Some Bishops and the President.

I started this post yesterday, early in the morning.  I didn't finish it, however, as I was mostly waiting for it to get a little later so that I could pack up and go deer hunting.  By today, the following day, the story has already significantly moved on, showing I guess how quickly the news cycle moves.

Anyhow, let's start here:

57. Building a world of respect for human life and dignity, where justice and peace prevail, requires more than just political commitment. Individuals, families, businesses, community organizations, and governments all have a role to play. Participation in political life in light of fundamental moral principles is an essential duty for every Catholic and all people of good will.

58. The Church is involved in the political process but is not partisan. The Church cannot champion any candidate or party. Our cause is the defense of human life and dignity and the protection of the weak and vulnerable.

59. The Church is engaged in the political process but should not be used.We welcome dialogue with political leaders and candidates; we seek to engage and persuade public officials. Events and photo ops cannot substitute for serious dialogue

60. The Church is principled but not ideological. As St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical,Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,The Church’s social doctrine is not . . . an ideology, but rather the accurate formulation of the results of a careful reflection on the complex realities of human existence, in society and in the international order, in the light of faith and of the Church’s tradition. Its main aim is to interpret these realities, determining their conformity with or divergence from the lines of the Gospel teaching on man and his vocation, a vocation which is at once earthly and transcendent; its aim is thus to guide Christian behavior. It therefore belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology. (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 41)We cannot compromise basic principles or moral teaching. We are committed to clarity about our moral teaching and to civility. In public life, it is important to practice the virtues of charity and justice that are at the core of our Tradition. We should work with others in a variety of ways to advance our moral principles.

61. In light of these principles and the blessings we share as part of a free and democratic nation, we bishops vigorously repeat our call for a renewed kind of politics: 

•Focused more on moral principles than on the latest poll 

•Focused more on the needs of the weak than on benefits for the strong 

•Focused more on the pursuit of the common good than on the demands of narrow interests

62. This kind of political participation reflects the social teaching of our Church and the best traditions of our nation.

FormingConsciencesFaithfulCitizenshipforA Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United State

My heart just sank when I check my computer the other morning and saw this:

I have traditionally been extremely careful about criticizing Bishops on this site, and not just Catholic bishops.  I don't know if I've ever criticized any bishops at all.  Perhaps those of the English Church at the time of Henry VIII, sort of. That's about it, and I don't think I really even did that.  Catholics owe deference to their Bishops, and for the most part we probably owe deference to Orthodox Bishops on most things as well. So, suffice it to say, this is unusual.

The Church does not  hold, however, that we can never do so.  Respect to the Bishop and the Bishop's office is owed when we do, however.  

Recently I've seen a lot of criticism aimed at one particular Bishop, the Bishop of Rome, which has been made by right wing Catholics which is simply shocking in nature.  Probably sinful as well.  Pope Francis received that sort of criticism all the time from the Catholic right.  I never openly criticized either and certainly have not Pope Leo.  I was not a huge fan of Pope Francis, but I'm also not in his shoes in any fashion so my criticism, when it was made, was fairly muted.  There was a little, however.

Here I fear I must offer some criticism.  I'm not the only one who  is doing so.  I'd note the reaction to his photo and event, which was organized reportedly by somebody from The Heritage Foundation, has been pretty severe. The White House itself issued a statement saying from its Faith Director stating that the meeting was:

 [N]ot politics. This is policy in action ending with meaningful Prayer with & for the President. He welcomes prayer in the Oval Office regularly- on and off camera.  People of faith have a VOICE @potus @whitehouse Faith Office.  This is not just a ‘photo op’ These are Catholic Archbishops and Bishops who spent time talking with us about important issues on religious freedom, school choice, family tax credits, religious visas, and life. They are leaders within their communities and have a seat at the table

It's surprising, really, to see the White House try to say something isn't political, which shows how much upset there must be.

The furor caused Archbishop Golka, who delivered the prayer at the meeting, to issue a statement, which said:

Archbishop Golka and other bishops meet with President Trump

Archbishop James R. Golka joined fellow Roman Catholic bishops in meeting with President Trump and led a prayer in the Oval Office, asking God’s blessing upon the president and our nation. His prayer expressed gratitude for “our beautiful nation” and asked the Holy Spirit “to surround our country to protect us against any influence of evil.” With respect for the office of the president, the Archdiocese of Denver welcomes continued conversation on the sanctity of life, from conception to natural death, and the God-given dignity of every person. We invite the faithful to pray for our nation and its leaders, trusting in Christ’s mercy and guidance.

Praying for those in public office is a longstanding Catholic practice, rooted in St. Paul’s instruction to pray for all who hold authority (1 Tim 2:1-2). It is not an endorsement of any specific candidate or party.

The Bishop's statement is completely correct in what it says.  The problem is that every single thing that the White House does is political, and is designed to serve the politics of Donald Trump.

The Church is engaged in the political process but should not be used.

FormingConsciencesFaithfulCitizenshipforA Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.

I think the Archbishop's appearance at the White House was sincere and not intended to be political.  I also think it was naive.

Certain Catholic and Orthodox Bishops have been seen regularly in the presnece of Donald Trump during this administration.  I've held back any commentary on it, but it bothers me enormously.  There is no evidence whatsoever that Donald Trump is a Christian of any kind.  The evidnece is that Trump will use Christians in order to advance his cause, which is principally Donald Trump.  As we've noted here there are two Christian camps in hte Trump orbit, one being far right Evangelicalism and the other being the very conservative more traditional, and indeed at least somewhat Apostolic Church influenced, National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism.  

The Catholic mainstream is not really part of any of this.

People of faith have in many instances voted for Trump because of their deeply held views, which again differ enormously in the case of Apostolic Christians and Evangelicals.  A lot of the Evangelicals see Trump as a Divinely appointed figure, a latter day Cyrus the Great, who will lead the United States into a position as a new Israel.  

Catholics think nothing of the sort.

