Tag: Trump

What else can Trump do to persuade Catholics he’s on their side?

American Catholic voters, the cheapest of cheap dates, went absolutely bananas the other day on Michaelmas when someone on Donald Trump’s social media team posted the prayer to St Michael.   

Because I am slightly more sentient than a banana myself, I feel qualified to explain this phenomenon: This is called “pandering.” It is what you do when you are equal parts ignorant of and contemptuous toward something (like how Trump is ignorant of and contemptuous toward the Catholic faith) but you know that you need those people to vote for you, and you know a lot of them are absurdly gullible and desperate for affirmation. So you throw them a scrap and watch them scramble.  

On the same day the prayer made a splash on Facebook and X, Trump himself made a remark in person wherein he sounded more like his old familiar self, not praying humbly as in the St Michael prayer, but longing for “one really violent day” in which police could get “extraordinarily rough” against shoplifters who are allegedly swarming over our fair country.   

Trump himself, of course, is notorious for walking away without paying for what he takes; in his personal life and in his campaign; and despite the fear and frenzy he habitually tries to whip up—”[P]olice aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told if you do anything, you’re going to lose your pension. You’re going to lose your family, your house, your car.”—both violent and property crimes (like the theft Trump constantly complains about) have declined dramatically across the entire country.   

But he shared a prayer! And on Mary’s birthday, he shared a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe! And the two failed assassination attempts took place on the feast days of Our Lady of Sorrows, and also on the Feast of St Henry, which, y’know, is probably also significant somehow if you have eyes to see! And Melania is Catholic! 

So very Catholic. 

As a Catholic, that’s all the evidence anyone could need. Sure, Trump’s no angel, but God’s been workin’ on his heart, and we’re clearly mere moments away from the best conversion you people have ever seen, a really big, beautiful conversion; you won’t believe your eyes. Not even the late, great Hannibal Lecter could have a conversion like this.   

Maybe you’re still somehow unpersuaded by the overwhelming evidence that Trump is doing the work of God. Maybe you’re still a tad skeptical that there is some kind of sincere searching going on in his soul.  

Frankly, I’m sad for you. It must be hard to live in such a cynical world when you can’t even see what’s so plainly right before your eyes. What would it take to make you see the burgeoning grace at work inside this happy warrior? What more could this lion of God do to melt your hearts of stone and show you who he really is? 

I have a few ideas … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image source 

Pro-life voters are now entirely free

For almost as long as I can remember, voters who understand the vital importance of the pro-life cause have had their consciences held captive by politics. Every election year, pro-lifers have been bullied, and have bullied each other, into voting for one candidate and shunning the other, with their very souls allegedly on the line.

People who more or less held the same views were invited or outright commanded to denounce each other as the enemy. But now that’s over. It’s done. We’re free.

Oh, folks on both sides are still arguing that it’s crystal clear we absolutely must vote this way or that way if we want to call ourselves pro-life. But now, neither party is willing to even fake an interest in actually being pro-life. The masks have come off entirely.

“But Simcha,” you may say. “I thought Trump and the Republicans were the pro-life party? Sure, Trump isn’t perfect but we’re looking for a politician, not a saint, and he’s clearly the only one who is willing to stand up to protect the unborn. At least compared to the alternative.”

Except that he just said into a reporter’s microphone that six weeks is “too short; there has to be more time … I want more weeks”; ie, the law should give women more time to decide whether or not to get an abortion (or, as often happens, more time to get pressured or coerced into an abortion). He said he would vote for just that in the upcoming Florida election.

Then, when people got upset, his campaign said he didn’t really mean it or really say anything and we’re just dumb for thinking he said anything.

He also said that, if he’s elected, his government will cover the cost of IVF for anyone who wants it, because “we want more babies.” IVF is intrinsically immoral because it replaces a sacred, creative act of love with a mechanised act of production in a lab. But even if that doesn’t bother you, IVF means millions of extra embryos are made, and then either imprisoned in a freezer indefinitely, or thrown away.

There is no IVF that is untainted by this wholesale murder of tiny humans. Babies are good; but cranking out babies like widgets and then throwing most of them away? That’s wrong.

This same Republican party absolutely lost their minds a few years ago when President Barack Obama said he was going to require Catholic employers to include contraception in their insurance coverage for employees. We were told this was a direct violation of religious freedom, and we must vote for Trump so he can liberate us from a government that would spend our tax dollars on the culture of death.

And now here we are. Maybe you will reply, “Well, this is all a shame, but you have to admit, he appointed judges to the supreme court who did what he promised, and they overturned Roe v Wade! Hard to argue with that as a pro-life win!”

Except that since this happened, the numbers of abortions have gone up. Yes, really. Why? My guess is this…

Read the rest of my latest (which I wrote before the debate, but nothing has changed) at The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: James Boast Creative Commons

Did God save Donald Trump’s life?

