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Ash Wednesday Ashes Are Important Symbols of Faith in Our Secular Culture

Ash Wednesday Ashes Are Important Symbols of Faith in Our Secular Culture

By John R Guardiano on February 26, 2020

If you believe, as I do, that organized religion, and Christianity and Judaism in particular, is a force for good in America, and that our success as a nation is in large part attributable to the prominent role religious faith historically has played in our public life, then it was good to see prominent news anchors this evening—Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, for instance, as well as CNN’s Chris Cuomo—with ashes on their foreheads.

The ashes are there, of course, because today is Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. And Lent is the beginning of the Easter season, which, for Christians, is the most important and solemn time of the year.

Lent is, as Chris Quilpa well puts it in the Suffolk News-Herald, when we Christians “observe and commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God, our Savior and Redeemer.” It is, as Father Paul Scalia explains, “a time of entering into combat: to ‘take up battle against spiritual evils.'”

But you don’t have to be a Christian to respect and appreciate the significant role Judeo-Christianity has played in American political life and in making the United States one of the freest and most prosperous countries in all of human history.

The great 19th Century social thinker, Alexis DeTocqueville, for instance, “claimed that the first political institution of American democracy was religion,” writes political scientist Michael Novak.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” said George Washington in his farewell address.

Certainly, Judeo-Christianity in America has helped to foster certain habits and dispositions—industriousness, a work ethic, thrift, delayed gratification, a sense of reciprocal obligation to our fellow man, et al.—that lend themselves to political and material prosperity

Which is why the decline of religious affiliation in America, especially pronounced it seems in the past 20 years, is worrisome. All of us, as Americans, benefit from our nation’s religious and cultural inheritance. But what happens when that inheritance is exhausted and unreplenished?

Symbols Matter. The display of ashes on Ash Wednesday matter because symbols and symbolism matter. They spark interest and discussion. They incite curiosity and inquiry. They invite reflection and thought. They are a way to bear witness to the faith without being heavy-handed and doctrinaire.

Indeed, when children—and adults—see the ashes, some will ask: Why are they there? What do they mean? Why are they important to some people? And some of these children and adults will follow-up and learn more about Christianity and religious faith more generally.

Some might even become religious believers. But even if they remain agnostic, perhaps they at least will have a newfound respect for the contributions that people of faith can and do make to our commonweal.

Perhaps they will at least appreciate the role of religion in American public life. And, given our history, and given the challenges that confront us, that would not be a bad thing.

Feature photo credit: www.SevenDays.nl.

Trump’s Careful and Deliberative Actions in Afghanistan Contradict His Reckless Rhetoric

Trump’s Careful and Deliberative Actions in Afghanistan Contradict His Reckless Rhetoric

By John R Guardiano on February 25, 2020

We noted yesterday that President Trump is eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Yet, he’s been president for three years and hasn’t done so. Why? Clifford May, President and Founder of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies explains why in today’s Washington Times:

I suspect his advisers have painted a picture of what could happen were he to cut and run:

A historic Taliban victory and U.S. defeat; helicopters evacuating diplomats from the U.S. embassy; pro-American Afghans having their heads chopped off with videos going viral; America’s enemies around the world redoubling their efforts to hasten what would be seen as America’s imminent decline and fall.

Not the results Mr. Trump wants to produce—least of all in an election year.

Trump himself made this same point, essentially, during a July 1, 2019, interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

Trump told Carlson that he would “like to just get out” of Afghanistan; but “the problem is that it [Afghanistan] just seems to be a lab for terrorists… I call it the Harvard of terrorists..”

Trump noted that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York City were trained in Afghanistan; and that the country’s history as a terrorist training ground and terrorist base of operations makes withdrawing U.S. troops there problematic.

“I’ll give you a tough one, if you were in my position,” he told Carlson:

A great central-casting general walks up into your office. I say we’re getting out. “Yes, Sir, we’ll get out. Yes, Sir.”

I say, ‘What do you think of that?” “Sir, I’d rather attack them over there than attack them in our land.” In other word, them come here.

