Maybe There's "The Rest of the Story"

 A Plea to Calm Down

Lots of sturm und drang about Donald Trump's recent appearance at Arlington Cemetery. 

I've seen memes, posted even by friends I know (or thought I knew), actually wishing for Trump to die a horrible death because of this supposed faux pas. To say I'm disappointed in my friends might be an understatement. 

 If I'm understanding the situation correctly, it's not Trump's behavior that should be questioned here, but that of President Biden and Vice President Harris, as well. Apparently, all three of these officials were invited by members of the Gold Star families who lost loved ones at Abbey Gate, yet neither Biden nor Harris even accepted the invitation (see article, below). Needless to say, some of these families are furious at the president and vice president. 

This is less a rant than a plea to friends and acquaintances. 

Maybe wait for all the facts to come in before reacting to the latest news. 

Consider accepting the possibility that maybe there's "the rest of the story." 

Maybe take a moment to re-read "Desiderata," still lovely after all these years. Published in 1927, the poet encouraged us to "go placidly amid the noise and haste" and to "keep peace in your soul." 

He reminded us that, "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world." 

Maybe try to remember, too, the words of our mothers--the wise ones, anyway--"This, too, shall pass." 

I will try to do the same.

**** 

I'm Vile, You're Vile: Politics in 2020

It's mind-boggling to me how little choice we really have in presidential elections.

Something trending on Facebook right now is an open letter directed to "White Evangelicals," penned by a so-called Christian pastor named John Pavolitz. 

A friend, chastising evangelicals who support President Trump, said, "It is a high price to be paid. If you support Trump, your support becomes a part of your testimony whether you want it to be or not. It is a part of your contribution to this generation & it matters."

To which I reply: 

The person on the ballot is a figure-head. We vote not for the person but for the policies his party represents and promotes. Are the policies good? Do they represent what I believe and value? Or are they abhorrent? Even if the figurehead of that party is handsome and well-spoken, what should matter is what the party will do, if it represents my worldview, if it will advance ideas I support and agree with.

That’s what should influence my vote. Other than that, what choice do we have?

Nevertheless, the condemnation leveled toward someone that will vote Republican is personal, a smear on your character: You support a vile man; ergo, you are vile (“becomes part of your testimony”).

Not surprisingly, it’s easy for me to flip the script: I find the policies of the Democratic Party platform to be vile. You support a party whose policies I find vile; ergo, you are vile.

Tit for tat.

But it doesn’t have to be. If only we could trust each other to be true to our values.

Politics has always been ugly. But never more so than now.

Therefore, What?

As 2019 came to a close, many in the Christian evangelical community were rattled by the publication of an editorial in Christianity Today in which the author argues that Donald Trump should be both impeached and removed from office and chastises evangelicals who continue to support him: "Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency," the author chides.

Fair-minded people could probably debate the Christianity Today article. What I have a problem with is how people—mostly unbelievers, many of them left-leaning or progressive, and some of them former Christians—are promoting the article as if suddenly there's truth to be found in a Christian magazine. It's not as if these people read the magazine for its spiritual or doctrinal content; it's also not as if any of them would love to meet for a glass of wine to discuss things having to do with the Christian faith in general, let alone the impact of the Christian message on their own lives. Rather, they share this piece prominently on (where else) social media for no other reason than to bludgeon evangelical Christians who have the gall to support Donald Trump despite his obvious moral and cognitive failings.

What bothers me is the implication of their tsk tsks. Setting aside whether the articles of impeachment are valid or were politically motivated by an opposition party that was determined to impeach Trump before he was even inaugurated (I happen to believe the latter); and setting aside whether or not previous presidents could have been impeached for greater or even similar offenses but weren't; and setting aside what amounts to gut-level disdain for Trump the man as opposed to Trump the president (and by Trump the man I'm referring to his coarseness and crudeness and moral failings and even his supposed "unfitness" for office); setting aside these things—all of which have been debated and discussed over the past three years and are still unresolved—I still have to ask those who are scolding evangelicals for continuing to support Donald Trump in spite of it all: Therefore, what? 

