Christian soldiers

     "People mystified by Evangelical Christian support for Trump don't seem to get the reason why, which is not that Evangelicals approve of his personal conduct. It is that they think he's their enemy's enemy and he's willing to fight."

     Brit Hume, Fox political commentator

Click: Christianity Today editorial

Donald Trump is "morally lost."  

So said the editor of Christianity Today, a magazine founded by Billy Graham. The editorial said it was the duty of Christians to face the truth of Trump's "gross immorality and ethical incompetence" and remove him from office.

The editorial started a widespread round of discussion within the public Christian community, characterized not by soul-searching, but by political justification. Step one was to attack the messenger. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, said that his father had voted for Trump before he died and that he would never have supported impeachment and removal. Trump tweeted that the magazine was "far left" and "very 'progressive' as some would call it, which has been doing poorly." 

Talking past each other. 

Mark Galli, Christianity Today editor, wrote that character mattered. Christian behavior matters to Christians. Galli said there is a difference between virtue and sin, between good behavior and bad behavior, and that Trump routinely and unapologetically does bad behavior. Christians cannot help observing it and have an obligation to "call a spade a spade" and refuse to accept it.

      "The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral."

Christians, as a matter of faith, must not condone flagrant immorality. We are, after all, Christians, and it is not who we are. 

There is an entirely different way to look at it. This is not about morality or immorality, nor about condoning what Trump does, Franklin Graham wrote. He dismisses that briefly:

 Is President Trump guilty of sin? Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself." Of course. Well, duh.

Graham lists Trump's accomplishments: a strong economy, good trade deals, appointed conservative judges, "the most pro-life president" and he defends "religious freedom." Trump is delivering.

The important issue is whose side one is on in a political fight. His.Trump's.

     "For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable."

Graham wrote that Democrats opposed Trump and that three House members actually refused to join in, showing that the case was weak, and that "not one single Republican voted with the Democrats. . . . Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left who's only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president?" 

Graham, too, wants to call a spade a spade:

     "The spade is this—Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism."

Trump signing a Bible

Democrats need not be mystified by political evangelicalism. It is not hypocritical because it is not about religion or morality or Christian behavior. It is about our team, set upon by elitist liberals, and whether or not we back our guy. We do. This is about politics and only politics.

Franklin Graham and Brit Hume should know.

Controlling borders is not racist

"The American left seems to think that to even raise the issue of immigration and border control is tantamount to racism. That leaves us very vulnerable."

     Jim Stodder, Economist

Brexit was a vote about sovereignty, about European regulation, about Britishness. But most of all, it was about immigration.

Brexit was the means to taking back control. 

Economist Jim Stodder's Guest Post shares a view familiar to readers of this blog, that Democrats need a message of immigration and border control. I am pro-immigration. We can have robust immigration to America and Democrats can gain majorities in the Congress and win the White House. This is only possible, though, if the public is clear that immigration is well regulated and serves the interests of existing citizens. Clear controls are the price of robust immigration.

Jim Stodder teaches international economics and securities regulation at Boston University, with recent research on how carbon taxes and rebates can be both income equalizing and green. He was a college classmate, then received a Ph.D. from Yale in economics. His website: www.jimstodder.com

Jim Stodder

Guest Post by Jim Stodder

Much US commentary on the UK Labour defeat has been on how Corbyn was a uniquely bad candidate--and he surely was--and how different the UK is from the US.

However, we should note the way mold-breaking candidates in one county set up a similar shakeup in the other: Thatcher for Reagan; Clinton for Blair; and now Donald Trump for Boris Johnson. This is a warning.

The similarity I am most worried about is immigration as the deciding issue for voters. A recent article from Public Opinion Quarterly (POQ) shows negative attitudes toward racial minorities and immigration are the best predictors of Obama-to-Trump vote-switching for white voters, and especially the "white working class." Obama-to-Trump switchers were 13% of Trump's total  Click: Race Mattered  and  Click: 13%

In the UK, "concern about immigration [was] by far the biggest driver of how people voted in the Referendum" on Brexit in 2016   Click: Immigration mattered

So what do we do? 

