Why I Choose Not To Run

I am far more interested in politics than I ought to be; the Kingdom of God should be enough.  Theologically I am convinced that there's a lot more God-directed movement when it comes to leaders than we acknowledge in our secular world; this comes in that sometimes God moves for our good, but also he allows us to go our own way when we are doing evil.  In this day and age, I think the second is far more likely to be what's going on...we want a society of evil (even as we call it good), and God grants us our wish by giving us evil leaders (who far too many people want to call great). 

Every once in awhile I think about running for some kind of office.  But in truth, I know for certain that I could never, ever be elected.  Why?  

-I have the looks of a brute and the charisma of a rock.  

-I come from a religious background that has basically denied the equality of women in practice if not in theory.  While some from Churches of Christ have held office, I gotta think this would be a problem, even if I have become increasingly convinced that we are wrong (at least in part).  

-As a Christian who believes in the word of God and the love he shows for all creation, I also am certain that many people I would be wanting to vote for me are likely doomed to hell.  That might be a problem.

-My anger with many 'evangelical Christians' when it comes to the fact that 4 out of 5 still continue to support Trump will alienate me from those people who should be my base.  Preaching Biblical morality and righteousness ought to be a slam dunk; unfortunately, many of these evangelical Christians wouldn't recognize Biblical morality and righteousness if it hit them with a body slam.  

-I despise most country music.  There goes 30% of the vote.  

-I think that many social programs are likely counterproductive and cause as much harm as good.  I also think that there's not a single social program ever created that can fix lazy and stupid, and there are more lazy and stupid people in this country each day.  Saying that might offend a few people.

-I believe that the environmental crisis facing this country (and planet) might be existential.  As such, that might be a primary aim of any kind of action I might want to take.  Considering that a. many think this is a hoax and b. true and effective action will likely cause short-term economic pain and discomfort (even if it ensures long-term survival), likely I would alienate a lot of people, even as I will be shown to be a hypocrite in my actual life. 

-You'd think that after 30 years in ministry I would be good at handling people and making them feel important.  You'd think wrong.  This is the same reason being a hospital chaplain is likely never in my future either.  

-I would piss off every donor and supporter and voter that comes within earshot of me within 10 minutes.  Telling people what they want to hear has become harder for me as I approach late middle age.  

-Israel and the Palestineans can keep destroying themselves for all I care. We should stop sending aid, both military and humanitarian to these places. Christian supporters of Israel who keep misrepresenting Scripture to fund Israeli atrocities cannot be taken seriously. 

-I am both pro-choice and think that abortion ought to be rare.  Likewise I also believe that LGBTQ people have the right to live as they choose, but that their 'rights' are also sinful.  I'm guessing that both of my positions would make nobody happy.  

-Most immigrants to this country are better at being Americans than native-born Americans.  

-MAGA is an atrocity.  The Democrats aren't much better.  

-I don't think I'd be a very good representative of the people.  I'd like to be thought of as more a spokesman for the truth.  That will come across as arrogant.  

-Basic health care in this country ought to be guaranteed and the system to pay for it should be overseen by the government.  Also, fatties and druggies and people who live inherently unhealthy lives should have to pay more for their livestyles. 

I could go on, but you get the drift.  It may be that I'm putting this out into the Internets so that should I ever be dumb enough to decide to run for anything, the oppo research by my opponent will be so, so easy.  But here I stand, I can go no other way.  

Funeral Plans

Yesterday we saw the sad murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, likely at the hands of his disturbed son.  Another terrible tragedy, to go with the killings of over a dozen people celebrating Hannukah on Bondi beach in Australia or the murders at Brown or the wars around the globe.  

Of course, President Trump had to make this about himself.  

One of these days Donald Trump is going to choke on a chicken bone or fall down the steps leading to Air Force One or have a massive coronary event.  And when that day comes, there aren't enough fireworks in this world for all the block parties and spontaneous celebrations that will break out in the United States and all around the world.  

The Way of the Whigs

Trump's 38% support rating is far too high (it's been around that for now almost 10 years), but it enables him to be elected and maintain power because on top of that number there's a certain group of people who can't stand Trump, but hate the Democrats even more.  In his 38% there are the people who genuinely like his policies or are simply part of his cult of personality; but it's in that excess segment that we find the numbers that give him power to drag our nation through the mud.  

