Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Monday, January 11, 2021

Have courts been avoiding the merits of Trump's "stolen election" claims?

By Rob Vischer

Non-lawyers do not routinely read or understand court opinions, and that – I fear – has contributed to Americans’ embrace of baseless conspiracy theories regarding the election. I keep seeing “Stop the Steal” proponents assert that our courts have refused to address the merits of the Trump campaign’s claims. This is nonsense. Let’s look at what courts have actually done.
 
Take, for example, Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, a ruling issued by federal district court judge Brett Ludwig. Judge Ludwig squarely addressed the merits of the claims, though the claims may be a bit less earth-shaking than you’d anticipate given the President’s rhetoric. The opinion makes plain that the wild conspiracy claims raised by Trump at rallies and on social media are quite different than the claims raised in court filings. The reason for this is not hard to grasp: when lawyers knowingly raise false claims in court, judges sanction them.
 
So what were the claims alleged in the suit? Trump argued that the court should “declare the election a failure, with the results discarded,” because the Wisconsin Elections Commission [WEC] violated his rights under the Electors Clause in Article II of the Constitution. That clause directs state legislatures to appoint presidential electors in a “manner” of their choosing. In Trump’s view, the WEC failed to appoint electors in the “manner” directed by the legislature because the WEC offered guidance on 3 issues: indefinitely confined voters (i.e. voters who use absentee ballots due to age, illness, infirmity, or disability), the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, and corrections to witness addresses accompanying absentee ballots.
 
The court found that this argument “confuses and conflates the ‘Manner’ of appointing presidential electors – popular election – with underlying rules of election administration.” Trump’s objections, according to Judge Ludwig, represent “disagreements over election administration,” not challenges to the “manner” of the state’s appointment of electors. If Trump’s reading of “manner” was correct, “any disappointed loser” could cast doubt on the election results simply by objecting to one of the many administrative rules necessary to carry out an election with millions of voters.
 
But the court did not stop there. Judge Ludwig ruled that, even if “manner” is interpreted to include election administration, Trump still loses. All the issues that Trump raises “are ones the Wisconsin Legislature has expressly entrusted” to the WEC by statute. In fact, “far from defying the will of the Wisconsin Legislature in issuing the challenged guidance, the WEC was in fact acting pursuant to the legislature’s express directive.” Further, if the issues were as significant as Trump claims, the court points out that “he has only himself to blame for not raising them before the election.”
 
But wait! Might this simply be evidence of a judge conspiring to steal the election? Not likely. Judge Ludwig clerked for a Reagan-appointed judge after law school, practiced law at a big firm in Milwaukee, was appointed by President Trump as a bankruptcy judge, and then was appointed by President Trump to the district court bench. Not exactly a leading candidate to join a global conspiracy to steal the election for Joe Biden.
 
This is just one of more than 60 election lawsuits that Donald Trump lost after his lawyers made their best arguments before judges from across the ideological spectrum. His claims of a stolen election were litigated fully and fairly – and they were rejected every time. If our democracy is going to remain viable, we have to pay attention to court rulings, not to nonsense spouted at a rally or on a You Tube video. When Trump's lawyers insisted that the rule of law must be followed, Judge Ludwig responded succinctly: "It has been.”

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Christian realism and "Stop the Steal"

By Rob Vischer

Because so much of the “Stop the Steal” movement – which culminated in Wednesday’s deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol – has been covered with a veneer of Christianity, I think our response has to include a dimension grounded in an authentic Christian understanding of the world. Among the many heart-breaking images emerging from this week were the “Jesus Saves” banners being held by rioters entering the Capitol, right alongside the confederate flags, nooses, and Holocaust sweatshirts. This followed weeks of “Jericho marches,” prayer meetings, and rallies premised on the idea that God ordained Donald Trump to serve eight years as President, and that those who stood in the way were attempting to thwart God’s will. So let’s talk theology for a moment.
 
