Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris

This is not the article I planned to write for this month’s first blog post. “Expressing Congratulations (and Sincere Sympathy) to Pres. Harris” was the title of the post I anticipated making. But the sad news I read upon arising early Wednesday clearly indicated that I would have to write a different article. 

VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)

Kamala Harris campaigned well, but both the popular and the electoral votes were decisive. Nevertheless, I congratulate her for her valiant efforts, determination, and forward-looking spirit. In her concession speech on Wednesday afternoon, she said,

... while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.

Of course, no politician likes to lose, but for VP Harris herself, losing may have been good for her. Because of current and lurking problems in the U.S. and the world, she could have well ended up with a failed presidency. (For some of the same reasons, the same may happen to Trump). 

If Harris had won, she would have had to contend with debilitating Senate opposition and continual opposition by the NAR (which I wrote about here a month ago) and other MAGA adherents, including the growing number of White Christian nationalists.

In addition, Kamala would have had to—and now Trump will have to—deal with the warfare in the Near East, which will likely grow worse before it gets much better. We don’t know how she would have handled that incendiary situation, but she would likely have faced considerable criticism no matter what she did.

Perhaps more serious than anything else is the worsening of climate change and the urgency of dealing with the ecological predicament. This crucial matter will quite surely get markedly worse in the new Trump administration, but Harris would not have been able to forestall the coming crisis.

Consider why Trump “should” have won the election. In addition to the large block of White Christians voting for Trump and the residual racism and sexism still lingering in the land (as I wrote about in last Saturday’s “extra” blog post (see here)**, consider the following:

* The unpopularity of President Biden. According to a highly reliable poll taken on Nov. 1-2, Biden’s approval rating was 40% and 56% disapproving. It is rare for the Party in power to win a presidential election with the sitting president’s rating 16% more negative than positive.

* The perception that the country is on the wrong track. As indicated here, 63% of the U.S. public think the country is headed in the wrong direction (on the wrong track), and only 26% that it is headed in the right direction. That makes it very hard for the incumbent Party to win a presidential election.

* Continuing high prices because of inflation and corporate greed. This 11/6 Washington Post piece doesn’t deal with corporate greed as I think it should, but it does suggest that the widely held perception that the economy is “not good” or “poor” impelled many to cast their vote for Trump.

* The unaddressed problem of classism. This issue is addressed well by a 11/6 New York Times opinion article by the eminent journalist David Brooks (see here). Another source indicates that while voters with graduate degrees vote Democratic overwhelmingly, this year more than ever before, those with no college education voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

Where do we go from here? On Wednesday, the editorial board of the New York Times wrote, “Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was ‘a republic, if you can keep it’.” They go on to say,

Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.”

So, I conclude by again congratulating VP Harris for her valiant campaign and expressing sympathy to her for losing the election to a far less worthy candidate. And I trust that she will, indeed, continue to lead in the struggle for implementing “the ideals at the heart of our nation.”

_____

** In that post, I wrote, “If VP Harris loses the election, … it will be because of the votes of White Christians more than any other chosen demographic (that is, other than non-chosen demographics such as gender, race, or ‘class.’)” Thursday morning there was this post on Religious News Service’s website: “White Christians made Donald Trump president — again.”

Considering “the Least of These” 

On the afternoon of August 20, after making my last blog post early that morning which was the second day of the Democratic National Convention, I started writing this as my next blog article. 

“The least of these,” words attributed to Jesus, is a phrase found in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (25:40 NRSV). 

Who are Jesus’ “brothers and sisters”? Conservative evangelicals tend to restrict those words to Christian believers. For example, a writer for the Gospel Coalition says, “‘The least of these’ refers to other believers in need—specifically, itinerant Christian teachers dependent on other Christians for hospitality and support” (see here). 

In contrast, progressive Christians see the love of Jesus to be more inclusive and consider that those people in contemporary society who are poor and powerless as well as those who are marginalized and mistreated by many of the more privileged people are, indeed, “the least” among Jesus’ siblings. 

