Is the Republican Party Dead?

This is not the blog post I first intended to write for today. Last month I happened to see that Ralph Nadar was celebrating his 90^th birthday (on Feb. 27), and I planned to write about him. But my plan changed when I saw this headline: “Trump Jr. says ‘MAGA movement is the new Republican Party’.”

Various voices over the last few years have spoken about the death of the Republican Party. Surprisingly, one of those voices was that of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

In November 2022, CBS News quoted Sen. Hawley as saying, “The Republican Party, as we have known it, is dead.” That was an expression of his disappointment about the outcome of the mid-term elections. Democrats maintained that those results were because of voters’ displeasure with Trump.

Since then, though, Trump and MAGA Republicans have become much stronger. Last week, “Donald Trump Jr. mused that the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement has replaced the old guard of the Republican Party.”

That New York Post article went on to cite Trump Jr. declaring, “That [old-school establishment] Republican Party frankly no longer exists outside of the D.C. Beltway.”

With Trump Sr. replacing the leadership of the Republican National Committee with his hand-picked supporters, including his daughter-in-law, the traditional GOP has essentially become the MAGA Party.

As the March 25 issue of Time magazine says (on p. 7) under the title, “It’s Trump’s Party,”  “The MAGA movement’s takeover of the GOP is now complete.” In that sense, it may be correct to say that the Republican Party as it has existed for the past century is dead.

What are traditional Republicans or opponents of Democrats to do? That seems to be the dilemma many U.S. voters find themselves in now.

Come November 5, one of two old, White men will be re-elected POTUS (assuming they are both still alive and well then, which is by no means assured.) But what if you cannot bear to vote for “Sleepy Joe” or “Sleazy Donald”?

That’s where Ralph Nadar enters the picture. According to Wikipedia, Nadar is an “American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes, and a perennial presidential candidate.”

The latter is the only aspect of Nadar’s career that I will consider here, for Nadar’s running as a third-party candidate in 2000 is quite likely the major reason George W. Bush was elected President over Al Gore.

It is difficult to fathom how much better off this country, and the world, would be if Gore had been elected in 2000. As you may remember, Gore did receive the most popular votes, but thanks to the Supreme Court’s dubious decision, Florida’s electoral votes went to Bush and he became the 43^rd POTUS.

In that decisive state of Florida, Bush defeated Gore by only 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida, which led to justifiable claims that Nader was responsible for Gore's defeat—or rather, the Democrats and Independents who voted for Nadar were those most responsible for Bush’s election.

What does all this mean for 2024? Among other things, it means that those—and most especially those who live in the so-called “swing stages” of Ariz., Ga., Mich., N.C., Nev., Penn., and Wis.—must beware of voting for a third-party candidate if they don’t want Trump to win the election.

Some speak of voting for the lesser of two evils, and others say if both candidates are “evil,” they cannot and will not vote for either.

But it seems quite clear to me that it is far better to vote for the better of two evils than to not vote at all. Also, it is far better to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than for a third-party candidate that will potentially lead to the election of the greater of the two evils.

And mark it down: it is nearly 100% certain that either the Democratic or the Republican candidate will win the 2024 presidential election.

If Trump’s MAGA party is the only alternative to the Democratic Party, which seems to be the case now that the traditional Republican Party is the same as dead, I admonish you to vote for Biden’s re-election and for Democratic Senators and Representatives. Democracy itself and so much more is at stake.

Tarnishing the Name of Jesus

It was a week ago tonight that Pres. Biden delivered the annual State of the Union (SOTU) message. His address was widely applauded by Democrats and by the mainstream media—and, not surprisingly, panned by Republicans and by right-wing news outlets who castigate the “lamestream” media.

This post, though, is about the Republican rebuttal speech given by Alabama Senator Katie Britt. 

Katie Boyd Britt (b. 1982) was elected the junior Senator from Alabama in 2022, defeating Democrat Will Boyd, a Black Baptist pastor. She received nearly 67% of the vote.

I didn’t remember hearing the name of Sen. Britt before I saw that she would give the rebuttal after the SOTU address, so I looked her up on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

In a July 2021 interview, Britt stated, “Jesus Christ is the most important thing in life, and that should be the foundation that everything else comes around.” I certainly would not disagree with that, but surely such a statement should include telling the truth and not bearing false witness.

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times candidly stated that “the woman sitting in the kitchen with the cross glittering on her neck lied.” After listening (on Friday) to her Thursday night rebuttal speech, that clearly seems to be the case.

And given what she has said about Jesus Christ and the sparkling (diamond-studded?) cross around her neck as she gave her speech, it seemed to me that she was tarnishing the name of Jesus.

No wonder more and more people in the U.S. are leaving the Christian faith and joining the “nones.”

