempts to subvert fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power combined with daily promises to be despot: I tell you truly, that sooner or later that nation becomes a nation by for and of the tyrant.”
“I write this as a businessman, as a successful leader of men and women in the corporate world. And I see this as a clear personnel problem. If We the People are the leaders of this nation, then we have a duty to fire a man who would usurp our position—not to mention make terrible, erratic, amoral choices.”
“One finds oneself in the strange position of desperately pining for Tony Judt. Granted, his politics borders on the madness of unconstrained socialism; however, I find myself constantly returning to his assessment of post-war France. I find myself musing along with him how a generation of intellectuals could so fully lose their grasp on reality as to imagine that Stalin and his violently, evilly oppressive USSR were necessary evils—necessary to bring about the future utopia of the working man. And I find myself wishing, along with my remembered Tony Judt, for an Albert Camus: someone with the wisdom and guts to say that the ends do not justify the means, and that allowing crimes against ones fellows here and now for some future perfection is a great evil. Please, anyone? Is there anyone left in this party—who in just a few short years has systematically banished anyone with soul from its ranks — willing to speak this fundamental spiritual truth?”
“I know I’ve written in these pages that I wish for a Catholic nation, led by a conservative Pope. But I’ve never truly questioned the compact that we as a nation have made with one another. I, like Socrates, believe that choosing to live in a nation — especially a free one, where one can freely come and go — implies accepting the laws of that nation. Living in a liberal democratic republic means that though you don’t always get your way politically, your rights to think, speak, and worship as you see fit are still protected. And in this cruel and Godless world, that remains a rare and a great blessing. How are we to assess, how are we to judge those who would betray this compact, this nation? How are we to judge those who have chosen to back political evil and thus betray you, me, and ultimately (in the fulness of time) themselves? There is no neutral vote here. One of two people will lead this nation. One will work with those who would preserve a government founded on the principle that people are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. This time, a vote for ‘Mickey Mouse’ or some third party daydream is a vote for tyranny.”
“Even if somehow our democracy survives this, you have still subjected our shared ship of state to so much obvious risk that you are guilty of either criminal negligence or outright criminal plotting — depending on where you sit on the spectrum between willful ignorance and outright treason.”
I can hear them. So sure of themselves! So sure of their righteousness! So appalled at the evil of the other side! The treason! High treason.
Yes, indeed; high treason.
You think I’m just the swollen appetites and damaged instincts that toss me hither and thither. But it’s not so. I’m a whole person, and what I am from the inside is a lonely hurt. Maybe because I’m not much of a Christian, nor even much of a Buddhist. But I think it has more to do with a cut that I cannot reach but that reaches me.
You think I’m just another crank, cranking out wah wah wahs. Maybe. But consider this:
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are trying to win this election. They are trying to think of how to frame this election in a way that they can win. Okay. But I say that it is up to We the People to decide what are elections about, and it is obvious that this one is about whether or not we have a fundamental role in our form of government. Do we serve as a final check on madness and corruption in government? Or can we safely leave all the checks and balances to the system itself? Why? It can’t completely fail because it hasn’t yet? Because we can’t imagine it failing? Any human system can be corrupted if enough of the “right” people are given power over enough parts of it.
The “right” people for corrupting a government are those whose political reality is somewhere between fanatic and criminal, that is to say: corrupt or crazy. People unwilling or unable to prioritize awareness, clarity, honesty, decency, and Fair play are the useful tools of would-be autocrats.
That is so evil: A government that rewards crime and folly! That’s why representative governments are spiritual goods. That’s why this moment matters so much.