Reinhold Niebuhr was a very influential 20th century theologian whose legacy needs to be reclaimed and relearned. Niebuhr was a leading figure in a tradition known as “Christian realism,” and his work aimed at recapturing the reality and relevance of original sin. He lamented modern society’s failure to recognize that, no matter how impressive its achievements, “there is no level of human moral or social achievement in which there is not some corruption of inordinate self-love.” We all have “a darkly unconscious sense” of our “insignificance in the total scheme of things,” and we perpetually strive to compensate for that insignificance. Human conflicts are thus not simply about survival; they are, according to Niebuhr, “conflicts in which each man or group seeks to guard its power and prestige against the peril of competing expressions of power and pride.”
 
Niebuhr was a significant influence on Martin Luther King. In King’s words, “Niebuhr made me aware of the complexity of human motives and the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence,” including “the glaring reality of collective evil.” King was optimistic about the arc of history, but his optimism was not the sort that allowed him to sit back and watch society’s natural tendencies work themselves out over time. King credited Niebuhr’s work for helping him see liberalism’s sentimentality and false idealism. He saw that humans have an uncanny ability to “use our minds to rationalize our actions,” and he worked to keep the capacities for both good and evil in clear view. King knew that the capacity for good made his struggle for civil rights possible, but the capacity for evil made the struggle necessary.
 
So what insights does this hold for us today?
 
First, if we refuse to recognize the possibility that our political tribe is capable of evil, we are denying the reality of sin. If our initial response to news of Wednesday’s atrocities was to conclude, “Antifa must have dressed up as Trump supporters and infiltrated the protest,” we have lost sight of what the Bible teaches us about human nature. This was not a problem that just emerged out of the blue on Wednesday. When Donald Trump observed, at a campaign stop in 2016, that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” he was tapping into a human tendency seen clearly by Niebuhr and King: the willingness to overlook our own tribe’s evil because we seek to maintain our significance.
 
Second, Christians should be as committed to grasping reality as anyone. We are not called to escape to a fantasy of the world as we wish it would be; we are called to engage and minister to the world as it is. That requires us to invest time and effort in understanding reality, not a tribal narrative presented in You Tube videos and anonymous internet messages. The fact that Christians have a leading role in Q Anon and other outrageous conspiracy theory movements is a scandalous departure from the dictates of our faith.
 
Finally, when Christians stand up to oppose the rhetoric and behavior of “Stop the Steal” proponents, we are not being partisan. We are attempting to reclaim the real-world relevance of the Gospel. The pitfalls warned about by Niebuhr and King apply to liberals and conservatives alike. Indeed, when King wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he was not writing to conservatives – he was writing to moderate liberal pastors. Those pastors supported many of the goals of King’s movement, but they had urged King to be patient, to stop being disruptive, and to give white residents time to embrace the movement’s goals gradually, over time. King called out the liberals for being unwilling to recognize reality: that white people would not change the deeply unjust system without disruption. Sin is a human issue, not a partisan one. When Christians avoid speaking out about this for fear that they’ll be accused of partisanship, we are forsaking a noble tradition of speaking truth to power.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Standing up for the rule of law

By Rob Vischer

I'm sharing a message I sent to our law students tonight -- this is a crucial time to stand up for the rule of law.
***************************************
Dear students,
 
The scenes from Washington D.C. today have been distressing, to say the least. The U.S. Capitol building was overrun for the first time since the War of 1812. Crowds have been whipped into a frenzy by leaders spreading disinformation and baseless conspiracy theories in order to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. These tactics are direct assaults on our democracy, and as the leader of a law school dedicated to the “search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice,” I condemn them unequivocally. We are an academic community committed to the free and robust exchange of ideas – from all political perspectives – but we are also committed to championing and defending the rule of law, and we must not hesitate to speak out when it is under attack.
 
As we navigate this unbelievably tumultuous time in our history, I think about you. I wonder how I would feel to be embarking on my legal career as our country is convulsed by a pandemic, racial injustice, political turmoil, and rampant anxiety about the future. I’d probably feel pretty stressed. I might have a hard time concentrating on my reading. I might be angry about the behavior of some of the lawyers and leaders I’m supposed to look up to.
 
