Month: January 2025

Christians in America have got to make a decision. Either they follow in the way of Jesus Christ or they submit to the ungodly ways of injustice and oppression. They cannot do both and they cannot weasel a way to accommodate Caesar without ceasing to be faithful Christians.

The public has witnessed accusing voices claiming to be Christian angered by Bishop Budde and other preachers proclaiming Christ’s own words that have angered the president and others in power. They fumed about how dare anyone confront the president with God’s truth and claim to speak in God’s name. Something very similar happened to Jesus in his own hometown and should be a guide to every Christian today.

Jesus is recorded as citing a few sentences from chapters 58 and 61 in Isaiah. He said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” and then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he said to  them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4)

So far, so good, but he went on to tell about two Gentiles in foreign lands who were rescued, one from disease and the other from starvation, while Israelites were also suffering. In anger at Jesus’ words, the local crowd of friends and family are said to have tried to kill him. I doubt they went to that extreme, but I think they were angered over what else he said that was not recorded in scripture.

I think they read a lot more than a few sentences from two chapters in Isaiah. I think they read the entire text, which would have made two things clear. First, people cannot claim to believe in and follow God’s ways while also violating them. Second, he, Jesus, is the one who has the power to both judge and redeem, the long-awaited Messiah, and not for the Jews only but for the whole world. For the carpenter’s kid to presume to condemn his own people and claim to be their savior was intolerable. How dare he speak like that about them, the priests, their ways, and about their status as God’s only chosen people?

So what does the text he read say? God, speaking through the pen of Isaiah, accused the people of worshipping with words but not deeds, that God wasn’t listening to their demands and desires. Your prayers serve your own interests. You oppress your workers. You quarrel and fight with each other. God will not listen to you while you behave that way. If you want God to listen, loose the bonds of injustice, let go of things that restrict others from having freedom and opportunity. Let the oppressed go free. Break every yoke that enslaves people. See that no one goes hungry. See that no one is homeless and ill-clad. Bring them into your community. Stop pointing the finger and speaking evil. Satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Truth is stumbling in the public square.

It’s tempting to set aside God’s words spoken through the ancient prophet Isaiah 2,500 years ago as having little to do with American Christians. It’s certainly what the good people of Nazareth thought about their own time and place. But when Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, said in plain language that God was serious, is serious, and will remain serious about these things no matter what time or place, we who claim to follow Christ better pay attention.

In short, there is no excuse for Christians to excuse any public behavior, public policy, or public leader who deliberately fails to live into God’s ways. Christians are required to live in non-violent non-compliance as best they can. It isn’t easy. Anyone who substitutes self-righteousness for righteousness will stumble badly, as St. Paul discovered in his own life. Nevertheless, in steadfast faith in Christ Jesus, we are to advocate for God’s ways no matter the personal consequences.

The church has not always been faithful in its allegiance to the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The people acquiesced to Mussolini. The German church acquiesced to Hitler. The church has largely remained silent in Hungary. The Russian church has acquiesced to Putin. American Christians must stand firm against any temptation to acquiesce to Trumpism such as we are experiencing in these opening weeks of the next four years.

Integrity and courage are two virtues held in the highest esteem as the measure of a person in every culture. It’s the central theme of stories told about founding fathers and national heroes who risked all for what was just and good. It’s what we most admire in close friends, co-workers, and political leaders. This is especially true when we think of courage as steadfastness in what is right rather than Rambo-like recklessness.

It is a virtue that appears to be in short supply among members of Congress, particularly in the GOP. Senators and Representatives have surrendered their integrity in fear that Trump will turn on them, that they will be primaried by MAGA, that they will lose their seats and suffer the fate of Liz Cheney. Yet, it is Liz Cheney who will go down in history as an example of integrity and courage for others to follow.

