The human mind is a beautiful thing. It is also a dangerous thing, enough so to bring about our own extinction. People who put their faith in evolution do not understand the nature of human beings. We do not evolve beyond our fundamental nature, and it has not changed since we came into existence. They simultaneously want to believe that we are the same as other animals while being superior in our intelligence to other animals. It is oxymoronic or perhaps simply moronic. What makes human beings dangerous is not the potential for genius, of which we are, on an objective basis, incapable. Only God is truly capable of genius. What makes human beings dangerous is our infinite potential for stupidity, pride, jealousy, greed and all other manner of sin and evil, driven, in great part, by our egos.
Adam and Eve
In the story of Adam and Eve, the devil whispers in Eve’s ear, and she listens. The devil says, “‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” She trusts the devil and disobeys God. Adam and Eve’s demise is driven by their own hubris, and their fall from grace is humankind’s original sin. Some atheists might find the story irrelevant, even absurd. On the contrary, Adam and Eve’s sin is the same one that bedevils us today, not just in the United States, but in most of the world.
Much like the beautiful planet humans have been privileged to inhabit, God gave Adam and Eve everything, but they did not appreciate what he had given them. Instead, they wanted more. They wanted to be like God himself. However, they did not become like God. The devil also said that they would not die, but they did. He lied to them, and they believed him. God then evicts them from the Garden of Eden. In the story of their first two sons, Cain and Abel, we witness the first murder. What motivates Cain is similar to what motivated Adam and Eve: jealousy. Cain, a farmer, is jealous of Abel, a shepherd, whom God favors. So, Cain murders his own brother. God then punishes Cain to a nomadic life.
The Devil
Pandering to our narcissism, the devil whispers many things in our ears. All of them are deceitful. The Latin word for “I” is “ego.” “Ego” is defined as “the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world.” In psychological terms, “ego” is “one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality.” The ego, whose function has always had a double-edged nature, serving survival but often yielding destruction, has become terribly imbalanced. For many, its sole function now is as an agent for mutual or self-destruction.
Taking on various human forms, the devil whispers all over the world, in Russia, North Korea, China, India, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and yes, also in the west, and many listen. In the United States, the devil’s human form is an ugly, soulless, traitorous man called Trump who has not a single redeeming quality. His hate and lies have made derangement as common as drunkenness. His MAGA followers’ brains have become intoxicated with the double drugs of demagoguery and conspiracy.
The Authoritarian Whispers to MAGA
One of the great ironies of this historical moment is that this particular derangement of the self, of the “ego,” is facilitated, in part, through an abandonment of one’s own agency. The strongman, or authoritarian rule, more generally, has always had an appeal. It is an abdication of personal responsibility that seems to make life easier. In fact, it not only makes life harder but also requires a relinquishment of personal freedom and dignity, which would presumably also injure one’s ego. This exchange does not achieve the objective of making life easier, and it also surrenders our God-given attributes in the process, making slaves and fools of us all.
At this historical moment, one could point to a variety of problems: the immoral levels of inequality, the last financial crisis, the rich’s unwillingness to moderate their destructive greed, climate change, the pandemic, technology and its negative psychological effects as causes for an erosion in people’s confidence in democracy and in their willingness to do the hard work of self-governance. The people might believe that it is “all rigged,” and in some ways, it is. However, handing over the levers of government to the very scoundrels who rigged it is the kind of folly to which only those who heed the devil’s whispers would fall prey. The sane and responsible response is resistance.
Putin, Trump and the other authoritarian “leaders” do not care about the values they pretend to care about. All they care about is power and money, and like the devil himself, they lie, lie and lie to obtain and retain both. The rich scoundrels who support these demagogues also care only about power and money. These rich supporters have amplified the dangerous authoritarians’ lies to enrich themselves while impoverishing the feeble minds who have purchased the devil’s siren song. These immoral rich traitors have concocted conspiracy theories with escalating levels of absurdity. In believing them, MAGA has effectively gone insane and has even engaged in violence, which has, in several cases, resulted in injury and death.
What’s “New” Is Perennial
None of these “new” developments in the human drama should be surprising to anyone who has read the Bible. Despite their religious chest-thumping and their proclamation of “Christian nationalism,” which is, in reality, neither about God nor country, MAGA is also often entirely ignorant of Scripture. Our present condition is just the latest manifestation of the perennial sickness of the human soul. Are we our brother’s keeper? We are supposed to be, but we will not be if we listen to the dark voices who spew hate and lies to appeal to narcissism and ego.
Despite their seeming predilection to believe conspiracy theories, it is entirely possible, even likely, that at least some MAGA do not believe that Trump won the election. In other words, the problem for them is not a detachment from reality but an unwillingness to accept reality. They might know that he lost. However, accepting this fact might also mean accepting the fact that they are not superior simply because they are white. It might mean accepting a pluralistic society in which they are no worse than but also no better than others and in which they have to share power and wealth. It might also mean accepting that they have been lying to themselves their whole lives about their superiority and that their entire self-worth has been colored by this self-delusion.
No matter how rich, no matter how poor, humans are, one and all, susceptible to the devil’s ploys because he knows well how to stroke our egos and how to lie to us. Elon Musk, the present owner of Twitter, feel into this trap just recently. Ultimately, it is not the devil who is to blame, but the fallen humans who have chosen to listen to him and his lies. So, Happy Halloween, MAGA and others who have listened to the devil’s whispers. He tricked you into a Faustian bargain. You were convinced that you were saving your country, “America First,” or some other delusion. Instead, your egos were being seduced at the expense of your soul and your sanity.
These words might be jarring, but that is the state of the disunion: a steady dissolution of the United States of America that is leading to its end in its present form – its democratic form. Some might think this is an alarmist assessment. I would suggest to those skeptics that they are not paying attention and that they make unwarranted assumptions about the resilience of the country’s democracy, its institutions and its norms.
Until relatively recently, the United States of America’s national identity had been centered around one concept – democracy. With the rise of the evil one (aka the former guy), half the country, obviously, the Republicans have abandoned democracy in its stated form in our founding documents. This is well-documented, and links are provided below for edification. The purpose of this essay is to assert the unalienable rights of the other half of the country, the Democrats.
The opening of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4, 1776 and whose original draft was written by Thomas Jefferson, is as follows:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The Declaration of Independence is the nation’s covenant, and the Republicans are breaking it. For this reason alone, the Democrats are entirely justified in asserting the following: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
In other words, the Declaration of Independence gives Democrats the right to invoke the dissolution of the union if the form of government forced upon them violates these self-evident truths: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
An authoritarian form of government is clearly in violation of these self-evident truths and is the antithesis of democracy, yet this is the form of government that the Republicans are pursuing and effectively imposing or trying to impose upon the other half of the country, the Democrats. What shall the remedy be? The Declaration of Independence continues as follows:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
It is the right, in fact, it is the duty of Democrats to throw off such a government for which a “long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.” In keeping with the spirit of our preeminent founding document, a decent respect for prevailing powers compels an explanation of such abuses and usurpations.
Premier among said abuses and usurpations is a violation directly related to the legacy of slavery and to the greatest truth held within the document: “all men are created equal.” A document restrained in its references to divinity made an exception in this regard and for good reason. Our equality in our creation is asserted by God himself. No matter which god one worships, the assertion that all human beings are created equal does not invoke an earthly order. Instead, it is divinely ordained and thus irrevocable.
