On Nikki Haley:  A Final Postscript: An Addendum

A longtime friend and distinguished psychologist commented on the last post:

“[R]egarding the alarming percentage of people who lack critical thinking, it’s possible that it might be as many as 30 to 40 percent of the population (based on research concerning Jean Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development, aka the stage of formal operational thought). Truly discouraging.”

Her note caused me to consider the relationship of intelligence to the capacity for critical thought.  Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests are reportedly designed to discern the composite of the test taker’s language, mathematical, spatial, memory, reasoning and problem solving capabilities and score the subject’s raw intellectual horsepower relative to the same capabilities in others. Until receiving our friend’s comment, my impression had been that one’s capacity for critical thought roughly aligned with one’s IQ.  Apparently, it does not, at least in many cases. In what was obviously not a scientifically-schooled search, I found a few references making the point set forth by Dr. Heather A. Brown, an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, in the article to which a link is provided below.  Dr. Brown writes in part: 

“Though often confused with intelligence, critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-smart-people-do-foolish-things

Assuming Dr. Piaget’s estimates are a fair reference point for the mental aptitudes of the American citizenry, it would appear tenable that a larger percentage of our citizens than I have earlier suggested lack, rather than refuse to employ, the capacity for critical thought – which presumably makes them ready targets for effective propaganda.  Such is, as our friend indicated, truly discouraging.  That said, we can perhaps hope that a significant-enough segment of our people who either cannot or do not employ the capacity for critical thought are hard-wired to vote for President Joe Biden.   🙂  

On Nikki Haley:  A Final Postscript

As all who remember are aware, on February 24th former President Donald Trump defeated former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley in the Republican Presidential primary in Ms. Haley’s home state of South Carolina by a margin of roughly 60%-40%.  It was a prelude to a series of even more impressive (from a percentage standpoint) victories by Mr. Trump over Ms. Haley in the March 5th Super Tuesday Republican primaries, and last week Ms. Haley suspended her campaign.  Still, a couple of findings I heard relating to the now-seemingly-long-ago South Carolina primary results continue to resonate with me.  Although I originally constructed a note that would have covered both – with my comments about Ms. Haley more the afterthought than the focus — I have divided them in attempt to avoid testing your patience and eyesight.  The second impression from the South Carolina primary will be addressed in a subsequent post.

CNN’s South Carolina exit polling found that the vast majority of Palmetto State Trump voters continue to believe, despite all objective evidence to the contrary, that Mr. Trump won the 2020 presidential election.  One is reinforced by one’s understanding and surroundings; clearly, if you and everybody you know believes that Mr. Trump won in 2020, it is difficult for you to grasp that he could lose in 2024.  While in retrospect this belief completely defused what I considered Ms. Haley’s strongest campaign asset against Mr. Trump – the “electability” argument – it also indicated that a notable segment of our voters either lack or continue to be unwilling to use their capacity for critical thought.  Since overall the Republican primary vote count has been down, it’s hard to determine exactly how many voters traditionally considering themselves Republican (as contrasted with rank-and-file MAGAs) actually believe that Mr. Trump won in 2020, but it’s of deep concern for the future of our republic that in the country affording the widest access to accurate information in the world, a quarter to a third of our electorate seemingly remains unable or unwilling to assess and accurately perceive reality.

A final word on Ms. Haley, as she departs the public eye (at least for now).  All reading these pages are aware that I admire her political athleticism.  Some argue that her 2024 campaign might have fared better if she had started attacking Mr. Trump more forcefully earlier; I disagree.  She needed to first navigate through a huge field of challengers; if she had attacked Mr. Trump aggressively at an earlier stage than she did – i.e., before the race became “one on one” — she would have been dismissed as a traitor.  That said, I would submit that she has been a formidable warrior in the defense of our democracy.  Her attacks on Mr. Trump with regard to NATO and Ukraine, his obsequiousness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his responsibility for scuttling the bipartisan border deal, his disregard for military sacrifice, Republicans’ losing track record in general elections during his political preeminence, and the distractions caused by his court challenges, taken together with her declared “faith in juries” (the reference to the civil jury finding that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll), were respectfully accepted as credible positions in rightwing media outlets while she was perceived to be seeking the Republican presidential nomination in good faith; similar future claims by President Joe Biden and his surrogates will neither be aired nor heeded by such outlets.  In an election where every vote will count, Ms. Haley weakened Mr. Trump during the last couple of months. 