What a lot of Catholics think is that Trump has been uniquely effective on a selection of moral issues that are of deep concern to Catholics, abortion being one, but the fable of transgenderism being another.  And frankly he has, although the role of Southern Baptist Mitch McConnell in creating a Supreme Court that eliminated Roe is seemingly underappreciated.  Trump has taken on transgenderism this go around.

At the same time, he's interestingly pretty much lost interest in the other moral issues that are in the air.  Homosexual marriage is something the Church condemns, but Trump's been silent on it and indeed one of the principal cabinet members, Scott Bessent, is in such a purported union.  Trump's administration from time to time embraces the weirdness of pronatalism and as part of that even Catholic J.D. Vance came out for IVF, which the Church condemns.

And this two years has been a parade of horrors on other moral fronts.  The administration clearly favors the death penalty, which is immoral.  It's launched wars without a declaration which cannot possibly square with the Just War Theory.  It's murdered people on the high seas under suspicion that they're drug runners without giving them the benefit of a trial.  And it's been abusive to immigrants no matter what you think of their legal status.

And even at this late date, it seems to escape a lot of people that Trump's administration is not just odd, as Trump is odd, but that backing Trump have their own, very radical, agendas.  The Evangelical far right, in quite a few instances, wants a Calvinist nation and see Trump as a vehicle to get there.  National Conservatives see liberal democracy as a failure and are quasi Francoist in their outlook.

Catholics really haven't seen anything like this since the 1930s.  When they last did, the Church ultimately acted against it. Pope Pius XI condemned Action française in 1926.  The Church condemned the Belgian Rexist movement as a danger to the Church and the nation in 1937.  Fr. Coughlin was famously silenced in 1942.  It's no wonder, therefore, that a lot of people, including a lot of Bishops, are not aware of the back currents in this administration.

And they may also simply not be aware that everything Trump does is political, or perhaps more accurately, self promotional.  They likely sincerely believed that this wouldn't turn into an odd photo op, but somebody should have informed them. There was no way that a gathering like this wasn't going to be used by the Trump Administration to try to suggest that Catholic Bishops are in his corner, with the suggestion being that Catholics should keep that in mind as they head to the polls.

At any rate, this seems to have already passed.

Which is a good thing.

When the Trump era ends, and it's drawing to an end now, Evangelical Protestantism is going to be very badly damaged, even perhaps beyond the point of recovery.  The ignorant and scrivener lazy like to claim that Trump has "Christian" support, which is far too broad of claim and very inaccurate.  Those Christians not part of the Evangelical far right do not want to be tarred with the Trump brush.   The Apostolic Faiths, which have been growing as they are catholic (small c) in nature, particularly do not wish to be.

The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the vote edition. More Labels.

 

The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

 

Kristallnacht in 1938.  A lot of people who had voted for the Nazis had been stampeded there by the assertion that it was the Nazis or the Communists, both of which were populist parties.  The smiling couple probably wasn't smiling by 1945, assuming that they were both alive.

The first rule of logic:  Chesterton's Fence:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

The second rule of logic:  Hanlon's Razor

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

It's tempting to say that this will be an election like no other, and indeed, I think it is in many ways.  In terms of American elections, it's the most important election, even though it's a midterm election, since the the Election of 1860.  It's the election that will determine if Trump continues to rule as an insane dictator, or if the nation can begin to turn the path towards constitutional democracy.¹

Things like this make this a critical election:

On the Cornell rapes:

Letitia James is a corrupt person…And I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won’t get a fair shake.

He later called James a "dog".

I'm an actual conservative.  I am not a populist.  Conservatives believe that man if flawed and that we should be careful to conserve things that have worked or are part of culture until we know what the reason for casting it aside would really be.

The sixth rule of logic: Yeoman's Gate:

Before you go through a gate to get to the other side of a fence, completely figure out, to the extent you can, where the path goes.

Conservatives believe that man is fallen and that our natures and the nature of the world, in its pure form, is dictated by an outside existential, that being God to most conservatives, and nature to some.  We don't cast away easily, and we believe the Natural Law ultimately controls most things.

Conservatism has been killed by Donald Trump.

The most significant force around Trump is that of populism.  Populism believes that the "will of the people" is endowed with some sort of magic virtue. The question is, who are the people?  It's never all the people.  Populists always regard themselves as "the people" and other people as the enemy of the people.  They're easily lead by demagogues  At one time they followed Bernie Sanders around like puppies, now they follow Donald Trump.  The besotted populists believe that the will of the people is magically transmitted to Trump who is always right.  

Trump is a dangerously sick man.

Trump has never been an admirable one.  We could go into it, but people who claim he's "Godly" are rank idiots.  Indeed, a significant portion of Trump supporters at this point are the absolute bottom of the bell curve.  He's deeply immoral and is committing the United States to deeply immoral acts. Fortunately, the bloom is off the rose at this point, and it appears highly likely that the GOP, which has fallen down on its duties in Congress, will be tossed out.  Due to weirdness of Trump's cabinet, we'll have to endure Trump for two more years, probably.

The problem for real conservatives, however, and particularly for Catholics, or indeed for Catholics whether they are conservative or not, is how to vote.

In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, No. 13.

In Wyoming, some of the choices will be easy.  Eric Barlow, the Republican, is the easy choice over Democrat Ken Casner or Dixiecrat Rebecca Bextel.  It's not even close.  Effectively, the races for Governor, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Education are over, and will all go to good Republican candidates.

But the candidates for the House and Senate are a nightmare.

Chuck Gray is a co-religious about whom the public knows nothing.  A far right right winger born with a silver spoon in his mouth he washed up in Wyoming as his daddy, who doesn't live here, has a radio station here.  He barely won the primary for Secretary of State, after having been an abrasive personality in the legislature, by running on lies.  Since the moment of his taking office in that position, he's been running for something else, and the House of Representatives fell to him when Harriet Hageman decided to run for retiring Cynthia Lummis' position.  

Gray has been a horrible Secretary of State and he'll be a horrible Congressman.  His campaign was basically that he loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump.  Trump is a horror.  This is a good reason not to vote for Gray, as if any additional reasons were needed.  If he wins, and he's likely to, he'll be worthless as a junior member a minority party who knows nothing about the state he's supposed to represent.