Let's start by positing that US Democrats cannot give an inch on anti-immigrant hate-speech or racism. But can we not also agree that there be some limit for any community, anywhere in the world, on the number of culturally distinct outsiders it can willingly absorb, and that there be some enforcement of rules on entry and residence? If we agree on the second point, and recognize the challenge to the UK and US left, then the Democrats lack of a coherent immigration policy begins to look ostrich-like.

Why has no candidate in the US Democratic field put forward a Canadian or Australian-style immigration policy, one based on national economic interest? These are two major democracies with a broad pro-immigration consensus; they are also the only two where right nationalist parties are not in ascendance. Canada combines its policy with fairly generous terms on asylum. In relation to population, Canada grants four times the number as does the US, relative to its population.

Status Quo

I am not suggesting Democrats "out cruel" the Republicans with regulations. Quite the opposite. A Canadian style system is both more politically popular AND more humane. 

Couldn't a wonky Pete Buttigieg or an unconventional candidate like Andrew Yang at least dare to open up the debate, perhaps to suggest an economic 'points' system for immigrants? Our political left seems to feel that even to raise the issue is tantamount to racism. That stops all debate. The result is that Democrats are locked out of proposing a coherent immigration system, one that might actually be popular with voters and one that would allow significant immigration to continue, legally, and with predictability for immigrants, something now lacking.

Here is a closing thought from David Frum, the smartest guy I know on immigration. He says that if liberals cannot deliver controlled immigration, then the fascists will be more than happy to step up. Like it or not, most people want a government that can exert such control. 

Republicans will want to do it in the worst possible way and use it to exacerbate nativism. The left will say that any immigration restriction is racist, and therefore succumb to morally superior electoral defeat. I hope this won't happen, but we have set the stage for it. 

We can be better than that.

Corporate Indoor Farm: "Doing it Right."

Grand Opening. Ribbon Cutting. Page One News. Local business leaders single out a company. 

"The best thing to do is encourage those who are doing it right."

   Chamber of Commerce President and CEO as quoted in Mail Tribune

    

print edition

The Mail Tribune celebrated a milestone Wednesday when they put onto Page One a laudatory story about a cannabis company. 

Finally, the right kind of people were entering the cannabis business.

 There have long been local farmers, processors, and merchants working in the cannabis and hemp industry in Southern Oregon. They are growing in the soil, water, and climate of this region, an area with an international reputation for high quality, considered the "Napa of cannabis." Both varieties of the plant are grown here, the THC variety that has psychoactive effects, and the CBD medicinal type, without those effects.

The headline and story report that the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County president and CEO Brad Hicks recognized a new company doing business the way it should be done, citing it as an example to others and encouragement to those "doing it right."

The newspaper article noted that the business establishment of Southern Oregon had "struggled" with whether or not to support an industry that had "become a significant economic engine for the region." 

They had not. It was noticed.

Heretofore, the industry in Southern Oregon has been dominated by local individual entrepreneurs working as farmers, processors, workers, and landowners. The industry brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the region, elevating wages and farm prices, enabling new enterprises in irrigation, fertilizers, and soil amendments; in construction; in farm equipment sales and service. Because the businesses were locally owned and operated, the profits were recycled back into the community.

Merchants noticed the extra business. Customers noticed huge displays of new items to service the industry. Young people could pay their bills.

The business community and Chamber had embraced the wine industry, dominated by local landowners with vineyards and wineries. Local mattered. The entrepreneurs in the cannabis and hemp industry were also local people operating small businesses, but they did not fit the Chamber mold, did not know the right people, weren't Chamber members, and didn't support the Chamber PAC and its political agenda. 

But finally, the right sort arrived. The ribbon cutting event got the full court press establishment imprimatur, with the Chamber, a county commissioner, a state representative, and media. 