Because I make an effort to stay in contact with people of all political stripes, my social media feed has been…especially stripey lately.

One image that keeps turning up is something A.I. churned out in response to Donald Trump’s recent brush with death: It appears to be Mary, blue-eyed and lipsticked and wearing nice little earrings, placidly extending her middle finger to twitch a bullet (still in its shell casing) out of its deadly path. Her manicured thumb and forefinger form a gesture that reminded many viewers of the white supremacy “OK” sign, but which others have argued looks more like a gesture of blessing common in Orthodox icons.

I’m analyzing this insane image in detail because it is so meaningful—not, perhaps, in the way the A.I. prompter intended, but as an illustration of this political, cultural and religious moment.

The image is being passed around by folks who believe it’s clear that God miraculously and directly intervened to save Trump from death. The bullet fired by Thomas Crooks should have hit him square in the skull, but instead it only grazed his ear, sparing his life and freeing him to go on and do whatever he will do.

And maybe that is what God did! I don’t know what God does or does not do. I’m not under the illusion that the Almighty, blessed be he, is carefully calibrating his decisions based on how a chronically online middle-aged swing state double hater like me might react. God’s ways are not my ways, and thank God for that.

Or maybe it was just a meaningless coincidence that the bullet missed. Maybe a blackfly bit that young man on the elbow right at the moment of truth, and he flinched just enough to shoot his shot millimeters astray. Or maybe he just wasn’t a very good marksman. I don’t know.

A good many commenters do believe they know. A priest prayed for his safety right before the speech, so is this not, argued many, clearly an answer to prayer? God clearly did that! But, protested others, why in the world would God spare the life of an adulterous felon who’s poised to wreak unimaginable havoc on our nation for a second time around? God would never do that!

But once we start thinking about what God clearly made happen or clearly didn’t make happen, it opens up a whole world of uncomfortable questions. If God and/or Mary and/or a flag-shaped angel did nudge that bullet aside to spare the former president’s life, then why did he let another bullet hit firefighter Corey Comperatore right in the head? How could that A.I. Mary look so placid while knowing this was about to happen? Is it because Trump is more powerful and therefore more important than ordinary folk? Was it because Our Lady knew people would be inspired by the man’s heroic death, and it would bring out the best in people who heard the story?

But some people who did hear of Mr. Comperatore’s valiant sacrifice said that it doesn’t matter because only fascists would be at a Trump rally, and “fascists aren’t people” (a comment I read with my own eyeballs on Facebook). Several said that he deserves no praise because he said awful things about Palestinians on Twitter, and it’s just as well he’s gone. You have to wonder: If Trump’s survival was God’s will, why doesn’t God care that it brought out the very worst in so many people?

The answer is to refuse to play this game. God isn’t impressed by the power of a political candidate (even the one we favor), and he doesn’t desire the suffering and humiliation of any human (even our political enemies). When we bring these ugly ideas out into the light, we must see how repugnant they are.

And yet, we do pray. We do ask God for things. If we don’t think that God listens to our prayers and responds to them, then why do we bother?

Oddly enough, dwelling on that grotesque A.I. image of Mary gave me some new thoughts about God’s providence.

I saw another image on social media…. Read the rest of my latest for America Magazine. 

 

Signs of the times (and watermelons) for the 2022 election

It’s almost election day. Time for a little sign round-up, and a look back to see how far we’ve come. 

Back in 2019, I was stopped at a red light near the commons, where a group of earnest people were gathering to protest climate change. They carried signs saying things like “I speak for the trees,” and the rally leader started up a syncopated chant about striking because the waters are rising.

Stopped next to me was a whiskery old man in a pickup truck full of rusted out auto parts. He chewed on a sandwich and watched with great interest as the crowd clapped along with the chant. It came to an end, everyone cheered, and the man in the truck shouted, “WATERMELONS!!!” Then the light changed and we all drove on.
 
I yearn for those days. I yearn for that clarity, when we were all able to receive each other’s words, look each other in the eye, shout, “WATERMELONS.” And then just drive away. 
 
 
 
Unlike Watermelons Guy, Trump Thumbs Guy did not listen. He did not shout. He did not drive away. He just sat there with his thumb inert, telling you all you need to know about China Joe. And look where we are now. (I actually don’t know. I have been using all my effort not to pay attention.)
 
I also have an album of additional signs and other public displays from medium-weird New Hampshire from around this time, as follows:
 
 
You could spend an afternoon trying to parse exactly what is meant by “NO” in quotation marks AND inside a “no” sign, and that’s even without the “CHINA” “JOE” “CONTROL” “MAN” aspect of it, not to mention the little snowman.
 