The Democrat is Lisa Kinney.  I just heard her speak, and she speaks very well.  She didn't have the chance to get into specifics, but they can be guessed at.  I'd be surprised at best if she wasn't "pro Choice", which is pro infanticide.

The Libertarian is Shaun Johnson.  I heard him speak too but he also didn't really have the chance to get into specifics.  The one interesting thing I heard him say is that he wouldn't caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats.

I don't think that Johnson has any chance.  I think Kinney has an off chance.

I suspect that if Kinney wins, Christensen will run against her in 2028 and likely take the seat.  I think he's planning on running.

The choice this year, therefore, is between Kinney and Gray.  Voting for Kinney is saying no to Trump insanity. Voting for Gray is saying yes to Trump insanity.  That's about it.

At the Senate level the Democrats have a really good candidate, James Byrd.  The Republicans have a really horrible candidate, Harriet Hageman, who stabbed Liz Cheney, a former friend of hers, in the back so that she could crawl over her dead political body to go to Washington, where reportedly she already owned a house.  If she was voted out, she'd never come back.  She's shown contempt for her own state on public lands while there, making her potentially an even worse candidate than Gray.  

She received a lot of votes in the primary, in spite of being such a horrible candidate.  It'll take a lot for Byrd to overcome it.

So here's where we are at.  We cannot vote for Gray or Hageman.  Voting for them is voting for the insanity of Donald Trump and the ongoing destruction of the American democracy.  Can we morally vote for Kinney and Byrd, or do we not vote at all on those races.  Not voting on them may very well be like voting for Gray and Hageman. It's an interesting, and paramount, moral question.

Footnotes

1. And save the "we're a republic not a democracy" crap. That's brainless twaddle.  Our Constitution creates a democratic republic and people who say that should have their right to vote, drive a car, or speak a sentence revoked.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Ashley Hinson, Chris Christie, Constitution Party, Donald Trump, inflation, Iowa, John Barrasso, Populism, Rebecca Bextel, Republican Party, Stein Law, Texas, Weird, Yeoman's Tenth Rule of Logic

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Herbert Stein.

September 23, 2026

Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.

Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden.  Stein's Law has arrived.

GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump.  A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot.  She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat.  The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.

Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt.  From her Facebook.

Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices. 

That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs. 

While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.

I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.

She otherwise demanded that the war against Iran be stopped.

Hinson had voted against the War Powers Resolution every time it's been voted on in the House, and did so just a week prior, so she's voted to keep the war rolling.  Now she wants it over.  Fuel prices are the reason why.

Closer to home, there are all of a sudden all sorts of die-hard right wingers who are criticizing Trump.  Whether that translates over to opposing Trump lover Chuck Gray and Trump supported Harriet Hageman is another thing, but there's definitely stirring in the ranks.

Indeed, Cowboy State Daily carpetbagging columnist Dave Simpson went into a "boo hoo' fit about the whole thing, wondering if the imaginary Sweet Home Alabama Wyoming he believes to have existed has gone "wobbly".

Dave Simpson: Do 70 Percent Of Us Still Like Trump?

Go home Dave.  You drank too much WFC Kool aide.

Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:

Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure

And it's been noted that Wyomingites are voting their interests:

Wyoming chooses public lands at the ballot box

Beyond that, the revolt is getting large enough that as early as it is, we're now seeing the non Trump GOP start to reemerge from the bunkers for the 2028 races, with Chris Christie having basically indicated that he's running.

Elections are not over, until their over, but it is clear that the GOP, and for that matter Trump, have no idea on how to hold on to the Senate, let alone the House.  Doubling down on all the old tired lines (the Red Chinese are coming to have babies, date your daughters, steal your lunch) isn't working.  The MAGA base was always the demographic that was most vulnerable to an economic downturn and now it's suffering.  Agriculture, a Republican base, can't deal with the high fuel and fertilizer prices.  Trucking can't deal with the high prices either.  Regular people don't like the high prices at the grocery store and nobody likes the high fuel prices in the West.

This can't and won't be fixed by the election. The war against Iran won't be over and fuel prices will be high unless a ban on exports tanks the price of diesel, which it likely won't.

It took a lot, but people seem to be waking up to being lied to.  Moreover, as that happens, Trump gets weirder and weirder by the day.

One place that appears now almost inevitable to go to the Democrats is Texas, where Texas Democratic Senate James Talarico has seen a 28-point swing in vote share against Ken Paxton.  

Cont:

Fresh from getting its head handed to it in the primary, where its endorsements didn't pan out for the most part, the Dixiecrat controlled central committee of the Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed the property tax cut bill that would gut local governments like fish.

Wyoming Republicans just took a side on a property tax vote that could reshape local revenues

Basically, the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus hates the Gubbement and figures that stuff like education and the like can be handled by Ella Mae back at home.

September 24, 2026

Barrasso Endorses Cody Republican For State House, Libertarian Opponent OK With It

September 25, 2026

Dixiecrats are moving over to their rightful home:

Hot Springs County Chair Switches From Republican To Constitution Party

Rod Miller wrote an op ed on this and I've been meaning to post on it, so I'll just comment here.  Bextel moving over to the Constitution Party, delusional though she is, is a good thing if it causes other Dixiecrats of the WFC to follow her, and they should.  Here, a prominent Hot Springs politician has done just that.  

The Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret constitution written in crayon and visible only through secret decoder glasses may pull over 10% in the election, which would make it a good place for people from the WFC to pack up their gray kepis and go and be "real".  As is actually they, not traditional Wyoming Republicans, who are the aberration, they'd be doing themselves a favor, they'd have more voice in the CP, but the Republican Party and the State one as well.  It'd allow the GOP to shake off the chains of the Confederacy which the WFC is attempting to bind it with.

In this environment, it might be noted, it's amazing that the Democrats can't get more traction than they are, but they aren't.  Byrd still stands a good chance, but he's about the only one outside of the very few Democrats holding seats in the legislature.

September 29, 2026

From here on out in the election we're going to see Bat Shit Crazy on full display nearly every day.