Words of encouragement may seem hard to come by tonight, but I do know this: as difficult as the road ahead appears, our work has never been more important than it is right now. As our Model Rules of Professional Conduct remind us, “lawyers play a vital role in the preservation of society.” Whether I’m talking to seasoned lawyers or undergrads contemplating law school, when I ask what draws them to law, one answer I hear consistently is a desire to do work that matters. As disturbing as today’s events have been, I hope they also serve as a stark reminder: our work matters. As lawyers, we are called to be faithful stewards of a noble tradition. I urge you to remain hopeful, engaged, and confident in our shared vocation.
 
With warm regard,
Dean Vischer

Saturday, January 2, 2021

We should all be disturbed by GOP senators' call to revisit election results

By Rob Vischer

Those who know my politics know that I can hardly be described as a left-wing radical. I believe that a strong, healthy, and principled Republican party is good for our country. That’s why I’m so discouraged by Ted Cruz’s announcement today that he and a group of GOP senators will object to the certification of electors this week and ask for the appointment of an Electoral Commission to conduct a 10-day audit of votes, after which “individual states would evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.” This should disturb anyone who believes that facts and respect for process should matter in a democracy. A few comments:
 
First, the senators’ reasoning is circular. Senator Cruz’s statement indicates that the results should be contested because many Americans doubt the election’s integrity. In other words, the primary rationale offered by a group of GOP leaders for behaving as though the election was stolen is the fact that many Americans believe the election was stolen, which is a result of GOP leaders spending the last two months behaving as though the election was stolen.
 
Second, the senators know that this is not going to work. As my friend and election law expert Derek Muller points out, a 10-day audit would require Congress to pass a new statute to amend the Electoral Act before January 6. That’s just not going to happen. I knew Ted Cruz in law school and worked with him on the law review – he’s a very smart guy. He knows this is not going to work, and he knows the election wasn’t stolen. This is simply a political performance to curry favor with the President’s core supporters, who have been whipped into a frenzy by a constant stream of irresponsible claims.
 
Third, the election was not stolen. The Trump campaign has lost at least 60 lawsuits at this point, with judges from across the ideological spectrum uniformly agreeing that the claims lack merit. Senator Ben Sasse – as conservative as they come – concluded that there is “little evidence of fraud, and what evidence we do have does not come anywhere close to adding up to a different winner of the presidential election.” Instead, according to Sen. Sasse, what we have is a President and his allied organizations having raised, since Election Day, “well over half a billion (billion!) dollars from supporters who have been led to believe that they’re contributing to a ferocious legal defense.”
 
Fourth, if you think the election was stolen through a massive global conspiracy, please step back and reflect for a moment. Conspiracy theorists never admit to being wrong – data points that seem to undercut their theory are simply taken as evidence that the conspiracy is even bigger than they imagined. Lin Wood – one of the lawyers leading the charge on “stolen election” claims – now says that Chief Justice Roberts adopted his children through a pedophile ring and Vice-President Pence will be executed by a firing squad for his complicity in the plot to steal the election. Is this really the company you want to keep?
 
Finally, would I be speaking out if Democrats were pulling these stunts against a Republican candidate who had prevailed? Absolutely. And unfortunately, you may have a chance to see if I’m true to my word because the precedent has now been set. Our norms for the peaceful transfer of power – both written and unwritten – have been turned upside-down, so the path is wide open for the Democrats to do the same thing when it suits them. If you’re applauding the wild claims from President Trump, Senator Cruz, and other GOP politicians who should know better, will you still be applauding if the Democrats try this strategy in 2024 and it works?

