Tomorrow morning at 6:00, Peggy and I will drive to Vatican Square with some new Roman friends to attend the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV. The ceremony will begin at 10:00. That means we’ll be there four hours ahead of time. The attempt to secure good seats promises a long morning.
As you may recall, what Carl Jung called “synchronicity” has brought us to Rome at this precise time. Our ostensible purpose for being here was simply to spend three weeks with our son, daughter-in-law, and three small granddaughters (ages 5, 3, and 1). We wanted to spend as much time as possible getting to know the girls, whose parents’ foreign employment patterns would otherwise make that far more complicated.
However, my real synchronic purpose for being here, I’m convinced, is to reconnect me with my deep Catholic roots for purposes of final evaluation before transition into Life’s next dimension.
With that process in mind and at the age of 84, I feel overwhelmed by Rome’s beauty – its tree-lined streets, omnipresent sidewalk cafes, its lavish fountains, statuary, Renaissance paintings and churches, its operas and ballets. Today all that seems even more wonderful than it did more than half a century ago when I spent five years here (1967-’72) getting my doctoral degree in moral theology.
Those were magic years for me, when after spending my teenage and early adult years in a seminary hothouse, I finally began waking up to the real world. It all shook me to the core.
And here I’m not just thinking of personal growth experiences, but of the dawning of political awareness about the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Liberation, and of Liberation Theology which I’ve come to understand as “critical faith theory.” (By that last phrase I mean understanding the way Christianity has been used by western colonial powers to enslave, brainwash, and justify repeated exterminations of Muslims, “witches,” Native Americans, kidnapped Africans, and colonized people across the planet.)
Along those lines, being here in Rome during the ongoing holocaust in Gaza makes me think of Pope Pius XII’s virtual silence on the Jewish Holocaust in the 1930s and ‘40s. It has me wondering if Leo XIV will follow in his shameful footsteps.
I mean, the new pope will have a golden opportunity to confront his fellow American Catholics undeniably responsible for the ongoing slaughter in Palestine. I’m referring to J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and possibly Joe Biden. It’s as if during the Holocaust, Pius XII had the chance to publicly confront Hitler or Goering.
Will Leo use this golden opportunity to call them (and the absent Mr. Trump) to task the way the courageous Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde did when presented with a similar opportunity in the early days of the Trump administration? Recall that as the episcopal leader of 40,000 congregants in the D.C. area, Bishop Budde had Trump and Vance squirming in their seats as she pled for mercy on behalf of the immigrants, refugees, Palestinians, and others whom those key members of her audience show every evidence of despising.
Will the papal leader of 1.2 billion Catholics show similar courage tomorrow? Or will he take refuge in “safe” generalities, “diplomatic” bromides, and empty platitudes about “peace,” justice, and mercy?
My guess is that it will be the latter. But we’ll see.
I’m not yet sure what to think about last Tuesday’s election results. Surprisingly, I find myself ambivalent and guardedly hopeful.
On the one hand, I feel strong foreboding about the Trump victory. I have nothing but painful memories of his last term. It was tough to wake up each day to the crudity, mendacity, stupidity, self-promotion, and sheer ignorance of the man. As a result, like many others, especially at the beginning, I experienced great relief returning to a kind of normalcy under Joe Biden.
But then as that “normalcy” kicked in, I found that horrifying too. Distressingly, there are those billions and billions and billions spent on a war in Ukraine whose reasons were impossible for me to understand. How was Ukraine our concern? I mean, most Americans can’t even find it on the map. Additionally, by all accounts its government is incredibly corrupt. Historically, it has been consistently associated with Nazism. Ukraine seemed far from our business, especially when we have so many problems at home.
I’m referring to huge income gaps between rich and poor, to decaying cities, roads and bridges, low minimum wage, lack of universal health care, college loan indebtedness, rampant homelessness, and incoherent immigration policy. Why did the Biden administration find it so easy to find billions for Ukraine, but not for us and our problems?
Then came the genocide in Gaza! At the very least, it revealed the hypocrisy of Democrats ostensibly concerned with women’s rights, and racism, but supplying weapons to kill mothers and their children in Gaza. Clearly the administration felt differently about Palestinian women and children than about their American or Ukrainian counterparts. Isn’t that sexism? Isn’t that racism? Isn’t it politically suicidal?
