Some years I do this thread, other years not. 2025 was such a serious year, I'm tempted not to.
Maybe that's when you should.
I'm going to start of with a minor one.
Heather Cox Richardson, for goodness sakes pay some attention to the production values of your Vlog. It's absolutely horrific and yes, it does matter. Sitting in front of a coast map may be something you can get away with as a professor to your students, but frankly everyone else just wonders on to Erza Klein.
The ones with Joanne B. Freeman are the absolutely worst, not because you both don't have things that are serious to say, but because it comes across like two elderly professors in the faculty lounge who are annoyed with undergraduates.
You have good content. Improve the production values.
Okay, now that we have that out of the way. . .
Cabinet members, invoke the 25h Amendment.
You know that Donald Trump is getting increasingly bat shit crazy and he's making everything worse. The point at which he serves as razzle dazzle is over. It's no longer safe. Remove him.
And once he's removed, do a serious investigation into what his thing with Putin is. It's weird, bare minimum, but is there more there?
Some will note, and indeed people already are, that if Trump goes Vance is in. This is true.Vance has his own dangers, but he's not likely to nuke Denmark.
Regarding Vance, Vance probably is who he always was, or so it seems to me, but his philosophical underpinnings have developed enormously, whether you like them or not. It occurs to me that people who were charmed by Hillbilly Elegy were charmed by it as they didn't regard it as a call for action for a hillbilly class, but rather as a fun thing to lament over while sipping some weird tea based drink and watching Heather Cox Richardson. Nope, it was a call to arms.
Vance, or whatever your name is, its time for you to be open about your beliefs. Either the American public accepts them, which they probably do not, or they'll reject them and you can try to convince them.
Also, reconsider their harshness. It's easier to be Kevin Roberts if you are an academic. In the real world, Pope Leo XIV makes a lot more sense.
Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Go back to your homes and leave Wyoming alone.
John Barrasso. Grow a spine and start backing Wyoming.
Chuck Gray. See item on Freedom Caucus.
Wyoming Democrats. Be like what you once were, moderate Republicans. You're never getting anywhere running as the French Socialist Party.
Wyoming voters, quit screwing yourself. I swear, the things you keep voting to support are so darned dumb it defines description. Voting for politicians who will grab Federal lands would sell them in a heartbeat. Coal is not coming back. Climate change is real and needs to be addressed.
And, if you are a new Freedom Caucus type voter, go home. We'll even buy you a box set of the Dukes of Hazzard if you leave.
Members of the Evangelical Protestant right wing community (and maybe Evangelical Protestants in general). Read some history. You guys are carrying out a historically discredited effort that's contrary to the Church.
Also, knock off the divorce doesn't matter thing. It does.
And the 2028 Presidential Season has begun. Erika Kirk of Turning Point USA has endorsed J. D. Vance.
And yes, it's way, way, early.
But perhaps its not surprising. Trump's mentally departing the stage and chance are good that he'll be out of office in the next few months, Vance is probably looking towards his future right now. His best chances for that position, of course, would be if Trump is escorted out of the building babbling about being the greatest and sent to a gilded retirement home.
But if that doesn't occur, the knives will be coming out before 2028. Marco Rubio will not have sat through four years of soul corrupting dementia not to take a run at the White House. No doubt others are in the wings.
One who may be in the wings, if I'm wrong on his being too demented to carry on in any fashion, is Donald Trump. Everyone keeps noting that he's constitutionally barred but he has no regard for the law in the first place and his threads to run need to be taken seriously.
On Vance, he's a true NatCon, although a recent convert to the philosophy, and his being backed by Turning Point means something, assuming that Turning Point doesn't fly apart or become highly diminished (which I think it will). It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but it might be suspected that it's probable that Kirk's coming out now has the backing of other significant NatCon figures, who know that they need to put their man in power now (Trump really isn't their man, but their tool). A figure like Rubio would turn the clock back.
And so the race is on.
December 22, 2025
It wasn't until listening to the weekend shows that I learned that Marco Rubio has endorsed Vance as well.
That's really interesting, and frankly surprising.
Cont:
And now the rumors are circulating, probably correctly, that Ted Cruz will be running.
Moreover. . . .