That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened at the World Trade Center, etcetera, etcetera.

When they [U.S. military leaders] say that, you know, no matter how you feel…

When you’re standing there and you have some really talented military people saying “I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land”— it’s something you always have to think about.

Now, I would leave and will leave—we will be leaving—very strong intelligence, far more than you would normally think, because it’s very important. And we can do it that way, too. But we have reduced the forces very substantially in Afghanistan.

First off, kudos to Tucker Carlson for asking an important and straightforward question about Afghanistan and giving the president the time and space that he needed to answer that question fully and completely.

I am not a fan of Carlson. His snide anti-interventionist views do not comport with my own perspective, but credit where credit’s due.

Carlson, obviously, has earned Trump’s trust; and, as a result, Trump shares with him his thinking. This is something that Trump rarely does (at last in a serious and thoughtful way), and the result here is great journalism and a genuine public service.

Reassuring. Moreover, it is reassuring to know that Trump sometimes listens, seriously and with due respect and consideration, to his military advisers, and doesn’t always act out impulsively as he often seems wont to do.

It also is reassuring to hear Trump say that, so long as he is president, the United States will retain a robust intelligence apparatus in Afghanistan.

This almost certainly means that some number of troops will be kept there indefinitely to collect and analyze intelligence and ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a terrorist base of operations from which to attack the United States.

The fear with Trump, though, is that what he says one day he may not mean the next day. He can and does change his mind impulsively. Policy decision-making, consequently, can be inconsistent and erratic.

Syria. Look at what happened in Syria, for instance. Trump abruptly announced last fall that he was withdrawing U.S. troops. This set off an unnecessary military and humanitarian disaster.

The president then announced soon thereafter that he would keep some U.S. troops in Syria, ostensibly to “protect the oil,” but the strategic damage already had been done: U.S.- and allied-controlled territory had been ceded to Russian- and Iranian-backed regime forces; the Islamic State had been given a new lease on life; and chaos reigned—and still does.

However, at least with respect to Afghanistan, Trump seems to be proceeding carefully, cautiously and deliberatively, with greater situational awareness and understanding of the longer-term strategic ramifications of his actions and what these actions might mean for the safety and security of the American people.

Trump’s caution may be surprising in light of his more reckless rhetoric about wanting to leave Afghanistan. Yet it is nonetheless reassuring, and it makes Trump a more successful president. More importantly, the American people are better served—and better protected—as a result.

Feature photo: DoD/DVIDS via KNOP News.

‘Endless War’ Is an Inaccurate Talking Point that Imperils Our Safety and National Security

‘Endless War’ Is an Inaccurate Talking Point that Imperils Our Safety and National Security

By John R Guardiano on February 24, 2020

Isolationists and anti-interventionists on both the left and the right have scored a lot of political points by decrying so-called endless war. It’s a great polemical talking point. Who, after all, is for “endless war”?

The talking point resonates because the United States has been in Afghanistan for 19 years and in Iraq for almost as long. But the term “endless war” is misleading, and it obscures more than it clarifies. And, in so doing, it distorts the policy options and choices that lie before us.

The choice that we face as a nation is not between peace or “endless war.” The choice that we face is between: a) a proliferation of dangerous threats; or b) a steady and consistent military and diplomatic presence abroad that keeps those threats at bay.

No one, after all, is talking about launching another 2003-style Iraq War, another 2007-style Iraq surge, or another 2001-style “shock and awe” campaign in Afghanistan or anywhere else for that matter. Large-scale occupying forces are neither needed nor desired now.

That’s because we’ve learned a lot in the past two decades of ongoing military engagement. We’ve learned that a large and massive military footprint isn’t always ideal and in fact, can sometimes be counterproductive.

But we’ve also learned that small numbers of highly trained U.S. military personnel and advisers can have an extraordinarily beneficial and outsized impact.

They can seriously stiffen the spines of our friends and allies; dramatically strengthen and enhance our diplomatic and negotiating leverage; and, in general, keep a lid on things, so to speak, by containing threats that otherwise would imperil our national security and safety worldwide.

