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Moon Unit

The most surprising Trump news from this weekend wasn't, surprisingly, his abject failure to show up to any of the solemn memorials (like every other living former President save the Carters), choosing instead to pay a Reality Celebrity appearance at the police and fire units near his apartment. Nor was it, drunken Rudy Giuliani's rabid ramblings at a memorial dinner that evening (though these were a sure sign of Rudy's falling into a sad Joe McCarthy-like final decline).

No, Trump managed to upstage himself by making a paid video appearance in promotional materials for the Unification Church of (the now deceased) Sun Myung Moon.

The Church - now led by Moon's wife and sons - has long been staunchly right wing in America. Among other things, they own The Washington Times. Still, Trump's taped remarks were, at the very least, disconcerting, and raised long simmering questions about the Church's malign influence.

Also, Donald Trump is a financially desperate hack who'd take money from anyone who will prop up his fragile ego and fan his delusions of self importance.

In my youth, the notion of "Moonies" - those who had surrendered their independence of thought and finance to the Unification Church - was part of a general concern about cults and the danger they posed. In the sixties, these concerns had started with the Helter Skelter killings of the "Manson kids", followers of Charles Manson. In the seventies, cut concerns took on added urgency partly because of the odd behaviors of Unification church members, Hare Krishnas, and ultimately, with the tragedy of Jim Jones and his followers in Guyana, after they'd fled the San Francisco Bay Area claiming persecution.

Like so many things that have become weirdly politicized, it's hard to know where cult acceptance bifurcated on party lines. Probably, one could point to David Koresh and conservatives trying to suggest "live and let live" libertarianism about a doomsday cult with odd notions about Christianity and some clear implications of underage sexual abuse of children. Whether it's of a piece with a blind spot about authoritarianism combined with "anything goes" notions of religious freedom (especially for anything nominally claiming to be Christian)... who can say. But the failure of conservatives to get tough and stay tough on religious cults does seemed to have moved form merely curious to oddly problematic.

Liberals, being the more comfortable home for religious skepticism, have a somewhat different problem: there's a decidedly passive, impotent approach to tackling cults once they are found out, also having to do with a confusion over choice versus coercion. Cults are marked by the work they do to brainwash adherents (well documented, clearly identifiable tactics like "love bombing", isolation, and deprivation), but often, cult involvement is treated as more of a personal weakness than a dangerous exploitation... until, well after the fact, the exploitation is all too clear. Most recently, that trajectory seems to explain how the NXIVM cult quietly destroyed many young women until its tactics were brought out into the open.

And what does this have to do with the Unification Church? Well, for one thing, like Scientology, the Moon family has worked hard to shroud the cult like aspects of the organization in order to put a more benign, quasi-religious face on its operations to avoid deep scrutiny. That includes using its Wash Times mouthpiece to whitewash potential allegations, courting conservative political cover, and most recently, going full MAGA to gain trust from Trump. Trump's paid appearance is, apparently, something of the culmination of those efforts.   

Trump's Moon Unit this weekend, might have played badly in conservative circles at one time; but at this point, the cult-like atmosphere of conservatism itself, never mind the more specific contours of MAGA support, probably slough this off as some liberal conspiracy to trash Trump by calling the speech benign, at best. Everyone else's views of Trump are so low at this point, one more round of him trolling for a check is hardly a blip.

Still, I wouldn't lose sight entirely of this momentary weirdness and the ways it could, and probably should, blow back on Trump and the right. Despite its own efforts to camouflage its cult aspects, conservatism generally likes to keep its Unification Church connections at arms length - plausibly deniable, while happily pocketing (some might say laundering) the Church's lavish cash. And while this moment, like so many isn't in itself enough to derail Trump's weak if noisy plotting for a political comeback... I wouldn't be too surprised if, should he really try to come back, that a lot of Moon-related questions suddenly appear. While Trump's sleazy business of talking to anyone with a dollar and a scheme worked once... this time, all those sleazy associations could be his, never mind the GOP generally, undoing.

 

A Change Is Gonna Come

While I'm generally not one to embrace the "waiting to exhale" metaphor of being African American in general... I have to admit. I heard the Derek Chauvin verdict and, well, I exhaled.

I'm not clear - haven't been, may not ever be - on why George Floyd affected this country as it did. It's easy, a little generic even to say "the video". We've had videos. We've been upset, Appalled, even. But George Floyd was... different.

It wasn't even the slow starting, but eventually thorough move to prosecute Chauvin (and his fellow officers... someday). No, what was different - what still has the ability to surprise me - is how Floyd's death and the protests that followed unblocked what had, in many cases, been years of lack of progress on many things, at many levels. Watching companies wholesale revamp policies and procedures. Hearing TV and film producers acknowledge and then take concrete steps to address systemic racism in casting and projects. Seeing all sorts of political conversations move to a whole other level of seriousness. I have been watching and discussing and writing about politics for a long, long time. And this past year, I can attest, is in many ways a thing I have never, ever seen in my lifetime.

And they found him guilty. And then I exhaled.

Chauvin's trial, at the very least, stands as the new prime example we can point to of how to get justice for policing right: whatever dismay I felt about Keith Ellison going into this effort, he made good on his promise to seek the appropriate justice: put the best prosecutors on the case. Assemble a compelling presentation of evidence. Anticipate the defense's pushback. And get police leadership to participate in acknowledging behavior that is simply out of bounds.

