Tag: Trump

The High-Water Mark of Trump’s Insurgency

January 16, 2021 / rampinelli

Trump’s Capitol insurgency on January 6, 2021, has some things in common with Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Both failed.

Germany, January 13, 2021

It was July 1863. The American Civil War, launched by the Confederacy at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, had been going on for over two years. While the Union’s General Grant was attacking Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the west, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had been marching his Army of Northern Virginia toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in his second invasion of the North. His goal was to seize Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, then move on to Philadelphia or Washington D.C., in the hopes of destroying the Union Army of the Potomac and forcing the North to accept peace on the South’s terms.

When word came that Lee had marched his army through the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Union’s Army of the Potomac marched north to meet it. Elements of the two armies met near Gettysburg on July 1. After hard-fought battles, Union forces abandoned the town and established defensive positions on Cemetary Ridge, just to the south. The second day of battle was bloody but inconclusive, with Lee’s army trying in vain to take the Union flanks and roll them up. On the third day, July 3, General Lee decided to make one more massive attempt to destroy the Union forces by attacking their center, which he assumed was now weaker.

At 1:00 p.m. Confederate General Longstreet launched a massive artillery assault on Union positions on Cemetary Ridge. At 3:00 p.m. his troops, including Major General Pickett’s division, began to march across open territory for about a mile toward the Union lines. This assault is now called “Pickett’s Charge”. They were met with massive artillery fire and Union musket fire. Some of the troops reached the Union lines and broke through at the “Angle”, but a Union counterattack repulsed them. The furthest Confederate advance is called the “High-water mark of the Confederacy”. Longstreet’s forces failed to achieve their objectives, and when they returned to their lines, about two-thirds of the 12,500 soldiers were missing. Lee withdrew to higher ground on July 4, Independence Day, and then marched the survivors back south to Virginia. To the west, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, giving General Grant control of the Mississippi River and splitting the Confederacy.

The war would continue for almost two more bloody years, ending when General Lee surrendered at Appamatox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

It is now January 2021. Two months ago, Democratic candidate Joe Biden defeated Republican President Donald Trump by a large margin: 306 electoral votes to 232. The popular vote, which doesn’t determine the winner, was also lopsided: Biden received 7 million more votes nationwide than Trump. Unwilling to accept defeat, Trump claimed the election was stolen through widespread voter fraud. His only evidence was some affidavits from supporters, who complained about apparent irregularities. His campaign filed 60 lawsuits: it won only one, a judgement to let poll watchers get closer to poll workers counting ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected out of hand the two suits it received. But Trump persisted, repeating his false claims of fraud. And many of his followers believed him.

The electors cast their votes in the states on December 14, with the results as expected: 306 for Biden, 232 for Trump. The only remaining step in the process was scheduled for January 6, when both houses of Congress would meet to certify the results. This was normally a formality, although Representatives and Senators could object to results from individual states. Trump saw this as his last chance and, through Twitter, called on supporters to come to Washington D.C. on that day: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Heeding the call, thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington on January 6. Trump gave a speech at the Ellipse in the National Mall, in which he repeated his claim that the election was stolen. He called on supporters to march to the Capitol, which many of them did. The first clashes between police and Trump supporters started at about 1:00 p.m. The police were prepared for a peaceful demonstration but not a violent assault. They gave way. At about 2:00 p.m., Trump supporters broke into the Capitol building itself. Police whisked Senators and Representatives from their chambers and offices to safe places in or near the Capitol, while the mob roamed through the building, vandalizing offices, stealing and smashing objects, smearing excrement and urinating. Five people died, including two police officers. Reinforcements from the D.C. Metropolitan police, federal law enforcement agencies, and National Guard troops finally arrived and pushed the intruders out of the building and off the Capitol grounds.

