Voice of America for Russians—and Americans

A statement by Michael R. Pompeo, U.S. Department of State, on 10 August 2020, expressed regret at Russia’s recent tightening of restrictions on Voice of America:

“The United States is deeply concerned by the recent draft decree published by Russian authorities targeting U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)-funded entities in Russia. For more than 70 years, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) have been vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia. . . . We remain troubled by the ongoing crackdown on independent press in Russia . . .”

Indeed, Voice of America has always prided itself on providing fact-based independent news for audiences in countries where news is often controlled by the government.

However, our own current U.S. administration appears to take lessons from the very government it has chastised: “On June 4, days after the FSJ [Foreign Service Journal] reported on unprecedented White House attacks on Voice of America, the Senate confirmed documentary film maker Michael Pack as chief executive officer of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the U.S. Agency for Global Media.”

Pack’s nomination to head the agency overseeing Voice of America has been controversial. Pack has fired seasoned officials of the agency, replacing them with himself and five other individuals. At least one had previously provided “caustic responses to questions about Trump’s disputed decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.” Some worry that the revered VOA will become a mere voice for Trump propaganda.

The United States will lose a valuable witness for democracy if VOA becomes merely a mouthpiece for a presidential administration rather than a freely reporting news agency. Do we really prefer a propaganda piece like the Soviet Union’s old Pravda?

Wandering Jews and Christians

Polls tell us that fewer and fewer people today, especially young people, identify as religious, including as Christians.

Christianity has lost its majority following before, usually after too many people calling themselves Christians followed gods other than Christ. Nazi Germany is one example.

Wesley Hill is a professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry. He uses Chaim Potok’s books about Jews in America, struggling to keep their faith, as an example for American Christians. (“Chaim Potok’s Wandering Jews, Holding to Faith in a Critical Age,” Plough Quarterly, Autumn 2020.)

Hill writes: “A religiously observant life is less and less accessible or intelligible to modern Westerners, yet many of us remain haunted by its possibility.”

Despite many who leave organized Christianity, others, like Hill, continue in the faith, perhaps in altered form from their childhood.

“Like Potok’s characters,” Hill writes, “I went away to university and experienced something of the wider world beyond the confines of my Baptist, Republican childhood. . . . I am now a member of the Episcopal Church, which, to my childhood eyes, was barely a church at all.”

And so he remains, as do many of us. “. . . “I can’t be the Christian I used to be, but I want sill, very much to be a Christian.”

But isn’t that the story of the Christian church? Over and over again, dying, then finding rebirth as a more humble but risen faith?

Those Who Don’t Know History—

Margaret MacMillan has studied the lessons of world history from the 1930’s to the present. In a sober assessment of our current times. (“Which Past is Prologue?” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020)

MacMillan, a professor of history at Oxford University, writes: “The promise of the 1920’s was cut short by the Great Depression. . . . The result was the growth of extremist parties on both the right and the left.”

Then, she wrote, World War II followed because of “powerful leaders deliberately seeking confrontation.”

U.S. President Trump, MacMillan indicates, is a poor student of history and under him, “the United States has lost much of its moral authority.”

He has renounced arms control, pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization in the midst of a pandemic, flattered dictators, and weakened alliances that have benefitted the U.S. since the end of World War II. He attacks the free press and attempts to demean anyone who criticizes him.

Could his dance with dictators mirror the appeasement of Hitler by world leaders, leading eventually to the war?

At the end of her article, MacMillan writes of leaders at a crossroads: “Wise and brave ones may guide the world through the storms. Let us hope the last group has read some history.”

Of Gods and Men

I recently watched the movie CD Of Gods and Men, in French, with English subtitles. The story is loosely based on the kidnaping in 1996 of eight Cistercian monks by fundamentalists in the north African country of Algeria. The monks had lived as a community, ministering to the people of the area.

Algeria has suffered one of the bloodiest struggles among former countries colonized by European powers. French settlers, some of whom had been there for generations, were forced to leave by native Algerians who wanted their country back.

Early governments after the French expulsion were managed by former Algerian fighters but ended up themselves corrupt. As is often the case, fundamentalist Islamists saw an opening and began a campaign of terror to gain power.