The House and Senate have always been institutions where members are pressured by lobbyists, their constituents, other persons in high office, and campaign necessities that have made it difficult to keep one’s integrity intact. Unwillingness to bend as the wind blows can show more fragility than strength, but bending has to have its limits—”for the good of the nation and my reelection, I can bend this far and no farther,” might be the rule. If so, it’s a rule no longer followed by the current majority in each house. To be sure, every member, regardless of party, faces the added pressure of unlimited Super PAC campaign spending intent on “buying” government to serve private and ideological interests. It’s a reality but not an excuse to capitulate integrity.

Entrenched MAGA senators and representatives are fixed in an unmovable position that willfully ignores facts, cannot bend, and whose only negotiating tool is angry, vilifying intimidation. The remaining “mainline” Republicans have grown used to cowering behind platitudes and ducking hard questions with clumsy rhetorical evasions. A particularly sad case is that of Iowa’s Senator Ernst, a decorated combat veteran who folded under threats of facing a primary if she failed to vote in favor of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. I regret singling her out; it’s just that she is the most recent example.

I wonder what would have happened had she voted with integrity and faced threats with courage. What would happen if she stood up to a MAGA-financed primary and spoke hard truths to her constituents? So what if she antagonized MAGA? Would cowering before them achieve anything better for the people of Iowa? I don’t think saying they might elect someone worse is an excuse. They already have someone worse if the incumbent won’t stand up to the bullies.

It is not true that the nation is sharply divided by those on the hard left and hard right. The nation is more centrist and always has been, strong loyalty to one party or the other notwithstanding. Most of us are more liberal on some things and more conservative on others. There is no radical left-wing threat, no plan to force “Socialism” onto the people. But there is a plan, now being executed by MAGA and their current administration, to replace democracy with oligarchic authoritarian rule. We have to be honest about it and stop mumbling about extremism on both sides. We are faced with one side only, intent on taking away the promise of American democracy.

A final note, at least for this column. There is an assumption I have heard in casual conversation with friends that there is no such thing as political integrity. No member of Congress can be trusted to be a person of integrity and an honest politician. It is not true, and saying so is a lazy way of disowning the responsibility of each citizen to be reasonably well-informed and willing to hold their elected representatives accountable.

It’s day three with only 1,457 to go.

What disturbs me about many major news sources is the way they discuss policy options as if they were being considered by a reasonable person who desires to act for the good of the country and has some ability to do so. The current president is not that person, so why pretend that he is?

He lives in his own world of illusion that occasionally glances off reality. He is fixated on a half-dozen ideologically driven ideas about borders, immigrants, crime, tariffs, oil production, and “manifest destiny.” His other obsession is to use the powers of the presidency to seek retribution on his political enemies, the free press, late-night hosts, and whoever else he suspects of disloyalty. There is nothing reasonable about any of it.   His pettiness extends to demanding the bishop of Washington apologize for preaching God’s word of compassion. His fascist intent is demonstrated in demands that the DOJ investigate local authorities who do not buckle under his deportation edicts. Where is the reasonableness?  

The media, especially the so-called legacy media, have to be courageously honest. It isn’t a matter of being partisan or biased toward the Democrats. It’s a matter of being truthful about what is being said and done under this administration, whether for good or ill, and not to pretend that initiatives untethered to verifiable facts are reasonable. Just as important, the media cannot let members of Congress and representatives of the Administration get away with using age-old propaganda techniques to make authoritarian moves look like democracy, pillaging of creation look like conservation, limitations on rights look like freedom, and persecution of political enemies look like justice.

The threat to America’s future as a liberal democracy continuing the work of living up to its constitutional dream is real and present. The American dream will prevail if a significant majority of the population is committed to living in peaceful disobedience to all moves to undermine democracy, rights, and freedom. Congressional submission to Trumpism will melt away if members of Congress recognize Trump and his minions no longer control the outcome of primary elections. None of that is likely unless there is a free, courageous press that reaches across algorithmic boundaries and social media bubbles.