Unlike some, I continue to have deep admiration for Marcia Clark, and one thing she pointed out in her presentation of the OJ trial was how the prosecution went in and laid an unexpected story in chronological order: her first witness was a man walking his dog by Nicole's apartment, who heard noises and went to investigate. It was the start of establishing a timeline... one that, as she points out, became a bulletproof, uncontested demarcation of the events, and one which was deeply damaging to Simpson's claims of innocence.

Here too, the case against Chauvin started with a woman none of us had really seen: the gas station worker across the street, who, as it turned out, had the eyewitness seat for the start of Chauvin wrestling Floyd to the ground and pinning him there. She eventually took video, but as well, the gas station's camera, and a street camera were all introduced behind her testimony and laid out, before we'd seen the videos we all knew, the tragic sequence of events. And, per Clark, because of that gas station clerk, the defense was hemmed in well before they had even tried to discredit the bystanders on the other side of the street.

And I cry as I write this. I generally think the case was doomed for the defense once Donald Williams, the older man with martial arts experience, testified as to what he saw. When her broke down so thoroughly - as we all did - reliving that tape of that day, there was no coming back. He knew what he saw that day, and so did most of us. And once you know, you know.

Conservatives, faced with defending the literally indefensible, largely gave up. Fox refused to air courtroom coverage, despite the fact that obviously, America was watching. And at the end, rather than simply isolate Chauvin's guilt from everyone else ("lone bad actor" was a gift), Fox's most egregious types - Tucker, Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld - proclaimed that this was "caving to the mob" and "unfair to the police". In part, clearly, they understood that underlying this case was the long history of police misconduct against minorities, especially men, but hardly exclusively. But in part, that throwing up of hands elided the harder question they don't want to be asked - just what, exactly, was unfairly presented by the prosecution in that case? In more sober moments, even Fox lawyers and judicial experts (even Jeanine Pirro fer Chrissakes) admitted that the defense played a weak hand badly and evidence of guilt was fairly clear.

There are those who want a moment to solve everything, those for whom the exhale is not enough. I can't say, wouldn't begin to guess, that this Chauvin verdict is a world changer. A young woman was killed in Ohio the day of the verdict. A case in North Carolina is already going sideways. There's every chance that those conservative, pro police types will exert whatever backlash they can to slow or withstand progress. No, the point is smaller, and simpler, and just, well, what it is: we got Chauvin convicted. And for now, that alone will be the change we wanted. 

"the arc of history bends towards justice" is just that: the bending of a long line, away from the bad and towards the good. Thirty years after Rodney King, we have finally made it heard: the video shows what you think it shows. The bad cops in the videos are the problem. And that problem must be addressed. A change is gonna come. Something has already changed. It's not perfect, and no, it's not enough. But just for a minute, exhale. And let us catch our breath.

What in the World, Matt Lauer?

Lest we get too carried to near tears as Savannah Guthrie was this morning, let's try to remember that there's a reasonable case to be made that firing Matt Lauer from the Today show could also be presented as overdue, and necessary.

Lauer, the highest paid anchor on NBC, at $25 million a year was the longstanding face of a cash cow, but beyond that... well, discussions of his role there were often kind to say the least. His immediate predecessors went on to host the NIghtly News (Brokaw) or be the face of NBC Sports (Gumbel), but no one ever suggested Lauer was good for any of that Indeed, it's hard to say, even now, just what he was good at. His interviews were never called "must see" or memorable, he wasn't the go-to person for major "gets," as they say. He wasn't especially insightful and did little in the way of political moderation (and when he did push his way into the format, last election season, his inartful pestering of HIllary Clinton was widely panned).

Lauer sat with several cohosts - Katie Couric's star power was undeniable, Meredith Vieira's quietly assured, Savannah Guthrie's enthusiasm widely admired. Lauer was none of these, and worse, really, in helping to wreck Ann Curry. Lauer was the face of endless self satisfaction, of having nailed the catbird seat on a money train no one was prepared to stop. He was the nonthreatening, disinterested, slightly sarcastic face of a show that gave up on hard news and settled comfortably into puff pieces and cross promotion, soldiering on through Olympic mornings and Macy's parades without ever rising above expectations. No wonder, on his watch, Today fell from first to third (briefly) in morning shows, the subject of endless backstage gossip and production team shakeups, full of senior executives too nervous of change or too scared of anger to point out that the thing most in need of a revamp was sitting at the main desk.

He started blandly handsome and never especially developed into anything more, and arguably helped immeasurably in making morning television exponentially worse. Weddings on beaches, travelogues from across the globe... and of course another day of diets and that book everybody's reading and that movie that opens at $150 million or more. Lauer's tenure turned Today into People and people into marketing ploys. Hard news? Why even bother?

And for all of this he was known and seen all over New York as one of those guys who had it all and expected more. The ever growing absurd salary. The helicopter to the Hamptons just to go to work. That house and the perfect wife and those puffy articles in magazines you never read at the doctor's office (like, erm, People, the print equivalent of Today). He was never especially loved - tabloids were all too happy to attribute internal strife at Today to his ever growing ego - but post enough publicists on the project and from a certain light, not examined too closely, he was just an ordinary guy doing another day's work. Or something. And hey, check out that mansion!