The Democrats, the most diverse of the country’s citizens, are not being treated according to this clearly stated recognition of our God-given equality. Instead, we are treated as second-class citizens. For those who find this language hyperbolic, I present as evidence the structure of the government itself. It, particularly the Electoral College and the Senate, is designed to perpetuate minority rule. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that this entirely undemocratic structure was for some noble reason. It was not. It was to placate former slaveholding colonies, whose participation in the revolution against the British was necessary, and it came at the expense of the integrity of the union as a whole.
It is without question that the stated ideal in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” was compromised in the Constitution, to which there have been numerous amendments, in part, to correct this foundational wrong. As is well-documented, the corruption of this ideal among others was mainly to appease slaveholding colonies who held a depraved understanding of humanity. It was not a view of mankind based on facts or science but on a self-delusion of racial superiority and on all manner of barbarity in the pursuit of money and power. It is now better understood as our original sin. Indeed, reminiscent of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, this original sin still stains every aspect of our society.
The United States of America’s Electorate
How shall we understand the current polarized electorate? It is more accurately understood as the derivation of a bifurcation along more or less the same fault lines that marred the inception of the nation. I also argue that it is best understood in terms similar to the Civil War era leader of a Republican Party that no longer exists, Abraham Lincoln’s realization in a moment of divine inspiration as a battle of good and evil. If this characterization sounds too antiquated or religious to modern ears, I suggest that you tune your ears to the truth because the truth will set you free.
The hard truth for white Americans is that if they are more interested in preserving and protecting their whiteness and their positions of privilege than in preserving and protecting our democracy, then they are more aligned with white supremacists and violence, which is evil, than with democracy and peace, which is good. No matter what other policies are being debated, often ad nauseum, this is the only choice on the ballot that actually matters: democracy or autocracy.
The moral clarity of right and wrong, good and evil that Lincoln found was neither easily achieved nor easily pursued. He did so nonetheless; he prevailed, and he ended the institution of slavery. Following God’s call often comes at a personal price. This was the case for Lincoln and for many other white abolitionists, such as Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown. If white Americans are unwilling to sacrifice, not their lives but simply their (often ill-begotten) comfort and wealth, then please do not present yourselves to an enlightened, diverse society as anything but the modern manifestation of antebellum white oppressors.
Republican “leadership” often in the appeasement of their rabid and radicalized base but also in self-serving pursuits of the most vulgar variety, such as personal enrichment, and at the expense of our democracy would do well to remember certain truths about the other half. The Democrats, who they are alienating at best to outright vilifying, are the country’s brains and its purse. This statement is verifiable. Republicans would also do well to remember that, despite decades of decadence and indiscipline, Americans, particularly Democrats, are collectively some of the toughest people in the world.
America is a nation of immigrants. Recent immigrants, in particular, have often risked everything, including their lives, to come to this country. Descendants of former slaves and indigenous people know well past and present cruelties. Drawing upon their collective memories and experiences, they can call on a trial-tested fortitude to defend against new oppressors. Even those Democrats who have been softened by years of inherited wealth will likely be able to rekindle the noble spirit of their ancestors to fight on behalf of the nation’s eternal ideals and against the tyranny of despotism.
Unlike many other countries, often ancient civilizations that are both enriched and encumbered by the past, the United States of America is a relatively new nation. It is also an idealistic one that continues to believe in itself and, in spite of the flawed execution of its ideals as contained in the Constitution, is accustomed to a certain respect for the inherent dignities of its people. A people like these should not to be underestimated and should not be tested.
The imposition of the evil one, a person who is entirely unfit for any political office or position of authority, on the Democrats will lead to an irreparable fissure. Democrats will not accept it, and the nation will be torn asunder into two parts: democratic and autocratic. The warning is as follows: the Republican Party allows or enables the evil one to become its presidential candidate at the country’s and the democracy’s peril.
The pro-democracy half of the country, the Democrats will fight to protect the rights and the freedoms that are our birthright and for the full recognition of these rights and freedoms and of our humanity as stated in the Declaration of Independence: “all men are created equal.” As our Founding Fathers did, we will submit our facts to a candid world, and we will throw off the despots that aim to subvert our will and oppress us.
At the gym, I was subjected to a music video called “Paradise.” It starts with two fully clothed men riding their bikes while two bikini-clad women strike pornographic poses on a beach. It ends with Chris Brown singing, “See you on the other side,” while surrounded by scantily-clad women raising their glasses and dancing at a full-blown beach party. Paradise lost; party found.
I don’t know what has happened or is happening to this country, but it’s lost its way. The right has weaponized the majority religion, Christianity, while appealing to more “conservative” factions of other religions and libertarians, to hold onto power, money and white privilege. The left has weaponized hatred of religion, mainly Christianity, while appealing to more “liberal” factions of other religions and libertarians to gain power, money and to further place themselves in positions of privilege. Both extremes are disgusting and dangerous.
I have held a reverence for and have unwaveringly pursued a truly intellectual and artistic life since I was a teenager. My life is my bona fides, and it is incontestable. Given who I am and how I have lived, the left’s trajectory has repulsed me. It has divorced itself from anything resembling the search for truth, which is my life’s commitment. Instead, it is simply in pursuit of itself and the imposition of itself on a society that is struggling to define who it is and what it believes.
Although I have always been a Christian, I have not always been a deeply religious person, but I have also never harbored any hatred for Christianity or for any other religion. Instead, I have always been fascinated by religions. I have read various religious texts, artistically engaged with diverse religious art and visited many places of worship.
I would view any other approach as a betrayal of my objectivity, which is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of truth. These religions have also added a critical spiritual dimension to my intellectual and artistic pursuits that gave them depth. Without my spiritual journeys, my understanding of the human experience and of truth would be incomplete and superficial.
The left has become a grotesque caricature of an “enlightened” person. It has replaced genuine curiosity and the often endless and frustrating search for truth with no search at all. It is not trying to find paradise. It is not questioning if we have lost paradise. It is not even genuinely questioning if an otherworldly paradise exists. It is just a party that wants to party. It is shallow, stupid and self-centered.
It has easy answers for hard questions, which effectively means that it has no answers at all. The left has also engaged in various forms of revisionism that are basically lies it conveniently peddles to support its narrative and its agenda. It has become the opposite extreme of everything it claims to hate on the right, so much so that there is, in fact, a considerable overlap between extreme right and left.
Let me put this as succinctly as I can. Both of these extremes are an intellectual and artistic failure. The left, which considers itself “enlightened,” actually has nothing meaningful to offer to either an individual who is genuinely seeking a deeper understanding of him or herself or to our society as we navigate a period of considerable change and uncertainty.
Power differentials as an integral part of an institution’s structure are not as common as people might assume. In some respects, power differentials are pervasive, such as in employment situations. Most people have a boss, and he or she does have power over his or her employees. However, a boss’s power is relatively limited in scope. If abused, typically, the worst that can happen is losing the job and the associated finances. Also, there is usually a human resources department or some type of accountability mechanism in place to prevent or deal with abuses of power, however moderately effective they might be.
Conversely, teaching at the post-secondary level has almost no checks on a professor’s power, and yet, it is, by and large, a remarkably ethical profession. Professors have considerable latitude in the structure of their courses, in their policies, and in their application of them, and the grades they assign remain on their students’ transcripts for the rest of their lives.
This level of professionalism in academia is particularly striking since most professors do not get any training in teaching, aside from teaching assistantships, which are not necessarily required, or even in ethics. Granted, it usually takes a minimum of a decade of full-time study to earn a doctorate degree, which is its own form of training. Nonetheless, the ethical standard is unspoken yet implicitly understood by all professors – treat your students fairly.
