Year-End Reflection on 2024

          

The year 2024 has been a consequential year for us. I will save that part to last. A song says, “We are just ordinary people we don’t know which way to go.” Another song, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, has a couple of turns of phrase that, taking them out of context and applying them to this year, seem applicable:

 

I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Till the landslide brought me down

Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changing

But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

 

         I turned 73 this month. Many people reach this decade of life and have physical issues that bring them to doctors regularly. We have avoided that. I am thankful for the physical health I enjoy. There are times when I am working out that I feel like I did when I was in my forties, and I was running and doing well then. I am thankful for how Suzanne and I have matured together and are still very much in love with each other. She continues to cook healthy meals. 

We like our TV shows and movies at night. I especially liked: Bad Sisters, The Six Triple Eight, Your Friend, Nate Bargatze, Carry-on, Abigail, The Resident, Fear the Walking Dead, A Biltmore Christmas, Stuck in Love, The Mezzotint, The World’s Fastest Indian, Dark Winds, The Menu, John Wick: Chapter 4, Black Mass, Northern Exposure, Suits (excellent series), The Whale, From (TV series), Red, The Surrogate, My All-American, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Secrets & Lies, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Fury, Inside the Mind of a Dog, In Plain Sight, Sugar, Presumed Innocent, Your Honor, The Night of the Hunter, Brief Encounter, I Am: Celine Dion, The Gentlemen, Fallout (excellent take on video game and dystopian future), Ripley, Rust Creek, The Catcher was a Spy, Masters of the Air, One Day (an interesting almost philosophical reflection), Napolean, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Holdovers, Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Killers of the Flower Moon, Young Sheldon, L. A. Confidential, Carol and the End of the World (philosophical series)

         Suzanne and I are still enjoying Pasco County in Florida. Steve and Glenda have good friends to us in our stay at Fairway Springs. We enjoy Farmer’s Market that Generations Church has on first Saturday of the month. We have gone to a few of those free lunches that people our age are invited to, usually related to funeral arrangements or to investments. 

Our sons, Randy. Tim, Michael, and David, remain in Indianapolis. Tim and Randy are in trucking jobs, David works for a non-profit advocacy group based in Washington DC and contacts some of the powerful senators and representatives in Congress, and Michael works for PNC and is thankful that parts of his job he can help people. I have had some good conversations with Michael and David on the telephone. Tim and his girlfriend Kelly were here in April. I am thankful that a friend in Indianapolis, Craig, continues to keep up with me. We survived the two hurricanes this year with minor damage to the fence at the house and no flooding. 

         

A notable change in our home came at the end of August
when we purchased a standard poodle puppy, now 6 months old. We are learning what it is like to have a two-year-old around the house, always saying “No” to the dog. She has introduced me to a morning walk of about a mile before I go the fitness center. Yes, it is frustrating at times, but we can also see what a wonderful addition she is and will be. We still have Sofie, our silky terrier. 

At the Chapel

Pastors Kyle and Jaye

We continue attending the Chapel at Trinity, Florida. If you were to read the theological statement for the church, those who know me would realize quickly that my personal theology would not align well with that of the church. Yet, its focus upon relating people to Jesus Christ, its honoring of the Word of God in music and preaching, its attraction of a generationally and racially diverse community of faith, and its continued growth in the four years we have attended from three worship services on the weekend to four on one campus and two at another and another campus coming, has attracted me. We have enjoyed their First Wednesday worship events. At the beginning of each year, they have a prayer and fasting for three weeks, during which they open the worship center for private prayer and communion, which I have found meaningful. We have been attending with two persons from Palm Harbor, Bill and Joyce, and often go out to eat on Sunday with them, although we usually to the Saturday night service as well. In that time, the church has added a fourth service on the weekend and has expanded by adding a campus in Port Richey and will add another campus in Odessa. We enjoy the lead pastor, Pastor Q, very much, but enjoy the entire communication team, as well as Pastor Jay as worship leader. It has been such a joy to see in action a congregation that is doing ministry in the way I have read about over the years as an active pastor. This is one of those growing, independent, evangelical, Baptist-oriented congregations United Methodist pastors often read about. As one analyst put it, Baptist thinking is the default position of many of the growing evangelical churches. I will admit that when we first attended, I was looking for the pastor to say something that was out there theologically, but I have yet to hear it. He gave a series on the Ten Commandments. I have both a series of sermons and a long study of them, but what he shared was remarkably close to what I had done. The only time I cringe a bit is the few times during the year he says something like “this Baptist church.” However, this year he has also had some good moments when he included the phrase that went something like, “I am referring to sanctification here,” and it was an effective way to talk about it, as well as pleasing my Wesleyan-Methodist soul. I am on the Events Team, which is enjoyable both for the people we meet and in being behind the scenes. The church has communion once a month, and I have enjoyed being part of the team that puts the elements and tables used for the weekend services back in their storage area. It has been a pleasure to have some acquaintance with the pastoral staff, especially Pastor Kyle, who carved out some time for a coffee with me in September. 