Will Ms. Haley be a viable presidential candidate in four years if President Joe Biden wins reelection?  (Put aside the fact that if Mr. Trump wins, there won’t be an election – at least a genuine election — in four years.)  In normal times, a charismatic Republican candidate would be favored to win the White House after eight years of a Democratic administration, and in normal times a party seeks to correct the strategies which caused its defeat in the preceding election.  I fear that Mr. Trump has so contaminated the Republican Party apparatus and its adherents that these are not normal times.  Ms. Haley may be caught politically between a rock and a hard place; it’s hard to see her winning the presidential nomination of such a tribalistic organization in four years if she doesn’t endorse Mr. Trump, but even if she does endorse Mr. Trump, she is now considered a pariah by a wide swath of the Republican base.  Even so, if counseling her, I would advise that she not endorse Mr. Trump – that she should perhaps spend much of the coming months traveling internationally away from the American media, burnishing her foreign policy credentials (I suspect that she would be received warmly in a number of NATO nations).  If in the wake of a Trump defeat she runs in 2028 as a traditional Republican and is successful in corralling all of the non-MAGA vote in the early primaries against a field of Trump Wannabes (none of whom yet on the scene possessing the former President’s animal charisma) who split the MAGA vote, she might be able to build momentum in a narrow lane in the same manner as Candidates Jimmy Carter did against more liberal Democratic presidential candidates in 1976 and Donald Trump did against the traditional Republican presidential candidates in 2016.  An extreme long shot, almost akin to a hole in one?  Clearly.  Still, it’s too early to tell.

Right now, we have to win this presidential election.  Let us hope – indeed, let those of us who believe in the power of prayer, pray – that the segment of Americans unable or unwilling to assess and accept reality is closer to a quarter than a third of our citizenry.

On Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny has died in a Russian prison. 

As all who care are aware, Mr. Navalny was perhaps the most prominent Russian critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin during Putin’s dictatorship, arguably the most effective voice in rallying a significant segment of the Russian people against the Putin regime during its tenure.  For his efforts Mr. Navalny was imprisoned on a number of occasions, and survived multiple attempts by the Russian government to maim or kill him.  After being poisoned in August, 2020, he was allowed to leave Russia for Germany in order to receive treatment; I assume that Putin expected that Mr. Navalny would die outside Russia, or that if Mr. Navalny did manage to survive, he would remain in exile.  Instead, when Mr. Navalny did survive and was well enough to travel, he returned to Russia, knowing he would immediately be arrested and imprisoned, and undoubtedly anticipating that he would ultimately perish.

Mr. Navalny’s was the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.  May his martyrdom be a stark reminder (although none should be needed) of the brutality of the Putin regime for those being lulled into complaisance about or denial of it.

While I have used this phrase a number of times in these pages to mark the passing of individuals who have made notable contributions to our world, I think if those individuals were alive today (the late U.S. AZ Sen. John McCain particularly comes to mind), they would agree that it has never been nor will it ever be more warranted than it is for Mr. Navalny.

Requiescat in pace.

On Lenten Fasting: Redux

[What follows – save the conclusion, specific to this year – was posted in these pages last Ash Wednesday.  I find the quoted Scripture passage sufficiently helpful that it is likely that the passage will be reposted (without the conclusion 🙂 ) on future Ash Wednesdays.]

Today is Ash Wednesday:  in the Christian world, the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of reflection and performance of penance for one’s sins in preparation for Jesus’ Passion and Death on Good Friday and Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  It is a time in which Christians have traditionally fasted – customarily understood to mean that one of faith will willingly bear the pang of hunger, or endure some other discomfort – so as to identify in a microscopic way with the Lord’s suffering.  Even so, I offer the following Scriptural description of another means of fasting by which one might embrace the spirit of Lent:

“Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!

Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance:

That a man bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:

Releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke;

Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;

Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;

Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.

Then, your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed;

Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and He will say:

‘Here I am.’”

 Isaiah 58:  4-9 

Today is, of course, also … Valentine’s Day – celebrated in the Catholic Church, except for a rare occasion such as today, as the Feast Day of St. Valentine.  Although my Church might find what I am about to propose to be sacrilegious (and if so, I am confident that it would not have been the first time 😉 ), I will suggest that any changes in behavior that one might be intending to undertake in the coming weeks in an effort to help improve one’s essence might perhaps be started … tomorrow. 

Today, use every minute you have to cherish your special loved one.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day.     

On Being a Swiftie

When the relationship between Superstar Singer Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce first came to my attention, I was among the cynics who felt it was a conspira — well, let’s just say, a narrative 😉 – promoted by the NFL and Ms. Swift’s organization for the mutual commercial benefit of both.  Because of the Swift-Kelce relationship, a significant segment of Ms. Swift’s fans are reportedly now watching NFL games, and NFL fans are presumably buying Ms. Swift’s music in greater volumes.  (Put aside the fact that the NFL and Ms. Swift were both doing okay even before the Swift-Kelce relationship was publicized 🙂 ).  I myself was some evidence of the attention focused on the relationship; before becoming apprised of – or perhaps, more accurately, inundated by news of — it, I literally could not have identified Ms. Swift in a lineup of five popular young female singers.  Now, I can.  (I still cannot identify a Taylor Swift song as a Taylor Swift song, although I understand that I’ve heard plenty of them.)  Since in recent months I have been told that many of Ms. Swift’s songs are about her past failed romances, as the publicity swirl around the relationship ripened into a hurricane I actually began to feel a bit bad for Mr. Kelce, whom I envisioned at some point in the future as sitting on some bench, helmet in hand, shaking his head, wondering how the ride had suddenly ended, where the magic had gone.  (But just a bit bad.  Mr. Kelce is an important, high-profile and undoubtedly extremely-well paid member of a two-time World Champion team; I figured he’d get over it 😉 ).

All of this was benign fluff.  I now understand that condemnation is being heaped upon Ms. Swift in the alt-right media silo — including (yes, really) conspiracy theories that the NFL is orchestrating a Chiefs victory in this Sunday’s Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers so that Ms. Swift can go on the field after the game and endorse President Joe Biden – because she has become a vocal opponent of MAGAism.  What has made me take another look at Ms. Swift is an apparently accurate video that drifted through my Twitter feed of Ms. Swift and her parents discussing the risks of her getting involved in politics.  (One grain of salt:  Ms. Swift and her parents had to be aware that their exchange was being recorded.)  The discussion focuses on concerns that by being a public opponent of MAGA U.S. TN Sen. Marsha Blackburn – and, by extension, former President Donald Trump – Ms. Swift could lose a significant segment of her fan base and more importantly, would materially increase the physical danger she already faces by virtue of being such a celebrated performer.  On the clip, Ms. Swift replies, “I don’t care if they write [that Taylor Swift comes out against Donald Trump.]  I’m sad I didn’t [come out against Mr. Trump during the 2020 presidential election], but I can’t change that.  I’m saying right now … that I need to be on the right side of history and if he [presumably, President Joe Biden] doesn’t win … at least I tried.”

Now, that’s a WOW. 

I have heard it reported that adjusting for differences in eras, Ms. Swift now commands a level of devotion among her fans unequaled since a long-ago popular music phenomenon with which I am much more familiar:  Beatlemania.  I well remember the controversy — perhaps beyond the recall of those with shorter memories and certainly of those with shorter lives — that erupted in 1966 when John Lennon was accurately quoted in a magazine article as saying, “Christianity will go.  It will vanish and shrink.  I needn’t argue about that; I know I’m right and will be proved right.  We’re more popular than Jesus now.  I don’t know which will go first – rock & roll or Christianity.  Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

The firestorm that exploded in the southern United States over the comments months after they were first published in the U.K. – after not causing a ripple in the U.K., where the Anglican Church was then under severe criticism and losing adherents by the droves – caused the other Beatles and their manager, Brian Epstein, to persuade Mr. Lennon to do a press conference to clarify his remarks when the band subsequently entered the U.S. on tour because they genuinely feared for the band members’ physical safety. 

