trump

Jim Simpson 1-04-2021
Illustration of a bridge being repaired. The bridge is arched and has the stripes of an American flag.

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

AS THE BIDEN administration enters the White House, it must focus not only on repairing the damage caused by four years of the Trump administration but also push forward a bold agenda using all available channels: unilateral executive actions, the rule-making process, and collaboration with Congress. Here’s a wish list for the first 100 days.

While we await mass distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, Americans are living through some of the highest infection and death numbers we’ve seen at any point in the pandemic. A coordinated national response to the coronavirus must be a top priority for the administration. This includes a national mask mandate, a robust and coordinated federal strategy, a national vaccine distribution strategy, and additional support and stimulus to individuals, health systems, and states to address the health and economic impacts of the disease.

While the wealthy and those with stocks and investments have only seen their wealth increase over the past year, the gap between the richest and poorest Americans has expanded dramatically. A progressive economic agenda is needed to bolster and support those with low and middle incomes (roughly 80 percent of Americans). The priorities should include rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest; forgiving federal student debt; increasing the federal minimum wage; ensuring access to paid sick and family leave and affordable child care; modernizing unemployment insurance; and introducing a budget that supports safety net programs and invests in the people and communities struggling the most.

Mitchell Atencio 12-16-2020

A girl and her father on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

As the sun sets on each Election Day, people turn to exit polls to understand what happened and why.  After the 2020 presidential election, exit polls suggested that outgoing President Donald Trump performed better among Hispanic/Latinx voters, earning reactions from pundits and former presidents alike. Some have suggested this is due to splits among Hispanic Catholics and Hispanic Protestants, but polls alone may not tell the full story.

Jim Rice 11-30-2020
Illustration of a person in a red shirt standing under a raincloud and rainstorm. Another person is holding an umbrella over them with an exaggeratedly extended arm.

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

THE ELECTION DID NOT, as many had hoped, offer a resounding renunciation of Trumpism and its often-explicit white supremacist ideology. On the contrary, millions more people than four years ago voted for a man (and a worldview) with few illusions about his nature, showing a willingness to ignore, if not condone, racism, misogyny, and xenophobia.

Trump’s presidency made unarguably clear, for those who harbored doubts, that racism and white supremacy are not restricted to a small, inconsequential fragment of society tucked away in the shadows. Now, it’s distressingly but importantly clear that a very significant minority of voters either harbors these views explicitly or is fine with ignoring or downplaying them for their own perceived advantage. As painful as that is to acknowledge, it’s actually a step in the right direction, since a problem cannot be addressed until it is first named.

A primary task before us as we emerge from the destructive tumult of the past four years is to mitigate the damage done to so many people and to our earth itself. “Mitigation,” by definition, includes “reducing the harmful effects” of actions taken. It’s considered a stage of emergency management, which feels about right.

Jim Wallis 11-30-2020
An illustration of people climbing up a ladder, out of a ditch that is on fire. At the top of the ladder is green grass and a person helping them up.

Illustration by Jackson Joyce

THE PEOPLE HAVE spoken, democracy has worked, and it is time for a peaceful transfer of power. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have fairly won the presidential election, and I am hopeful about their commitment to both healing and change. We should accept the results, and call upon our faith communities to do the same, in order to help our nation move forward together.

We should be grateful for and inspired by the ways our faith communities worked for free, fair, and safe elections in 2020. Thousands of multiracial and interfaith poll chaplains helped to protect vulnerable voters from both suppression and intimidation at the polls and helped secure this election.

Racism was recognized as a religious issue in this election—and we must commit to a much deeper, and even uncomfortable, conversation in the body of Christ about the great and painful divisions between white Christians and believers of color that this election has again revealed. Addressing systemic racism, economic injustice, inhumane immigration policies, and climate change—all of this is required as expressions of our faith. Let us begin with healing our nation from the COVID-19 pandemic and then from our polarized divisions with grace and love and the reconciliation that comes from working together to build a more racially just and inclusive America.