As an aside, it is this consistent level of professionalism that led to the medical profession, which has been plagued by various ethical scandals, most recently, its role in the nation’s opioid epidemic, adopting the academic title of “doctor.” It is and will always be an academic title. Even though the ultimate culpability lies with the police officers, it should also be noted that the opioid epidemic, fueled by the medical and the pharmaceutical industries, was a contributing yet overlooked factor in the murder of George Floyd.
A key aspect to treating all students fairly is having a clear policy in place and applying it uniformly. In considering any one student’s request, the question to ask is: given the student’s situation and the policy, would granting the student’s request be fair to the student and to the rest of the class? One needs to consider both the student making the request and the other students in the class.
It is also understood that no matter how the student might have treated the professor or the professor’s personal feelings regarding the student, his or her grade must be based strictly on his or her performance in the class. Needless to say, the student’s performance in any other class or any other behavioral issues cannot factor into the professor’s assessment of the student’s performance or the professor’s treatment of the student, which always needs to be mature, professional, and proportional.
Law enforcement does not share academia’s reputation for professionalism, and its implicitly understood guidelines do not seem to be followed, despite the explicit training for police officers, but they should be. Equal treatment is the cardinal rule that must be observed when power differentials exist, particularly as part of an institutional structure.
There is a clear power differential between the police and the people they are called to serve and protect. Police brutality is fundamentally an abuse of power. Instead of the equal treatment that is simply taken for granted in academia, in policing, there are often clear biases and reactions that are grossly disproportionate to the offense. Also, as we have seen sadly too many times, unlike in the academic context, a police officer’s abuse of power can be deadly for the victim.
This article suggests that Derek Chauvin’s defense argues that fear was a motiving factor for his conduct. I would argue that the correct expectation is the academic standard and that the police’s feelings, no matter what they are including fear, should never be a factor. Police officers are to completely separate their emotions from the execution of their duties.
Instead, we see that particularly for Derek Chauvin, but also for J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, their emotions governed their every action and that from the very beginning of their interaction with George Floyd and his companions, the police were completely out of control of themselves and of the situation. Within minutes of approaching the parked car George Floyd was sitting in, responding to nothing but the alleged use of a counterfeit $20 bill, a police officer pulled his gun and aimed it at Floyd.
How could this reaction possibly be equal treatment? It was not. It was prejudicial treatment, based on Floyd’s appearance, who was a big, black man. His prior record, if even known to the police at the time, was completely irrelevant to the potential petty offense they were called to resolve. It was emotional and egotistical. It was about their assertion of their power. It was about forcing someone, who is made in the image of God and granted by him with free will, to submit to their will.
It was uncontrolled. Floyd’s altered state of mind was equally irrelevant to the potential offense. If anything, his state placed more burden on the police officers to act in a controlled and calm manner instead of what we saw, which was the opposite. Their reaction was also grossly disproportionate to the potential offense. It was unprofessional, and, unfortunately, it was deadly. It was none of the things one would expect of a professional police response, and it resulted in the police murdering George Floyd.
Police culture needs to change. There needs to be the expectation for police officers that with great power comes great responsibility. As in academia, the onus is on the person with the power to always be in control of him or herself and to use that power judiciously and fairly. If one cannot do this, the person should simply not become a police officer. If one does not do this and abuses one’s power, as in this case, the person should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
It is a privilege to write about the persecuted church, who are true Christians, and one I certainly do not deserve. I feel that this should be done by someone holy, which I am not. I am an ordinary sinner. Their stories of great persecution and of great faith often reduce me to tears and make me more aware of how much I take my religious freedoms for granted and how undeserving I am of God’s tremendous grace and love.
I desperately want to help them. I would like to reach through my computer screen and lift them out of their misery and restore them in every possible way. On a tangible level, I am limited to giving what I can. I encourage everyone to give generously to the persecuted church. Our brothers and sisters often sacrifice everything to follow Jesus Christ, and they need our help. As Christians know though, our power is really in our prayers and petitions to our God. It is in my prayers for them, which are the most frequent and the most intense of all my prayers, that my hope ultimately resides. I would like the Lord to hear these above all others, hear his people’s tears and suffering, and with his powerful hand do what I cannot.
Christ Suffered, True Christians Also Suffer
When Christians pray, we often ask for many things. We ask to be granted various forms of aid and to be relieved of suffering for ourselves and for others. This is quite understandable, and we should continue to do so. However, we also need to remember that the story for Christians is the story of Christ, and his story is one of suffering. Jesus died a brutal death, executed by crucifixion under false charges. It was also a death he freely accepted. We can remember his journey and allow his tremendous sacrifice, which is our salvation, to also be our comfort as we endure our own trials and tribulations.
“I Have Chosen You Out of the World”
The following words applied to Jesus’s disciples then and still apply to the persecuted church throughout the world today. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you…. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.” (John 15:18-19, 21)
A Story of a True Christian
There are so many stories of persecution that deserve our attention, and they span the globe, from the Middle East to Asia to Africa to South America. To highlight one story, there is nothing more painful for a parent than to lose his or her child. As shared by Christopher Summers with Open Doors (2019), Neelesh’s 7-year-old Christian son was beaten to death by Buddhist boys at his boarding school in India.
After his death, his depressed father resorted to alcohol to self-medicate and, on one occasion, ran into his former pastor. “Gazing right into my eyes, he said, ‘Neelesh, do you want to meet your son?’ I was so very angry. I said, ‘Are you mocking me? You know he is long dead!’ To my astonishment, the pastor replied gently, ‘If you drink like this and leave Jesus, you will never meet your boy, who is now in heaven.’
‘His answer shook me to the core. Here was the truth! My son was just seven when he died, but he loved Jesus. He sang hymns wholeheartedly whenever I led in worship. My martyred son is surely in heaven. I would never see him if I left Jesus.
‘That night I had a vision. I saw my son playing in a beautiful garden. As I went towards him he stopped me and said, “Dad, you should not come here now. It is not yet your time. See, I am very happy here.”’
Neelesh says that after that night he felt an extraordinary peace in his heart. He comforted his wife and restarted his ministry. ‘It was as if God had revived me totally,’ he says. ‘I moved on with more faith and zeal than ever and have been continuing still.’”
Christians who are born again can often point to a moment when grace penetrated their heart, mind and soul and soon thereafter redirected their lives to fulfill God’s will. This is not to suggest that they magically transform into a different person or that they experience no doubts or spiritual setbacks afterwards but that their faith becomes solidified in a way it had not been before and that they gain renewed clarity and purpose for their lives.
The truth of Neelesh’s life is that his suffering, the loss of his only son because he followed Jesus, could have made him a bitter man, but instead he became a better man and a better Christian through grace. This is what it means to be a Christian.
Desecration of Christians’ Sacred Symbols
It feels almost sacrilegious to write of the holy and the unholy in the same post, but it is important to place them next to each other to see the obvious contrast of true Christians with devil worshippers. It is easy to hold the Bible high, and we recently witnessed this profanity by the dear leader of the devil worshippers, the supposed president of the United States. This sacrilegious act made headlines for all the wrong reasons, yet it was defended by certain people of whom we will speak shortly.
Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, wrote on June 4, 2020, “I was outraged by…Trump’s use of the Bible and the backdrop of St. John’s Church for his political purposes. I was horrified to learn that while he was threatening to use military force across America, peaceful protesters were being forcibly removed from Lafayette Park so that he might pose before the church for a photograph. I wasn’t alone. My phone lit up with messages from people across the country who, like me, couldn’t believe what we were seeing. But if we keep the focus of our outrage there, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the issues that are compelling Americans to take to the streets in large numbers. I wonder if that’s the intention.”
Indeed, the nation is wondering a good many things. Predominant among them should be: how did we get here, where a satanic cult leader is also the leader of the free world? Perhaps the most important reason is: the “Christian right.”