There was another sign at a different intersection, making the same point in a more concise fashion:
 
 
I realize this is superimposed on a Biden sign, but it’s also in keeping with the general feeling of the area, in and out of election season:
 
 
Whose woods these are, I think I–NO.
Take that, Robert Frost. 
 
Speaking of in and out of season, this area also sports an unexpected snowmobile
 
 
and about fifteen minutes down the road, the town commons had not only a nativity scene and a giant Hanukkiah, but also various other displays, because somebody read a thing about the constitution on Tumblr one time
 
 
This display was soon joined by a Festivus pole and something that was either some kind of other pole that was either a frickin Wiccan thing or else a Quiddich thing. I did not slow down to ask questions. 
 
Of possible interest, the brain trust who put up the I’ll Show You Constitution Nativity display ended up being harassed by a completely different brain trust who calls himself [gird your loins] The Hip-Hop Patriot, and who was at the Jan. 6 riots and before that was cocaine dealer turned snitch, although he says nuh uh he was not. Mr. Hop is now running for State House, because of course he is.  There is also a third brain trust, a former cop with some interesting extracurricular activities who was at the time city councilor and stood up for Christianity by doxxing the guy and his wife and hosting a discussion where someone threatened to cut him, and this guy . . . I’ll save this for another day. He’s also running. So that’s where we are now, democracy-wise.
 
In 2020, a number of signs on both sides were defaced by the opposition. Someone took a bite out of a Trump sign; someone spray painted all over a Biden sign. Someone went around painting “RACIST,” and sometimes “RAPIST,” over other Trump signs. But this year, we had this much more restrained exchange of ideas:
 
 
possibly because the local police reminded folks that no matter how noble your cause, it is still illegal to go in someone’s yard and set their signs on fire. We are just coming out of a drought, so we have that going for us.
 
I always read the little rebuttal sign in a squeaky “kangaroo in her pouch” voice, and it helps a little bit. 
 
I’ll tell you what doesn’t help: Running late to pick up a kid at one school, getting to the other school to find that everybody’s already left and the one kid you did manage to get is HUNGRY and the only car cookies left are Nutter Butters, and so over the sound of her howls, you voice text the only  kid with a phone and ask her to find the others and meet you at the library instead, and when you’re on your way there you suddenly realize you’re supposed to be at a third school watching a third kid at soccer practice, and then you see this:
 
 
With God as my witness, the man is 52 years old and I thought he could arrange for his own ride. 
 
Speaking of rides, a few local citizens are signaling in their own way that the candidates this election are somewhat wanting, and maybe it’s time to write in someone who actually represents who we are as a people today. Someone like, um, Larry Dickman, or *sigh* Bertha Butt. 
 
 
We are not okay, guys. 
 
Not sure whether it’s better or worse that the next sign is from a real candidate:
 
 
These ones tend to show up in clusters, which is disconcerting because of the eyes. I did go to the website, and I did not get any clarity on any of it, not “I Want To Rule You,” not the cat eyes, and definitely not the chameleon. I find it alarming that this dude raised enough money to buy more than one or two signs. He also has this version, same guy:
 
 
“Death is not the worst of evils” is not a campaign slogan I have seen before. I agree with it in principle, but he’s a 2022 libertarian, so there is a 10,000% chance he would finish the sentence “death is not the worst of evils” with “but age of consent laws are!” 
But, he notes ON THE SIGN, “I’m serious.” 
My only question is, what the hell. 
 
Next we have another new sign that it grieves me to admit I understand:
 
 
Aria DiMezzo is [gathers strength] a local trans anarchist libertarian recently convicted of laundering bitcoin through a fake church of Satan . . . look, just stab your finger into a random page in the Big Book of Stupid Ideas, and you’ll get the gist. 
 
That’s not rain on the window, it’s tears of exhaustion. 
 
But wait! It’s not just the far right and the moronic middle who are terrible! Everyone is terrible! This is a sign I have to pass by at least twice a day, sometimes four times, and each time, my desire to punch someone increases:
 
 
I don’t even disagree! I mean I’m pro-life but I’m super duper in favor of holding men accountable for making babies. But this freaking sign is so STUPID and it thinks it’s so CLEVER. Gah. Imagine lying in bed and this phrase pops into your head, and you think, “Ho ho, that’s a corker!” and then you wake up in the morning and YOU STILL THINK IT’S A GOOD IDEA, and you actually go and find two colors of paint and a paintbrush and a piece of poster board, rather than punching yourself in the head like you should. WATERMELONS, I SAY. 
 
This house has since added a sign urging people to vote because it is almost “ROEvember.” GET IT????????? You can just feel them wriggling with delight over their own exquisitely barbed wit. Gah. You know what, I have a prescription for Xanax and I never filled it.
 
