Many are finally saying aloud what has been noticeable and true since the 1980s: Donald J Trump has below average intelligence, is willfully ignorant, and uses school-boy arrogance to deflect. Many are finally saying aloud what has been noticeable and true since 2024: Donald J Trump’s mental health is deteriorating to such an extent that he should not chair his own businesses much less a nation. He is irrational, erratic, and unreliable.
Calling today's Republican leader, MAGA member, loyal GOP voter, or Far-Right internet influencer a Conservative is deceptive, unreasonable, and prejudicial.
Where children grow up seeing pedophiles and rapists protected because they are the wealthy and powerful adults in political, business, and religious circles, the society raises another generation of powerful pedophiles and rapists. Where children know they lack healthcare, food, and shelter because their government funds billionaires and the military industry, society bears the fruit of its angriest citizens.
We as individuals and a nation will not get better if we poison our systems. We must use our best critical thinking skills to mitigate the right wing, billionaire class, Republican, MAGA, and Christian Nationalist poisons that leak into our systems via social and news media. Fascism and white Christian male supremacy wins everywhere that good people are silent. However, our voices and Truth have other channels outside social media.
Americans must hear the Democrats and Independents speak honestly to them -- Donald J Trump will not; Americans must hear Democrats and Independents speak with boldness, authority, integrity, and wisdom – Donald J Trump will not. Americans must hear the Democrats and Independents defend the Constitution and the Rule of Law, defend the voices and civil rights of all people who reside in the U.S.A. – Donald J Trump will not.
We adults must be diligent, knowledgeable, unselfish, and thoughtful. We must hold all other adults accountable for their negative contact with our children, whatever form that takes. This is a fight for the next generation and society. More important, this is a fight for all the young individuals whose happiness, stability, safety, health, and ability to thrive relies on us.
Modern readers and film audiences are brainwashed to believe that evil is in cultural practice or addictions or aliens. The reality is that the monsters who prey on vulnerable people are people who look like us and live among us. Sometimes the evil wears uniform clothing or leads successful organizations; sometimes they are charismatic and appeal to our imbedded biases. Women must teach others the truth about monsters and evil.
How can we measure how far our nation has fallen? Think about Eleanor Roosevelt as First Lady. Now think about Melania Trump as First Lady. There lies the answer.
2026 is the year that Christian Believers and American Nonbelievers must take a side. The same side if they believe in justice, empathy, goodness, the Constitution, and liberty.
Americans can be enlightened and strengthened by the Dunkirk Story of 1940. Heroism is a collective effort. Look for the Helpers. Look for the heroes who are among us and in us.
The energy we need to stand up to bullies, to the cruel MAGA agenda, to fearful situations, and to the dark unknowns will come from the courage we have used before now and the courage we must share with each other. We cannot destroy the evil; we can and we must destroy its powers over us.
Today's Sunday School Lesson: The old religious studies courses we took for the easy A are no longer valid. America's Christianity is a fractured, weak, sectarian, divided, and splintered religion that survives only to support the far right and the new American fascism. Some sects like Methodists are defying the trend...but it is too little, too late.