It took less than 3 hours for Guthrie's "we had no idea" innocence (and hey, how better to elicit that reaction than to tell her an hour or so before going on air) to be subsumed by reports that both Variety and the New York Times had been working, for some time, on reports of complaints against Lauer - and that NBC knew of those allegations. That's gonna sting, and gives some indication, still, of how on air female talent is treated next to male costars. I'm thinking less of Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell than I am of Kelly Ripa, who finally put her foot down after repeated attempts to be written off while carrying ABC's syndicated "Live!" NBC has wasted years perpetuating this TV "husband and wife" silliness of Today cohosts, despite a storied history of women - Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley through now - perfectly able to carry the show alone.

But more than that, more than the way Lauer's story dovetails so neatly with all the "we're shocked, shocked" responses to power male misbehavior, the real test it seems to me is if someone takes note of the way Lauer's endless mediocrity warped and degraded the very fabric of the Today show itself, into the fluffy, pointless, four hour monstrosity he leaves behind. It's that glossy, false fun patina of endless morning cheer that really deserves to die, sacrificed on the alter of the sacred monsters allowed to thrive in its fake living rooms and rope line courtyards. No more Matt Lauers. Is that really too much to hope?

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How Bad Do You Want It?

The singular liturgy of this presidency is about sinking to the bottom. All of these "we've crossed a new line," "This isn't normal," "He's reached a new low" (whether literally in polls or figuratively). If there's a reason so many seem so depressed and so anxious, surely it's the rampant negativity around charting just How Bad This Is and How Much Worse Can It Possibly Get.

As someone who's certainly right there as well - at best my "oh god, he's still president" thoughts have gone from every morning, to oh, about every other - I have to say, I think it's past time we think about something other than the depth of despair or the lowering of whatever bar we're using. By which I mean that it's getting to the point where we need, I think, to just accept that this is the President we have and the fact that he's terrible is just a fact to be lied with, not a constant search for how much more terrible he could possibly get. 

Because, let's be honest, he's already clearly dead last.

The past couple of days - with their startling, even for him, revelations of callous indifference to the suffering of the families of soldiers killed in action - have surely defined a "new low"... but what really is new? Trump has shown no particular capacity to show empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, whether it's hurricane victims, the casualties of mass shootings, or military deaths since the start of his presidency, if not before. While I'm hesitant to get all psychological about it, It's clear Trump's main thinking is about himself and his needs and his desire to be sen as successful and well liked. The needs of other, even those closest to him, never mind strangers, have never seemed especially paramount.

Similarly, bemoaning Trump's failures to understand the policies he's dealing with, in any and every area of government, seems to miss the point. His fans elected a blowhard who's main feature was mouthing off, incoherently, about the things he didn't like without offering much in the way of actual, practical solutions. The3 comedy of errors around his "Build That Wall" promise are not just indicative of his unseriousness, they are the prime example of it. And it's why, often, hand wringing about the possible outcomes of worst case scenarios Trump could create is misplaced... he's so incompetent and ineffective, he can't even succeed at ruining things, except those of his own making.

To be sure, there's a lot of bad things happening and plenty about which to be concerned. Those concerns, I'd argue, ultimately have less to do with Trump personally, than they do with the awfulness of say, his appointees, or the broken down, ineffective nature of Congressional leadership within the GOP. DACA's demise, or CHIP expiration are really about a failure of Congress to step in. Scott Pruitt's destructive path through EPA or Jefferson Sessions' reductive approach to Justice are more a function of their agendas, more than Trump's. By taking Trump out of some of these equations, and focusing on the real threats, it's possible to figure out when and where to take action. 

As it stands, this relentless focus on charting Trump as a downward spiral is a distraction with no endpoint and no real point at all. He is, simply, that bad. He is capable, it seems, of near limitless depths. But so what? Outside of impeachment (or a fanciful, if not impossible, hope for the execution of the 25th amendment), he is where he is and he is what we've got. As weary as I am of the "Trump hits new low" dynamic, my sense is the public soured on this at least over the summer. This narrative is obvious, and old. And we need to get on with figuring out how to move past it. Impeachment requires, most likely, a fundamental shift in the composition of the House. At the very least, harnessing the energy around hating Trump to wards progress in Congressional races is a practical step. And we could stand to make some of those, rather than raging, impotently, at How Bad This Has All Become.

When we get around to charting the - hopefully brief - history of this presidency, there's little doubt about how this failure will be seen, in all it's contours, horrific events, callous words, and thoughtless acts. Practicing a measure of acceptance about Trump, who he is, how he behaves, how inappropriate and unacceptable all of this is, doesn't take a near daily exploration of what depth he's sunk to now. Yup, he literally insulted the wife of a dead Army Ranger to the point of tears. That's what he's capable of. Shouldn't we figure out what we're capable of, instead?