15,000 candles in 4 hours

Unusual physical labor

       On a personal level, I have maintained a good physical fitness routine. As one person put it: “You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.”’ I have long been one to think of mind, body, and spirit as intricately connected. This has meant going to Crunch, which is 3 miles away, doing so 6 days a week. I focus on arms and shoulders one day, back and chest the next, and core legs the next, and then repeat. I do yoga every day, which helps with flexibility and balance. I have HIIT routine at the end of each day to get my heart rate up. I have met some good people there, both members and trainers, who have been helpful in fine tuning what I learned a long time ago with P90X videos. I am thankful that many persons have witnessed to me that I am an inspiration to them and am an encouragement to keep going. A couple of young black men particularly touched me in taking the initiative to say this. “Don’t you ever stop,” said one, and my response was that I have been exercising since I was 18. It is in my DNA now. They touched me at that moment because i have longed for healing in racial relationships, and that might be part of how it happens. 

         I had the privilege of being a mentor for a female study at Asbury Seminary, which we met on zoom, since she was in West Virginia. Her theological interests and interest in writing was a good match.

         The book group has continued to meet by zoom. Glenn, Tim, Lynn, and Chuck have been such insightful readers of some wonderful authors. These have included Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism and stimulated some reflections on Karl Marx, Renee Girard, and presently includes Paul Ricoeur on forgiveness and philosophical anthropology. I still maintain a web site that shares my reflections on the books we read: https://wolfhartpannenberg.blogspot.com.

         I completed a study of the Old Testament, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha up to the first century AD. I hope it will become a book at some point.  They are part of my updated reflections on the lectionary texts. This led into a study of the synoptic gospels. I have been finding Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition and Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, as well as the study of the parable by him and C. H. Dodd, and a couple of books on the Son of Man sayings, to be illuminating. Of course, I have preached and taught these gospels many years, but it has been a gift to bring it all together. 

         I continue to update my lectionary studies: https://lectionarypondering.blogspot.com.

         I have two books published, one on the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth and the other derives from my spiritual formation experiences in the Indiana Annual Conference, a book that explores spiritual formation and ends with a collection of brief prayers that I hope will be helpful to those who want to nourish their relationship with God. I have an author home page that invite you to explore: https://sites.google.com/site/georgeplastererhomepage/Home. I am working on a third book that will complete my reflections that arise out of my spiritual formation experiences. It should come out by the summer or fall of 2025. 

         This was a presidential election year. It had unique qualities that I am sure I have not witnessed in my lifetime. If you are interested, you can read my reflections here.

Now, for the hard part of our year. There was something alluring about buying a home. Most of it was the sense of place where we could settle down, get established, and root ourselves in a community. There is a wonderful philosophical series, Carol at the End of the World, in which, in episode 9, she is searching for the perfect wave on which to surf. She never found it, but she realized that the only thing different was her. She was searching for something that did not need to be found. It is quite human to search for something to give life a sense of fullness, significance, and meaning. 