Mr. Lennon then declared, “I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I wasn’t knocking it.  I was not saying we’re better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is.  … I used the word, ‘Beatles’ as a remote thing – ‘Beatles” like other people see us.  I said they are having more influence on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus.  [The way I expressed these thoughts in the magazine article] was the wrong way.”

Candidly, whether one reviews either Mr. Lennon’s original comments or his clarification, it’s hard to say that he was wrong to the extent he was objectively observing the shift away from Christian faith toward the glitz of popular culture. Even so, it’s also hard not to conclude that despite his later well-earned reputation as a social crusader, he buckled – at least a little — when confronted on this early occasion.

As far as I know, so far Ms. Swift isn’t buckling.  I’m guessing that there isn’t a security professional alive who wouldn’t agree that in the open venues and amid the screaming fans in which she performs, any well-trained crackpot who wants to visit harm upon her might be able to find the means to do so.  She apparently is willing to take the risk.  I can’t help but contrast this young woman’s courage to do what she believes is the right thing against the cowardice being demonstrated daily by those Republicans officeholders whom credible reporters such as U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney advise us have nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump but are afraid to stand up to him out of fear of physical safety or losing their stations. 

The singer’s got guts.  They are despicable.

I virtually never watch football not involving the Green Bay Packers.  Even so, I think it’s likely that I’ll watch some of Sunday’s Super Bowl.  Under normal circumstances and despite the fact that the 49ers eliminated the Packers from the playoffs, the fact that the Chiefs have won two recent Super Bowls, taken together with the Cinderella story of San Francisco “Mr. Irrelevant” Quarterback Brock Purdy, would almost certainly cause me to root for the Niners.  That said, these are not normal times.  The MAGA attempt to demonize Ms. Swift has injected political venom into a heretofore nonpolitical American sports spectacle.  (I truly wonder how many formerly diehard Chiefs fans from two blood-red Republican states, Missouri and Kansas, are now going to root for the team from the Woke Capital of the World against their hometown entry because MAGAs are condemning Ms. Swift’s participation in our political process.)  I’m rooting for the Chiefs.

If the Niners win, some MAGA will undoubtedly proclaim that Jesus, rather than Mr. Purdy, was the 49er quarterback, although I’m not aware of any Gospel passage indicating that among His miracles the Lord ever hit an inside slant or a corner fade.

At the same time, I do have a conspiracy theory that should strike fear into the heart of every MAGA intent on a Kansas City defeat:  the Chiefs may be planning … to start Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.

And if I do tune in on Sunday, I’ll have to concede that in the end, maybe the NFL was right; it did capture one more viewer for its big extravaganza … because he’s become a Swiftie.

Can We Keep It?

According to a well-known account of a conversation occurring at the end of the last day of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, when the members of the Convention had just finished hammering out the Constitution under which we live today (as amended), one of the grand ladies of Philadelphia society, Elizabeth Willing Powel, asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

According to the legend, Mr. Franklin replied: 

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

By all indications, a Senate deal which would provide both stringent border protections favored by Republicans – controls, indeed, that I have seen reported as being much more rigorous than Republicans will ever secure in the future if in 2024 Democrats retain the White House and regain complete control of Congress — and aid needed by Ukraine to effectively continue its defense against Russia that enjoys bipartisan support, is about to be scuttled because former President Donald Trump has instructed his Republican minions in Congress to kill it.  It appears undisputed – this is the crux — that Mr. Trump doesn’t want our border challenges to be addressed because he wants to be able to blame President Joe Biden for the chaos during the upcoming campaign.  Republican U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney has called Mr. Trump’s action “appalling”; Republican U.S. NC Sen. Thom Tillis has called it “immoral” to reject a border deal to help Mr. Trump politically.  Bowing to Mr. Trump’s bidding, MAGA Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson has declared that the bipartisan Senate arrangement will be “Dead on Arrival” in the House.  After Mr. Biden expressed support for the Senate agreement late last week, Mr. Johnson sharply criticized the President, claiming that Mr. Biden should instead secure the border by executive order.  (The irony here is particularly thick.  Republicans have done nothing but accuse Mr. Biden of executive overreach ever since he took office; at the same time, Mr. Trump’s instructions could well politically backfire on him if Democrats have the savvy to run continuous reels, particularly in our southern border states, of Messrs. Romney, Tillis and their Republican Senate colleagues blaming Mr. Trump for the deal’s failure.)

