I excelled in the study of Constitutional Law, which excellence helped little if any in my subsequent practice of law, but helped a lot in my blogging.
The current firehose of constitutional indignities, though, defies my analysis. It’s too much, too fast — just as they intended.
I have thoughts on a few, but we’re into the structural parts of the Constitution now, the reconciliation of Articles I through III, and there are norms as well as laws. I suspect that the Trump team’s legal justifications will be rejected by the Courts as crackpottery, but even if I’m right, that’s not the end of it. Trump is no fan of norms.
Inversion in the Anglicansphere
These days, I tend very strongly to find “Anglicans” more simpatico than “Episcopalians.” But not this time, between Calvin Robinson and John Taylor:
Intemperate and Imprudent
Sorry trolls, it’s a Nazi salute: After Father Calvin Robinson threw out a “Roman salute,” also known as a Nazi salute, the Anglican Catholic Church ousted him. They wrote beautifully about why, and it’s a great articulation of the values that seem so distant, just a few weeks later.
Priests are certainly called to support the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life and on a range of other doctrinal issues; but they are not called to provoke, to troll, or to behave uncharitably toward their opponents. They are called to minister to, to persuade, to forgive, to be gentle, and to be kind even to their foes. Robinson demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament and prudence needed in a parish priest.
After Steve Bannon threw up a Nazi salute last Friday, French far-right leader Jordan Bardella canceled his CPAC speech, calling it “a provocation. . . a gesture referring to Nazi ideology.” So lame, Jordan, you’re totally misunderstanding this. Nothing says light-hearted youthful hijinks like a Nazi salute, Jordan. It’s a meme thing, Jordan!
It’s always in jest, they say, always a reference, never the one you’re thinking of. I’m showing my cards too much, but these salutes make me nauseous, and you better believe I’m in therapy like: I just don’t get why Nazis are back and Do I need to listen to Martyr Made’s new revisionist WWII podcast and Is there lots of evidence that Brigitte Macron is a man and I’m just totally missing it? So weird that my therapist keeps canceling our sessions when I am simply emailing photos of Brigitte’s shoulders and asking if they look wide.
Art anticipates life
Seeing Putin’s boys bully a besieged freedom fighter in the Oval Office was humiliating for every American. Since there is no presidential precedent for the public brutalizing of an ally, we reach for fiction and Mayor Carmine DePasto, from the comedy “Animal House,” and his summit with the dean of Faber College. “If you want this year’s homecoming parade in my town,” he says, “you have to pay.” When the dean accuses him of extortion, the mayor replies, “Look, these parades are very expensive. You’re using my police, my sanitation people, my three Oldsmobiles. So if you mention extortion again, I’ll have your legs broken.”
…
Making our way through the shadow of disgrace Trump casts requires us to think carefully and humbly. Notwithstanding the heretical teachings of Christian nationalists and apostolic reformists, God doesn’t love us more than other people. We’re not chosen or anointed. We’ve had moments of glory and deep disgrace.
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If the U.S. ever needs its friends again, no one will answer the phone. We’ll be as lonely as Trump when he turns out the lights.
John Taylor, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, via David Post at the Volokh Conspiracy.
I don’t want to reflexively both-sides things, but Ross Douthat steel-mans Trump’s foreign policy (shared link). Even if he’s 100% right, it’s very sobering.
ElonAI refutes Elon
I asked @grok (Elon Musk’s AI company) to analyze the last 1,000 posts from Elon Musk for truth and veracity. More than half of what Elon posts on X is false or misleading, while most of the “true” posts are simply updates about his companies. (Source: x.com)
Isaac Saul via John Ellis
Oscars
[I]he Oscars have become less about the movies and more about politics. Winners feel the need to turn their acceptance speeches into sermons about feminism, or immigration, or Donald Trump. But the average American doesn’t want political advice from jesters in $10,000 evening gowns. In fact, there was a time when actors would be booed for using the podium as a pulpit. … [I]t was a better time.
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
Simone Weil, from a letter to Georges Bernanos.
[N]one of the things that I care about most have ever proven susceptible to systematic exposition.
Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread With the Dead
I don’t do any of the major social media, but I have two sub-domains of the domain you’re currently reading: (a) You can read most of my reflexive stuff, especially political here. (b) I also post some things on the only social medium I frequent, because people there are quirky, pleasant and real.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 