Yes, it's true: Trump is crude. Trump is boorish. Trump is impulsive. Trump is not presidential. Trump is impetuous. No argument here. I never liked Donald Trump. I never watched The Apprentice. I don't think I even gave Donald Trump a minute's thought until the moment he rode down that elevator. And during the months leading up to the 2016 election, I grew more and more depressed as one by one my preferred candidates fell away. I remember texting a friend one day and asking if it was wrong for me to wish Trump would choke on a piece of steak. But once he became the nominee, I had to face facts, and ultimately I came to the conclusion that disputes about morals and values or personal likes or dislikes have no place in a presidential election when faced with a binary choice. A binary choice is what we were faced with in 2016. "Pick your poison," I remember posting on Facebook as election day drew near. And a binary choice is what we're faced with in 2020.

So, to my leftist friends, to my ex-Christian friends, and even to my well-meaning fellow evangelical friends who tsk, tsk those of us who will either reluctantly or enthusiastically support Trump in 2020:  Therefore, what? I may agree that Trump is all that you say, but do you seriously expect me to vote for your guy or gal? Even the tamer Dems vying for the nomination have no place in the universe of core conservative objectives that I value. The Democratic party has veered so far left--both in terms of the economy and in terms of social issues--that frankly I'm surprised anyone who hews even remotely to the center would consider aligning themselves with it. 

So that's the dilemma I'm faced with as I listen to the smug self-righteousness of those who promote the Christianity Today editorial as if it were the equivalent of the gospel. As if they really think someone like me is either going to vote Democrat or withhold a vote for a Republican when the country has become so polarized. The time is long past when our country had a strong "center," politically speaking. I pray it returns, but meanwhile we're in the midst of a cultural war, and Trump, for all his obnoxious and revolting ways, is, at least for now, the person blocking the threshold to the progressive left's wave of cultural and economic transformation. If anything, I'm disappointed that influential Christians like those at Christianity Today can't unite against the left. Instead, I'm detecting the stench of "wokeness" emanating from the church, and the most "woke" Christians are those who hate Trump. This troubles me much more than any of the church's supposed blindness towards Trump's flaws. The way I see it, Trump is just a blip. He's here now for one term, maybe two, but eventually he'll be gone, both parties will survive, and our country will carry on. Societal change, cultural change, on the other hand, once it's permeated the culture, will remain long after he's gone. 

Which brings me back to the Christianity Today editorial. Christians are being called on the carpet for apparently abandoning their mission (I'm thinking about the era of the Moral Majority) as long as their "gladiator" is in the ring. Can we Christians re-evaluate that era? Can we perhaps concede that it was wrong to obsess about the moral character of leaders? Can we agree that politicians are not pastors? Talk radio host Dennis Prager describes how, back during the Clinton impeachment, he never mentioned even Monica Lewinsky's name on his radio show. The sex life of public officials was not his concern (he says). It's the job politicians do that matters, not their private morals. And Prager is an observant Jew. 

Do I agree? I think I do. I would add that Donald Trump is not the first boorish man ever to hold public office, nor will he be the last. Voters can look at what a leader does or advocates and analyze the effect of these actions or policies on the things they value. What else can we do? Again, we're not electing pastors.

*****

Further Reading 

Trump Should Be Removed From Office, by Mark Galli 

Trump Should  Not Be Removed From Office: A Response to Mark Galli and Christianity Today, by Wayne Grudem

The Moral Majority (Wikipedia)

The More Things Change . . .

I've been re-reading Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. I can't remember when I last read it--somewhere between 2001-2006 according to my own reading list (right side of this blog). Though it was written in the first half of the last century (that sounds so weird), around the mid to late 1940's, so much of it seems pertinent today. There are a few things that sound jarring to the 21st century ear. His discussion about marriage, for instance, would get him booted from Cambridge University in a New York minute, particularly his reference to same sex attraction. Nonetheless, I believe it's absurd to judge people in our past, distant or recent, by today's standards. Better to let their words be understood and respected in the context, era, morals, mores, or their day.

On Forgiveness

His Words

My Response

My marginal notes mention the Covington Catholic High School melee that took place earlier this year at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.  and Donald Trump (I'll link a couple articles below for context). Trump was penciled in later since I re-read this passage on the day the Mueller Report essentially exonerated him of the so-called Russian collusion charge that was leveled at him shortly after he was elected president. The question Lewis poses here ("Suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite as bad as was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that . . . '") needs no response, since we all know what the answer is. This chapter is written in the context of the Biblical injunction that we "love our enemies." Nothing further needs to be said.