I admit that I haven’t educated myself on immigration policy and issues over the last several years in the way I have intended; that said, it is clear even from liberal media outlets that — no matter whose fault it is, or what factors contribute to it — we face a human, security and logistical crisis on our southern border.  A large segment of our people are highly exercised about it.  Senate Republicans clearly think that the deal they have struck with their Democratic colleagues will markedly improve our current challenge. (I note that Mr. Romney said that the bipartisan bill would “solve” our border dilemma; I doubt any piece of legislation could do that.)

At the same time, I have for months been painfully aware that Ukrainians are fighting and dying daily to defend their homeland, that they’ve been running out of munitions, and that their ability to withstand any future major Russian onslaught will be extremely compromised without the aid that this bill would provide.  It takes no prescience for anyone who has spent any time over the last 80 years considering U.S. foreign policy to understand that not only Western Europe but America will be less secure if Ukraine falls to Russia.

There is reportedly a solid majority in both Houses of Congress that would approve the Senate deal if it was allowed to come to a vote.  If so, the fate of the suffering people at the border, relief for our fellow citizens whose lives are being disrupted by the onslaught of migrants, and the destiny of a Ukrainian people struggling to defend themselves (and the world’s democracies) against despotism is being hamstrung by the spasms of one old, evil, demented megalomanic.

According to accounts of Congressional Republicans such as Mr. Romney and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate and most Republicans in the House have nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump.  They nonetheless kowtow to him because they fear losing their hallowed offices.  In addition to rank ambition, a rationale sometimes offered for these Republicans’ shameless obeisance to Mr. Trump is their fear of MAGA physical retribution against themselves and their families.  These are frankly pitiful attempts to rationalize a monstrous dereliction of duty by those who have intentionally sought and won membership in the branch of our federal government that has the Constitutional power to declare war – the power to send our men and women of the armed forces to fight and to die on behalf of America’s interests.  Those in the military and their families don’t get the luxury of ducking their responsibility in order to preserve their positions and their physical safety.  They have to follow whatever these craven blowhards decide is in their own political self interests.

I’m not sure whether I feel greater antagonism toward those MAGA officeholders who want to institute an American Apartheid or for those Republican officials who would support bipartisanship if they did not fear retribution.  Frankly, it doesn’t suffice to call the latter group, “cowards.”  People are fighting and dying for freedom in Ukraine, and they don’t have the guts to stand up.  They are — I know what crass epithet comes to my mind as an apt description; but I leave that one to you.

Meanwhile, last week a jury found the MAGA Messiah before whom these Republicans prostrate themselves liable to E. Jean Carroll for over $83 million dollars for continuing to defame Ms. Carroll after a jury of three women and six men had earlier found that he had sexually abused her.  (If you don’t know and still care to learn what Ms. Carroll testified that the former president did to her before the jury rendered its verdict, the substance of her account is readily available via internet search.)  The New York Times reported that as he left the courtroom last week on the day before the verdict was rendered, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee loudly declared, “This is not America.”

I ironically agree with the former president’s aggrieved declaration – although obviously not with the lies he spews.  The despicable, toxic posturing and pandering now occurring in the United States House of Representatives is not America – my America – a country in which, to use Historian Jon Meacham’s analogy which I particularly like, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have been figuratively debating our best course over the last 90 years.  The two have certainly had vigorous disagreements, and each in life was a wily politician sensitive to the moods of his people, but each always urged in good faith what he felt was best for our nation, believed that it was in America’s strategic interest to use our power to constrain despotism across the globe, and understood that compromise between divergent views held in good faith was the core of our system.

