Politics and the Evangelicals

            A couple of years ago I saw a Facebook post placed by an Evangelical I know. The post had side-by-side pictures of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Sanders was being arrested by the police. Trump was wearing the uniform of the prep school that he attended, New York Military Academy. The intended message, I assume, was that Sanders had been a trouble maker for some time, while Trump was prepared to serve. I got a different message from the two pictures. Bernie Sanders had long been willing to fight for what he believed in. Trump’s uniform reminded me that he had never actually served in the military, and he avoided serving Vietnam because of a dubious case of bone spurs.

            I can’t help but wonder why Evangelicals would support Trump. We think of Christians as law-abiding, moral citizens who generally follow the rules of society. Trump, on the other hand, seems one of the least moral public figures in recent memory. Of course some of Trump’s policies are deeply in line with The Evangelical political goals. He has appointed conservative judges to the Supreme Court as well as to lower courts. Perhaps the courts will one day declare abortion illegal again. Are these people willing to put up with the President’s cruelties, his crudeness, his incompetence, his immorality in order to accomplish their agenda? I may be naïve, but I don’t think the typical American Christian is that cynical. Some of the Republican politicians, such as Mitch McConnel, however, are just that cynical. A lot of them, I believe, do not personally like or approve of Mr. Trump, but they support him so they can get their agenda passed.

            The Evangelicals hold Trump to be a sinner, as is everybody. The only way to overcome our sinful nature is to accept the help of Jesus. In June, after the police and used tear gas to clear peaceful demonstrators from the area in front of the White House, Trump marched to that spot, holding a Bible. I don’t think many people were fooled by this gesture. Some people suggested that instead of holding up a Bible, the President should read it and follow it.

            A recent study showed that 56 percent of Evangelicals were Republicans, with only 28 percent Democrats. Is it just a coincidence that these people are both Evangelical and Republican? I don’t think so. I believer there is some connection, but I don’t know what it is. I would be glad to hear any explanation that anyone might have.

Open letter to GOP Members of Congress

Despite his lies, his incompetence, his corruption, his lack of class, his destruction of previously forged agreements with other countries, you have gone along with President Trump. You have done this presumably because he has delivered many long-time conservative goals. Under his watch Congress passed a huge tax cut. He has appointed scores of conservative judges to federal posts. He has made it much more difficult for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free to enter the United States.

Let me ask you: Was it worth it? Was it worth it to have this unprincipled, weak, authoritarian, impulsive man make uninformed decisions over twitter rather than heeding the advice of military and foreign policy experts? Was it worth it to have this crude, low-class ignoramus litter the news with his tweets, his outrageous charges, his scurrilous attacks against his critics?  Was it all worth it?

In his latest betrayal, he has deserted the Kurds in northwest Syria, the fighters who bore the brunt of the battle against ISIS. He stood back to allow Turkey to attack these people  even as they prevented ISIS from rising again, even as they guarded 10,000 ISIS POWs. He said he pulled American troops back to get us out of endless wars. Instead his actions have unleashed more war with even more participants involved.

Do America’s promises mean nothing? Can they be cast aside on whim? America was once the hope of the free world. Now our allies have no faith in our word. We once saw ourselves and we were seen by others as a shining city upon a hill. That is no longer true.

Tell me, what will it take for Republican members of Congress to help cut this cancer out of the heart of America?

A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

The anonymous senior member of the White House staff along with the many staffers who spoke under conditions of deep background to Bob Woodward for his book have been widely criticized for undermining the presidency. Nikki Haley said, “When I challenge the President, I do it directly. My anonymous colleague should have done it too.”

The President, after all, was elected by the people. It is his constitutional duty to perform the duties of his office. When unelected staffers go out of their way to stymie the orders of the President, something is seriously wrong. If White House employees believe that what the President is doing is seriously wrong, even dangerous for the country, there are other actions they can take. They can resign and tell their story. Unfortunately, many people who have worked in the White House in the last year and a half have resigned. The only impact of their resignations was that they were often replaced with someone who was less competent.