The Opposite of Christians – Devil Worshippers
The Gospel Coalition recently wrote a piece on QAnon, which they described as a satanic cult. Carter (May 20, 2020) wrote, “As Adrienne LaFrance writes, ‘To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.’” Indeed. That new religion is a satanic cult that bears no resemblance to Christianity. Carter follows with, “(…Trump has frequently retweeted QAnon-related accounts on Twitter, and some parenting and lifestyle ‘influencers’ promote the views on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.) Although it’s still on the fringe, Christians should be aware of the threat this political cult poses to the global church.”
What The Gospel Coalition and Carter should have said is that they are actually describing the “Christian right,” i.e. self-proclaimed “Christian conservatives,” although there is nothing either Christian or conservative about them, and that QAnon is just a more extreme expression of the very ideas and the culture that is mainstream in their churches. The “Christian conservatives” will take great umbrage at this characterization and protest (of course, they doth protest too much), but it is an accurate description.
As just one example, Eric Martin (August 2020) wrote, “One of the alt-right’s biggest political influences is former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, communications director under Ronald Reagan. He and fellow Catholic Joe Sobran served as inspiration for a blog referred to as ‘the alt-right’s favorite philosophy instructor,’ and his comments on immigration and questioning the Holocaust are the type of kinder, gentler white nationalism that provides oxygen for the more obvious forms. Buchanan has claimed that Jews hold the ‘real power’ in the U.S., that not as many died in the Holocaust as reported, and that ‘this has been a country built, basically, by white folks.’ When an interviewer suggested that white people had held power in the U.S. for years, Buchanan bristled. ‘I don’t know where you grew up,’ he retorted. ‘I grew up in a Catholic ghetto.'”
As another example, Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham, and he has inherited a legacy he does not deserve. What was the supposed high priest of the “Christian right’s” reaction to the repugnant desecration of a church? Franklin Graham took to Facebook with the following message, “President Donald J. Trump made a statement by walking through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church that had been vandalized and partially burned Sunday night. He surprised those following him by holding up a Bible in front of the church. Thank you President Trump. God and His Word are the only hope for our nation.” What would compel Franklin Graham to defend the indefensible?
Simple. Franklin Graham does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is power hungry. Similarly, Eric Metaxas does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is a careerist. Another, Jerry Falwell, Jr. does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is an opportunist. The list goes on. They worship false gods. They are devil worshipers since they all worship Donald Trump. They are not Christians, and they need to stop claiming to be Christians. Do not be led astray by these pretenders, these worshippers of false gods.
Christians’ One True God
Let us return to our one true God. Jesus fulfills the word, and what he said of the unbelievers who knew Moses’s laws and words and could recite them quite well but never understood their meaning still applies today to other self-proclaimed “believers.” Jesus said, “’I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?” (John 5:41-44)
The false prophets do not love Jesus or the Father, and they do not have the love of God in them. We know this because if they did, it would show clearly to the rest of us. Instead, when we hear them or see them, we cannot see Jesus because he is not there. Jesus is one of the most loved and admired figures in the world. Even those who do not believe in his divinity can see his goodness because it is clear who Jesus loves. He loves the Father and us. He is one with the Father, and every word he spoke and every action he took reflected who he was and who he loved.
When in the garden at Gethsemane, Jesus says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) This is what real love of God looks like, and it is also obvious in the persecuted church. Do not mistake false prophets for men of God. Men of god love God; they seek his praise and his love; they seek to do his will. In Neelesh, we can see Jesus. Summers writes, “The anguish of losing his son has not passed—and never will—but the hope has returned. ‘I have made up my mind now,’ Neelesh says. ‘I will live for Christ and if He wants, I will die for him. Because what I lose for Him, I will actually gain in the end.’”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Martin Luther King, Jr., we can see Jesus. In his famous, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, he said, “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper…. Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights….
We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn’t matter with me now because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” He was assassinated the next day.
The “Christian Right” Are Not Christians
Instead, what do people see when they look at the “Christian right”? Nothing holy and nothing resembling Jesus. There are so many damning statements. I am surely missing some of the most biting, but here is a sampling nonetheless.
If an uprising for racial justice feels like a threat to your Christianity, it’s time to learn the difference b/w #SlaveholderReligion & the Christianity of Christ.
— Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (@wilsonhartgrove) June 23, 2020
You get the idea. It is like trying to escape one’s racist past while still being racist in the present. No amount of cute marketing gimmicks, such as “weird [insert denomination or denomination] Twitter,” can change that.
The Satanic Cult Leader
Christianity Today’s retired editor in chief Mark Galli (December 2019) wrote a powerful statement regarding Trump’s impeachment, in which he declared that Trump should be removed from the office because of his character weaknesses and his conduct. Galli’s statement took courage, and he deserves credit for it. However, you know what else was powerful? The backlash against it from white evangelicals and other “Christian conservatives.”
More recently, Christianity Today published a piece that wholly lacked Galli’s moral clarity. Jayson Casper (June 30, 2020) wrote, “… ‘Trump’s executive order will make the commitment to international religious freedom more robust,’ said former congressman Frank Wolf, arguing the Trump administration has been markedly stronger on the issue than those of either party. ‘If you care about religious freedom, this is an issue to vote on.’”
While the “Christian right” morally contorts themselves into pretzels to avoid what is clearly a difficult choice for them between Jesus and Trump, the persecuted church has no such difficulties. They, like Martin Luther King, Jr., like the recently deceased John Lewis, like Elijah Cummings, like so many good Christian men and women around the world choose Christ over everything including themselves. That is love for and faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. That is what Christianity and true Christians look like. Do not be deceived by anything or anybody else. Look for the Lord in those who claim to be Christian and if you cannot find Jesus, you could very well be looking at the devil in disguise.
Without ethnic minority groups, the United States would have no culture because white Christian culture by itself is no culture. Given its various characteristics, such as location, population, economics, etc., the Midwest is a good region to analyze to better understand the country as a whole.
The midwestern states are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The Midwest can be divided into two subregions: the Northwest Territory (also known as the Old Northwest) and the Great Plains. States in the Northwest Territory are Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, and the rest, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, belong to the Great Plains.
Based on the July 2017 census, the largest city in the entire Midwest is Chicago, Illinois, which unsurprisingly also has the largest metropolitan area. Given its sheer size and diversity, Chicago is more similar to New York City or Los Angeles than other midwestern cities. It is also part of the Northwest Territory.
Minneapolis Culture
Outside of Chicago, arguably no other midwestern city boasts a truly vibrant culture aside from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It ranks eighth among the largest cities and third for the largest metropolitan area. Minneapolis is actually one of the two “Twin Cities,” with Saint Paul being the other city, which ranks twelfth.
Minneapolis has grown and changed dramatically in its recent history, and it now ranks among the most cultured cities in the country. Where does this culture come from? The answer is that it does not come from white Christians. It comes from its ethnic minorities.
Food Culture
Without its ethnic minority groups, again the people who are not white Christians, the city of Minneapolis and its inhabitants would still be eating lefsa and lutefisk, not that there is anything wrong with them as cultural legacy, but there is just not much demand for the rather crude culinary offerings.
Neither is there much culinary sophistication in “hotdish,” also known as casserole, hotdogs and burgers, the last two being originally German fare. They are all now standard American fare, but they so ubiquitous that they, by themselves, cannot create a culinary culture.
Eat Street, which runs along Nicollet Avenue, starting just outside its downtown district, is one of the most well-known streets in Minneapolis for food. It hosts a variety of restaurants but is dominated by Asian ones.