Imagine for another moment the other side is the one with Donald Trump and his party. You have a major network that has long cherry picked and spun news so far towards that side’s advantage that it feels a little like a state-run media outlet — but run by the other side’s party, rather than the whole nation. And then they lose a huge lawsuit because they knowingly spread false conspiracy theories to bolster Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him. And they pay the fine and it seems that mostly what their owner learned was that no one should ever put anything in writing. And your party and a couple now-ostracized members of the other side gathered hours and hours and hours of interviews of people from his own party and usually also from his own administration explaining how they again and again stopped him from his various attempts to cheat the American people out of the results of the 2020 election. You can read the transcripts; anyone can; anyone can see that this is not a man trying to defend democracy — this is a man looking for any excuse to stay in power; this is a man trying to undermine a fair election, a man trying to undermine the democratic process, a man who only believes in democracy when it selects him. And then you see members of his party voting to acquit him in the subsequent impeachment hearing. They had the chance to end his political career, and they did not take it. You have seen this man lying as a fundamental political strategy. You know this is not politics as usual in this nation. It isn’t. It wasn’t. It used to be that politicians got caught in lies and they had to kind of recant or wriggle away or reframe or something. But not now; the autocratic tool of simply repeating the same lie over and over again has long been in full force with this man. And how does his party respond? It silences those who contradict his lies. It elevates those who either mindless repeat them, or who — like Mike Johnson — find specious ways to make it seem to the casual willingly-mislead observer that all that was going on was a fair constitutional question that should’ve been raised, that frankly does call the entire election into question, and so on !Oh to watch this man use our constitution as a tool for undermining the people’s sovereignty, with the basic perfidious assumption that any contortion of our rules and laws is fair game, that the constitution is not fundamentally a tool for protecting us all from tyranny, but it is fundamentally a chess piece for winning and for forcing your will onto the majority! — . And you watch as people who echo Donald Trump’s lies about the last election positions of authority in the election governance boards of many states. Including Georgia — the one whose Secretary of State Trump famously pressured to “find” enough votes to swing the state his way. (You may also recall that Georgia was the state that was to receive the first letter falsely stating that the DOJ had found irregularities in their election; Trump’s Acting Attorney General (Attorney General Bill Barr had already quit over Trump’s attempts to pressure him into lying and cheating his way out of the 2020 election results) had refused to send the letter; so Trump found some member of the DOJ willing to send the letter, and he was going to make that lackey the Acting Attorney General, but the entire acting DOJ leadership threatened to resign if Trump did that, so he backed down.) Imagine you are watching this all from the other side. Trump’s “jokes” about getting more than two terms as president, his telling “Christians” they need to vote now and then they can stop because he’ll “fix things” so they don’t have to vote again (and then refusing to meaningfully walk that back even after being given chance after chance from a Trump-friendly interviewer), and on and on. Not to mention his hateful rhetoric and his mentally disturbed tirades. And then there’s how he tried (too late in the game in his previous administration) to replace the professional bureaucracy with lackeys last time and how conservative think tanks are figuring out not just theories but also rosters for him to be able to do that at the start of a second administration. Republicans with the old-fashioned idea that of course we live in a democratic republic and not a tyranny, and so of course we shouldn’t let people manipulate our elections — they seem to be disappearing. A new creature that subscribes to the theory that the most important characteristic in a political operator is complete loyalty to Donald Trump — regardless of how that loyalty might harm our system of government and fundamental rights and freedoms — proliferates. And people like Kash Patel give interviews talking about how they will go after those media outlets that spread terrible lies about Donald Trump (i.e. the ones that said, actually, there’s no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen; and actually Donald Trump tried to pressure his own administration into helping him undermine those election results; and actually “truth” is not whatever spills out of Donald Trump’s mouth in a given ramble).
Please have enough compassion and moral imagination to imagine the shoe is on the other foot. And then imagine watching liberal writers hand-picked by a conservative paper for at least agreeing that this Donald Trump character goes too far — watch them debating whether or not people should vote for the opposition candidate. “We made some real gains with the woman’s right to choose; but [in this alternate reality] we don’t have the popular support behind those legal victories, and the other side is making this into a referendum on abortion, so … ” And even the one who is going to bite the bullet and vote for the opposition candidate in the course of the interview does not focus on protecting democracy, but on other issues, and asks their readers to understand that many good people voted for Trump and are going to do it again, and yeah he’s done all these terrible things, but they don’t know it, and it’s stressful and futile trying to tell them what anyone with a little googling and some basic understanding of reliable and unreliable information sources can figure out in a couple hours (doesn’t have to all be in one sitting!) of honest consideration, and … And what, guys?
Imagine you’re me. You’ve watched this dangerous anti-democratic ego-driven fool corrupt his party while actively prepping us all (an abuser puts his hand there; he’s feeling you out; he’s seeing how far he can go right then; he’ll keep at it; he’ll go a little farther when the time is right) for his autocratic future government and while the big intellects of his party figure out how to make that easier for him this time — and even the Supreme Court finds a way to invent a whole new section of the constitution where presidents can be charged for just about nothing, and the only one who can stop them is the courts, but of course by the time a court could actually do anything, well maybe he’s not listening to the courts, or maybe he’s filling the courts with the “right” kind of people.
What would you think of us — I mean people who stayed in this party and supported this candidate? You would say we’ve betrayed your trust. You would say we’re supporting political evil. You would say you knew we disagreed, but you thought I would at least respect you enough to not take away your right to a democratic system of government. You would say that I seem to be operating under the mistaken notion that there’s such a thing as “my” or “your” autocracy. You would haul up the lessons of history. You would say it feels like you’re walking on the moon all day long, your native land has become so foreign to you, that your fellow Americans have betrayed you in a fundamental way that you didn’t think they were capable of. You would say that at some point choosing conspiracy theories and misinformation is a type of willful pursuit of error — an evil that one is not just tricked into, but that one to some meaningful degree has chosen. You would say that if a government by for and of the people is to have any meaning, than clearly here and now we should say No to Donald Trump with one, clear, gentle but firm voice: The voice of a free people taking responsibility for their own freedom: The voice of a free people sharing the rights and responsibilities of a free nation. You would say, “And how can we share one without the other? Don’t rights and responsibilities go hand in hand? And isn’t sharing them what makes a people out of the inhabitants of a nation?”