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A Price Above Rubies

In America's mix of egalitarian and elitism, it's not hard to find oneself living or socializing in close proximity to great wealth. It's one of the oldest staples of Hollywood - the good (or bad) kid from a modest upbringing getting exposed to the ways of the upper class. The scholarship kid at boarding school. The everyday worker who marries the boss' daughter. That time you went to dinner in a fancy New York restaurant, surrounded by the obvious displays of people with far more money, if not taste, than yourself.

In some ways, I feel bad for Tom Price. It's not easy to be in close proximity to extravagance, natural, even, to feel somehow you should get to do and have the same things. I was a scholarship kid at a fairly elite private college where other kids drove the spare family BMW, amongst other luxuries large and small. I lived in Manhattan. I've had the privilege of a private showing of the Chanel Couture collection. As much as you think you know about wealth, there's always a level more.

Sadly, the lesson of the last few days is that these are the moments that really do show one's moral compass, and in that, Tom Price failed. Excessive use of private jets on the government dime is a ridiculous, petty excess that flies in the face of claims to cost consciousness and an interest in cutting the size of government. And it's not as though Price's fall was recent. His history of questionable stock deals in health companies while Chairing the House Committee overseeing their affairs was, it's clear, just an indication of Price's sense that he wanted in on the gravy train rolling nearby.

It's gotta sting when you're so very close to it, and reminded constantly of just how far away that life actually is.

Donald Trump may not be as wealthy as he claims, but he is, of course, the very essence of the eighties era "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" that he came to embody, and take as his "brand." (Trump, in fact, doesn't have the usual Gulfstream size PJ as his main plane - he has a 737 gaudily painted with his logo that hangs out, visibly, near the runways at LaGuardia.) And he has, naturally, stacked his Administration with like minded, and similarly well-heeled, millionaires and billionaires. In the midst of revelations this week involving a number of Trump officials... there sits Betsy DeVos, who doesn't spend government money on a jet, because she owns one.

Of course, as the adage goes, money can't buy taste, and the kind of wealth Trump and his friends bring to DC is a kind of ostentatious, showy display of wealth that rubs many, rich or not, the wrong way. Trump's gilded, golden everything decor in his homes and Country Clubs is designed to impress the easily awed, not demonstrate classic, sublime taste associated with older, quieter money (even DeVos, in that regard, seems more understated and private). Trump's is the conspicuous, elaborate consumption of someone who cares more about showing off, and the appearance of class than anything actually classy. Even Trump's much lampooned language about "the best" and "big league" in regards to what he owns betrays that endless need to show off, to preen and self aggrandize. What's sad, ultimately, about Price isn't just the small, petty nature of his fall - it's the way he let Trump's especially tasteless approach to extravagance further warp his own sense of entitlement. Surely, there are better ways to aspire to being upper class.

Trump's extravagant obviousness, too, is why losing Price is neither the end of this story, nor even likely it's worst example (and we do, after all, still have the oblivious displays of Steve Mnuchin and his recent bride, who may be hiding for now, but seem likely to reappear at any moment). The ridiculous trips, the family with no sense of propriety, combined with dozens of hangers-on, some rich and wasteful, some poor and aspiring... the stories can, and will, write themselves (the world waits, Scott Pruitt - don't stop now). And then of course, there's the even more familiar territory of say, Ryan Zinke, and the casual selling of favors to vested interests, like the oil and gas industry.

Still, at the heart of this Dynasty-like resurgence (I, for one, am not so sure that the CW's revival/reboot isn't a stroke of genius) is that sad, small tale of Tom Price. Covetousness and greed are embarrassing; it's almost painful to watch anyone's flaws laid out in such public, shaming display. American culture markets conspicuous consumption like it's, literally, going out of style. You will never have enough. You will never be rich enough, or thin enough, well dressed enough, or live luxuriously enough. The penthouse apartment, the private jet, the furs, the cars... the list is, truly, endless. And yet, how we punish those who succumb most to the siren's call.  It is vengeful, bordering on cruel.

The trick of course, is to learn what it means to have enough. To see luxuries as just that - the occasional extra, a little bit more, a nice perk. When I get to fly in the front of the plane, dine in the 5 star restaurant, buy the Tom Ford fragrance at Saks... I try to remember to be grateful. And to enjoy it without asking for more. At the very least, it gives one the luxury of giving Tom Price something worse than scorn... and that's pity.

Do The Wrong Thing

Unlike many critics (and liberals), I've always felt that Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee's seminal film, isn't really all that it's made out to be. A musing on the ugly racial divides in outerborough New York, the film does accurately catch the tensions, misunderstandings and prejudices that made up urban life at the time. What I've always disagreed with, really is the title: no one in it is especially doing the "right thing." And without that, without some sense that there is a "right thing," Lee's film is a muddle - a film that never quite gets where it's meaning to go, no one to really feel good about, nothing in the situation that offers hope or possibility.

Still, watching last weekend's events in Charlottesville unfold, and watching Trump flail away in the days since, I come back to that notion of the "right thing" because Trump has been, at the very least, an object lesson in that in any bad situation, it's possible to make things worse. Do the right thing? Why not just do the wrong thing, and stand around, waiting for the applause.