The restaurants are supported by farmers markets and a growing farm-to-table movement, giving minority groups, such as the Hmong, a way to maintain their traditional livelihoods. (Obviously, many restaurants in the city have come under financial pressure due to the shutdown in response to the pandemic.)
Nelson (2019) writes, “Restaurants have always been on the front lines of the melting pot in this country. Twin Cities diners can circumnavigate the globe several times over and never leave the seven-county metro area. Culinary traditions spanning every continent — Indonesia to India, Morocco to Mexico, Somalia to Singapore — are represented here in restaurants and markets, a breadth and depth unimaginable 20 years ago.”
Long Live the Arts
However, food alone does not a culture make. There are many cities in diverse parts of the country, for example Southern California, with well-developed food cultures that still lack a strong overall culture. Also, many Americans mistake entertainment for culture. Sports are entertainment. They are not a key contributor to a city’s culture.
The arts and a vibrant arts community are absolutely critical to creating an authentic local culture. The Minneapolis arts scene thrives in all forms: fine arts, theater, music, dance, local activities and festivals, often using its well-maintained public parks and lakes, which are also an investment, as its venues. It is not just about art for art’s sake but art for the sake of having a living city, a city that has a sense of cultural purpose, not just a city in which one lives.
Minneapolis Music Culture – Bob Dylan and Prince
The two most famous people to come out of the state are Bob Dylan and Prince. Bob Dylan, originally named Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born to a Jewish family in Duluth, MN and raised in Hibbing, MN. He later moved to Minneapolis to study at the University of Minnesota. After dropping out of college, he moved to New York City, where he started and made his musical career. As an aside, Bob Dylan was inspired by Woody Guthrie, whose life and music should be reflected upon more, particularly as it relates to class, race relations and equality.
Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis. He rose to stardom on sheer tenacity, savvy and talent, as a racist music industry once refused to allow him and other black musicians, such as arguably the most famous musician in the world at the time, Michael Jackson, to air their music videos on MTV. Prince’s exploitation by said music industry led him to change his name from his birth name to a symbol (a combination of male and female symbols) in 1993 until he changed it back in 2000.
Unlike Dylan, who left Minneapolis, Prince maintained his residence in the city, technically the suburb of Chanhassen, where his home and studio, Paisley Park are located. He hosted parties there, and he would sometimes show up at them or other music events in the city. He loved Minneapolis, and the city loved him. His untimely passing in 2016 at the age of 57 was one of the city’s great heartbreaks.
It is poetic justice that the city’s and state’s proudest native sons are a black man and a Jewish man, respectively. As the racist-tweeting, Eric Metaxas even somewhat concedes, Martin Luther, for his justified opposition to the corrupt Catholic Church was unjustifiably opposed to the people who actually gave us Christianity.
Update: Their murder occurred 100 years ago today, June 15, 2020. A message from Gov. Walz: “To truly be One Minnesota, we need to dismantle the systems of oppression that led to the deaths of Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie 100 years ago, and that led to the death of George Floyd just 3 weeks ago. Today I met with Duluth leaders to discuss how we can and will move forward.” On June 12, 2020, “the Governor [had] issued the state’s first posthumous pardon to Max Mason, who was wrongfully convicted and used as a scapegoat for the lynching.”
American Culture Is Color and Cool
Bazelon (2018) wrote, “Being white in America has long been treated, at least by white people, as too familiar to be of much interest. It’s been the default identity, the cultural wallpaper — something described, when described at all, using bland metaphors like milk and vanilla and codes like ‘cornfed’ and ‘all-American.'”
Another way of describing it is actually no culture, the absence of anything that gives life dimension, and frankly, some sense of cool. White people need to get over themselves and their “white fragility,” which as Waldman (2018) writes, DiAngelo argues in her book “holds racism in place,” because frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn and accept the fact that the collective minority groups bring coolness and culture to the country. They can justifiably throw their stake into American soil and claim its culture to be their own because it is.
George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis Police on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020, a national holiday dedicated to mourning our military personnel who have died while serving our country. Surrounded by death from Covid 19, his singular death, on a day marked to pay our respects to prior deaths, seemed to paradoxically release the death grip on our country, as we threw ourselves into resurrecting it and rejecting evil.
This paradox was alluded to on our first brief post, “The specter of death now looms over the world as nature enters a period of rebirth. It might seem paradoxical, until one considers that it is also Lent, and life, death and rebirth have been married together in that context for approximately 2,000 years.”
Our nation’s rebirth has also overlapped with Pentecost Sunday, which was May 31, 2020, a day when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and gave them the fortitude, comfort and aid that they would need to spread the truth and the faith.
We are apostles of a different sort, as we take our demands for justice, our messages of love, peace, equality, of everything good and holy to a country that has been darkened by power, greed, corruption, betrayal and all manner of sin, in short, to a country that has fallen prey to the forces of evil.
Today, June 6, 2020 is the 76th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France in Operation Overlord during World War II. It is a day when the forces of good staged a pivotal battle in their war against the forces of evil, a day when Allied forces started to release the Nazi’s death grip on Europe, and anti-fascists faced down fascists and eventually won the war.
For Americans, the past almost two weeks, starting May 26, 2020, when many of us first found out about George Floyd’s murder, have been some of the most emotionally taxing days in our memory. His murder was the catalyst for the outpouring of anger, frustration and sadness that had been building for many of us for years about the gross injustices our black sisters and brothers face on a daily basis.
As Wortham wrote in an essay titled, AGlorious Poetic Rage, “Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights organization Color of Change, speculated that it was the stark cruelty of the video of George Floyd’s death that captivated the country.”
The poetry of the moment is part of the country’s collective poetic anthology. Many on the right have tried to frame the present protests as unpatriotic or un-American, as an assault on “law and order,” but their characterizations could not be further from the truth. They are lies, and they are liars.
Following in the footsteps of honorable generations upon generations of Americans who have fought to defend our country, our protests are our psalms of communal lament for and our songs of love to our nation. They are our latest expressions of patriotism, and we are our country’s present defenders.
Let us not minimize the critical nature of this moment. We are the defenders of good, and we are in a battle against evil. We are fighting to unclench the fist that has been squeezing the breath and life out of our country and its people. (See this post for context.)
Just as our country’s citizens change, the poetic language of our citizens change. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” “Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty,” have taken on a more personal tone, as our cries repeat the final words of the victims of state-sanctioned violence, “I Can’t Breathe,” “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” to the simple assertion of black Americans’ humanity, a statement that had once been (and perhaps still is) the subject of controversy, “Black Lives Matter.”
Good Against Evil’s Death Grip
As in World War II, Americans are in a life and death battle against the forces of evil. Our lives are literally at stake, as is our democracy. We need to do everything we can to protect it from tyranny and fascism. Let us speak directly of this evil. As we spoke all of the names of the victims of police violence, let us speak the name of this evil that is destroying our country.
The devil does not just reside across an ocean, in a foreign country, speaking in a foreign tongue, but, our dear Americans, it lives in the people’s house. It has taken hold of our sacred national spaces and tried to force upon our country’s capital its death grip under the guise of relatively innocuous-sounding phrases, such as “flood the zone.”
These various armed forces have been attacking and harming peaceful protesters. In one case, this evil man did so to desecrate a sacred Christian house of worship while brandishing the Bible, which he never reads. This evil is trying to impose a fascist death grip on our nation’s capital and on our country.
This evil inhabits a soulless man named Donald J. Trump. Conway writes, “As a New Yorker profile of Trump put it nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump lives ‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’ That’s Donald Trump’s problem yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
It is his eternal problem because as a child of darkness, he seems incapable of emitting one ounce of light. Instead, like a black hole, Trump functions by sucking everything into the demonic, empty, narcissistic shell of his person.