The lack of apparent concern for “the least of these” in political campaigns is quite common. VP Harris and Gov. Walz have shown concern for such people by what they have said and done through the years, but that doesn’t make for good campaigning. 

Thus, it is not surprising that at the Democratic National Convention last week, the candidates for President and Vice President talked much about helping the working class of the nation, but little was said about helping those who are living in poverty.  

True, there were some who did talk about “the least of these” (as interpreted by progressive Christians) even at the DNC. Just past six and a half minutes into his speech on opening night, Sen. Warnock quoted the words of Matt. 25:40. 

Also, in his acceptance speech on Aug. 22, Gov. Walz mentioned his policy of providing free lunches for all school children in Minnesota and his belief that no child should be left hungry.  

But those were the exceptions to the repeated emphasis on helping people in the middle class, who with some exceptions couldn’t be correctly labeled “the least of these.” 

In “Why Kamala Harris’s Centrism Is Working,” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt writes convincingly as how “many Democrats have been willing to tolerate her triangulation in the service of winning” (see here). 

(In politics, triangulation is a strategy by which a politician presents his/her position as being above or between the left and right sides or wings of the political spectrum. That was a strategy particularly associated with Pres. Bill Clinton in the 1990s.) 

After Harris is elected president—and at this point, I feel fairly confident that she will, indeed, be elected on November 5—I expect her to say much more in consideration of “the least of these” across the U.S. (as well as saying more about combating the environmental crisis).  

Last week, Harris pledged to tackle high grocery costs by targeting profiteering by food corporations and to bring down housing and prescription drug costs.  

In response to that stated intention to offer help that would include “the least of these,” Trump declared at a campaign rally the next day that in her speech Kamala went full communist” and then he referred to her as “Comrade Kamala.” 

Indeed, political leaders (most usually Democrats) who seek to use government action to lift people out of poverty are often denigrated as being socialists/communists—and we will likely hear that sort of talk by Trump and Vance between now and November 5.  

But I expect we will hear much more about helping “the least of these” after Harris is inaugurated on January 20 next year, which appropriately is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  

In February this year, the Vice President had a private conference with William Barber, Jr., the head of the Poor People’s Campaign, and Barber was reportedly pleased with Harris’s interest in his work for “the least of these” (see here).** 

I hope—and pray—that that meeting between Harris and Barber is a harbinger of what we will see in President Harris’s administration. 

____ 

** In May 2018, I made a blog post titled “Can a Barber Do What a King Couldn’t?” 

In Support of Harris and Walz

Delegates of the Democratic National Convention in a virtual roll call vote (completed on August 6) officially certified Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the Party’s nominees for President and Vice President in the upcoming November election. 

How greatly the political landscape changed in just four weeks! On July 13,  ex-President Trump was wounded by a young man who apparently sought to assassinate him.

Then on the 21^st, just eight days later, Pres. Biden announced that he would not accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for POTUS.

Beginning the very afternoon of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of his Vice President to be the Democratic nominee, there was an outpouring of verbal and financial support for VP Kamala Harris.

In light of the overwhelming early support received by Harris, virtual voting by the DNC delegates began on August 1, and by the next day, Kamala already had enough votes for the nomination. Now, she and her pick as a running mate are the  Democratic candidates for the election to be held in just 88 days.

The nation’s short-term, and perhaps long-term, future depends greatly on the November 5 voting outcome. This is the fateful decision facing the country: will voters elect Kamala Harris rather than “the worst presidential nominee in U.S. history,” as I dubbed Donald Trump in my July 20 blog post?

There is also this worrying question in the minds of many: if Harris is elected, will Trump accept the election results? Or once again will he claim that the election was stolen and seek to use unlawful means to attain election?

Kamala Harris has my full support. When in 2019 there began to be talk of who the Democratic candidate might be in 2020, Harris was my first choice. I already thought Joe Biden was too old to be President. (Now, though, I think he has done a very commendable job—and was wise to “pass the torch.”)