Sen. Boyd’s rebuttal speech was criticized and critiqued by a wide variety of voices. For example, here is part of what historian Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) wrote about Katie’s talk in her March 8 newsletter:

Sitting in a kitchen rather than in a setting that reflected her position in one of the nation’s highest elected offices, Britt conspicuously wore a necklace with a cross and spoke in a breathy, childlike voice as she wavered between smiles and the suggestion she was on the verge of tears. 

At the close of HRC’s letter, I first learned about Jess Piper and her Substack posts under the name “The View from Rural Missouri.” Her March 8 “view” was titled “The Fundie Baby Voice.”*

But it wasn’t the voice that most disturbed me. It was the lies that Sen. Britt told in that problematic voice.

In his remarks at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday evening, Jimmy Kimmel made these remarks about Emma Stone, who had just been awarded the Best Actress Oscar: “Emma, you are so unbelievably great in Poor Things. Emma played an adult woman with the brain of a child, like the lady who gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday night.”**

Sen. Boyd did her best to harm Pres. Biden and to lessen his chances of winning a second term as POTUS. She may have done the Republicans more harm than good, however.

I was saddened by the touching story she told of talking last year with the girl who had been a victim of sex trafficking—and then off-put by her blaming the President for that tragic event. And then I was incensed when it turned out the incident in question took place when George W. Bush was President!

On Monday, Washington Post associate editor and columnist Karen Tumulty wrote that the “horrific story” Katie told, “at least by implication, turned out to be a big fat lie.”

Tumulty went on to note that the “Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler awarded Britt four Pinocchios for the way she twisted this tragic story to make a cravenly partisan point.”

Despite her later efforts to walk back what she had said, there was no way her listeners could have known she was talking about an incident that took place more than a decade ago. Even if it wasn’t a blatant lie, it was highly deceitful and told with the intent of harming the President.

It is quite clear, though, that in spite of her prominent display of a cross on a necklace and pious talk, she tarnished the name of Jesus and did the cause of Christ far more harm than good.

_____

  * Jess Piper lives in (or near) Maryville, Missouri, which is about 35 miles from my hometown. In 2022 she ran as a progressive Democrat to become a Representative in the Missouri legislature, but she was soundly defeated in the district that twice voted for Trump by 80% or so. I am now receiving her Substack posts and have had email exchanges with her this week.

** This was a powerful putdown of Sen. Britt’s rebuttal speech to those who had seen Emma Stone's Oscar-winning performance in Poor Things, but I do not recommend that movie except to insightful, mature adults.

90 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT (=Doomsday)!

A week ago (on Jan. 23), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced the setting of what they call the Doomsday Clock. Contrary to my expectation, the clock was set the same as last year: 90 seconds to midnight (with midnight representing “doomsday”).

For 75 years now, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been announcing the setting of the Doomsday Clock. That nonprofit organization was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and former Manhattan Project scientists. They introduced the Doomsday Clock two years later.

The first setting of the Clock was seven minutes to midnight. In 1949, with the explosion of a nuclear device by the Soviet Union and the beginning of the arms race, it was reset to three minutes before midnight.

The testing of the hydrogen bomb in 1952 led to resetting the Clock in the following January to just two minutes before doomsday. Relations between the U.S. and the USSR improved over the next few years, though, and in 1960 the hands on the Clock were moved back to seven minutes.

Over the next decades, the Doomsday Clock kept going up and down, reaching the farthest from midnight, 17 minutes, in 1991. But in 2002 it was back to seven minutes and has never been further since. In 2015 it was back down to three minutes where it started in 1947.

In January last year, the Clock was set at 90 seconds. the closest to midnight it had ever been, and it was kept at that setting last week. I expected it to be set even closer to “doomsday” because of the threat of expanding, and perhaps nuclear, war in the Levant.*

The threat of nuclear war was the main basis for setting the Doomsday Clock for the first 60 years. In 2007, however, climate change was added to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as another portentous threat to humankind, and the hands on the Clock were set at five minutes to midnight.

The announcement regarding this year’s setting of the Clock stated that there were four main considerations for determining that setting: 1) the many dimensions of nuclear threat, 2) an ominous climate change outlook, 3) evolving biological threats, and 4) the dangers of AI.**

How should we respond to the current setting of the Doomsday Clock? This question surely demands our thoughtful attention. Let me suggest three things:

1) Don’t ignore the Doomsday Clock. It would be easy to shrug off the Clock’s warning because of denial, indifference, or the unwillingness to face seriously the present predicament the world is in—or even just due to the pressure of meeting the demands of our everyday lives.

2) Don’t let the Doomsday Clock get you down. Depression, of course, is the result of feeling “down” for whatever reason. Too much attention to the Clock can certainly cause depression. Just as we shouldn’t ignore the clock, neither should we think about it “all the time.”

3) Work actively to elect candidates of the better political party, that is, the party working more consistently to deal with the dire problems besetting the whole world.

On the website linked to in the second footnote, we are told that the threats the world is currently facing “are of such a character and magnitude that no one nation or leader can bring them under control.”