The page I copied above strikes me as profoundly prescient. Surely the poisonous political climate brought about by a confluence of social media and Donald Trump is historically unprecedented. But Lewis seems to be describing the 21st century politics to a tee: "fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred." Was it as bad as that in the 1940's? Maybe it's true, what another wise man said, "There's nothing new under the sun." This book was written last century but seems indistinguishable from today. 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Links

"The Media Botched the Covington Catholic Story" (The Atlantic)

Our Long National Hysteria (National Review Online editorial)

Remembering a Rabble-Rouser

Before Breitbart News Network became what it is today, there was Andrew Breitbart, rebel, rabble-rouser, visionary. I was organizing my bookmarks and came across this video. I had forgotten how much I liked him. 

The date on this interview is June 2011. He died unexpectedly of heart failure about a year later. I had only recently discovered him and had become a fan (here's a tribute I wrote a couple of years ago).

Something I learned as I was putting this post together: Earlier that same year (April 2011), Andrew apparently predicted the rise of Donald Trump. "Celebrity is everything in this country," he said on The O'Reilly Factor. "And if these guys [conservatives] don't learn how to play the media the way that Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle, we're going to probably get a celebrity candidate."

Andrew Breitbart wasn't highly educated (he says he drank his way through college). But he was gutsy and cocky and funny and charming. All this, combined with his instinctive media savvy, made him a consequential adversary and an invaluable ally. Conservatives lost a good one six years ago.

My left-leaning friends (and their kids) should give this a listen.



Andrew Breitbart: Media War (interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution). I'm including the original source as well as the YouTube link.

The More Things Change . . .

Before I started this blog, I maintained another blog, which I called Ahem (dumb name, I know. The very first entry explains it). 

I maintained the blog between October 24, 2008 and January 1, 2013. Obviously those dates are significant from a political standpoint: The presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 get quite a bit of attention.

I'm linking a couple of my responses to President Obama's re-election in 2012. 

A Terrible, Horrible, Mistake (Election Day, November 6, 2012) 

Because (The Day After, November 7, 2012).

As you can tell, I was devastated. But what's interesting (to me) is that my reactions are really not much different from the reaction I'm hearing from people this week. Maybe not as over-the-top. And it wouldn't have occurred to me to protest. And I didn't curse (I don't think. Maybe once). But the emotion, the despair...

Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.

"The People Have Spoken--the Bastards"

Yesterday, Election Day in America, I boycotted Facebook, the assumption being that the Hillary people, already insufferable in their giddy expectation of her inevitable coronation, would be even more so the day of her coronation. And though I was never a fan of Donald Trump and agreed with all critiques of his character flaws and his shortcomings, I was never going to vote for Hillary Clinton, no matter how much the Hillary people chided and scolded (and chide and scold they did, day after day, ad nauseam). 

So all through the day and into the evening on November 8, 2016, I cut a wide swath, not only boycotting Facebook, but also Twitter and radio and live TV and chat rooms and even my phone, not even wanting to see a notification. Instead I watched an episode of "Blacklist", and then a repeat of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." When that was finished, I glanced at the clock. It was only 8:30. Damn. Now what. 

So I finally relented and texted a couple of my political junkie friends. 

"Just checking in," I wrote. "What's happening out there?" 

"Turn on your T.V.!" they said. 

And then, of course, the shock, the surprise, the unexpected, the bizarre. 

And before the night was over (well, technically, closer to the wee hours of November 9th), not only had Donald Trump won the presidency, beating his opponent 279-228 in the Electoral College (though losing in the popular vote by 200,000, last I heard), but the GOP also retained majorities in both houses of Congress.

This is no small matter. We (Republicans) had been bracing ourselves for months for losses from top to bottom. The gloom that had settled over many of us, the demoralization, the resignation, was beyond palpable. As election day neared, Trump at best had a 35% chance of winning the presidency, though all the so-called paths to an Electoral College victory were razor-thin. Not only that, his impending loss was supposed to hurt GOP races in the House and Senate and governorships and state legislatures, all the way down ballot. In other words, Election 2016 was supposed to be a tsunami of defeat, a once-and-for-all repudiation of and end to the Republican party. 

So yes, most of us expected the worst, were resigned to the worst, maybe even believed we deserved the worst, especially those of us who were already frustrated and disappointed about the situation. We had lined up our best and our brightest, a deep bench, indeed, including my personal favorites, Marco and Carly. But one by one they fell, knocked ruthlessly aside or, in some cases, stepping nimbly aside, until there was only one man standing, and that man was Trump, Trump the buffoon, Trump the narcissist, Trump the con, Trump the boor. We seethed with resentment because this was supposed to have been our year. So many of us were weary of Obama's executive overreach, his condescension, his divisiveness, and Hillary Clinton was such a weak and beatable opponent. Any of those 17 candidates could have beaten her. Anyone, that is, but Donald Trump. We knew that. We of all people understood that. What is he doing on that stage? Get rid of him now!