Kamala has a diverse religious background, but she has long been a member of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. She is quite complimentary of her pastor, Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, as is he of her.*¹

On July 22, Thinking Friend Brian Kaylor posted “The Next Baptist President of the United States?” on his blog (here). It was largely about the interview he had with Brown in 2020. The elderly pastor told Brian that Kamala “is a role model for womanhood, and just human decency and dignity at its best.”

MAGA Christians, though, are highly critical of candidate Harris in many ways, including denigration of her Christian faith. At the Turning Point USA Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach on July 26, TP president Charlie Kirk declared that Harris “stands against everything that we as Christians believe.”*²

Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau, says that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel in a way that will be even more ominous than Hillary (Clinton) because she’ll bring a racial component, and she’s younger.”

What about Harris’s pick for Vice President? Gov. Walz (b. 1964) has not been widely known nationally, but I think he was a good choice. In some ways, he reminds me of Harry Truman, another plainspoken Midwesterner, who 80 years ago in 1944 was elected VPOTUS.

Like Truman, Walz is more of a “commoner” than many high-profile politicians. JD Vance, the GOP VP candidate, graduated from Ohio State University (BA) and Yale (JD); Walz graduated from small Chadron State College (BS) in Nebraska, his home state, and Minnesota State University, Mankato, (MS).

Before becoming a politician, Vance practiced law for slightly under two years and then moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist; Walz was a high school teacher and football coach for about ten years before entering politics.*³

Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, were married in 1994, and they have two children, Hope (b. 2001) and Gus (b. 2006). They are affiliated with an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation in St. Paul.

Please join me in support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I am confident that they will not only preserve our national democracy but will also work to enhance liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens—and will have compassion for the needy people residing in our country who are not citizens.  

____

*¹ Brown (b. 1941) has been pastor of 3BC since 1976. That church is duly aligned with the American Baptist Churches USA and the National Baptist Convention USA. He is also currently the president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP. Brian refers to him as “a civil rights icon.” You may also like to read this pertinent article about Brown posted by Sojourners on July 25.

*² Donald Trump also spoke at that TP meeting, and among other things, he said, “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.” (From Heather Cox Richardson’s July 26 newsletter.)

*³ Jess Piper had this to say (here) after hearing that Walz was to be the Dem. VP nominee: “Walz is so perfect for the job of VP. He’s a rural progressive. He’s my people. A dirt road Democrat. He’s a liberal guy who lives among conservative folks.” (Some of you may remember that I introduced Ms. Piper in my March 14 blog post.)

  

 

Is President Biden Too Old to Run for Re-Election?

As you doubtlessly know, President Biden announced last week (by this video) that he is running for re-election in 2024. That was not welcomed by some Democrats, even many who are supporters of the President and voted for him in 2020 (as I am and did). The main concern is his advanced age. 

President Biden is already the oldest President in U.S. history—and it is still over 625 days until the end of his present term. If re-elected, he would be expected to serve for another five years and 8½ months from now. That would put him two months past his 86^th birthday.

The President seems to be physically fit now with no major health concerns. But what about 5.7 years from now? There certainly is a possibility that he would be able to finish a second term with no major health issue arising. There perhaps is a stronger possibility that he would not be able to do that.

Yes, I know that people age at different rates. When I was still teaching in my mid-70s, some of my students remarked on how much more vigorous I was than their grandfathers who were the same age. But I wouldn’t have enough energy to teach that once-a-week three-hour evening course now, and I am not yet 85.

There are many things I was able to do when I was 80 that I no longer feel up to—despite being in good health. I am not inclined to think it will be markedly different for Pres. Biden. Of course, he would be surrounded by aides, advisors, and a large staff of helpers we ordinary people don’t have.

Does raising questions about Biden’s age indicate ageism? According to Ageism.org, “Ageism is the discrimination against an individual strictly on the basis of their age.”

Along with racism, sexism, and ableism, ageism is an ongoing societal problem. People should not be discriminated against and denigrated because of some personal characteristic. All people have equal worth and should be treated with equal respect.

