OT French Press - Sunday Newsletter

[ABM]

I've really come to appreciate David French's pieces. He's a Conservative Christian writer. But, get this, he does NOT like Trump, so we can nip that in the bud right away.

Anywho, I'm sure many of you will blow this off, but I do think he makes some very good overall points. I feel he's very fair and balanced, while still being a Christian.

It was e-mailed to me, so I'll just paste the entire article here:

Christians, Gun Rights, and the American Social Compact
Kyle Rittenhouse and the deadly wages of recklessness.

David French
Sep 6



I’m going to begin with my two favorite quotes from two American founders—the two quotes that I believe set up the fundamental nature of the American social compact. The first is the most famous. It’s Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

He didn’t stop there, however. The very next words are key: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The meaning is clear. Each and every human being possesses God-given rights, and a fundamental purpose of government is to protect those rights. That’s the government’s side of the social compact, and these aspirational words were operationalized in the Bill of Rights. The Declaration is the American mission statement. The Constitution made it law.

But there’s another side to the American social compact. We know the obligation of the government, but what about the obligation of the citizen? Here’s where we turn to Thomas Jefferson’s rival, John Adams. And Adams gives us the second quote that frames our constitutional republic. Writing to the Massachusetts militia, he says, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

But that’s not all he said. In a less-famous section, he wrote, “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.” Our government wasn’t built to force men to be moral. Instead, it depends on man’s morality for the system to work.

Thus, the American social compact—the government recognizes and defends fundamental individual liberty, and the individual then exercises that liberty virtuously, for virtuous purposes. Or, to kinda-sorta paraphrase Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, with great liberty comes great responsibility.

That brings me to American gun rights and to Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who killed two people and wounded one during a series of encounters with protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Let me be clear: I’m not going to use this newsletter to adjudicate his case. The investigation is ongoing, and there is both evidence that he acted in self-defense during the fatal encounters, and evidence he threatened at least one innocent individual prior to the encounters by pointing his weapon at him without justification. There is still much we don’t know.

But here are some things we do know. By arming himself and wading into a riot, Rittenhouse behaved irresponsibly and recklessly. I agree completely with Tim Carney’s assessment here:

The 17-year-old charged with two homicides in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was not a hero vigilante, nor was he a predatory white supremacist. He was, the evidence suggests, a foolish boy whose foolish decisions have taken two lives and ruined his own.

If you go armed with a rifle to police a violent protest, you are behaving recklessly. The bad consequences stemming from that decision are at least partly your fault.

Moreover, when Christians celebrate or even merely rationalize his actions they are also behaving irresponsibly and recklessly. Even if Rittenhouse is legally vindicated, his decision to exercise a right resulted in a grave wrong.

Why would I say that Christians are celebrating Rittenhouse? For one thing, a Christian crowdfunding site has raised more than $450,000 for his legal defense. Christian writers have called him a “good Samaritan” and argued that he’s a “decent, idealistic kid who entered that situation with the desire to do good, and, in fact, did do good.” (Emphasis added.)

Rittenhouse’s case comes on the heels of the Republican decision to showcase Mark and Patricia McCloskey at the Republican National Convention, the St. Louis couple that has been criminally charged for brandishing weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters who were marching outside their home.

The McCloskeys are obviously entitled to a legal defense, and I am not opining on the legal merits of their case (again, there is much we don’t know), but as a gun-owner, I cringed at their actions. They weren’t heroic. They were reckless. Pointing a weapon at another human being is a gravely serious act. It’s inherently dangerous, and if done unlawfully it often triggers in its targets an immediate right of violent (and potentially deadly) self-defense.

At the same time, we’re seeing an increasing number of openly-armed, rifle-toting conservative vigilantes not just aggressively confronting far-left crowds in the streets, but also using their weapons to intimidate lawmakers into canceling a legislative session.

In other words, we are watching gun-owners, sometimes cheered on by Christian conservatives, breaking the social compact. They aren’t exercising their rights responsibly, they’re pushing them to the (sometimes literally) bleeding edge, pouring gasoline on a civic fire, and creating real fear in their fellow citizens.

This is exactly when a healthy conservative Christian community rises up and quite simply says, “No.” With one voice it condemns vigilantism and models civic responsibility.

Defend due process for Rittenhouse and the McCloskeys, yes, but do not celebrate, rationalize, or excuse those who go openly armed into the public square—as vigilantes or as protesters. Americans enjoy greater rights to possess or carry weapons than any time in the modern history of the United States, yet exercising those rights can be terrifying to friends and neighbors unless they’re exercised responsibly and respectfully.

Or, to put it another way, absent an imminent, immediate threat to liberty, the focus of Christian gun owners should be on their responsibilities, not their rights.

In fact, that focus extends well beyond the Second Amendment. It’s a general principle applicable to every exercise of individual or collective liberty. While it’s entirely justifiable for Christian churches to challenge discriminatory pandemic regulations that favor secular mass gatherings over religious worship (such as Nevada’s preferential treatment of casinos), it’s not justifiable for churches to engage in reckless conduct as they defend their freedom.

To take one prominent example, pastor John MacArthur is entirely within his rights to challenge California’s pandemic restrictions on religious worship. But when he does so through also encouraging defiance of regulations and norms on social distancing and masking, he’s reckless. He’s endangering the health and lives of not just his congregants, but also of members of the public who encounter his congregants. In fact, MacArthur is quite proud that his congregation hasn’t distanced and doesn’t wear masks:



No one can argue that MacArthur isn’t religious, but this is certainly not moral. He’s breaking the social compact.

Regular readers of this newsletter know that I’m somewhat obsessed with a rather simple question—is there such thing as a distinctive Christian presence in American political culture apart from Christian advocacy of specific issues? Or does the entirety of, for example, the conservative Christian presence in Republican politics boil down to the defense of specific liberties and the quest to overturn Roe?

The distinctive Christian presence has to include modeling the responsible, virtuous exercise of the rights its political movements seek to secure. It has to include using its voice and power to advocate for that responsibility and to oppose recklessness. Simply put, the republic was not designed to thrive if those who are religious are not also moral.

Thankfully, countless Christian gun-owners are upholding the social compact. They focus on their responsibilities, and they do not recklessly seek out conflict. Indeed, the best evidence indicates that concealed-carry permit holders are more law-abiding than the police. Countless Christian congregants and pastors are also upholding the social compact in the midst of the pandemic. They’ve show incredible patience in abiding by even facially-unfair pandemic regulations, and they’ve gone above and beyond in their quest to protect the health of their friends and neighbors.