The goal of our role as the loyal opposition is not to destroy Trump and his gang but to protect and strengthen the fabric of American democracy even as it is under attack. At a minimum, it means we must propose realistic solutions to create secure borders and institute an entirely new immigration system that is easy to understand and simple to use. We must show unflagging support for federal investment in the nation’s infrastructure, rebuilding it for the future, not just addressing deferred maintenance of the old. We must advocate for the rights and privileges of every part of society that has been singled out for oppression and suppression for so long. We must demand of our governments at every level be more efficient, measure up to higher standards of the public good, and become more oriented to customer service. We must advocate for higher taxes on the uber-wealthy.  There is much more but this is a start.

For us, the key is to remain calm, rational, courageously nonviolent, and persevere against the odds. Imagine an approach that embodies the steadfast resolve of Winston Churchill  and the unwavering moral fortitude of Martin Luther King, Jr. While our present circumstances do not mirror the perilous reality faced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany, his experience offers a valuable lesson. Bonhoeffer, with extraordinary courage, led the Confessing Church in resisting Nazi control of religion while simultaneously preparing new clergy to faithfully bear the light of Christ amidst profound darkness. Yet, shortly before his execution, he reflected that these efforts had been insufficient. The Confessing Church, he realized, had been preoccupied with self-preservation, when its true calling lay in championing the future of a free Germany.

Similarly, we must remain steadfast in our faith, both within our personal lives and our congregational communities. However, our commitment to Christ compels us to transcend these boundaries, proclaiming godly ways and justice whenever and wherever they are threatened, irrespective of personal risk or challenging circumstances. We are called to be both guardians of the faith and prophetic voices for a just and equitable society.

For us, the key is to remain calm, rational, courageously nonviolent, and persevere against the odds. Imagine an approach that embodies the steadfast resolve of Winston Churchill interwoven with the unwavering moral fortitude of Martin Luther King, Jr. While our present circumstances do not mirror the perilous reality faced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany, his experience offers a valuable lesson. Bonhoeffer, with extraordinary courage, led the Confessing Church in resisting Nazi control of religion while simultaneously preparing new clergy to faithfully bear the light of Christ amidst profound darkness. Yet, shortly before his execution, he reflected that these efforts had been insufficient. The Confessing Church, he realized, had been preoccupied with self-preservation, when its true calling lay in championing the future of a free Germany.

Similarly, we must remain steadfast in our faith, both within our personal lives and our congregational communities. However, our commitment to Christ compels us to transcend these boundaries, proclaiming godly ways and justice whenever and wherever they are threatened, irrespective of personal risk or challenging circumstances. We are called to be both guardians of the faith and prophetic voices for a just and equitable society.

A common belief among many Christians is that God has a plan for their lives and has endowed them with certain gifts of the Spirit to carry it out. This thinking leaves them wondering what the plan is and what gifts might be theirs. The assumption seems to be that the unknown plan must be something special and quite unlike their ordinary daily lives. It’s their responsibility to discover what it is and failure to do so will jeopardize their standing in God’s favor. In like manner, there has to be some personality inventory-type instrument that will reveal the hidden Gifts of the Spirit with failure to discover and use them, equally offensive to God.

Would that they were not such common beliefs. God’s plan, and there is one, is for the redemption of the world: that is to say, for the redemption of humankind and all of creation. To put it another way, it’s for peoples, not persons. True, from time to time God called and appointed persons to undertake certain tasks or fill certain offices, but for most people, God’s plan for their lives is made clear in the words of the prophets, the letters of the apostles, and most important, through the words and deeds of Jesus. It is a plan for all to live into, not Google Maps directions for how to get to heaven. For those who will accept it while relinquishing an exact plan to be followed, God will participate in one’s life to open ways for God’s will to be done through the ordinary ways of engaging in daily life, wherever they may lead.

As for Gifts of the Spirit, St. Paul offered two lists in his first letter to the church in Corinth, Chapter 12, and in the letter to the church in Ephesus, Chapter 4. He never intended them to be comprehensive, just samplers of the many capabilities each person has that can be used to do God’s work. To put it another way, each person has knowledge and skills they use in ordinary daily life that can be used to demonstrate the nearness of the kingdom of God, to reflect a glimmer of the light of Christ that shines into the lives of others. No one has to search for their gifts. They already have them. The point Paul tried to make is that no one has all of them, most have only one or two, and no gift is more important than any other.