As a palate cleanser, I enjoyed the forthright nature of this message I recently found stuck to a guardrail in a parking garage:
 
I don’t imagine it will change anyone’s mind, but on the other hand, if everyone already knew it, we wouldn’t have any Nazis. But we do, so. 
 
But most of all, I liked this sign.
 
 
“JESUS CHRIST IS THE ANSWER.” In this photo, the man who stands there with the sign is just setting up for the day, and you can see the giant wooden cross he is about to put up next to it. He just stands there with the cross and the sign. What else is there to say? 
 
He’s set up in the same spot as the Trump Thumber used to be, and for a while, I tried to convince myself it was the same dude, and that he had massively upgraded his hero. But I’m pretty sure it’s a different guy. No matter. I wave and beep whenever I see him, because I’ve had a lot of questions in my life, and let me tell you, this man is correct. Between him and the watermelons, that’s a whole-ass political theory right there. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hell is paved with the skulls of online Catholics

“It’s not real life; it’s just online.”

This is something I’ve heard a lot over the last few years. People have said it derisively, claiming that online friends aren’t real friends, and online relationships aren’t real relationship; and they’ve said it soothingly, so alarmists like me would stop overreacting about the threat from silly, lame online gamers who chatted incessantly about revolution but never actually made it out of their mum’s basement.

Then came the assault on the capitol building, and I do believe that’s the last time I heard anyone say “it’s not real life; it’s just online”. Some of the people who made it into the building were truly silly, albeit also dangerous; but many had been grimly, purposefully planning an organised revolution, complete with public executions.

It was real as could be, and it could not have happened without first starting online — with far-flung people meeting each other online, normalising, amplifying, and escalating each other’s worst and craziest ideas, and then working together to put it into action in real life.

It started out virtual, but five real people are dead in real life, and dozens, maybe hundreds, are going to jail. Things that start online can become very real, and we don’t have the luxury of assuming that threats will stay in the realm of the potential.

I’d like to shift gears now and talk about another kind of threat, and another kind of potential revolution.

It would be hard to understate how much Americans cherish freedom of speech. It’s perhaps especially hard to see it right now, when there is so much disingenuousness and so much confusion about the limits of that freedom.

In the final days of the Trump presidency, Twitter and Facebook suspended the president’s accounts, because he was disseminating dangerous lies, and the courts have ruled that Apple has the legal right to refuse to host Parler, the social media platform that refused to regulate dangerous speech on its site.

As often happens in a crisis, there was lots of confusion about who actually has what rights. When platforms moved to cut off people fomenting violent dissent, a certain number of innocent people got caught up in the broad net — myself included. My best guess is that a bot misread some combination of words as incendiary. At the same time, lots more people claimed to be innocent and unjustly persecuted, when in truth they were simply facing the overdue consequences of their misuse of free speech.

It’s fair to say that there was a purge of conservative voices on social media, but this happened not because conservatism itself is suffering persecution, but because so many conservatives have become cozy with people whose words and ideas are dangerous and violent, and whose online life very demonstrably spills out into real life.

So that’s a real thing. Far right domestic terrorists are by far the most pressing violent threat to the nation, and for the last four years, our president has been their friend. Now we have a new, more liberal administration now; and while our new president is himself fairly moderate, much of his administration is more progressive, perhaps even radical.

So even though the explosive threat from the far right is far from diffused, and even though I applaud ongoing efforts to clamp down on platforms that help that threat emerge from online into real life, I am well aware that this is not the only danger we face. Sometimes, under the guise of saving the nation from exploding, we instead run the risk of imploding.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste” is a real thing, too. There have always been Americans who adore the idea of quashing free speech, and who will use the current crisis to prolong the clamp-down on speech, and make it permanent, and expand it. Do not think that Trump and Qanon are the only ones who drum up fear and paranoia to exploit the masses.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Small steps to avoid destroying the very thing you’re fighting for

Long before election day, I gave up trying to change anybody’s mind about politics. I jumped into conversations about it from time to time, but I always jumped right back out again before the muck on the bottom could rise up and envelop my ankles.

It wasn’t just that political wrangling is unpleasant, and it wasn’t just because I didn’t want to lose friendships, although both of those things are true. I have been thinking about a quote that I thought was by Winston Churchill. Someone allegedly asked Churchill about cutting arts funding to pay for the war effort, and he responded, “Then what are we fighting for?”

It turns out Churchill probably never said this; but the point stands. If you sacrifice everything to win, then what have you won? You cross the finish line in triumph, and you turn around and, oh dear, there’s nothing left in your wake but a wasteland.

This is what the political arm of the American pro-life movement did when they championed a man who clearly despises the weak and who has no understanding of the inherent dignity of human life: They hollowed themselves out. They made it abundantly clear to the world that it was victory they craved, and nothing more.

