WE THE PEOPLE HAVE HAD ENOUGH

A recent large-scale study of the American rabbinate points to a common challenge facing most congregational rabbis. When it comes to speaking about American political issues, we are damned when we do and damned when we don’t. I have experienced this in much the same way that most of my colleagues have. Taken alongside my preoccupation with the shocking rise in Jew-hatred (a topic about which I have specific expertise), I made the decision to back off from topics about which many in our congregation have sharper, more informed, and often differing points of view.

However, with what has been going on with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, I have decided that I must speak out. Even if the only people who ever read this are my grandchildren at some far-off time, I want to be on the record about what is happening here.

I started to write this after the death of Renee Good. At first, I hoped it was a one-off, the horrible result of a clash between well-meaning but boldly confrontational protestors and very poorly trained ICE officers. I tried to frame it that way in my draft, writing about how volatile dynamics had come together in the worst of ways when the driver’s refusal to obey a legal order to exit a vehicle intersected with the trauma of an officer who had been dragged by a car not long before. But as I wrote, I found it increasingly more difficult to address what is happening with any real clarity. Personally, I do believe that there must be reasonable immigration enforcement. But as I heard as a kid in Texas, "This ain't that."

Knowing that I was focusing on the wrong things, I set that commentary aside as a kind of emotional triage.

After the death of Alex Pretti this past weekend, it became clearer to me that what I actually needed to address was how the overwhelming chaos unleashed by this administration had created the conditions in which chaotic and deadly outcomes had become completely inevitable.

If videos of the tragedy of Renee Good were a bit of a Rorschach test due to gaps in perspective and only partial eyewitness testimony, the horrifying shooting of Alex Pretti provided multiple clear recorded angles of grotesquery. One of my daughters described it simply, and accurately, as monstrous.

I agree. And as monstrous as the shooting was, the attempts by the administration to shoe-horn it into their predetermined narrative are an obscene distortion of reality. As they would have us believe, these two victims and many others are nothing but "domestic terrorists" lying in wait, intent on gunning down innocent law enforcement officers.

It is not out of false modesty to say that I also hesitated to further fan flames that need no fanning. And yet I know it's important that none of us feel alone with our anger, especially now that that this horror show in Minnesota has become a breaking point; a big fat heavy straw that has broken our collective backs. In addition to acknowledging our collective despair, I also want to address some larger issues that the American people should consider. With this context behind me, I want to continue with a few words about the character and behavior of our leadership.

Since Trump took office again, we have been dealing with exactly what we expected. It is a relentless array of crap; lawlessness, incoherence, and abusiveness so vast that it is difficult to characterize it all. The man-child running our country occasionally stumbles upon an idea here and there with which I agree. But I only point that out because it reassures me that I am not gripped by a mechanical rejection of everything he does (sometimes called "Trump Derangement Syndrome").

Because I don't want to be close-minded, over the past several years, I have made a conscious effort to consume news outside of the liberal media ecosystem. I have expanded my sources to include publications like the Wall Street Journal and the London Telegraph, sources that generally refrain from either knee-bending support or knee-jerk rejection of conservative ideas. In addition to restoring the open-mindedness that brought me to Humanistic Judaism, this effort also helps me understand when and where genuine  consensus takes hold in our country. In this case, I felt reaffirmed when editorial boards across the spectrum began openly confronting the lawlessness, constitutional indifference, and mendaciousness of this administration.

On Sunday night, the Journal published a frame by frame analysis of several recordings of Saturday's events. Each frame confirmed what I have read in other sources, left, center, and right. The fact is that the official account does not match the visual record and the administration has been telling reckless lies. Alex Pretti was not, as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asserted, either brandishing a weapon or impeding law enforcement. He was acting within his constitutional rights, despite the defamatory claims being repeated by administration officials, even before any facts were publicly known. 

My decision to read multiple sources also revealed to me that gun owners' groups are pushing back, and hard, against statements like that of our FBI director Kash Patel who said, "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple." Actually, it's not that simple. Conservatives have worked quite successfully to secure that right. A conservative director knows this very well.

When there is this much agreement across the broad spectrum of our news sources, I find hopeful signs that Americans really can come together as a nation, and that we can see just how much damage this administration is causing. Every day I see right-of-center media calling him out. They point to the inherent dangers in too many of Trump's childish and often savage characterizations of people he doesn't like, some of which have inspired violence. They warn of his authoritarian impulses. They have reported—and editorially lamented—his answer to the question of whether there exist any constraints on what he can do as president:

“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”  

Now this was in response to his foreign policy. And, as my family and friends know, there are things this administration has done in that arena that I don't hate; that I even support. But once we recognize that we can just as easily apply his answer to pretty much anything else he wants to do—from his ridiculous tariff and economic threats, to his misuse of the courts for personal or political retribution, to his immigration enforcement tactics—the implications become clear. And … well, you already know the drill. This list alone is exhausting, and it is but the tip of the Trumpberg.

Yet as exhausted as I am and as exhausted as he and his administration are making our entire country (as polls reveal) there remain many reasons to hope.

I did not attend any "No Kings" rallies because I don't think Trump is or will ever be king. He's an older man whose own movement and party are showing clear signs of fracturing. He's a constitutionally elected president who has lost more court cases than he's won. One day, he will go away. And that will be a pretty happy day for many.

What might not be so happy is to consider that what he's leaving behind is an enormous list of new precedents, some so unprecedented that we may never be able to use that word again. Yet while he may be a uniquely boundary-pushing personality, what he's done is not so unique even if it's all been so radically public and, as it happens, transparent. Other administrations have also made their own contributions to the imperious presidency that Trump so loves. Some of these were not so transparent.

For example, it's only been since last year that we've learned about some of the ways in which the previous administration was deeply problematic. Hunter Biden could give the Trump boys a run for their money (which, it should be pointed out, is all that any of those crooks really care about). President Biden's immigration policies were nothing to celebrate. His abandonment of border controls angered voters enough to invite a second bite at the rotten Trump apple. And, perhaps most egregiously, the Biden administration likely, perhaps even certainly, shielded us from the knowledge that he was an incapacitated president. Even when he was elected voters knew he was not the same energetic leader of earlier years. It was a big reason that his voters trusted him to keep his promise to serve for only one term. It turned out to have been a promise honored only in the breach, after the whole world witnessed his incompetence during that infamous debate. In the end, Democrats were forced to accept a candidate unvetted by primaries. Neither party has a monopoly on misconduct or even creeping authoritarianism.

So where's that hope I mentioned? It lies in the fact that we Americans are increasingly talking about the need to de-polarize.

Of course, some of that language masks hopes for capitulation rather than true coexistence. Yet many who are genuinely concerned for our nation are focused on real de-polarization; the kind that respects our constitutional system, reconsiders our tactics when policy battles are failing, and above all, that treats the other side— whether marching in the streets or debating on the Senate floor— with a baseline of dignity and respect.

We will reach the far side of this administration. Our Constitution requires it and he is but a mere mortal, not a monarch. When we do, we will again be confronted with the harsh reality that we, the people, are as much a part of the problem as Trump is. When that day comes, the question that we will face is whether we can do better.

Because the character of this place that we all call home is not determined solely by those we put in power. It is determined by we who put them there.