When Donald Trump read the political tea leaves and urged House Republicans to vote for the release of the Epstein files, speculation was rampant. Did this mean Trump’s hold over the GOP was beginning to weaken? Or was his Department…
‘Why didn’t God do anything to prevent this?’
Several years ago, a group of Christians decided to throw their collective weight behind a candidate for national office. They were concerned about the moral decay and chaos that threatened their nation in the wake of an inconclusive war. They…
Upside Down Advent: Despair versus hope
Here we are at Christmastime again, and ‘tis the season to be jolly. Right? Except what if you’re not feeling that jolly? Is that even allowed? Will you be consigned to binge watch Hallmark Christmas movies? If ever there was…
Judgment at Nuremberg calls us to repentance
After the turkey had been carved and the pie had been sliced, my family concluded this year’s Thanksgiving celebrations in an unexpected way: We sat together and watched the 1961 Spencer Tracy drama Judgment at Nuremberg. The film follows Spencer…
Back to the plantation: How MAHA weaponizes food
As the nation looks to the holidays and fallout from the longest government shutdown in history, funds are slowly becoming available to fund SNAP programs for 42 million Americans. At the same time, the Make America Healthy Again movement is poised to resurrect a…
MAGA Thanksgiving may implode like a deep-fried turkey
There are indications this year’s MAGA family Thanksgiving gathering may be contentious. Pre-Thanksgiving arguments and disagreements threaten to spill into scraps and splits at the family meal. After more than 10 years of party loyalty and unity, the MAGA family…
A different kind of Thanksgiving gratitude
Over the last couple of weeks, I sat down to write my Thanksgiving message several times, only to scrap every draft. Try as I may, I find myself incapable of penning some sappy tribute to the season. Don’t get me…
Yoram Hazony is Surprised by Blatant Antisemitism in the MAGA Coalition — But Antisemitism is Second Nature for Nationalists
On November 20, Israeli nationalist Yoram Hazony sat down for an interview with conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat to offer an explanation for the rise of antisemitism on the MAGA Right. After Tucker Carlson’s controversial interview with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on October 27, MAGA…
If evangelicals had a pride parade
Over the last decade, advances in social justice have been rolled back by a renewed sense of evangelical pride. Donovan O. Schaefer in Whiteness and Civilization: Shame, Race, and the Rhetoric of Donald Trump, argues: “The success of Trump’s rhetoric…
MAGA’s appetite for jelly donuts a la Trump
A little more than a year ago, a slim majority of voters elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States. Some of those voters now find themselves experiencing buyer’s remorse. As for the rest? They’re either lying,…
Look to a different future, Buttigieg advises
Things in the United States are even worse than they appear, and the hope is not in rebuilding the systems that have been destroyed by Donald Trump, Pete Buttigieg told the Texas Tribune Festival Nov. 14. The former U.S. secretary…
All are welcome — except those we don’t like
While white evangelicals like to brand their churches to their neighbors as cool and kind, their behavior toward their neighbors often is cruel. I recently came across a perfect example of this through the social media posts of Nate Schlomann,…