Debates always get my attention. I was a high school and college debate student. I have studied argumentation for decades. While the format of the political debates is artificial and not really an actual debate, I will take what I…
Donald Trump and the story of the magical phone app for immigrants
Donald Trump wants everyone to believe immigrants are bad. The formula is simplistic, misleading and false, but it is the sum total of his immigration policy. The simplicity, the impulsivity, and the emotionalism make Trump so tempting: Immigrants are bad….
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face-to-face tells the story
The words flying in the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were fierce, but the center of attention should be the visual rhetoric of Trump’s and Harris’ faces, with special attention to how images of their faces are…
There’s a Crazy Index for Donald Trump
Is it just me or is Donald Trump getting crazier by the day? How is it possible for a man who is a congenital liar, a convicted felon, a con man and a fraud who happens to be emotionally and…
New film resurrects an old question: What kind of Christian was Reagan?
In an election year in which Ronald Reagan could not be elected by his own Republican Party, some evangelicals have made a movie portraying America’s 40th president as a Christian saint. Prior to the cultic adulation of the Trump era,…
Was America born as a Christian nation? It’s more complicated than that
No one markets products like evangelical preachers and Donald Trump. While Trump sells Bibles and golden sneakers and politics, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas is selling copies of his coffee table book version of his annual July 4 sermon…
Don’t believe Trump’s claims he will be ‘great for women and their reproductive rights’
Donald Trump’s controversial claim on his Truth Social platform that he will be “great for women and their reproductive rights” doesn’t break any new ground. All it does is raise suspicions: “Here he goes lying again.” And this is not the…
Call her by her name
Rep. Nancy Mace, after repeatedly mispronouncing the name of Kamala Harris on a CNN panel Aug. 15, was called out for her disrespect by fellow panelist Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt University. Dyson said: “This congresswoman is a…
From the 1960s to today: The transformed symbol of a clenched fist
“Let him begin by treating the Patriotism … as part of his religion. Then, let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important.” (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters) Edward P.J. Corbett, in…