Fear gripped areas where government forces now fought the fundamentalists. The monks attempted to minister to all in need, which included a wounded fundamentalist fighter, brought to them one night. This action made them suspect by the national army forces.

The fundamentalist soldier was later captured by the army and allowed to die, the army soldiers joying at his suffering. The commander of the government forces then brought in the leader of the Cistercians to identify the dead fundamentalist soldier. The monk, named Christian, does so.

Christian prays over the dead fundamentalist. The army leader is angered—angered that sympathy would be shown to this man, who has probably killed and perhaps tortured some of the commander’s men. As the army is now responding in kind. No doubt the commander believes that torture must be met with torture—leading, of course, only to more torture . . .

That scene so poignantly illuminates for me the absurdity of war. One should not show sympathy toward one’s enemy. The only way for war to take place is to inspire hatred for the other.

But, of course, killing and torture, once loose, keep escalating on each side.

Meanwhile, ordinary people, to whom the Cistercians have ministered, suffer the consequences of a reign of terror.

We don’t know exactly what happened to the Cistercians after their capture. Their deaths were announced a couple of months later by an armed Islamist group. Their heads were found three years later, but we don’t know the circumstances in which their deaths took place.

No matter. The examples of those who defy hatred live on after their deaths to inspire us.

The Last Time We Gathered.

I saved a church bulletin from the last time my church gathered physically: March 8, 2020. As I write, it’s now early September.

Did we even begin to know in March that half a year later we would still be meeting by Facebook and Zoom?

We thought perhaps until the end of May—then June. But, no, here we are in the beginning of autumn, school starting—whatever that means anymore—we still don’t feel free to physically gather.

Pastor Noel Van Niel sums up our feelings of loss in “The Church Is Other People” in Plough Quarterly, August, 2020. Talking of the church and ministry, he says “we are primarily in the people business . . . . God is to be experienced more fully in community and connection.”

And so we experience this deep sense of loss: “. . . we are left with a desire that cannot be met. An absence that cannot be filled. A yearning that is perpetual.”

Yet, Van Niel says, we may now better understand “those who live in a perpetual state of longing for what is denied them—peace, justice, equality, safety—all those whose deepest needs remain unmet.”

Perhaps our own unmet needs prepare us “for an even fuller future than we could have imagined before we had to close our doors.”

We wait with faith and longing for the day when we can gather. Not only those of us who, until the pandemic, were free to gather without fear. We also wait with those who have never been able to gather with complete security.

Democracy for Them but Not Us

For decades, the United States has pushed dictatorships to change. We have encouraged nations to accept a democratic form of government—our form, the best kind, we say.

Read a recent U.S. foreign policy statement concerning the country of Belarus. The people there are demonstrating against a dictator who has ruled the country for 26 years. Declares Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, in an official statement (August 10, 2020): “The United States is deeply concerned about the conduct of the August 9 presidential election in Belarus, which was not free and fair. . . . the Government of Belarus must prove through action its commitment to democratic processes and respect for human rights.”

Yet Pompeo used a U.S. government sponsored trip to Israel as the backdrop for a political speech for Donald Trump at the Republican nominating convention. This action was in direct violation of the Hatch Act, which forbids politically appointed government employees from engaging in political activity while on duty.

But, one official said, with surprising honesty: “No one cares about that.”

In times of deep political divisions, temptations to forgo democracy increase. Write Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman: “. . . those who favor a return to earlier boundaries of civic membership and status may be convinced that they must pursue their goals even if democracy is curtailed in the process.” (“The Fragile Republic,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020)

Of course, such fraying of democratic institutions leads those with power to seek to retain that power. Write Mettler and Lieberman: “When government responds primarily to the rich, it transforms itself into an oligarchy, which better protects the interests of the wealthy few.”

That’s a good description of what Belarus and Russia and other countries, momentarily freed from the old Soviet Union, have become.

To have democracy, you have to play by the rules of democracy, even when the temptation is to do otherwise. Even in the United States.

Saving the Churches?

Religion is declining, according to an article in Foreign Affairs (“Giving Up on God; The Global Decline of Religion,” Ronald F. Inglehart).

Among Christians in the United States, church attendance is down. Some churches are closing. Religious schools are cutting staff. Will the Covid-19 pandemic finally sound the death knell on religion, including Christianity?

