Politics is Always Religion and Vice VersaA Note on Paris and Tomorrow When you study religion for a living you know that people are not rational, that they are susceptible to the most bizarre confidence games (in fact, the more bizarre, the more likely), and that their need for social consolations and their individual insecurities…
From Inside Trump’s Mind, Or Why the Intellectual Smoke is Emotional FireIt’s crucial to understand that our resistance is defined in important ways by that which we resist. We cannot presume that our efforts are outside the context of our opposition. We’re not some noble project acting in a vacuum. So we must fathom Trump…
So what happened? How did the Republican Party lose every last bearing on its moral compass? Why did they become so determined to rule rather than govern? Why have they simply given up on telling the truth or standing for more than power? What is before us now is America’s true shadow. Some half of…
College education has been successfully refocused to advance prospects for adult material success. A humanities education is a luxury that is largely unaffordable, impracticable, and impossible to achieve while focusing on STEM subjects. It’s still true that financial prospects are immeasurably better with college than without it. But this is also why education is failing….
The more we point out his dangerous fakery, imbecility, and fraud the more they will support him. 80%plus Republicans warmly support Trump and more than that are gleeful and disposed to be _more_ supportive because they love to hate liberals. Read Charles Sykes piece in the NYTimes today: he is part of the AM radio…
There is far less here than meets the eye. Don’t over think Trump. He doesn’t. Most of the commentators are asking “why now?”, why fire Comey now when it is so inopportune politically, so distracting and unhelpful to Trump. But this is far too sophisticated a question. While it may be true that Trump…
Trump’s tragic moral anarchy never surprises. But surrounding this nucleus of artifice and deceit are an increasing cast of characters complicit in every fraud and fakery. To add further insult to our collective injury it is with commensurate dismay and deep feelings of revulsion that we add the lesser players —Spicer, Conway, Huckabee Sanders—to likes…
“I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.” This final sentence in Trump’s letter to Comey is not to him. It’s to us. The House will do nothing. The Senate will squawk some, the same few Republican dissidents like McCain and the same few cowards like Collins, Burr, et.al. will appear to…
The key to changing votes or creating enough dispirit to keep Trump voters home requires dealing with a few essential facts that Democrats never seem to fathom. Here’s a list. 1. We are behind in this game of hearts. There are no minds. Just hearts. 2. Trumpistan watches only Fox, listens only to Limbaugh and…
A Brief Meditation on Yeats and Our Center, Hope Must Triumph Even Without Moral Leadership “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;…” It is when we face human atrocity, the kind of moral outrage that comes upon us because _people_ can be so…