Trump’s Death Grip and His Satanic Cults
Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that the devil walks alone. He is accompanied by secular sycophants and religious mercenaries who have sold their professed “Christian” faith for their own personal ambitions.
In particularly, many white evangelicals stopped being about anything resembling Jesus. Instead of making themselves more like Jesus, they made Jesus more like themselves. Some of them have given themselves fully over to the dark side. QAnon is a satanic cult that is pretending to be Christian nationalists, which are a form of evil themselves.
However, the problem is not limited to just white evangelicals. Within the Catholic Church, which has had numerous engagements with the unholy while holding high its mantle of holiness, there are abettors of this evil. Most recently, the devil in the Catholic Church takes on the form of a petty man with gloriously meaningless turns of phrases that he recently weaved into a public display of idolization for a false god, Donald Trump.
Against these forces of evil, we are an army of good. We have each other, which is really all we need. We will prevail. We will save our country and ourselves from this present death grip so that it can breathe and so that we can truly live free. As Patrick Henry declared, so do we, “Give us liberty or give us death” because “Black Lives Matter.” We rise and fall together. E pluribus unum.
Minnesota calls itself the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and Minneapolis was known for its harsh winters and its good quality of life, including its well-maintained parks and lakes. Now, it is known as the city in which George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was cruelly murdered by the Minneapolis police, the men and women in whom we entrust with the great privilege and responsibility of protecting and serving our communities.
The Events Resulting in George Floyd’s Murder
The purported reason for George Floyd’s arrest was a suspected $20 white-collar crime, a fraudulent payment. The real reason was the color of his skin. Thanks to Darnella Frazier, whose account Twitter suspended for an unknown reason, we have the true story, the video of George Floyd’s death, instead of the deceptive story provided in the police report. We thank Darnella, who is only 17-years-old, for her courage, conscience and presence of mind to record it. She was traumatized by the experience, and we pray for her.
George Floyd died with an officer pressing his knee against his neck for over 9 minutes. Floyd’s tortured face pressed into the asphalt, he pled with the officer(s), speaking words that brought back the memory of Eric Garner, “I can’t breathe.” “I can’t breathe,” Floyd says; “I can’t breathe.” He calls out for his mother, “mama,” he says. He urinated on himself. (The graphic video can be found on the Internet.)
There were numerous witnesses. Their panicked concern was palpable, and they begged the officer(s) to release him, to take his knee of the visibly distressed man. The officers did not. You can hear the officers joking as George Floyd is dying. Floyd’s body slowly becomes lifeless, and when the medics came, he no longer had a pulse. He was dead. (A timeline of the events is provided here. )
This is how an American citizen, our brother, a broken man (as we all are) of faith, a human being, a child of God, died. He was treated like an animal, like his life had no value, like his person had no dignity. This is how the men we gave the privilege and responsibility of protecting and serving our communities treated one of our own. They heartlessly murdered George Floyd, and we are angry; we are traumatized; we are heartbroken, and we are fed up. We want peace, justice and revolution – not just change – but a complete transformation of our society.
Our Country Is Broken
The country, which had been suffering under decades of economic mismanagement and rising inequality, reached a fever pitch under the physical and mental stress of the pandemic, the associated shutdown, and its economic devastation. The country was (and still is) a tinder box. This was the spark that lit it on fire, in many cases, literally. Since May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd was wantonly murdered by the Minneapolis Police, there have been protests.
These protests often started out peacefully but, towards evening, would erupt into violence, as a combustible mix of opportunists, anarchists, implementing a modern version of propaganda of the deed, and/or Antifa (a violence-prone, left-wing anti-fascist group) and/or white supremacists (violent right-wing groups) looted, vandalized and terrorized the city, damaging many minority-owned businesses in the process.
Starting Friday, May 29, 2020, the city of Minneapolis was put under curfew from 8PM until 6AM, with violations being a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine. On the first night of the curfew, the violence had not really abated. (Images of the protests can be found here.)
The absurdity of the autopsy report is just more proof (as if we needed it) that the problem of systemic racism in our country is not simply about the police department but also a failure of our entire system of “justice.” It is an insult to our intelligence and a disgrace to our country. As Petri wrote, “[I]t is always at the moment that their knee is descending on a human neck, or their bullet is flying toward a man, or they have him in a chokehold, when this human being’s own system decides to turn against him. It is a horrible curse.”
George Floyd to the System Reforming Itself?
The key question is: can the system reform itself, to paraphrase Cornell West, who thinks it cannot. It is understandable why he would think so. It is understandable why the people, particularly younger people, who have been completely failed by the country, its supposed leaders and its institutions, would have no faith in any system within the country being capable of self-reformation.
The justifiably angry driver says to the cop, “Dad a criminal?” Nope. “Dad a thug?” Nope. “Dad shot dead by a cop made a mistake cuz you want to come with your gun drawn.” In other words, even with protests exploding across the country in response to police brutality, as the man explains, the cop came to the car with his gun drawn over the driver not using a turn signal.
We are all too exhausted and emotionally drained to do more than try to process our pain, frustration and anger. It is hard to not feel a deep sense of despair and hopelessness about the state of our country right now. We must keep fighting though, and we have our faith to give us strength. Our deepest condolences to George Floyd’s friends and family. He was known to us, and he will be deeply missed. Fellow Americans, we say this with love – Jesus’s way – the way of peace – is the only way.
One of the advantages that the United States has in comparison to India or the European Union is that, by and large, Americans all speak the same language, English, which facilitates labor mobility. (We highly encourage all Americans to learn a second language nonetheless.)
Fiscal Union, Labor Mobility and Language
The importance of speaking the same language was under-appreciated prior to Europe’s (the eurozone’s) launch of its currency and monetary union (one currency managed by one central bank) experiment, which is more commonly known as the euro. This likely resulted in labor mobility being overestimated. (Another factor of production whose mobility is important in this context is capital.)
The United States, Europe and India are all large, democratic countries or regions. However, India, unlike Europe (more specifically, the eurozone) but similar to the United States is also a fiscal union, but like Europe and dissimilar to the United States, India’s citizens speak different languages. (Although a detailed comparison of the three areas and these aspects, fiscal union and common language, are beyond the scope of this post, it is helpful to keep these similarities and differences in mind.) Thus, unlike India and Europe, the United States benefits from both a fiscal union and a common language.
The recent headlines have been focused on fiscal transfers, i.e., the federal government, which is not required to balance its budget, “bailing out” the states, with the federal government’s transfer of funds effectively being fiscal transfers between states. However, the mainstream media has not really covered labor mobility.
OCA Theory, Labor Mobility and Language
Mundell’s (1961) paper, “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas [OCA],” presents the considerations and factors in determining whether or not an area is to be considered an optimum currency area. Mundell (p657) says, “The problem [deciding between a system of fixed exchange rates or a currency union] can be posed in a general and more revealing way by defining a currency area as a domain within which exchange rates are fixed and asking: What is the appropriate domain of a currency area?”
Mundell (p6) states that the “argument for flexible exchange rates based on national currencies is only as valid as the Ricardian assumption about factor mobility. If factor mobility is high internally and low internationally a system of flexible exchange rates based on national currencies might work effectively enough.”
On an OCA with respect to Europe, Mundell (p661) states, “One can cite the well-known position of J. E. Meade…, who argues that the conditions for a common currency in Western Europe do not exist, and that, especially because of the lack of labor mobility, a system of flexible exchange rates would be more effective in promoting balance-of-payments equilibrium and internal stability; and the apparently opposite view of Tibor Scitovsky…who favors a common currency because he believes that it would induce a greater degree of capital mobility, but further adds that steps must be taken to make labor more mobile and to facilitate supranational employment policies.”