Iraq and Syria. We saw this, for instance, in Iraq and Syria, where small numbers of U.S. special forces, aerial intelligence assets, and American air power were instrumental in uprooting the Islamic State and destroying its so-called caliphate.

That’s why President Trump’s decision last fall to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria was so tragically misguided, counterproductive and dangerous: It undermined our diplomatic leverage there and gave our enemies an opening to attack our friends and allies and undermine our interests.

Trump has since redeployed some of those troops to other parts of Syria; but his oft-expressed desire to leave altogether has weakened our position and embolden our enemies.

Trump should have learned from Obama’s foolish decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq. That decision led to the Islamic State, which, in turn, forced Obama to send U.S. troops back into Iraq.

Afghanistan. Yet, here are we are again, only this time in Afghanistan. A small contingent of U.S. forces there (roughly 12,000 troops), playing a key support role, have been critical in containing a witches’ brew of the Taliban, ISIS, al-Qaeda, and assorted other Jihadists. Yet, all Trump can do is talk about withdrawing U.S. troops and leaving Afghanistan.

“Time to come home,” he said Sunday. “They want to stop. You know, they’ve been fighting a long time. They’re tough people. We’re tough people. But after 19 years, that’s a long time.”

Yes, it is a long time. You know what also hasn’t happened in a long time? An attack on the United States that was planned and executed from a terrorist base in Afghanistan. Let’s keep it that way.

But the only way we’ll continue to protect the American homeland is not by “coming home,” but rather by keeping our foot on the enemy’s throat, so to speak, through a steady and consistent forward presence overseas.

A myopic and misplaced obsession with “endless war” obscures this reality. It’s long past time that we stopped—or ended, if you will—using the term altogether. As a policy option, it is inaccurate, and it doesn’t help or clarify the U.S. foreign policy debate.

Sanders Crushes It in Nevada and Is Poised to Steamroll His Way to the Democratic Nomination

Sanders Crushes It in Nevada and Is Poised to Steamroll His Way to the Democratic Nomination

By John R Guardiano on February 23, 2020

Bernie Sanders’ was expected to win the Nevada Caucuses, but did even better than expected, crushing Joe Biden by a more than two-to-one margin, thus making it exceedingly unlikely that he (Sanders) can be stopped as he steamrolls his way to the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

“The basic takeaway here is that it’s Bernie’s nomination to lose,” says FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver. “Bernie Sanders in all likelihood is the nominee unless it gets taken from him at the convention,” adds former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol casts a dissenting note, arguing that there’s still plenty of time and ability to deny Sanders the nomination.

Sanders, he observes, has won just 43 of 101 delegates chosen so far and about 30 percent of the popular vote. Ninety-seven percent of the delegates, Kristol explains, have not yet been chosen.

That’s true, but Kristol’s theoretical possibilities ignore the practical realities, which make it all but impossible for Sanders to lose the nomination. For starters, as the primary race advances, Sanders is getting stronger, not weaker; and his opponents are getting correspondingly weaker, not stronger.

Biden’s Fall. Before losing in Iowa and New Hampshire, for instance, Biden had been expected to win Nevada. “A Real Clear Politics polling average has [him] in the lead in both Nevada and South Carolina,” reported CNBC Feb. 4.

But losing creates new political dynamics and electoral facts on the ground; and so it was with Biden, who lost badly to Sanders across most major demographic groups in Nevada—Latinos, young voters, the college educated, union members, and progressives.

Even 22 percent of self-styled “moderates” voted for Sanders versus 25 percent for Biden.

Sanders’ broad-based electoral appeal bodes well for him in Texas, Florida, and California—big delegate-rich states with large and diverse populations and burgeoning numbers of Hispanic voters. (Sanders won more than half of all Hispanic/Latino voters in Nevada.)

Biden did win the black vote in Nevada, 39-27 percent over Sanders; but that’s a weak performance, relatively speaking, when compared to how, say, Hillary Clinton did in Nevada four years ago. Clinton, reports the Washington Post’s David Weigel,

won 76 percent of the black vote in Nevada, to just 22 percent for Sanders. The senator from Vermont actually increased his share of black support this year despite the divided field, to 27 percent.