          When we bought the home, we were searching. Financial stability was part of it, but the purchase symbolized much more than that. However, our experience of buying a home in New Port Richey was not a good one financially. The remodel Suzanne did, and the work done by the handyman, was all good. Our neighbors were wonderful. I did get briefly involved in the HOA but resigned in the summer. This was because we needed to sell the home in which, when we bought it, we thought would be the home we would spend the rest of our lives. To put it simply and directly, we were led to believe that taxes would be at one level, but after living there a year, taxes went up $800 a month. I submitted two lenders, and both came back with the same estimate on taxes, so it is the way business is done in Florida. Further, it was likely that with the two hurricanes the next shoe to drop would be an increase in insurance. It became more than we could afford. Neither of us wanted to go back to work to stay in the house. I had an acquaintance at Crunch who had told me he was a part-time realtor, and I joked with him if he knew of a good realtor. He said he did, but not him, but rather, his girlfriend. I did not think we would be able to sell because of how briefly we owned the home, but although it took five months, and many showings, the home sold for more than we bought it for. The result financially is that we are renting at Trinity Club and have reduced housing expenses by about $1100 a month. 

Michael D. Powell, Look, Listen, Love, and Live said the following about the significance of learning in our lives:

 

1. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

2. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial-and-error experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

4. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

5. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, look better than "here."

 

         We learned much through this experience. I am sure that had we done more due diligence in researching this purchasing a home we could have avoided this. Had we had a home in the north that we sold and in which we had equity, it might have worked. However, the one time we bout in the north was not a pleasant experience either. I get that if one is young, it would be worth the investment, but as a retired couple, with modest means, it was not a wise financial decision. It would be easy to be bitter about a few things. Just because a realtor is on the Dave Ramsey web site and goes to your church does not mean the realtor is looking out for your interests. That was a harsh learning. However, bitterness is not a way to live. It is not worth the time or energy. We learned some things about purchasing a home in Florida. It is unlikely in the highest degree that we will ever do that again, but if we did, we would know the pitfalls. 

Beyond that, we learned somethings about ourselves that we should have known before we bought. To put it humorously (Steven Wright): “Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.” To put it a finer point on it, in The Once and Future King by T. H. White, he notes in The Sword and the Stone, Ch. 21, “The best thing for being sad…is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. … There is only one thing for it then — to learn. … That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.” Most of the learning we have about self and world is through some pain. He also observes in The Ill-Made Knight, Ch. 13, that such lessons, such knowledge of the world, cannot be taught to the young. They are for the middle-aged and even older. When young, some of us can have a seriousness in our approach to life because we want to get it right. As we mature, we might realize how rarely we get it right, so we might as well relax and learn what we can. The wise person in the little book Jonathan Livingston Seagull said the reason we are is to love and to learn. At our age, we are still learning.

We discovered that we like renting. It is convenient to submit work orders and others take care of it quickly. The amenities here are genuinely nice. In fact, I have changed the place I work out. It is like having my own gym, although occasionally our new neighbors are there, of course. They even have monthly gathering, such as wine tastings, for the residents. As was said on episode of Northern Exposure, some people are owners and some people are renters, and we have decided that we are renters. 

I question the reliability of what I feel. When we moved to the Dunedin area in 2017, both of us said it felt like home. When we toured Fairway Springs, both of us had that feeling that this home. 

Having a place for ourselves and our stuff is important, but not as important as creating a healthy home. A house can become too expensive, it can collapse, it can be abandoned. Losing a house does create some sadness. It is a large investment. When something goes wrong there, a family will go through much upheaval and dramatic changes. The family might go to a new house, but it will take some time to make it a home. Yet, I must say that Trinity Club has already been feeling like home.

The feeling of home in this earthly life is something that we carry with us. It evokes something of the desire for what Charles Taylor made the title of his book Cosmic Connections.  He means by this an experience shot through with joy, significance, and inspiration, which he thinks is a human constant. The desire suggests a higher and deeper than the everyday world around us. It hints that there is something more, that a well-lived human life is more than the abundance of the things one possesses. Such moments cannot prove the existence of this higher or deeper order, but they suggest that the hope for it results in a surplus of meaning that a simple rational or mathematical approach to the world would suggest. Thus, we delude ourselves if we think any place here is truly home. That feeling may well be an anticipation of the home God has prepared for us in eternity, in the loving fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A song often sung at the Chapel:

 

Praise the Father

Praise the Son

Praise the Spirit

Three in one

God of glory

Majesty

Praise forever to the King of Kings

 

We look forward to 2025 with much optimism. Part of that, admittedly, is the financial freedom that we are moving toward. We begin with high hopes for next year, given our new financial situation. My hope is to get my third book published. I also hope to finish by study of the synoptic gospels and continue my study of the rest of the New Testament. We will need to keep focused upon training our standard poodle. We need to finish moving into our apartment, most of which is the second bedroom and putting up pictures. On the fun side, we hope to share more trips to the beach. 