Some in the pro-life movement backed Trump cynically, calculating that they could enrich themselves this way; and many others did it out of fear, thinking there was no other way open to them. I think of a scene I saw once in a TV crime show: A terrified mother crouches under the table, hiding from her abuser. She’s so afraid her precious baby will cry out and betray them that she holds him tighter and tighter — and she ends up crushing him to death.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

For some reason, the link above is not working for some people! Sorry about that. Here is the correct link to the full essay:

Simcha Fisher: When fighting a war, don’t destroy what you’re defending

Image: Detail of sculpture from Frogner Park, Oslo via Needpix

2020 election sign roundup and whatnot, thumbs up

In 2016, there was a guy who would park on the shoulder of the ramp to route 12 with Trump signs propped up all around his car. He would just sit there for hours, day after day, mutely promoting his guy.

The heroic part, though, was his thumb. The whole time, he had his arm stuck out the window, offering an everlasting thumbs up to everyone who passed. Thumbs up for Trump, thumbs up-thumbs up-thumbs up for Trump to all, including the commuters and the truckers and the motorcyclists and the state troopers and the crows scavenging the asphalt for squashed porcupine.

We laughed at the time at this man and his thumb. But I guess his plan worked, because now we all have squashed porcupine, I mean Trump. 

He was there again the other day! But this time around, his message is more specific:

No thumb, though. 

So I pulled up behind him to take a picture, just in case I want to remember the year 2020 for some ungodly reason; and then as we drove by him, my 13-year-old daughter rolled down her window and shrieked, “YOU’D LOOK PRETTIER IF YOU SMILED MORE!”

Then we laughed until we were dead. 

I’m warning you, this post goes downhill from here.

I’ve been so good this election, overall. Maybe not every last second, but in general, I’ve been twisting myself into pretzels trying not to think the worst of people who admire Trump, and, like Tobias Funke, with deep, deep concentration and great focus I am often able to achieve  . . . some modicum of empathy for people I disagree with about the president.

But last weekend I saw this flag on someone’s porch

and I was like, never mind. Like, even if you yourself wouldn’t fly a flag like this? You’re supporting a president who absolutely would, if Melania gave him the login for Amazon Prime. 

But truly, no one I can see is covering themselves with glory lately, and so elsewhere in town, we have the perennial “I’ll show you! I’ll mess up your sign!” wars, ably represented by both sides. Notice that someone appears to have taken a bite out of this Trump sign

whereas the response to this Biden sign is a kind of inarticulate yowl in black spray paint.

There are also Trump signs altered to read both “RACIST” and “RAPIST” at various intersections, which definitely helps people to think clearly about the issues.

But of course there are other elections going on besides the presidential one. Surely if we focus on more local issues, we’ll feel more grounded and more secure that the fires of democracy are still being well tended.

In our area, for instance, many new signs have recently sprung up, some that say “Aria DiMezzo for Sheriff” and some that say “Aria DiMezzo for Sheriff * Defund the Police” and some that read “Aria DiMezzo for Sheriff F*** the Police.” One of these appeared at the entrance to the county jail and nobody has disturbed it yet. 

If you look closely, you will see that DiMezzo’s logo is an anarchist star superimposed over a sheriff’s badge. This is because (?) Aria DiMezzo is a republican transexual anarchist satanist who is running for sheriff of Cheshire County, NH. I often see Aria hanging out in a spangled mini skirt at the parking lot where the pho truck and bitcoin embassy used to be. Now you know as much as I do. 

The “Write in Earl Nelson” campaign was launched a few weeks after DiMezzo showed up, apparently on the theory that [waves hands] SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING, but honestly everyone is going to vote for Eli Rivera like they always do anyway.  I don’t find myself thinking, “Dammit, why isn’t the sheriff doing his job?” very often, so I guess it’s fine.

Now if you would follow me into an entirely different aesthetic space, I present the Amanda Elizabeth campaign, which has a small number of carefully dispersed signs promoting their gal for state rep.

Amanda Elizabeth, who does have a last name but is keeping it a secret for some reason, is a progressive Kripalu and Jivamukti yoga instructor who wants to fight fiercely for you, and/or to be elected treasurer of the junior class, where she promised to get ALL the best Chumbawamba songs featured at prom, not just “Tubthumping.”

These are all the standard two party candidates, normal, boring, yawn. But we do have a libertarian running for public office, and he has got a message for you:

Because my life is ruined anyway, I went to his website to find out what the hell “an appeal to heaven” is supposed to mean, and it didn’t say. But I tracked down a Facebook comment where he clarified:

“the Appeal to Heaven on the early Pin Tree Riot flag which referred to armed rebellion as an appeal to a higher power when appeals to the government or courts yielded no easy to grievances. Today, this appeal to heaven is voting third party instead of armed rebellion.”  