But there is a distinct difference between racism and sexism on the one hand and ableism and ageism on the other. The former pair is based on the idea that those of one race/color are superior to those of another race/color and that males are superior to females.

Some “discrimination” because of the latter pair is not a matter of worth but of needed abilities to perform certain tasks. If I were needing brain surgery, I wouldn’t want a surgeon with Parkinson’s disease—or an 85-year-old surgeon, for that matter—to perform that surgery.

Does that mean I would be guilty of ableism or ageism? I think not.

Similarly, to raise questions about Pres. Biden being too old to start a second term as President at age 82 is an expression of legitimate concern, not an indication of ageism.

Still, if Pres. Biden is nominated for a second term, I will vote for him. It is looking more and more as if Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election. If he is, I have no doubt but that Pres. Biden, although older, has better physical and mental health.

Some Republican politicians are, of course, saying that voting for Biden would likely end with Vice President Harris becoming President before Biden’s second term would be completed.

Last week it was reported (here, for example) that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said that Pres. Biden will likely die within five years and that his supporters would have to count on Vice President Harris if he were to win re-election next year.

And, of course, that could well happen. But that might not be so bad. Last week, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson posted an opinion article regarding the Vice President’s hard job at the present and her suitability to succeed Pres. Biden, if that should be necessary. (You can read that article here without a paywall).

I close with this bit of levity. At last Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Biden joked about his age: he said he believes in the First Amendment that protects freedom of the press, and “not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it.”

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

Jack Hibbs, whom I have not known of until recently, is the founder and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Southern California and has a daily half-hour program on Bott Radio. This post was sparked by a Jan. 21 article by Hibbs on The Christian Post’s website.  

The “Christian Values” of Conservative White Evangelicals

In the just-mentioned piece, titled “What’s next for evangelicals post-Trump,” Hibbs (b. 1958) declares that “President Biden is clearly not interested in the concerns of evangelicals.”

“So,” Hibbs asks, “what are we to do, now that Trump is leaving office and we have a new president who goes against our values?”

The “we” he refers to, I assume, are most of the readers of The Christian Post and those who attend his church, said to be about five thousand adults each Sunday, not including teens and children.

Hibbs concludes that “we need to look to 2024 with an eye towards finding the next president whose policies will be in line with our values.”

What, though, are the values of this conservative evangelical pastor? Well, we have some clue in the last five of the 15 points in Hibbs’s church’s “statement of faith” (see here).

Those “Christian values” were succinctly expressed in a Facebook post of West Virginia singer David Ferrell (shared by one of my FB friends earlier this week): “No pastor can support same sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, abortion and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But, where in the Gospels do we find Jesus condemning same-sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, or abortion? The values that Jesus emphasized seem to be quite different.

Jesus’ values are largely affirmed by progressive Christians, including many prominent Black pastors, most of whom were strongly opposed to President Trump—in spite of his being extensively supported by conservative White evangelicals because of his championing “Christian values.”

The Values of Progressive Christians

Last month I read The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (2017), a powerful book by Wendell Griffen, who is both a pastor and a circuit judge in Arkansas. He also wrote a provocative Jan. 21 article titled “The end of Trump’s presidency does not end America’s root problem.”

In stark contrast to Pastor Hibbs, Pastor Griffen asserts,

Trump will forever be remembered as the most vicious, politically incompetent and corrupt president in U.S. history. He left office dishonored, defeated and despised by most people who value justice, truth, integrity, peace and hope.

Griffen also extols the Christian values of MLK, Jr., including his condemnation of racism, materialism, and militarism.

The same emphasis on the Christian values articulated by Griffen—and ignored by Hibbs—is prominently seen in other noted Black pastors, such as William Barber, Jr., of North Carolina; Raphael Warnock, our new Senator from Georgia; and Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry, among many others.

What gall to suggest that these Black pastors—and the many progressive Christians, White and Black, who agree with them—all of whom spoke out in opposition to President Trump, are opposed to Christian values!