The more important point is that the talents of each are to be shared together for the common good, and the building up of the body of Christ, the church. There is room for individual excellence but no room for libertarian individualism. Gifts not used for the common good are misused. Moreover, building up the church is less about strengthening existing congregations than it is about nudging society in a godly direction. As William Temple said, the church is an institution that exists for the benefit of those outside the church.

The measure of success is whether one used his or her talents in Faith, Hope, and Charity (1 Cor. 12). By faith, he meant to believe in and trust God no matter what happens. Hope is the sure and certain knowledge that what God has promised, God will do, that our part in making it happen may be small, and that God’s timing for how and when things work out is not our problem. Charity is the hardest of all for many of us, me included; it is to do all things in generous deeds and love, respecting the dignity of every human being without distinction. Thankfully, God knows our limitations and does not expect perfection but to do the best we can.

More people voted for somebody other than Trump than for him, but he got the plurality needed for election. I suspect the bulk of that plurality was made up of people who would not have voted for him had they understood what was in store for them, and if they’d understood the value of constitutional liberal democracy that has promised the life they want. Getting through to them won’t be easy because they’re not listening to and are unaware of reliable sources of truthful information. Four decades of being bottle fed with right wing propaganda has made it difficult for much of the voting public to know the difference between what’s true and what’s not.

In a recent interview, Dana Millbank of the Washington Post talked about reactions to his political columns. They frequently earned him a mailbox full of angry letters from readers who listened to talk radio. Things changed during the most recent campaign season. His mailbox remained empty of readers’ critical reactions. The reason, he said, was that no one was reading anything or listening to anything that was outside of their social media bubble. 

Social media algorithms jam us into little boxes of like-minded people insulated from other points of view.  We can choose, if we want, programming that offers a variety of political and social thought. As it is, it appears we have chosen not to do that. We are more comfortable sticking with whatever appeals to us. I suppose that’s just habit and a very bad one at that. What I find so discouraging is the ease with which anyone can find news sources that are reliable and limited in political bias such as: The BBC World News, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, and PBS.  Legacy news sources such as the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and a number of major city newspapers continue to feature objective reporting with opinion pages reflecting a variety of liberal and conservative views.  Many Trump voters have been conditioned to suspect such sources of being “fake news.”

It would be wrong to cast all Trump voters into MAGA. MAGA is not interested in traditional conservative views.  Any resource failing to fully endorse their conflicting stories is labeled as left wing socialism, and an enemy of the people.  Thankfully MAGA cannot speak with a unified voice.  It is divided into three parts: Part 1 is led by libertarian oligarchs  desiring to rule for their own benefit in a nation that gives the appearance of being democratic; Part 2 are just plain fascists flying a different flag, and intending to do away with any pretense of democracy while imposing strict controls over social behavior and dissenting voices; Part 3 is the so-called MAGA core of voters who have bought in to every crack pot conspiracy laid before them. Many Trump voters are not a part of the MAGA core. They were simply misled. Some have discovered that and are too embarrassed to admit it. Others have not yet discovered it and will suffer the consequences, finding themselves in the grasp of a dysfunctional government doing very strange things undermining prosperity and freedom. I doubt they’ll believe it until they experience it, and then they’ll be genuinely surprised.

The recent election was an embarrassing demonstration of the inability of liberal and traditional conservative candidates to be heard by large segments of the public because they did not speak in the language of the people. Their message has to change but I fear it will be aimed at the wrong target. It would be wrong to target the libertarian oligarchs, fascists, and rock solid, MAGA core. They are protected from assault by ideological fortress walls. They would like nothing more than to be the subject of attacks from liberals, conservatives, and reasonably objective observers of the national scene.

The proper target will be building a coalition of adequately informed voters who want more than anything to preserve our liberal democracy in a society where the “American dream” is a greater reality for a greater number of people with less extremes of poverty and wealth. It will have to include Trump voters who are not MAGA, who must hear the call in language they understand and speaks to the way they experience daily life. How to learn that language?  Engage them, ask them and stop telling them what they should want and believe.