It’s worth asking whether this actual moral majority is the true face of American Christian politics, however, or whether their passivity has allowed different voices to dominate. It’s not enough to be individually responsible. It’s important to be corporately and publicly prudent, including by condemning the actions of those who are not. America’s Evangelicals are the most powerful faction in what is (for now) the world’s most powerful political party. If they permit irresponsible actors to become the face of American liberty, they undermine the very freedoms they seek to save.

 

[RR7]

Just skimmed the article, but finishes with a solid quote

If they permit irresponsible actors to become the face of American liberty, they undermine the very freedoms they seek to save.

And is, unfortunately, something that it seems they've been willingly permitting further and further over a small number of issues.

 

[lawai'a]

I've really come to appreciate David French's pieces. He's a Conservative Christian writer. But, get this, he does NOT like Trump, so we can nip that in the bud right away.

Anywho, I'm sure many of you will blow this off, but I do think he makes some very good overall points. I feel he's very fait and balanced, while still being a Christian.

It was e-mailed to me, so I'll just paste the entire article here:

Christians, Gun Rights, and the American Social Compact
Kyle Rittenhouse and the deadly wages of recklessness.

David French
Sep 6


I’m going to begin with my two favorite quotes from two American founders—the two quotes that I believe set up the fundamental nature of the American social compact. The first is the most famous. It’s Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

He didn’t stop there, however. The very next words are key: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The meaning is clear. Each and every human being possesses God-given rights, and a fundamental purpose of government is to protect those rights. That’s the government’s side of the social compact, and these aspirational words were operationalized in the Bill of Rights. The Declaration is the American mission statement. The Constitution made it law.

But there’s another side to the American social compact. We know the obligation of the government, but what about the obligation of the citizen? Here’s where we turn to Thomas Jefferson’s rival, John Adams. And Adams gives us the second quote that frames our constitutional republic. Writing to the Massachusetts militia, he says, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

But that’s not all he said. In a less-famous section, he wrote, “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.” Our government wasn’t built to force men to be moral. Instead, it depends on man’s morality for the system to work.

Thus, the American social compact—the government recognizes and defends fundamental individual liberty, and the individual then exercises that liberty virtuously, for virtuous purposes. Or, to kinda-sorta paraphrase Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, with great liberty comes great responsibility.

That brings me to American gun rights and to Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who killed two people and wounded one during a series of encounters with protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Let me be clear: I’m not going to use this newsletter to adjudicate his case. The investigation is ongoing, and there is both evidence that he acted in self-defense during the fatal encounters, and evidence he threatened at least one innocent individual prior to the encounters by pointing his weapon at him without justification. There is still much we don’t know.

But here are some things we do know. By arming himself and wading into a riot, Rittenhouse behaved irresponsibly and recklessly. I agree completely with Tim Carney’s assessment here:

The 17-year-old charged with two homicides in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was not a hero vigilante, nor was he a predatory white supremacist. He was, the evidence suggests, a foolish boy whose foolish decisions have taken two lives and ruined his own.

If you go armed with a rifle to police a violent protest, you are behaving recklessly. The bad consequences stemming from that decision are at least partly your fault.

Moreover, when Christians celebrate or even merely rationalize his actions they are also behaving irresponsibly and recklessly. Even if Rittenhouse is legally vindicated, his decision to exercise a right resulted in a grave wrong.

Why would I say that Christians are celebrating Rittenhouse? For one thing, a Christian crowdfunding site has raised more than $450,000 for his legal defense. Christian writers have called him a “good Samaritan” and argued that he’s a “decent, idealistic kid who entered that situation with the desire to do good, and, in fact, did do good.” (Emphasis added.)

Rittenhouse’s case comes on the heels of the Republican decision to showcase Mark and Patricia McCloskey at the Republican National Convention, the St. Louis couple that has been criminally charged for brandishing weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters who were marching outside their home.

The McCloskeys are obviously entitled to a legal defense, and I am not opining on the legal merits of their case (again, there is much we don’t know), but as a gun-owner, I cringed at their actions. They weren’t heroic. They were reckless. Pointing a weapon at another human being is a gravely serious act. It’s inherently dangerous, and if done unlawfully it often triggers in its targets an immediate right of violent (and potentially deadly) self-defense.

At the same time, we’re seeing an increasing number of openly-armed, rifle-toting conservative vigilantes not just aggressively confronting far-left crowds in the streets, but also using their weapons to intimidate lawmakers into canceling a legislative session.

In other words, we are watching gun-owners, sometimes cheered on by Christian conservatives, breaking the social compact. They aren’t exercising their rights responsibly, they’re pushing them to the (sometimes literally) bleeding edge, pouring gasoline on a civic fire, and creating real fear in their fellow citizens.

This is exactly when a healthy conservative Christian community rises up and quite simply says, “No.” With one voice it condemns vigilantism and models civic responsibility.

Defend due process for Rittenhouse and the McCloskeys, yes, but do not celebrate, rationalize, or excuse those who go openly armed into the public square—as vigilantes or as protesters. Americans enjoy greater rights to possess or carry weapons than any time in the modern history of the United States, yet exercising those rights can be terrifying to friends and neighbors unless they’re exercised responsibly and respectfully.

Or, to put it another way, absent an imminent, immediate threat to liberty, the focus of Christian gun owners should be on their responsibilities, not their rights.

In fact, that focus extends well beyond the Second Amendment. It’s a general principle applicable to every exercise of individual or collective liberty. While it’s entirely justifiable for Christian churches to challenge discriminatory pandemic regulations that favor secular mass gatherings over religious worship (such as Nevada’s preferential treatment of casinos), it’s not justifiable for churches to engage in reckless conduct as they defend their freedom.

To take one prominent example, pastor John MacArthur is entirely within his rights to challenge California’s pandemic restrictions on religious worship. But when he does so through also encouraging defiance of regulations and norms on social distancing and masking, he’s reckless. He’s endangering the health and lives of not just his congregants, but also of members of the public who encounter his congregants. In fact, MacArthur is quite proud that his congregation hasn’t distanced and doesn’t wear masks:



No one can argue that MacArthur isn’t religious, but this is certainly not moral. He’s breaking the social compact.

Regular readers of this newsletter know that I’m somewhat obsessed with a rather simple question—is there such thing as a distinctive Christian presence in American political culture apart from Christian advocacy of specific issues? Or does the entirety of, for example, the conservative Christian presence in Republican politics boil down to the defense of specific liberties and the quest to overturn Roe?

The distinctive Christian presence has to include modeling the responsible, virtuous exercise of the rights its political movements seek to secure. It has to include using its voice and power to advocate for that responsibility and to oppose recklessness. Simply put, the republic was not designed to thrive if those who are religious are not also moral.