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

In his January 3 sermon, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor of a church near Dallas said that President-elect Biden would be a “cognitively dysfunctional president” and then asked: “what if something happens to him and Jezebel has to take over? Jezebel Harris, isn’t that her name?”

According to this 1/29 article, that pastor, Steve Swofford, also said that the Biden-Harris administration would not likely be “doing things our way,” so he urged his congregation to maintain their “convictions for Christ”—or, in other words, to stand firm for the “Christian values” of evangelicals.

On the other hand, in the Conclusion of his book Griffen challenges his hearers to “prophetic citizenship,” which, he says, focuses “on the needs of the people God cares most about.” That is, “people who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, frail, imprisoned, and unwelcomed.”

So, in reflecting on these different sets of values, which do you endorse as the more important and most in harmony with the teachings of Jesus?

Votes for Women: The Battle of August 1920

As is being widely publicized this month, women in the U.S. were given the universal right to vote 100 years ago this week, on August 18, 1920, when Tennessee became the 36^th state to ratify the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

June posing as a 1920 suffragist

Women’s Voting Rights before 1920

Women in most of the U.S. states did not have the right to vote in presidential elections before 1920.

For example, my paternal grandmother was born in 1881, so she turned 21, the voting age for men back then, in 1902. In the presidential election of 1904, though, she could not go to the polls with her husband George, whom she had married earlier that year.

Grandma Laura Seat was also unable to vote in the elections of 1908, 1912, or 1916. In the Declaration of Independence, the words “all men are created equal” still meant men instead of people 140 years later.

At the July 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted the motto, “All men and women are created equal,” and they demanded the right to vote. That still hadn’t happened 68 years later when Grandma Laura was not legally permitted to vote in 1916.

But the situation changed in August 1920.

The Suffs and the Antis in 1920

The U.S. Congress passed the 19^th Amendment on June 4, 1919—but it had to be ratified by 36 of the 48 states in order to become part of the Constitution. The battle for and against ratification in Tennessee, the 36^th state, was fiercely fought in August 1920.

That battle between the “Suffs” (those for women’s suffrage) and the “Antis” (those opposing suffrage, which included many women) is engagingly told in Elaine Weiss’s 2018 book The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. And what a battle it was!

The strong women Antis emphasized several dangers the 19^th Amendment posed, including the dismantling of “white supremacy, states’ rights, and cherished southern traditions” (Weiss, p. 44).

Somehow, I had not previously realized how so much of the opposition to women’s suffrage was by southerners, still indignant over the outcome and effects of the Civil War and adamantly opposed to Black women gaining voting rights.

The Antis also included many women who were part of the conservative Christian evangelicalism of the South and linked with the fundamentalism that was growing in strength throughout the 1910s.

Among many other things, the Antis attacked the Suffs because of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Woman’s Bible (1895, 1898).

On the other hand, the Suffs were single-minded in their advocacy for women’s suffrage—and, regrettably, because of that single-mindedness they compromised on other matters of social justice, especially with regard to the rights of African Americans.

But, could the 19^th Amendment have been ratified otherwise? Perhaps not. Thankfully, it was ratified by Tennessee on August 18 and took effect on August 26, 1920. Surprisingly, though, most women didn’t vote in the November election that year.

What About 2016 & 2020?

It is reported that in the 2016 presidential election, 63.3% of eligible women voters went to the polls but only 59.3% of eligible men voters did.

Given the 72-year struggle (from 1848 to 1920) for voting rights, though, why would nearly 37% of women not vote in the last presidential election? Perhaps some of them still agreed with the Antis of 1920, although surely almost all women today think they should have the right to vote.

If just a small percentage of those women who didn’t go to the polls had done so, the 2016 election would likely have turned out differently, for of those women who did vote, 54% of them voted for Clinton whereas 53% of men voted for Trump.

In this centennial year of women’s suffrage, many of us are hoping that a far greater number of women will vote on November 3. “Votes for women” didn’t elect a woman president in 2016, but voting women can (and probably will!) make Senator Kamala Harris the first female vice president in U.S. history.