The Right Side Of History

In response to the growing, undeniable fascism of MAGA and the Trump administration,  good people have been asking an anguished question: What can I do?

For many of us, the answer is murky. We can–and. must–protest. We can–and must–refuse to sane-wash or ignore what is, after all, before our eyes. We can–and must–support candidates opposing the trashing of our constitution and the rule of law, by volunteering, voting and donating what we can.

But some people are in a position to do more. Some of the universities and law firms that have been targeted have “bent the knee” and opted to be on  the wrong side of history, but others have chosen non-compliance. And recently, that refusal to go along has gathered steam.

Some examples:

The Washington Post, among others, recently reported that Chris Madel, a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota, dropped out of that race, posting to social media that ICE operations had been an “unmitigated disaster” and that he “could not support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.” He said that continuing to identify as a Republican would mean he could not look his young daughters in their eyes.

That high-profile rejection was important, but the resignations of scores of federal workers took even more courage, because many of these people are walking away from careers and financial security.

Tracee Mergen, a supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office resigned after she was pressured by higher-ups in D.C. to abandon a civil rights investigation into the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good. The call for her to end her inquiry came from aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Lawyers, I am relieved to note, have been prominent among the resigners. Several career lawyers had already fled the Department of Justice, in reaction to Trump’s remake of that department, but resignations from DOJ increased after the murders in Minnesota. Six career prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced they are leaving the department in response to the administration’s edict that there would be no civil rights probe into the fatal shooting of Renee Good.

These resignations come from people who have chosen to be on the right side of history. So has David Jolly, a  former Republican who is now a Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, who abandoned traditional political “civility” in a speech that should be echoed by every Democrat (and by the few Republicans who, like Jolly and Madel, have chosen to put country before party).

I am cutting this post short in hopes that readers will click through and watch Jolly’s speech. It deserves widespread distribution.

The bottom line is that we can all do something to be on the right side of history. Increasingly–and thankfully– the people who can do more, the people who can refuse to bend the knee or obey in advance, are doing it. It’s a welcome sign.

Comments

Christian Nationalists Are At It Again

At the base of all policy disputes is a foundational question: What is government for? What sort of decisions are properly within the remit of the state, and which must be left to individuals exercising their own beliefs? The nation’s founders answered that question with the Bill of Rights, which is properly read as a list of things that government is prohibited from doing.

Those amendments answer a fundamental question: who decides, and that makes it an impediment to the “Christian” warriors who want to dictate how the rest of us should live. As most Hoosiers are aware, a lot of those warriors– beneficiaries of Indiana’s extreme gerrymandering–have been elected to Indiana’s embarrassing legislature.

You would think–okay, hope–that this year’s short session would curtail efforts to violate citizens’ individual rights, but you’d be wrong. The Indiana Citizen has recently reported on several bills that would, if passed, advance the desires of those “Christian” nationalists for control over Hoosier behaviors.

One of those is SB 88, which has passed out of committee “with all of the committee’s Republicans supporting the bill and the Democrats who were present opposing it.” It will be heard by the full Senate.

The Citizen tells us that the bill’s author, Sen. Gary Byrne, did strip some of the bill’s most controversial elements ahead of the vote, including a requirement that middle school civics courses teach the meaning and significance of “historic” documents like the Ten Commandments, and another that would have restricted how civics teachers could address race, gender identity and issues of inequality.

In its current form, SB 88 would add something called the Classic Learning Test to the list of college entrance exams state colleges and universities are required to accept. (Like the ACT and SAT.) The Classic Learning Test is described as “a conservative-backed standardized exam that emphasizes classical literature and Christian thinkers.”  SB 88 would also expand the statutory definition of “good citizenship” instruction, requiring schools to teach students a version of “good citizenship” that includes graduation from high school, holding a full-time job, and waiting until marriage to have children.

(And here I thought “good citizenship” meant things like civic literacy, jury duty and voting…these days, I’d expand that definition to include protesting and when appropriate, civil disobedience.) As several Democrats noted, the bill would impose (some people’s) moral instruction under the guise of civics education.