Europe did not meet the OCA criteria, particularly labor mobility, at the time of the creation of the euro, i.e., ex-ante, and labor and, to a lesser extent, capital mobility were presumed to rise to meet the OCA criteria ex-post, after the creation of the euro. Although, capital has flowed more freely within the eurozone, the free flow of capital comes with certain risks.
For developing countries, it can pose the risk of “hot money,” i.e. destabilizing often speculative capital inflows that can evaporate when faced with an adverse condition. For an economically developed region, such as Europe, the free flow of capital can contribute to contagion. As traded securities move quickly and easily across borders, they can spread financial disruption if there are issues with those securities.
It can be argued that the creation of the euro was more beneficial to Europe’s capital than labor. European workers are often fluent in multiple languages. Yet even workers who speak different languages are limited in the countries to which they can move unless the companies for which they will be working primarily use a lingua franca, such as English, and/or the worker is able to learn the local language.
Labor Mobility and American Cities
Since Americans share a common language, it is not an issue with respect to labor mobility. Now, let us assume a symmetric natural shock, such as a pandemic, that increases the unemployment rate in each state in the country by an equal amount, say 20%. Let us also assume that half the population that is still employed is no longer required to go to an office but can work from home.
One would find that some of these people might decide to move elsewhere with a lower cost of living to decrease their living expenses even if their incomes remain the same since their barriers to doing so are limited only by their personal preferences and the costs associated with moving. Assuming constant income and lower expenses, ceteris paribus, they would have more disposable income. Thus, under the most equalizing of assumptions, workers would still likely move from areas with a higher cost of living to a lower cost of living.
Now, let us assume the same shock, but disparate unemployment rates for each state. Richter (May 22, 2020) compiled the rates here, which are “from the monthly jobs data that is based on household surveys that were collected in mid-April,” and one can see that, for April, they range from 7.9% in Connecticut to 28.2% in Nevada. His explanation for the difference is that shutting down Nevada’s large gambling and hotel industry had a strong negative impact on its economy, which seems reasonable. (The two cities have comparable population sizes and unemployment rates for February, i.e. prior to the economic shock.)
(Note, Richter states, “Since this data was collected in mid-April, it shows unemployment rates well before their peaks. The next jobs report, to be released in early June, will show the results from household surveys collected in mid-May. And those unemployment rates may be closer to the peak.”)
In a subsequent post on the same day, Richter provided an anecdote about someone he knows who moved. Once this person was no longer required to be physically present at Google’s office in Redwood City, he moved back to his parents’ house in St. Louis, Missouri, presumably to save money primarily on housing.
Richter states that for Los Angeles, the “number of working people collapsed by 23%, or by 1.16 million people, counting from December last year, to just 3.79 million workers, the lowest number in the data series going back to 1990.”
Richter adds that the “labor force…plunged by 8.3%, or by nearly 400,000 people, to 4.76 million people, the lowest since 2003. The labor force plunged because people left the county, retired, or stopped looking for work. The unemployment rate shot up to 20%.”
This is just an anecdote and early data from one city, but it is indicative of a possible trend, workers moving from cities with a higher cost of living to ones with a lower cost of living. Once more data come out, we will revisit this topic to analyze labor mobility, which is facilitated by our common language, during and (hopefully after) this pandemic period and its relationship with unemployment.
A good place to start to understand the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) response to the present crisis, its unprecedented lending, is by really understanding its response to the last one, which had been unprecedented until now. Before we are able to fully analyze the Fed’s response to the present crisis, which is still evolving and ongoing, the press or public will likely need to pursue Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for release of detailed information, as Bloomberg had to do the last time. Regarding the last crisis, the most extensive analysis of the Fed’s various lending programs was done by Felkerson (2011). Therefore, this series of posts will start there, by summarizing and explaining his analysis.
As many market participants and others know, the Fed manages the federal funds rate. This is the “standard tool” (targeting the rate, not the money supply) that the Fed uses to manage the economy. The fed funds market is an uncollateralized market in which depository institutions and government sponsored enterprises lend to each other overnight. The Fed participates in this market via its primary dealers until the effective fed funds rate falls in line with the Fed’s target rate.
Also, the Fed directly sets the discount window rates and terms (duration, haircut (overcollateralization), and collateral), which is available to commercial banks and other depository institutions. These are the key rates, and they went from approximately 5+% to 0% from August 2007 to December 2008. (It is important to keep in mind that the duration and other lending terms are key features of these arrangements.)
After hitting the zero-lower bound (in terms of short-term interest rates), the Fed engaged in quantitative easing, as explained here. Regarding the Fed’s balance sheet, the assets are publicly available here, and the corresponding increases are captured on the liabilities side as reserves (or excess reserves, with interest on excess reserves (IOER) starting in October 2008).
Fed Lending Starts – General
In addition to the reduction in these short-term interest rates (as well as IOER and elaborate forward guidance), the Fed created several special facilities. As Felkerson says, “The authorization of many of these unconventional measures would require the use of what was, until the recent crisis, an ostensibly archaic section of the Federal Reserve Act—Section 13(3), which gave the Fed the authority ‘under unusual and exigent circumstances’ to extend credit to individuals, partnerships, and corporations.” This point will become even more salient when we shift to the present period.
One of the distinguishing aspects of Felkerson’s methodology is the following: “To provide an account of the magnitude of the Fed’s bailout, we argue that each unconventional transaction by the Fed represents an instance in which private markets were incapable or unwilling to conduct normal intermediation and liquidity provisioning activities…. Thus, to report the magnitude of the bailout, we have calculated cumulative totals by summing each transaction conducted by the Fed.”
“Each transaction” are the critical words. When each transaction is counted, the total lending would be considerably higher than a methodology that counts each contract, for example, repo contract since they are often rolled over, only once, depending on how each transaction is defined.
Now, the alphabet soup of lending facilities as ordered and explained by Felkerson:
Term Auction Facility (TAF) – rate determined by auction, 28-day or 84-day term. Lending to depository institutions so that they could avoid the stigma associated with using the discount window, also acceptance of a wider range of collateral. Felkerson summarizes, “The TAF ran from December 20, 2007 to March 11, 2010…. A total of 416 unique [foreign and domestic] banks borrowed from this facility…. The Fed loaned $3,818 billion in total over the run of this program.”
Central Bank Liquidity Swap Lines (CBLS) – “The facility ran from December 2007 to February 2010 and issued a total of 569 loans…. In total, the Fed lent $10,057.4 billion to foreign central banks over the course of this program as of September 28, 2011.” His percentages calculated for each central bank were: ECB 80%, BoE 9%, SNB 4%, BoJ 4%, All Others 3%.
Series of term repurchase transactions (ST OMO) – “28-day repo contracts in which primary dealers posted collateral eligible under conventional open market operations…. In 375 transactions, the Fed lent a total of $855 billion dollars.”
Two of Bear Stearns’ hedge funds had considerable exposure to subprime mortgages, and this led to the whole firm experiencing liquidity problems. Specifically, regardless of the quality of its collateral or the relative concentration of the troubled assets to one part of its business, the firm was shut out of the tri-party repo market, on which it depended for liquidity to operate its business.
As Felkerson writes, in response, “on March 13…[it informed the Fed] that it would most likely have to file for bankruptcy the following day should it not receive an emergency loan. In an attempt to find an alternative to the outright failure of Bear, negotiations began between representatives from the Fed, Bear Stearns, and J.P. Morgan. The outcome of these negotiations was announced on March 14, 2008 when the Fed Board of Governors voted to authorize the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) to provide a $12.9 billion loan to Bear Stearns through J.P. Morgan Chase against collateral consisting of $13.8 billion.”