Thankfully, countless Christian gun-owners are upholding the social compact. They focus on their responsibilities, and they do not recklessly seek out conflict. Indeed, the best evidence indicates that concealed-carry permit holders are more law-abiding than the police. Countless Christian congregants and pastors are also upholding the social compact in the midst of the pandemic. They’ve show incredible patience in abiding by even facially-unfair pandemic regulations, and they’ve gone above and beyond in their quest to protect the health of their friends and neighbors.

It’s worth asking whether this actual moral majority is the true face of American Christian politics, however, or whether their passivity has allowed different voices to dominate. It’s not enough to be individually responsible. It’s important to be corporately and publicly prudent, including by condemning the actions of those who are not. America’s Evangelicals are the most powerful faction in what is (for now) the world’s most powerful political party. If they permit irresponsible actors to become the face of American liberty, they undermine the very freedoms they seek to save.

I enjoyed it. Not for calling anyone out or chastising anyone or any group, but for calling to mind the responsibilities of all Americans in the exorcising of their freedoms. I think that the parallel/corollary might be the muted response to the violence that has accompanied the racial justice protests. It would seem that the same excusing of the issues he presented has been present in the discussions around the violence and its acceptance as part of the “answer” to effect change. IMHO most of the country finds this to be unacceptable. These same irresponsible actors need to be rebuked even more forcefully by all, again, IMHO.

 

[Chris Craig]

Some good points.

Interesting the author offers that "all men are created equal", but doesn't elucidate on that point further.

When the constitution was written African Americans were not included, nor were women for that matter. Both were seen as possessions of men rather than seen as people.

 

[lawai'a]

Some good points.

Interesting the author offers that "all men are created equal, but doesn't elucidate on that point further.

When the constitution was written African American were not included, nor were women for that matter. Both seen as possessions of men rather seen as people.

i think it was a piece written as an evangelical writer to a fellow evangelical audience showing some of the problematic positions that have been taken.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I haven't read it yet but I just want to point out that dog spelled backwards is god.

 

[Chris Craig]

I haven't read it yet but I just want to point out that dog spelled backwards is god.

Cue lightning strike for Blasphemy

 

[Strenuus]

I haven't read it yet but I just want to point out that dog spelled backwards is god.

You gotta say this right before you go to Vegas?

If the odds didn't favor the house already.....

 

[ABM]

I haven't read it yet but I just want to point out that dog spelled backwards is god.

What's the definition of an agnostic, dyslexic insomniac?

 

[ABM]

Someone who lays awake at night wondering of there really is a dog.

 

[ABM]

I’m going to begin with my two favorite quotes from two American founders—the two quotes that I believe set up the fundamental nature of the American social compact..

Fascinating.

I'm curious, and delving into the subjects of social compact...and social construct....

SOCIAL COMPACT THEORY
https://www.encyclopedia.com/politi...cs-transcripts-and-maps/social-compact-theory


Why Social Constructs Are Created
https://www.verywellfamily.com/defi...ruct is something,humans agree that it exists.

What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct'
In a world where Kevin Garnett, Harold Ford, and Halle Berry all check "black" on the census, even the argument that racial labels refer to natural differences in physical traits doesn't hold up.
https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...hen-we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/275872/

 

[lawai'a]

Fascinating.

I'm curious, and delving into the subjects of social compact...and social construct....

SOCIAL COMPACT THEORY
https://www.encyclopedia.com/politi...cs-transcripts-and-maps/social-compact-theory


Why Social Constructs Are Created
https://www.verywellfamily.com/definition-of-social-construct-1448922#:~:text=A social construct is something,humans agree that it exists.

What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct'
In a world where Kevin Garnett, Harold Ford, and Halle Berry all check "black" on the census, even the argument that racial labels refer to natural differences in physical traits doesn't hold up.
https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...hen-we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/275872/

in reading your list, do you believe that, as Coates posits, that race is only a social construct? not following your last otherwise, sorry. one question i came away with from coates' piece with your 2 other articles is that when we move outside of natural law, does our social constructs redefine race as tribalism?
adam's take on the deeper meanings of the constitution in the original post reminded me also that our definitions have changed greatly in relation to the original document in relation to the demographic makeup of the originally governed, not just physical but tribal, with our greatest differences now coming to the fore in relation to what were once accepted morals that guided society. if those social compacts are broken, is our system salvageable at its most basic level? i would say that the most basic social compact within any society would be the family, but even here the definition has changed radically in the last generation.
is our system of government supposed to protect the rights of self preferentially or, instead for the benefit of the the larger demographic when there is a perceived conflict between self and the common good? i think we may have a whole "states rights" thing going on here, where federal laws are forced upon smaller groups that chose the basis for their social compacts on different definitions of morality and natural law too. afraid of where these trains of thought are running in my head right now.

 

[andalusian]

I haven't read it yet but I just want to point out that dog spelled backwards is god.

Mexicans do worship the god awawihc.

 

[ABM]

in reading your list, do you believe that, as Coates posits, that race is only a social construct? not following your last otherwise, sorry. one question i came away with from coates' piece with your 2 other articles is that when we move outside of natural law, does our social constructs redefine race as tribalism?
adam's take on the deeper meanings of the constitution in the original post reminded me also that our definitions have changed greatly in relation to the original document in relation to the demographic makeup of the originally governed, not just physical but tribal, with our greatest differences now coming to the fore in relation to what were once accepted morals that guided society. if those social compacts are broken, is our system salvageable at its most basic level? i would say that the most basic social compact within any society would be the family, but even here the definition has changed radically in the last generation.
is our system of government supposed to protect the rights of self preferentially or, instead for the benefit of the the larger demographic when there is a perceived conflict between self and the common good? i think we may have a whole "states rights" thing going on here, where federal laws are forced upon smaller groups that chose the basis for their social compacts on different definitions of morality and natural law too. afraid of where these trains of thought are running in my head right now.

Wow, some deep thoughts there. As I mentioned, I'm just beginning to read about all of this. I'll need to process your responses to it all. Stay tuned on that.

 

[ABM]

.....i would say that the most basic social compact within any society would be the family, but even here the definition has changed radically in the last generation.

I agree with you.

One of the peculiar aspects to me regarding BLM is their statements regarding the "nuclear" family:

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-w...pw_-IXcIFn3YGNV2vlcR2hCvu38Lk7193d9FqBLqb5cFw

It's a question that is being discussed among the ranks. I'm still not yet certain what I believe BLM's aim is in this regard....

Ask PolitiFact: Does Black Lives Matter aim to destroy the nuclear family?

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/28/ask-politifact-does-black-lives-matter-aim-destroy/

 

[lawai'a]

I agree with you.

One of the peculiar aspects to me regarding BLM is their statements regarding the "nuclear" family:

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-w...pw_-IXcIFn3YGNV2vlcR2hCvu38Lk7193d9FqBLqb5cFw

It's a question that is being discussed among the ranks. I'm still not yet certain what I believe BLM's aim is in this regard....