Cassie M. Chew 11-18-2020

Calvin Williams canvasses in Orlando, Fla., on Oct. 28, 2020 for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRCC), an organization led by formerly convicted people dedicated to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with convictions. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

“We understand that this policy is being used to distract us from the fact that you are policing us at a greater rate than ever before,” said Brittany White, who spent five years at an Alabama correctional facility after being convicted of drug trafficking and now works to engage newly enfranchised voters. “We are not fooled by this First Step Act and the other minor policies that have been implemented.”

Yesterday our nation saw 144,000 new COVID-19 cases, a staggering and heart- wrenching number, particularly as our nation tries to turn a corner after such a bruising election. While we both felt an overwhelming sense of relief and hope when news broke Saturday that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared winners of the election, events of the past few days show that this continues to be a season for fervent prayer, vigilance, and, if necessary, faithful action.

People protest attempts to throw out ballots cast at drive-through polling locations in Houston, Texas on November 2, 2020. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

The Electoral College system favors voters in a small group of battleground states, over-representing white voters while ignoring many voters of color. A growing chorus of legal and policy experts, along with the majority of Americans, believe it should change.

Jenna Barnett 10-29-2020

A man wearing a protective mask holds a sign outside Madison Square Garden, a polling station, on the first day of early voting in Manhattan. October 24, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

According to new polling data from PRRI, 86 percent of Americans are concerned that there will be widespread violent protests in the aftermath of the upcoming election, revealing that both Republicans and Democrats share this fear.

Lisa Sharon Harper 10-22-2020

1. Character matters
In 2016, we heard the recording of Donald Trump bragging that he could grab women by the genitalia and kiss them without consent. This reveal of sexual abuse was a blinking red warning sign: “No character!” But most white American Christians voted for him anyway. Now hundreds of thousands of Americans are no longer with us. Children are dead, separated from their parents, neglected and abused in our detention centers. Police continue to kill unarmed Black people with impunity. Evidence shows that wherever there is violence against women, there will also be violence against ethnic minorities and the land. Character matters.

2. Our votes matter
If you ever doubt that, remember 2020: body bags, 175 cities on fire, food lines, closed businesses, fears for the future, the president having tear gas shot into a crowd so he could walk across the street and hold a Bible in front of a church he doesn’t attend. Let us learn that a non-vote is a vote for the winner. In a democracy, votes have the power to bless or curse millions. It is our civic duty to approach elections as informed citizens. It is our Christian duty to leverage elections to protect the least of these.

Chloe Noël 10-22-2020
Illustration by Michael George Haddad

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

In 1994, Congress passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), establishing a template for free trade deals that was neither free nor fair. While North American trade tripled and corporations profited under NAFTA, the costs were borne by manufacturing workers across the U.S. and Mexico, smallholder corn farmers, and our environmental commonwealth. These trade consequences contributed to migration to the U.S.

The dirty secret about free trade agreements is that much of the content has little to do with trade. They serve to maximize corporate profits by pressuring countries to weaken or jettison domestic laws that serve the common good—such as public health, financial, and environmental regulations—to make room for policies that serve corporate interests and economic superpowers. Corporations and other nations can sue for perceived “unfair treatment,” which often costs taxpayers millions or billions of dollars and results in a regulatory chilling effect. With hundreds of U.S. government-approved industry trade advisers at the negotiating table—and few civil society representatives—is this any surprise?

Lexi McMenamin 10-22-2020

Activists and students holding signs march on the streets of downtown Toronto during a climate change rally on Black Friday,  Nov. 29, 2019. Photo Ramona Diaconescu / Shutterstock.com

Addressing climate change is a faith-based obligation to “protect God’s creation,” say 81 percent of American religious voters surveyed in a poll released this morning from Climate Nexus and Yale and George Mason’s respective programs on climate change communications.

Jenna Barnett 10-02-2020

As news spread that Donald and Melania Trump have contracted COVID-19, thoughts, prayers, and tweets have started pouring in from across the U.S.