Someone on my diocesan Facebook page stated today that it’s a mortal sin to vote for anyone other than a third party candidate, so you can see we’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?  [shoots computer]

Possibly in a similar vein, here’s an evergreen:

This is where the new Bitcoin embassy is going in.

There’s also this little passion project, which isn’t political, but I think someone noticed everyone was putting up signs and didn’t want to feel left out. The signs say “RALPH SMART ON YOUTUBE” and they have a nice stencil of a heart and a green sneezing dog.

I did look Ralph up and even watched five minutes of one of his self-help videos, which was mostly slow pans of Amazonian waterfalls, CGI of a car cruising down a city street at sunset, and Mr. Smart himself repeatedly saying “one love to all deep divers!” while grinning at his computer monitor just off screen. If you click on the “about” section of his site, it leads you to “upcoming events” which leads you to “buy clothing.” Now you know as much as I do.

For a palate cleanser, here’s something we saw last weekend in some dude’s driveway:

Well, thanks! I must drive away speedily now, but again, thanks.

But we’ve strayed from politics. What a shame.  Here’s someone downtown who’s been paying attention:

And why not? Wu Tang is for the children.

Then we have folks who have transcended voting for mere candidates and want to register their entire worldview with the universe, possibly while they rest up from a sprain incurred while patting themselves on their own backs. These two signs are on the same street, right across from each other, having a quiet little staring contest all day. 

On the left side of the street:

and on the right:

 

Amen I say to you, they already have their reward. 

My kids have declared that, if we ever get a self-righteous yard sign designed to impress strangers, it has to be this one:

And finally, someone went and had a number of these printed up:

To our credit, no one has defaced these particular signs yet. Thumbs up for that.  

 

This 4th of July, read the Gettysburg Address

My father usually reads the Declaration of Independence out loud when we get together on the Fourth of July.  We’ll do it again this year, if only to savor the beauty of the cadence of those words. 

It will be a happy day for the kids, full of sparklers and hot dogs and marshmallows, and it will be good to have everyone together again. I don’t want to muck up the fun with any heavy irony. But the Declaration doesn’t fall on my ears the way it used to. 

When I was young and listened to the Declaration of Independence, I used to feel pride and gratitude for our country, flaws and all; but now, when I think of what we have become, I am so mired in anger and dismay.  The “long train of abuses” that stirred the founding fathers into revolution are nothing, nothing at all, compared to the abuses the vulnerable suffer from our elected government now; and the people who cry “America!” the loudest let these abuses happen without a murmur, or heartily cheer them on.

We are still the freest country in the world, at least for some. We are still more or less at peace, at least within our borders, at least for some.  We do have a free press, at least for now. It’s not nothing, that our nation manages to transfer power peacefully every election.  Nobody dies when we throw out one bum and bring in the next.  But good grief, I’d like to see more than that.  I’d like to see that it’s still possible to bring about change using the system the founders designed, but the gears have become so clogged with money and lies, it barely functions When something good happens — when a decent, moderately virtuous candidate does appear, or a sensible bill gets passed, or a monstrous one is defeated, it’s almost like a fluke.  We’re the land of ten thousand monkeys, and the democratic process is a typewriter. And if you think I’m speaking about just one party, you’re willfully blind.  

Maybe a different document would be better to read. 

A few years ago, we passed the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. In this astonishingly compact speech, Lincoln looks back at our founding, and then he looks around at the rubble and the blood-soaked ground. 

And then he does something extraordinary:  he looks forward.  He says,

It  is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —  that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for  which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve  that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall  have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people,  for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

He stood on the blood-soaked ground, and he looked forward.

Now we hear the words like “freedom” and “unity” coming out of the mouths of people who despise freedom, who put all of their effort into subverting unity, who see journalists as the enemy, who treat asylum seekers as criminals, who tell us we must violate our consciences in the name of patriotism, who welcome true enemies as logistical allies. And in response, we’re squandering our freedom of speech on petty name-calling, on projectile milkshakes, on melodramatic photo ops. I don’t want four more years of the gorgon, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to vote for one of these soulless, preening candidates just to chase him away. 

But Lincoln stood on blood-soaked ground and looked forward.

So I can’t hear the Declaration of Independence and feel pride in our country — not today.  But I can hear the Gettysburg Address and take courage.  I can see the struggle and grief of the nation, suffering now as it is, and I can look forward. 

If they could recover from that, then we can recover from this. 

Those of us who still love the Constitution are the living.  We’re the ones who understand that the country is not great, but it’s not over yet.  It is still, as Lincoln said, “unfinished work.”   