Ask PolitiFact: Does Black Lives Matter aim to destroy the nuclear family?

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/28/ask-politifact-does-black-lives-matter-aim-destroy/

i see nothing inherently wrong with the large extended and interconnected model as opposed to the nuclear model. the multigenerational model of the family unit makes more sense in many ways, considering the costs of housing and child care. i don't see this as detrimental to child rearing/nurturing. if your definition of extended family is more of a communal approach, i would need to see specifics in order to advocate for it. if the kids are getting sent off to facilities where they are to be raised and educated as maoist china or the old soviet models of societal indoctrination then no. i once asked a poster during an educational discussion, who gets to decide what the children need to learn and what must be excluded and it was an unsatisfactory answer in that no one reasonable was suggested.
here in hawaii, the largest ethnic group is not caucasion, but asian american, and the respect that the culture shows to the elder has carried over into much of the islands society. multi generational family units are the norm not the exception. they trend toward matriarchal in structure and i don't see this as a problem.

 

[ABM]

I wanted to reiterate that I really appreciate David French's pieces. That said, in the spirit of ongoing evaluations on my part, here is his latest offering:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

This Is What We Mean When We Say ‘Character Is Destiny’
At a key moment, with hundreds of thousands of lives at stake, the president lied.
Sep 11



There are many, many strange things about the Republican political reaction to the Donald Trump presidency, but one of the strangest is the refrain I’ve heard time and time again—“Pay no attention to what Trump says. Pay attention to what he does.” In essence, the argument is that the Trump administration consistently saves Trump from himself by enacting policies that are far superior to Trump’s pronouncements.

Why do I say this is strange—especially since some of Trump’s policies are, in fact, better than his pronouncements? (This is not just true of Trump, by the way.) Well, because it’s been received conventional wisdom since the foundation of this republic that the president’s words matter. They matter a great deal.

Remember the endless arguments over whether Barack Obama should include the word “Islamic” when describing our jihadist foes? Remember how we’ve marked the great moments of prior presidencies by whether they “rose to the occasion” with words the American people needed to hear in times of fear and distress? Communication is a central part of the president’s job description.

And that brings me to the revelations this week that Donald Trump knew the coronavirus was far more deadly than the flu and yet deliberately played down the threat. I’m not going to rehash all the quotes, but the summary is in the tweet below, and the relevant recorded segments of Bob Woodward’s interviews with Trump are at the link:

Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward of coronavirus on February 7. Weeks later, on March 19, he said, "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic." ‘Play it down’: Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronavirus in new Woodward bookPresident Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in h…cnn.com

September 9th 2020

1,303 Retweets2,938 Likes

And if you remotely doubt (even now) that Trump did what he said and did play down the virus, the receipts are everywhere:

John Dickerson @jdickerson

Here are 32 times the president said Covid-19 would go away. washingtonpost.com/video/politics…

Mark Knoller @markknoller

"The President never downplayed the virus," says McEnany. The President expressed calm." She says the President embodied the American spirit about the threat, believing in the need to be serious but also optimistic. https://t.co/5Fbz8Hl4sM

September 9th 2020

1,075 Retweets2,385 Likes


Aaron Blake @AaronBlake

In fact, we have counted more than 100 instances in which Trump downplayed the coronavirus Analysis | Timeline: The 109 times Trump has downplayed the coronavirus threatThe president’s unfailing optimism, over time.washingtonpost.com

September 9th 2020

2,696 Retweets5,763 Likes


Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!

March 9th 2020

88,258 Retweets285,484 Likes


The point of this piece is not to say that “lying is bad.” Of course it’s bad. The point instead is to note that these lies mattered. Back on March 10, one day after Trump compared COVID-19 to the flu, I wrote a newsletter that argued coronavirus requires a “high-trust response” in a “low-trust time”:

To minimize the risk of facing the kind of crisis that has killed thousands, crippled Chinese cities, damaged the Chinese economy, and is afflicting Italy, Americans will have to take the coronavirus seriously, and they’ll have to engage in at least some degree (even if small) of personal sacrifice.

That requires trust—including trust in your neighbors, in members of the media who transmit information about the virus, and in public health officials. That trust will require a change in behavior even if no one you know is sick, even if you feel healthy, and even if the virus isn’t yet in your community.

By March 10, a total of 30 Americans had died from coronavirus. Today, almost exactly six months from the day I wrote those words, the death toll is now more than 195,000 Americans. That’s likely an underestimate.

We will debate for years why the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nation, a nation chock-full of many of the best doctors and hospitals in the world, experienced such a disproportionately staggering death toll. But here’s one reason: A man who millions of people trust and who sets the tone for communications from massive right-wing news outlets and for massive right-wing celebrities told a series of lies. Those lies were transmitted and believed. People acted on those lies.

If you know anything about the right-wing media-entertainment complex, you know that many of its leading lights don’t just reject mainstream media or progressive critique. They thrive on it. They relish it. If these folks have a unifying ethos surrounding leftist attacks, it’s the silly sentence, “If you’re taking flak, it means you’re over the target.”

No, it can also mean you’re wrong—sometimes seriously wrong.

In fact, the celebrities of right-wing media are often so powerful within their own institutions that arguably the only person who can influence or check their public speech is the one man their audience loves more than them, President Trump. Yet make no mistake, as the president downplayed the virus for weeks, many of his champions carried that rhetorical torch with glee. A New York Times analysis found a host of communications that now, after almost 200,000 deaths, seem simply stunning:

A review of hundreds of hours of programming and social media traffic from Jan. 1 through mid-March — when the White House started urging people to stay home and limit their exposure to others — shows that doubt, cynicism and misinformation about the virus took root among many of Mr. Trump’s boosters in the right-wing media as the number of confirmed cases in the United States grew.

Some details:

On Feb. 27, Mr. Hannity opened his show in a rage. “The apocalypse is imminent and you’re going to all die, all of you in the next 48 hours. And it’s all President Trump’s fault,” he said, adding, “Or at least that’s what the media mob and the Democratic extreme radical socialist party would like you to think.” His program would be one of many platforms with large audiences of conservatives — 5.6 million people watched Mr. Hannity interview the president on Fox last week — to misleadingly highlight statistics on deaths from the seasonal flu as a comparison.

On Feb. 28, Mr. Limbaugh read from an article from The Western Journal, a website that was blacklisted by Apple News last year for promoting articles Apple determined were “overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community.” The coronavirus, Mr. Limbaugh said, “appears far less deadly” than the flu, but the government and the media “keep promoting panic.”