The NatCon nerve center and author of Project 2025 starts to come unglued as the Trump Administration does:
I've always thought Roberts' organization would maneuver to put Vance in power in 2026 and shove aside the Pine Tree flag folks, who don't have the intellectual capacity to run a government. The risk has always been that they'd hold the hand they were dealt too long.
They may have.
And Pence, who didn't look like a good candidate before, is starting to with some folks.
Trump's dementia is clearly accelerating, as his weird speech to assembled senior military officers demonstrated.
In response to the speeches assertion that cities like Chicago should be used as training grounds, Gov. JB Pritzker called for Trump to be removed from office under the 25th Amendment.
I've been saying that for months.
The Atlantic noted:
The president talked at length, and his comments should have confirmed to even the most sympathetic observer that he is, as the kids say, not okay. Several of Hegseth’s people said in advance of the senior-officer conclave that its goal was to energize America’s top military leaders and get them to focus on Hegseth’s vision for a new Department of War. But the generals and admirals should be forgiven if they walked out of the auditorium and wondered: What on earth is wrong with the commander in chief?
Trump seemed quieter and more confused than usual; he is not accustomed to audiences who do not clap and react to obvious applause lines. “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” he said at the outset. (Hegseth had the same awkward problem earlier, waiting for laughs and applause that never came.) The president announced his participation only days ago, and he certainly seemed unprepared.
I've also been stating that he's not okay.
It's now becoming undeniable even where it had been ignored. Donald Trump is not okay.
October 2, 2025
A growing momentum on Trump's insanity.
This is huge.
In this clip, an off mike Speaker of the House Mike Johnson basically admits that Trump is "unwell", and only defends it by saying that some Democrats are as well.
He doesn't defined Trump's insanity, and he claims not to have seen the speech to the Military.
There's growing momentum now for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. It's openly being called for, and here one of Trump's closest allies doesn't try to defend his sanity at all.
MADELEINE DEAN: The president is unhinged. He is unwell.
MIKE JOHNSON: A lot of folks on your side are too
DEAN: Oh my god, please. That performance in front of the generals?
MIKE JOHNSON: I didn't see it
DEAN: It's so dangerous! Our allies are looking elsewhere. Our enemies are laughing. You have a president who is unwell.
Things like this have a way of happening suddenly. Since Trump's very publized speech to the senior officers, there has been a lot of public commentary on his being "unwell" and now senior politicians are saying so openly. Some are Democrats who aren't afraid of saying it, even though they've been reluctant to up until now, such as Madelene Dean.
Dean: “Is it racist? You put a sombrero on a Black man who’s the leader of the House. You don’t see that as racist? We need you desperately to lead,”
Johnson: “I’m working on it. And personally, it’s not my style. I love you and I respect you, OK?”
Dean: “That’s why I’m talking to you".
We covered this quite a while back, but the 25th Amendment requires the vice president, together with a "majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide", to issue a written declaration that the president is unable to discharge his duties. So who all has to buy in on that? The majority of the cabinet, but just a simple majority.
Who all is in the cabinet?
Secretary of StateMarco Rubio
Secretary of the TreasuryScott Bessent
Secretary of DefensePete Hegseth
Attorney GeneralPam Bondi
Secretary of the InteriorDoug Burgum
Secretary of AgricultureBrooke Rollins
Secretary of CommerceHoward Lutnick
Secretary of LaborLori Chavez-DeRemer
Secretary of Health and Human ServicesRobert F. Kennedy Jr.
Secretary of Housing and Urban DevelopmentScott Turner
Secretary of TransportationSean Duffy
Secretary of EnergyChris Wright
Secretary of EducationLinda McMahon
Secretary of Veterans AffairsDoug Collins
Secretary of Homeland SecurityKristi Noem
Administrator of the Environmental Protection AgencyLee Zeldin
Director of the Office of Management and BudgetRussell Vought
Director of National IntelligenceTulsi Gabbard
Director of the Central Intelligence AgencyJohn Ratcliffe
United States Trade RepresentativeJamieson Greer
Administrator of the Small Business AdministrationKelly Loeffler
Chief of StaffSusie Wiles
Okay, let's make some reasonable assumptions.