“Biden’s black voter advantage [also] keeps shrinking… [and] that constituency is not rallying around Biden like it used to, or like he needs it to,” Weigel notes.

This is an ominous development for Biden, who needs a very strong showing among black voters in South Carolina and other Southern states if he is to have any chance of stopping Sanders. Biden desperately needs black voters because, as Weigel observes,

he’s struggling with white voters… Biden won just 14 percent of Nevada’s white voters, running behind former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and tying Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Right now, Biden is still favored to win in South Carolina; but his margin for victory keeps shrinking as he badly loses these early caucuses and primaries and appears increasingly to be a weak and unattractive candidate in the eyes of prospective voters.

Moreover, even if Biden wins South Carolina and other Southern states, Sanders will still gain a respectable share of the delegates there.

That’s because the Democrats award their delegates proportionately, provided a candidate wins at least 15 percent of the vote, which Sanders is doing and no doubt will continue to do.

The bottom line: as the Bloomberg campaign’s Kevin Shelley told Axios’ Mike Allen: “according to his (Shelley’s) models, if the current field remains on Super Tuesday (March 3), Sanders would win about 30% of the vote—and 45% of the delegates.”

That’s a plurality, not a majority; and, according to party rules, only a candidate with a majority of the delegates can win the nomination.

But will the party establishment really deny Sanders the nomination if he arrives at the convention with 40-45 percent of the delegates? No way. Again, while this may be theoretically possible, it is practically impossible.

To deny Sanders the nomination after he has won far more delegates than any other candidate, and after he has won big and important states such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York, would be to invite an open revolt among the Sandernistas.

Such a move would split the Democratic Party, render it asunder, and destroy whatever prospects it had to defeat Donald Trump.

So if, as now appears inevitable, Sanders wins these big states and at least 40-45 percent of the delegates overall, then he will be, without question, the party’s nominee.

Also-Rans. What about Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren? Might they stop Sanders? No, and for the reasons we’ve already explained here at ResCon1.

Warren rendered Bloomberg Democratic roadkill at the Las Vegas debate. The party’s base will never tolerate a Bloomberg nomination. In their eyes, he has three strikes against him. First, he’s a plutocrat; second, he’s a misogynist; and third, he’s a racist (in their eyes).

Buttigieg has demonstrated no ability to win black votes, and this is a real problem, since African Americans are a core Democratic Party constituency. A Democrat simply cannot win the party’s nomination without them.

Warren is a great debater, but she finished fourth in Nevada, with a dismal 9.6 percent of the vote. That’s less than the 12 percent she was expected to get according to the last poll conducted before the Nevada Caucuses. So much for any post-debate bounce.

Again, Warren’s great debating skills don’t correspond with political popularity. She’d have to overcome Buttigieg and Biden before she can have any hope of competing with Sanders. That ain’t gonna happen.

And the situation is even worse for Amy Klobuchar, who could not parlay a strong showing in New Hampshire into a respectable showing in Nevada. Indeed, her sixth-place finish gives her a ticket to nowhere.

That leaves Sanders, and maybe Biden, as the nominee. But Biden, as we’ve seen, is on a clear glide path to defeat. If he doesn’t win decisively in South Carolina, he’s finished.

In short, Biden is the walking dead, and Sanders is the Democratic ghost that won’t die, and this is unlikely to change.

Feature photo credit: New York Times.

The 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ Presaged a Providential American Comeback Led by Ronald Reagan

The 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ Presaged a Providential American Comeback Led by Ronald Reagan

By John R Guardiano on February 22, 2020

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” when the underdog U.S. men’s hockey team, which no one every thought had a chance, beat the world’s greatest hockey superpower, the Soviet Union, in the semifinal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Two days later (Feb. 24, 1980), the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Finland to win the Olympic Gold medal.

The “Miracle on Ice” was a welcome and surprise victory that helped lift the spirits of the country at a time when America was down, and, many believed, in a state of irreversible decline.