At this most perilous time, when I see a compromise that could provide vital benefit on multiple fronts sacrificed to ambition and fear, I hearken back to Mr. Franklin’s exchange with Mrs. Powel.

I wonder if we can keep it.

Anointing the MAGA Messiah

This week, I have gotten a pretty continuous stream of good-natured ribbing from family and friends about my oft-stated, years-long, seemingly seriously misguided doubts about Green Bay Packer Quarterback Jordan Love’s ability to be the Green and Gold’s leader of the future.  It’s obviously been easy to take the happy joshing.

I can think of no unequivocal pronouncement I have made or will ever make in these pages for which I more fervently hope to be proven wrong, and to hereafter be derided unmercifully for my lack of perspicacity, than this: 

Former President Donald Trump is going to be the Republican Party’s 2024 Presidential Nominee.

As all who care are aware, Mr. Trump trounced the field in Monday’s Iowa Republican caucuses.  More importantly, in what was an admittedly light turnout due to the extreme weather, the former President’s total (51%), taken together with the totals of Trump-lite Candidates FL Gov. Ron DeSantis (21.2%) and Vivek Ramaswamy (7.7%), meant that the MAGA movement claimed 79.9% of the vote, while former SC Gov. and U.S. UN Amb. Nikki Haley totaled 19.1%. 

In other words, Donald Trump beat Ronald Reagan in Iowa on Monday, 80% – 20%.  One could argue that the margin was actually greater, since it seems fair to assume that a good share of Ms. Haley’s vote was from Independents or Democrats, masquerading as Republicans for a night, who bitterly oppose Mr. Trump.  (Had I been an Iowan, there is no cold I would not have braved to register as a Republican for a night to vote for Ms. Haley, and against Mr. Trump.) 

An NBC poll of caucus goers indicated that 65% would still consider Mr. Trump fit for the presidency if he is convicted of crimes in the coming months; only 31% indicated that they would then consider him unfit.  Only 29% of caucus goers consider President Joe Biden the legitimate president; 66% believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump.  One has to assume that the vast majority of the 31% and 29% were Haley voters, and that a significant percentage of these were faux Republicans.

Although one might assert that my pronouncement is both premature and exaggerated based upon the votes of 100,000 Iowans, I would counter that the Iowa Republican profile doesn’t seem to be different from the profile of the Republican electorate in the vast majority of states. As a political handicapper, I really liked Ms. Haley (I certainly devoted a long enough post to her and her potential prospects 😉 ); but her inability to polish off Mr. DeSantis in Iowa seeming leaves the two squabbling over Mr. Trump’s table scraps, with no state in which either has a realistic hope of defeating the former president (save, perhaps, New Hampshire for Ms. Haley – a state whose Republican demographic deviates markedly from the norm). 

I was struck by a sign I saw wielded by an Iowan Republican at some candidate’s rally which declared, “God over Government.”  MAGAs no longer trust government.  They trust what they believe God wants.   We have heard Evangelicals supporting Donald Trump use the phrase that has become a cliché – “That I wouldn’t vote for him for Pastor, but I will for President.” 

All this is so seemingly absurd that one can’t entirely get rid of the notion that the good people in our rural and remote regions who make up the bulk of Mr. Trump’s support – perhaps frustrated with their situations, or angered at what they see as our mainstream culture’s contempt for their values, or worried about their futures, but not rioters; good neighbors — will suddenly wake up, will snap out of their alternate reality in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed in Star Trek happy endings, will see the former president for who he is.  One doesn’t have to favor progressive policies to realize that Mr. Trump is personally unfit to lead our country. 

It is what it is. Donald Trump is the MAGA Messiah.

There is one part of me that finds the early clarification regarding Mr. Trump’s impending Republican anointment a relief, to be able to dispense with any uncertainty as to what we face.  Since we started with a football reference, let’s end with one:  We know what teams will face off in November.  To preserve democracy, it’s time for both the Biden Campaign and us to strap on our helmets, and start to play. 

We can only hope that winning will be enough; but one step at a time.