They go on to state that “three of the world’s leading powers—the United States, China, and Russia—should commence serious dialogue about each of the global threats.”

Further, they contend that those three countries “need to take responsibility for the existential danger the world now faces. They have the capacity to pull the world back from the brink of catastrophe. They should do so, with clarity and courage, and without delay.”

I am not at all optimistic, though, that the three countries mentioned will even begin to do most of what is necessary to move the hands on the Doomsday Clock farther from midnight.

But I am quite sure there is much more possibility of that being done under the Democratic Party in the U.S. rather than by the MAGA party, which includes so many xenophobic people who, among other things, are also global warming and pandemic deniers--as well as deniers of the clear results of the 2020 presidential election. 

_____

  * I previously wrote about the Doomsday Clock in August 2020 (see here) and mentioned it briefly (here) in March 2018. Some things now are much the same, but there are some distinct differences also.

Note too that the Doomsday Clock elicits attention from around the world. See, for example, this Jan. 17 article from the Hindustan Times, an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi.

** See here for the official “2024 Doomsday Day Clock Statement” and related information. 

Election Reflections (Nov. 2022)

The results of Tuesday’s midterm elections in the U.S. are mostly, but not completely, known at this point. I thought about waiting until my Nov. 15 blog post to share my election reflections, but I decided to go ahead and write this on the day after those important November 8 elections. 

Although most of you Thinking Friends and other of my blog readers know which political party I identify with, please know that I write what I do here primarily from the viewpoint of a progressive Christian believer, not as the member of any political party.   

THE MOST ENCOURAGING RESULTS:

** Democracy is surviving. In spite of challenges, it seems that democracy is alive and well in the U.S. Historian Mark K. Updegrove tweeted that Tuesday’s “big winners” include, “Democracy, with huge voter turnout and many high-profile election deniers losing big.”

On Nov. 2, President Biden gave an important speech urging the citizenry to protect democracy. Yesterday, one week later, he gave another speech in which he said that Tuesday had been “a good day for democracy.”

** The Democrats will probably retain control of the Senate. Although we will not know until after the runoff election on Dec. 6 in Georgia, it seems likely that control will remain with the Democrats. This is of great importance for the President, especially for the appointment of judges.

** Two noteworthy results in Pennsylvania. Not only was the election of John Fetterman crucial for the Democrats retaining control of the Senate, the defeat of Doug Mastriano’s bid for the governorship was also a victory for religious freedom and maintaining the separation of church and state.

** Two noteworthy results (maybe) in Arizona. The likely re-election of Sen. Mark Kelly was also crucial for the Democrats, and the probable defeat of Kari Lake for the governorship was also significant as she is one of the most outspoken MAGA Republicans and “darling” of right-wing extremists.

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING RESULTS:

** The Republicans have gained control of the House. Although it may be several days before the final numbers are known, the Republicans now have a small majority in the House.

Why is this disappointing? Among other things, the January 6 Committee will likely be disbanded before completion of its work, legislation to fight global warming will probably lessen greatly, and perhaps there will be impeachment charges against Pres. Biden and Attorney General Garland.

However, the size of the GOP majority is far less than most political pundits expected.

Here are the opposition Party’s House gains in three recent midterm elections: the Dems. gained 31 seats in 2006, the Reps. gained 63 seats in 2010, and the Dems gained 41 seats in 2018. This year the expected “red wave” was more like what one of my friends called a “pink puddle.”

** The defeat of good candidates by questionable opponents. There are many names that might be noted here, but two of those are Mandela Barnes, who lost his bid for the Wisconsin Senate seat, and J.D. Vance, who won the Senate seat in Ohio.

Barnes (b. 1986) narrowly lost to incumbent Ron Johnson, a staunch ally of Donald Trump. Barnes was vying to become the first Black Senator from Wisconsin, but lost by just 1%, perhaps mainly because of the racist attack ads against him (see here).

I was impressed by Vance in the movie Hillbilly Elegy, based on his 2016 memoir. But even though he was originally a critic of Trump, in Oct. 2021 he expressed agreement with Trump’s claim that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. Subsequently, Trump endorsed Vance.

I was also sad that Stacey Abrams lost (for the second time) her bid to become the governor of Georgia. But I am hopeful that she will be instrumental in the re-election of Sen. Warnock in the Dec. runoff as she was in 2020.

Well, there is so much more that could (and maybe should) be said about this week’s midterm elections, but this, in part, is the view from this Seat/seat at this point. How do things look from where you are sitting?

The Extraordinarily Important Midterm Elections

It is only 19 days until the midterm elections in the U.S., and since there are some who will be voting early (and some may have already voted), I am writing about those extraordinarily important elections now—although I realize that this post will not likely change how anyone will vote. Still . . . .  

John Darkow in the Columbia Missourian (10/12)

The most important elections on November 8 are those for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, although there are also significant gubernatorial and other state elections as well.