To the pro-lifers who refuse to be overcome by an obscene and hysterical mob, and who refuse to let the phrase “pro-life” be co-opted by racists and misogynists:  you are the living.  To the volunteers who knock on doors and mail flyers and work the phone banks to rally support for a candidate who can’t win but isn’t a monster:  you are the living.  To students who grind your eyeballs into your law books because you want to make things better, want to defend the innocent:  you are the living.  To those who see their government crushing the poor, and work doubly hard to build them up again: You are the living.  To teachers who day after day shrug off the pressing cultural gibberish because you know your children need to hear the truth; to citizen scholars who patiently call into radio shows and wade into battle on Facebook and Twitter, correcting and correcting and correcting the lies:  you are the living.

And to ordinary citizens who pray for our country every day — not because we’re on the side of God, but because God will come to our side if we beg — we are the living.

This country is unfinished work.  The battle isn’t over yet.

***
A version of this post ran in the Register in 2013. 

Image: from the book Gettysburg and Lincolnvia Wikipedia (Creative Commons)

Stop telling me Biden’s not so bad.

A little over twenty years ago, I got hired to do some grunt work renovating an old Kmart. This job was nobody’s dream, but I was pretty desperate. I was pregnant and trying hard to move out of town, and I needed to make as much money as I could before I got really unwieldy; and I needed to get hired somewhere before I started to show. 

The job was awful. Just awful. Nine hours under fluorescent lights on my feet in a windowless cavern, and I had two chief duties: shoving metal shelves over tile, inch after screeching inch, and scrubbing gummy residue off walls where the signs used to be. The smell of the solvent made me sick and dizzy, and I worried constantly that the fumes, and strain of pushing those metal shelves, would kill my baby. 

And there was something else. On the day I was hired, the manager’s computer kept freezing up, and he struggled to enter my information in his files. “I’ll have to enter her manually,” he said. My supervisor laughed and said, “I’d like to enter her manually.”

I was sitting right there, three feet away. Ten of my co-workers were sitting right there. All the men laughed. And then we went to work for the day. It did not occur to me to ask any of those men for lighter work, to accommodate me and my unborn child. I was 22 years old. It did not occur to me. 

This memory came back to me today, for the first time in years. The question of Biden’s fitness for the presidency came up, and a vocally anti-Trump man told me that, if it comes down to it, I should “choose wisely” and support Biden. He admonished me to remember those who do not share my privilege. Biden, you see, may feel free to put his hands on women, to smell their necks and hair, to come up behind them like a snake, to use his power and wealth and fame and security as a free pass to the body of any women or girl who whets his appetite.

But he’s nowhere near as bad as Trump. And so women like me need to remember our duty and once again roll over for the man who thinks we’re here for his entertainment. Because we are desperate. 

The truth is, I am privileged. When I got out of work at Kmart, I would scour the want ads, and pretty soon I found something better: a job making sandwiches at Subway. It was a pay cut, but I leaped at the chance, because I had to get out of that place where I never felt safe. There was another pregnant young woman working on the renovation, and I doubt she even realized she had another choice. She had no one on her side. The father of her child was long gone. Her face was blank and bewildered as she worked, and she didn’t even flinch when the men talked about her and her belly. 

When I gave my notice at Kmart and mentioned my fears about the fumes, someone said, “Oh, she just doesn’t want to work.” That was not true. I did want to work. But at my new job, my boss was a woman who expected us to do our jobs . . . and that was all. And it felt like pure, intoxicating freedom to be able to simply put on my apron, wash my hands, and begin my routine without that constant prickle of terror and shame that comes with being vulnerable for nine straight hours every day. 

How many anti-Trumpers spent a delicious season thrashing around in the warm, shallow waters of the #metoo movement, preening themselves on their righteous indignation in defense of the vulnerable? But when it comes down to it, if Biden raises enough money and grins his way into enough votes, they’ll give him the nomination and they’ll tell women it’s their duty to be quiet, it’s their duty to be docile, it’s their duty to be forgiving, it’s their duty to take one for the team. 

I talked about shame. That’s part of the power of the sexual predator: He knows his victim will feel shame, and that will make her less able to fight. Less willing to fight. More likely to tell herself, “It’s not so bad. I can put up with this. Why am I making a fuss? It could be so much worse . . . ”

Biden is just an old school perv who refuses to take responsibility for his perviness. Is he as bad as Trump? Of course not — not by magnitudes of awfulness. But the real question is, are democrats as bad as republicans?

I long ago abandoned the idea that the political party of family values actually cares for either family or values. The republicans have made it clear, over (Trump) and over (Roy Moore) and over (Kavanaugh) again, that women and their suffering and their alarm and their shame do not matter. What matters is power; and women are expected not only not to fuss, but to take part in their own degradation for the good of the party. 

But what about the DNC? Are they any different? Here we are, still months away from the nomination, and democrats are already clearing their throats to make exactly the same point as the GOP made: It’s power that matters, not the vulnerable. Biden isn’t so bad. You can put up with this. Why are you making a fuss? It could be so much worse . . .

Now stay still while we enter you manually. 