With Pickett’s Charge, General Lee failed to dislodge Union forces and suffered heavy casualties, which forced him to retreat. The insurrection at the Capitol disrupted the vote to certify the results, but it continued after the mob retreated, and Joe Biden was certified the winner. Donald Trump finally admitted that there would be a transition to a new administration on January 20. He has now been impached by the House and will be tried by the Senate, although the date for that is uncertain.

Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, accurately called an insurrection, peaked in the storming of the Capitol. This was its high-water mark. The consequences of the storming of the Capitol will become clearer as time goes on, but one thing is already apparent: Like Pickett’s Charge, it was a strategic defeat for Trump and his supporters.

Lee’s army, though defeated, remained dangerous and fought on for almost two years, even threatening Washington D.C. in 1864. Trump’s ragtag mob, including QAnon conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and others, also remains dangerous. New riots are planned for January 17 and again on January 20, Inauguration Day.

The analogy between Pickett’s Charge and the storming of the Capitol is striking in many ways, but it’s not perfect. The Confederate soldiers fought for white supremacy, as do many of Trump’s followers. But when the Confederates attacked, they did it as disciplined soldiers who knew they would pay an awful price. Trump’s mob was anything but disciplined, and its members believed they wouldn’t have to pay a high price. Let’s see if they’re right.

By Jan Fidler from Prague, Czech Republic - Prague New Year 2016 fireworks. Happy New Year!, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46100832

Welcome, 2021!

January 1, 2021 / rampinelli

Germany, New Years Day, 2021

Earlier today, people throughout the world celebrated the end of 2020, which many describe as a terrible year. History will remember it as the year of the pandemic, in which societies throughout the world practiced social distancing, throttled back their economies, and even introduced curfews and lockdowns. The human toll from Covid-19 has been enormous, with deaths worldwide approaching two million.

But for some, 2020 was a good year: Couples got married, students graduated from school or college, children were born. And for many people, 2020 ended on a positive note: President Trump lost his reelection bid, and Joe Biden will replace him on January 20. But storm clouds are gathering for the world’s oldest democracy: Many Republicans believe that Trump lost due to voter fraud, even though there is no evidence for it, and before the election polls had predicted he would lose by an even greater margin. Some Republican members of Congress have announced they will vote to reject the results of the electoral college. If they somehow succeeded, which is unthinkable, it would spell the end of the American constitutional order and possibly lead to civil war.

The situation in the American church in America is not much better. Christians are bitterly divided between left and right, with white evangelicals still supporting Trump. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, persists with the disproved argument that Biden won through fraud, simply because he believes Trump. He predicts disaster for the country if Democrats win the Senate on January 6, because they will immediately pass the Equality Act. This would “change our nation at its very foundation,” Graham argued in a Facebook post.

The Equality Act would prohibit discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender orientation (i.e. LGBTQs). Whether the Equality Act as proposed is a good idea or not is a legitimate question. Given the case of the baker in Colorado who was sued for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, I can understand the concern about religious liberty. But can Christians really support discrimination?

Evangelicals should negotiate with progressives to find a reasonable solution that protects people from discrimination but protects religious liberty and freedom of conscience. Instead, both sides demonize each other and predict the end of the country if the other side wins. Consequently, many on the right, including evangelicals, refuse to accept the results of the presidential election. When the evidence-free fraud argument is brushed aside, they are clearly ready to jettison democracy to keep the other side from gaining power. And while most on the left aren’t yet ready to go that far, intolerance is growing among them as well. Each side sees the other as the enemy, and how can we compromise with evil?

The cliché says that the night is darkest before the dawn. In Matthew 16, Jesus says the gates of Hell will not prevail against his church. He doesn’t say we won’t have conflict – the history of Christianity proves otherwise. But regardless of how bleak things look, God’s purposes will ultimately prevail.

We have reason to hope that 2021 will be better than 2020. And if it’s not, we can still be sure that things will turn out well in the end. Jesus promises that.