The crisis in the White House is not that many members of his staff are trying to undermine him. It is that the President himself is intellectually, morally, and temperamentally unfit for office. No one is coming to the President’s defense. No one in the midst of things in Washington or aware of them is saying, “The President is doing a great job.” It is well known that he is not capable of performing his duties.

Some are saying that those White House employees who are leaking to the press are doing so to protect their reputation. After everything falls down, as it will, these people will be able to say, “I stayed in that awful job to minimize the damage that the President would do.” That may be true, but working around the President to limit the harm he inflicts on the country, may not be the ideal way to resolve the predicament in Washington. But in one sense, it is the only thing they can do at this point. Resigning in protest does nothing to solve the problem.

The Constitution offers two means to remove the President from office: impeachment and Article 25. Articles of Impeachment can be approved by a majority of the members of the House. If the Democrats win a majority in the House, it seems likely that they will vote for impeachment. The leaks from White House insiders seem likely to increase votes for Democrats. Once drawn up, the Articles of Impeachment go to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to confirm the impeachment. It seems unlikely that the Democrats will even have a simple majority in the Senate. Although some Republican members of the Senate have been critical of the President, the GOP leadership is so frightened of the Republican base, it seems highly improbable that the President will be removed from office by impeachment.

Invoking Article 25 is not initiated by Congress, but by senior members of the executive branch, the very people who have been whispering to the press. If the Vice President and a majority of the principle officers of executive departments decide that the President is not able to perform his duties, they can inform the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. After that both houses of Congress have to vote to remove the President. The Vice President would then become President. Such an action would be incendiary. It has never been done before.

For either impeachment or Article 25 to work, Republican members of Congress would have to support the action. In order to get their support, they would have to be persuaded that this President is a danger not only to the country and to Democracy, but to the Republican Party itself, as in the long run it will be.

There are some (and I am among them) who think that Michael Pence would be a terrible President. But at least he would not be disastrous one.

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICAN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Writing in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen called Donald Trump “intellectually, temperamentally, and morally unfit to be President of the United States.

Stephen Stromberg called him “dangerously incompetent.”

Anne Applebaum referred to Trump’ “willful ignorance, impulsiveness, and inexperience.”

The Washington Post editorial boards wrote that Trump “can’t be trusted with sensitive information.”

James Clapper, former Director of National Defense, stated that “our institutions are under assault internally.” [by the President]

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said, “Trump proves that he’s Russia’s ‘useful tool.’”

It is not only liberals who are worried about Trump’s danger to the country and our system of government.

Conservative writer Ross Douthat said, “Maybe it’s time for the 25^th.” (The 25^th Amendment to the Constitution would enable the government to remove the President from office if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”)

Another conservative writer, Jennifer Rubin, said that Trump is “so inept and unfit that national security is at risk.”

Rubin also wrote, “Unfortunately for all these reasons, the current crew may be the best staff Trump an ever assemble. What the country really needs is a new president, not new functionaries.”

One GOP figure wondered privately about whether Trump was “in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion.”

Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman, tweeted, “Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed.”

Barbara Comstock, another Republican member of Congress, stated, “Once again we are faced with inexplicable stories coming from the White House that are highly troubling.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker stated, “The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes—it creates a worrisome environment.”

A former aide to Presidents Nixon and Clinton, David Gergen, said, “We’re in impeachment territory.”

Senator John McCain called the situation “Watergate size and scale.”

The Republican leadership in Congress of course is aware of Trump’s unfitness to be President. Unfortunately, through cynicism or naiveté or both, they are willing to put up with the President’s shortcomings because they believe they can use him to achieve their legislative goals.

They are wrong.

Donald Trump is not only a danger to the country and to democracy; he is a danger to the Republican Party.

Throughout the Obama administration, Republicans complained about his health care act, but they never had an alternative.

And they still don’t.

Trump and the Republicans in Congress wanted to get a new health care act in place during his first 100 days in office. He sent Bannon over to try to bully Republicans in Congress into voting for the act. (You remember Bannon, don’t you? I wonder why we haven’t heard much about him lately.) As we all know, the House did not vote on the proposed act. The “Freedom Caucus” wouldn’t vote for it because it wasn’t bad enough. So much for the Donald’s great negotiating skills.