Apparently not realizing that the election is a referendum on Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago Trump urged votes to imagine he's on the ballot.

The Republican problem is that voters are doing just that.

If people think back to the 2024 Presidential Election, most voters were never very keen on Trump. The most commonly expressed opinion going into the election was that voters disliked both candidates.  The Democrats screwed themselves by running Biden, which was simply insane.  Republican voters in the primary were in part MAGA true believes, but that misses the point that a lot of Republicans have left the party.  When Biden dropped out, way too late, the Democrats did the typical Democratic thing and killed themselves by nominating a Kamala Harris, about the most irritating candidate they could have found.

2024 is in the rear view mirror of course, but what's been missed in the Trumpian Reign of Terror is that most people went into 2025 disliking Donald Trump and it's gone downhill from there, something made worse by the fact that this administration is made up of the cynical advantageous and those with some agenda, often a deluded one.

With that mix, Trump has had a free hand in acting like a mad king, and he's made the most of it.  People with an agenda, moreover, are fully exercising their one and only chance to try to pull it off.  

Trump's pretty clearly aware of this, in spite of his addled state.  It explains the constant effort to build monuments to himself.  In spite of what some in the far right Evangelical camp believe, there's pretty good reason to doubt Trump's belief in an afterlife.  He certainly hasn't lived like he believes in one.  So he's trying to make sure we remember him as a great man in terms of architecture and conquest.

It's all going to fail.

Trump doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people do not love him.  He's a narcissist who is profoundly in love with himself.  The worst, therefore, nightmare of his life is unfolding.  A lot of motivated people who range from horrified to absolute contempt are going to boot the GOP out of the House, and now it looks like the Senate, and for the very reasons that Trump has urged us to do.  They're voting on him, as the GOP has become a sycophantic personality cult.  

People don't love him.

From now until the election Trump will pull out all the stops to try to keep the result he fears from happening. Anything he can legally get away with he will try.   It'll be a long month until the election.

On not loving Trump, it's a shame Wyomingites don't have a better option to contest Chuck Gray.

Gray has made a career out of loving Trump more than Trump loves Trump. That's about all he has going for him.  We're about to send somebody completely unqualified to do anything for the State to Congress.  Would that somebody other than Johnson and Kinney were running. Neither stand a chance, and they don't really deserve to. 

If none of the above were an option in that race, that'd be the one that would win.

Speaking of Gray, Gray has been showing up at UW football games recently and having pictures taken with students.

It's pathetic.

September 30, 2026

Wyoming Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Congress Chuck Gray emerged from hiding from debate requests, while he's not going to UW football games to be photographed with students, to congratulate the Supreme Court for temporarily upholding 

October 1, 2026

The backers of a data center in Natrona County invited Republican candidates for the County Commission to tour the site and omitted the Democratic candidates.

The GOP candidates are Lisa Jamieson (Democrat), Matt Keating (Republican), Ray Pacheco (Republican), Candace Machado (Democrat) and Dallas Laird (Republican).

We haven't addressed this race much yet, but Laird is a 1,000,000 years old and needs to go.  Keating was a somewhat controversial commissioner and then a somewhat controversial assessor.  He's been battling cancer.  Pacheco is a City of Casper councilman.  Machado was a controversial mayor of Evansville.

October 4, 2026

The Gillette News Record ran an article about a Campbell County event of the meet the candidate type in Gillette for Bextel.  It was held at The Railyard, which is a restaurant in Gillette.  It's a fair sized restaurant but not huge.  Apparently about 20 people went, which shows how little interest Bextel's campaign is drawing.

Her campaign does receive media attention as she's able to run it and it's so unusual.  I hesitate to post on her regularly as it makes her look like a bigger deal than she really is.  It is interesting however.

For one thing, Bextel keeps stating the "I didn't want to do this but had to" type of line. Nobody has to run for anything. What that really means is that the Dixiecrat is suddenly awake to the fact that Wyoming isn't 1960s Alabama and is terrified of what that means.

Also, Bextel continues to use some crude language.  I guess that's no shock in this day and age but at least to some it sort of edges her towards Southern White Trash, which isn't a good look for anyone. 

Those in attendance asked why Hageman and Gray (Gray stayed at her house, apparently, while campaigning) haven't come to her support.

As if.

Politics is a backstabbing game and there's no way that Hageman and Gray are going to buck the GOP for anyone.

Some local politicians showed up, which risks their being associated with her.  I don't blame them for showing up, but the press coverage might be a deterrent to that occurring in the future.

October 5, 2026

More on the Gillette News Record article.

Bextel claims that Harriet Hageman went after Barlow in a major way in a discussion with her personally, claiming that she said he was "pure evil".  Bextel is clearly a bit baffled why Gray and Hageman don't come to her aid in her race.

She also has a theme, or maybe a sort of obsession, with "weak men", which she claims include the current Governor, Barlow, and some other male Republicans.  It's odd.

Bextel has always been a curious figure, to the extent we know anything about her, but her naivete on why Hageman and Gray (she mused she wondered what they have on Hageman), is amusing. Gray and Hageman are on a glide path to higher office, in spite of not being very good choices, and they don't want to ruin it by supporting Bextel who is a crash and dive to political oblivion.

And once again we see the South sort of rearing up in the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  Bextel crudely claimed she had bigger "balls" than Barlow and interprets them not being in Nathan Bedford Forrest's Partisan Rangers as their being weak males.  There's a certain sort of peculiar early 20th Century literary quality to this.

Becky, the Southern Damsel, coming to rescue us all. . . 

Go home Becky.

October 6, 2026

Just looking at net chatter, the boo hoo Dixiecrats who think they are conservatives are appearing to break for Bextel in surprising numbers.  She won't win, but it'll be interesting to see if the Constitution Party is able to ride her back into 10% of the vote and be qualified as a "major party".  

That wouldn't be a bad thing if it drug the Allemands, Bears, etc., over to that party, where they really belong.

I'm guessing they won't make the 10%.

As was seen in the last election, the Dixiecrat WFC is noisy as well as deluded, but it doesn't enjoy much support from real Wyomingites.

Another question is whether the Democrats are able to make 10% themselves.