For example, each state’s secretary of state is quite important as they could skew elections, as The Washington Post clearly delineated last month in an article titled "What an election denier could do if elected secretary of state.”

By far, though, the most important elections are in the 34 states that will be voting for a Senator. The voters in those states will determine which Party will be in control of the Senate for the next two years.

And, as is true every two years, all 435 Representatives in Congress will be elected in November.

The winners of many of those 469 elections are almost certain already. In my home state of Missouri, the Republican candidate for Senator has a 99% chance of winning according to FiveThirtyEight (538), the website that focuses on opinion poll analysis

And Rep. Sam Graves in Missouri’s sixth district (where I live) will almost certainly be re-elected for a twelfth term as a U.S. Representative. So, for us Missouri (and sixth district) voters, voting is important mainly for statewide and county offices.

But there are several states where the senatorial election is of great importance. According to 538, the closest, and thus the most significant, races currently are in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio.

The most troubling elections on November 8 are those that include candidates who do not accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

 “A majority of GOP nominees deny or question the 2020 election results” is the title of an October 12 article in The Washington Post. According to author Amy Gardner, there are 291 candidates who have challenged or refused to accept Joe Biden’s victory—51 percent of the 569 analyzed.

In spite of warnings that citizens should not vote for candidates who deny or question the outcome of the 2020 election even though there is ample evidence that it was a fair election and there is no proof whatsoever that it was “stolen,” sadly, many will vote for those nominees anyway.

The article mentioned above links to a list of the deniers in every state. The Missouri Republican candidate for the Senate and for the sixth district are both on that list—and as I indicated above, both are almost certain to win their respective races.

The November 8 elections are extraordinarily important because the future of democracy in the USA is in grave jeopardy if those who deny or disregard election results take control of Congress.

The October 10 opinion piece by eminent columnist Eugene Robinson (b. 1954) was titled, “The 2022 midterms are the most important of my lifetime.” (Click here to read that article without a paywall.) Here is part of what he wrote:

Vital issues are at stake on Election Day. Abortion rights are gravely threatened after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Voting rights, especially for minorities, are imperiled. Efforts to fight climate change and make the transition to a clean-energy economy would at least be slowed if Republicans took either the House or the Senate.
       But the overarching issue is what President Biden calls the fight for “the soul of this nation.” Do we continue our halting but undeniable progress toward making the Constitution’s guarantees of rights and freedoms apply to all Americans? Or do we reverse course?

“Will the U.S. Remain a Democracy?” was the title of my May 25 blog post. Now, nearly five months later, it is even more questionable that democracy will prevail in this country. To a large extent, the answer to the question depends on the outcome of the November 8—and the 2024—elections.

How will you vote?

From the C.S.A. to the R.S.A.?

As you know, C.S.A. stands for the Confederate States of America, which was formed 160 years ago. Here I am raising the question of whether now in the 2020s the U.S.A. may be headed toward becoming the R.S.A., the Republican States of America.

The Forming of the C.S.A.

In February 1861, seven U.S. states formed a new “nation,” calling it the Confederate States of America. Those states were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Four more states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) joined the C.S.A. later.

Back in 2004, Kansas University professor Kevin Willmott was the director and writer of the movie C.S.A. It was a “mockumentary” that portrayed an alternate history wherein the Confederacy won the Civil War and the Union became the Confederate States of America. 

Although it is certainly not depicted in the same way as in Willmott’s movie, American historian Heather Cox Richardson has authored a book titled How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (2020).

I have been on the waiting list for a library copy of Richardson’s book, so I have not read any of it yet—but I read her daily “Letters from an American,” which can be accessed here, and have learned much about U.S. history from her. (I highly recommend her daily “letter.”)

As depicted both in the creative movie and the historical book mentioned above, it is clear that the influence of the C.S.A. certainly did not end with its defeat at the end of the Civil War.

The Forming of the R.S.A.?

The influence of the C.S.A. seems to be “alive and well” in much of the Republican Party today. All the C.S.A. states of the 1860s voted for Trump in 2016 and all except Georgia did the same in 2020—although to this day Trump and a majority of Republicans believe the election there was “stolen.”

This article is not a condemnation of the Republican Party as such. The country needs a strong two-party system, with moderate Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats for the good of all who live in the nation—as well as for the good of the people of the world.

Oligarchy is “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes” (Merriam-Webster). Sadly, this seems to be the direction the Republican Party has been moving, especially since 2016.

Thus, I am writing this in opposition to the Republican politicians who seem to be greedy for power and willing to do anything necessary to achieve or maintain political power, even if it means largely destroying democracy.

Even though I think they are mistaken, we have to acknowledge that on the other side there are many supporters of the Republican Party who sincerely believe that the Democrats are “enemies,” and that drastic means may be necessary to save the country from tyranny and/or from “socialism.”

