It’s no longer about Jesus and the Bible There’s quite a bit of good writing about Christian Nationalism these days largely because we’re spending a tiresome amount of time in Iowa which is the heartbeat of white conservative evangelicalism. This one (gift link) from the NY Times is quite good. And this one from Benjamin Wallace Wells in the New Yorker is really excellent. They both report that today’s evangelical GOP evangelicals are different than they used to be. Wells interviews a number of Iowa pastors and politicians and they’re all interesting. But this one really struck me: One evening, I drove from Des Moines to Council Bluffs, on Iowa’s far-western edge and just a few miles from Omaha, to meet Joseph Hall, another pastor who had delivered the opening prayer at a recent Trump rally. Hall is forty-six years old, a military veteran who grew up in South Carolina and still has a strong Southern accent. His church looked like it was prospering. It got several hundred parishioners on Sundays, he said, and many of his sermons were online.
Uncategorized
An invisible consensus evaporates The Bears, one of Adrian Belew’s bands, play a joyous set of guitar-driven songs that stick with you. Reading Jedediah Britton-Purdy’s offering in The Atlantic immediately evoked one of their most memorable: “Trust.” The Duke Law School professor considers the breakdown in mutual trust fueling what feels like a breakdown in the democratic spirit that birthed this country, powered its resolve to form a more perfect union, and held it together, more or less, since its founding: In 2019, 73 percent of those under 30 agreed that “most of the time, people just look out for themselves,” and almost as many said, “Most people would take advantage of you if they got the chance.” Trust in government has taken an even greater hit. In 1964, 77 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all of the time. In 2022, that number was 22 percent, and it has been languishing in that neighborhood since 2010. In 1973, amid riots, domestic terrorism, the Watergate scandal, and clashes over the Vietnam War, majorities trusted Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.
My senior year of high school, MTV produced a documentary called Once Upon a Prom that followed two students at my high school. I had started to dabble in media arts and was offered to work on the project and earn my very first industry-related resume line item as an intern for MTV Docs. This […]
Has there ever been a more nakedly ambitious politician in history? I honestly don’t think so. I still don’t think Trump is going to choose her for VP no matter how hard she licks his boots. She just isn’t out of central casting in his book. But she’s certainly giving a hell of an audition.
Andrew Weissman takes up the issue of the “interlocutory” appeal that all the lawyers are talking about regarding Trump’s alleged immunity from prosecution. It could have major implications for the election and he does a good job explaining it to non-lawyers: Last month, Judge Tanya Chutkan (correctly) rejected Trump’s motions to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury indictment on grounds including that he was immune from prosecution. In turn, Trump brought what’s known as an “interlocutory” appeal — meaning an immediate appeal before a final judgment in the lower court. With the agreement of both sides, Chutkan stayed “any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation” on Trump until the appeal is decided by the D.C. Circuit (and potentially the Supreme Court). We understand why both parties want these underlying questions to be reviewed before trial, yet the default rule is that appeals courts must wait until the end of a trial to hear a case. It is the rare exception, not the norm, to accept an interlocutory appeal. But here, the D.C.
He’s still a MAGA POS Remember when we all thought that guy was a real threat? I always knew that Trump would be the nominee but it never occurred to me that the guy to whom everyone was singing hosannas as the greatest politician since Lincoln was actually one of the worst duds in history. I think we all assumed that his strategy was to out-Trump Trump in order to win the nomination but it turns out he’s just another MAGA extremist along the lines of a Kari Lake or that weirdo from Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has revealed that he’s “looking” into ways to block President Joe Biden from the 2024 primary ballot in Florida. “This is just going to be a tit for tat and it’s just not gonna end well,” the GOP presidential candidate warned Friday alongside Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX, according to a video posted by CNN.
Trump’s verbal incontinence was out of control this weekend in Iowa in so many ways. But his worst moments were making fun of Biden’s childhood stutter and John McCain’s injury sustained from being tortured during his Viet Nam captivity. The Washington Post reported the Biden comment this way: “Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing,” Trump said to a chuckling crowd on Friday in Sioux Center, Iowa. “He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy.” “’He’s a threat to d-d-democracy,’” he continued, pretending to stutter. “Couldn’t read the word.” The remark was not true; Biden said the word “democracy” 29 times in his speech, never stuttering over it. Trump’s comment also marked a particularly crass form of politics that he has exhibited throughout his career that places politeness and human decency at the center of the 2024 presidential election. Good for them for reporting it honestly.
Republicans fear running on empty Republican control of the U.S. House was dramatically unproductive in 2033. The caucus spent more time mugging for cameras, stalling important bills, ousting their own speaker, and investigating Hunter and Joe Biden (with nothing to show for it) than they did legislating. They worry now it may come back to bite them in the fall elections (Washington Post): “It’s been a tough year for us,” said Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), who as the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is tasked with keeping the majority. “I think most people in Congress — Republicans and Democrats — ran to make a difference, to make the country better, not to come up here and have these kinds of disagreements. So it is frustrating, and it’s tiring.” What their idea of making a difference is isn’t apparent. “What a motormouth!” was how one relation described Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) “Meet the Press” appearance on Sunday. Stefanik set out to prove what an effective ventriloquist dummy she could be for Donald Trump as his vice president.
Morning Joe assembles the evidence “Sir? How do you do it?” Trump fabulizes. His “sir” stories are legion, as Daniel Dale recounted in 2019: Lots of people do call Trump “sir,” of course. But the word seems to pop into his head more frequently when he is inventing or exaggerating a conversation than when he is faithfully relaying one. A “sir” is a flashing red light that he is speaking from his imagination rather than his memory. In poker parlance, it’s a tell. The supercut assembled for “Morning Joe,” contrasts President Biden’s recent speech with another by Donald “91 felony indictments” Trump. “Sir? How do you do it? How do you wake up in the morning and put on your pants?” First off, he doesn’t start with pants. “We’re a failing nation,” says Trump, who actually does know something about failing. President Biden, meanwhile, visits Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. today.
Groundhog Day isn’t for another month but if you were watching cable news over the past few days you certainly had a feeling of deja vu watching all the footage of the January 6th insurrection again and being reminded of the violence and horror of that day. It is still as shocking as it was three years ago. And yet we are about to embark on a replay of the election that brought is to that awful moment and it feels as if nothing has changed in our politics at all. Three years ago at this time we were still reeling from the global pandemic that was still taking lives by the tens of thousands and stunned by what had transpired after the election. There was talk of invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump to get him out of office before the inauguration and the congress was considering impeaching him for the second time, mostly in order to prevent him from ever running again. Staunch Trump supporters like then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and S. Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham stood up to denounce Trump and there was a very strong sense that the camels back had finally, finally been broken.