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Coming to grips with conspiracy theories

By Rob Vischer

As we close out 2020, it’s important to recognize that one contributing factor to this year’s tumult is Americans’ tendency to embrace outlandish conspiracy theories. When we can’t even agree on basic facts, it makes collaboration to address complex problems extraordinarily difficult. We’re seeing it now predominantly on the right (e.g., unfounded claims of a global conspiracy to steal the election, allegations that COVID is a hoax or that Bill Gates is using the vaccine to track people, the rise of Q Anon), but folks on the left should resist the temptation to feel self-righteous.
 
Conspiracy theories appeal to a deep-seated human desire for certainty in a messy world, and that appeal is not limited to one side of the political spectrum. Those on the left have traditionally been more likely to ignore scientific data in promoting claims that vaccines cause autism, for example. And polling data from several years ago found that the percentage of Democrats who suspected that the federal government knew ahead of time about the 9/11 attacks was roughly the same as the percentage of Republicans who suspected that President Obama was born in a foreign country. This is a human problem, and one that is growing more dire as many media companies contort to satisfy our demand for content that confirms the beliefs we already have.
 
So as a new year begins, are there modest steps we can take to guard our minds from the temptation of conspiracy theories? I’ll share three things that have been helpful for me and one that I hope to pursue more in the new year.
 
The first is pretty simple: I subscribe to our local newspaper. I read the paper every morning because it is one of the only non-self-curated forms of media available to me. And even though I spend much of my day reading things on a screen, I read a hard copy newspaper for the very reason that I can’t just click on the hyperlinks that appeal to me. The physical act of viewing an assortment of primarily local news that is the same assortment my neighbors from across the political spectrum are reading each morning is a small but, in my view, important step toward getting myself out of the information bubble that social media have empowered me to create.
 
Second, when I argue about ideas – and arguing about ideas is a healthy feature of our democracy – I try to be specific and substantive in my critiques of those with whom I disagree. Name-calling is great if we’re looking for retweets or FB likes, not so much if we’re looking to build mutual understanding. Our arguments should also be coherent. A lack of coherence doesn’t just make our advocacy less effective – it promotes cynicism, suggesting that politics is just about power, not about reason or principle. This sort of cynicism drives people to disregard our shared capacity for reason and embrace political messages premised on tribalism and us-versus-them narratives.
 
Third, because many of today's challenges require help from scientists, I try to remember that science cannot tell me what to value, but science can provide insights about our world that help me live out my values. I trust science to do what it does well. Disregarding the findings of science because we’re concerned about the political or religious views of particular scientists just doesn’t make sense. As Steven Pinker puts it, “An endorsement of scientific thinking must first of all be distinguished from any belief that members of the occupational guild called 'science' are particularly wise or noble. The culture of science is based on the opposite belief -- its signature practices (including open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods) are designed to circumvent the sins to which scientists, being human, are vulnerable.”
 
Fourth – and this is the one I hope to work on more in the coming year – I firmly believe that I should spend more time focused on local politics than on national politics. When I spend my time and emotional energy engaging on national politics, I’m talking about distant figures with whom I have no relationship, and it’s easy for me to cast them as shadowy forces in a global good-versus-evil narrative. When Americans are focused primarily on Donald Trump, Joe Biden, George Soros, or the Koch brothers, it’s no wonder conspiracy theories find fertile ground. The local is important because it’s a path to relationship. We should all have hands-on experience learning that opposing views about the presidential election do not preclude collaboration on beautifying the local park, improving our schools, or creating recreational programs to help at-risk kids. I may still disagree with my neighbor Bill’s views, but it will be much harder to dismiss his views as part of a sinister global conspiracy – he’s just Bill, and I know he loves his kids as much as I love mine. I’m not suggesting that we withdraw from national politics, but we may need to rethink our priorities.
 