In two previous columns, I focused on the importance of crafting a revitalized national ideology based on shared values that characterize what it is to be an American in a nation centered in liberal democracy. There is nothing easy about the task, and it requires each of us to take a more clear-headed look at how we got to where we are. What follows is my perspective, which I believe to be well-informed, but is certainly open to debate.

How on earth did a man like Trump manage to win his second election to the presidency? The tidal wave of fault-finding has been aimed directly at Democratic elites who failed to speak in the language of ordinary people. There is truth in that. Democratic campaigners overlooked the importance of kitchen-table, bacon-and-eggs conversations with ordinary people about the way they experience what’s happening in their lives.

On the other hand, Trump won by a few million votes. Not the landslide he has claimed. Still, he did win. Slightly more than 50% of the electorate knew he was unqualified for office, but a plurality believed he was the right choice, and he won. Omitting the realities of the world as they experienced it, they also bought into the fantasy world of Trump’s own creation and the landslide of lies easily debunked by anyone who paid attention to legitimate news sources. It’s not unreasonable, nor is it unfair, to point out that “ordinary Americans” bore some responsibility for being aware of and understanding the reality of events around them, and they chose to be unaware and get their information from propaganda sources they accepted as truth.

However, they are not blameworthy scapegoats. Blame is self-serving righteousness. What we need is understanding because none of us is innocent. W. Edwards Deming was a mentor in my younger days. He was adamant that when difficult problems are encountered, one should not start blaming individuals or even groups of people. One must pay close attention to the systems in which the problems developed; moreover, one cannot leap to the conclusion that they know what the systems are. There are formal and informal systems; for our purposes, we might think of them as the informal systems of social and political norms and the formal systems of institutions. The examination must be dispassionate, making as few value judgments as possible. What are the? How do they operate? What are their inputs and outputs, and what are their limitations? Those are the questions that need to be asked and answered before any attempt is made at assigning causes and proposing changes.

So, what processes have influenced this election in the way it turned out? Enough scholarship has been published to suggest the start of public distrust in traditional institutions of society and government began with the Vietnam protest era. Clearly, the nation has had other seasons of mistrust in traditional institutions, most notably those that ended with the Civil War. But this is our own season, and we need to pay attention to it with an understanding that historical precedent may be considered, but it will never be replicated in our own day. For better or worse, the Vietnam protest era legitimized the act of distrusting government and social institutions. It was a spark. The fire had to be kindled slowly and begin to take on real presence during the Reagan administration. It popularized the idea that government was the problem, not the solution. It was also a time of disillusionment with organized religion, sexual freedom, and women’s liberation, all of which challenged long-held social norms.

For some, they were years that inspired a certain sense of nostalgia for a romantic fiction of the way things used to be that never were. For others, they were years that inspired unreasonable expectations of a more perfect society of equality and individual freedom propelled by science and technology, leaving the past as far away as possible, and endorsed suspicion of those who would not let go of it. The result was a mutation of opposing sides into a scrambled multitude of interests forming unstable alliances and defining enemies. Taking advantage of it was the talk radio and cable news intent on inciting enmity against every idea, movement, and person who challenged the old social norms. For reasons I doubt even they understood, they began to endorse strongman rule as better than weak liberal democracy.

Forty years of social and political pot-boiling, stirred by opportunistic media personalities, created a condition in which the center could not hold because no one was sure where the center was or even if there was one. They were conditions favoring a character like Trump. He took advantage of them with the help of oligarchs who want to recreate government to serve them, and neo-fascists who want to abandon democracy for nationalist authoritarianism.  They are incompatible allies likely to tear each other apart.

What we will become remains to be seen. My hope is expressed in the previous two columns.

Author’s note: there is a theological point to this brief essay so don’t be surprised when you get to the end.