Inglehart touches on many reasons for religion’s decline including replacement by newer, more inclusive sets of values. He cites “human rights, tolerance of outsiders, environmental protection, gender equality, and freedom of speech.”

Yet, reaching these goals is not a given were religion to become extinct. Plenty of non-religious people fail to practice them.

Perhaps, as G.K. Chesterton is often quoted: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

When we come close to trying Christianity, we may find the results casting doubt on its uselessness or actual harm.

For centuries, the cast down, enslaved, and violated, black Christians found the Christ that their white masters claimed to worship but did not know.

It’s no coincidence that the civil rights movement was led by black preachers. As long as injustices permeate a society, Christianity has the potential to be a worthy opponent.

Religion is not dying. It is reborn in the faith of black churches and all those treated unjustly. They are the ones who revive it.

Will a Russian Bot Steal My Vote?

Stacey Abrams, a black woman, ran for the governor’s office in Georgia in 2018. She lost by less than 55,000 votes.

However, the man who won was Georgia’s secretary of state. He had purged over 300,000 voters from Georgia’s voting rolls, the majority of whom were black.

In an article in Sojourners (“Unafraid to Hope,” Sept/Oct 2020), Abrams writes: “There are nine states where you can lose your right to vote simply because you didn’t use it. When I don’t go hunting on Saturday, no one tells me that I’ve lost my Second Amendment right, so why is it that I can lose my right to vote simply for not using it?”

The Voting Rights Act of 1969 prohibited racial discrimination in voting in the United States. But those who don’t wish certain classes of people to vote never give up.

Knocking people who are registered to vote off the registration lists simply because they missed a vote is one way.

An additional fault line for this year’s presidential election centers on voting by absentee and voting by mail. Wild claims are made about fraud in both cases. It’s alleged that foreign interests will inundate elections with fraudulent ballots.

Fifty states have charge of voting. In addition, the states include over 3,000 counties and local municipalities. In Washington state, I vote by mail in Island County. Ballots are received and counted in this county.

It would be difficult for an enemy, domestic or foreign, to cause much damage to the process itself, given the large numbers of municipalities they would have to deal with, although voting by machines is not as safe as voting by paper ballots.

Voting by mail and/or absentee also means the ballots are available for recounts and close scrutiny.

Yet, in an age of pandemic, some are trying to use the uncertainties of mingling in public places to attack voting by mail and/or absentee.

We should make it extremely hard to win public office by fraudulent means. That includes unfairly manipulating the vote registration process, as well as the vote itself.

Fixing Diplomacy

William J. Burns is one of the most respected retired American diplomats. As a career diplomat, he served in many diplomatic posts, including Moscow. He capped his service by serving as deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush.

In an interview with World Politics Review (June 10, 2020), he acknowledged the damage done to American diplomacy under President Donald Trump but said diplomacy had been adrift “for decades before that.”

Ambassadorial and department administrative posts given to political supporters has grown for several decades, but has increased under Trump.

As the investigation in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine has shown, inexperienced political appointees can cause serious damage to America’s reputation for leadership.

Unfortunately, Burns said, “It’s going to take a lot longer to fix the institutions of American diplomacy than it’s taken to break them.”

What’s been wrong with Trump’s diplomacy is not so much the direction it has taken with, say China. A push back against that country for certain predatory trade practices was justified, Burns said.

Instead of working with allies in that pursuit and in others, however, Trump attempted to go it alone. The president appears disdainful of such alliances and of the diplomatic efforts it takes to maintain those alliances.

Especially because the U.S. is no longer the only dominant player on the world scene, shoring up alliances is more important than ever.

Also, Burns said, the U.S. needs to look at the global problems, like climate change, that don’t relate to a specific country.

Summing up, Burns said, “The essence of employing enlightened self-interest is to see that our interests are going to be best served if we’re disciplined about our engagement overseas; that we can’t retrench entirely, but nor can we restore the role that we held uniquely in that first quarter-century after the end of the Cold War; that we’re going to need, in our own self-interest, to work with allies and partners, and reshape institutions. And that we still, at least as I look at it in the next couple of decades, have a better hand to play than any of our major rivals.”

“Openhanded to the Poor?”

“. . . there should be no poor among you . . . ” the Hebrew leader Moses states in the Christian Old Testament scriptures. (Deuteronomy 15:4 (NIV)).

