My wife, Jodi Kanter, is a performance studies scholar. Over the years, she’s taught me how to read a stage. As I made my way onto the green grass of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Sunday, even before I…
Theater of the absurd: The ‘Anti-Christian Bias’ report
Last Thursday, the federal government’s “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias” released a massive 500-page report, which allegedly “details the Biden administration’s radical efforts to punish Christians and highlights President Donald Trump’s efforts to restore religious liberty.” The task force — involving…
What’s the risk of Trump’s fight with Pope Leo?
I don’t believe President Donald Trump understands the political risk of picking a fight with Pope Leo XIV. My best guess is he believes the unquestioning submission demonstrated by his fawning white evangelical followers exists among all his Christian followers….
Only 35% approve of Trump’s handling of immigration
PRRI’S large new survey covers a lot of ground related to immigration, including support for how President Donald Trump’s second administration is handling immigration, the aggressive tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the construction of internment camps and due…
Trump’s lies are killing us
During the opening days of his first term, President Donald Trump achieved something remarkable. According to The New York Times, “He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency.” His spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway, coined…
ICE and empty mangers
This week, The New York Times reported a Catholic parish on a busy street in a wealthy Boston suburb had caused a stir with its Nativity scene. All the familiar elements are there: the shepherds and angels, sheep and hay, the three wise men….
Most Americans now see Trump as a dangerous dictator
After months of data collection and analysis, we at PRRI have just released our 16th annual American Values Survey, conducted in partnership with our colleagues E.J. Dionne Jr. and Bill Galston at the Brookings Institution. Amid all the bad news, the new…
The patriot’s glossary of MAGAtarian doublespeak, part 1
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt concluded the ideal subjects of authoritarians are not necessarily their most convinced partisan followers, but “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and…
Columbus Day: An ongoing threat to American democracy
Of the 12 federal holidays, Columbus Day is one of only three celebrating a person. Among that trinity, which includes the celebrations of the births of George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr., it remains peculiar. Unlike the first president…
All the bright lines behind us
Like some of you, I’ve spent the last two weeks participating in services marking the Jewish High Holidays, which mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next. My status as a Christian participant observer to the…
Postcards from Occupied DC
“Lock the doors, kids.” When I was a kid, I remember my parents telling us to “lock the doors” when we drove into “the city.” This applied both to my hometown of Jackson and to bigger cities like Atlanta we…
A prayer for the broken-hearted people of the world
We left on vacation July 6, just two days after our national celebration of Independence Day. Typically, I’ve loved our little neighborhood’s quirky annual July Fourth parade, which includes appearances by groups like a Vespa troup, Taiko drumming corps, attachment…