The self-congratulatory, self righteous aspects of Trump - the boundless need for mass love, the urge he has to insist what he knows and has figured out is all there is to know - were, I always figured, the deal breakers for his run for high office. And, even with last year's outcome, it's possible to still feel right about this. Trump overcame his self made obstacles from a mix of people convincing themselves he couldn't possibly be as bad as all that, and another group hoping, more or less, that he was. That he was badass. That he was going to stick it to the people oh so deserving of having it stuck.

Those illusions are falling away - some times quickly (the "he can't be that bad" crowd has largely awoken to the fact that he is) and slowly (the growing unease beginning to show up in his friendly circles that He's Getting Distracted or Off Message... hint: he is the message). And with Charlottesville, Trump has more or less (mostly less) given away what he needs most: the good will of the doubtful. Now, at this point, he's not getting that back.

Charlottesville happened for a couple of reasons: a growing sense of confrontation and acknowledgement of the racial tensions, especially out of the traditional south, that drive the continued presence of Confederate symbols and the "Lost Cause" narrative of the Civil War. The other is the reawakening of the forces that ride that narrative to push their brand of racist hate: the Klan, other white supremacy groups, Neo-Nazis and on and on. "Standing Up For Our Rights" as the march was dubbed, was a construct of these racist groups, and from Friday night's procession of torch wavers to Saturday's messy confrontations, Charlottesville was driven by the hate of the racists. 

There are these questions of "what does Trump know" or "what does he think" about the "Alt Right" (casual dress hatred for the young slacker) and the Klan/Neo Nazi world behind it... but this kind of misses the point. Trump doesn't have an ideology, a purpose, a philosophy to guide him. He has himself, and the prejudices and preconceived notions he came with, some he clearly got from his father (who seems to have had a more active, unpleasant notion of race relations in life and business), some he seems to have come up with on his own (his Central Park five antics, birtherism, etc). I don't know what he actually believes, I doubt he does, either. That, ultimately, is what makes him, and his actions, so sad and dangerous. He could know better... but why would he even try?

Trump's emphasis on opposition to violence, his revived use of Nixon era tropes about "law and order" and crime somehow rampant in the streets - a remnant, after all, of his New York youth - blurs, for him, the things that need to be addressed - out of Charlottesville, but more generally, around race in this country. He says the words about "condemning" Neo-Nazis and finding them "repugnant"... but it's a child's dutiful attempt to sound sincere.No one, it seems, can ask him the question he at least needs to think about for himself - not whether it's bad, but why. His answer seems to be "violence." For most of us, it would be, "the hateful racism." 

As a nation, our use of language is sinking - and Trump is, in many ways, emblematic of that downturn as well. We use "racism" too often and too broadly to rope in a multitude of attitudes, actions and beliefs. This is racist. That's racist. He's racist. We need more words. I don't know if, Trump is racist, or how much. I suspect he's someone who carries a long list of prejudices and notions about race and groups that he's never particularly examined or thought deeply about their accuracy or usefulness. It's those preconceived notions he brings to this conversation - a painful, and probably necessary one - around race and how we treat one another, that lead him to choose to say and do the things that make this moment worse. And in that sense, Spike Lee was right - scratch the surface, and most people will show how they identify with their own tribe first. And not try very hard to understand the others. Do the right thing? We don't even know what that would be.

I think we do know some of the right things, and the wrong ones. In this new national conversation, perhaps the best approach is realizing that our President is not some all knowing, wise teacher - an approach of the last two Presidents, neither of whom quite deserved that spot, either - but someone who, like the rest of us, maybe needs to hear some things he hasn't heard before, consider the opinions of people who don't always agree with him, and think about changing his mind. For this conversation, discussion, dialogue to happen... that's a big part of what needs to happen (bless you Heather Heyer, and your amazing Mom). Just because Trump chooses, so actively and so throughly, to do the wrong things, doesn't mean we all have to go along. Indeed, saving ourselves - and any semblance of our decency - requires that we absolutely don't. And maybe that's a start on doing the right thing.

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The Christian Thing To Do

For years, Conservatives have held religious faith and their own sense of religiosity over the heads of liberals; calling it "holier than thou" would be an understatement. From the rise of the Moral Majority to the attempts at political advocacy run out of evangelical churches to the Christian Coalition, the conservative right grew over the past fifty years in part by appeals to religious fundamentalism. And with it came notions that no one knew religion, morality and decency better than they did.

Much of this legendary religious certainty came in the face of internal tensions, never fully reconciled: the most stridently antiabortion rhetoric defined as "pro-life" came from people just as likely to turn around and express a near bloodthirsty interest in the death penalty, and after 9/11, acceptance of even the most casual justifications for the use of life endangering methods of torture. We were treated to lectures on immorality and marital fidelity from folks eager to elect much married, often multiply divorced leaders with scandalous histories of adultery. The most stunning revelations of closeted men seeking men, often much younger men or even boys, for gay sex have come from a cadre of religious leaders closely associated with conservative causes, or members of the GOP in Congress.

And yet, in the face of this, conservatives have continued to wield their mighty sword of piety and religiosity at every turn, unencumbered by a sense of humility or certainly even a modicum of irony. To this day, the notion of liberals as shameless, godless hedonists, angry antireligious extremists bent on taking God out of schools and all aspects of modern life wherever possible, persists.The arguments around these issues are intense, extreme, and most certainly, endless. 