The revised bill was even worse, but it just barely passed in the house after one day’s consideration. Many, probably most, of the members of Congress who voted for it, didn’t know what was in it. Now Republican members of Congress are afraid to meet their constituents because the People keep yelling at them over their votes on healthcare. The People will remember those votes in November next year. Trump didn’t really get behind the bill. He doesn’t understand it, and the only thing he really cares about is the promotion of the Great Glory of Donald.

Every day Democrats get new ammunition for the 2018 election. Washington cannot focus on any issue until “the Russian thing” is cleared up. Trump isn’t going to help the GOP. But if it stands by him, the GOP has everything to lose, including one, possibly both houses of Congress next year.

CONTEMPT OF COURT

If you or I were involved in a law suit and we declared that the judge in our case couldn’t rule fairly because of his ethnic background, wouldn’t we be subject to a ruling of contempt of court? To refer to an American-born judge as a Mexican because his parents were from Mexico is just another outrageous statement from Donald Trump. To charge that the judge’s ethnic background would prevent him from ruling fairly in a case against Trump is particularly egregious. Trump is charging that Curiel’s ethnic background prevents him from performing his sworn duty.

The fact that Trump made these charges outside of the courtroom doesn’t make any difference. They show disrespect for the court. It is still contempt of court, and Trump should be made to pay for his outlandish charges, just as you or I would have to.  

SCARED TRUMP

Donald Trump is scared, really scared. How else do you explain his actions not only during the campaign but especially in the last few weeks? From the beginning he has done things that no politician has ever done before. And he has got away with it! He attacked his rivals for the nomination, not their ideas, but their personal traits. He alienated large groups of people: women, veterans, Hispanics. The Republican establishment hates him because of his attacks on Republicans as well as for what he is doing to the GOP.

But now the nomination is all but in hand. This would be the time for Trump to start mending fences, making nice with the groups that he has been insulting, to unite the Republican Party behind him. But he’s doing just the opposite of that. At a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he lashed out at the governor of the state, Susana Martinez. What did Trump have against her? She did not show up for his rally. Martinez is not only the governor of New Mexico; she is also head of the Republican Governors’ Association, a group that can do a lot to turn out the vote for the GOP. In one fell sweep the Donald further alienated women, Hispanics, and the Republican hierarchy.

But he didn’t stop there. Later he went on to attack another female Republican governor, Nikki Haley of South Carolina because she endorsed Marco Rubio. While he was at it, called Jeb Bush low energy and called Mitt Romney a choker “who walks like a penguin.” Their sins? They failed to endorse the Donald. One major Republican says he doesn’t fear Trump losing; he fears that Trump will win and an indelible scar on the GOP.

Talk of pushing someone else into the nomination through a brokered convention seems to have died out. There is talk of a third party candidate who would take some votes from Trump. Recent surveys have shown Donald and Hillary neck and neck. As horrible as the thought is, it seems possible that Trump could be the next president. And it is possible that no one is more frightened by that thought than Trump himself.

According to speculation that is going around, the idea of running for the presidency grew out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2011. At that occasion Trump was the butt of jokes by President Obama and comedian Seth Meyers. A man who combines an over-inflated ego with deep personal insecurity, Trump, according to the speculation, decided to get revenge by running for the presidency.

At first Trump never thought he would actually win; he just wanted to show those professional politicians a thing or two. Doing everything “wrong” at a time when the public was sick to death of the politicians, he probably surprised himself as much as anyone as he won primary after primary.

But now the day of reckoning is approaching. What if he is actually elected? What would he do then? Even he must have some inkling that he is no way capable of doing the job. And worse: the president make $400,000 a year. That would be a cut in pay for the tycoon. His ego wouldn’t allow that.

TRACKER

I am scared. I mean really scared. A few weeks ago my wife and I got an offer to lower our automobile insurance by up to 30 percent. All we had to do was put a tracker under the dashboard in our car. The tracker would record our driving habits and send them to the insurance company. We soon learned that we both had a bad habit: Jack rabbit starts (me), hard braking (Janet). So we’re trying to rein in those habits. In the meantime someone told Janet that the tracker was another means of keeping us under surveillance.

