𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙎𝙤 𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙢 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝘼𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚

𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽  

I have my own pop-psych views about Mr. Trump's mind and character, why he does the things he does, and what he might do next. But I place little reliance on my views and mostly don't care. I view him more like a force of nature. (I am prepared to entertain arguments about the best metaphor among the several acts of nature to choose from.) To the extent I have energy to follow current events and form opinions, I think about supporters and detractors of the current administration. Who are they? What do they want?

𝗞𝗶𝗹𝗺𝗮𝗿 𝗔𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗼 𝗚𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗶𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝘂𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 

Because I see and hear a strong current of due process for us but not for them, the well-known "First they came for" lines attributed Martin Niemöller are highly relevant.

(From an Easter 1976 conversation with Niemöller)

"There was no transcript or copy of what I had said, and it may well have been that I formulated it differently. But in any case, the idea was: we let the Communists get away with it; and we let the trade unions get away with it too; and we let the Social Democrats get away with it too. None of that was our concern. The church had nothing to do with politics back then, and we shouldn't have anything to do with it. In the Confessing Church, we didn't want to represent political resistance in and of itself, but we wanted to state for the church that this is not right and it must not become right in the church, which is why we already had the fourth point in 33, when we founded the Pastors' Emergency Association: If a front is put up against pastors and they are simply booted out as pastors because they were of Jewish descent or something like that, then we as a church can only say: No. And that was the fourth point in the commitment, and that was probably the first anti-Semitic statement from the Protestant Church. That's all I can say about this story: When they locked up the communists, nothing was said, we weren't communists and we were quite happy to have these opponents off our backs. But we didn't feel obliged to say anything for people outside the church, that wasn't fashionable at the time, and we weren't yet ready to feel responsible for our people."

I remind myself that Niemöller was initially an antisemitic Nazi supporter and his views changed when he was imprisoned in a concentration camp for speaking out against Nazi control of churches. His expression of concern is not prophetic but experiential. He lived it. They came for him.

There are several additional ways to think about support for the administration kidnapping and imprisoning Garcia.

One is that there is an unmistakable racism in the us-and-them dichotomy, but not necessarily a racism everybody would agree fits the term. I believe the percentage of Americans who are loud and proud racists is very small. That most of us, almost all of us, do not want to be racist and do not think we are racist. But some of us think racism is about hating the other or putting the other down. And others of us think racism is about a different bundle of rights, privileges, obligations, and duties for different kinds of people. I think those two understandings of racism will view due process claims very differently.

See also Constitution and Might Makes Right, below.

𝗨.𝗦. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 

When people talk about the Constitution, about supporting the Constitution, it's important to untangle what they're talking about.

There is a common understanding of the original Constitution as a document embedded in a white supremacy patriarchal world in which the document enshrines and enforces systems and rights for white men, distinctly different from everybody else. The later added amendments are not universally acclaimed. Some of us trumpeting "the Constitution" are talking about the original, adding only selective phrases from the amendments. Others (including me, personally) are talking about the original plus all of the amendments, including especially the Bill of Rights (first 10) and the Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14, 15). The point being that it is not correct to assume everybody who says they are in favor of "the Constitution" believes in due process for all, or separation of church and state, or anti-slavery (three sometimes contentious propositions) as constitutional principles.

There are all sorts of debates about interpreting and applying the Constitution. But the question whether you pick and choose among the amendments, or take every part of every amendment into account, is fundamental to any discussion and a difference of opinion on this matter is too easily missed.

𝗠𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 

In my experience the might makes right aphorism has always been labeled a fallacy, a point of view successfully argued against by most philosophers. However, I think it is in fact a prevailing view for many and I see it showing up over and over again under new guises. I see this fallacy in the unitary executive scheme the current administration is running. In a fleshed-out version, it says we have problems, we have things that need to be fixed, the legislature can't get its act together (for all sorts of political and parliamentary reasons) and the courts keep blocking us, and therefore we have to have a powerful ruler to get it done. Things may get broken along the way, the cost may be high, but it's the only way.

I have no sympathy for this view and I refuse to give any credit to the argument, any part of the therefore or the only way. It's clear to me that history--both secular history and religious history--proves the all-powerful king a bad way to go. The cost is too high. The damage is too great. I look to the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.

There is a nuance to the idea of a unitary executive or king, one that I would skip over except that I think it's operating in enough minds and conversations these days to be worth explicating. It's the question or debate over a king defining morality (in some formulations being himself divine) versus a king being subject to some concept of morality or justice or to God. The test question is often phrased as obedience no matter what versus obedience to only just commands.

My observational belief is that a majority of the "king men" among us, a majority of the voters who want a strong near all-powerful executive to fix things, in fact believe in or want the latter kind of strong man, the one who is subject to some concept of morality or justice. For those who feel that way, there is already and will continue to be a struggle to distinguish and/or rationalize commands by the current administration as being within or without their abstract sense of morality or justice.

𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗗𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘀 

With respect to economic policy, public health, and foreign policy (not exclusively, but predominantly) there is a theory floating around that the current administration is playing four dimensional chess. That they are smarter and more far-seeing than other countries and the predominant, mainstream, views of economists, scientists, doctors, and policy analysts.

I have never agreed with or harbored sympathy for the four dimensional chess point of view. Rather, I see a collection of wacky, fringe, eccentric, outdated ideas held by marginally qualified people which I know to be wrong in the few areas where I have genuine expertise.

To some extent my "wacky, fringe, eccentric, outdated" diatribe can be chalked up to (and therefore discounted by) my strongly opposed political views. However, the facts of the first 90 days of this administration stand as proof that, right or wrong, good or bad, it is not playing four dimensional chess. This administration has tried a bunch of things and been rejected or proven wrong or created a bigger problem, over and over again.

In my view, the current administration has permanently altered the U.S.'s role in foreign affairs. The United States does not dictate terms. The United States is at best one among many in negotiating how the world works. And the current administration has permanently altered U.S. exceptionalism in commerce and economics. I believe the dollar is already (and irretrievably) not the world's reserve currency but only one of several major currencies.

𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘀 

I get multiple requests for money every day. Seemingly, I'm on all the mailing lists. It feels like that's all I get from Democrats. More precisely, I feel like the entire Democratic Party assumes I will support them no matter what, and plays to the middle, their primary argument being we're not as bad as Trump. That's not good enough. Not even close.

I need an option that offers a rational way forward on immigration, that supports domestic economic, tax, and employment policy favoring wage earners (including especially women) over corporations, owners, and the top 10% that own 70% of the nation's wealth, that is interested in global trade with partners that are not invading others or decimating whole populations, and is not beholden to Zionism but able to further sensible multi-state solutions in the Middle East.

And I need to see aggressive, at the absolute outer limits of the law, action in the Congress and on the streets. Now. Not after the mid-terms. Now.

I don't see anything to cheer for or support. I'm fed up, angry, frustrated.