Oh how you’d carry on!
We the People should win this election, and that means first of all sending Donald Trump packing for good, and that means electing Kamala Harris, and that means voting for her; and when she wins, then We the People should work with her to safeguard our democracy.
We the People need to say that this election IS about saying No to those who would seek and/or condone replacing fair elections with elections that are won by the cheater-in-chief, and that this election IS about saying NO to handing our country over to would-be autocrats.
What I see — and what you would see and decry if our roles were reversed — is a dog that has bit his master’s hand and that is now snarling and snapping, and that has thoroughly cowed and/or seduced all his would-be handlers. That dog should not be made president of the United States of America. There’s not a complicated calculation here, and imaging one is disingenuous.
I say all this because I believe a government of by and for the People is a spiritual good. It is a spiritual good because top-down crime and a society where people must lie in order to be safe is a spiritual evil; and because by working together to maintain a democratic republic, we encourage those universal values without which none of our worldviews are meaningful to any of us: Aware, clear, honest (lies as weapons are not compatible with democratic republics), clear, accurate and competent (do I need to point out that replacing the federal government’s professional bureaucracy with a Trump-fawning bureaucracy is not going to make for either accuracy or competency?), compassionate and loving-kind and joyfully-sharing (Yes: democratic republics do a better job of following those purely spiritual values because — for all the faults of real people in all real systems — at least representative governments select for open, honest, transparent systems [these are the ones that We the People can view and manage reasonably well], and for win-wins [since the government is incentivized to find a way forward for the many all together], and against corruption and madness [that’s our fundamental job: to serve as a final check on corruption and madness in government]; and taking these strands together, human beings’ basic humanity (infinite spiritual Love in the center of finite hopes and fears) keeps representative democracies tending away from great spiritual evils (No government is perfect! But autocracies inevitably use government to oppress and terrorize the governed—since the power of autocracies is forced upon the governed and is thus fundamentally illegitimate; and governments untethered from the people’s will lead to violent revolutions and/or oppressive regimes).
Author: Pudd N Taine
Editors: Amble Whistletown & Bartleby Willard
Production Team: Bartleby Willard and Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andy Mac Watson
A final note to David French about all those good people who are going to vote for Trump but don’t know about all his shenanigans: Well, maybe somebody who they could believe should tell them. Unfortunately, that seems to leave me out: I think I could sit with them in their car and we could both watch the light turn green and I could offhandedly mention that the light was green, and they would take their foot away from the accelerator and slam it back on the brake and let all the cars run into or around us while they turned to me to tell me that I’m wrong, that that’s a red light.
But let me try:
Hey! I’m a person too! And everything I’ve said above is either self-evidently true or easy to look up. And I need your help. I need us all to be people together while we can still stand together and be free citizens of a free nation together. Hey! I’m a person too! We agree much more than we disagree, and that is the point of representative democracy: We can agree on what we already agree on and together safeguard those values without which none of our worldviews mean anything to anyone: aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving-kind, joyfully-together, our feeling, thinking and acting centered around the Love with which everything is Okay and without which nothing is. Hey! I’m not anything special. I am just like you. We all are. And we all need all our help here and now. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what is going on inside and outside your watching space.
Think it through. I’m not asking for you to let me tell you what to do. I am asking you to stand with me for a nation of by and for the people. I am asking for you to refuse to vote for a man who has acted and who continues to act in ways that are obviously anti-democratic. I am asking you to tell the political party that has capitulated to this man that we the People are not going to accept that decision. Please.
Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for everyone, and for the soul of things — for the joy of open conversation and fair debate and free elections that are respected and allow for the peaceful transfer of power, that allow us to keep working on this beautiful project of a government that is subservient to its citizens. I am asking us all to work together on this project, and I am saying this is a lob ball: Let’s hit it out of the park, USA!!!!!!
Oh, shoot, I can’t let go of this microphone.
I just, could I just:
One more thing:
Enough with the false equivalencies:
Right now there is one party catering to an unstable man who tried to cheat democracy in the last election is openly talking about using all the tools in his new, improved (no more internal checks on his command!) to silence dissent, punish the media for telling the truth about him, and do whatever it takes to keep on being president and president and always president. And the point of this essay is simply that the citizens of a democratic republic need to serve as a final check on madness, corruption, and evil in government — they need to keep themselves and others safe from the tyranny of unchecked ambition; and that means together saying “No” to this man and those who would go along with his criminal intent.
“Thank you, thank you, Pudd. But I think it’s time. I think it’s time. I think it’s time for a little lower level,” said Bartleby Willard the author.
