Opinion

Thursday’s post borrowed a concept from a new history by Jeremi Suri called Civil War By Other Means. With it, I wrote about an either-or thinking seemingly ingrained in the Confederate brain.

When Black people were slaves, white people were free. When Black people were free, white people were slaves. Slavery wasn’t just the basis of the plantation economy. It was the basis of democracy for the well-mannered overlords of elite southern society. For them, without slavery – without suffering – civilization would collapse.

It is easier to hate than to love. It is easier to cut someone off than to work on a relationship. This has never been more clear to me than in my own family this year. Suddenly people are not speaking with each other, vitriol is shared back and forth, and "I'm never talking to ..." has been uttered. It's crazy, and I believe my family is only a small reflection of the current state of this country. At the same time, I have also experienced tremendous unity, love and the good feelings of family this year. As I discuss the brokenness of my religious world in the evangelical church, I will share the unity that I have found all around me.

As I think about how to help my own family heal, I worry outwardly about my fellow evangelicals as this election approaches. I listened all last week to the Rev. Tony Evans speak about what he calls "Kingdom Politics." Evans is a big deal in evangelical circles and his message is absurdly and blatantly misleading. Evans leaves anything relating to the blue-collar, working-class values that I believe sustain this country out of his message. Listening to Evans preach this divisive doctrine, I realize that not only the evangelical leadership needs to be ignored but so do all the political talking heads, and most of our political leaders. We must start listening to each other — and being with each other.

Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney and "fixer" for Donald Trump, who went to prison for helping Trump pay hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels, is after "Revenge." Indeed, that's the title of his second book, which is out next week. As I discussed with Cohen on "Salon Talks" this week, that revenge does not stop with Trump. Cohen's takes on the corruption of the Justice Department under Trump and his experiences being investigated for lots of stuff he didn't do (as well as what he did). According to Cohen, the FBI spent time and resources "running around the country ensuring that I was not where the Steele dossier" claimed he was, and looking into "11 allegations raised against me, all of which are false."

This article first appeared on Salon

A shadowy online influencer linked to the QAnon movement, who goes by "Juan O Savin" — and has hinted or implied that he may be the late John F. Kennedy Jr., a fixture of some QAnon fantasies — is also involved in efforts to install election-deniers in key positions where they can oversee elections.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Prior to the opening arguments in the Oath Keepers trial for seditious conspiracy, the media buzzed with speculation over the "novel" defense being offered by the leader of the militia, Stewart Rhodes, and the legal team. As the Associated Press reports, even though members of the group stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, lawyers were prepared to argue that the Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy are innocent, despite mounting evidence of prior organizing. Rhodes, his team claims, believed the president would invoke the Insurrection Act to call up militias, which means the defendants thought they were acting under legal orders from the president.

Rhodes graduated from Yale Law, though he was disbarred in 2015 for repeated ethics violations. He and his legal team have hyped his Ivy law credential to the media, implanting the idea that their defense theory, which otherwise might be regarded as grasping, must have real juice. But close observers have detected signs that lawyers for the Oath Keepers aren't all that confident. As Vice reported last week, the Rhodes team is embroiled in in-fighting. They even tried for a delay, claiming they weren't ready for trial even though their client had been indicted in January. During jury selection, a lawyer for co-defendant Thomas Caldwell "jokingly" complained about the number of lawyers in the jury pool, indicating a possible drop in confidence at the thought of selling this defense to jurors who actually know the law.

I almost feel sorry for Herschel Walker. He is so clearly unfit for the job of United States senator that it's uncomfortable to watch him flounder about, unable to coherently answer even the simplest questions or offer any reasons why he should be one of the most powerful people in government. He was a star athlete, forever to be revered by college football fans, and now he's just a pathetic tool of cynical politicians, particularly, of course, Donald Trump. Still, Walker willingly allowed himself to be used and that's on him.