Getting J.D. Vance on board only really requires that a majority of the cabinet go along. I suspect Vance would be pretty willing to stab Trump in the back if it elevates him to the Oval Office, and as I've said here all along, the NatCons have been planning on this development since day one.
So who might go along? Keep in mind that there are a whopping 22 cabinet officers (an absurd amount). In order to invoke the 25th Amendment, 12 would need to be willing to vote that Trump is bonkers.
Let's put them in "probable" (red), no way (blue) and unknown categories (orange) and see where that takes us, keeping in mind that unknown, is unknown to me. Others might have a pretty good idea of how everyone is likely to go.
1. Secretary of StateMarco Rubio. Rubio would definitely remove Trump and is undoubtedly willing to save his own career rather than be hitched to a mentally declining unpopular President.
2. Secretary of the TreasuryScott Bessent. Bessent might seem like a surprise here, but he's been clearly uncomfortable saying the stupidest stuff and would likely like to be relieved of that burden.
1. Secretary of DefensePete Hegseth. Hegseth is hitched to Trump's wagon, and knows it. The only way he might consider otherwise is an open threat/promise that if he goes along, he keeps his job (the NatCons probably like him), but if he doesn't, when this gets worse, he'll be sent packing before his work is done.
3. Attorney GeneralPam Bondi. This probably seems like a surprise too, but recently Trump's been forcing Bondi into clearly unethical and stupid positions. She's pretty smart, and would likely vote to save herself.
4. Secretary of the InteriorDoug Burgum. Burgum's role in the administration is a self serving marriage of convenience. He'd hitch his wagon to any Republican President.
2. Secretary of AgricultureBrooke Rollins. I don't know much about Rollins and probably should put her in orange, but she served Texas Governor Perry, which speaks for itself.
3. Secretary of CommerceHoward Lutnick. Lutnick has come across as a complete Trump toady and likely knows that if Trump falls, he's going to be sent packing.
1. Secretary of LaborLori Chavez-DeRemer. Chavez-DeRemer has really flown under the wire, but she seems pretty sharp. She's Hispanic, and her father was a Teamster. I suspect that she'd lean towards removal as she's drawn little attention and would continue to draw little attention in a new administration.
4. Secretary of Health and Human ServicesRobert F. Kennedy Jr.. This one speaks for itself.
2. Secretary of Housing and Urban DevelopmentScott Turner. Turner's an unknown. His political career has been tied to Trump, but whether he's so loyal that he'll go down with Trump is another question.
3. Secretary of TransportationSean DuffyNo idea whatsoever, but I suspect he would not go along.
5. Secretary of EnergyChris WrightWright's weltanschauung in his department is too aligned with Trump for him to go along.
6. Secretary of EducationLinda McMahonSpeaks for itself.
5. Secretary of Veterans AffairsDoug CollinsCollins served as an active duty and reserve chaplain. He's very conservative, but I suspect that military officers have his ear.
6. Secretary of Homeland SecurityKristi Noem. Noem is from the far right, but she's savvy and she's not going to go down with the Trump ship.
7. Administrator of the Environmental Protection AgencyLee Zeldin. Zeldin is a Trump ally. He won't vote to remove Trump.
7. Director of the Office of Management and BudgetRussell Vought. Vought is a far right NatCon and pretty smart, which puts him in the cynical camp. Trump's only a vehicle for the NatCons, and he'll be willing to change lines if it means it keeps the NatCons in control under a NatCon Vance. Indeed, his participation would nearly guaranty that it would.
8. Director of National IntelligenceTulsi Gabbard. Gabbard has a demonstrated independent streak and has been in both political parties. She'll act to advance and save herself.
4. Director of the Central Intelligence AgencyJohn Ratcliffe. Quite unknown, but I suspect would lean towards removal.
5. United States Trade RepresentativeJamieson Greer. Unknown, but would likely lean towards removal.
6. Administrator of the Small Business AdministrationKelly Loeffler. Unknown, but would likely lean towards removal.
7. Chief of StaffSusie WilesProbably loyal to Trump.
So, if my math and ponderings are correct, which they may very well not be, things are probably nearly tied, in knowns, right now. I figure there are 8 out of the needed 12 who would remove Trump, if four more signed on.