But, Moses acknowledges, “There will always be poor people in the land.”

That being the case, he says: “Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.”

How were the Hebrews to carry out this command?

One way was debt forgiveness. In Old Testament times, land was the primary means of wealth. You grew crops for your family and sometimes to sell. If you accumulated extra money, you might buy the land of your neighbor and use it to obtain more wealth.

None of this was condemned in itself. However, it was understood that too much wealth could lead to unhealthy power for the wealthy. Ordinary citizens would become completely landless and at the mercy of the rich.

The answer was a year of debt forgiveness after every forty-nine years—the “Year of Jubilee.” Land was to be restored to the original families. The wealthy could accumulate more wealth for a time, but then the means of wealth was to be restored to all.

What are equivalents in modern times?

Suppose a financial recession, caused by dubious mortgage lending practices, wipes out the chief means of savings for many in the middle and working classes, the value of their homes? Lenders could be required to renegotiate mortgages into affordable payments for those affected.

When the price of higher education rises beyond the ability of ordinary families to send their children to college, state and federal governments could tax the more wealthy. The tax would subsidize the cost of higher education. After all, the owners of capital benefit from an educated work force.

When an unexpected medical emergency can send an ordinary family into debt for the rest of their lives, the government might consider an affordable health delivery system in which the chief object is healthy citizens, not millions for big pharma.

Unfortunately the ancient Hebrews failed to follow the practices laid on them. The wealthy began to “trample on the poor,” (Amos 5:11), God sent prophets calling them to change: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24)

When the Hebrews did not heed the warnings of Amos and other prophets, they were conquered by an enemy and went into exile for a season. They lost the land they would not share.

Shadow Network

In her book Shadow Network; Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. Anne Nelson writes in excruciating detail about a naked power play for American followers of Jesus of Nazareth. She writes convincingly of how some of them have been used cynically by an economic-political cabal.

American Christians, as do all Christians, supposedly follow a Jesus who gave his life in love for his followers. He rejected, according to the books and letters written about him, worldly power, riches, or fame. He chose, instead, the much harder path of love and caring and compassion.

Yet, writes Nelson: “. . . I discovered the rapidly evolving ties connecting the manpower and media of the Christian right with the finances of Western plutocrats and the strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives.”

If democratic practices stood in the way of their desire for power, they would abandon democracy. If they could win by playing unfairly, they would play unfairly.

Voters became objects to be manipulated by masters of computer generated slices of the electorate.

Eventually, leaders were elected who set up a tax system favorable to the rich and who fought attempts at affordable health care.

In a final summing up, Nelson writes: “But the 2016 election clearly demonstrated how the mechanics of democracy could be manipulated to produce antidemocratic results.”

Perhaps in the coming years, American Christians will decide if the Jesus they claim to follow can be trusted on his own teachings—-or, instead, choose the standards of the world that crucified him.

Delay Vote: Hong Kong and US?

Recently, President Donald Trump has suggested delaying the November election in the United States. He tweeted: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

Trump claims to be concerned about mail-in voting. Could it actually be that he is just afraid he might lose the election if more people vote?

Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, recently faulted the Hong Kong government for postponing legislative elections scheduled there for September 6. Apparently, China, who influences the government, is afraid the election might not go the way it wishes.

On August 1, Pompeo stated: “The United States condemns the Hong Kong government’s decision to postpone by one year upcoming Legislative Council elections originally scheduled for September 6.”

Something about the pot calling the kettle black?

Avoiding McCarthy

Eric Rubin, president of the American Foreign Service Association, reflected on the impact of the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1940’s and 50’s on U.S. diplomats. (“Foreign Service Duty,” The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020)

During those beginning years of the Cold War, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy led an investigation with unsubstantiated claims into supposed Communist infiltration of the State Department. McCarthy was later censored by the Senate. However, ruined careers from the hearings caused American diplomats to be cautious about their reporting and advice, not wanting to be tarred with accusations of being “soft” on communism and seeing their careers ruined.

Rubin quotes from Theodore White’s book In Search of History: Junior diplomats now “knew that prediction of a Communist victory would be equated with hope for a Communist victory. They learned to temper their dispatches of observation in the field with what their political superiors wished to hear.”