The power-hungry Republicans, beginning with Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell, seem to have done a good job in selling their skewed views to the Republican base, with the considerable help they have received from Fox News and their “opinion-makers” such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

Through voter suppression, gerrymandering, and voting results controlled by state legislatures, Republicans may well gain the majority in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. Those victories may be semi-permanent, leading to the forming of a de facto R.S.A., even if that name is not used.**

So, What Can Be Done?

If we want the USA to survive and not become the RSA, what can we do? Here are three succinct suggestions:

1) Keep advocating truth-telling, civilly opposing falsehoods and misleading statements, always championing peace and justice.

2) Keep voting for political leaders most concerned for the welfare of the populace, especially of those most oppressed by social or economic discrimination.

3) Keep being hopeful, firm in your belief that, in time, “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,” as expressed in Longfellow’s Christmas carol.

_____

** I hadn’t seen Republican States of America used anywhere until after I had finished writing this article, but here is what I then found in a 5/7/21 Washington Post piece: “Trump has emerged from his West Palm Beach hibernation — refashioning himself as the president of the Republican States of America.”

Voting Rights vs. Voting Wrongs

Ten days ago, I posted an article about the disagreement between the U.S. Democrats who stress social equality and the Republicans who stress religious freedom. This post is about the Republicans’ emphasis on “voting integrity” and the Democrats’ emphasis on voting rights.  

The Ongoing Charge of Voting “Wrongs”

As you all know, the vast majority of Republicans, led by the former President, claim that President Biden was elected because of voter fraud. They insist that the election was “stolen” and the voting “wrongs” of 2020 must be corrected by new voting legislation.

In an Economist/YouGov poll taken two weeks after last November’s election, 88% of Trump voters said that Biden did not legitimately win the election. He won because of voter fraud, which I am calling voting wrongs.

Perhaps that percentage is lower now, four months after the election, but a poll taken of the CPAC attendees at the end of February indicated that 62% of them thought the most important issue facing the nation is “election integrity,” that is, elections free from fraud.

Accordingly, more than 250 bills have been introduced in state legislatures to revise voting laws. All of these are ostensibly for the purpose of eliminating voting wrongs such as were seen, it is claimed, in the 2020 election.

The March 13 issue of The Economist has a major article about the “election wars” in the U.S. It is titled, “Heads we win, tails you cheated,” expressing their view of the Republican position.

Incontrovertibly, a large segment of U.S. citizens is far more concerned with eliminating voting wrongs than protecting voting rights. This widespread concern must be taken seriously.

The Ongoing Demand for Voting Rights

In spite of the charges of voting wrongs by the Republicans and largely because of what is seen as a concerted effort to constrict/suppress voting rights, the Democrats in Congress are actively working for expanding those rights.

In the House, the For the People Act of 2021 (H.R. 1) was passed on March 3 by a vote of 220-210, with all the Republicans and one Democrat voting Nay.

To no one’s surprise, President Biden is in favor of the House-passed bill becoming the law of the land. He stated, “The right to vote is sacred and fundamental—it is the right from which all of our other rights as Americans spring. This landmark legislation is urgently needed to protect that right.”

On March 4, the inimitable Heather Cox Richardson summarized major provisions of H.R. 1:

The measure streamlines voter registration with automatic and same-day voter registration. It restores the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted in 2013 by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision. It allows early voting and mail-in voting. It curbs dark money in elections and ends partisan gerrymandering by requiring independent redistricting commissions to draw state districts. It gets rid of insecure paperless voting.

Nevertheless, on March 3 before the House vote, former Vice President Pence wrote in a piece titled “Election Integrity Is a National Imperative” that H.R. 1 “would increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence in our elections, and forever dilute the votes of legally qualified eligible voters.”

Citing Pence, among others, the editorial board of the Washington Post wrote on March 4, “Republicans’ rhetoric on H.R. 1 is apocalyptic. Are they that afraid of democracy?”

It certainly seems so. The next day, Dana Milbank, a noted Washington Post opinion journalist, posted “Republicans aren’t fighting Democrats. They’re fighting democracy.”

The Ongoing Need to Protect Democracy

Make no mistake about it: the Democrats who passed H.R. 1 are mainly seeking to protect democracy. They are NOT for any sort of election fraud, such as  

                 * people voting more than once in the same election   
                 * dead people voting  
                 * non-citizens voting for nationwide or statewide candidates 
                 * some ballots being destroyed or not counted 
                 * some ballots being counted more than once 
                 * voters being registered in illegal ways or more than once

They just want every citizen to have the right to vote. That is foundational for democracy.

_____

* Here is the link to the maiden speech of Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on March 17. In that address, he speaks out strongly in support of H.R. 1, which is now S. 1, and ardently appeals for the protection of democracy by the passage of the voting rights bill. I hope you will take the time to listen to Sen. Warnock.

Does Equality Vitiate Religious Freedom?

The U.S. Democrats want equality. The Republicans oppose equality because they want to protect religious freedom. But does equality vitiate (= destroy or invalidate) religious freedom? Or does/should religious freedom vitiate equality? Those are questions now confronting the polarized U.S. Senate. 