Of the unknowns, there are seven. Of the diehard Trump loyalist, seven. I figure five of the unknowns, one more than needed, would likely go for removal, but that's a pretty thin margin. Some on the fence would likely want a greater margin.
You can bet these conversations are going on right now, however. They are openly going on now in Congress.
October 5, 2025
Don is using the budget shutdown to cozy up to Project 2025, making his removal less likely as the NatCons will get what the want from the document under the cover of the budget shutdown. Russell Vought, for example, can now be moved to the no removal column.
It was a crafty move on somebody's part.
October 15, 2025
I'd love to go to Argentina. I'd like to be like Biden. I'd like to go to the beach. My legs are not quite as thin as his. My legs are slightly heavier…My body is a little bit larger than his. I'm not sure it would be appreciated on the beach.
Donald Trump.
October 20, 2025
The destruction of the facade of the East Wing of the White House began today in anticipation of the construction of a ballroom that will never get built.
Construction of the gaudy structure will advance until the 25th Amendment or advanced old age remove Trump from office, at which point the East Wing will have to be repaired on the taxpayers dime. Worst case scenario is that Trump somehow managed to babble through a full term, which would be a disaster for the nation, after which the structure will be taken down and a new East Wing built.
October 21, 2025
So I just wanna say, thank you all. Uh, simply, behind me, so, is a knockout panel. This panel, the next time you come here, will be opened up and gone. No – uh, no problem with any of the surrounding areas. These, this room will be fixed. This will be like a cocktail – the whole floor will be cocktails or pre-briefings or whatever it may be, lots of different things. So the entire floor. So you come in, the entire floor sets up. We didn’t have to do any of that. Usually, you have to do that. You need different rooms to go along with a ballroom.
Donald Trump.
October 22, 2025
Trump now claims the justice department owes him $230M dollars.
He's clearly insane.
October 24, 2025
October 24, 2025
cont:
Oh yeah. . .that's clearly the reaction a totally stable secure genius would have . . .
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
And with that petulant temper tantrum, we'll close out this edition.
October 30, 2025
The United States, with a demented child in the Oval Office, is going to resume the testing of nuclear weapons.
Trump is clearly, to use the legal standard, "a danger to himself or others".
Trump was clearly clueless and walked right when the Japanese Prime Minister stopped to review the honor guard, leaving her to have to catch up. People guided Trump around like a demented elderly person. . . which of course he is.
And the saluting.
Ronald Reagan started saluting at U.S troops. It's moronic. It was then, and it still is. Trump's a civilian, he shouldn't be saluting anyone.
November 4, 2025
Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao without knowing who he was.
This from the guy who complains about autopens.
November 5, 2025
You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID. But for voting they want no voter ID. It's only for one reason: because they cheat.
I don't have to show an ID at the grocery store or the gas station. And I don't believe Trump ever goes to the grocery store or the gas station.
Cont:
1300% lower than last year. We love the creamed corn. I don’t know who came up with that. Bob Corn, or maybe Jack Cream. Hey look, a woman from Saudi Arabia!
Trump on creamed corn.
I don't know if they care about that in Saudi Arabia, but here it means a lot. We got the princess here from Saudi Arabia. She's got a lot of cash.
Trump on the cost of a Thanksgiving meal.
November 7, 2025
Our energy costs are way down. Our groceries are way down. Everything is way down. And the press does not report it… Thanksgiving meals 25% down. So I don't want to hear about the affordability.
I'm not going to link it in, as I think it's shallow on the solution, but pundit Ezra Klein has a current segment of his vlog in which he discusses how the Democratic Party is in such a mess, in spite of people really not being all that keen on Donald Trump's Fascist Roadshow, because they're really lost touch with average people at the street level. I've been saying the same thing now for what's approaching a decade.
Well, actually more like two, or more.
