Existential Choice in the Time of Trump: Conscience and Human Judgment

One might think that a reasonable knowledge of the history of human barbarity would leave little room for further disillusionment. A similar knowledge of human experience also tells us that such a statement as that holds no place either at the dinner tables of young families, the town halls of electoral politics, or the congregational […]

The Dark History of White Reaction to Black Protest

As we observe what I will call the Trumpian conservative and white moderate reaction to the current Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and movement, it helps to contextualize historically the nature of that reaction. When we do, we find that conservative and moderate white reaction is persistently critical of, and unresponsive to, black civil rights and […]

Tom Cotton, The New York Times, and the People Who Just Don’t Get It

For some time now, leading anti-Trump journalist David Frum has offered as the pinned tweet atop his Twitter page, the prediction, “When this is all over, no one will admit to ever having supported it.” A near corollary forecast will most assuredly prove as true — that many more will claim to have opposed Trump […]

Unexceptional America

In the aftermath of the alarm-raising dud that were the Mueller congressional hearings, some observations are in order. We need to see clearly where the nation stands. The first misfortune in post-election resistance to Trump was a GOP congress during the first two years. Unlike Watergate, the developing, synergistic drama of an ongoing special counsel […]

The Necessary, Honorable Thing: Denounce Trump

Only a few true moments of conscience present themselves in a lifetime. For relatively safe and comfortable Americans of the post-World War II era — a place and period of human history unparalleled in its general security and complacency — those moments are even fewer. So unfamiliar are these crucibles of conscience in actual experience that […]