From BreakPoint's website, 
which strongly opposes the Equality Act

The House-Passed Equality Act

On February 25, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a far-reaching measure that has been decades in the making and would prohibit public discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Prior to the House vote, on Feb. 19 Pres. Biden issued this official statement: “The Equality Act provides long overdue federal civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, locking in critical safeguards in our housing, education, public services, and lending systems.”

Leaders from groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign argue that the Equality Act ensures that gay and transgender Americans are no longer fired, kicked out of their housing, or otherwise discriminated against due to their sexuality or gender identity.

The Equality Act of 2021 was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 224-206. Every Democrat in the House voted for it, but only three Republicans did.

The Senate-Opposed Equality Act

As things stand now, the Equality Act is not likely to be passed by the U.S. Senate. That is because of the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation. Far more than 40 of the 50 Republican Senators are opposed to the House-passed bill.

Perhaps the main reason for the Republican opposition is their unwillingness to approve anything favored by Democrats. But the primary reason given publicly for their opposition centers around “religious freedom” concerns.

If full equality of LGBTQ persons becomes the law of the land, religious leaders and/or institutions can no longer discriminate against, or denounce, such people.

Such discrimination or denouncement is based on religious beliefs that homosexual activity and gender transitioning are contrary to God’s will, the Bible, and/or traditional religious practices.

Does Equality Vitiate Religious Freedom?

I have been a long and persistent advocate for religious liberty. People should be free to hold religious beliefs and to engage in religious activities without interference by others, including—or especially—governmental interference.

But what if one’s religious beliefs/practices infringe upon the civil rights of other people? Shouldn’t the civil rights of all take precedence over the religious rights of some?

The U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. That was a good and important bill that has helped eliminate much—but, unfortunately, not all—harmful discrimination in this country.

But there were those who thought that that bill impinged upon their freedom of religion.

For example, ultra-conservative Bob Jones University in South Carolina, which thought that the Bible opposes the mixing of the races, as most Southerners thought from before the Civil War, continued to oppose racial equality until the year 2000.

In a radio broadcast on Easter Sunday in 1960, Bob Jones Sr., the school’s founder, explained: “If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty because He made racial separation in order to preserve the race through whom He could send the Messiah and through whom He could send the Bible.”

Jones had the right and the constitutional freedom to make such a statement. But the government had the right to champion the civil rights of all citizens, and eventually Bob Jones University had to enroll Black students and then even permit interracial dating.

Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. didn’t have to change their religious beliefs, but they did have to change their school’s practices because of its negative impact on other people.

Isn’t it the same now with regards to LBGTQ people? People should be free to hold whatever religious beliefs they wish. But in practice, civil rights, the right of full social equality, must be upheld for all people.

Equality doesn’t vitiate religious freedom. But the religious freedom of some must never be allowed to vitiate the civil right of equality for all.

_____

Here are some pertinent online articles that deal with the central issue of this post:

Equality Act stirs passions about the definition of religious liberty and RFRA’s role (Mark Wingfield, Baptist News Global, March 8)

LGBTQ rights bill ignites debate over religious liberty (David Crary, Religion News Service, March 8)

What’s in store for the Equality Act, and why do some religions want a revision? (Yonat Shimron, Religion News Service, Feb. 26)

Do No Harm Act (Human Rights Campaign, Feb. 25)

The Feats of Clay

In February 2014 I posted an article about Cassius Clay / Mohammad Ali, who accomplished many outstanding feats. The famous boxer was the namesake of Cassius Marcellus Clay, a noted Kentucky politician and abolitionist. This article is about Henry Clay, the latter’s second cousin.

CLAY’S EARLY FEATS

Henry Clay was born in Virginia 240 years ago, in April 1777, the son of a Baptist minister. Soon after being admitted to the Virginia Bar to practice law in 1797, he moved to Kentucky, where he soon became politically active.

In 1803 at the age of 26 Clay was elected to the Kentucky legislature. Three years later he was chosen to serve briefly in the U.S. Senate even though he was not legally old enough for that position. He was then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1811—and was chosen to be Speaker of the House when he was only 35.

Several years later, Clay proposed the “Missouri Compromise,” which allowed Maine to become a state in 1820 and Missouri in 1821. Partly because of Clay’s part in Missouri statehood, a new county formed in 1822 was named Clay County. (That is the county where I have lived since 2005).

CLAY’S POLITICAL DEFEATS

Henry Clay long sought to be President of the United States. He first ran for that office in 1824, but he lost to John Quincy Adams. There were four candidates that year, and Clay came in fourth, carrying only three states (including Missouri).

Eight years later Clay ran against incumbent Andrew Jackson—and again lost (badly) in a four-way race. But that time he came in second.

Clay strongly opposed the Jackson administration—and Jackson himself, referring to him derisively as “King Andrew.” That opposition led to the formation of the Whig Party in 1834, and Clay was its primary leader until his death in 1852.