Anyhow, yesterday I ran this item which was sparked by liberal/center left blather about J. D. Vance hoping that his wife Usha become a Christian:
One of the things this event shows, quite frankly, is the degree to which the left holds religion in contempt. The fact that they so obviously hold religion in contempt is part of the reason that people who are serious about their faiths, and that isn't limited by any means to Christians, do not trust the Democratic Party and, as long as it continues, aren't going to trust the Democratic Party. As I warned would occur, this is leading to a massive exodus from the Party by Hispanics, who are largely Catholic. If you demonstrate contempt for people's existential beliefs, they're not going to vote for you even if you promise all kinds of nifty social programs.
They also are not going to vote for you if you show childish glee over a made up sense of morality over an event that doesn't mean anything.
As people who stop in here know, I really don't particularly know what to make of the late Charlie Kirk. I've expressed my views on that elsewhere and I'm not going to back into them here. As little as I know about Charlie Kirk, and that's not much, I know even less about Erika Kirk.
The widowed Erika Kirk has been in the news a lot recently, as she's sort of taken up the mantle of her late husband's organization, Turning Point USA. In that role, she's been very public and is making public appearances. She's drawn criticism for that alone, as apparently those generally on the left feel, even if they don't, that she should be dressed in widow's weeds and moping around the house or something. Quite frankly, if she was a figure on the left, the same people would be praising her for her bravery.
And now comes the embrace with J. D. Vance.
Vance was speaking at some Turning Point USA event. He's probably a good choice for that, as Donald Trump is 750 years old and most Turning Point members aren't. The populist right has to keep in Turning Point's good graces, moreover, as it's part and parcel of the Evangelical embrace of Trump, albeit one that wasn't initially certain about Trump.
Anyhow, Kirk made some comment about Vance and her late husband being similar. I don't see that at all, quite frankly. And then she went on to hug him after introducing him.
This is a big non event.
Indeed, if you see the whole video, the entire thing lasted just second from beginning to end. You can only really make it a big deal, if you desire to, by screenshotting the whole thing as if it was an endless romantic embrace.*
Nonetheless, the left has reached out in shock and horror, certain after Vance's recent comments about hoping his wife converts, that he's about to ditch her as Kirk and Vance are now a couple.
Oh horseshit.
This shows once again the degree of contempt for conservative views that people on the left hold. There's no evidence at all that Erika Kirk is happy that her late husband was murdered and has now moved on to Vance. There's no evidence at all that Vance would betray his wife. Indeed, as he is a Catholic, and is expressing a Catholic view on his desire that she also convert, the better evidence is that he'd never do that.
This is, again, the very sort of thing that causes people on the right to regard the left and contemptuous and mean. And that doesn't win votes.
Footnotes:
*FWIW, as an Irish American (and genetically, I'm more Irish than many Irish), with some Westphalian heritage, I'm in that category of people who abhor hugs from people I'm not extremely close to. By that I mean I'll accept hugs from my wife and children, and I'm uncomfortable with them from anyone else.
This is a real northern European thing. We aren't a touchy people, and any kind of physical contact of this type is an unwanted intimacy unless its a wanted intimacy, in which case, you're contemplating marriage. Out in society, however, this just ain't so.
I've known people, almost invariably women, who are very touchy and it means nothing at all. And for some reason, in recent years, it's become increasingly common. I used to work with somebody, for example, that would do this routinely, particularly if you were at any sort of a function and she's had a drink. She's latch on to an arm and not let go. I took up using my wife as sort of a shield to avoid that. Another female lawyer I know invariably will make physical contact. There I am sitting at a hearing when all of a sudden there's hands on my shoulders so that I'll say "hi". Couldn't you have just said hi?
To make matters worse, I'm 5'6" tall and that puts me way down torso wise on any woman who is inclined to hug me for some reason. If they're short too it's okay, but if they're not, it's really awkward.
Anyhow, a flap like this reinforces my desire to avoid that sort of thing. The irony is, the people complaining about this probably aren't bugged by hugs at all, and a lot of them probably aren't all that concerned about personal or sexual morality either.
Because this blog is steadfastly horrified by Donald Trump and his administration, it'd be easy to assume that it's run by a rampaging leftist.
It isn't.
Indeed, if you follow the thread you'll see where we come out on the right a fair amount, which in our view doesn't mean supporting fascism. I'm a conservative, not a right wing populist.
We note this, as there's been a flap over J. D. Vance's comments about hoping that his wife, Usha, converts to Catholicism, as if that's somehow inappropriate.
