Things That Christianity Was Okay With

The Orator, by Magnus Zeller (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

     Like you, I am shocked, shocked at Evangelical Christianity's continued support of Donald Trump, in apparent contravention of almost every bedrock belief they otherwise claim to hold dear and demand other, non-Trump individuals rigorously adhere to. A puzzling departure from their supposed values, which the sharply-worded condemnation of Trump by Christianity Today last week is more the exception that proves the rule. A yelp of dissent interrupts the steady ululating of praise for the beloved leader, himself Christlike in their eyes. "The chosen one," as Rick Perry called Trump, half Peter, half Obi-Wan Kenobi.
     Although. I can't help but wonder: how much of a surprise should this really be? Is Christian support of our craven, cruel corrupt, criminal—and those are just the Cs—president really such a departure? Not when we think of American history, which does serve as a reality check to those who pause to consult it. Look at history, and suddenly this becomes, not an exception, but par for the course.
     The liar, bully, fraud and newly-impeached traitor who leads our country is not the first shameful enormity that official Christendom has given its enthusiastic approval. 
     A partial, utterly deniable list of Things that Christianity Was Okay With, culled from American history:

      The slaughter of Native-Americans.
      The enslavement of black people. 
      The subjugation of women.
      Irrational hatred toward immigrants.
      Anti-Semitism in all forms.
      Colonialist conquest of weaker nations.
      Indifference in the face of suffering of non-white groups.
      Denial of science.
      Ridicule of religions other than Christianity. 
      Censorship of literature.
      Suppression of the arts.
      Sexual ignorance.
      Thwarting efforts of black people to achieve civil rights.
      Fighting their attempts to live in white communities.
      Denying them the chance to work at good jobs.
      Squelching of advances in medicine.
      Control of women's reproductive rights.
      A grim, joyless view of sex, often for themselves but especially for others. 
      Aversion to dancing, and many kinds of music.
      Hostility toward gays.
      And toward lesbians, transgender folks, and anyone straying from rigid gender norms.
      Hostility toward any non-Christian religion, particularly Islam.
      Rejection of anything that smacks of magic, spiritualism, or any myth other than Christian myth. 
       America as an inclusive society. 

     I'm sure I've left a few out. Since I can hear the howl before it goes up, I should point out that a) there always was, like Christianity Today, a small element of dissent, like the abolitionist movement, that shouldn't be forgotten, and b) my own team, Judaism, certainly has its share of stunning moral lapses, lack of sympathy toward the plight of the Palestinians leaping to mind. 
     Neither of which, however, alters my main point one iota, so don't pretend they do. 
    
    

Flashback 2000: A tough thing not to watch.

Doing radio with Bob Sirott and Marianne Murcianoo in 2014.

   

     There was good news and bad news on the Chicago radio front this week. The bad news was that veteran news reporter Mary Dixon was out after nearly 30 years at WXRT, a station that has so far largely avoided the glozing hand of corporate nincompoops, but now risks being homogenized into the same generic, placeless pap that takes up so much of the dial.

    The good news is that Bob Sirott is back on the air, according to my pal Robert Feder, mornings on WGN—AM720. That has to be welcome by anybody who likes knowledgeable Chicago broadcasting by somebody who has been around. It made me think of this column, from 2000, when I first began to get to know Bob, as far as he can be known, at the party for another Chicago icon. Then, he had just been pushed out by Fox—there are many ups and downs in broadcasting—and I'm glad to see Bob ascendant again. 

     I don't watch much television. This earns me endless grief from my colleagues, who live for TV, and often on TV, too.