That got me to thinking about the other ways that outsiders can look into our private affairs. The first thing that comes to mind is EZ Pass. With that device, the government can tell what time you went through each toll booth. They can even estimate your speed. A long time ago my father got a speeding ticket when he went from one toll booth to another in less time than he would have been able to if he didn’t go over the speed limit.

A few years ago I took some pictures of Janet in Maine with my cell phone. Those pictures are stamped with the date and place, so they show that Janet was in Freeport, Maine, on a certain date. There are still other ways to follow my movements. If I make a cell phone call, investigators can pinpoint my location through triangulating the cell phone towers that carry my call.

And then there is all that stuff on the internet. Google, Facebook, et al, know where I browsed, how long I stayed on particular sites, what I ordered over the internet. We have no privacy anymore.

I am not particularly paranoid, so why am I worried? I am worried that a year from now, Donald Trump could be President of the United States. What has that got to do with being tracked on the internet? Just this: I would not want to live in a country under President Trump. As Trump started pulling ahead of his rivals, I began speculating whether I could claim dual citizenship and move to Canada. (My parents were still Canadian citizens when I was born.) I realize, however, that at my age it would be a difficult adjustment for me to move to a country that is even colder than Maine in winter. I need a Plan B.

The prospect of the general election is frightening. The best thing you can say about a Hillary-Donald match-up is, “I admit my candidate isn’t very good, but at least he/she would not be as bad as yours.”

If The Donald becomes president, and it becomes too difficult for me to move to Canada, I would at least like to move to a cave somewhere where no one could find me. But with all that tracking, geopositioning, internet cookies, etc., there is no way I could I could disappear from view.

An Interview with former Presidential Candidate Carl Perrin

Yes, I have a major regret, said Perrin, getting right to the point. I should have taken the campaign more seriously from the beginning. The problem with this presidential election is that there have been no good candidates on either side. Trump is a liar and a bully. He lacks the gravitas and the temperament to be president. He has no policy plans except his ego. In the beginning a lot of people thought that his campaign was a joke, but no one is laughing now.  It seems that he most likely will capture the Republican nomination.

Cruz is one of the most disliked politicians ever, and no one hates him more than his Republican colleagues. The former Republican Speaker of the House called Cruz a miserable son of a bitch, the devil in the flesh. Cruz has taken the unusual step of naming a running mate even though he cannot gain the nomination unless there is a brokered convention. His running mate, Carly Fiorina, isn’t much better liked than the Texas Senator. As CEO of HP computer company, she ran the business almost into the ground until she was booted. Before she was booted out, she cut thousands of jobs from HP.

Ohio governor John Kasich doesn’t seem too bad. He has political experience as congressman and governor. He is well liked in the Buckeye State. He looks especially good in comparison to Trump and Cruz. But he has garnered only a handful of delegates, compared to his two rivals, who each have hundreds.

Really, things don’t look much better on the Democratic side. Bernie Sanders has attracted an enthusiastic following. A lot of people like his ideas about taking more from the rich and creating benefits like free college for everyone. The problem is it seems more and more unlikely that he would ever be able to bring these ideas to fruition. Further, in interviews with the New York Post, he seemed unprepared, uninformed even about issues relating to the big banks that he would like to bring down.

There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the most competent and most qualified to do the job. However, while she is not as disliked at Trump or Cruz, a lot of people dislike her. She admits that she is not a natural politician, but she has a politician’s manner of evading painful questions. A lot of people just don’t trust her. Barack Obama was held in check by a Republican Congress who did everything they could to abort anything he tried. Congress seemed to have no regard to what would be good for the country. If Obama was for it, they would block it. If she is elected, Hillary can expect the same lack of cooperation from Republicans in Congress.

The upshot is, no matter which of these characters become the next president, a lot of people are going to be unhappy. Perrin feels sorry for the next president, no matter who it is. The country is going to be in a mess, trying to recover from the wounds that have been opened in this brutal election.

While Perrin regrets not getting into this year’s presidential campaign, there still is hope. At 90 Perrin will still be young enough to run for the presidency in 2020. After the disaster that the next president is sure to face, the voters of America will be happy to see a candidate who will bring common sense and mature judgment to the political scene.