They should, as one of the GOP candidates, Chuck Gray, is held widely in contempt.  The problem is that the Democrat opposing him is Lisa Kinney.  

Gail Symons wrote an op-ed on this topic for the Cowboy State Daily.

Gail Symons: It's Almost Anyone-But-Chuck November, Choose Wisely

I'm seeing a lot of moderate Republicans declare support for Kinney, and some for Johnson, but both candidates are really unattractive options.  Kinney is singularly uninspiring and comes from the ancient Democrat demographic that caused the Democrats to slip into oblivion here.  If the candidate came from the Mike Sullivan wing of the party, Chuck would be doomed.  In spite of GOP support for her, Kinney is really hard to get enthusiastic about.

So is Johnson for that matter, and the Libertarians in general.

A debate would be really helpful but Chuck is hiding and won't debate.

For people like me this is really a problem.  I'd like to see Gray loose so badly that he moves to Russia and takes a job as the toilet bowl cleaner in the Kremlin, but both of the other two candidates are really lacking.  The Libertarian Party in general is always subject to a caution flag, although in Wyoming Libertarians are often moderate Republicans looking for someplace else to go following the Dixiecrat seizure of the party.

This one will be interesting to see how many people just can't vote for the other two non GOP candidates and therefore simply don't vote.  My guess is that there will be a lot.  My guess also is that Kinney will take a larger percentage of the vote than Democrats normally do on this race, which is usually about 25%.  I could see her getting at least up to 30%, maybe 35%.  I don't expect Johnson to do as well, but he might be able to draw 10%.

Overall, it's not impossible to imagine Kinney and Johnson together pull down over 50% of the vote, but probably not much more than that.  Still, if that happens, Gray will be a Congressman with the minority of the vote.

Of course, this year, who knows.  It's not completely impossible that Wyoming might elect a Democrat, although by the slimmest of margins, to the House for the first time in years.  If it did, it would have a member of what's going to be the majority party in the House, and it would really give the Freedom Caucus the middle finger salute.

It'll also be interesting to see how many votes Byrd draws.  Lummis' opponent in 2026, Merav Ben-David, drew 27% of the vote in an election in which former Congressman Lummis was going to win no matter what.  Hageman has a lot more fanatic supporters than Lummis ever did, but she also has a lot more people who detest her as well.  Byrd is a much stronger candidate than Ben-David, and Hageman has been hiding from debating him.  Hageman showed up at a town hall somewhere recently and gave her usual poor performance.  She's not good at handling negative questions at all, which is surprising given that she was a practicing attorney.  Byrd might outright slaughter her in a debate.

Hageman also is taking flak from the disaffected Dixiecrats of the Freedom Caucus.  Bextel complained in a town hall in Gillette about Hageman not endorsing her.  Hageman endorsed Degenfelder in the Governor's race which upset the Dixiecrats as they, and the GOP they control, had endorsed Bien.  Of course Trump endorsed Degenfelder, it was the point of her entire campaing, and Hageman sure wasn't going to buck Donald on that.  Still, some disaffected WFC types are now mad at Hageman a bit.   

I suspect they'll get over it, but a tiny percentage will write in Bien or just refuse to vote.  One WFC person I know fairly well has outright declared they will not support Hageman, and another gadfly local WFC member has indicated that they're writing in Bien.  

Byrd is definitely going to do better than Ben-David.  I'm guessing that Byrd will draw at least 35% of the vote.  That's not enough, of course, to get elected, but I'd also guess that Bien will still draw about 5% of the vote.  That'd still leave Hageman with 60%, and that's likely, but it's not completely impossible that she draws under 50%. 

October 7, 2026

Donald Trump, who loves Donald Trump, endorsed Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, one of the founders of the Dixiecrats in Wyoming, who has campaigned on loving Trump even more than Trump loves Trump.  Hid did so on his Twitter like platform, Raging Delusional Lies Social, stating:

The fact that Gray is a "true friend of MAGA" is the very reason that Chuck ought to be sent to be a toilet bowl scrubber in the Kremlin.  The question is who to vote for.

Former Gov. Mike Sullivan says that person should be Lisa Kinney.

Former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan Endorses Lisa Kinney For U.S. House

Sullivan's endorsement shows how dim people have become in Wyoming, not because of the endorsement, but because the carpetbagging migrants fail to realize that Wyoming has had Democratic Governors fairly frequently until just recently.  Sullivan is a Democrat and always has been, but one of the social commentary Twitter Twits came in to accuse him of being just that, having presumed that Sullivan must be a Republican.

Sullivan was gracious to Gray, he's a gracious man, noting something that I didn't know, that he's worked for Wyoming Right To Life.  And he provided more information on Kinney than I had known.

Sullivan was a great Governor, but frankly I really doubt his endorsement will make a difference in the election.  I also doubt Donny's will.  People who are weak or lazy enough to pay attention to his endorsement were already going to vote for Chuck.

Early voting started yesterday in Ohio with people lining up before dark vote.  According to polls, Democrats turned out in larger numbers than Republicans, but Republican voters may very well not be voting for Republican candidates.

Early voting has started here in Wyoming as well.  With the races set, the major endorsements made for the most part (I'm sure more are to come), we'll close out this edition.

We'll probably also go down to the Courthouse this week and vote.

Appendix

The 2026 Election, 22nd Edition. The Stupid on Stilts Edition. Appendix 1.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 22nd Edition. The Stupid on Stilts Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Alabama, Bill Allemand, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Dixiecrats, Donald Trump, Harriet Hageman, inflation, James Byrd, Questions for politicians, Rebecca Bextel, Taxes, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Additional labels:

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition, more labels.

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition, more labels.

 

Freedom Caucus member.

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 9, 25th Amendment Watch, 23d Edition. The Canadian Harvard and Oxford doctor in economics vs. the Wharton playboy. The Trade War with Canada edition. Second set of Additional labels.

 

Wharton, you owe us an explanation and an apology.

Saturday, August 17, 1946. All The King's Men.

 

Published on this day in 1946.

The novel was a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Huey Long.