What Else You Get with Trump

October 27, 2020 / rampinelli

Why Evangelicals Should Think Twice

October 27, 2020

Most white evangelicals support Donald Trump for reelection. Ignoring some of the craziest arguments, like Trump is “God’s chosen one”, Trump’s evangelical supporters emphasize his opposition to abortion, support for religious liberty, and appointment of conservative judges. Fair enough. Most Democrats are pro-choice and favor LGBTQ calls for acceptance, including the right to marry, over conservative Christians’ rights to not participate in something they believe is sinful, such as gay marriage.

But abortion and religious liberty are not the only issues that Christians should care about. What you also get with Donald Trump is a man with a narcissistic personality disorder. He has an inflated sense of his own importance, an excessive need to be admired, and little or no sense of empathy. As a result, his administration is the epitome of incompetence and corruption. More specifically, the Trump administration has given the country a disastrous foreign policy, a catastrophic climate change policy, a fiasco in health care, and poor stewardship of the economy. Even worse: Trump is dividing the country, attacking the rule of law, and threatening our democracy.

The Trump administration is fundamentally incompetent. While Trump began his term with competent people, such as General Mattis as defense secretary, he has since replaced them with sycophants, such as Pompeo and Barr. From the start, he surrounded himself with family members, as if the U.S. government were his family business, or a Mafia syndicate. Because of his grandiosity, he refuses to listen to his advisors unless they tell him what he wants to hear. The botched response to the Covid-19 crisis is an especially glaring, and deadly, example of the administration’s ineptitude.

The Trump administration is corrupt. As a narcissist, Trump believes the normal rules of political behavior do not apply to him. And so instead of putting his business assets in a blind trust, as his predecessors did, he turned them over to his sons. Foreign governments curry favor by booking events at his hotels and golf courses, as do domestic and foreign businesses. According to Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander, Trump daughter Ivanka’s trademark requests in China were approved 40% faster than before his election. Just a week ago, the New York Times reported that Trump has a secret Chinese bank account. Corruption, of course, is not just about money: Trump’s strongarming of Ukraine’s president to get politically usable dirt on Joe Biden is a prime example. There are good reasons why Democracy21’s Fred Wertheimer calls the Trump administration the most corrupt in history.

Moving on to foreign policy, the record is somewhat better. Trump did have some successes: for example, he brought the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, started by President Obama, to a successful conclusion. But his abandonment of our Kurdish allies, who spilled most of the blood in the fight, may have undone everything he accomplished, and it certainly smashed our reputation. Trump has also managed to avoid new wars, although he came close to starting one with Iran by killing General Soleimani. Moreover, Trump did sell tank-busting Javelins to Ukraine, but the sales agreement prohibits Ukraine from using them against the Donbas separatists. These successes are overshadowed by the Trump administration’s strategic failures. From the start, Trump has cozied up to dictators, such as Russia’s Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, and Chinese Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping. At the same time, he has attacked long-standing allies, such as Germany, and ignored others, such as Australia, which had to wait two years until an ambassador was appointed. As China continues its economic and political global expansion, backed by a growing military capability, the U.S. needs its allies more than ever. Instead, Trump has trashed our alliances. Can we count on them when we need them?

With the command to “till it and keep it”, God gave humanity dominion over the earth. Our stewardship of the planet has not been good. Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is already causing droughts, fires, and extreme weather patterns. It will continue to get worse. For that reason, world leaders came together and signed the Paris Agreement to keep global warming below 2° by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the counsel of scientists, Trump denies climate change and so withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. While China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s greatest polluter, there is no hope for success in the fight against climate change if the U.S. is not onboard.

On health care, Trump has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – and replace it with “something better”. At the end of his first term, his promised replacement is still a secret. But the threat to Obamacare is real, with a lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court to overturn the law.

Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is a classic case of dishonesty and incompetence. Trump knew back in January that the novel coronavirus was a serious public health threat, but he chose to downplay it to protect his reelection chances. When Democratic governors took action to limit the damage, he attacked them, calling on supporters to “Liberate Michigan!” Even now, amid the predicted autumn wave of rising Covid-19 cases, he still argues that the virus is going away. The U.S. leads the world in Covid-19 cases and deaths, largely because of its slow response to the pandemic. Trump’s narcissistic focus on reelection has killed thousands of Americans.

Polls show that Trump gets his highest marks for the economy, which was doing well until the pandemic hit. But he does not deserve credit for it. Trump inherited a strong and growing economy from the Obama administration and juiced it up with massive tax cuts. But as any economist will tell you, an economic boom is not the time to increase the deficit. Trump’s tax cuts have raised the government’s debt immensely. When interest rates rise, which will happen someday, the interest burden will be hard to bear. Moreover, due to the high levels of government debt, which the tax cuts fostered, Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate refuse to pass a second stimulus package, which the economy now desperately needs. To maintain its position as the world’s strongest economy, the United States needs to invest in infrastructure – roads, rails, communication, and education – and in industries of the future, such as renewable energy. We are falling short. Another massive economic problem is the growing gap between the rich and the rest. Rising inequality threatens our social cohesion, which threatens our economy. But he does not seem to care about it, nor do his fellow Republicans.

Trump has been called the “Divider in Chief”. He has attacked Mexicans, calling them rapists and criminals. He has banned immigration from Muslim countries. His signature policy is to “build the wall” to deter illegal immigration and has taken money from the Defense Department to do it. Trump is anything but forthright in condemning white supremacists. Not surprisingly, racial incidents against Latinos, Blacks, and Asians have climbed substantially since Trump took office.

Trump denies that Blacks are more likely than whites to be victims of police violence. And when a 17-year-old white male shot a protestor in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Trump supported him. Instead of trying to calm the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in police custody, Trump fanned the flames. The result was a wave of protests that sometimes turned violent. Trump responded by sending DHS paramilitaries into Portland, Oregon, and encouraged the white nationalist Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by!”

Trump’s disdain for the rule of law is painful to see. It began early in his presidency when he demanded personal loyalty from the FBI director, James Comey. Trump then obstructed the Muller investigation into his 2016 campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. His widespread corruption has already been noted. Trump has pardoned the likes of Sheriff Arpaio and Roger Stone. Under Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Justice Department has been degraded into Trump’s personal law firm, which now wants to defend him in a civil suit.

But the worst evil of Trump’s presidency is his threat to American democracy. His strongarm response to peaceful protesters so he could have a photo op in front of a damaged church in Washington D.C. was an attack on our consitutional right to protest. He has called for an “army” of poll watchers to descend on voting precincts, presumably to intimidate people who would otherwise vote against him. But worst of all, he refuses to say that he will honor the will of the voters by leaving office peacefully. Instead, he says that, if he loses, it is proof of voter fraud, even though the polls favor Joe Biden to win.

If the loser does not accept the election results, but tries to cling to power, American democracy faces an existential threat. And if he would succeed in staying in power despite losing the election, America is no longer a democracy. We would have descended to the level of Belarus and become a dictatorship. The people would not take this lightly – massive civil unrest, with many casualties, would result. We could even have a second civil war.

If you believe that abortion kills a human being, it makes sense to oppose it energetically, and protection of religious liberty is an important part of our American democracy. But the reelection of Donald Trump would put our country and its democracy at grave risk. The price is too high. Instead, politically conservative evangelicals should strive to reform the Republican Party and renew its commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Then, in good conscience, they can try to win the next election. The country might support them.

Jesus Is Lord – and Trump Isn’t

March 15, 2017 / rampinelli

The gates of Hell will not prevail.

March 15, 2017

For those of us who are politically to the left of the far right, the time since November 8 has been depressing, and the two months since January 20 have been downright shocking. We may have hoped that the reality TV star whom a minority of voters elected president would suddenly act like one, but it’s clear our hopes have been dashed.