In the previous column I wrote that economic prosperity is not the highest measure of social prosperity and success. The highest standards of individual and public prosperity are moral and ethical values held at arm’s length from contemporary social norms. Finally, there must be a more clear definition of and commitment to the common good striving to make things better while accepting that the temporary condition of good enough is good enough.

It needs some clarification. For there to be a wide spread sense of shared prosperity every full-time job must provide a wage capable of providing adequate housing, food, clothing, related necessary expenses, such as transportation, and perhaps a little extra. Nevertheless, providing that basic economic standard will not lead to satisfaction with the way things are going. It will only prevent dissatisfaction. The idea of satisfaction, of well-being, of national happiness lies elsewhere.

Back in the late 1950s Frederick Herzberg promoted his theory that things like adequate pay, good working conditions, and basic standards of living were what he called hygiene factors. They had to be met in order for people not to be dissatisfied, but they would not lead to satisfaction. His research was deeply flawed but oddly enough, his theory has seemed to stand the test of time. His insights seem to have revealed a fundamental truth that his research could not validate.

So what are the things that lead to social satisfaction, a sense of well-being, national happiness? Another theorist of the same period, Abraham Maslow, offered an equally flawed theory of a hierarchy of needs. He too believed there were fundamental needs in society that had to be met before anything like a sense of well-being and happiness could be achieved. They were basically the same things as Herzberg’s hygiene factors. What led to happiness Maslow said was opportunity to create friendships, be engaged socially, have a sense of full membership in society, have opportunities for learning and what he called self actualization. He believed the hierarchy was fragile and unstable.  A sense of well being and satisfaction could crumble easily  any time basic “hygiene” needs failed to be met. His theory, flawed as it was, has also stood the test of time.

The question remains, how does a nation actually get to a place of shared prosperity and sense of well-being?  I think it requires a shared sense that “my” prosperity and happiness depends on the prosperity and happiness of the community, which depends on there being no obstacle placed in the path of any other person inhibiting their ability to participate as fully as they are able in personal and community prosperity and happiness. That’s asking a lot.

I don’t think it  requires unanimity. It does have to mean a coherence of a reasonable distribution of understandings centered on the core value.   The meaning of community must accommodate variability. The nearer and more clearly defined a community is will make it easier for each to understand what the common good looks like in practice.  The more distant and less intimate will mean a more abstract understanding of community and its relationship with the common good.  Moreover, our multitude of “tribal” affiliations will color every understanding.  Nevertheless, coherence can be had.

America, more than any other nation, should find it easier as it’s always been a nation of tribes slowly learning how to live together as “e pluribus unum.”  Two things stand in our way: our intemperate loyalty to individualism that measures everything by whether it is good for “me” regardless of effects on others, and our history of white hegemony which we are loathe to surrender or forgive.

Two more things need to be said. First, what is meant by the word nation, and second what gives authority to the core value of personal prosperity and happiness dependent on the prosperity and happiness of a just and non discriminatory community?

We are accustomed to equating nation with state or country, so when we say our nation most would take it to mean the same thing thing as the United States of America, or Canada, or any other nation state.  But nation does not mean a state, it means a people who define themselves as belonging together, who tend to live in the same region and who share an implicit understanding of what it means to be an identifiable people.  The prosperity and happiness of a nation does not accrue to a state but to a people. Americans, perhaps more than any others, are positions to identify as a people of many tribes in mutual respect for one another and shared commitment to the promise of American democracy.

A core value making personal prosperity and happiness dependent upon the prosperity and happiness of the community, even community as large as a nation, is not based on theoretical insight backed by research, flawed or not.  It is revealed by God through prophets speaking at God’s command, and God speaking directly through Jesus, God incarnate.  God promised salvation to nations, meaning all peoples, not states defined by governments and borders. Will humankind pay attention? Probably not. As a species, we are simply to inclined to go our own way according to the social norms in which we have been raised. It is not necessarily a bad way to go, but it subordinates God’s way to the human way, or it disregards God’s way altogether. It can make what looks like progress but can never produce a sustainable condition of prosperity and happiness.