The inability of Indiana’s GOP to distinguish between America’s legal structure and their carefully cherry-picked bible lessons is a common hallmark of Christian nationalism. A recent post from Lincoln Square highlights a recent publication from the Heritage Foundation, a follow-up to that organization’s Project 2025.

Do you believe that husbands should be in charge of their wives? Do you think that women who get a divorce ought to be ineligible for government benefits? Are you against gay marriage? Well, I’ve got good news for you!

The Heritage Foundation’s new report, Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years, reads like a white Christian Nationalist fever dream.

There are legitimate disagreements among legal scholars about the intent/meaning of several constitutional provisions. There are legitimate disputes over the application of provisions of the Bill of Rights to contemporary realities the Founders could never have envisioned. But there is absolutely no credible scholarship supporting the notion that government should mandate behavior approved by a religious sect–or impose legal sanctions on behaviors that a given religion disapproves.

There is no historical basis for creating an American Christian theocracy.

Most religions–and most non-believers–share broadly-held views that are also moral: against murder, against theft, against aggressions of various kinds. Our government can and does forbid those behaviors–not because they violate some religious tenets, but because they violate the libertarian premise upon which our government was founded. That premise, articulated by Enlightenment philosophers and endorsed by America’s Founders, was simple and profound: Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends–their own life goals–so long as they do not thereby harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as they are willing to accord an equal liberty to their fellow citizens. Government’s role is to protect our individual liberties while keeping the strong from abusing the weak.

It is not government’s job to prescribe our prayers or to dictate when, how or whether we should procreate, and it’s none of government’s business who we may choose to love. Laws imposing the religious beliefs of these performative “Christians” on the rest of us are unconstitutional and profoundly unAmerican.

Majority members of Indiana’s General Assembly need to take a remedial civics course.

Comments

Cutting Through The C**p

If I see another “study” attempting to describe the different motives of those who support Donald Trump, I will once again engage my (not-so-inner) potty-mouth.

The most recent example I’ve come across was a description of a study purporting to describe four different varieties of Trump voter. Here’s the crux of the study’s “scholarly” conclusion:

About 29 percent of 2024 Trump voters are what we call the “MAGA Hardliners.” These are the fiery core of Trump’s base, mostly composed of white Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, who are animated by the belief that God is on their side in America’s existential struggle between good and evil. Then there are the “Anti-Woke Conservatives” (21 percent): a more secular and affluent group of voters deeply frustrated by what they perceive as the takeover of schools, culture, and institutions by the progressive left. Another 30 percent are the “Mainline Republicans”: a more racially diverse group of middle-of-the-road conservatives who prioritize border security, a strong economy, and cultural stability. Finally, we have the “Reluctant Right” (20 percent). Members of this group, unlike the other three, are not necessarily part of Trump’s base; they voted for him, but have ambivalent feelings toward him. Only half identify as Republicans, and many picked Trump because he seemed “less bad” than the alternative.

Any reasonable look at those “differences” will note the common thread that unites them, the overwhelming grievance that allows them to ignore–or even cheer–Trump’s ignorance and venality, his increasing dementia, and his destruction of America’s constitution at home and influence abroad. 

That common thread is a deep-seated racism. 

Let’s look at all four of those categories. The first, the MAGA Hardliners, are described politely; they are rather clearly White “Christian” nationalists. Project 2025 mapped out their preferred society–a society where God has installed  White males in positions of authority, where women are returned to the kitchen and bedroom, and people of color who are allowed to remain in the country are properly subservient.

“Anti-woke conservatives” are assigned to a second, presumably separate category. Everything we need to know about them is in the “anti-woke” descriptor. They are only different from the White “Christian” nationalists because they don’t attribute their racism to a god. They may be more educated and more secular, they may even be more circuitous when expressing their hatreds, but they are every bit as racist as the MAGA Hardliners.