Earlier this year, even through all the Trump scandals, there was some reporting about approval of the Democrats being something like 20%.  I'm too lazy to go find the exact figures, but that's about right.  Many people are like my friend Glenn, who knows Trump for what he is and while he likes some of his policies, knows that he's terrible.  Yet he hates the Democrats even more, and so is, in some ways, enabling Trump.

As a casual student of history my mind is taken back to a few decades before the civil war, when the two main political entities in our fair country were the Whigs and the Democrats.  As the nation ramped up into the terrible conflict that would soon come, the Whigs faded while a new political party, the Republicans, came onto the scene.  A gap in my knowledge is the question of WHY the Whigs went away within a decade, never to return.  There was a realignment that was taking place during this time, with people changing loyalties and positions...but regardless, after a period of turmoil what once had been was no more and replaced by something new and transformative, leading the nation into finally ending slavery.  

I think about that history when I think about the Democrats.  We live in a time of changing political loyalties: the formerly blue-collar Democrat has now aligned himself with MAGA.  White-collar educated voters who were once Reagan Republicans are now firmly against Trumpism.  Both groups (and many more) have their reasons for change, but while the Republicans seem to have opened their doors to the influx of people whose sole thought is an attraction to Trump (itself a fascinating study in how far downhill our country has gone), I (and many others) have no interest in becoming Democrats.  But unlike the people who abandoned the Whigs and formed something anew, there's really nothing on the horizon for us today to turn to.  So we shake our fists, march in No Kings rallies, and yet nothing really changes.

In my lifetime there have been fringe movements like the Greens or the Constitution party, groups who likely were far too extremist to attract many people.  There was the Reformed party of Ross Perot, which claimed a few governors and a small following but eventually faded; and in the past few years there's been a group going around called 'No Labels' whose very identity is based on the idea that their openness means that they really don't represent anything of importance.  But where is our 1850s Republican party?  Where is a group of people whose ideas are so strong and principle-based that they capture the imagination of the nation?  

Of course it's easy to say, what am I doing about this?  I suppose it's not enough anymore to simply be an independent; maybe it's time to start creating something anew.  Yet maybe that's the problem...we are now a culture so stagnant, so glued to social media, so increasingly stupid that a new movement is no longer possible.  And for that, we should grieve.

Another Grand Week in the Republic

I knew it was coming...it was time to start shopping again for the healthcare marketplace plan for my wife and kids.  I had heard that rates were going up because some of the COVID era subsidies were about to expire.  But I wasn't expecting that they would go up from $376/month to $825/month, more than a doubling.  In some ways I suppose I am lucky, as it might be that the rates have gone up in part because my daughter is working full-time while she's going to school, and my son is working regularly part-time while in high school.  That extra income likely cut my subsidy, but the Big Beautiful Bill this summer that ended the extra subsidies was probably the main reason.  

It's a good thing that my second job offers health care.  For me it's almost nothing, less than a hundred dollars a month, but to add the family is going to jack it up to around $800 a month.  When you add me in, it's still less than what I am doing through the marketplace, but this will likely take out about half of my check.  Again, I am still blessed...we've always tried to think of this extra money as just that, extra.  But likely this will mean that some of the fun things we do with the extra money won't be there.  

I waited at first to go ahead and sign up for the job health plan, because along the way there was an ever-so-slight chance that perhaps the subsidies would be extended.  After all, the Democrats in Congress were refusing to vote YES on a continuing resolution to fund the government, and so said government was shut down for almost 6 weeks as the wanna-be heroes were fighting to return the subsidies to the plans.  Things were looking up for the Dems...last week they won all the hotly contested off-year elections, Trumpy's approval ratings magically slipped below 38% in some cases, and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans would give in.  Nope.  This weekend it came out that 8 of the Democrats finally gave in, giving MAGA the 60 votes they needed to fund the government.  Once again, the Democrats were running the touchdown into the end zone and instead fumbled it back to the Empire.  