More:

Faced with the inescapable fact that the virus was killing people, many conservatives started sounding fatalistic. Yes it’s deadly, they acknowledged, but so are a lot of other things. “How many people have died this year in the United States from snake bites?” the conservative radio host Dennis Prager asked in an online “fireside chat” posted March 12 to his website, PragerU, where it has been viewed more than 600,000 times.

I’ll be honest with y’all. I really try to resist anger. There’s just too much anger in American politics. In fact, a key theme of my book is that anger and enmity represent their own independent threat to the American republic. But the president’s deception makes me angry.

I’ve spoken to too many people in my neighborhood, church, and community who absorbed the president’s words, heard their favorite figures in the conservative media, and believed them—even to the point where when the president pivoted and began to acknowledge the full dimensions of the crisis, many of those folks believed that the president’s pivot was artificial, a product of Dr. Fauci’s nefarious influence and not a product of undeniable and deadly facts.

To condemn the president’s deception is not to defend the deceptions, mistakes, and bad faith of other actors in this national drama. Bill de Blasio, for example, deserves an entire wing in the coronavirus hall of shame. Conflicting early masking guidance and the obvious politicization of public health in response to Black Lives Matter protests also helped damage public trust and confidence. In any crisis so pervasive, there is often blame to go around.

And yes, I’ve seen folks in the conservative media—including friends of mine—argue that if the president had been sounding the alarm accurately and consistently that he would have faced immediate pushback from the Democrats and the media. I agree that the reality of negative polarization means that there are too many people who oppose anything Trump says simply because Trump said it. But that does not relieve the president of the obligation to tell the truth.

I’ve also seen Trump’s defenders—including Trump himself—latch onto his claim that he was trying to stop a “panic” as a defense. Here was Trump yesterday:


Daniel Dale @ddale8

Trump explaining why he misled Americans about the severity of the virus: “I don’t want to jump up and down and start screaming ‘death, death.’”

September 10th 2020

1,057 Retweets4,672 Likes


First, I must confess that it’s a little bit unusual to see Trump shun alarmism. He consistently hypes threats. He has argued that Joe Biden election could destroy this nation. Just yesterday he tweeted this entirely calm and temperate claim:


Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

The Democrats never even mentioned the words LAW & ORDER at their National Convention. That’s where they are coming from. If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, “Friendly Protesters”.

September 10th 2020

24,202 Retweets91,871 Likes


But putting aside the president’s typical alarmism, isn’t there a happy medium between denial and panic? It’s called the truth. Prepare the American people with calm conviction. Communicate to them that you understand the truth, we’re in this together, and we can endure, persevere, and—ultimately—triumph.

American history is replete with examples of presidents preparing Americans for long and painful struggles, and in many ways that kind of preparation was perhaps even more indispensable at the onset of this pandemic than it is when preparing Americans for most military conflicts. After all, “flattening the curve” and limiting the spread of the virus required public acceptance of the threat and massive voluntary compliance with public health guidelines and mandates. There are not enough police in the country to enforce mask mandates (nor would we want police to be so pervasive).

We had to do this together. We had to believe this was real. At a key moment, with hundreds of thousands of lives at stake, the president lied. He made many Americans disbelieve. When critics of the president declared, beginning even in 2015, that “character is destiny,” this is what we meant. When the time would come to tell the hard truths, the president was likely to fail—and fail he did.

One more thing…

One of the interesting coronavirus questions is the impact of individual choice versus government policy as a driver of human behavior. When America shut down, was the shutdown driven more by individual choice or government policy? Or, did the government policy merely ratify a civic shutdown that was already in process? There’s a fascinating new paper from Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson arguing that the lockdowns may have been far less decisive than we think:

The collapse of economic activity in 2020 from COVID-19 has been immense. An important question is how much of that resulted from government restrictions on activity versus people voluntarily choosing to stay home to avoid infection. This paper examines the drivers of the collapse using cellular phone records data on customer visits to more than 2.25 million individual businesses across 110 different industries. Comparing consumer behavior within the same commuting zones but across boundaries with different policy regimes suggests that legal shutdown orders account for only a modest share of the decline of economic activity (and that having county-level policy data is significantly more accurate than state-level data). While overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 of that. Individual choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection. Traffic started dropping before the legal orders were in place; was highly tied to the number of COVID deaths in the county; and showed a clear shift by consumers away from larger/busier stores toward smaller/less busy ones in the same industry. States repealing their shutdown orders saw identically modest recoveries--symmetric going down and coming back. The shutdown orders did, however, significantly reallocate consumer activity away from “nonessential” to “essential” businesses and from restaurants and bars toward groceries and other food sellers.

Read the whole thing.

 

[lawai'a]

The collapse of economic activity in 2020 from COVID-19 has been immense. An important question is how much of that resulted from government restrictions on activity versus people voluntarily choosing to stay home to avoid infection. This paper examines the drivers of the collapse using cellular phone records data on customer visits to more than 2.25 million individual businesses across 110 different industries. Comparing consumer behavior within the same commuting zones but across boundaries with different policy regimes suggests that legal shutdown orders account for only a modest share of the decline of economic activity (and that having county-level policy data is significantly more accurate than state-level data). While overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 of that. Individual choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection. Traffic started dropping before the legal orders were in place; was highly tied to the number of COVID deaths in the county; and showed a clear shift by consumers away from larger/busier stores toward smaller/less busy ones in the same industry. States repealing their shutdown orders saw identically modest recoveries--symmetric going down and coming back. The shutdown orders did, however, significantly reallocate consumer activity away from “nonessential” to “essential” businesses and from restaurants and bars toward groceries and other food sellers.

hard for the cellphone data here to be accepted as viable to the premise without accepting the data from the sturgis study to be viable in their conclusions too. so i will not take a position one way or the other on either one.guess it goes to bias on which one an individual likes and accepts for an argument in favor of their candidate this political season.
the main part about words and lies having real consequences and the lack of accepting responsibility are hard to deny though. all politicians will fudge for their agenda, but doubling and tripling down in the face of countering facts that will have predictable negative consequences seems an abject failure to lead responsibly. the enablers share in the culpability and were just as damaging.
IMHO.

i would like to add that though tenuous the minimum 7% that the shut down did limit would equate to between 10-15,000 less fatalities. the fact that the traffic data doesn't represent consumers forced away from high risk activities surrounding bars and resteraunts vs. grocery stores indicates to me that the total lifes saved is much higher.

 

[ABM]

To take one prominent example, pastor John MacArthur is entirely within his rights to challenge California’s pandemic restrictions on religious worship. But when he does so through also encouraging defiance of regulations and norms on social distancing and masking, he’s reckless. He’s endangering the health and lives of not just his congregants, but also of members of the public who encounter his congregants. In fact, MacArthur is quite proud that his congregation hasn’t distanced and doesn’t wear masks:



No one can argue that MacArthur isn’t religious, but this is certainly not moral. He’s breaking the social compact.