The focus of attention was a Canadian corporation, Canopy Growth, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CGC. They entered a partnership with a New York based chain of growers and dispensaries, and would be growing cannabis indoors in a "state of the art" facility in a building near the local airport. 

They would not be using local soils, land, water, or climate, but they did locate an empty building to take over. Everything would be done indoors.

Typically, Chambers of Commerce lean toward locally owned and operated businesses. After all, that way profits are recycled back into the community as business shop here, bank here, and profits are reinvested here. Some owners become civic leaders. Some of those business owners do particularly well and, being rooted in the community, become local benefactors. Out of town corporate box stores are understood to be different. They disrupt, and can hollow out the local business community. They do business, but business decisions are made elsewhere, and the best incomes and profits leave. 

From Chamber website

The ribbon cutting was for a factory in a box, one that replaces the local soil, sun, climate and terroir that brands local pears, wines, and cannabis. They will "farm" with artificial lights and soil. There will be seals and filters to isolate the facility from the outside. 

No need for local farmers with expertise in local land, no need for involvement with local irrigation districts or the general agricultural economy, no link to what is unique to the community. Insofar as the business is successful it will be disruptive and extractive, competition to local growers, sending its profits out of the country.

The facility found a warm welcome. Local leaders had found their comfort zone--out of town corporate ownership, and Chamber members of the kind that will fit in. 

Cause for celebration.

The Deplorable Impeachment

     

     "With today’s illegal, unconstitutional and partisan impeachment, the do nothing Democrats… are declaring their deep hatred and disdain for the American voter. This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party.” 

      Trump, at rally in Michigan

Rumpled

Democrats have a head's up. It is now about "elitism."

Trump has long positioned the impeachment as a partisan witch hunt, a hoax, an unjustified prosecution. The implication of this had been him versus them, and the character of the Democrats had been of the over-zealous prosecutor versus the innocent victim falsely accused.

There is a problem with that message. Trump has flipped the more natural polarity on who is good and bad, calling the FBI and law enforcement generally the crooked ones in the Deep State. Trump is selling that, but the natural direction would be for Trump's base to identify with police and prosecutors. Meanwhile, the people Trump belittles and his base perceives as threats--blacks, Latinx, and immigrant communities--are the ones primed to be skeptical of prosecutors. Every suburban voter who watches Law and Order knows that defendants falsely claim innocence, and that eventually law enforcement gets it right.

Trump is adjusting his message. It is now about Democratic insult.

"Disdain for the American voter"

They hate you, he said. They have disdain for you, he said. It isn't just that they are wrong about Trump; they are wrong because they think you, the voter, are stupid. Those disrespectful Democrats think you got it wrong in the 2016 election, and your vote shouldn't count because you swing state voters are too ignorant to agree with rich California and New York voters. 

Deplorable.

I personally am attracted to Warren and Buttigieg's brainy urbanity, but realize they come across as elitist to some. The fact that their policies address poverty and fairness will seem condescending. Warren has a log cabin story of poverty, which helps take the edge off that. Buttigieg does not.

Biden, whatever his other flaws as a candidate, communicates empathetic solidarity with the working American struggling to do right for his or her family. He has a natural defense against that attack.

Click.

Rumpled Bernie does not come across as elitist, except insofar as he seems ideologically motivated. Talk of class warfare and Socialism is the privilege of people of intelligence and leisure, words of young ideologues at fancy schools.  Bernie's message is anti-elitist, but the very fact that he has an anti-elitist ideological message of social classes in conflict is itself elitist. 

But Sanders has a defense: he simply doesn't look, or sound elitist. The parody caricature of him is to depict him in rumpled suits. In the humorous dialog between the real Bernie and a Bernie look-alike, the real Bernie jokes that "there is a real art to the rumpled suit." You take it off, put it on the car seat, and sit on it.

Rumbled suits are not elitist.

Scenes from a Rally

The rally itself was the message.

If people had stayed home, it would be a message. A crowd gathered, and that, too, was a message.  