Once again we see the shamelessness of the Republican Party and the rank hypocrisy of the conservative evangelical Christians who form its strongest base. They're sticking with Walker no matter what, with ludicrous excuses that wouldn't pass theological muster in a fourth-grade Sunday school class.

The former leader of the Oath Keepers militia and his four associates went on trial for seditious conspiracy this week. The defendants are accused of conspiring to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, a plan which included, but was not limited to, the siege of the US Capitol on January 6.

Stewart Rhodes and his minions are the first J6 defendants to be tried under this rarely-used Civil War-era statute. The government’s track record of convicting far-right defendants of seditious conspiracy is weak, but the facts of the Oath Keeper affair make for an unusually strong case.

Donald Trump aspires to be a warlord. He publicly admires despots, tyrants and other authoritarian leaders who kill their enemies and take away the rights of anyone who oppose them. Mental health professionals have repeatedly warned that Donald Trump is likely a sociopath with an erotic attraction to violence and mayhem.

He has repeatedly shown that he has no regard for the rule of law, democracy, human rights or other restrictions on his behavior. He encourages his followers and allies to engage in acts of terrorism and other violence on his behalf. The most notable example came, of course, on Jan. 6, 2021. To this point, Trump has been limited by his cowardice. He prefers to have others engage in violence on his behalf instead of directly ordering such acts or participating in them himself.

Time for a few words on Herschel Walker, the once-great football player now turned Republican Senate candidate. He’s running to unseat US Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t know much about politics. He doesn’t seem to care. He appears willing to do what he’s told, including opposing abortion.

Turns out, old Herschel’s been sticking his pigskin in the mash potatoes since his glory days as a University of Georgia running back. Evidently, he’s fathered more than few children by more than few women without having much participated in their rearing. According to big scoops by The Daily Beast, Dear Deadbeat Dad paid for an abortion by one woman who’d later give birth to another child.

Instead, it’s all about white power and wealth, in a context that once ruled the southern states. This campaign anecdote pretty much explains it all:

Back in 2020 when the economy was sinking like a stone the Senate voted 96-0 to send a $1,200 check to every adult American with a social security number. It was explicitly for every American, including people then held in prisons: everybody in, nobody out.

Last spring, as the right began using the word "grooming" as a slur against LGBTQ people and their allies, journalist Melissa Gira Grant noted at the New Republic that the word provided a way to "say both the quiet and the loud part." Contorting a term long used to describe real instances of child sex abuse into a weapon to be deployed against LGBTQ people and commonplace policies — for example, that their existence can and should be acknowledged in schools — was the "loud" part. It was a shocking but pithy means of demonization; as Gira Grant wrote, the "right is using the reality of child abuse to raise unfounded fears and panic about criminal and predatory behavior hiding in plain sight." The quiet part was the secondary implication: If one's "enemies" really are "an ill-defined yet pervasive threat to children, what wouldn't be justified in stopping them?"

This week, that quiet part got noticeably louder, as right-wing activists escalated the already-dangerous rhetoric of "grooming" — language that multiple social media platforms have banned from use as an insult related to LGBTQ issues — and graduated into claims that LGBTQ people and liberals are literally kidnapping and trafficking children.

More crime is caused by rich people than poor people in America. It’s not that rich people are committing the crimes, although they often do, but that inequality destroys social trust. If we want to reduce crime, we have to start taxing billionaires.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he’s going to cut taxes for Floridians. The Florida legislature isn’t meeting again until March of next year, which is when governors typically roll out new proposals, but, hey, he’s heading into a make-it-or-break-it election against former Florida Governor Charlie Crist in six weeks.

In 33 days, voters will decide which party controls the Congress. As the time ticks down, I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the Republicans, for all their Sturm und Drang, don’t appear to be running on anything. What will they do with control of the House? It’s hard to say. Whatever the Democrats do, do the opposite?

Again, I’m not the only one to notice a conspicuous absence of a positive policy program. So has Kevin McCarthy. That’s why the House minority leader staged a big reveal of the Republicans’ new agenda, “Commitment to America,” in Pittsburgh last month.