It isn't, and any sincere Catholic with a non Catholic spouse, which includes me, hopes for that.
Vance wasn't a political figure that I followed at all until he started to campaign for the VP slot next to Donald Trump. Frankly, I found and still find his political migration to Trumpian authoritarianism appalling. Anyhow, I knew that he was a convert to Catholicism, but I wasn't really aware of how recent of convert he is. Vance grew up in Evangelical Protestantism, which isn't surprising given his "hillbilly" background, and at least according to an interview I heard of him some time ago, his influential grandmother was of the non churched Southern type of Christian view. Vance himself was an atheist by the time he went to college By 2014, the time of his marriage, he had resumed being a non denominational Protestant Christian but he was evolving towards Catholicism by 2016. He converted to the Faith in 2019.
Vance's path is a lot more common than people suppose. Vance is an intelligent man, my numerous political disagreements with him notwithstanding, and he became an atheist in ignorance. The more educated he became, the more Christian he became, and exhibiting Cardinal Newman's Rule, that lead him ultimately to Catholicism somewhat against his own will, much like C. S. Lewis became a High Church Anglican after having been an atheist, or like G. K. Chesterton argued himself into the Faith.
Vance's path to Catholicism coincided his increasing rightward political draft and his barely camouflaged transformation into a Illiberal Democrat. He's trod the same path in that regard ad Rod Dreher, whom is a friend of his (and who is pretending, frankly, to be Orthodox). There's numerous other intellectuals on the right at this time who likewise share that distinction, such as J. R. Reno and Patrick Dineen, and amongst them are notable converts like Eva Vlaardingerbroek. Indeed, there's a notable movement amongst conservatives from Lutheran nations in this direction, even as a non political boom in conversions occurs in various areas in Europe. For cradle Catholics the association with illiberal democracy can be disturbing, and even result in outright internecine fights, but it is going on. We here will note, as we have before, that becoming politically conservative does not mean having to become a populist let alone an illiberal democrat.
Anyhow, one of the things about Catholicism is this. We are not religious pluralist. If Vance did not wish for his wife to become Catholic, he'd be a very bad Catholic.
Usha Vance is a Hindu.
Catholics believe extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. There is no salvation outside the church.
Now that's a doctrine that Catholics don't emphasize much, and often real diehard radtrad Catholics don't understand. It isn't the case that Catholics believe that only Catholics can go to Heaven. For that matter, Catholics are very far from any kind of "once saved always saved" theology and accept that a lot of Catholics might very well go to Hell. Rather, Catholics believe, as the Catechism states it:
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."
Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Vance can of course hope, and should hope, that Usha converts, as her chances of salvation are heightened. Does that mean that if she doesn't, she's damned to Hell? Well, we can't know the state of anyone's soul, but the fact that she hasn't would suggest that she's not consciously rejecting Christianity, but rather hasn't overcome something.
Vance himself should be worried about the state of his soul. Catholics reject IVF, which he's been backing, and lying on serious matters is a serious sin, which Vance has been doing at an epic level.
At any rate, Vance isn't doing the wrong thing by hoping his wife becomes Catholic. He's completely correct to wish for that, including openly.
This is, however, where the liberal side of American culture, and even the American Civil Religion, and frankly the Evangelical Christians, all come into conflict with Catholics.
At some point in American history and in American culture, and it goes back pretty far it became really common for people to be sort of religious relativist. "It doesn't matter what religion you are, as long as you are a good person." Well, it does in fact matter what religion you are, and of course you should be a good person no matter what religion you are.
Catholicism was an oppressed religion in the United State up until basically the 1960s. Open oppression of it lessened steadily in the century prior to the 60s, and in fact was intense prior to the 1860s. Catholics really kept themselves in a major way as a result, and only really began to enter the wider culture after World War Two. Al Smith's Catholicism is generally regarded as what made it impossible for him to win the Presidency prior to the war. An early Casper politician of Irish extraction was controversial in the town's Catholic community because of the distance he put between himself and his religion. The first Catholic Governor of Wyoming was probably Frank A. Barrett, who was a devout Catholic who went on to become the state's U.S. Senator thereafter. Joe Hickey, another Catholic came after him. Both Barrett and Hickey were Governors in the 1950s. Of course, Kennedy broke the dam in 1960, but in part by pledging basically not to let his Catholicism influence him, which was a despicable pledge.