Nevertheless, Christians are commanded by Christ to live as best we can in God’s way, and to assist society in moving, however, slightly, in a more godly direction by clearly stating the fundamental importance of ethical and moral principles God has revealed.  Let them speak for themselves without making them a tool of personalization.  Without requiring the participation of others, our obligation is to live evermore fully into the Christian life. Unlike the fragility and instability of Herzberg and Maslow’s systems, it is the way to a robust, flexible, enduring condition of well-being, that can withstand the chances and changes of life in the sure and certain hope of a greater future.

Much has been said recently about low information voters. Presumably they are people with only a vague idea of how government works and limited exposure to reliable news sources regarding domestic and world affairs. That may be true, but I suspect it can be too easily construed to mean that low information voters are not well educated nor very intelligent.

My experience with acquaintances throughout the country, who fit the definition of low information voters, is that they are very well informed about the world that envelops their immediate vicinity and are skilled at surviving in it. The role of government and public policy beyond the immediacy of local matters is a vague and distant thing to them. As far as they can tell whether they are well informed or not doesn’t make much difference in what will happen to affect their lives. Exceptions that can grab their attention are inflation, high cost of loans, food, housing, and threats to personal and national security. Their attention may be driven more by emotion than reason and is generally defensive rather than proactive. In other words, what they want done is to stop conditions threatening them from getting worse than they already are. Their concern has real validity that can make them vulnerable to manipulation by skilled operatives.

How many low information voters there actually are is unknown. A superficial review of various pollsters and scholars comes up with estimates between15% and 40% of the voting public. It’s a spread so wide as to be meaningless. I think the best that can be said is that there are a lot of them, but they’re not a plurality. What they have become is a scapegoat on whom the blame for Trump’s election has been cast.  

In the last several decades we have witnessed radical right wing skilled operatives influencing low information voters into casting ballots against their own best interests. If anything has given right wing authoritarians the advantage, it’s that they’ve learned the art of community organizing and distorted it to serve ends detrimental to the good of those they have organized.  

Community organizing has also been used by agents of a more just liberal democracy to affect social and political change bringing more justice and greater opportunity for ordinary people. They have tapped into the intelligence and expressive sophistication that is applied to matters other than the intricacies of public policy and governmental operations. By so doing they’ve mobilized so-called low information voters to act together for the well-being of their neighborhoods and communities against the forces of oppression and discrimination. Yet somehow they have forgotten the lessons learned and that has led to the accusation of condescending, liberal elitism.

The current cure all is putting greater emphasis on basic civics education. However needed it is not a solution. I’ve taught what amounts to basic 10th grade civics to adult MBA student business executives and blue-collar workers. In that experience, it wasn’t that they hadn’t been exposed to the subjects of government and public policy but that in the 10th grade they’d found the subject boring, with their curiosity and intellectual interest laying elsewhere. So while I believe a reinvigorated civics curriculum is absolutely necessary, I don’t expect it will solve the problem. Something much different is needed.

Recognizing and honoring the intelligence and sophistication that low information voters have in regard to the conditions of their lives is the first step needed for liberal democracy to counteract the brutal propaganda of right wing manipulation. The conversation has to be devoid of any sign of intellectual superiority or class condescension. The emphasis must be on working with people not working on behalf of them. It means learning about the successes and failures of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and applying the lessons well to the 21st century. It also means recognizing that history is somewhat chaotic. Marx and his successors were dead wrong when they thought history was on a predictable linear trajectory. Enlightenment philosophers were also wrong when they imagined a stable society of general prosperity could be had once reason had solved everything.

Advocates of liberal democracy need to be comfortable with the reality that individual decisions and public opinion are a tangled mess of the rational and irrational, well reasoned and deeply emotionally felt reality.  Economic prosperity is not the highest measure of social prosperity and success. The highest standards of individual and public prosperity are moral and ethical values held at arm’s length from contemporary social norms. Finally, there must be a more clear definition of and commitment to the common good striving to make things better while accepting that the temporary condition of good enough is good enough.