Thus, Americans may not have been warned of the dangers of the later Vietnam quagmire as they should have.

The example is a call, Rubin said, “to stay true to our mission and to tell it like is, in service to our country and to our fellow citizens.”

To do so may indeed require courage, even as the politicization of higher State Department offices and other departments of the government have increased in the last few years.

Free to Vote

I loved the traditional “going to the polls” routine. After moving to our small town in Washington state several years ago and registering as voters, my husband and I would cross the street to our precinct’s voting place on election day. We would mingle with friends, mark our paper ballots in a voting booth, then drop them in the official box.

You can understand my feelings the year my state announced the change to an all mail voting process. I certainly didn’t greet the change with joy. I would miss the local voting day camaraderie, the pride when I stuck the “I Voted. Have You?” sticker on my coat.

Now? I have come to bless that day when we went to all mail voting. Our presidential primary last spring, just as the virus began taking a toll, went off without a hitch.

For our current local primary and the coming November election, we have no fears of catching the virus in a long polling place line. We will not have to worry about enough poll workers or places to vote.

In an election, the mailed ballots in my county are received at the county offices and stored in a locked room, under camera surveillance, to be tabulated after “the polls” close on election day.

Before mailing my ballot, I wrote my required signature on the outside envelope. It will be compared with the signature on the registered voter list.

Should any question arise as to the validity of the final vote count, the paper ballots are available for reexamination.

I pray for a free and fair election this November. I pray for the ability to vote by mail for all who wish it. And I pray that our constitutionally mandated postal service will not be harmed by partisan politics.

Making the Most of This Time

Families, schools, worship services, work places—-these and other communal gatherings have been upended by Covid-19.

In some cases, the results are disastrous—death and sickness, overloaded hospitals, domestic violence, closed businesses, and silent music halls.

Yet despite all the trauma, a few serendipitous sprouts have poked their heads above the misery.

A few families are dealing with closed schools and remote learning for their offspring by banding together to share teaching and child care in small joinings, more easily controlled for the virus.

The number of multi generational households has grown. Not all households profit by coming together—some families have deeply-rooted problems. Nevertheless, more than a few have found unexpected joys as they embrace what was the norm until the past century or so.

New ways of worship emerge from lock downs. No longer tied to services at a particular place and a particular time, some have found they enjoy tuning in to a prerecorded service at a time of their choosing and in whatever casual dress they prefer. Zoom meetings, while not ideal, do allow small groups to share as well, again from the comfort of their homes.

Surveys find a significant number of those able to keep their jobs by working remotely would prefer not to return full time to an office when the pandemic passes. Most say they’d like to spend at least part of the week working at home. Less days at the office might mean less child care problems, not to mention less commuting costs and possibly less pollution.

As so often happens, a crisis is can be an opportunity for creative change. Maybe we’ll discover ways to heal a society whose members have become all too remote from each other.

My Lost Algeria

My assignment from the U.S. State Department to the North African nation of Algeria in 1993 was supposed to last two years. I was evacuated out within a few months of my arrival because of terrorism concerns for embassy personnel. I’ve always felt a sense of loss for not completing that assignment, something like one feels for a lost friend.

A few weeks before I left, I had accompanied the ambassador on a “show the flag” trip around the northern section of the country. I got to know our Algerian driver, a Berber from the mountainous Kabyle region. We visited several sights, including an ancient Islamic mosque. The stone walls around its well were scarred from more than a millenary of providing water for the faithful to wash before the call to prayer.

Just after my arrival to the capital, Algiers, I had visited a Christian church. It was open to the public, but the lay worker reading papers at a desk as we entered seemed nervous. I’ve often wondered what happened to him and his church when the country shut down because of the terrorism.

I thought about these people again when I read an article by Stephanie Saldana, “The Martyr in Street Clothes” in Plough (Spring 2020).

I left Algeria in December, 1993. A group of monks who had chosen to stay and serve in that country were kidnaped and killed in 1996 by extremists. Their story is told in the film Of Gods and Men.

Another incident occurred in August 1996, when a bishop, Pierre Claverie, and his Muslim driver, Mohamed Bouchikhi, were killed in a bomb blast. Mohamed, a Muslim, had grown up next to the bishop’s church and become a volunteer there. Pierre at one time, concerned for the death threats he was receiving, asked Mohamed to consider no longer helping so that he would not be in danger. Mohammed became upset that the bishop would consider such a thing. Thus, they were killed together.