To facilitate the actual sale to Bear Stearns, the Fed created a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Maiden Lane I. As Felkerson explains, “Maiden Lane, LLC would repay its creditors, first the Fed [$28.82 billion] and then J.P. Morgan [$1.15 billion], the principal owed plus interest over ten years at the primary credit rate [one of the discount window rates] beginning in September 2010. The structure of the bridge loan and ML I represent one-time extensions of credit. As onetime extensions of credit, the peak outstanding occurred at issuance of the loans.”
On March 16, 2008, the same day that JPMorgan Chase issued its provisional merger with Bear Stearns, the Fed set up the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). This facility was meant to prevent these investment banks (banks that were not eligible to go to the discount window for assistance) from experiencing liquidity issues, which could quickly become solvency issues.
I use the word “prevent,” because theoretically, that is the idea with any backstop, including FDIC deposit insurance. Its creation is meant to instill confidence, and banks only avail themselves of the facility when its mere existence is not enough to prevent a run. (All of these liquidity issues can be characterized as runs.) However, just as with the discount window, the use of these facilities can come with stigma, with investors and market participants questioning the general viability of the firm when it resorts to using the lending facility.
Felkerson summarizes the PDCF as follows: “Initial collateral accepted in transactions under the PDCF were investment grade securities. Following the events in September of that year, eligible collateral was extended to include all forms of securities normally used in private sector repo transactions…. The PDCF issued 1,376 loans totaling $8,950.99 billion…. [T]he five largest borrowers account for 85 percent ($7,610 billion) of the total. Eight foreign primary dealers would participate in the PDCF, borrowing just six percent of the total. The PDCF was closed on February 1, 2010.”
Fed Lending Continued – AIG Specific
In the wake of Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy filing on September 15, 2008, to prevent AIG from failing, the Fed first created a revolving credit facility (RCF), “on September 16, 2008, which carried an $85 billion credit line; the RCF lent $140.316 billion to AIG in total,” and the Fed created a secure borrowing facility (SBF) to facilitate repo transactions; “[c]umulatively, the SBF lent $802.316 billion in direct credit in the form of repos against AIG collateral” (Felkerson).
Then Maiden Lane II “was created with a $19.5 billion loan from the FRBNY to purchase residential MBS from AIG’s securities lending portfolio,” and these proceeds were used to pay off SBF (Felkerson).
The Fed later created Maiden Lane III to “address the greatest threat to AIG’s restructuring—losses associated with the sizeable book of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) on which it had written credit default swaps (CDS)…, [which] was funded by a FRBNY loan to purchase AIG’s CDO portfolio, [totaling] $24.3 billion” in lending (Felkerson).
Then, “on December 1, 2009…FRBNY received preferred interests in two SPVs created to hold the outstanding common stock of AIG’s largest foreign insurance subsidiaries [AIA/ALICO transactions]… On September 30, 2010 an agreement was reached between the AIG, the Fed, the U.S. Treasury, and the SPV trustees…. [They] announced the closing of the recapitalization plan…, and all monies owed to the RCF were repaid in full January 2011” (Felkerson).
Let us pause at this point and consider that the United States central bank, whose dual mandate is price stability and full employment, and which is really not supposed to be buying anything but government-issued or, at best, government-backed (Agency MBS) securities, was purchasing CDOs of uncertain value, considerable opacity and high risk to help one corporation, AIG, which had become greedy and irresponsible. The total lending ($140 + $802 + $20 + $24 + $25) was over $1 trillion dollars. It is worth repeating. AIG got over $1 trillion in aid from the Fed while regular Americans often lost their homes, lost their jobs, went bankrupt or were plunged into poverty.
Fed Lending – The Alphabet Soup Continued
However, this was not the end of the Fed’s lending to help private industry, literally entire industries. Within the money market mutual fund (MMF) industry, the Reserve Primary Fund broke the buck on September 16, 2008. It not only held Lehman’s commercial paper but had actually increased its exposure to the firm prior to its bankruptcy.
This event triggered a run on the entire industry, which was over $2 trillion at the time. (Institution investors generally treat money market funds like depository institutions, that is, they seek capital preservation not returns.) The redemptions triggered a downward spiral in asset prices as the funds were forced to sell assets to meet them.
AMLF
The Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF) was created on September 19, 2008 to facilitate nonrecourse loans to MMFs at the primary credit rate. “Two institutions, J.P. Morgan Chase and State Street Bank and Trust Company, constituted 92 percent of AMLF intermediary borrowing…. Over the course of the program, the Fed would lend a total of $217.435 billion…. The AMLF was closed on February 1, 2010” (Felkerson).
CPFF
The mutual fund industry’s distress resulted in a flight to safety, which had an adverse effect on the commercial paper market. With companies issuing commercial paper unable to find enough buyers, the commercial paper market froze. “To address this disruption, the Fed announced the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) on October 7, 2008. [The SPV purchased] highly rated ABCP and unsecured U.S. dollar-denominated CP of three-month maturity from eligible issuers…. The cumulative total lent under the CPFF was $737.07 billion…. The CPFF was suspended on February 1, 2010” (Felkerson).
Note that even “highly rated ABCP” are still opaque instruments, and conservative institutional investors assess the risk of the instrument typically by the issuing bank not the underlying collateral.
TALF
These liquidity provisions were still unable to stabilize financial markets, which had transitioned to an originate-and-distribute model, and “the Fed announced the creation of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) on November 25, 2008. Operating similarly to the AMLF, the Fed provided nonrecourse loans to eligible borrowers posting eligible collateral, but for terms of five years. Borrowers then would act as an intermediary, using the TALF loans to purchase ABS [Asset Backed Securities]…. Although the Fed terminated lending under the TALF on June 30, 2010, loans remain outstanding under the program until March 30, 2015. The Fed loaned in total $71.09 billion” (Felkerson).
Summary of Fed Lending in 2008
Felkerson summarizes all the Fed’s lending programs as follows and provides the figure below: “When all individual transactions are summed across all unconventional LOLR [lender of last resort] facilities, the Fed spent a total of $29,616.4 billion dollars! Note this includes direct lending plus asset purchases…. Three facilities—CBLS, PDCF, and TAF—would overshadow all other unconventional LOLR programs, and make up 71.1 percent ($22,826.8 billion) of all assistance.”
Note that MBS data can be found on the SOMA site. (Felkerson separated them from the traditional Treasury securities that are a standard part of open market operations.) Felkerson notes that “[i]f the CBLS [central bank liquidity swaps] are excluded, 83.9 percent ($16.41 trillion) of all assistance would be provided to only 14 [of the largest financial] institutions [in the world]…. [And] the six largest foreign-based institutions would receive 36 percent ($10.66 trillion) of the total bailout.”
As calculated by Felkerson, the Fed’s lending programs in response to the 2008 financial crisis was massive, double the nominal GDP at the time; the institutions directly benefiting were relatively few, and the risks were high. The legal justification for what was at the time unprecedented actions was flimsy, the Federal Reserve Act—Section 13(3), if not illegal.
What was the reward for the American people, whose lives and tax dollars were ultimately at stake, for all of this Federal Reserve support for a financial system that had grown too large, too corrupt and too greedy? What did you get from the Fed’s astronomical amounts of lending? You got a system that learned how to exploit the existing order and you, the American people. The Federal Reserve has become captive to these financial players and markets, and you, the American people, are its victims.