The event was to demonstrate that they cared. 

Body language.

A crowd of two hundred gathered in Medford, Oregon to carry signs and wave at passing traffic. It was one of some 600 rallies nationwide. 

The Medford rally was at a city park at the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue, the center of the traditional business district and junction of two arterial streets. The corner gets busy traffic, and it moves slowly. The crowd waved at the traffic. Some people in cars waved back and smiled. Some kept their eyes on the road. 

Events like this don't "just happen." It was organized and promoted. The rally was promoted by Indivisible groups on Facebook, and they made signs to distribute: "Trump is NOT above the law" on one side. "Impeach and Remove" on the other. 

A man brought a battery powered projector and put comments on the blank wall of an adjacent building. 

Ten people held signs that spelled out IMPEACH NOW and they lined up along Main Street.

From time to time individuals would start a chant: "Impeach Donald Trump" or "No more years" The chants lasted only a brief time.  The overall feel of the group was informal, rather than a closely organized event. Most of the signs were homemade.

People were there to be there, to do something, anything. Show up, greet friends, and wave.

Scenes below:

Raising Clean Money

Jamie McLeod-Skinner, candidate

     

"Give what you can, and then give just a little bit more, to help this great candidate."

  The campaign "ask" 

How does a candidate fund a campaign if one isn't independently wealthy?

It was a time-honored conclusion to a campaign event, this one for a Democratic candidate  for Secretary of State, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, at my home on Sunday.

Give. Give more.

The "ask" was well handled, nicely done. 

It had the usual elements. It came at the event's end, after the candidate had spoken. It was given by a volunteer who strongly supported the candidate. It reviewed why the candidate was not just good, but the best candidate for the position. It said the donated money was needed and would bring Oregon better government. Then it asked people to give.

I invited politically active friends who I thought might be interested in meeting McLeod-Skinner. The invitation to the house party was issued publicly on Facebook and then widely forwarded around. Local Democrats posted it in a newsletter. About fifty people attended. There was no outside "media" there, but they would have been welcome. There was a mix of people there. Some prosperous, some not.

The campaign circulated donor envelopes. I noticed that most people wrote checks. My expectation is that the more prosperous people wrote bigger checks than the least prosperous, but I really don't know.

I consider it the best, cleanest money in politics. It came from people who saw the candidate, liked what they saw, and wanted her to win her office. It came from a variety of citizens, people who have no particular ax to grind or special interest other than "good government" as they see it. 

City Councilman Kevin Stine and McLeod-Skinner

In the Presidential campaign Pete Buttigieg surprised people by raising money very well. That put him in the "first tier" of candidates even while candidates holding higher offices--Senators Harris, Booker, Bennet--have fallen back. Buttigieg holds both Town Hall public events and fundraisers. 

Sanders and Elizabeth Warren--and their supporters--are openly critical of Mayor Pete Buttigieg's fundraising.

An AP story reported Buttigieg "stirred criticism from progressives that Buttigieg--a Harvard-educated child of academics--is a product of privilege" and said detractors call him "Wall Street Pete." Buttigieg was holding holding high dollar campaign fundraisers and people were showing up. He has raised some $50 million dollars from his mix of contributors; Warren $60 million; Sanders $74 million.

Buttigieg opened his fundraisers to the media in response to the criticism. I attended one in Portland. It is just like his Town Halls, which I have also attended.

Sanders reports an average contribution of $18. Buttigieg reported last week that he had average contribution of $32. Small contributors represent 48% for Buttigieg, versus 58% for Bernie Sanders and 53% for Elizabeth Warren. Buttigieg:  Click: Open Secrets  Sanders:  Click: Open Secrets   Warren:  Click: Open Secrets

I have a perspective on the Democratic message and on fundraisers. My thirty year career as a Financial Advisor put me in daily contact with people who sought greater prosperity for themselves. Yes, a few people say they have no interest in money and they disdain wealth and the wealthy, but my observation was that most people do not dislike money, and indeed would be happy to have a little more of it, maybe a lot more. It is one reason why they work, save, and invest. A great many people buy lottery tickets for fun. The idea of being wealthy seems attractive. 