Soviet physicist Pyotr L. Kapitsa was removed from his posts and put under house arrest over his feud with Beria.

First Sergeant Lawrence Lambert, U.S. Army Air Force,  became the first person in United States to test an ejection seat by being ejected mid flight.

It was a brave act, but it should be noted that both German and Swedish developers had already introduced ejection seats.  The very first use of one occured on January 13, 1942, when Henkel test pilot Helmut Schenk was forced to use one while making a test flight of a He 280.

Last edition:

Friday, August 16, 1946. Direct Action Day and the founding of the KDP (ارتی دیموکراتی کوردستان).

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Australia, Bangladesh, Catholic, China, Communism, Harry S. Truman, India, Kurdish Democratic Party, Kurdistan, Manchukuo, Pakistan, religion, Unions, War Crimes

Throwing the pollster off . . .

by answering honestly.

From this afternoon (apparently pollsters don't honor the Sabbath).

Pollster:  Your race?

Me:  White, I guess.*

Pollster:  Do you consider yourself Hispanic, Latino, or come from a Spanish speaking household?

Me:  Pause. . . No, I guess. . .

Pollster:  Repeats question

Me:  A lot of people speak Spanish who aren't Hispanic.

Pollster:  Nervous laugh.**

Pollster:  Are you a Republican or a Democrat?

Me:  I register as a Republican.

Pollster:  Are you a traditional Republican or . . 

Me:  Traditional.

Pollster:  Do you have favorable view of MAGA?

Me:  MAGA isn't Republican.***

Pollster:  Um, would that be unfavorable?

Me:  Yes.

Pollster: Do you have a positive or negative view of the Freedom Caucus?

Me;  I have a less than favorable view of the Freedom Caucus.

Pollster, um, we'll put that down as unfavorable.

Pollster:  Did you vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the last election?****

Me:  Neither one.

Pollster:  Did you vote?

Me:  Yes.

Pollster:  Um, um

Me:  I voted third party.

Pollster:  Nervous laugh.  Thanks me for my honesty.

Pollster:  (Reads long ballot initiative that will gut property taxes here). If the election was held today would you vote yes or no?

Me:  No.

Pollster: Are you sure?

Me.  Yes.

Pollster:  Any chance of changing your mind?

Me:  No.

And people wonder why polls are wrong. The questions were too narrow, and my guess is that my results are now put down inaccurately.  They'd nearly have to be.

Or they're just tossed out.

Footnotes:

*I'm caucasian, but I don't get the question in some ways.  A lot of Hispanics are just as caucasian as I am, and I have a little French ancestry, does that make me something else?  Most of my DNA is from Ireland.  Before WWI Americans regarded that as some sort of separate race.

For that matter, horror of horrors, I have a trace of Beaudoin Arab.  Probably some crusader brought home Mariam from Tyre when he went home to Beuvron-en-Auge. "Mama, Papa. . .  J'aimerais que vous rencontriez Mariam."

M'eh.

A point, for those who follow such things, Normans are fair skinned people. The French, however, often are not.  In the summer, I'm not, and my skin doesn't burn.  Look at my daughter, and you'd think she was a Viking.  Look at me, and you'd think I was an, well, Arab.

**So are people who learn to speak Spanish suddenly Hispanic

**MAGA is not more Republican than the Social Democrats are Democrats.  MAGA are some strange sort of fascist for the most part.

****What kind of stupid question is that?  I voted for Brian T. Carroll.

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part three. Yet more labels.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei? Can anything good come out of Donald Trump's Dictatorship? More Labels II.

The Sign of Their Own Surrender: A misunderstood version of what was, doesn't get you to what ought to be.

This started off as a Blog Mirror on a post on a different blog.

I find the reference to Hillsdale particularly interesting here:

The Sign of Their Own Surrender

Why the Trump administration's new warning signs at the Smithsonian say more about conservative history's weakness than its strength.

I won't claim to have a lot of familiarity with Hillsdale, but what I do know, bothers me.  From my very little exposure to it, it seems to focus in part on a sort of rah rah Americanism, in so far as culture and history are concerned (and of course the two are highly related.

That sort of view of American history was once very common in general.  I'm old enough to have seen the very end of it when I was in grade school, and I'm also young enough to see it pass away.  To give a really bad example, as it doesn't involve school text or teaching at all, if you grew up in the 1970s, you could simultaneously see She Wore A Yellow Ribbon run as a not that old rerun on television, and find Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee in the bookstore.

Students had received a pretty narrowly focused history education prior to the 1970s  The United States was always right. There was that slavery thing but that was fixed.  The West had been won, not conquered, and even if it had been conquered, it was to the benefit of the conquered people.  

The Vietnam War really changed all that in a way that it had not been since the 1840s when the country had gone through the Mexican War.  Conservatives never got over that.

The oddity to it is that people in this cultural camp would rather be taught lies than the truth, which never serves anything, and they want children taught lies if it means they'll come out of school believing in an unvarnished version of American Exceptionalism.  The fact of the matter is, as this article points out, it won't.  In the age of the Internet, while many evils have been spread, you really can't just keep a lid on the past.  Pete Hegseth can restore Medals of Honor conveyed for action at Wounded Knee but you can't keep the facts, on both sides, from being known about what happened there.

People who are following Hillsdale on stuff like this think you can.  In reality, however, what happens is the miseducated student eventually hits university or just real life.  It only takes one crack in the dam to cause a flood, and soon they're off and questioning everything.

This is already happening in various spheres, I might note.  One of the most interesting example is in Christianity.  The entire Protestant Reformation was based on ignorance and its pretty provable.  Of all the Reformation era reformers, only Luther had some serious points, and he didn't intend to cause a separation from the Church at all but, rather, once he started rebelling, he couldn't stop.  At any rate, what this leaves Protestants with is that every single Protestant faith is founded on some sort of error, and often back with lies.  For those with enough savvy or interest, it's easy enough now to find that out.  What was the early Church like, they pose. Well, the Didache isn't too hard to find, nor are the works of the Apostolic Fathers.  Lots of very serious Protestants have done this, often trying to support their view that their brand of Protestantism reflects the early Church, only to find that it doesn't, and then convert to Apostolic Christianity.