It's a scary world, and we are caught in a downward spiral: as Americans lose trust in each other, we try to make sense of the world by believing the worst about each other, regardless of whether the belief is supported by evidence. And when we loudly proclaim those beliefs, those who disagree with us trust us even less. And the spiral continues. To be clear, we’re not going to rebuild trust and negate the attraction of conspiracy theories overnight. But if we’re hoping for a future that is brighter than the present, we have to start somewhere.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Responding to a critique re "Staying Calm About CRT"

By Rob Vischer

I’m grateful for Timon Cline’s critique (at the Cantankerous Calvinist) of my MoJ post about Critical Race Theory, as it’s the sort of substantive engagement that is sorely lacking when Christian leaders, as John Inazu puts it, use the CRT “label as a cudgel” against efforts to promote racial justice within the Church.  I welcome Timon’s contributions and have just a few comments:

First, defining CRT.  CRT can be a tough target to pin down, as is the case with many intellectual movements.  I think Timon deems portions of the Delgado/Stefancic primer on which I rely as misleadingly innocuous re CRT’s core beliefs.  I’m sure that depends on whom we consider to be authentically foundational to the movement.  What is the harm, though, of taking the Delgado/Stefancic understanding of intersectionality, for example, identifying the insights it can provide, then articulating precisely where more robust interpretations fall short of the Christian worldview?  I confess, I’m still not sure why intersectionality’s invocation as an expansive “sensibility," in the work of Kimberle Crenshaw, is necessarily a bad thing.  Again, it seems to me to depend on the particular application we’re talking about.

Second, discerning the nature of Christian leaders’ (categorical) objections.  I highly doubt that the SBC seminary presidents are condemning CRT only after closely reading John Finnis’s take-down of Roberto Unger.  I’m not a legal philosopher, and they’re not either.  They – and other Christian leaders – are engaging CRT in theological (and cultural?) terms.  More than the nature and extent of legal indeterminacy, my best guess is they’re concerned about another point Timon makes: “Racism, for CRT, is no longer personal animus on the basis of ethnicity or skin color, but complicity in the status quo of a white dominant society.” Yes, and the allegation of complicity requires sustained attention and unpacking by Christian leaders before they categorically dismiss its insights.     

Third, assessing the threat / influence.  In response to the comparison I drew between CRT (lots of condemnation) and Law & Economics (not much condemnation), Timon is correct that the former has more explicitly acknowledged influence today than the latter does, particularly on college campuses.  But the difficulty of tracing the influence precisely reflects the complexity of this conversation.  If we look at Law & Economics as one manifestation of a worldview premised on the desirability of maximizing individual preferences, it’s tough to argue that CRT has left a more powerful mark than that.

While I may not be ready to join Timon in his overall assessment of CRT, he and I wholeheartedly agree that this is an area in which Christians need more conversation, not less.

Church guidance on voting should include rebuilding of social trust

By Rob Vischer

Now that the dust from the presidential election is (hopefully) beginning to settle, we need to revisit the guidance the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has provided to Catholic voters, not to remove any of the current criteria, but to add what strikes me as a glaring omission: the rebuilding of social trust.

Surveys show that Americans’ trust in institutions and in their fellow Americans is in rapid decline, especially among young people.  This is a broader and deeper challenge than any candidates for political office can solve on their own, with causal connections to media, technology, gerrymandering, and the sorting of America along demographic and geographic lines.

But elected officials play a key role.  It is tempting to say, and many friends and relatives have told me, that “all politicians lie.”  Resting on such categorical assertions abdicates our responsibility as faithful citizens to discern what is true from what is false.  It is simply not the case that Bill Clinton’s inclination toward falsehoods was shared by George H.W. Bush or Jimmy Carter.  And there has been no recent president who trafficked in falsehoods as frequently as President Trump, nor any who weaponized disinformation as a core political strategy as pervasively as he has done.  There are clear differences among candidates, and those differences matter.

And yes, rebuilding social trust is about more than avoiding falsehoods.  It’s also about mutual respect, and characterizations of one’s political opponents as “deplorables,” some Americans as “cling[ing] to guns or religion,” or Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” are also corrosive to social trust.  We need to evaluate candidates in terms of their propensity to speak with respect toward all Americans – that must be part of the equation.