Calling the third group “Mainline Republicans” is a slur on those who could formerly have been described that way– genuinely traditional “mainline” Republicans have mostly departed from today’s GOP, leaving the “mainline” moniker to those who were formerly on the fringe. They are, according to the description, concerned with “border security, a strong economy, and cultural stability.” Border security and “cultural stability” are the give-aways here: securing the border means “keep Black and Brown folks out of the U.S.” “Cultural stability” is code for keeping White Christian male status dominant.

And that fourth group–the voters who chose to give the nation’s nuclear codes to a clearly unfit buffoon who had been found guilty of multiple felonies and rape because he was the “lesser of two bad choices?” Come on! Kamala Harris was only a lesser choice to people who could not bring themselves to vote for a Black woman (a Black woman married to a Jew, no less!)

These aren’t different constituencies. At most, they’re different varieties of racists.

And credit where credit is due: the one promise Trump has kept is his promise to emulate the Nazis. He hasn’t brought down the price of eggs or other groceries, hasn’t kept America out of foreign military engagements, and certainly hasn’t made America great. He and Stephen Miller and the assortment of clowns, misfits and outright psychopaths he has assembled have pursued an unrelenting attack on DEI, on “wokeness,” on accurate history, and on anyone perceived as an enemy of the would-be King of (some) White folks.

Now, Trump’s administration has unleashed its very own Gestapo–directed at cities in Blue states that failed to vote for him. Actually, Trump has gone one better than Hitler– Gestapo thugs didn’t wear masks.

Sane-washing takes lots of forms. For far too long, the media has tried to portray insanity and corruption as just one set of political positions, while academics have attempted to “slice and dice” MAGA supporters into more and less reprehensible categories. Those efforts are another kind of mask–one that keeps us from seeing the extent of the fascism we face.

Purveyors of “making nice” need to cut the crap and face up to the very ugly evidence of where we are right now.

Comments

Let’s Send J.D. Ford To Congress

For the last couple of terms, Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District has been “represented” (note quotation marks) by Victoria Spartz. I will refrain from characterizing the Congresswoman, since I live in Indiana’s Seventh Congressional district (where I am very happy with my own Congressman, Andre Carson). I’ll just link to a 2025 Town Hall meeting at which her constituents–in a district she’s helping to turn from Red to Purple–roundly booed her performance in office.

I will also share that I was delighted when, a week or so ago, J.D. Ford announced he’d be running against Spartz. J.D. is one of the more thoughtful members of Indiana’s terrible state legislature. (I know–being “more thoughtful” than the MAGA culture warriors who dominate that body is faint praise…But J.D. has been an informed and hardworking member of the Indiana Senate since he was elected to that body in 2018.)

When I saw the announcement, I dug through my past posts to retrieve what I had written when J.D. first opposed then-incumbent Mike Delph. As he prepares to run against an equally unsuitable incumbent, I thought I would share that post.

At a recent candidate forum, J.D. Ford–who is running against Mike Delph–made what should have been one of those “duh, yeah, we learned that in high school civics” observations: when businesses open their doors to the public, that constitutes an obligation to serve all members of that public.

There is a reciprocal relationship–a social contract– between business and government. The government (which collects taxes from everyone in its jurisdiction, no matter their race, religion or sexual orientation) uses those tax dollars to provide services. Those services are an essential infrastructure for the American businesses that must ship goods over publicly-financed roads, depend upon police and fire departments for safety, and (in some cities, at least) public transportation to bring workers and customers to their premises.

As Ford noted, business that want to discriminate– who want to pick and choose which members of the public they will serve–are violating that social contract. They want the services that are supported by the tax dollars of all segments of the public, but they don’t want to live up to their end of the bargain.

Where Ford (and I) see fundamental fairness, Mike Delph (surprise, surprise!) sees religious intolerance.

“I was saddened to hear him express such intolerance for those of us that hold deep religious conviction,” Delph told The Star. “Religious liberty is a fundamental American ideal.”

Let’s call this the bull*** that it is.

If your religious beliefs preclude you from doing business with gays, or Jews, or blacks, then don’t open a retail establishment. Don’t enter into a contract knowing that you will not honor its terms.