Another song I love, but which I hope you can read as prayer for you:

 

So come on my soul, oh, don't you get shy on me

Lift up your song, 'cause you've got a lion

Inside of those lungs

Get up and praise the Lord

Oh, come on my soul, oh, don't you get shy on me

Lift up your song, 'cause you've got a lion

Inside of those lungs

 

For any who read this, we wish you the best for the coming year. God be with you.

Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Milton

Sioux Falls Restaurant

Pipe tobacco and cigars from his establishment

David, Kari, Henry, Edith, Alice, Lewis

 

2024 Election: Not About Trump

  

 

        

            As much as the Democrat Party, progressives, and Never-Trump conservatives, most of the last being neocons, wanted to make this election about the personality or character of Donald Trump. It was not. I should add that Trump himself may have wanted, and may believe, the election was about him. It was not.

The rhetoric against Trump was that he is not morally fit. Of great concern in this line of thinking is that he is authoritarian, fascist, Hitler, misogynist, and racist. Kamala Harris joined this group late in the campaign. 

In this brief essay, my goal is to calmly consider a hotly contested election that had plenty of heated rhetoric on both sides. I will be pointing to some evidence from the election, but I will also be making inferences from that data that will move into the realm of intuition, and therefore a leap of thought. This ought to create a degree of tolerance, on your part as a reader, and on my part if you as a reader make a different leap of thought. As Wiliam James in his 1896 lecture The Will to Believe put it, intuition is a valid way toward making decisions and maintain our concern for truth. Such hunches do not have the character of empirical proof, but they are attempts to learn from this election. We see, we reason about what we see, but we also become present to self and world in a way that allows us to see connections beyond black/white, either/or thinking. Given that I am in this realm of reflection, I can only hope that what I share arises with humility and exhibits tolerance toward someone else who might view the same data, share the common experience of this election, but move in a different direction. 

I begin by sharing some questions that guide my reflections.

How does racist Trump increase his share of black and Hispanic votes?

How does misogynistic Trump increase his support among suburban women?

Is it too much to ask that identity politics would end after the inroads Trump made into the Democratic coalition? Given the comments on my X feed, Yes it is, sadly.

How do you peacefully transfer power to Hitler, to the man who is an existential threat to democracy? The lie to this concern has been that since the sweeping GOP win, Harris and Biden promise a smooth transition. Had they believed their own rhetoric, there would not be a smooth transition of power to Trump-Vance and his team. 

            This is a deeply divided nation politically. The election was close in the popular vote. The battleground states were close, Trump taking all seven such states. Further, even in blue states, Trump significantly increased his percentage from 2020. It was a significant win, and as in most elections, a portion of the persuadable electorate went to Trump. My interest here is not in why80-90% of the voting public are committed to the political Left or the political Right. My interest is in what makes 6 or 7 % of the remaining voters collectively move in one way or the other. That group moved toward Trump and the GOP this year.

            Political conservatives might like to think it was a move to the political right, but it was not.

            Kamala Harris, make sure you pronounce her name right or you are a misogynist and racist, was a bad candidate. She supported defund the police. She wanted to confiscate guns. Her support for the green agenda, of which fracking became a symbol, her support for the trans agenda, her support for open borders, her inability to say how she would differ from Biden, became problems that pushed people toward Trump. Obama scolding black men for not showing enthusiasm for Kamala Harris is unseemly. Thinking men need counseling for not enthusiastically voting for Kamala Harris shows little understanding of why people, not just men, vote the way they do. The effort to re-brand her was not successful. The point is that the election was not about her, especially her as a woman or a person of color. She was the shiny object to distract voters from the machinery in Washington DC that has set America on a path that many voters said in polls was the wrong direction. She still received about 47% of the popular vote. There are a solid number of people on the political Left who will vote for the most liberal candidate. The ability of the Democrat Party to get out their voters is amazing, given how bad their candidates for President and Vice-President were. In this election some usually conservative voters were concerned about Trump, but not as many as Kamala Harris needed. People who voted against her did not do so because she was a woman or because she was black. The election had little to do with her.