Vance hasn't pledged that.
The only U.S. Army generals known to be Catholic during World War Two, we might note, were Lieutenant General John E. Hull and Major General Patrick J. Hurley. This fits into the culture of the professional military class at the time and it might be noted that the first Jewish general in the U.S. Army, Maurice Rose, was a practicing Episcopalian. Patton, often noted to be very devout, was an Episcopalian, as was Marshall.
Anyhow, as noted, it's not the case that Catholics feel all non Catholics are going to Hell as they are not Catholic, and Catholics certainly do not believe that all Catholics are going to Heaven as they are Catholic. Rather, Catholics believe that the Catholic Church, which is the oldest and original form of Christianity, is the church Christ founded and the one entrusted with the instruments of salvation. In some ways, everyone who is ultimately saved is saved in some way because of the Catholic Church. As, to use a mistranslation of von Balthasar's statement, we wish "for all men to be saved", we want everyone to be Catholics as that makes it much more assured.
This puts us way outside of the American Civil Religions' views that all religions, or perhaps all Christian religions with Judaism thrown in for good measure, are equal.
One thing it should also do, however, and recent conversions should help cradle Catholics to refocus on this, is to be concerned about people in our immediate orbit. Vance is basically doing that, but frankly he's in a bit of a tough spot because he and his wife married before his conversion.
Simply being in a marriage in which one member is a Catholic and the other is not, if the Catholic is a sincere Catholic, has some real challenges. Catholicism is different and even after decades the non Catholic spouse can be really surprised by the application of the Faith by the Catholic spouse. In "mixed" couples where the non Catholic spouse is a member of one of the churches that's very close to the Catholic Church this is less so, but even here I've known couples who attended Mass faithfully where one was a Catholic and the other a Lutheran, for instance, with the Lutheran never converting in spite of the two churches being so close.
As Yeoman's First Law of Human Behavior is a powerful force, general run of the mill Protestant spouses may attend Mass and support their Catholic spouse early on, but over a period time, simply stop attending as most Protestants aren't under a requirement to attend any service on a Sunday. That's inevitably extremely hard on the Catholic spouse who soldiers on. This has to be even more difficult in a situation such as Vance's in which the other spouse isn't even a member of a Christian religion at all.
Indeed, at one time Catholics were very much discouraged from marrying non Catholics, although its always occurred, and it was often a stipulation by the Catholic spouse that the other convert. I've known several Catholic couples where this was what happened, although I think it much less common now. The religion where this frequently occurs is the Mormon religion, which is not a Christian religion and which isn't compatible with any. Of note there, usually fallen away Mormons simply become intensely anti religious, rather than some other religion.
Catholics only marrying Catholics was a lot easier when Catholics pretty much were associated, culturally, only with other Catholics. That day is long gone, but there's still some wisdom to the old custom here. As with many things, the Catholic viewpoint on something like marriage is much different than the cultures, if taken seriously. Catholics married to non Catholics are adding weight to their cross, no matter what. And part of that weight is the hope the other spouse become Catholic.
Comparative air photos posted by CBS News. Put up under commentary and fair use exception.
I've never seen the East Wing of the White House, and of course, now, I never will. I have very little, as in no, interest in touring Washington D.C. and have even less interest than that now that the illegitimate Trump gang of insurrectionist is occupying the nation's capital.
This has been a very revealing series of events however, and we can take some things away from it.
The first thing we have learned is how utterly desperate Donald Trump is to amount to something. He started too late in life and his character is too fixed in order to achieve that, absent late in life inspiration of an existential type which would require him to make a profound change in his behavior. Born into wealth and a playboy by character, he's desperately trying to buy and build himself into seriousness and relevance. In the back of his mind, or frankly maybe in the forefront, he knows that he's a fart in a windstorm. After he's out of office, and no amount of far right fantasizing is going to keep him there, his successor, right or left, will begin the process of trying to repair the damage Trump has done. If its a right wing leader, like wannabe NatCon J. D. Vance, it'll be National Conservative far right, but less insane than Trump. It probably won't be Vance however, but somebody from the political center, particularly if the Democrats get their act together and dump their own wackadoodle far left, which there are signs they will, or from the actual libertarian populist right.