In “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” the USCCB addresses solidarity by focusing on the preferential option for the poor.  That’s important, but solidarity also presumes a degree of unity, or at least the semblance of a common perception of reality.  We should aspire to share an accurate understanding of the world before we engage our political opponents on hard questions about human dignity and the common good.  When the “is” is deeply contested, debates about the “ought” are largely pointless.  And when survey data is underscored by stories of Catholics actively participating in Q-Anon and outrageous disinformation events such as the Jericho March, we have a serious problem on our hands. 

So, in addition to the importance of recognizing the truth of the Church’s moral teaching – reflected in policy issues that have long been addressed at election time – the bishops should speak out about truth more generally.  Weaponizing false information to divide Americans is morally unacceptable.  Tackling the many pressing challenges facing our country is only possible if we begin to rebuild social trust.  Truth matters, and it must matter to our elected officials.     

Sunday, December 13, 2020

When Lawyers Fuel the Fire

By Rob Vischer

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously rejected Texas’s attempt to overturn the election of Joe Biden, it’s worth pausing to reflect on what we’ve learned over the past few weeks about the role of lawyers in our country.  At a time when we need lawyers to bring fact-driven advocacy to our political turmoil, Jenna Ellis and her team have worked furiously to discredit the election‘s outcome, claiming that the election was “stolen” and that President Trump “won by a landslide.” Their rhetoric, though not matched by admissible evidence, has nevertheless fueled distrust of the election results, especially among those already inclined to believe the worst about their political opponents.  By asserting wild claims in press conferences that do not match the evidence submitted with their court pleadings, the Trump campaign’s lawyers have driven cynicism toward our democratic institutions to new levels.

The rule of law depends in significant part on trust. There have always been lawyers – from both the left and right sides of the political spectrum – who make outlandish arguments for which the evidence proves inadequate. The difference with the lawyers’ behavior in the election’s aftermath is two-fold: 1) the far-reaching dangers of an incumbent president using all of his influence to attack our democratic infrastructure as corrupt; 2) the already wide polarization resulting from an ongoing red-blue sorting of our country along demographic and geographic lines. By seeming to legitimize the conspiracy theories circulating on social media, the Trump campaign’s lawyers have brought gasoline to the growing flames of social distrust.

One key dimension of a lawyer’s work is two-way translation: helping opposing parties and decision-makers understand our clients’ perspectives, and helping clients understand the perspectives of decision-makers and opposing parties. When those relationships cross the red-blue chasm, we may need more than translation – we may need a restoration of trust as a precursor to mutual understanding. In an environment as politically charged as the election’s aftermath, wisely stewarding the trust on which our institutions depend is especially important.

You can read the rest here.

Friday, December 11, 2020

Three cheers for an independent judiciary!

By Rob Vischer

I'm feeling grateful for our independent judiciary, and I hope you are too. And no, I’m not just talking about the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous rejection of Texas’s attempt to overturn the election results in other states.  It’s also important to note that the Court issued four unanimous rulings yesterday on a variety of thorny legal issues. Since 2000, in fact, a unanimous decision has been more likely than any other result.  The public too often has – and too often is deliberately given – the impression that the Supreme Court is simply another battlefield for our political and cultural tribalism with “conservative” justices pitted against “liberal” justices in a no-holds-barred death match.  It’s not.  Our laws are shaped by competing visions of the good, to be sure, but the rule of law matters in ways that transcend politics. The legal merits of a case are not simply a function of political preference.

Even the 5-4 decisions are about more than politics.  Back in 1989, Justice Scalia provided the fifth vote in ruling that the constitutional right to free speech includes a right to burn the American flag.  He later explained, "If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king."

We are a nation of laws, not monarchs.  In the election’s aftermath, the legal system is working as intended.  Judges are focusing on the evidence and applying laws established through legislation and centuries of precedent, regardless of their own political affiliation. 

To cite one example of many, Justice Brian Hagedorn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was president of the conservative Federalist Society in law school and served as Republican Governor Scott Walker’s chief counsel. Last week, when his court rejected an attempt to invalidate Wisconsin’s election results, he wrote separately to warn that “judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election." 