The same is true of history.  The American Revolution was founded upon some amazing principals, but at the same time amongst the reason the colonists cited for rebelling was that the Crown was trying to halt westward expansion in recognition that the natives were also his subjects and that they were upset as the Crown hadn't forced the Church of England upon Quebec.  The Constitution is amazing but there was a giant acknowledged hypocritical compromise allowing Southern states partial credit for slaves for representation purposes.  The Civil War wasn't a glorious highly decorative contest between two equally valid points of views, but a rebellion against decency and humanity by Southern oligarchs.  We didn't enter World War Two to save humanity, but entered it only because were were attacked in spite of a real effort by FDR to get us into the war earlier, and once in it, we didn't defeat the Germans or Japanese single handedly by any means.  The British had more troops in the field in Europe until late 1944 and the Soviets always had many more in the field.  The Japanese regarded the war in China as the main event up until some point in 43 or 44.

It's just the attempt to whitewash American history, which by and large is admirable, that leads to something like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.  Indeed, that book came out while I was still in high school and within the last two years I was continually in a situation where a highly educated person who just discovered it was repeatedly engaging me with "did you know"?  

Locally there's been a movement in the Trump era to allow for "charter schools" here which are nothing other than private schools that come as close to being Protestant schools as conceivably possible.  I'm familiar with one and it proclaims that teaches an "American Classical Education" and that it is "a Hillsdale College Member School, a distinction that offers our school access to curriculum and training from the Hillsdale College K-12 Education Office.".  I've known at least two families that chose it as their own world view was in the MAGA camp.  The irony here is, as it is so often, that neither of the two families who are so concerned about their children receiving an "American Classical Education"  are living an "American Classical Life".

They probably just don't know that.

Which gets back to, well, this:

In order to get back to what you think needs to be restored, you need to know what actually was.  

I don't know about the rest of it, but history wise, the current variant of an "American Classical Education" ain't going to get you there.

*********************

I was going to post on it individually, but the July 4, or thereabouts, editions of Catholic Answers had some fascinating discussions on Catholics and the United States.

In spite of what poorly catechized American Catholics may think, there's always been tension between being a Catholic and an American, and early on the country was outright hostile to Catholics.  As Catholics always have a worldview that's international in scope, as they view the Church as the Bride of Christ and serving all humanity, Catholics never have the really narrow world view that quite a few very far right wing Evangelical Protestants do.   The episodes are worth checking out, but the second of the two is really fascinating on how Catholicism can and is impacting the United States and American culture long term.

************************

I was also going to post on the recent excommunication of the SSPX and relate it to how far right conservatism has crawled out very far on a branch that's going to snap off.  I ended up shelving that, even though I'd started a pretty developed post on it.  I'll just complete my thoughts on it here.

Pope Leo XIV recently took an action which his immediate predecessors wouldn't.  He excommunicated the SSPX, the Society of Saint Pius X .  As this is sort of a confusing topic, we will refer you to this, which explains it.

This is a really serious action.  The Vatican didn't just address a few figures in the SSPX, but the whole SSPX.  If you are going to an SSPX Mass, you are excommunicated.

Frankly,. while the Pope doesn't consult me on such matters, he did what needed to be done here.  And there may be some who should take heed on on this, such as German bishops.  Pope Leo isn't messing around.   The SSPX is in schism which, in turn, introduces a certain element of irony.

The SSPX is not as large of group as the controversy might cause a person to suppose.  Part of the reason this briefly received so much attention is that the SSPX stream sort of flows into the lake of traditional Catholicism, and that's a much larger group.

The actual SSPX has approximately 1,500 formal, professed members globally, including about 750 priests. The SSPX claims around 600,000 worshippers worldwide, with an estimated 25,000 adherents in the United States, but that's a rough number as not everyone who enters the doors of an SSPX church actually quite appreciates what it is, and some are Trads flirting with the society.  The SSPX dates back to November 1, 1970 when  French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who had served the Catholic Church as Apostolic Delegate for French-speaking Africa, Archbishop of Dakar, and Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, a missionary order of priests, formed it in contravention to the Vatican.  In 1988 the organization went into schism the first time when it ordained Bishops without the authority of the Vatican.  The ordinations, as they were done by Bishops with valid holy orders, were illicit, but valid ordinations.  They were slowly brought back into the Church and the ordinations lifted, but now they've done it a second time.

Okay, so what's behind this all?

Archbishop Lefebvre, who was at Vatican II and seemingly approved of it at the time, was in the group of traditionalist Catholics that came to take exception to it, most specifically, in the case of the SSPX, ecumenicalism and the new form of the Mass.  Ecumenicalism is more of a European thing than an American one, so that one might baffle Americans a bit.  It was a big deal here for awhile, but as the Baptist and Baptist like churches are such a big deal here, as opposed to everywhere else, it's more or less gone away.  At the same time, in the US, the churches that were closest to Catholicism, the Anglican churches and the Lutheran churches, have been suffering a substantial decline and, as their churches "liberalized" and they began to self educate, they've started to cross over to Catholicism on their own.  

For that matter, the Catholic Church globally has become more conservative in recent decades. The Latin Mass, however, is another matter.  After Vatican II, and actually separate from it, the new form of the Mass came in and it came in with the "vernacular".

The Latin Mass, in its high version particularly, is beautiful, but frankly the new ordinary form of the Mass is as well, and, well, it has real advantages, the ability to understand it in your own language being a big one. Beyond that, however, the Church enormously expanded the set of readings with the new Ordinary Form from the much more limited set in the Latin Mass.  There are real historical reason for both the long lasting use of Latin, which had started off as the vernacular for the Roman Rite, and the limited number of readings, but neither of them held any longer by the mid 20th Century.

The real dispute, however, is over Vatican II's reforms or more particularly, "Dignitatis Humanae," which recognizes a civil right to religious freedom, and "Nostra Aetate," which encourages dialogue with non-Christian religions while recognizing elements of truth and holiness within them.   The SSPX feels that these went too far because (to reduce the argument unfairly) "there's no salvation outside the church".  The SSPX maintains that these documents are not magisterial whereas the Church maintains they are.