     The popularity of television baffles me. More people read an issue of the Sun-Times than watch any given local newscast. Yet a television reporter walks in the room, and people just swoon. They climb over themselves to say hello.
     Maybe I'm jealous. Me, I walk in a room and people, well, they continue to do whatever it is they're doing.
     That's why I don't go to parties much. I don't know anybody and nobody knows me, and there's nothing like a party to highlight that. For instance, about six weeks ago, I found myself at Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz's 95th birthday party. The judge is a Chicago icon, whose career stretches from the Roaring '20s to the present day, a close friend of the Daley family. Somebody whose parties you attend whether you like parties or not, just to touch the hem of Chicago history and Chicago greatness.
     After exchanging greetings with the Birthday Boy, I had to find a way to politely pass the time before the festivities began—the mayor was on his way to make an impromptu speech, and one mustn't miss the chance to witness one of those.
     I tried hanging with Sen. Paul Simon. He's a colleague now, with his own column, so I figured we could, like all journalists, hole up in a corner and gripe about how underappreciated we are. But Simon skillfully ditched me. I wandered, scanning faces, trying to build up courage and momentum to break into the phalanx of admirers around Christie Hefner. But my will failed me.
     Finally, Bob Sirott waltzed in with a camera crew. Now, I'm not friends with Sirott, but I did recognize him from TV—even I know who he is—so I introduced myself and inquired about his new baby. I also asked him why he was there. There was no warehouse fire or crying mom, none of the things that normally attract TV interest.
     Sirott said something I thought of this week, when Fox 32 gave him the heave-ho in favor of some guy from New York. He said, and I won't quote him directly since I didn't write it down, but something along the lines that Judge Marovitz is a civic treasure and he wanted to be sure to tape something at his party.
     As I said, I'm not a big television watcher, so I might be going out on a limb here. But I bet you that the average TV personality has no idea who Judge Marovitz is and wouldn't go to his birthday party if they did. Sure, there are a few Chicago stalwarts—Carol Marin and Mike Flannery over at Channel 2, for instance—who know of the judge, just as they know it is Soldier Field.
     But the rest blow into town from Phoenix, take an apartment at Presidential Towers, and churn out stories about O'Hare delays and cosmetic surgery until their time here is up and they move on to Portland.
     Help me here. Does it make sense, when the ratings slide, to toss out the Chicago institution, the guy who knows the place, who has lived here all his life and been on the air since I was in grade school? And in his chair place some newly birthed nobody, wet from the womb, in the charmed notion that he will somehow suck in the viewers?
     I'm not buddies with Sirott; I'm not going to bat for a pal. But I felt saddened to see him tossed over the rail, and I don't even watch TV. How must the viewers feel?
     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Oct. 3, 2000

You can't draw Republicans out of a fantasy with facts

    The first question at Thursday night's debate of Democratic presidential candidates was a good one. A lot of Americans, PBS's Judy Woodruff asked at the start of the sixth and final debate, do not perceive the need to impeach and remove President Trump: what are they going to do to convince those Americans otherwise? It cut to the heart of the problem—a lot of Americans like this guy, despite everything he does and says, so even if—please God—Trump is voted out of office in 2020, then the Republicans will just revert to the fanatical opposition they were during the Obama years, dragging their feet at every improvement, pining for power to be returned so they can get back to dragging this country back to the Mayberry 1958 box diorama going on in their heads. 
     Six of the seven Democratic candidates punted, regurgitating their various talking points. Only Andrew Yang even tried to answer, but his response—we're going to address policies that matter to them and eventually the scales will fall from their eyes, and damn the media for focusing on this impeachment nonsense—was infused with the wishfulness that trips up Democrats so much. 
     “What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which unfortunately strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place," he said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve those problems.”   
     Which could work, were Trump backed with fanatical frenzy because he was solving the problems of white America, other than the problem of living in a fearful fantasy world and being desperate for a strongman messiah to tell them everything's okay. No clever twist on clean energy is going to sway those people. What Democrats need is a counter image of their own for everyone to gather behind. I don't think promising policies will do the trick. Obamacare was an important, necessary change in America's policy toward health insurance, and it was still maniacally opposed by the people it would help most, the way areas of Britain that most benefited from the European Union were also the places most dead set against it. The sad truth is that much of America lives in a Fox-fueled alternative reality where no exciting new policy is going to reach them. 
     That's the bad news. The good news is the Democrats don't need to reach them all, only to peel off a few percent and lure them away from the newly-impeached liar, bully and traitor leading our country to ruin. It's possible. But pretending the deep schism in America doesn't exist, or that the fact-averse can be lured across the divide if only you bait your hook with the right big wriggling juicy fact, strikes me as unhelpful, at best, and at worst the kind of losing strategy that, well, keeps Democrats losing. The key to overcoming nearly half of America lost in a dreamworld is not to enter a dreamworld of our own. 

Festive trappings.