If liberalism could be defined as "a belief system" - something I heard much of growing up - what's been in remarkable over the past 25 years is watching liberalism move away from articles of faith to expressions of defensible public policy. Sociology, urban planning, education theory, economics, healthcare and energy policy... the list of areas where research and analysis has reached into thinking about government policy and actions is wide and deep. Policies that liberals advocate - from early childhood education, to nutrition, to environmental concerns, to energy policy and more - are built not on feel good pronouncements but the actual evidence of studying what works and what doesn't. That such policies and ideas often help to achieve desirable, compassionate ends is often not just a goal, but an added benefit.

Indeed, what;s been fascinating in the push/pull of political debate over my lifetime is the way what used to be a debate over emotional vs. rational in terms of left vs. right in this country, has reversed. It is now the left, more often, approaching debates from the position of thoughtful, rational approaches to policy and political action, while the right retreats ever more into orthodoxy, and rigid expressions of belief unmoored from fact. Emotion - particularly anger and hatred (and distrust) - rule the day. It is often impossible to even have rational debate across our deep divide because what we often call "not agreeing to the same facts" is one side simply refusing to deal in facts at all. Feelings are what matter - be it fear, suspicion, anger, righteousness or anything else. And often, it's so impossible to take seriously, the right has a growing internal reliance on a host of writers and commentators whose careers are built, entirely, on an abject rejection of seriousness altogether.

In the roughly 36 hours since the Trump Administration's budget has been made public, one organization in particular has come to the forefront of the debate over its absurd priorities and bad choices: Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is funded, in part, in many communities out of Community Development Block Grants, grants that are made to organizations providing services meant to help communities in need. As Seth Meyers said in his witty takedown, no one, really, opposes delivering food to old people. Because that's all there is to Meals on Wheels: a healthy meal delivered to senior citizens in need of care at home.

In zeroing out the funding for Community Development Block Grants, Trump's Director of OMB, Mick Mulvaney justified that choice saying there's no proof the grants made under the program go to programs with any proven results or demonstrated need. What, he was asked about Meals on Wheels. Mulvaney largely sidestepped describing Meals on Wheels directly as ineffective, but maintained his broader point - these things may sound good, but they don't really do much.

Since then, there's been a wide ranging debate online about Meals on Wheels as the "Christian Thing To Do." That debate, of course, isn't actually simple: there are a variety ways to look at, and define, Christianity. What's striking, to me, is that the debate in many ways simply misses the point: it doesn't matter if one thinks Meals on Wheels is Christian or decent or otherwise morally good. The main thing is, it does an important, useful service, and the effectiveness and need for that service is well documented, and easily proved.

Liberals, in some sense, need to get over the tired right wing boilerplate of religiosity and moral certainty - we are well past the point of the Religious Right owning, or earning, their spot as the moral high ground. The election of a twice divorced, serial adulterer as their champion speaks volumes to the myriad ways that so called "evangelical voters" (Usually self described, and often less overtly religious than the wider public) have simply given up on expressing moral decency in politics. The right has nothing more than a belief system at this point to justify their views, and, more often than not, that belief system is confused, deeply flawed, and morally inconsistent.

The left has done admirable work, in my lifetime, to move away from a cadre of True Believers more interested in orthodoxy than then effectiveness. The right, on the other hand, seems to have simply given up on fighting the regression further into extreme beliefs unmoored from the real world and how it actually operates. And it's well past time that liberals need to let go of the pointless exercise of engaging with conservatives on Who Is More Morally Decent. Not because we can win the argument - and endorsing food for old people, surely, puts us there - but because the argument really isn't the point. Governing sensibly, thoughtfully and appropriately isn't just The Christian Thing To Do. It's the intelligent defensible thing we've been right about all along.

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As Long As It's About Me: Donald Trump And The Bully's Pulpit

How does one describe the feeling on election night, as the reality of a Trump presidency shimmered into view? 

It's simplistic to say people were shocked or enraged. Or that this, the impossible outcome, had actually happened. For me, it was the enormity of knowing just how dreadfully bad, how incompetent and how destructive, the Presidency could be. And how avoidable all of what is to come could have been.

Trump supporters immediately tried to paste calls for unity over this election debacle - as if, somehow, 18 months of vitriol, hateful rhetoric, never mind the wild assemblages of half truths and falsehoods could be washed away, or deemed appropriate. They were aided by that unique need of conservatives to not just win, but to crush. For a moment, in our stunned faces, conservatives had their wish of how it would feel to not just prevail, but to destroy the liberal ideal.

It would be enough, really, for conservatives to take their win for what it is - a solid rebuke to Democrats and the Obama years laced, in a deeply unfortunate way with the appeals to anger, resentment, and prejudice that have been simmering around the first black President. To try and overplay a bare majority, a loss in the popular vote and poor performances in key races and among important subgroups will be - as many of the transitional choices have been - a bad mistake with unanticipated repercussions.

Donald Trump, of course, can't be bothered with the level of nuance required to see his win for what it is - the modest success of appealing to a base of white, rural, high school educated mainly male cohort steeped in anger and resentment and a feeling of being left behind. Despite the breathless hand wringing post election, the demographic realities on display in the vote were not, really, news. What was remarkable in one sense was yes, the white majority, though slim, still can prevail; what was equally remarkable was just how desperate the appeal had to be to make that happen.