It is also my observation that most people think that people much richer than themselves ought to be paying more in taxes. Yet, simultaneously, most people believe in social mobility and do not consider themselves locked into "working class," and don't consider themselves to be in inevitable conflict with richer people. 

What a tangle.

That means Democratic candidates need to thread a needle, but there is a path. 

They can support more progressive tax policies, plus greater health care, education, and other services for deserving people, i.e. people like themselves. That is popular. But attacks on the rich backfire. People don't hate the rich. They want to tax them, yes, but they also want to be one of them. It is bad politics for Democrats to make prosperous Americans their political enemy. 

Every campaign has a website and donation button.

A lot of rich folks are Democrats. They show up at fundraisers to lend support. Some people click the internet button and give $10. Others click it and give $1,000. They are all Americans.

Men and Women see Trump differently

     "Ask suburban women the question, 'Do you want your children to grow up to be like Donald Trump?' and they say 'no way'."

             Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe

Hugh Hefner

That doesn't mean people won't vote for him. Especially men.

Trump lives the Playboy Magazine dream.

Joe and Mika were on MSNBC this morning talking about polls showing that men were about dead even in support of Trump versus Biden, but generally winning against other Democrats--especially Elizabeth Warren--but then observing that Trump was far behind Democratic candidates among female voters.

Women were offended by Trump, Joe said. 

Mika agreed.

Donald Trump projects a Hugh Hefner vibe that was in sync with the 1950s and early 1960s heyday of Playboy Magazine. In that imagined "great again" era, depicted in the Mad Men TV series, in the James Bond movies, and in Playboy Magazine, the rich, suave, urbane man-about-town understood and appreciated the finer things. His power and wealth allowed him to purchase a lifestyle that gave him access to women, that ultimate trophy. 

James Bond wanted his martinis shaken, not stirred. Hugh Hefner preferred silk pajamas and a smoking jacket around the mansion, but dressed in tuxedos for parties. Donald Trump likes gold, on furniture and mirrors and in bathroom fixtures. 

All of them liked beautiful young women, and got them. As Trump put it, "Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

Playboy Magazine was pre-"women's lib." Sex roles and expectations are changing in America. The forward edge of politically correct culture is well ahead of the attitudes of many. The role of women is a front in the culture war.

Democrats are ahead of Republicans. 
Women are ahead of men. 
The coasts are ahead of the heartland. 
The secular are ahead of the religious. 
The educated are ahead of the less educated. 
College towns are ahead of industrial towns.


The jarring conflict between HR-department woke Democratic correctness and lagging attitudes was evident this morning at 5:30 a.m. PST, when the very MSNBC website video that showed Joe and Mika's discussion of this topic preceded by a 15 second version of this Paco Rabanne ad. 

The ad is not politically correct. The ad does not show a sensitive, courteous, respectful man. He does get the girl. Watch the ad:

CLICK. Male Fantasy 

Paco Rabanne

The ad's music background is "Power" by Kanye West:

"No one man should have all that power
The clock's ticking', I just count the hours
Stop tripping, I'm tripping off the power. . . 
Huh? Ma'fucka', we rollin'
With some light skinned girls, and some Kelly Rowlands."


Trump being a bully, with children by three successively younger wives, living lavishly, and breaking rules of decorum and law with defiance and impunity, is a male fantasy, still out there today, in 2019. At least advertisers think so. 

Serious people look at an ad like this and understand it to be crazy, with no relation whatever to the serious business of governing a republic, nor a reflection of actual male thinking. It is no more realistic than Hugh Hefner in his 80s, being lusted after by 20 year old models.

If you don't like it, up yours!

But Trump projects something that Hugh Hefner projected as does the man in the ad: I have virile masculine power and it is great.  

Really, really great.