Again, I agree with David French in this regard.

Here's the latest regarding McArthur's defiance.....

https://patch.com/california/northh...ity-church-defies-court-packed-sunday-service

Grace Community Church Defies Court With Packed Sunday Service
Pastor John MacArthur mocked county coronavirus health orders Sunday and defied a judge order to preach to a packed church in Sun Valley.

 

[lawai'a]

Again, I agree with David French in this regard.

Here's the latest regarding McArthur's defiance.....

https://patch.com/california/northh...ity-church-defies-court-packed-sunday-service

Grace Community Church Defies Court With Packed Sunday Service
Pastor John MacArthur mocked county coronavirus health orders Sunday and defied a judge order to preach to a packed church in Sun Valley.

from both the old and new:

Deuteronomy 6:16
"You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.

Proverbs 22:3
The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

Matthew 4:7
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Luke 4:12
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

1 Corinthians 10:9
We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,

 

[ABM]

from both the old and new:

Deuteronomy 6:16
"You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.

Proverbs 22:3
The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

Matthew 4:7
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Luke 4:12
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

1 Corinthians 10:9
We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,

Amen!

 

[ABM]

Yes, America Could Split Apart
It’s time to discover transcendent moral purpose in pluralism.

David French
Sep 20


I can’t remember the exact moment when I first began to fear for the future of our nation. It certainly wasn’t because of a piece of empirical data. It wasn’t a chart or graph that gave me that vague, sick sense that something wasn’t right. I’m reminded of the opening words of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy: “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost.”

Perhaps it was the time in my life when Nancy and I moved in a few short years between deep-red and deep-blue America, living in both the rural South and urban Northeast. We didn’t merely experience the deep antipathy for faraway political opponents. We also experienced a mutual incomprehension. There was a lack of experience or understanding that in some ways was more disturbing even than the enmity.

With a degree of understanding perhaps there can be reconciliation. With no understanding, even the possibility of reconciliation becomes more remote.

On Friday afternoon Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class. We knew a polarized and divided nation was about to endure yet another sharp escalation in the culture war, and this escalation could well lead to a cascading series of events that could strain the constitutional and cultural fabric of this nation.

There’s a sad irony here—because in many ways Ginsburg personified the fellowship and mutual respect of eras past. As a conservative, it was easy to disagree with “notorious RBG.” She was a woman of fierce progressive judicial conviction. But it was hard to disrespect her. Her deep friendship with her near-polar ideological opposite, Justice Antonin Scalia, was the stuff of legend. Her life story was inspirational.

A nation needs a healthy left and a healthy right, and in their own ways these unlikely friends represented the best their sides had to offer. I hope and pray that their passings don’t signify the symbolic end of a time when deep friendship could flourish across profound disagreement.

But here we are now, when enmity rules, and all of the short and medium-term incentives are aligned toward greater confrontation. Do Republicans utilize their raw political power to push through a conservative replacement either now or during the lame duck session? If Democrats win Congress and the Senate, do they respond with raw political power of their own, nuke the legislative filibuster, and pack the court? Both courses of action are constitutionally permissible. Neither are culturally and politically prudent. But will the respective bases of the parties tolerate any other result?

And there’s another, critical question: How much more tension and division can this nation take?

As regular readers know, this week I release my new book, Divided We Fall. The central contention is quite simple. “At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, political, religious, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart.” And therefore “we cannot assume that a continent-sized, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy can remain united forever, and it will not remain united if our political class cannot and will not adapt to an increasingly diverse and divided American public.”

Think of the multiple dimensions of our divisions. Yes, all the data indicates that our political enmity is skyrocketing. I don’t want to flood you with charts and graphs, but the headline of a recent Pew Research Center study says it all, “Partisan Antipathy: More Intense, More Personal.” In fact, millions of Americans are now in the grips of what some researchers call “lethal mass partisanship,” where they justify even actual violence against political opponents.

Moreover, we can’t retreat to shared religious values to ameliorate the effects of a toxic political culture. While America may be growing more secular overall, it is not growing more secular at the same rate and in the same places. America’s secular and religious communities are concentrated in like-minded geographic enclaves that track quite closely with red and blue.

We decreasingly enjoy even a common popular culture. In 2016, the New York Times published a series of television ratings maps that showed that red and blue Americans watch very different shows that feature very different themes and mores. This distinction applies to sports as well (it never fails to astonish me that I can travel to certain parts of the country, mention the name “Nick Saban”and get nothing but blank stares), and the only truly universal American sport, NFL football is shot-through with its own political controversies.

All of these trends are exacerbated by our geographic clustering. In 2016 more Americans lived in so-called “landslide counties”—where one presidential candidate wins by at least 20 points—than any time in the modern era. In fact, we’re concentrating in single-party states. A total of 36 states have so-called “trifecta” governments. The same party controls the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature.

Only one state in the entire country—Minnesota—has a divided legislature.

The result is that almost 80 percent of the U.S. population lives under one-party rule, with 40.9 percent of Americans living under Republican governments and 36.7 percent living under Democrats. Is it any wonder that now fewer and fewer Americans live like Justices Scalia and Ginsburg, with close friends on the other side of the political aisle?

Finally, clustering has another consequence—extremism. This is the natural human result of gathering people of like mind. In 1999, Cass Sunstein articulated one of the most important cultural realities in American life, the “law of group polarization.” Here’s the definition: “In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments.”

In plain English that means when like-minded people gather, they tend to grow more extreme. Here’s Sunstein again:

For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming.

Now do you see why incentives are so aligned toward greater conflict? If you’re a partisan, the chances are that you not only have outright enmity for your political opponents, you don’t have many (if any) meaningful real-world relationships with those you oppose, and you may even fear that their control of the levers of government will mean the extinction of your liberty and way of life.

So why stand down? Why give an inch? And as you escalate your commitment to no retreat and no compromise, the other side interprets your actions through its own prism—and you confirm their own worst fears.

My book argues that this cultural kindling is increasingly ready to burst into political flame. Not today, not tomorrow, but all the trends are bad. All the trends are dangerous. History teaches us, from 1776 (for good) and 1861 (for evil), that when geographically-concentrated, like-minded Americans believe their culture is under threat, they can and will determine that the existing union shall not last.

What is the solution? I know that readers often want clear, step-by-step guides. Enact this, reform that, and heal the breach. I do believe that necessary policy changes can decrease the political temperature. Respect civil liberties (including your opponents’), increase local autonomy, and de-escalate national politics.

But none of these changes are possible without a critical mass of Americans achieving a change of heart. No, I’m not talking about a sudden, unrealistic outbreak of love and regard. “Love one another” is a desperate hope, achievable only through spiritual reformation and renewal. But can we at least discover moral purpose in pluralism?