Religious liberty allows you to hold any beliefs you want. It allows you to preach those beliefs in the streets, and to refuse to socialize with people of whom you disapprove. You have the right to observe the rules of your particular religion in your home and church, and the government cannot interfere. But when you use religious beliefs–no matter how sincere–to disadvantage people who are entitled to expect equal treatment, when you use those beliefs as an excuse not to uphold your end of the social contract, that’s a bridge too far.

It would be wonderful to have an Indiana Congressional Representative who clearly understands that basic constitutional principle.

Important as that is, my enthusiastic support isn’t based only that essential understanding.

During his time in the Indiana Senate, Ford has demonstrated the ability to get things done, even as a member of the minority. He’s served as Caucus Chair of the Indiana Senate Democrats, and during the 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions, served on a variety of committees, including Education and Career Development, Elections, Ethics, Family and Children Services, the Health and Provider Services, Local Government, and Rules and Legislative Procedures committees.

And unlike Spartz, who has a reputation for public outbursts and confrontations with colleagues and staff,  and for a management style politely described as “dysfunctional” (a style that has contributed to high levels of staff turnover and general lack of effectiveness), J.D. has modeled appropriate legislative behavior.

He’s also a really nice guy.

Fifth District voters– if you send J.D. Ford to Congress, you won’t have to yell at him in Town Hall meetings….

Comments

I Have A Litle List…

Given the fire hose of illegality, unconstitutionality and immense stupidity coming out of the Trump administration on a daily if not hourly basis, people might be forgiven for failing to notice the effort to access and amass all kinds of data.

But control of data is important–and the nature of the information the administration is stockpiling is chilling.

As the Bulwark recently reported, the administration isn’t just compiling lists of immigrants in order to unleash ICE on them. It is busy collecting a wide variety of other information– lists of people with developmental disabilities, lists of “dissidents”—and lists of Jews.

The administration’s effort to collect such data may seem counter-intuitive; after all, it has been busy deleting and censoring any information that it finds inconsistent with its efforts to promote White Supremacy. (As a political science friend recently pointed out, the only campaign promise Trump has kept is his promise to MAGA to re-institute racism.) In addition to its ideologically-motivated elimination of statistics on climate change, hunger, trade and sexual orientation, it has methodically deleted photos of nonwhite people who have excelled in various areas, and even photographic evidence that nonwhites have served in the military from government websites. 

But now it’s becoming clearer that some of the most disturbing developments don’t involve data the administration is suppressing, but rather data it’s collecting—in some cases illegally—and the ways those data can be weaponized against perceived enemies.

It isn’t only nonwhite folks who are being targeted, it’s any group that MAGA fears and/or hates. The administration has actually sued the University of Pennsylvania because that institution has refused to hand over a list of its Jewish faculty, staff, and students. (Penn quite correctly has refused, but last year, Barnard complied with a similar demand.)

As the Bulwark article points out–and as every Jew knows–there are good historical reasons to worry when an authoritarian  leader is trying to compile a registry of Jews–especially when that leader has referred to Jews as “disloyal,” and that leader’s coalition has many outspoken Jew haters and Holocaust deniers.

It isn’t simply an effort to compile a list of individuals that MAGA considers “Other.” The administration’s war on diversity–on people and places that aren’t lily-White “Christian” enclaves–extends to entiire Blue states–states that Trump obviously considers enemy territory. The AP has recently reported that executive branch agencies have been ordered to compile a list of monies being sent to Blue states.

President Donald Trump’s budget office this week ordered most government agencies to compile data on the federal money that is sent to 14 mostly Democratic-controlled states and the District of Columbia in what it describes as a tool to “reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.”

The order comes a week after Trump said he intended to cut off federal funding that goes to states that are home to “sanctuary cities” that resist his immigration policies. He said that would start Feb. 1 but hasn’t unveiled further details.

The obvious purpose of these lists–the only reason to acquire this data–is to differentiate between those MAGA considers “real Americans” (Whites, certain “Christians,” residents of Red states) and those who must be considered enemies. Other.

There are a number of recent “remakes” of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I have a little list…”  In all of them, the chorus is the same: “They never will be missed”….

Shades of Joe McCarthy.

Comments