     One of Chicago's best-kept secrets is that you can park at O'Hare International Airport for $2—for one hour, which is plenty of time to wander in, collect your loved one, and wander out. Given that, why anyone drives to the gate, fighting through masses of cars, half trying to merge into the rightmost lane and get in, half trying to merge into the leftmost lane and get out, through an obstacle course of traffic cops, bags, cabs and assorted distractions, is a mystery. I figure nobody knows they have the option.
     The downside of parking to collect or drop off your charge is that one does spend time standing in the airport. Airports are, as a rule, unlovely places, particularly the baggage claim area. And in that light, I suppose any attempt at decoration should be welcome.
    But really. Look at these three rectangles of cloth. One blue. One red. One green.  At first I wondered about the color significance. Red and green for Christmas, obviously. And the blue ... for Hanukkah? A sop to the Jews? I floated this theory by my wife, and she suggested that the blue was for United: we were in Terminal 1, United's terminal. Their airline color is blue. 
    For some reason, I considered the three flags separately from the three stars, which had a charming, childlike, misshapen quality to them, and the two balls. It's a very big terminal, and the decoration such a feeble, inadequate, puzzling half-flourish.  I mean, United is still solvent, correct? You'd think they'd put on a better show than this parody of minimalism.
     Then again, I should not complain. At least Terminal 1, which I visited before Thanksgiving, has chairs. Not many, but an intrepid couple in their late 50s could snag a pair, given enough patience.
    The same can not be said for Terminal 2, where I spent time Saturday. No chairs, no decoration to mock. (Well, no decoration that I noticed). Not that I'm nocking it. I'm not. What would be the point of that? I'm questioning it. I thought of contacting United, finding the person responsible, but they'd probably never do it, and if they did, what would that person say? Whoever did this, I'm sure, was operating under a variety of constraints. Or at least I hope they were. You hate to think United told them to go crazy, deck the halls, expense be damned, and this is what they came up with.

The letter

The Artist's Letter Rack, by William Harnett (Met)

     So I sat down Tuesday evening, just before dinner, to prepare Wednesday's blog post—something whimsical about the dubious holiday decorations at O'Hare airport—and it occurred to me that this is one of those moments where prudence requires one to set aside trifles and focus on the ongoing horror show that is Donald J. Trump. I tried reading the six-page letter he sent to Nancy Pelosi, but it's so long and corrosive I physically could not do it. My eyes went out of focus and trailed off the page. Maybe you'll have better luck; you'll find the full letter here.
     Instead, I'd like to do something that regular readers know I seldom do: defer to another writer, in this case, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who must be made of stronger stuff, and whose column, It is hard to capture how bizarre and frightening Trump’s letter to Pelosi is, does about the best job that a person can to dissect what she calls his "rambling, unhinged and lie-filled letter," I don't see a need for me to try to do a better job than she does. I tip my hat and yield the field. 
     Besides, I'm on vacation this week, theoretically, from the paper at least—habit and momentum had me writing full posts Monday and Tuesday. I should at least try to dial it back a bit here, and this seems a perfect occasion. The important thing is the bad news, not the paperboy who delivers it.  See you tomorrow. 

My near-brush with Harvey Weinstein

By Damien Hirst

     Probably nothing that Harvey Weinstein could possibly say would alter his image as a predatory swine who, along with Bill Cosby, finally shattered the Hollywood code of silence. Eighty women, including some of the most beloved stars of cinema, lined up to accuse him of a raft of nauseating crimes—he goes on trial for rape next month. No slick spin or millions in hush money will wash that away.
     Weinstein's self-pitying interview this week with the New York Post only made his reputation worse, if such a thing is possible, and instantly entered legend in the annals of self-immolation. The second paragraph begins: "The alleged serial sex predator and disgraced Hollywood producer whined to The Post in an exclusive interview that he should be remembered for doing more professionally for women than anyone in history — rather than the slew of sickening accusations against him."
    I have to admit, I read that with a tinge of envy mingled with regret—that might have been me feeding rope to Weinstein as he hung himself. The Sun-Times could have gotten all those clicks and I, in my naivete, blew it.  An apology to my bosses is in order. I'm sorry; I dropped the ball.
     Might as well just tell the story.
     Last February, I wrote a column about Jussie Smollett that put me on the Weinstein team radar, though I didn't realize it right away.  Among the load of  email was this:

      I think your piece is very important and pivotal for our times. I am working with a lawyer on behalf of his client on something similar, where the subject of this story lied about everything, and had media help her con several businesses and government agencies. I also work with another client who is having some bigger issues, but some fall into this category too.
     If you are interested in hearing more and possibly looking at an issue more critically, please let me know. Thank you and congratulations on your bold piece.