"Make America Great Again," he bleated over and over. "Drain the swamp!" he cried in the late phase of the campaign... but mostly, Donald Trump put on a show. It was a brutal show, to be sure - shouty and hateful, accusatory and blame filled, thin on actual policy or any understanding, really, of the nature of divided government in this complex country. Trump made a host of mistakes, some built on the natural abrasiveness of his personality, some the neophyte mistakes of someone new to politics, never mind presidential politics. But ultimately, what saw him through, was his real gift as the ultimate huckster - the desperate story of saying and doing anything, yes anything, to make the ultimate sale.

His campaign promises, as such, literally make no sense - virtually no aspect of our immigration dilemmas is solved by  building a wall along the Mexican border. "Repeal and replace Obamacare" is a right wing pipe dream that lacks any coherent sense of what "replace" looks like, never mind the damaging effects of immediate repeal, if it could be done, which it actually can't. Foreign policy... what foreign policies, really? A penchant for dictators and a romance with Russia does not coherent policy make. Sabre rattling the destruction of NATO, threatening the long standing interests favoring free trade... none of these are answers, even to questions nobody thought to ask.

No, Mr. Trump was elected as a "black swan" - a chaos event meant to "shake up" the status quo, built on the incoherent resentments of some of the least informed voters in our body politic, for reasons that should be acknowledged as not nearly as off as they might seem. Legions of lobbyists, cozy insider relationships, sweetheart deals... Trump is the terrible solution to an actual, well defined problem that official Washington cannot fully comprehend - try harder, do better, help the people with their actual problems.

Even if Trump were serious - which he's not, has never been, and never will be - and even if he could get beyond that unfortunate habit of simply lying with every sentence he speaks (or tweets), he lacks the kind of thoughtful approach needed to achieve anything close to the results he barely understands he promised. For the occasional good in some of his less than awful appointments - General Mattes perhaps, Mike Pompeo, maybe - Mr. Trump has, with each passing day of transition, reinforced the impressions that he means almost none of what he said. A cabinet of inexperienced loyalists, full of ethical conflicts, financial self interests and wild ideas supporting the Presidency of a serial liar whose poor business practices were legendary 30, even 40 years ago, and have only hardened since.

Get angry? Fight back? Is there really a choice? It's been almost quaint, watching everything people seemed to value - decency, fair treatment of others, the reasonable discourse of competing ideas - seemingly fall away. At this point, even in this day of his ascension moment, we're beyond the "who's normalizing Trump" discussion and simply watching the divide between Those Who Have Figured It Out and Those Who Are Still Catching Up. Reporters, pundits, experts... it's past time to come to terms with the new reality. These are not nice times. There will be no casual acceptance. Just Shout, Shout... and let it all out.

This isn't personal - none of it's personal, really. Trump doesn't have empathy or really any concern for the feelings or fate of others. It's been All About Him since he was a boy and why stop now? His need to be popular, and powerful, and perceived as successful overrides virtually any other concern. I don't care what you think... as long as it's about me. Is he dangerous? Of course. Is he also pathetic, easily ridiculed, and likely to fail? Absolutely. Despite how it sounds, I don't hate him, largely because I don't find him nearly interesting enough to care that deeply. In this age of politics by National Enquirer, though, politics will be played as personal. Who do you like? Who's nice? Who's good? I say, don't fall for it. It's not who you like... it's who should be governing, and how.

Yeah, it's bad, and likely to get worse, even as things often slip into farce. Between Trump's lax morals and the army of sycophants and opportunists coming to Washington, there's little doubt that "Drain the Swamp" is actually shaping up to be #BuildABetterSwamp as only Trump can - big, shiny, and spray painted gold. Republicans will be lucky to extract even the bare semblance of an organization out of this debacle (and good luck to the Wisconsin boys Ryan and Priebus who've decided to ride this thing to the bitter end), and if there's any justice, they will reap what they so richly deserve. As for the rest of us, hang on to your hats - the not red ones that don't say "Make America Great Again." If we're lucky - or maybe resistant enough - we can get this thing back before the damage is permanent. It's not much, I know, but for now it may be all we've got.

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Sexy Rexy

It's hard not to see the obvious petulance in Trump's selection of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Barely a week of serious attention to his potential nomination, already raised red flags all over the place that Tillerson will face major hurdles just trying to get confirmed. (Then again, what is the forthcoming Trump presidency but one giant scarlet scarf waving in the wind?) Trump long ago ceased being anything but what he appears in the press, and "never back down" is clearly a big piece of his storyline. 

So Tillerson it is.

There's plenty to fear, and loathe, in Trump's cabinet selection process, but what I find fascinating is Trump's apparent approach to his slogans of a "fresh start" and "draining the swamp." There's a sense in which it would be refreshing, challenging even, to approach the business of Washington by looking beyond the circle of "Old Washington Hands" - a circle that did seem, somehow, smaller and even more insular under President Obama, who was especially taken with "meritocracy" appointments, usually from the small collection of Ivy League grads and the similarly small group (MIT, Stanford, U of Chicago) of related top drawer schools. More than a few outsider observers of the Obama world pointed out that the President would benefit from shaking up his input and moving beyond a core group of especially loyal confidantes. It's also telling that, while he twice acknowledged the need to rethink his advisors after major electoral losses, he actually never did in any significant way.