In 1840 the Whigs elected their first President, William Henry Harrison—who died just 31 days after his inauguration. The Whigs chose not to support Harrison’s successor, John Tyler, so Clay became a candidate for President a third time—and lost (to James Polk) for a third time. 

CLAY’S INFLUENCE

While he never became President—and in 1840 he famously said, “I’d rather be right than President”—Clay had considerable influence as a Representative and then as a Senator. In 2000 the Senate adopted a resolution naming the seven greatest senators of all time. Clay was one of those seven.

Clay also had considerable influence on Abraham Lincoln, a young member of the Whig Party. “Honest Abe” joined that Party in the year of its formation and was a Whig during his years in the Illinois legislature, 1834-41.

When Clay died in 1852, Lincoln delivered a eulogy at his funeral. After Lincoln became President, he continued to praise Clay and to quote from his speeches.

Sam Graves is the current U.S. Representative for much of north Missouri, including most of Clay County. In his March 20 “e-newsletter,” Rep. Graves wrote, “On March 20, 1854, a group of former Whig Party loyalists came together . . . to replace the failing Whig Party—plotting a new path forward during a perilous and uncertain time in American history.”

Then he went on to write, “What emerged from that meeting was the modern-day Republican Party.”

Rep. Graves’s first statement is historically accurate. His second assertion is very questionable. The primary political positions of Clay and Lincoln, the first Republican President, were certainly not the same as held by today’s Republican Party.

Rep. Graves needs to learn more about the feats, and political ideas/ideals, of Henry Clay.

Truth is the First Casualty

“The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Those words are attributed to Hiram Johnson in 1917. He was a U.S. Senator from California (1917-45) and was strongly opposed to the United States entering World War I.

Perhaps it can also be said that truth is the first casualty when there is a political convention. I say this partly because of my reflection upon last week’s Republican National Convention. Unfortunately, the same will probably also be true at the Democratic National Convention this week, although to a lesser degree I hope and pray.

Early in his acceptance speech the Republican nominee declared, “Here at our convention, there will be no lies.” But the next day a Huffington Post article had this headline: “Donald Trump Promises Not To Lie, Right Before Lying A Bunch Of Times.”

Was Trump really lying in his acceptance speech? Perhaps, but that depends partly on what one means by lying. If a lie is something one deliberately says in spite of knowing that it is false and with the intent of misleading other people, then Trump probably did lie about a number of things.

But he may well have thought that what he said was true, for he most likely didn’t look up all the facts and figures used in his speech. The fact-checkers did look them up, though, and many statements were found to be incorrect, misleading, and/or just plain false.

Truth, or the lack thereof, has been an issue with Donald Trump for a long time, as the fact-checkers have abundantly shown. The following chart indicates his and 19 other politicians’ untruthfulness/truthfulness. 

This chart was uploaded on imgur.com (see here) on June 7, but I have not been able to authenticate the accuracy of these figures. Neither have I been able to discover who Robert Mann is. (He may be, or perhaps is not, a journalism professor at LSU.)

It must also be noted that all falsehoods are not of the same seriousness, and this chart deals with only the quantity of the lies told, not with qualitative differences. Still . . . .

If you want to consider only the two presidential candidates, here are figures from a July 1 article in the Washington Post: 

Writing last Friday about the RNC, Jim Wallis averred that “the continual outright lies and vicious personal attacks this week have been extraordinary.”

One of those lies was told by Ted Cruz on July 20: “Our party was founded to defeat slavery. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. We passed the Civil Rights Act, and fought to eliminate Jim Crow laws. Those were fights for freedom, and so is this,” he said.

This false claim that the Republican Party (as well as the Democratic Party) of today is the same as it was in Lincoln’s day is widespread. For example, on his July 22 radio show Rush Limbaugh declared, “The Democratic Party was the Party of the KKK—and it still is!”

(For an excellent explanation of the reversal of the two parties through the years, check out the article linked to here.)

Rush also highly recommended “Hillary’s America,” the new movie by Dinesh D’Souza that opened on July 22. D’Souza spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting I attended in June, so I was not surprised to receive a FFC email last week with this headline: “D’Souza reveals the sordid truth about Hillary & the secret history of the Democratic Party.” 

But the “sordid truth” that D’Souza reveals is full of lies. Once again truth is a casualty. 

What about Pence for VP?

Donald Trump was scheduled to announce his pick for a running mate this morning, but that has reportedly been postponed. Assuming Trump will be confirmed as the Republican nominee in Cleveland next week, the person he announces, whenever that is, will become the nominee for Vice President.

Although he may surprise many people, including me, Trump will most likely announce Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his VP choice. And this seems to be a good pick, better than the others said to be on his short list.

Yesterday the Washington Post posted an online article titled “Mike Pence is everything Donald Trump is not.” The article is by Andrew Downs, director of the non-partisan Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University-Purdue University. 