Which is why, watching last night's remarkable events unfold, one can only marvel in disbelief at an outcome that never even occurred to us. A Clinton win was a given. The best many of us hoped for was that the GOP would retain majorities in Congress in order to keep her in check. But Trump won. The GOP held on to their majorities in both houses of Congress. I don't know how it happened. This is for historians and pundits and analysts to explain. All I know is that yesterday, for good or for ill, was a political earthquake. And it's becoming clear that, while Donald Trump may not have been our first, our second, even our 17th choice, in the end it appears he was possibly the only one out of that distinguished crowd of 17 who had the chutzpah, the ego, the stomach, the nerves of steel, to take on the formidable Clinton machine and the media who openly and unapologetically supported her--and beat Hillary Clinton at her own game. 

So now, today, The Day After, I venture cautiously back into Facebook, not to contribute, but to listen. And not surprisingly, there's a lot of rage. Here's a sampling: 

"I am pissed beyond measure at the 59,479,296 of you who voted for Trump. With your votes, you supported racism, nativism, sexism, and ableism. You showed that you don’t value education or science. You demonstrated a complete lack of regard for people who aren’t as fortunate as you. Your votes threaten our liberty and undermine the social progress we’ve made in recent years. Your votes embarrass me and disgust me."

"I'm so beyond disappointed in the U.S. We have a disturbingly large number of vile citizens. I don't care about myself. I care about the millions of souls that are in great danger. The millions of lives about to be shattered into so many pieces based on the horrific views and actions of Donald Trump."  

"I find that seeing Trump and his followers win caused a deep sorrow in my heart, that evil had triumphed over good. Yet I must remember to put my future in God's hand and worry about a day at a time. And secondly it is good that there are others out there who have not been taken over by evil."

"This is so tragic and I cannot agree or believe that God's heart is not broken for his people, all people. Tonight, I am grieving for my previous friends, loved ones and strangers of all people groups who are wounded and reeling. I am grieving for myself."

What I find interesting about these comments (and I'm guessing these are the milder versions) is that it doesn't really even matter that it was Donald Trump. Substitute any Republican name and the reaction would be the same. As I recall, the left demonized Mitt Romney in 2012 (pretty sure Hitler's name came up). This time around, they detested Ted Cruz, were repulsed by Carly Fiorina, loathed Mike Pence. In other words, it's not who beat Hillary Clinton. It's that she was beaten. Hillary Clinton could have lost to any one of the candidates and the anger would be no different. Sure, Donald Trump made it pretty easy. His defects are so obvious, so pronounced, it was child's play to wield him as a club to shame and hector and browbeat conservatives (at least, this conservative) into silence and embarrassment. This is who your party has nominated? Are you saying you'll vote for this monster? 

Sometimes Facebook feels like a grade school playground, bullies running roughshod while the rest of us cower in the shadows and eat our lunches. At first glance, it seems the shaming works in that it shuts most people up. It's not worth getting ganged up on. But I can't help but wonder if the shaming might be counterproductive. Because, when asked, or, more to the point, when polled, who would admit that they'd vote for "this monster"? Tell the pollsters anything but the truth. As Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote this morning, admitting that even he had gotten the numbers oh so wrong: 

"Pollsters have had off years before, but there has never been a colossal ten-car pile-up like this in the polling industry. The entire industry needs to scrap everything they know about the electorate and start over. One of the giant questions they must address is whether we now live in an atmosphere of such far-reaching and stifling social disapproval of politically incorrect positions that a significant portion of respondents no longer feel comfortable expressing their actual beliefs to a pollster. There really was a silent majority."

So. Election day arrives. The silent majority emerges from the shadows and casts its votes. And the world goes mad.

