a mystical möbius — curating facts, ideas, text, and media to create a contemplative space.

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Eternity in action

Many significant ‘feels’ this week, both high and low depending on the color of one’s political jersey.

In case you’ve not heard it, or would simply enjoy feeling it again, from the inauguration, here’s National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, reciting her poem, “The Hill we Climb.”

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 “….being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.” 

Eternity in action.

Of course, “Eternity” has a mobius-like nature—e.g., not-two, as in temporal/not-temporal, material/not-material. Here, I’m speaking of Eternity as a transcendent dynamic relationship embedded in temporal existence, e.g., like the arc of the moral universe.

In Eternal terms, our present society is dynamically linked (through our living history) with the society shared by our slave-owning founders, and the society shared by our segregationist Jim Crow forbearers. Our past reaches forward to touch and shape our present. Our present is an opportunity to (figuratively speaking) repair our past, e.g., redeem our future.

Present context of ‘Eternity in action’

Here, on the evening of inauguration day, President Biden participates in a video conference gathering to swear-in about a thousand diverse new White House staffers.

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Embed from Getty Images

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Speaking forthrightly, President Biden promises to fire, on the spot, anyone who ever disregards or disrespects the human dignity of anyone with whom they deal. 

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Please don’t misconstrue this into a dogmatic overreach like: “fine people on both sides.”

President Biden knows that extremists are not welcome at the table of political debate—he understands that White supremacists/militant seditionists are terrorists.

In stark contrast, using its 1776 Commission, the previous administration wanted to simply whitewash the problem of White supremacist ideology (and its legacy systemic and institutional artifacts) away.

This WaPo story, ‘A hack job,’ ‘outright lies’: Trump commission’s ‘1776 Report’ outrages historians, records that no historians were consulted for the commission’s ‘1776 Report.’

By the way, DJT released the ‘1776 Report’ on Monday, January 18, this year’s MLK holiday observation.

Note: Our new president terminated the 1776 Commission last Wednesday. 

The Grand Old Party [GOP] (or, Republican Party) is at an existential fork in the road. One path goes the way of the Whigs, the other completely purges DJT and White supremacy from the GOP.

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A ‘tell tale heart’

Two WaPo stories clearly indicate a very significant piece of the GOP‘s problem:

In “Fake GOP rage over Biden’s unity speech…,” Greg Sargent writes:

President Biden declared in his inaugural address that our prospects for much-needed “unity” are threatened by various political forces. Among them, he said, are racism, nativism, political extremism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism.

Republicans promptly decided that in condemning those things, Biden was actually talking about them.

Republican officials and their media allies are now widely condemning these words as an attack on themselves and their voters. 

Really? That reads a lot into Biden’s words. One wonders why they make this connection so easily and automatically? 

Not surprisingly, in “Biden’s targeting of extreme racism…,” Rand Paul does the same. Phillip Bump writes:

“If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly veiled innuendo,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said during an interview on Fox News, “calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book.”

No. President Biden said extremism is bad, not that ‘Republican’ equals ‘extremist.’

Rand Paul’s not-conscious conscience talking? 

In a mystical möbius I have been writing for a couple of years against this reductionist argument. Trump supporters are not a monolith, neither are Republicans. However, it is no longer possible to deny that the Trump coalition intentionally includes militant White Christian nationalists, White Power groups, and anti-government seditionists. DJT intentionally included these groups in his MAGA coalition [e.g., “Unite the Right” as a Trump inspired/empowered rally]

The GOP seems to finally be realizing that civilization and courteous society are indeed trying to cancel White supremacy and its artifacts. This, quite obviously, makes them fiercely nervous, and that may well be a not-conscious nod to their ‘tell tale hearts.’

As far as “an attack on the right itself,” as Senator Paul claims, I would respond: “Well, only to the extent that the shoe fits.”

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tl;dr

Through a nod-and-a-wink, White Power became an integral piece of Trumpism. The GOP has only one path to the future: a complete purge of all things Trump. Obviously, this purge will require authentic recognition and repudiation of, and repentance from, our collective White supremacist legacy.

“…a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.“

“…the past we step into, and how we repair it.”

True of both a nation, and humankind. Simple genuine recognition, repudiation, and repentance of our original sins allows Providence to lead us to our redemption. 

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Next week: No idea. Come and see. 

[this post approx. 825 words (3 min. read)]

Your thoughts? 

What did you hear me say?

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