I studied the picture of the painting along with the article in Plough. All these martyrs are depicted, including Mohamed, in his street clothes, beside a small depiction of a mosque.

I have loved other assignments—in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia and Canada—but I will always grieve for the one in Algeria.

That US/Ukraine Deal

The Ukraine fiasco, leading to President Donald Trump’s impeachment, convinced many corrupt foreign leaders that the United States is just as corrupt as they are.

“It looks like the whole of U.S. politics is for sale . . . It turned out everything depended on money, and all these [Western] values were pure hypocrisy.”

The quote is from “The Rise of Strategic Corruption; How States Weaponize Graft.” (Zelikow, Philip; Edelman, Eric; Harrison, Kristofer; Gventer, Celeste Ward; Foreign Affairs; July/August 2020)

In 2018, two naturalized Americans with ties to Ukraine, plus former New York mayor Rudy Giulani and two Ukrainian officials, began a campaign to smear Marie Yavanovitch, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The ambassador was attempting to warn the U.S. about corruption in Ukraine.

President Trump’s administration apparently did not care about the corruption uncovered by the ambassador. Indeed, the president tried to use taxpayer money slated to help Ukraine fight off Russian aggression as a bribe to help his 2020 reelection bid.

Perhaps, he hinted to the Ukrainian president, perhaps the Ukrainian leader could find something to damage Joe Biden, possible rival in the election. He hinted that the money for Ukraine would be given only if this were done.

Thanks to a whistle blower and several courageous public servants, the facts became public. Unfortunately, the careers of Yavanovitch and several others who testified were damaged. The damage to the reputation of the United States is far greater.

Palestinian Christians and Ethnic Cleansing

A new plan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deals with annexing parts of the West Bank to be part of Israel. To the surprise of many Americans, a large number of Palestinians in this area are Christians. They are forgotten in the assumption that all Palestinians are Muslim.

Two Christian ministers in Palestine write: “The plan mentions Jews and Christians on one side and Muslims on the other, as if to communicate that this is a religious conflict between the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam. While this may serve the partisan domestic purposes of Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, this is not our lived reality as Palestinian Christians.” (Munther Isaac and Jamal Khader, “A Different Kind of Ethnic Cleansing,” Sojourners, July 2020)

Isaac is pastor of a Christian church in Bethlehem. Khader is a Roman Catholic priest in Ramallah.

Netanyahu’s plan, according to Isaac and Khader, recognizes the “civil rights” of Palestinians in the area, but not necessary their political rights, “opening the door to strip them of citizenship through Netanyahu’s alleged request for forced ‘population swaps.’”

Jewish people have been victims of horrible human rights atrocities. Surely, they among all people, should know the dangers of drifting into “ethnic cleansing.”

Choose A Stable Genius

John Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir has been available for pre order for some time. Reviews are prominent.

I don’t plan to read it. Bolton has been accused of holding back for a money-making book what he should have shared during the impeachment hearings for President Trump.

Instead, I recommend A Very Stable Genius, Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. Both are Pulitzer Prize winning journalists from The Washington Post and have extensive experience in covering American politics.

The book is detailed and frank, full of expletives and failed characters and a few courageous ones. Reading it during the Covid-19 lock down was not the most joyous activity I could have chosen. The insight I gained was worth the journey.

According to the book, Trump’s decision to plunge into a government shutdown just before Christmas in 2018 exemplifies the president’s style: Said one of his advisers: “It was done based on impulse and emotion and dogmatism and a visceral reaction rather than a strategic calculation. That’s indicative of a lot of the presidency and who he is.”

Another telling comment: “He was a president entirely unrestrained, free from the shackles of seasoned advisers who sought to teach him to put duty to country above self and to follow protocols. He concluded he was above the law . . .. He had grown so confident of his own power and cocksure that Republicans in Congress would have never dare break with him, that he thought he could do almost anything.”

That remark encapsulates the whole tragedy: American voters and politicians allowed Trump to believe he could copy the style of a dictator and do anything he wanted without restraint.

Ann Gaylia O'Barr

Culture and World Events from a Christian Perspective