            Donald Trump designed an amazing campaign that broke apart the Democrat Party coalition that included union workers, Jews, Catholics, blacks, Hispanics, college educated, and women. He knew he would have a certain percentage of the voting public just because he was conservative. He expanded his base by making inroads into the Catholic, Jewish, Hispanic, and black vote. He also had two assassination attempts, Thomas Matthew Crooks on July 13, 2024, in Butler County, PA and Ryan Wesley Routh on Sunday, September 15, 2024, at a Trump property while he was golfing. After the first one, still bleeding, rising to say “Fight, Fight, Fight,” was an inspiration. For many Americans, battling through the thinly veiled political nature of lawfare was a sign of strength. Like all of us, Trump has his failings. In Christian terms, we are all sinners. His failings and sins were not what defined him in the minds of many Americans.

Yet, I do not think any of this quite gets to what tipped the scales to Donald Trump. I grant that some voters were excited about Harris or Trump. However, I am going to suggest that what tipped the scales toward Trump was a sense that something was not normal in America, and that America needed a return to normalcy. In that sense, when Biden suggested a return to normalcy was important at his inauguration, he was right. Had his presidency modeled that thought, everything may well have ended differently. As Democrat West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin says every at every opportunity, he failed to do so. I can hear those who believe the rhetoric about Trump laugh when I say that voters for Trump in this election what a return to normalcy, but I ask you to hear me out.

To put the theme directly: the Trump-Vance campaign, combined with the GOP candidates, were the moderates in this election. The Democrat Party put themselves on the extreme Left end of political thought. This was intentional by Obama, Biden, the Clintons, Pelosi, and Schumer as political leaders of that party. 

Is it a surprise that the economy drove voters of all types, especially Blacks, Hispanics, suburban white women, and youth, to Trump?

Is it a surprise that illegal immigration and open borders drove people of all types to Trump?

Is it a surprise that the American people do not want endless wars?

Is it a surprise that Americans do not want to coddle pro-Hamas and anti-Jewish demonstrations on campus that make Jews uncomfortable to go to college? 

What is this, that the political opponents of Trump use the law to put a former president in jail? Adding to that, taking after his family? This effort reminded me of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, which also seemed to many voters to be a political rather than legal effort to bring down a political opponent. 

How has a political party that claims to be pro woman support biological males in female sports? Does anyone think it would have no effect on elections forever?

How does a political strategist think that a closing argument promoting late term abortions is going to persuade Hispanics and Catholics to move toward Harris?

How does Joe Biden get 16 million more votes in 2020 than did Obama in 2012 and Harris in 2020? I do not know. Biden won 81.2 million votes in 2020, while Trump won in 2024 with 76,500, when he had 74.2 million in 2020 and Harris lost in 2024 with 73,900, although these totals are not final. I do know that Biden beat the vote totals of Harris in every state, and I think in every precinct, and he beat her in demographics like black, women, and youth. 

The lack of insight into why the election went the way it did will be a self-inflicted malady. The continued efforts to paint all things Trump as fascist, Hitler, and white-supremacist will work with those who already believe it but will not be persuasive outside that self-created echo-chamber. 

I was impressed with the final Rasmussen poll, but then, I have been impressed historically with this poll:

 

🔴 Trump: 49% (+3)

🔵 Harris: 46%

🟢 Other: 3%

🟡 Undecided: 2%

 

At Trump +3% Popular Vote:

 

1.  TRUMP Wins 310-330 EVs

2. HOUSE GOP Gains 10-30 additional seats – this was wrong

3.  SENATE GOP Gains 3-6 additional seats

 

I voted for GOP in Florida because I am a political conservative. I want less federal government. I want fewer wars, and thus did not like George W. Bush in the Middle East or Biden in Ukraine. It was enough for me that RFKJr, for whom I would have voted, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, Nikki Haley, for whom I did vote, are campaigning for Trump. It may seem minor, but Riley Gaines makes a strong point protecting female sports as important in itself as well as a symbol of larger issue. I trust that if we are friends, we will stay such even if we disagree on this political matter. There are things far more important than that. 