Mrs. Harris promised more of the same. During her ineffective campaign she repeatedly refused to distance herself from anything Genocide Joe continues to implement in the Middle East. Doesn’t that make her a genocider too? Of course it does!
But won’t Trump just give us more of the same as well? Probably. But maybe not.
So, to clarify my own ambivalence about Tuesday’s election results, I decided to make a list of Trump’s pros and cons. Here’s how it came out:
Trump’s Negatives
There are so many! But here’s the short list:
In general, he’s crude, superficial, and uninformed.
He’s a pathological liar, e.g., about immigrant crime rates and their eating pets.
His only true accomplishment during his first term was to give gratuitous tax breaks to the world’s richest people.
He totally mishandled the COVID 19 outbreak. As a result, more Americans died than citizens of any other developed country.
His punitive policies against Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba have increased the immigration situation he decries.
More specifically, he repeatedly tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government ridiculously installing U.S. puppet Juan Guaido to replace Nicolas Maduro.
He’s a climate change denier
He’s a champion of the fossil fuel industry’s super polluters.
He exhibits no understanding of the dangers of nuclear war. (Remember his wondering “If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them.”)
Like Biden and Harris, he’s anti-Palestinian and an enthusiastic supporter of Israel’s genocide.
He blames U.S. unemployment and low wages on immigrants and the Chinese rather than on the decisions of his capitalist friends to offshore American jobs.
He thinks that tariffs hurt the Chinese, when they are covert taxes on American consumers, while increasing inflation and funneling the surcharged money to Washington.
He’s disrespectful of women and has been convicted of rape by a jury of his peers
He was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
He encouraged the January 6, 2021, assault on our nation’s capital.
He’s likely to incorporate into his administration neanderthals like Mike Pompeo and Marco Rubio.
Trump’s Positives
Believe it or not, there are a few. Here’s the longest list I can think of:
Trump’s disliked and vilified by the Washington establishment and the mainstream media. (Indicating that he can’t be all that bad).
His landslide election has exposed widespread discontent with the economic and political status quo.
He’s a loose cannon. He and his MAGA followers form the closest thing to the third party that America requires.
His “party” has succeeded in uniting large swaths of previously hopelessly polarized population segments who somehow realize that they have more in common with each other than what drives them apart – including women, African Americans, and Hispanics.
He promises to incorporate into his administration anti-big-pharma, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., war critic, Tulsi Gabbard, and Putin interviewer Tucker Carlson.
He’s willing to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian war.
He’s highly skeptical of NATO.
His vice-president is J.D. Vance has been described by Robert Barnes as “the most war skeptical and pro-labor Republican office holder in the last 50 years.”
Beyond that and unlike the Biden administration, he’s proven willing to dialog and “deal” with America’s designated enemies including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
He promises to open sealed government documents (and their can of worms) on the JFK assassination.
And (most importantly) his election may drive neo-con Democrats to repudiate their efforts to out-Republican Republicans and to reappropriate their identity as Roosevelt New Dealers.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it – the pros and cons of Trump’s triumph as I see it. What do you think? Am I being naïve and too optimistic? Am I whistling past the graveyard? Can you add to my lists? Do you care to refute my reasoning?
Something important and promising might well be happening in American politics. At the popular level, working class folks are expressing their deep discontent with a system run by octogenarians who serve their donors rather than the American taxpayer. The latter has come to realize that Democrats and Republicans have formed a kind of Uni-party beholden to the rich and powerful rather than to their plebian electors.
Strange to say however, both parties have shown faint signs of perhaps recognizing that truth and its devastating consequences for them at the voting booth. The Republican Party has selected a presidential candidate (Donald Trump) who talks a good game in terms of rebellion against the status quo. At the same time, the Democrats have set aside their senile superannuated “leader” (Joe Biden) in favor of a much younger black woman (Kamala Harris).
The truth is however that the policies of neither Trump nor Harris promise much difference in terms of changing the given order as far as international relations are concerned. No matter who’s elected, genocidal support for Zionism will remain a cornerstone of our country’s foreign policy. The war in Ukraine will continue it seems “to the last Ukrainian.” And America’s “diplomacy” will still prioritize war, sanctions, and regime change over peace-seeking diplomacy and dialog. All of that will continue unabated.
Nevertheless, Kamala Harris’ selection of Tim Walz as her running mate and Donald Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance as his offer strong indications that something new might be afoot for 2028. Both Walz and Vance are far more thoughtful than Harris or Trump. In fact, both vice-presidential candidates might be more war averse and friendly to the working class than their mentors.