And, in retrospect, it was clearly providential and a harbinger of the future. The win presaged the oft-stated belief by then-Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan that America’s best days lie ahead.

In fact, with Reagan’s election as president, America came roaring back and experienced one of the greatest economic booms in its history, while defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Talk of national decline was eclipsed with talk of American greatness, as the country enjoyed a quarter-century of triumph and achievement arguably unlike anything it has ever experienced and likely every will experience again.

All of this may seem obvious with the benefit of historical hindsight; but on Feb. 22, 1980, the notion that America had a future worthy of its past seemed quaint and fanciful.

American Decline. The U.S. economy was mired in a deep recession; the auto industry was on the ropes, with Chrysler and American Motors on the verge of bankruptcy; and OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the Middle East, had America over a barrel—literally and figuratively.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, was on the march—in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Nicaragua turned communist in 1979 and El Salvador seemed destined to follow. Communist Cuban guerrillas were on the offensive in Angola, and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.

In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev boasted, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!” In February 1980, it looked, sadly, like he might be right.

In the preceding decade, the United States had suffered a series of disasters, including: the Vietnam War, Watergate, the resignation of Richard Nixon as president, oil and energy shocks, gas rationing and long lines at the pump, recessions and high inflation, Three Mile Island…

By November 1979, Islamist revolutionaries in Iran had toppled the government there and taken 52 Americans hostage. A rescue attempt in April 1980 was a complete fiasco. America looked like a pitiful, helpless giant, as even then-President Jimmy Carter seemed to acknowledge.

“The erosion of our confidence in the future,” Carter said in his important but much-derided ‘malaise speech,’ “is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

The malaise speech was much-derided not because it was wholly wrong in its diagnosis, but rather because Carter appeared to have no clue about how to right the ship of state and reverse America’ precipitous decline.

David versus Goliath. This was the political context in February 1980 when the U.S. men’s hockey team began its miraculous ascent.

The team was comprised of amateurs from the American heartland. Most were from Minnesota and other northern states. Some had played college hockey; but no one would ever put them on a par with their vaunted counterparts from the Soviet Union.

As Tom D’Angelo explains in the Palm Beach Post:

The Soviets had won six of the previous seven gold medals in men’s hockey and were the overwhelming favorites. The team was made up of professionals who had been crushing opponents after losing to the U.S. in the 1960 Games, losing just one game in the previous 20 years.

This band of mismatched American collegians led by feisty coach Herb Brooks stood no chance against the Red Army.

“By the time of the big game on Friday, Feb. 22,” notes the Washington Examiner’s Quin Hillyer,

the American people had adopted their gritty team in a way that I’ve never seen before or since. It is not mere ex post facto gloss to say the contest was seen as being about much more than just hockey, more even than Olympic gold.

For the first time since World War I, Americans saw themselves—not just the team, but the nation—as underdogs. The young hockey squad carried the country’s hopes that underdogs still could win, that freedom could defeat regimentation, and that right could triumph. The battle seemed civilizational.

Win, of course, the Americans did. Most readers know the game story—the saves by goalie Jim Craig, the go-ahead goal by captain Mike Eruzione, and announcer Al Michaels’s immortal question, as the last seconds ran off the clock: “Do you believe in miracles?”

“Yes!” he answered… And finally, yes, we did.

This was very important, because by most lights, it would take a miracle to outstrip the Soviets in the far more consequential, geopolitical, nuclear-haunted battle of ideals and will.

The problem was that only one major presidential candidate in 1980 seemed eager to wage that battle.

His name: Ronald Wilson Reagan. The rest, as they say, is history. Reagan would go on to win the presidency, and then to inspire and lead an American economic renaissance. And, in the end, thanks to his concerted efforts, it was the United States that buried the Soviet Union.

But for most ordinary Americans, the first real glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, all was not lost, and that America could once again be great, came in the winter of our discontent in a small town (Lake Placid) in upstate New York.

There a group of unheralded but determined young Americans came together as a team to give it their all and achieve the impossible. And if they could do it, so could we. And we did.

Feature photo credit: Focus on Sports/Getty via InsideHook.