I have read the Democrat Party platform. The Dem platform had entire chapters with which I disagreed, climate change agenda being the big one. However, entire chapters seemed like an alternate universe to me. I just do not see the world scene or the military, for example, being in such wonderful shape as the document says. I certainly do not see the economy as being such great shape as the document suggests. More than that, I can only assume that this document stands as the Harris agenda, although most of it understandable refers to Biden. It rarely mentioned Biden (7 times in 24 pages), whereas Dems mentioned Trump 150 times in 91 pages, and refers to the MAGA crowd in a derogatory way regularly. The Dems in tone were polemical, broadsides against their opponents. Polemics can help people see the differences between two sides. The weakness of a polemic is that it exaggerates one’s own virtues and paints the opponent as if they have nothing to contribute to the country. Overall, I get that they really do not like Trump, but that is not a policy. I also get that they think a climate emergency requires immediate action, and I do not. I also get that they want abortions mandated as a right rather than differentiated democratically within the states, which I also disagree with. They think democracy is at risk when they are the ones who removed their own nominee through elites, replaced the voted upon nominee by the elite, and have colluded with social media to suppress free speech, as Zuckerberg has recently admitted. They really like the American Rescue Plan. They think they have done a wonderful job on the border. They think they have done a wonderful job with crime. It shows that when it comes to statistics, one can make them serve any agenda one wants.

In contrast, the GOP platform is nice, a 21—page statement of the values to which it is committed and the principles it will use to get there. 

I would encourage anyone to read the two platforms and decide which sounds like the direction you would like to see the country go.

In addition, the two conventions were starkly different. 

The GOP convention had many powerful moments. As vice-President, Trump has selected J. D. Vance, someone who will be loyal to him, but who, given his Marine background, his rise from rural Ohio, and his education, will bring youth and vitality to the ticket. 

The speech by Trump accepting the GOP nomination was calm. I highlight what I think were moments when Trump appealed for unity.

The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart. I am running to be president for ALL of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America. 

Despite such a heinous attack, we unite this evening more determined than ever. Our resolve is unbroken, and our purpose is unchanged--to deliver a government that serves the American People.

Nothing will stop me in this mission. Because our vision is righteous, and our cause is pure.

No matter what obstacle comes our way: we will not break. We will not bend. We will not back down. And I will never stop fighting for you, your family, and our magnificent country. 

Everything I have to give, with all of the energy and fight in my heart and soul, I pledge to our nation tonight.

This election should be about the issues facing our country and how to make America successful, safe, free, and great again. In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens—we are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

Just a few short days ago, my journey with you nearly ended. And yet here we are tonight, all gathered together, talking about the future, promise, and renewal of America. We live in a world of miracles. 

None of us knows God’s plan, or where life’s adventure will take us. But if the events of last Saturday make anything clear, it is that every single moment we have on earth is a gift from God. We have to make the most of every day for the people and country we love.

The attacker in Pennsylvania wanted to stop our movement—but the truth is, this movement has never been about me, it has always been about YOU. It has always been about the hardworking, patriotic citizens of America. 

Your expectations are not big enough. It is time to start expecting and demanding the best leadership in the world, leadership that is bold, dynamic, relentless, and fearless. 

We are Americans. Ambition is our heritage. Greatness is our birthright.  

But as long as our energies are spent fighting each other, our destiny will remain out of reach. We must instead take that energy and use it to realize our country’s true potential—and write our own thrilling chapter of the American Story. 

It is a story of love, sacrifice, success, and unmatched devotion. 

Just like our ancestors, we must now come together, rise above past differences and disagreements, and go forward united, as one people, and one nation, pledging allegiance to one great and beautiful American flag. 

Tonight, I ask for your partnership, for your support, and I am humbly asking for your vote. Every day, I will strive to honor the trust you have placed in me, and I will never let you down.

