Trump has done us a favor. He has reminded anyone patriotic on the left and right — that has even part of their brain working — that we “enemies” share common ground. Trump did this by relentlessly spewing his sham huckster version of a bleak worldview rooted in white nationalism, authoritarianism, hatred of ethnic variety and religious difference. And Trump seems to just love authoritarian dictator types. Trump shows more public liking for journalist-murdering Putin, terror-sponsoring Muslim-extremist Saudi princes and the anti-Semite Catholic-fundamentalist white nationalists in power in Poland than for pro-democracy pluralists such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron. He berates journalists yet coddles dictators who share his fear of a free and open press.
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Here are just some of the best of our American bedrock beliefs many of us on the moderate sane Left and moderate sane Right share:
- an appreciation for what the modern world has achieved from antibiotics to women having a right to work
- an optimistic vision of what could lie before us if we use our brains well for everything from new energy tech to education
- a commitment to democratic truths as the basis of the free and open lives we want mirrored by a free and open press
- a belief that ethnic diversity and religious tolerance are things to defend rather than to be feared
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Frank, Would you be interested in a speaking engagement on a Sunday morning? $400? Community Church of Boston, a Peace and Justice Congregation since 1920. We have hosted a speaker series every sunday for 97 years. Chomsky, Zinn, MLK, Kozol, Kunstler, Berrigans, Medea Benjamin, (most recently, Dukakis) many wonderful speakers. It would be a great thing to coordinate with a Sunday visit with your grandkids to the Science Museum. I have been really inspired by your blog posts and youtube ruminations. We are just starting to put the Fall program together. I hope you will be in touch. Very Best Wishes, Dean Stevens 617-869-3014