It would be easier to feel good about Trump's choices as breaking a mold if his choices didn't move from the small insular world of DC insiders and like minded intellectuals to selections from even more insular worlds: the "C-Class" of boardroom magnates, along with top drawer Generals, and a loyalist coterie of highly wealthy members of the donor class. It belies Trump's own myopia in overvaluing family ties, personal discipline and sense of self made success, without showing a real awareness that really shaking things up would mean reaching beyond your own comfort zones. In that sense - and this will matter, I think, in many ways many people don't see - the built-in failures of Trump's coming Presidency won't be all that different from the "boomer generation" self centeredness of both George W Bush and Barack Obama. Trump's example is extreme, to be sure; but both Bush and Obama could have used more insight from outside their familiar circles, and Trump, surely, is making choices that make his circle even tighter.

Partly too, I suspect, the handwringing over Trump's choices as ethically dubious - along with the looming questions of his own ability to separate his business interests from his role as President - reflect the sunset of progress made since the presidency of Richard Nixon. Few people under the age of 50 will have any real recollection of life before or during Watergate, and how crucial it was to  set higher and better standards of expectations in Presidents and those who serve them. A lot of what we're talking about as "concerns" with the cabinet or with Trump - the idea of having vested, material interests in the outcomes of various choices and and policies set by the President or the Executive Branch - seem quaint, really. We all know that businesses and lobbyists already have outsized influence in many areas; why does it matter, really, if the President owns a hotel operation in Kuala Lumpur (or more to the point, Manila)? Do we really care that the incoming Secretary of State has only dealt with foreign leaders, in the course of a near 50 year career at one company, in terms of that company's business goals?

Well... yes. And yes. The trouble is that these ethical issues don't resonate like they used to, when the President's reelection committee ran it's operations in a White House office and the President's top advisors were also his primary Bag Men for campaign tactics. We've had a generation plus to learn the right words, calm the right anxiousness, pretend we're all trying really hard to be scrupulously fair. It's not surprising, really, that we've forgotten, in many ways, why the need to be vigilant never goes away, why so many people just assume, blithely, that there must be an acceptable way for Trump to paper over his business issues or Rex Tillerson to simply set aside a lifetime of work for Exxon as little more than stock options on paper. We don't just think the rules matter; we believe, earnestly, that people understand why we have the rules. 

That awakening is likely to be rude, and enormous ('Big League", that's the phrase, right?) and, I'm convinced, probably inevitable. Whether it's the naïveté of the "Let's give him a chance" crowd, the dithering of DC types trying to pretend that this just another regular transition, or the bully boys refusing to brook any dissent to the ascension of their awesome leader... all the pieces are in place for a massive failure of public trust. And I tend to think Cassandra like wails of impending doom just won't get the job done. If so many can't see the collapse awaiting us... then we may just need to accept that what's about to happen, much like this election, was simply the kind of bad turn we had to take to realize we should take bad turns.

Soon enough, we will not be re-litigating the events of this past year - Trump can't keep running against Hillary forever, no matter how he'd prefer it - and we will be full bore into what comes next. And Trump, it's worth remembering, isn't just a narcissist blowhard (as bad as that seems): he's also an inexperienced, in many ways inarticulate, newcomer to a job that is not generally forgiving to rookie mistakes. And, in his first set of major choices, Trump has put in place a large group of similarly inexperienced newcomers with little or no thought to explaining his thinking, or trying to win over his many skeptics. All of that matters. 

There may be a case to be made for neophytes like Tillerson, or Betsy DeVos, or Seth Mnuchin; Trump hasn't made them. It may be that he doesn't realize that he's moved from one sales job into another, larger one; it may be that the kind of skills he needed to sell real estate don't actually translate well into the selling of public policy. I tend to think if Trump were more adaptable, more flexible, had more ease with changing up his approach, he could make the case for Rex, really sell it, get more people to buy the Sexy in Rexy. And the others. But he's not and he hasn't and it's a recipe, even now, that doesn't bode well for where all of this is headed, and I don't mean just Bad Things For Liberals To Disapprove.

We forget, in these changing times, that people dislike and fear change, especially change that is offered with no rationale or explanation. Trump is already laying the foundation for an Administration of wrenching change, and making no case for it that most Americans can or will sign on to support. I would at least think he knew enough to try and sell Change as the new Sexy. And instead... nothing.

Trump is, even now, deeply unpopular for a soon to be President. He starts, more than even George W Bush, with low approvals, half the country in no mood to even think about supporting him, and an electoral loss in the popular vote that calls his legitimacy in many ways into serious question. A savvy politician, really, would see that (a genuinely great politician would have never won in this manner to begin with). There are reasons to fear who Trump is and what he will yet do, but politically, I wouldn't overestimate him as a genius or capable of achieving the most modest of goals. All he's had to do over the past few weeks is sell the nation on the assembly of a team of advisors and department heads... and he can't even do that. That's not even the hard part. The hard part is what happens next. And I don't mean that in a sexy way at all.

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