John Kasich

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Rest in . . . Wait a Minute!

Republicans proved they are the Party of No Class (PNC) when they leaped from the death of one of their honored Supreme Court Justices to insisting that President Obama had no standing to nominate a new justice. Apparently the Constitutional duty to nominate Supreme Court justices does not extend to a Democratic president. Justice Antonin Scalia might well stir at such disrespect, both for him and the Constitution.

Governor John Kasich, notable for his good sense, spoke in last night’s debate about the haste the candidates had taken to move from honoring the passing of a conservative colleague to demanding his replacement await a new administration. Really, is 24 hours too long to remember a justice who graced the Supreme Court for a quarter of a century?

Perhaps it should be expected that a Party that spawned Donald Trump should be jockeying for political position before their comrade had some moments of peace and recognition, but it is disappointing nonetheless. A Supreme Court justice, regardless of his political bent, ought to receive the honor due his service, and Antonin Scalia was a pronounced and outspoken figure in the judiciary. He deserved better.

The high road in politics is increasingly the Road Not Taken

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The Gospel of Winning

Why would 34% of New Hampshire Republicans favor Donald Trump over more experienced candidates who state policy with measured language? Because Trump has convinced everyone he is a winner and has the glare and gall to make America’s enemies stand down. Apparently a host of Evangelicals enjoy the thought of being a “winner” and kicking some ISIS ass (in Sarah Palin’s words), threatening the Chinese with tariffs, and barring the infidels who threaten their land with terrorist attacks and Sharia Law.

Trump’s world reminds me of the Book of Judges, the Wild West of the Bible, where Israel’s enemies were dispatched by courageous and righteous leaders whenever they lost their advantage in Canaan.

I loved reading about the Judges when I was younger. There was Ehud who ran his sword through the chubby belly of Eglon, and then escaped while everyone supposed King Eglon was merely indisposed in his chambers. Then there was Deborah and Jael, two women who figured prominently in the death of the mighty infidel Sisera. In Judges 5 we literally get the blow-by-blow description that shows that women are equal-opportunity assassins:

Her hand reached for the tent peg,
Her right hand for the workman’s hammer.
She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,
She shattered and pierced his temple.
At her feet he sank;
he fell; there he lay.
At her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank there he fell— dead. (5:26-27)

This unsettling detail shows that women in Judges were real winners, too. Another hero was Gideon, who was nominated to take 300 kinsmen against huge battalions of the Midianites. Gideon also kicked butt and returned to judge Israel for forty years.

These are great heroic stories that showed how God favored the faithful underdogs. They showed how peace was administered in a very unsettled land. A little blood-thirsty, perhaps, but they were violent times. There were no international treaties, no horrors of atomic warfare, no U.S. Constitution, and no ecumenical prayer breakfasts. It was all “us” vs. “them.”

Apparently some Evangelicals have been reading too much in Judges and not enough of the Sermon on the Mount, because they are turning out in droves for Donald Trump, who has nothing in his life that he should ask forgiveness for. They like the idea of being winners, like Gideon and Sampson, but not weaklings like Jesus and his Apostles, who all ended up martyrs for their faith.

Evangelicals like God going to battle with people whose religion they dislike, like Deborah taking on the Canaanites with Jael, the tent-peg assassin. Jesus was a bit too magnanimous when he praised the faith of an occupying Roman soldier, who made the startling plea,”Say the word and my servant will be healed.” With unconcealed admiration he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith, even in Israel” (Luke 7:9).

Evangelicals like the James Bond-like treachery of Ehud, impaling the enemy Eglon in his own chamber, rather than the vulnerable Jesus who told Pontius Pilate to his face,” My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36). Not long after that conversation, he was executed.

Somewhere out of the message “My kingdom is not of this world,” Evangelicals have distilled the message they were exceptional “winners” and everyone who opposes them should be put in their place, i.e. the “losers” corner. Donald Trump’s message must be resonating with them, because certainly the more reasoned policies of the competition, say of a Marco Rubio or a John Kasich, are not gathering traction on holy ground. They don’t bluster, they don’t strut, they don’t wipe out the Philistines, like Samson.

The rise of Donald Trump could be a consequence of a defeated generation: the unemployed, the betrayed, the terrorized, the politically disillusioned. Of course some voters are drawn by powerful figures, who promise them deliverance, as the Judges delivered Israel.

Most disappointing, however, are the Evangelical Christians, who have the model of their Christ betrayed, oppressed, and terrorized by his enemies, yet did not aspire to be a “winner.” Before the Resurrection, there was no macho posturing by Jesus, no kicking Pharisee or Centurion ass. Evangelicals should know better than to listen to the toughest mouth on the street or to look for shortest path to revenge on their enemies.

The so-called “winner” should know better than that, too.

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Bully with a Pulpit

It is true that bullies play the victim card better than anyone else. We have seen Donald Trump bully Jeb Bush and John Kasich for their lack of swagger and then whimper that the media does not credit his poll numbers, which before this week, had been impressive. Wednesday night we saw Ted Cruz loudly complain that the media had stacked the questions against Republicans at the debate after treating the Democrats with great deference at their debate. “This is not a cage match,” he proclaimed.

If the debate was not a cage match, more the pity for Cruz. He excels at bare-fisted combat. That’s how he abruptly rose to power as a first-term U.S. Senator. Parrying a question about the federal debt limit, he went after the CNBC panel for their adversarial questions of the candidates and then offered to address the question after expending his time on the rant. It is easy to attack the media in a public debate, because if the media defends itself it yields to the charges of partisanship. The panelists have to absorb the punches and keep the debate moving. So attacking the media is both bullying and playing the victim at the same time.

The whole maneuver was staged to be spontaneous, but clearly a calculated move to take the high ground against an opponent who couldn’t fight back. Cruz had carefully noted the questions to each of the panelists and turned them into
travesties, as he launched into his tirade: “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over there? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”
If Donald Trump had ventured that strategy, Cruz would probably have taunted him, “Hey Donald, if you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen!” But it was Cruz’s turn to play the victim.

There is something unseemly about accepting an invitation to debate then trashing the host at the first opportunity. Not only was it an offense to hospitality, it was a deliberate provocation of the carnivorous audience that approved of any rough handling of the media. It was political theatre designed to lionize a bully. The crowd hooted their approval.

The bully survives on short-term approval. Even the New York Times rated Cruz’s performance as victorious the next day, but the Times is the media and has to take a punch. The polls will also boost Cruz, because he looked powerful, beating the Republican whipping boy on national television.

But the bully will eventually attack the wrong victim and be disgraced and rejected. That is the inevitable fate of Ted Cruz. He is probably smart enough to know it himself. But he will keep sucker-punching until someone feints and exposes his brutality, and he will claim he has been maligned or fallen victim to “political correctness.” That’s another term bullies like. When they are caught being merciless or insensitive, they cry “political correctness” and slink away.

Watch for it in the next round of Republican cage-fighting.