In Downs’s opinion, Pence would balance the Republican ticket in almost every way. I think that is an accurate assessment.

Quite clearly, Pence is at least many of the things Trump is not: youngish (he turned 57 in June just a week before Trump turned 70), the husband of one wife (as opposed to Trump’s three wives), an articulate speaker (here is the C-Span link to this year’s “State of the State” address), and a seasoned politician with 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and now in his fourth year as a state governor.

In addition, while Trump’s Christian, and especially his evangelical, credentials are somewhat questionable, Pence is clearly a committed Christian believer. He self-identifies as a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican—and “in that order,” he says.

Pence was raised Catholic, but in the spring of 1978, while in college and still 18, he had a deep spiritual conversion that eventually led him to become an evangelical Christian.

He was also a Democrat when a young man. In 1980 when he voted in his first presidential election at age 21, he voted for Jimmy Carter.

Pence as the VP candidate should help Trump snare most of the white evangelical vote—although a Pew Research article posted yesterday indicated that already 78% of such registered voters would vote for Trump—5% more than said at this time four years ago that they would vote for Romney.

He has been called “a favorite hard-core conservative.” He takes a very strong anti-abortion rights position and in 2011 he led the federal government to the brink of shutdown in a failed attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

Pence is also strongly anti-gay and was a supporter of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana—at least until it became necessary for him to waffle because of economic considerations.

He signed RFRA on March 26, 2015, and there was an outcry that the bill was discriminatory against gays and lesbians. So a week later he signed a bill that acted as an amendment intending to protect LGBT people.

Signing the first bill angered many Hoosiers who are not evangelicals, and signing the second bill angered many who are conservative Christians. Partly because of that issue, Pence doesn’t have a high approval rating in Indiana at this time (only about 40%).

Last week at the Dearborn [Mo.] Christian Church I led the adult Sunday School class discussion about “Christians and the 2016 elections.” One woman remarked that she thinks it is important for people to consider carefully who the candidates for Vice President are as well as who the nominees for President are. I agree.

Even though I wouldn’t vote for Trump regardless of who he picked for VP, Governor Pence is probably a good choice for the Republican Party.

Taxation and Representation

When I was in Washington, D.C., this month, once again I saw many license plates with the words “taxation without representation” on them. The newest plates with those words look like this: 

The issue, of course, is that the citizens of D.C. must pay federal income tax just as all U.S. citizens do, but they do not have representation in Congress. The words “taxation without representation” were first used on some D.C. license plates in 2000—but, as you know, it was expressing a sentiment from long ago.

A Boston pastor used the phrase “no taxation without representation” in a sermon as early as 1750. After the Stamp Act of 1765 it became common for the colonists to exclaim that “taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Have you seen the new U.S. postage stamps that were issued on May 29? They commemorate the 250th anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. These new “forever” stamps are sold only as souvenir sheets of 10 stamps and are $4.70. 

The USPS website explains: “The commemorative stamp art depicts a crowd gathered around a ‘liberty tree’ to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act.” Such “liberty trees” were “found in a number of cities throughout the colonies, and were popular gathering spots for community meetings, political discussions, celebrations and more.”

The new British legislation required American colonists to pay a tax on a wide array of paper materials, such as newspapers, legal documents, mortgages, contracts—and even playing cards. A revenue stamp embossed on those papers indicated payment of the tax.

Many colonists were not happy with the new tax, to say the least. Accordingly, the USPS website also says that the Stamp Act, which was passed by the British Parliament in March 1765, “proved historic in galvanizing and uniting the American colonies, setting them on a path toward independence.”

The first chapter of The Beginnings of the American Revolution (1910) by Ellen Chase is sub-titled “Stamp Act Causes Riot,” and then the second chapter is “The Colonies Unite Successfully for Repeal.” Thus, actions resulting from the negative reaction toward the Stamp Act was a major impetus toward the colonists’ declaration of independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.

The tax levied by the Stamp Act was not exorbitant; it was the principle that rankled the colonists. As Chase says, “The exception was not taken to the tax in itself. . . . The objections rose solely from Parliament’s assumption of supremacy in the Colonies’ internal affairs” (p. 23).

For a long time after independence from Great Britain, however, U.S. citizens mostly had representation without taxation. There was an excise tax placed on whiskey in 1791—but that led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The first personal income tax resulted from the Revenue Act signed into law by President Lincoln in August 1861. He who wanted government “of the people, by the people, for the people” needed to raise money to pay for the Civil War activities of the Union.

The first permanent income tax in this country, though, was not established until 1913—and the first general sales tax not until 1930.

In D.C. now, though, there is taxation but no representation on the federal level. Statehood for the District is one possible solution to the problem.

However, the “party of Lincoln” that freed the slaves in spite of strong objection by the Democratic Party then does not want to grant statehood now to a territory that would most probably send Democrats to the U.S. Congress. As I wrote earlier, the Parties have switched positions.