The ultimate irony here is that there's no question that all observant Catholics acknowledge a duty of obedience and that the Pope is the head of the Church.  As ultra traditionalist, the SSPX acknowledges this as well.  Given that, it's almost impossible to rationalize their taking the SSPX into schism, which is a grave sin.

There's probably a forlorn hope in the part of members of the SSPX that the Church will change its mind on the excommunication and, for that matter, on  "Dignitatis Humanae," and "Nostra Aetate".  It's not going to.  

While the SSPX may refuse to accept that, the entire event brings into focus why Pope Francis clamped down on the Latin Mass.  The Mass can still be said, and for that matter the Ordinary Form of the Mass can still be said in Latin, but to say the Traditional Latin Mass requires permission and that's largely been withdrawn.  

This was baffling to American Catholics when it happened, but the fact of the matter is that Traditionalist Catholics center around TLM, even if that's not what makes them traditionalist.  It's probably difficult to explain to outsiders, but it's one form of observance that's very obviously traditional.  Added to that, the persistent use of forms from the TLM in the Ordinary Form (kneeling when others are standing, not taking communion form Extraordinary Ministers, the wearing of manteas, all are visible form.  You could be, however, a traditionalist, and I'm sympathetic with traditionalist, without doing any of those things.  The line, I suppose, is when a type of devotion crosses into intolerance of a certain sort, or a rejection of something that's magisterial.  

I'd thought that Pope Leo might open the TLM back up, but now that this has occurred, I doubt it.  I think he's acting forcefully in keeping the sheep inside the gate for their own good.

Before "liberal" Catholics start rejoicing, however, I suspect certain "liberal" groups within the Church are next.  

A hint that Pope Leo may be redirecting cames nearly simultaneously.  The Pope has called for meeting of the Presidents of the world's Bishops' conferences to discuss Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family, and which was not popular with "conservatives". On June 30 Pope Leo announced that he is calling the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences to Rome in October for “synodal discernment” on how “to proclaim the Gospel to families today, in light of Amoris laetitia.”  My guess is that it's going to be scaled back.

Pope Leo has been left with the Synod on Synodality, started by Pope Francis, which is supposed to issue its final report in October, 2028. June 30, 2027 is the deadline for Dioceses and Eparchies to prepare their reports. An international Ecclesial Assembly is slated to occur in October 2028.  Some of the group reports have been released already, although that gives input on their thoughts and not really on where the Vatican may be headed.  Pope Francis had throughout this process wrestled with the German Bishops who, in the eyes of many, were headed towards schism.

Whether it comes in October, or in 2028, I suspect the German Bishops are going to get the same message the SSPX did and told to conform or be excommunicated.  The big difference, however, is that the laity who follow the SSPX are all volunteers, so now they have to determine if they follow their desires, or the Church.  My guess is that a fair number will follow the Church.  German Catholics, however are to the right of their Bishops by quite some measure and are much more conservative, and the Bishops themselves have been faced with the fact that their leadership has been plagued with declining attendance.  If Pope Leo excommunicates the Bishops, or some of them, a large number of their laity are not going to be that upset, and the Bishops for that part have no real ability to follow the example of Martin Luther and take entire congregations out of communion with Rome. Those days are over unless you have a willing laity, and they do not.

All of this means, accordingly that Pope Leo is acting, well, very Catholic, and very traditional Catholic at that.  For those who were hoping for a Pope that acted that way, it appears we now have one.

Speaking of Bishops, it was Pope St. John Paul II who required Catholic clergy to no longer hold elective office, as a small number did.  That didn't prevent association with politicians, however.  One figure who has done that a fair amount since Donald Trump's second term started has been Bishop Robert Barron, who was a highly popular Bishop with a blog.  Bishop Barron's close association with Donald Trump has made some of us quite nervous, as Trump definitely isn't a religious man.

There's a lot that occurs within the Trump administration that should worry Catholics.  A core membership of the Trump inner circle are American Evangelicals of the far right persuasion who don't believe Catholics are even Christians (and therefore share an interesting mindset with the SSPX which believes that pretty much all American Evangelicals are going to Hell).  

Trump's far right positions has naturally caused the rise of the far left in some quarters, notably in New York, which will be sending a Democratic Socialist to Congress, and in Colorado which appears slated to do so.  Democratic Socialists are not Communist and, indeed, in the revolutions of the 1910s through 1970s, Democratic Socialist would get the bullet in any country Communists took over.  Nonetheless, Donald Trump, who did not seem that gung ho about fighting communists in the 1960s when he actually literally could have, had he wanted to, is all about fighting the Reds now.

All of the above gets back to what should true conservatives and true traditionalist do?

In terms of the Church, as I noted above, I'm sympathetic with traditionalist and I feel badly for them about the general loss of the Latin Mass.  But I've noted that when there's a very orthodox priest and traditionalist Catholics in the Catholic population, it tends to show up best a devotionals in their behavior.  Frequent attendance at confession, the wearing of outwardly Catholic clothing, and often large families  Good for them. They serve, I'd note, as an influence on the larger Catholic community as a sobering and inspiring reminder of the core of the Faith.

But here's the thing.  The education of everyone, like it or not, at a younger age, is much better now than it was in the 1960s. For that matter, it's much better now than it was in the 1990s, or 2000s.  Vatican II is actually part of that. Following Vatican II the new Mass included many more readings than the TLM did, and no wonder.  Advances in printing and the like no longer meant that the Church was challenged with the transmission of the Gospel to a polyglot world the way it had once been.  If there are beautiful traditions to look back on, we have to acknowledge at the same time that restoring something means restoring what should benefit us, and that we can't go back, as much as we might want to, to an era when most people knew less and their world was smaller.

Put another way, modern Americans are not going back to what they think the 1950s were like in terms of education (what the 50s were actually like is another matter) and even Rod Dreher doesn't think we're going to build Benedictine walled cities any longer.  

That doesn't mean accepting the present either, particularly one in which Americans, civilly, are in the Age of Stupidity.