   The name of the writer—Juda S. Engelmayer—meant nothing to me. I responded as I would respond to any reader:

     Thank you for your kind observation. I would never go so far as to describe anything I write as "important," never mind pivotal, but I'm glad you found value in it. As to your client, you do get that I'm in the business of putting stuff in the newspaper, right? Because your vagueness makes me wonder. If you want to know if I'm interested, tell me what you're talking about—name, specifics, etc. Otherwise, I'm not interested in the Dance of a Thousand Veils.

     His reply caught my attention:
    
                I work with Harvey Weinstein.  

     I immediately did a little digging and found that Engelmayer is indeed one of Weinstein's spokesmen. My reply telegraphed surprise:

     Ah. If you're asking me whether I'll talk with Harvey Weinstein, the answer is, "In a heartbeat."

     Had I shut up there, I might have been the one fanning the flames after Weinstein doused himself with gasoline and struck a match. But that's exactly what I wanted to avoid and I did not shut up, alas, but blathered on, as is my habit:

     I would be worried about being played by Harvey Weinstein. I'm just a small potato slowly decomposing in a neglected Midwestern field. I tend to avoid stars and Hollywood, if I can. Too much stress. But I don't want to be a coward here. The only stipulation I'd have is that, after we speak, I might not use it. I'm not TMZ, I'm not interested in gossip, in dirt.

     I must have been nervous, because I nattered on a lot. I'm doing both you and myself a kindness leaving out most of it: not only explaining my reluctance, but also sort of pitching my open-mindedness by musing whether Woody Allen got a raw deal.  But the bottom line was I didn't want to give a platform for the kind of lame self-justification that the Post cannily whittled into a splintery stick and shoved up Weinstein's ass. Not that I'm incapable of that, but I couldn't smile benevolently and welcome him into my lair. Engelmayer took my cue and spun off his own involved tale of various situations with various Hollywood actors and assorted circumstances and justifications, all of which the media were cruelly ignoring. His argument struck me as off point. I was worried that I would end up with this detailed defense from Harvey Weinstein that had nothing to do with the central question readers wanted to know about him. I doubted he'd say anything to me of interest to anybody outside the helping professions. Hoping to test the waters, I wrote back:

     I can't vouch for the entire media, only my little corner of it.  If I just jumped in and started addressing the various specifics you allude to—Vigo Mortensen—my readers would think I had lost my mind....Why don't we do this: I talk to your guy, completely off the record. If he says he killed Elvis, I'm not going to use it. Maybe we get along, maybe we don't. If we don't, fine, we gave it a try. If we do get along, then we have a second call which introduces the idea that I'm now in communication with Harvey Weinstein. He says something about what it is to be him, now. My guess would be, a certain bitterness, a feeling that the wheel of fate, so good to him, had now turned. But I don't write fiction and I don't want to guess. He can say whatever he likes and I'll put it in the paper, as said by him. But if he isn't persuasive, in the last three paragraphs, well, he might not like them. I want to be clear about that. If he is persuasive, we might continue to another day, and get to Vigo Mortensen, eventually.... The question I have for you is: What does Harvey Weinstein want to say to people in Chicago? If he's a victim, he needs to say that. I can't; I'm not God, I have no idea of the truth of these situations and don't want to judge or guess. The bottom line is, I have to face my wife at dinner every night, and I so I have to approach this opportunity like a man smoking a cigarette, walking up to a pool of gasoline.