Because of the shutdown 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps no longer had access to them.  And while I'm a bit skeptical that many are truly going hungry (my goodness, look at the obesity rates in this country), the gleefulness with which the GOP were ensuring that that extra money wasn't going to poor people was painful to watch.  All along as the shutdown continued, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House also ramped up so that the Trump Ballroom could be built (alongside the renovations of the bathrooms in the Trump living quarters).  Trump wasn't there much of course, because he was having a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago for his rich cronies.  I mean, the same people who think of themselves as pro-life are perfectly content to watch the living suffer, but were we expecting anything different?  It's like they think of that book as aspirational rather than a cautionary tale.  

I suppose if there's one good thing coming out of the re-opening of government is that an Arizona Democratic congresswoman has now been sworn in, and she becomes the last person on the petition necessary to start releasing some of the Epstein files.  And sure enough, today they are starting to pour out.  While what's in there is going to be hard to read except for those who like that kind of stuff, at least light is finally going to be shed on just how good Trump and Epstein have gotten along over the years, and how Trump will once again have to face the revelation that he's a horrible, evil person.  

Of course for his supporters, it won't matter.  The 38% will soon come back roaring to his defense and soon we will move on to ignored scandal #852 (#2611 if you include Trump 45).  Yes, it's more Greatness than you can ever imagine in our fine nation.  

The Charlie Kirk Non-Obituary

I used to faithfully listen to paleoMAGA talk show host Rush Limbaugh; while I began as somebody who bought into a lot of what he was saying, over time I eventually became to realize how unChristian and ignorant much of his commentary was.  When he eventually died, I struggled to figure out how I ought to think about him and other people who I thought were destructive to society, even as they were loved by many people.  I eventually come up with the sentiment that goes something like, 'We do not dance on the graves of evil people, but neither do we silently wash over the wickedness that they produced.'  I've tried keeping to this mantra in my thinking ever since.

Yesterday right-wing advocate Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in Utah.  I confess that I haven't really ever read much from him, but he was a very popular speaker and debater in the current Trump/MAGA echo chamber.  I have seen several tributes on Facebook from people whom I otherwise respect and who almost never post political material (if they did, I would unfollow them).  Even some kids on my school bus this morning were talking about this, how their parents were crying that Kirk was dead.  

Were I to ever read much of his material or listen to his speeches, I might have liked some of the things he was saying, even as I probably would have found distasteful many other parts because it seems that often the only thing that appeals to many in MAGAland is hateful denunciations of wokeness or demands to get rid of aliens and strangers or angry screeds about liberals.  And so I don't feel entitled to really say anything terrible or praiseworthy about him.  He was a husband and a father and a son.  Lots of people loved this man, much as they loved Limbaugh.  We should respect their grief.  

But there's one quote that I keep seeing, which boils down to Kirk saying that the death of some due to gun violence is absolutely necessary in order for us to be a free country.  This has been posted by many of his opponents who are dancing on his grave this morning.  Karma, they will tell us.  A man who fought gun control on college campuses was killed by a gun on a college campus.  Will yesterday change any thinking on this?  I keep wondering how much longer the earnest question of 'Don't we surround ourselves with guns and threaten violence so as to keep in check the tyranny of the wicked'? will continue to be spewed out.    

Nevertheless, Charlie Kirk will become a modern-day martyr for the MAGA crowd.  But let's not turn him into a hero.  People like Charlie Kirk have helped create a world in which political violence is now the norm.  Conservatives will whine and moan about the violent rhetoric of the left, but they are just as much a part of the problem as those they decry, led by a President who seems to take seriously his role as Insulter-In-Chief.  Even as we condemn yesterday's violence, we cannot wash over the wickedness that evil people produce, regardless of ideology.  Whether or not he was wicked or righteous is in the hands of God now, but we can see the fruits of hateful ideology all around us, even if it is wrongly supported by many people who call themselves Christian.

I do find it interesting that in the wake of yesterday's violence, there were many liberal stalwarts who posted nearly identical 'thoughts and prayers' comments on social media.  I don't think they were trolling, but rather they really meant this...but when this is all we have rather than intentions to make this world a better place, it really does seem like satire.