Tim Walz
That’s clear to most in the case of Tim Walz. As Minnesota governor, he has distinguished himself as a progressive. Among other legislative achievements, he signed bills that:
Made access to abortion easier
Provide free breakfast and lunch to all school children
Offer free college tuition for families with incomes of $80,000 or less
Curb greenhouse gas emissions
Moved towards establishing a public healthcare option within the MinnesotaCare system
Restored voting rights to decarcerated felons
Vastly increased Minnesota’s spending on housing to prevent homelessness, expand homeownership opportunities and provide rental assistance to thousands of households.
Still, according to American lawyer and political commentator, Robert Barnes, J.D. Vance might well be “the most war-skeptical, pro-worker Republican office holder of the last 100 years.”
Barnes supports this contention by citing (among other considerations) Vance’s 2024 vote against a $95 billion Ukraine aid package. Vance was one of only 18 senators voting against it in a 79-18 tally. (Vance thinks Ukraine is Europe’s problem and not that of the United States.) Barnes also points out that the Teamsters regard Vance as an important working-class ally.
As for intellectual influences on Senator Vance, here is a list provided by Politico’s Ian Ward in his article “The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview.”
Catholic Social Teaching: Catholic social justice teachings (the “best kept secret of the Catholic Church”) emphasize community, workers’ rights, and environmental protection. The most famous examples of such teachings are found in the encyclicals of Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum 1891), Pius XI (Quadragesimo Anno 1931), John XXIII (Mater et Magistra 1961), John XXIII (Pacem in Terris 1963), Vatican II (Gaudium et Spes, 1965), and Pope Francis (Laudato Si 2015).
Sohrab Ahmari(co-editor of Compact Magazine): Also emphasizes Catholic teachings regarding social justice.
Peter Deneen(University of Notre Dame): Deneen holds that unfettered free markets with their emphasis on competition have undercut not only the American family, but communitarian values and the collective basis of our national life. Neoliberal economics need not only restraint but replacement.
Brad Wilcox (BYU): Wilcox argues that women’s entry into the workforce has been better for companies than for most women. The companies benefit from more and cheaper labor. Meanwhile many women end up hating their jobs. Too many also feel overworked because they typically retain responsibility for cooking, cleaning, and childcare when they return from the workplace.
Peter Thiel(Hedge Fund Investor): Thiel warns against a technology that has too often shackled us as opposed to liberating us and building a better society. We need to get off our phones.
Curtis Yarvin(American blogger): For Yarvin, American democracy has deteriorated into control by a corrupt oligarchy. Resolving such tendencies, he says, might entail installing a kind of dictator— a nationalist CEO who would run the country like a startup business.
Rene Girard(French historian and theologian): Girard holds that Christianity must be reinterpreted to recognize that the Judeo-Christian tradition is on the side of the poor and oppressed rather than the rich and powerful.
Conclusion
It’s discouraging that American political discourse is overwhelmingly ad hominem rather than focused on the issues suggested by the policies of Tim Walz and the intellectual influences on J.D. Vance.
“Vance is weird.” “Walz is a communist.” “Trump’s a fascist.” “Harris is the product of DEI.” “My audience crowds are bigger than yours.”
Such immature schoolyard put-downs do nothing at all to address the real concerns of voters.
Better to explore candidates’ stances on climate change and the threat of nuclear war. Why is America so beholden to Israel and cooperative with its clearly genocidal policies? And what is Ukraine to us?
What about street people and public housing? What about subsidized childcare, free post-secondary education, and debt relief for those with unrepayable student loans? Have the candidates thought about the issues of police violence and reparations to the black community? And do any of those seeking our vote recognize connections between immigration and U.S. wars, regime changes, and sanctions?
And at an even deeper level, are we primarily individuals in competition with one another or must we rediscover community and common good? Has technology become our master rather than our servant? And what are best practices for addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion? What are the benefits and liabilities of universal healthcare and state-subsidized education?
Those are the issues that need addressing and serious debate. Those are the issues that require real discussion rather than the sound bites, slogans, and zingers.
And while Harris and Trump offer little hope of going there, I’m suggesting here that their selection of running mates more serious and thoughtful than either main candidate perhaps offer some hope for the future.
Walz’s policy decisions as governor of Minnesota and the influences on Vance’s thinking seem to suggest that it does.
About Things That Matter 