In fact, there are two profound spiritual visions—both articulated by the prophet Micah—that can guide both the ends and means of our quest for national unity.

The first is a verse repopularized by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who quoted George Washington quoting the Old Testament. Almost 50 times in his writing, Washington referred to this powerful verse from the book of Micah—“but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.”

Most memorably, he wrote those words to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, to signify that one of the world’s most-persecuted religious minorities would have a home in this new land. Those words signify a basic objective of just rule in a pluralistic nation. Each American can find a home. Each American can find a community. And none shall be afraid.

It’s a pledge that’s often been breached, and the fear that it will be breached again motivates much American division. But can we not declare even to our political opponents—“You will have a home”? Can we not pledge to protect that home by—at the very least—respecting their liberties and autonomy?

The second indispensable spiritual principle of pluralism is also found in the same book. It’s a verse I cite often. Micah 6:8 declares, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

These triple, interlocking obligations should guide our interactions in the perilous days to come. The command to “do justice” empowers our sense of righteousness. The command to “love kindness” softens our hearts towards our opponents. And the necessity of “walking humbly” reminds us of our deep limitations in both knowledge and wisdom.

Critically, advancing pluralism does not mean surrendering your convictions. A truly free pluralistic nation is one that protects the autonomy of different cultural and political communities, but creates porous cultural walls between those communities. I can both fiercely defend the liberty and autonomy of my atheist friends while also seeking to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ.

There is a vast difference between a friend who disagrees and an enemy who seeks to dominate. One vision sustains democracy. The other could destroy our republic. As millions of Americans confront both the grief of the loss of a hero while also girding for the divisive cultural battle to come, who will remember the friendship between Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? And may we also remember Abraham Lincoln’s famous admonition—ignored to our nation’s great and enduring sorrow—“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

Very well written despite being a blatant book plug. But he makes outstanding (and seemingly obvious) points. Too bad McConnell in particular doesn’t read it. He is truly “an enemy who seeks to dominate”. It’s too late for Donny, especially the parts about loving kindness and walking humbly. And before you throw the usual tantrum about bringing politics into what is essentially a sermon, it is politically oriented and it addresses our current political situation brilliantly........

 

[Hoopguru]

Yes, America Could Split Apart
It’s time to discover transcendent moral purpose in pluralism.

David French
Sep 20


I can’t remember the exact moment when I first began to fear for the future of our nation. It certainly wasn’t because of a piece of empirical data. It wasn’t a chart or graph that gave me that vague, sick sense that something wasn’t right. I’m reminded of the opening words of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy: “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost.”

Perhaps it was the time in my life when Nancy and I moved in a few short years between deep-red and deep-blue America, living in both the rural South and urban Northeast. We didn’t merely experience the deep antipathy for faraway political opponents. We also experienced a mutual incomprehension. There was a lack of experience or understanding that in some ways was more disturbing even than the enmity.

With a degree of understanding perhaps there can be reconciliation. With no understanding, even the possibility of reconciliation becomes more remote.

On Friday afternoon Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class. We knew a polarized and divided nation was about to endure yet another sharp escalation in the culture war, and this escalation could well lead to a cascading series of events that could strain the constitutional and cultural fabric of this nation.

There’s a sad irony here—because in many ways Ginsburg personified the fellowship and mutual respect of eras past. As a conservative, it was easy to disagree with “notorious RBG.” She was a woman of fierce progressive judicial conviction. But it was hard to disrespect her. Her deep friendship with her near-polar ideological opposite, Justice Antonin Scalia, was the stuff of legend. Her life story was inspirational.

A nation needs a healthy left and a healthy right, and in their own ways these unlikely friends represented the best their sides had to offer. I hope and pray that their passings don’t signify the symbolic end of a time when deep friendship could flourish across profound disagreement.

But here we are now, when enmity rules, and all of the short and medium-term incentives are aligned toward greater confrontation. Do Republicans utilize their raw political power to push through a conservative replacement either now or during the lame duck session? If Democrats win Congress and the Senate, do they respond with raw political power of their own, nuke the legislative filibuster, and pack the court? Both courses of action are constitutionally permissible. Neither are culturally and politically prudent. But will the respective bases of the parties tolerate any other result?

And there’s another, critical question: How much more tension and division can this nation take?

As regular readers know, this week I release my new book, Divided We Fall. The central contention is quite simple. “At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, political, religious, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart.” And therefore “we cannot assume that a continent-sized, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy can remain united forever, and it will not remain united if our political class cannot and will not adapt to an increasingly diverse and divided American public.”

Think of the multiple dimensions of our divisions. Yes, all the data indicates that our political enmity is skyrocketing. I don’t want to flood you with charts and graphs, but the headline of a recent Pew Research Center study says it all, “Partisan Antipathy: More Intense, More Personal.” In fact, millions of Americans are now in the grips of what some researchers call “lethal mass partisanship,” where they justify even actual violence against political opponents.

Moreover, we can’t retreat to shared religious values to ameliorate the effects of a toxic political culture. While America may be growing more secular overall, it is not growing more secular at the same rate and in the same places. America’s secular and religious communities are concentrated in like-minded geographic enclaves that track quite closely with red and blue.

We decreasingly enjoy even a common popular culture. In 2016, the New York Times published a series of television ratings maps that showed that red and blue Americans watch very different shows that feature very different themes and mores. This distinction applies to sports as well (it never fails to astonish me that I can travel to certain parts of the country, mention the name “Nick Saban”and get nothing but blank stares), and the only truly universal American sport, NFL football is shot-through with its own political controversies.

All of these trends are exacerbated by our geographic clustering. In 2016 more Americans lived in so-called “landslide counties”—where one presidential candidate wins by at least 20 points—than any time in the modern era. In fact, we’re concentrating in single-party states. A total of 36 states have so-called “trifecta” governments. The same party controls the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature.

Only one state in the entire country—Minnesota—has a divided legislature.

The result is that almost 80 percent of the U.S. population lives under one-party rule, with 40.9 percent of Americans living under Republican governments and 36.7 percent living under Democrats. Is it any wonder that now fewer and fewer Americans live like Justices Scalia and Ginsburg, with close friends on the other side of the political aisle?

Finally, clustering has another consequence—extremism. This is the natural human result of gathering people of like mind. In 1999, Cass Sunstein articulated one of the most important cultural realities in American life, the “law of group polarization.” Here’s the definition: “In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments.”

In plain English that means when like-minded people gather, they tend to grow more extreme. Here’s Sunstein again:

For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming.

Now do you see why incentives are so aligned toward greater conflict? If you’re a partisan, the chances are that you not only have outright enmity for your political opponents, you don’t have many (if any) meaningful real-world relationships with those you oppose, and you may even fear that their control of the levers of government will mean the extinction of your liberty and way of life.