 

Trump delivered a speech at Turning Point USA. I advise watching the full speech, as he is sharpening his speech against Harris and refining the presentation of what he hopes to do with a second term. For me, he came across as calm and moderate. I did not think the Democrat Party could do that, but with Kamala Harris and her left-wing extreme agenda, Trump is the moderate in this race. I do not advise taking the Harris interpretation of the speech as anything other than a dream on their part:

 

“Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words, insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant – let alone be President of the United States."

 

The lackluster performance of Joe Biden in the first debate and his continued feebleness led many Democrat political leaders to urge him to drop out of the race. However, the Wall Street Journal has convincingly shown that the staff of Joe Biden has been covering for him from the beginning. This means that his wife and family have provided cover, as well as his staff. It also means that Obama has been the one making the decisions. The Biden weakness in the debate provided the occasion for Kamala Harris to be the nominee. The rapid unity of the Democrat Party behind her on the surface is surprising. The immediate influx of money is superficially surprising. However, it all appears orchestrated. After the debate, President Obama guided Biden off the stage. This began the efforts to get Biden to step down from being the nominee of the Party. It seems clear Pelosi, Obama, Schumer, and the Clintons run the Party and have guided this process. If we learn the truth, my suspicion is that Harris or another member of the Cabinet threatened Biden with invoking the 25^th amendment and shame him into stepping down from a nomination process in which he proved himself the favorite of Democrat voters. In that sense, it was a coup, but obviously, not in the sense of a threat of violence. My suspicion all along has been that the Biden presidency is the third term of Obama, and I think this process indicates that is true. As I understand it, Obama and the Clintons do not like each other, but they want the Democrat Party in power and they have a deep disgust of Donald Trump, especially since he is, in their words, a threat to democracy, coupled with viewing him as fascist with dictator plans. Harris brings much to the table. Her gender and ethnicity will form a sharp contrast with the GOP ticket that will be attractive to many. It will feed the narrative that Trump and the GOP are racist and misogynist. 

What I find striking here is that the same cabal that undermined the first Trump presidency with the Russia Hoax, impeached Trump, accused Trump of insurrection, and brought legal challenges to Trump, also engineered the departure of Joe Biden from this race. I also find it striking that the Party united around Kamala Harris, who received zero delegates in the 2020 primary. Money guided this unusual process. If Harris were not on the ticket, the money would have to be returned to the donors. As soon as Biden stepped down, money flowed to the Democrat Party.

The shift in the media was swift. It was not long ago that most of the media defended the competency of Biden and said the accusation to the contrary was right wing propaganda. The push was on to have Biden step away from being the Democrat nominee, even though he had won the primary. The reason had nothing to do with his health and everything to do with the fear that he would lose. The shift was also swift in recasting Harris from being an ineffective VP who had trouble with keeping staff to being a rock star. One cannot dismiss lightly the free campaign ads that many news outlets will offer.

I voted for GOP in Florida because I am political conservative. Since that was a move I made in the late 1970s, some of my college friends might be surprised. It was enough for me that RFKJr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, Nikki Haley, are campaigning for him. It may seem minor but protecting female sports is import in itself as well as a symbol of larger issue. In fact, you can make the case, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board recently did, that Harris “is the least-known candidate in modern history.”

Since the election, Donald Trump has moved quickly on sharing his appointments for his administration. They are mostly young and unburdened by the past, to use a favorite theme of Vice-President Harris. A 78-year-old President wants a team assembled from a different generation than the generation that got the federal government into the bloated mess it has become. Some of his team have been standard, but many are unusual. Given the involvement of the FBI and CIA in attempts to undermine his first term through the Russia Hoax, the efforts over the last four years of the legal system moving against him and his family, and the Pentagon in promoting the trans-agenda of the Democrat Party and promoting endless wars of the neocons, I am not surprised that Trump wants people in those positions that he can trust and who will not undermine him. Not using the FBI to give background checks, but rather a private firm, is also understandable, given the history with the FBI. Sadly, the weaponization of these departments against Trump, his family, and political conservatives, has brought us to this place. There will undoubtedly be people fired. These efforts will be presented as fascist and authoritarian, but to use this rhetoric against those who descend low enough to use it, what was fascist and authoritarian was Obama-Biden weaponizing these agencies against Trump and undermining his first term. 

