American politics: Silence in the face of Evil is itself evil

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Wikipedia
Born: February 4, 1906, Wrocław, Poland
Died: April 9, 1945, Flossenbürg concentration camp, Germany

Education: Humboldt University of Berlin (1927), Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Union Theological Seminary

Lead to yesterday's letter from American Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

September 23, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson 

This evening, the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to four key figures in the Trump White House who either were working with or had communications with the White House in the days surrounding the January 6 insurrection: former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon.

[Click this link to see Heather's entire letter: 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-23-2021]

    

Sara T

HCR WRITES: “According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that ‘[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,’ and 8% believe that ‘[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.’” My question is are those numbers up or down from previous NORC polls? I’d like to have something to compare them to.

   

Daniel

"because he needs to keep his supporters convinced that our elections are fraudulent. That conviction will come in handy in 2022, but I wonder if the former president isn’t stoking it for a more immediate reason.

"...If Trump holds true to form, as the damning evidence of that conspiracy mounts, he will egg on his loyalists to back his bid to regain power based on the Big Lie that he has convinced them to believe. According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.”

And don't forget there's money to be made from his Followers. He uses the Television Evangelist preach model in this. (He does have a BIG bag of schemes).

    

Ian

On one hand, I can't stop laughing at the fact that even the Cyber Ninjas sham audit showed that Biden won Maricopa County. On the other hand, it is horrifyingly clear now that wherever Republicans lose elections (or as Texas shows, where they win but it is still close), they will scream "fraud" and claim that the Democrats cheated.

This goes to a point I have frequently made: The Republicans and their supporters believe that they should be in power permanently, and they will do anything to make that happen.

    

Terry

While reading this, I can't help but think of all the time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us due to climate change and the people dying due to the inability to work together in an effort to control this epidemic. There are certainly some in power intent on destruction.

Sloan Bashinsky

Oops, Terry, I think Gloria Steinem said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

For years, I voted for 3rd party presidential candidates, or didn't vote. I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden because he and his legions didn't cause me to fear for the physical safety of my children and their families, and because he at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. 

Yet, Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama had staunchly continued the two Bush Cheney wars, after Obama was awarded, incredibly, and accepted, incredibility, the Nobel Prize for Peace. Then, the Democrats nominated the candidate Donald Trump could beat, Hillary Clinton, after she and the DNC Watergated Bernie Sanders.

There is plenty of evil on both sides of the aisle, where I imagine a special place in hell is reserved.

However, the Trump train took America to its lowest level since the Vietnam war, and even since the Civil War. The election fraud claims are veiled allegations that black Americans stole the presidential election and gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives.

How can anyone with half a brain think this giant cluster F is going to be satisfactory resolved? Yet, to do nothing, to let the bastards get away without at least trying them in the court of public opinion, even if the law courts don't stand to muster, well, I would not want that in my epitaph.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com