So why stand down? Why give an inch? And as you escalate your commitment to no retreat and no compromise, the other side interprets your actions through its own prism—and you confirm their own worst fears.

My book argues that this cultural kindling is increasingly ready to burst into political flame. Not today, not tomorrow, but all the trends are bad. All the trends are dangerous. History teaches us, from 1776 (for good) and 1861 (for evil), that when geographically-concentrated, like-minded Americans believe their culture is under threat, they can and will determine that the existing union shall not last.

What is the solution? I know that readers often want clear, step-by-step guides. Enact this, reform that, and heal the breach. I do believe that necessary policy changes can decrease the political temperature. Respect civil liberties (including your opponents’), increase local autonomy, and de-escalate national politics.

But none of these changes are possible without a critical mass of Americans achieving a change of heart. No, I’m not talking about a sudden, unrealistic outbreak of love and regard. “Love one another” is a desperate hope, achievable only through spiritual reformation and renewal. But can we at least discover moral purpose in pluralism?

In fact, there are two profound spiritual visions—both articulated by the prophet Micah—that can guide both the ends and means of our quest for national unity.

The first is a verse repopularized by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who quoted George Washington quoting the Old Testament. Almost 50 times in his writing, Washington referred to this powerful verse from the book of Micah—“but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.”

Most memorably, he wrote those words to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, to signify that one of the world’s most-persecuted religious minorities would have a home in this new land. Those words signify a basic objective of just rule in a pluralistic nation. Each American can find a home. Each American can find a community. And none shall be afraid.

It’s a pledge that’s often been breached, and the fear that it will be breached again motivates much American division. But can we not declare even to our political opponents—“You will have a home”? Can we not pledge to protect that home by—at the very least—respecting their liberties and autonomy?

The second indispensable spiritual principle of pluralism is also found in the same book. It’s a verse I cite often. Micah 6:8 declares, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

These triple, interlocking obligations should guide our interactions in the perilous days to come. The command to “do justice” empowers our sense of righteousness. The command to “love kindness” softens our hearts towards our opponents. And the necessity of “walking humbly” reminds us of our deep limitations in both knowledge and wisdom.

Critically, advancing pluralism does not mean surrendering your convictions. A truly free pluralistic nation is one that protects the autonomy of different cultural and political communities, but creates porous cultural walls between those communities. I can both fiercely defend the liberty and autonomy of my atheist friends while also seeking to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ.

There is a vast difference between a friend who disagrees and an enemy who seeks to dominate. One vision sustains democracy. The other could destroy our republic. As millions of Americans confront both the grief of the loss of a hero while also girding for the divisive cultural battle to come, who will remember the friendship between Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? And may we also remember Abraham Lincoln’s famous admonition—ignored to our nation’s great and enduring sorrow—“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

Its all about power and ego's. Why would two men in their mid 70's want to be President? Ego & Power and of course money.
These life long politicians that have never work a regular job in their life but are worth millions, are addicted to power and ego and now they are following the extreme ideology's that DO NOT endorse compromise or willingness to work together.

 

[lawai'a]

i just opened it in my email.

Its all about power and ego's. Why would two men in their mid 70's want to be President? Ego & Power and of course money.
These life long politicians that have never work a regular job in their life but are worth millions, are addicted to power and ego and now they are following the extreme ideology's that DO NOT endorse compromise or willingness to work together.

i don't subscribe to this view necessarily. the distinction between the two candidates and their agendas are quite stark but for the past 4 years one has lead a scorched earth policy of government with no desire for inclusion of compromise, while the other has a clear history of governing that has embraced the need for. the use of the fear that the extreme agenda of the left that the trump campaign embraces contradicts the democratic candidates policies and record. the plurality issues are real. the need for engagement to cross our partisan divide will be an essential element if this country is able to heal its divisions. respect for the views and need to protect everyone's freedoms must be a part of that healing. the secular and religious divide must be addressed
in that minority and majority views are afforded the same freedoms and protections that the constitution originally intended. try reading the federalist papers and private letters of the original signers of the document in order to understand their intents and fears about the new republic and how they foresaw many of our present day divisions and the needs for tolerance and morallity.

 

[Hoopguru]

i just opened it in my email.

i don't subscribe to this view necessarily. the distinction between the two candidates and their agendas are quite stark but for the past 4 years one has lead a scorched earth policy of government with no desire for inclusion of compromise, while the other has a clear history of governing that has embraced the need for. the use of the fear that the extreme agenda of the left that the trump campaign embraces contradicts the democratic candidates policies and record. the plurality issues are real. the need for engagement to cross our partisan divide will be an essential element if this country is able to heal its divisions. respect for the views and need to protect everyone's freedoms must be a part of that healing. the secular and religious divide must be addressed
in that minority and majority views are afforded the same freedoms and protections that the constitution originally intended. try reading the federalist papers and private letters of the original signers of the document in order to understand their intents and fears about the new republic and how they foresaw many of our present day divisions and the needs for tolerance and morallity.

I agree that Joe needs to displace Trump and they are extremely different in policy and politics. And I hope other views parties can participate in our supposed process of debate and compromise. I think I heard that independents & Libertarians are growing at a faster pace then dems & pubs, which is encouraging. Ive always hoped for tolerance and respect as a community I hope for the same as a country.

 

[ABM]

Its all about power and ego's. Why would two men in their mid 70's want to be President? Ego & Power and of course money.

I highly doubt Trump is doing it for the money. Ego/Power? Different story.

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

I highly doubt Trump is doing it for the money. Ego/Power? Different story.

Money IS power. Money IS ego. Money is a way of keeping score and making you feel better about yourself, especially when you suffer from terminalLy low self esteem.....

 

[ABM]

Money IS power. Money IS ego. Money is a way of keeping score and making you feel better about yourself, especially when you suffer from terminalLy low self esteem.....

I suppose, but he's a billionaire and actually donates his POTUS salary to charity. At any rate, it is what it is.

 

[Chris Craig]

Its all about power and ego's. Why would two men in their mid 70's want to be President? Ego & Power and of course money.
These life long politicians that have never work a regular job in their life but are worth millions, are addicted to power and ego and now they are following the extreme ideology's that DO NOT endorse compromise or willingness to work together.

That seems to be a good argument for term limits for the senate and house. It could be asserted that we have old men in charge who represent antiquated ways. That they are not in acceptance of the progression of times or perhaps simply dismiss it. They certainly seem like they don't take such change into account in their decisions.

But, if we look at younger republicans and democrats in congress, are they much different than their older counterparts. Are they not as unmoving in their partisanship? Are they not as apathetic towards their political counterparts?