Both sides use the language of saving America from the other side, but I think America needs saving from both sides. The television show Fallout (2024) showed a dystopian future created by two opposing groups who believed the world needed to be saved from the other side. I want to calmly consider this election. 

I have come across the Dignity Index, which seeks to promote respect for the opposition in the public square. I would encourage anyone to read it. The dehumanizing of the opponent is part of the sense that we have departed from normalcy.

The rhetoric in this country has always been vigorous around presidential elections. However, it has rarely reached the level where the advice of one side, this time the political Left, advises its loyalists to isolate themselves from friendships from the other side. This is what happens with the true believer, in this case, that Trump is fascists, and therefore his voters are fascist. To vilify half the country in this way is an unacceptable attempt at shaming people into the political Left. I agree with Michael LaRosa, former spokesperson for Jill Biden, who in his colorful way said on X “This s*** has to stop,” which is how he responded to an MSNBC guest who referred to Pete Hegseth as a white supremacist for opposing DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) because of the way it is applied. His point was that one can oppose that policy for reasons other than being a white supremacist. Reducing serious policy differences to identity politics is shallow form of thinking. 

Which leads me to consider another possibility about the rhetoric on the pollical Left. Respect for the worth and dignity of the political opposition is basic in a democracy, for it is what keeps winners from persecuting and jailing the losers. Donald Trump has become the shiny object for the progressive to use this extreme rhetoric to deflect attention of voters from their unusual behavior. DEI and the trans agenda have become political ways to stifle debate and to lead to potentially dangerous results, such as a woman stepping into a boxing ring with a biological male. Do you really want your daughter to be in the rest room with a biological male? Disagreeing with such movements politically is compatible with respecting the diverse nature of modern societies, valuing equality of opportunity, and providing an inclusive embrace of human beings simply because they are human beings, apart from their beliefs and values. Beyond this, top leaders of the Democrat Party using the FBI, CIA, (Russia Hoax primary among them), federal lawyers, against those who have ideas they do not like, whether Trump or others, and engineering social media monopolies to target political conservatives, using fact checks inappropriately, all just seem weird, to use the Tim Walz term. The warning signs are there in the way Britain and the European Union are applying DEI in jailing people who do not use the right pronouns. Something feels quite undemocratic and unamerican about all this.

Rules of civility and respect are difficult to apply in the political arena, especially when the election concerns the most powerful position on the planet. However, one would appreciate at least the attempt. 

Culturally, things are changing rapidly. To “Adam Schiff” someone is becoming a verb to describe unsavory and deceptive actions, as in to unfairly accuse. The Trump shuffle is becoming a thing in the sports world. Joe and Mica of MSNBC, who have been relentless on the Hitler, fascist, threat to democracy, and threat to women, went to Mar-largo to visit with Trump. The criticism of this visit from the Left has been that it normalizes Trump. The lack of self-reflection here is amazing, for they are the ones who need to normalize their relationship to Trump and to his voters. His 75 million voters, most of whom voted to support his agenda in the House and Senate, have already normalized him. Normal is becoming cool again. The atmosphere is incredibly different from 2016. 

For Christians, the election is not a basis for either depression or hope. Christian confidence is in what God has done in Jesus Christ. Further, it is time to remember that Jesus calls us to love our neighbor, regardless of their beliefs and values. To put a sharper point on it, if your neighbor is a person transitioning their gender, Jesus calls you to love them. Regardless of the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, their political beliefs you are not love them and pray for them. Jesus advises us to love the enemy. The New Testament epistles call upon us to pray for our leaders. In this political environment, Christians need to have a witness that their allegiance to Jesus transcends their political allegiance, and they demean that witness when they identify their faith with their political allegiance, or worse, identify it by the person who they are against. An act of political courage by the Christian in this environment is to speak truth to the powerful within your political tribe.

John Wesley offered some advice to his societies on October 6, 1774:

 

I met those of our society who had voted in the ensuing election and advised them:

       To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy

       To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and

        To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

 

Lord, hear our prayer.