Pay close attention, women: The democratic party is not your friend. They do not care about your dignity as a person. They care about power, and if the fates invest an old school perv with that power, then that’s who they will nominate. Brace yourself, because another election bus is bearing down on us, and your friends in the DNC will throw you under. 

***
Image by Ancho. via Flickr (public domain)

I’m done letting anger separate me from pro-life work.

I made a mistake.

When I realized the GOP was going to nominate and elect Trump, I became so disgusted by that conspiracy of gullibility and corruption, I allowed myself to become distanced from pro-life work.

I still donated to pro-life organizations; I still prayed every night for the protection of unborn babies; and I still agonized over my moral responsibility at each and every election. But, while I still challenged readers not to accept the horror of abortion, I wrote less frequently about explicitly pro-life causes. Because of my anger, I stopped engaging with and promoting explicitly pro-life work.

I’m still angry, and justifiably so. I’m angry that there is abortion in the world. I’m angry that it feels necessary to so many people. I’m angry that born and unborn babies, pregnant mothers, and all women aren’t cherished and protected. There is no bond like the bond between mother and child, and it tears me apart when they are dehumanized and brutalized by anyone. Sometimes I’m so angry, I can hardly breathe.

But that was my mistake. Moloch doesn’t care who you’re angry at, as long as your anger keeps you from fighting for innocent lives. So I’m taking a breath. If you’re as angry as I am, I’m inviting you to take a fresh start with me, and see what good we can do.

Last night, at the State of the Union speech, President Trump said some good words:

Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.

And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth — all children — born and unborn— are made in the holy image of God.

His speechwriter is absolutely correct. This is what we must work for.

How? For a quick and easy way to push back against laws that would allow for late-term abortions and infanticide, you can use this form to urge your senators to co-sponsor and vote for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This is a good and possibly even a useful thing to do, and I’ll do it today. But it’s not enough, especially when I know the pro-life politicians are only pro-some-lives. Voting for them feels like planting a victory flag in quicksand.

Not everyone feels this way. If you think the Trump presidency has been good for the pro-life movement and has made the world better and safer for babies and their mothers, this post isn’t for you. I know I won’t change your mind, and I’m no longer trying to. I can’t seem talk about it without getting angry and losing focus. So right now, I just want to write about groups doing genuine pro-life work.

One such organization is Immigrant Families Together.

Who do they help? They help innocent life made in the holy image of God. One example (a real person, whose name is protected for her privacy):

A seventeen-year-old girl in Guatemala who was sold to a gang leader. He raped her and got her pregnant, then beat her so badly, the baby died. Then she got pregnant again.

This time, she decided to get out. So she began to walk, with her innocent unborn child inside of her. She crossed a thousand miles to present herself and her unborn baby at a legal port of entry at the U.S. She broke no laws; she followed the protocol. She just wanted to live, and she wanted her baby to live.

But you know what happens when people present themselves at our borders. They are not cherished. They are not treated as if they are made in the holy image of God. They are caught up in our political wrangling, and they suffer, and their children suffer.

Families are still being separated as a matter of course; children are being thrust into foster care and lost track of permanently. Pregnant mothers are miscarrying while they languish in custody. Mothers who wanted life for their children are having their children taken away. They have not done anything immoral by looking for help. They simply want to live, and they want their children to live. Helping them find each other again and live together in peace is pro-life work.

Immigrant Families Together goes right to the people caught in that tangle and helps them in immediate, tangible ways. They are currently helping that Guatemalan woman through her complex legal process so she doesn’t lose another child.

The first woman they helped was Yeni Gonzalez Garcia, whose story is here.  Through the work of IFT, Gonzalez-Garcia has been reunited with her children.

Here is a summary of their work:

  • Raising of bond funds through coordinated crowdfunding and individual giving in order to post bond for parents separated from their children at the US/Mexico Border.
  • Paying bonds and providing pro bono legal representation to fulfill all legal responsibilities while awaiting trial so that they may be with their children.
  • Arranging safe transportation from state of detention to the city where children are currently in foster care.
  • When needed, finding longterm housing in the destination city while they await trial.
  • Connecting parents in cities with resources in order to sustain them during the process of being unified with their children.
  • Working with local organizations and government to expedite the process of achieving full custody of their children while they await trial.
  • We have expanded our services to also include a legal referral services,  AYUDAS and have rapid response response teams to assist recently released detainees and families.

You can donate through their site, or find a Facebook page that’s more local, such as Immigrant Families Together Midwest, Immigrant Families Together – California, Immigrant Families Together East Coast, Immigrant Families Together South.

I would like to routinely highlight the work of organizations doing pro-life work like this. If you work with or know of a group doing this kind of work, drop me a line at simchafisher at gmail dot com.

Anger is only good when it propels you to do good works. Let’s take a breath and start again.