My prediction, early though it is, is that the next President will be Tammy Duckworth, maybe on a Duckworth Klobuchar ticket. I can see, however, Thomas Massie and Rand Paul taking a run at Vance's dreams and keeping them from happening.
Vance would keep the Trump monument to himself up and pretend to like it, as he only is where he is now due to Trump, but as soon as somebody who wasn't a Trump sycophant is in the Oval Office, it's coming down. That will be symbolic of the entire Trump legacy, destruction that will ultimately come down, and have to be rebuilt.
Trump want to see himself as a great man, a sort of Napoleon being crowned, but knows that he's more like Napoleon on Elba. He's not going to get there. He's really extremely pathetic.
Also sad is the degree to which it has been demonstrated that a life of extreme wealth is corrosive. Trump's entire life of largess already showed this, but he really does believe that the White House needs a huge overblown rushed ballroom as he's seen those of failed monarchies in Europe. The republics, or in one case dictatorship, that inherited that stuff still uses it as it's a human instinct not to rip things down. That's why the Brandenburg Gate, which should have been blown to rubble in 1945, is still standing. Yes, it's a monument to German militarism, but it's big and already there so we keep it around. That's the reason the Eiffel Tower is there, even though its a giant ugly radio tower, or why the "egg beater" thing in Casper Wyoming is still there. We just can't bring ourselves to rip things down, no matter hideos they are, or how symbolically problematic.
It'll come down in part as it just won't work with an 18th Century large house built on a budget. It wasn't constructed to be a palace, but just a big house.
Which brings me to my next point.
Perhaps the West Wing, after actually going through the proper process, ought to be taken out as well.
No attachments to the structure are really consistent with its original concept. It isn't supposed to have a lot of offices and the entire concept of the First Lady needing room for anything is absurd. The First Lady is simply the President's wife, or Trump's case in regard to the monarchical role to which he aspires, the current concubine, or in the American Civil Religion context, his current wife.
Maybe it ought to be just scaled back to its original footprint.
Some would object that that would mean that it wouldn't have enough room for its purpose Well, No. 10 Downing Street has less room than the White House. And if more space is really needed, they can find it somewhere else in Washington D.C. Nixon actually did that with the nearby Eisenhower Building.
The White House in 1846, when it was first photographed.
Restoring the White House back to scale would also be symbolic. The entire office of the Presidency needs to be restored to scale. Right now, Trump is in fact ruling as a dictator, with the complicitly of the Dixiecrat Party that has taken over the GOP. That needs to end, and end to an enormous degree.
The drift towards an imperial presidency started with Theodore Roosevelt, who is a person I admire, but whom I admire more than I once did. TR, like Trump, tended to act unilaterally, the difference being that Roosevelt was a profoundly intelligent and moral man, where as the opposite is true of Trump. The East Wing started off in his administration as the fairly modest East Terrace, which looked nice and wasn't an overblown Sun King structure like the proposed ballroom will be, but it nonetheless got the modification trend rolling.
It would be TR's cousin Franklin that really got the modern Presidency established, however, and that due to the emergency of the Great Depression and World War Two. Franklin Roosevelt did not rule as a dictator, although people liked to accuse him of that at the time. Ironically, a President that the Republicans hate to this very day is the one, in some ways, that Trump has tried to emulate, even to the extent of wishing for a third term, which he cannot legally occupy. Franklin, of course, redid the East Wing, which was done in part due to the bomb shelter that was constructed underneath it.
The West Wing also dates back to TR's time in the White House with the construction of what was supposed to be a temporary structure. That structure was expanded in 1909 and ultimately came to be the White House office space. I don't doubt that they need office space, but as noted, maybe it can just be somewhere else.
And in fact, for the most part, it should be.
Taft family milk cow Pauline Wayne, one of two milk cows the Tafts kept and allowed to freely roam the White House grounds. What is now known as the Eisenhower building is in the background. This is as things should be.
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