There's been a lot of soul-searching on my "team." Maybe those on the left who are so enraged, who regard those who voted for Trump with such contempt, should do some soul searching of their own. Yes, a silent majority spoke, but what did they say? Surely Clinton's loss cannot be laid at the feet of 59 million people. An election is a job interview. Hillary Clinton applied for the job and came up short. It's happened before, and it will happen again. To accuse close to 60 million people who didn't offer her the job as being bigots or racists or misogynists is a cop-out. The way I see it, Hillary Clinton and her party have no one but themselves to blame. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump did what he needed to do. His victory was an apparent repudiation of everything Hillary Clinton represents: leftism writ large, executive overreach, political corruption, cynicism, abuse of power, condescension, arrogance. Those who voted to give Donald Trump a chance are taking a gamble. This could blow up in their faces. But to damn them? 

Let the soul searching begin, America. But let it also begin in the sacred halls of progressivism.

"The people have spoken--the bastards."

(Democratic politician and strategist Dick Tuck, 1966)

The Pros, The Cons: Clinton v. Trump

Wall Street Journal editorial board's analysis of two deeply flawed candidates. Each article is worth reading, but I took the trouble of identifying the salient points (categorized pro and con, as I see them) for each candidate. 

"The Costs of Clinton"

Pros: 

• Might be willing to work with Republicans across the aisle.
• Has shown more respect for America's role in maintaining global order than Trump has.
• Is more hawkish than Obama.

Cons: 

• Would continue President Obama's "progressive march to a French-style welfare and regulatory state" (higher taxes, entitlement spending, subsidies and price controls in ObamaCare, regulations on businesses, enforcement of "liberal cultural values on schools and churches").
• Result of this approach is more years of slow economic growth.
• Less restrained by the courts and more progressive judicial domination for years.
• Foreign policy failures include misjudging Putin ("reset"), support for the nuclear deal with Iran, withdrawal from Iraq, abandonment of Libya.
• More entitlement spending means less spending on military and defense.
• Has a "penchant for secrecy and political paranoia," evidenced most recently in her decision to use a private email server for official business and her subsequent refusal to release records.
• Scandals past and current, including pay-to-play structure via the Clinton Foundation, reflects the problem she has with "blending public office with private gains."
• If elected, she would likely be investigated by Congress for these scandals, so her administration would be hamstrung from the outset.

"The Gamble of Trump"

Pros: 

• Political disruption ("a broken Washington needs to be shaken up").
• His policy impulses are geared to liberate the U.S. economy to faster growth.
• Trump could get a faster start on governing by adopting economic reforms that the GOP-led house has already drafted.
• Trump could fill the Supreme Court seat with a conservative justice. 
• Trump is committed to rebuilding U.S. defenses.
• He is more "aggressive against the Islamic terror threat" than Obama has been.
• Checks and balances in Washington would constrain any "authoritarian" tendencies some fear in a President Trump.
• Likewise, an "awakened" media would "dog his Administration with a vengeance."

Cons: 

• Trump does not have a "coherent and firmly held word view formed by decades of reading and experience."  
• It's hard to predict how Trump would respond to "shocks and surprises" that all presidents face. 
• Trump's position on trade ("a zero-sum game" that America is losing) could cause a recession.  
• His politics are "almost entirely personal, not ideological." 
• Trump's behavior during the campaign has been characterized by "harsh rhetoric" that has alienated and offended women, minorities, and younger voters.
• There's no assurance Trump will keep his promises to change Washington. Angry or disappointed voters could end up repudiating the GOP in 2018 and return us to an "all-progressive government" in 2020. 
• The populist impulses that have emerged from Trump's candidacy can be dangerous when "rooted too much in ethnicity or class."
• Despite his assurances that he wants to build U.S. defenses, he is a "rookie" in world affairs and would be "unusually dependent on his advisers--if he listened to them."
• His "bromance" with Putin is troubling, and Trump's "instincts to retreat to a Fortress America could invite more aggression," not only from Russia, but from China and Iran, as well.

Conclusions

"The case for Mrs. Clinton over Donald Trump is that she is a familiar member of the elite and thus less of a jump into the unknown, especially on foreign policy. The case against her is everything we know about her political history.  

"The Wall Street Journal hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928, and if we didn't endorse Ronald Reagan we aren't about to revive the practice for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. Yet one of them will be the next president. The choice comes down to the very high if relatively predictable costs of four more years of brute progressive government under Hillary Clinton versus a gamble on the political unknown of Donald Trump."

A Civil Conversation About Incivility? It's Possible!

The following is an actual Facebook conversation that took place over the course of a few hours on a leisurely Saturday afternoon in August between me and someone I know indirectly (the husband of one of my Facebook friends) but had never met.