Illustration by Tyler Comrie

THE RIGHT TO VOTE, a foundation of our democracy and a fundamental attribute of citizenship, is under serious threat. In recent years, attacks on the integrity of the electoral system—the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, disinformation campaigns, foreign interference, and more—have weakened its overall infrastructure and cast doubt upon its results. Now we’re seeing repeated attempts, through propaganda and other means, to further undermine the system and discredit in advance the results of the 2020 election.

The president has attempted to co-opt real concerns about the upcoming election, claiming without evidence that it might be “stolen” as a result of fraud tied to vote-by-mail. His efforts deflect attention away from the ways that voter suppression efforts already underway pose a real danger, both to people seeking to exercise their hard-won right to vote and to the integrity of the electoral system itself.

As many have pointed out, there are numerous ways internal or external forces could call the results of the election into question: declaring a state of emergency that disrupts voting, delaying Election Day, interference by hostile foreign powers, tampering with voting machines or databases, and more. All of these represent legitimate threats, but perhaps the most likely scenario is that rampant voter suppression tactics impede enough voters in key battleground states to alter the presidential election outcome and which party controls Congress.

A pedestrian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin passes a sign urging people to vote. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

When we say the upcoming election is the most consequential election in our lifetime, it is not hyperbole or political spin, but a reflection of  just how stark the choices have become and the perilous nature of the crises that our communities, our nation, and our world faces.

LaTesha Harris 7-30-2020

Screenshot via Fox News

President Donald Trump still supports Anthony Tata, his pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, despite the abrupt cancellation of Thursday’s Senate confirmation hearing for the divisive nominee.

LaTesha Harris 7-21-2020
Federal agents deployed in Portland

Federal law enforcement officers, deployed under the Trump administration's new executive order to protect federal monuments and buildings, face off with protesters against racial inequality and police violence in Portland, Oregon, U.S., July 21, 2020. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

“As a community, we will resist such unconstitutional action by any morally rooted means we deem necessary,” said Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III. “We are a city of grit, grind and resistance, unafraid to speak truth to power.”

Rishika Pardikar 6-25-2020

Chinese and U.S. flags flutter in Shanghai. REUTERS/Aly Song

Communication between scientists in China and scientists in the U.S. has essentially shut down, eliminating opportunities for the U.S. to learn from China’s response to the virus.

Jim Wallis 6-04-2020

Jim Wallis, accompanied by Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and other faith leaders and clergy, pray a block away from St. John's, Lafayette Square, between protesters and a police line. Photo by Jim Simpson / Sojourners

Eddie Glaude has rightly named the violent White House walk to St. John’s as “dictatorial theatre.” The words that came to mind for many of us were sacrilege and blasphemy. Here's the dictionary's definition of blasphemy: "Impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things." Another word that came to mind was authoritarian. At the epicenter of political power in the United States stands a little church that Donald Trump has decided to violently use — and now St. John’s stands inside a police perimeter surrounding that seat of power.

Gini Gerbasi 6-02-2020

Protesters hold signs as President Donald Trump's motorcade passes the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. June 2, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Editor’s Note : Amid nationwide protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., President Donald Trump on June 1 threatened in a Rose Garden speech that he would deploy military personnel to cities that refused to call out the National Guard. Following his announcement, police dispersed a peaceful protest outside the White House with tear gas and rubber bullets so the president could cross the park and pose in front of the historic St. John’s Church. Rev. Gini Gerbasi, rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Georgetown, about two miles west, had been at St. John’s Lafayette Square organizing aid for protesters that afternoon. This is her account of the events.

A White House staff member gestures to move the press corps back as President Donald Trump walks between lines of police for a photo opportunity at St John's Church. June 1, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

Last night, Donald Trump used and abused a church, and a Bible, as presidential props for a photo-op. In a violent and authoritarian act, the president of the United States took the space of a church and used a picture of a Bible to make a political move.