     That sufficiently scared off the Weinstein team, because they fell silent. When I realized what I had done, yes, I kicked myself—I should have just grinned and bobbed my head and got my tape recorder ready. "Shutting up is an art form," as I say at the end of the Smollett column. 
     In my defense, the opportunity was so out of my realm of experience—it was like getting a collect call from Bill Cosby in prison—that I can't beat myself up too much: my instincts were good; I didn't want to deceive anyone, even Harvey Weinstein. I didn't want this guy to think he was getting a sympathetic audience when he wasn't.  A person, even a journalist, especially a journalist, has to be honest and conduct himself in a direct manner, even when his immediate interests might dictate otherwise. It's a shame that Harvey Weinstein still hasn't figured that one out because, you know, he's had plenty of hints.  

Don't despair

     Now I'm as proud a liberal Democrat as they come. "The king of left-wing lunacy in the Windy City" Breitbart News called me waaaaay back in 2010, to my button-popping pride.
     But we do have a defeatist streak, no doubt developed after, you know, losing so much. Every victory from the Civil War to Civil Rights carries with it its own jaw-dropping backwash, a Thermidor where advances are undone, achievements are blunted, and if things don't quite entirely go back to where they were before our supposed triumph, they get damn close. Barack Obama being the latest example, the avatar of cool American intellectualism and weep-with-you compassion, the living embodiment of our national triumph over our grim racist past, ends up the midwife delivering the viscous monstrosity of the Trump era, squalling and puckering, flapping and flailing, half human, half your worst nightmare made flesh. Thanks Obama!      
     So perhaps it is natural, particularly after Trump's English doppelganger, Boris Johnson, crushed his opponent last week, that a certain By The Waters of Babylon We Sat Down And Wept quality has entered into Democratic discourse, the crux being that we're staring four more years of Trump in the face as the Democratic field of contenders try to decide if they're imitating a Three Stooges short or the final scene of a Keystone Kops two-reeler.
    If he wins again, the logic goes, the American Dream is Over. The fabric of civil society, permanently torn asunder.
    "When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term," Michelle Goldberg writes in the Times. "the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it."
     Really? Because last time I looked six of Trump's closest allies are either in prison or on their way. I'm not saying that the election of Donald J. Trump, by 3 million fewer votes than were cast for Hillary Clinton let it never be forgotten, was not a terrible thing for this country, or that all sorts of terrible repercussions are not taking place. What I'm saying is, this isn't our first brush with trouble. We've endured shit before.  
    Like what? Take your pick. Attacked by an axis of Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That looked bad, in 1942. A grim McCarthyite witch hunt 10 years later. A bloody war in Southeast Asia 10 years after that, in which—in case you forgot—57,000 young Americans died. That's a lot of Americans, and as visceral a shame as Donald Trump represents, and as much as I hope that every supporter lives to kneel weeping and clawing his face on the rail of regret for so mindlessly backing a mendacious moron, it ain't as bad as those young lives snuffed out. Ten years after Vietnam began ramping up, Watergate, and a president we thought was the nadir of loathsomeness at the time, the respect for government that hadn't been killed by Vietnam snuffed out, ushering the mushy moralizing of Jimmy Carter.
    What I'm saying is, the United States has been through a lot, and might have a bit more resilience than we are giving her credit for. And we still have a lot on our side. The free press is still free. All the "fake news" horseshit that runs out of Trump's mouth in a diarrheal stream hasn't changed that, yet. We've still got laws. The rest of the world sees our shame very clearly—even his buddy Johnson kept Trump at an arm's distance, worried about his fatal embrace. Let's not throw in the towel quite yet.
    I haven't given up on 2020. I'm hoping that the Dems offer up a candidate able to withstand the blast of the worst Donald Trump and his Droid Army of Treasonous Twits can throw at him, or her. But if America loses again in 2020 and an all Republican Congress changes the Constitution so that Trump can serve a third term in 2025 and his disembodied head preserved in a jar of nutrients can serve after that, then America will somehow right itself and recover. Germany got over 12 years of Hitler. We'll get over four or eight or however many years Trump will continue to hold 42 percent of the country in a mesmeric trance. 
     What's the alternative? And besides, if a few Twitter bites from a human flea like Trump can infect the entire American system, then we weren't that hardy to begin with. I don't believe it.  Being liberal, I believe in truth, honesty, courage, democracy, government, patriotism, diversity, compassion, and I believe in the essential bedrock durability of the American dream. They are hardy and will survive. We will hock out this mouthful of poison, one way or another.  Be patient, work hard and don't give up.