Every day, it seems, a new outrage awaits. Trump’s inauguration speech, with its coarse nationalism of “America First”, was quickly followed by “alternative facts” about inauguration attendance. He followed with the speech at CIA headquarters, where he hinted about stealing Iraqi oil. Then came the chaos at the borders, when Trump’s ill-prepared executive order barred entry by anyone with a passport from one of seven Muslim countries, including permanent residents of the United States.

While our attention is now being held by revelations of the Trump campaign’s frighteningly close ties to Vladimir Putin’s hostile government, Republicans in Congress are pushing their extremist agenda, from eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency to repealing the Affordable Care Act.

But far worse than anything Congress is doing is the reign of Trump and his inner circle. Steve Bannon, a white supremacist and godfather of the “alt-right”, is Trump’s most influential advisor. He was quoted after the election saying “Darkness is good: Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, Satan. That’s power.” But this admirer of darkness would have no power if Donald J. Trump were a different sort of man. An extreme narcissist who cares not a bit for truth or reality, he’s addicted to the adulation of his “base”, who apparently are living in an imaginary world of their own making. Fake news, alternative facts, attacks on the press, bans on refugees: Could anything worse happen to our country?

President Trump reminds me of a narcissistic Roman emperor, like Nero or Caligula, or maybe Commodus. Netflix’s series “Roman Empire: Reign of Blood” tells the story of Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, who becomes emperor when his father dies. The parallel to our times is striking. Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher and a great emperor, somewhat like the constitutional scholar Barack Obama, while Commodus was a narcissist who cared only about his pleasure and the people’s adulation. After a bloody and incompetent reign, Commodus was murdered. And the chaos that followed, in which five emperors succeeded each other in just one year, should be a warning to anyone who thinks assassination is the solution.

While the Trump presidency will certainly put our country to the test, Christians need not fear. In the Roman Empire, Christians said “Jesus is Lord, and Caesar isn’t.” Christians today can likewise say, “Jesus is Lord, and Trump isn’t.”

That doesn’t mean that President Trump and his modern-day Rasputin Steve Bannon can’t do a lot of harm. We know from history that Christian countries can fall. The Western Roman Empire fell to Aryan Germanic tribes in the 5^th century. Invading Muslim Arab armies wrested historic Christian lands – Palestine, Syria, Egypt, North Africa – from the Eastern Roman Empire, and then went on to conquer Spain. In the 13^th century, Mongols vanquished the Kievan Rus, today’s Russia and Ukraine, and in the 15^th century, the Ottoman Turks occupied Constantinople and reigned over much of the Balkans. In the previous century, Communism took over the Russian Empire and then subjugated Eastern Europe, brutally suppressing Christianity. Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church, but he didn’t say our kingdoms would stand or we’d be free from persecution.

Still, history shows that God’s people also triumph. A Christian community still exists in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, though threatened by war and Muslim extremists. Spain was reconquered over 770 years. The Balkans threw off the Ottoman yoke and later Communist rule. Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia today are again Christian, at least nominally. And Christianity in China is experiencing the most rapid growth in the world today.

The United States of America is not the church, and the gates of Hell can certainly prevail against it. The Trump Administration, supported by Republicans in Congress, could usher in the decline and fall of America. But our country has walked through fire before. The Civil War killed hundreds of thousands and threatened to destroy the country, but in the end, the Union prevailed, and the cancer of slavery was excised. America came through the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War, and it abolished its own form of Apartheid, Jim Crow. We survived the Vietnam War and Watergate. We can now survive Trump.

The crucible of Trump’s reign will test us greatly. We might lose our democracy and turn into an authoritarian state, as happened to Russia under Putin. But if we win, we can usher in a new age, hinted at under President Obama, where we as a country move toward greater freedom, justice and prosperity for all Americans and serve as a force for good in the world.

I believe this can be our future, because: Jesus is Lord – and Trump isn’t.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (NIV)