At a time when long-accepted political norms are under serious strain, our courts’ continued commitment to the rule of law is a reason for gratitude and hope.

Robert Bolt, in “A Man for All Seasons,” famously depicts an exchange between Sir Thomas More and a young idealist, William Roper, about giving the accused the benefit of the law.

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

In our highly polarized nation, Americans do not agree on who the Devil is.  Fortunately, we don’t have to.  An independent judiciary helps us ensure that the laws apply to devils, angels, and everyone in between.

Thursday, December 10, 2020

From "I Have a Dream" to "Stop the Steal"

By Rob Vischer

On December 12, in what organizers are calling “the Jericho March,” Christians are invited to gather in Washington D.C. to protest fraud and corruption in the presidential election. Organizers are asking participants to march around the U.S. Capitol seven times as the culmination of regional protests in which people of faith will march seven times daily around state capitols (in swing states, of course), following the biblical example of Joshua in bringing down the walls of Jericho. The event’s organizers urge participants to “Let the Church Roar!”
 
This comes fifty-seven years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at another Washington protest steeped in Christian imagery. Do the sharp contrasts in the events tell us anything about Christianity’s changing relationship to American culture? Three broad conclusions emerge.
 
First, Christians have become more comfortable claiming victim status. Dr. King did not speak in terms of victimhood. He shared powerful stories of injustice without focusing on his own suffering, much less exaggerating it. After years of conservatives mocking liberals for playing the victim, President Trump is embracing the label wholeheartedly on behalf of his supporters. Consider last weekend’s rally at which the President proclaimed, in conjunction with alleged election fraud, "We're all victims. Everybody here, all these thousands of people here tonight, they're all victims. Every one of you.” Surveys show that a majority of white evangelicals believe that Christians face discrimination in the United States and are more likely to face discrimination than Muslims.
 
Second, facts now seem to matter less than feelings. The election conspiracy claims have been wildly unsuccessful in court – where evidence matters a great deal – but quite popular on social media, where a viral video doesn’t require more than a passionately articulated hunch. After the President’s rally last weekend, Rush Limbaugh confidently concluded that thousands of people would not have shown up to see someone who lost the election. Trump is not a loser, so he could not have lost, the reasoning seems to go. The 1963 March on Washington, by contrast, was not based on hunches or gut feelings; it followed decades of grass-roots organizing and litigation documenting specific policies and practices of racial injustice to be remedied through proposed legislation. The Christian call to justice targeted both hearts and minds.
 
Third, we’re no longer all in this together. In 1963, Dr. King left no ambiguity that “we cannot walk alone,” noting the many “white brothers” who “have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny,” and “that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.” Dr. King protested against the perpetrators of injustice, to be sure, but his goal was not power to be wielded against “the other” – his goal was the restoration of relationships broken by segregation, the building of what he called the beloved community.
 
By contrast, the Jericho March organizers warn that “globalists, socialists, and communists” are set to “destroy our beautiful nation by sidestepping our laws and suppressing the will of the American people through their fraudulent and illegal activities in this election.” Several of the Jericho March speakers have called for the President’s political enemies to be jailed for attempting to steal the election. The beloved community is very tough to discern in such rhetoric.
 
Our country has benefited immeasurably from a rich and noble tradition of Christians protesting injustice, and I fully support the right of religious believers to protest peacefully for whatever cause they choose. I wonder, though, whether Jericho March organizers understand the messages about our faith that this particular cause is conveying to the broader world. What if Christians on both the left and the right were to join together to proclaim that:
 
  • Christians in other parts of the world suffer horrible persecution, and we should lift our voices on their behalf early and often.
  • Facts are essential to the fair administration of our elections, and we will respect the rule of law by trusting the independent judiciary to sort out those facts when we disagree.
  • The diversity of our nation is a blessing, and the voice of every American matters – especially those who have traditionally been excluded from our national conversations, regardless of whether they agree with us about politics.
That strikes me as a cause worth marching for.
 
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