The subject had to do with the life-sized nude statues of Donald Trump, created by an anarchist art collective called INDECLINE, that started popping up in several U.S. cities during the month of August 2016. 

One of my friends shared a funny article about the statues. A friend of hers responded by saying the statues were “stupid and un-funny” and wondered whether people would be laughing if a similar statue were displayed of Hillary Clinton. 

I happened to agree with the self-described “party pooper” and ventured into the conversation: “No possible way someone does this to any other candidate, but particularly Hillary Clinton,” I wrote. Someone else concurred, asking if this was free speech "going too far."

That's when Aaron entered the fray. Here's the ensuing conversation. 

Aaron: I'm not understanding something about the reactions here. How is this statue free speech going too far? Saying that it isn't right because "how would you feel if it was Hillary?" shows implicit bias in the judgment of the work. The fights against sexism, racism, ableism are about equity, not equality. When Hillary or any other candidate makes the kind of social gaffes that have come to characterize Trump's campaign, then they are fair play for this kind of ridicule too. Is the statue un-funny, crass, and poor taste? Sure, but that would seem to be the point, reflecting your reactions back on the subject. If Trump can get away with disgusting things like calling out a judge as unfit because of his heritage, or using loaded gender stereotypes to attack female journalists all under the protections of free speech then this certainly should be protected too. Don't make the mistake of conflating your sensibilities with what is protected as speech under our constitution; something I personally find far more unfunny than this statue or the parks department's cheeky response. 

 Me: Fair enough. My only thought here has to do with how people would respond to an over-sized, butt-naked, flabby-bellied, dimply-bottomed, saggy-breasted Hillary Clinton statue with goggly-oggly spectators taking photos and posting them far and wide on social media. Not only would the feminists be outraged, there would be "hell to pay" for whoever the perpetrator was. Politics played dirty (tit for tat?) is fine until a woman is the target (unless, of course, the woman is a Republican, I guess). That's my beef. 

 Aaron: I would agree that someone erecting a statue as you've described would cause outrage. But "tit-for-tat" I think misses my point about the difference between equity and equality; fairness versus sameness. I would have a hard time finding a fair reason Hillary should be depicted as you've describe, but regardless whether I agree or not, I can see a valid argument for the statement the Trump statue makes based on the behavior of the candidate. I think it is completely valid to debate if it would be fair treatment to put up a similar statue of Hillary on the merits of the piece and the statement it makes. What I do not think is right, is doing so just because they did it to Trump. 

 Me: If I'm understanding you correctly (making a distinction between fairness versus sameness), my response would have something to do with examining the thing that makes one type of vulgarity (Trump's) different from another's (Clinton's). Those who find Trump distasteful (Republicans included) have no argument with your point that he deserves this humiliation. Yet what is distasteful about Trump on one level, many find distasteful about Clinton at a higher level. Crude, crass, boorish behavior is bad and should be called out, maybe mocked and satirized. But abuse of power, dishonesty, corruption, not to mention what many of us believe to be abhorrent views about abortion, is, at least in my view, equally distasteful, perhaps even more so. It's easy to deride Donald Trump and say he deserves it. But Hillary Clinton also deserves derision. The distinctions may not be "equal," but in my view, it's "sameness" by analogy, if not equality. Not sure if that makes sense. Hope I haven't offended.   

In either case, I fail to see how full-bodied disproportionately exaggerated over-sized anatomically incorrect nude statues of the objects of our derision helps the debate. All it's done is plunged us several meters deeper into the gutter. And fair or not, my guess is, now that the door has been shoved wide open, we can expect more of the same. Because "tit for tat" is unfortunately how the game is played.

Aaron: I agree with you here. I don't think it helps advance debate either and would rather the collective discussion focus on issues and finding common ground. I think the door has been shoved open but I think I would disagree with you about who did the shoving in this case...Perhaps I am naive, but I believe we can play the game how we choose and tit-for-tat isn't the only way to engage in political circus. What ever happened to "turn the other cheek"? 

 Me: Disappeared with all the other Biblical ideals. 

 Aaron: That may be... but that is getting into a whole other topic. I want to say thank you. I've found this discussion helpful in clarifying some of my own thoughts and I feel like I have more insight to other opposing perspectives. Even though we don't agree on these issues, being able to have a lively back and forth that doesn't devolve into insults and name calling is refreshing. 

So true, Aaron, and well said. I hope we (collectively) can do better, learning how to listen to and maybe even respect people who have different outlooks on life.