The most powerful men in the world want you to shut up and let them do whatever they want

On the power of staring them directly in the face and repeating a single word

My kids were off school on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so I knew that I would neither be working nor consuming much news. My wife and I read the headlines about the first round of executive orders right before bed. Neither of us slept all that well. I know that these orders were crafted at least in part to raise the anxiety levels of people like me and the kind of people about whom I care, so I would love to feign a cool unbotheredness about it all, to not give them the satisfaction. Unfortunately, I’m a terrible liar.

School was closed again yesterday, this time unplanned. A polar vortex. My God, it is so cold in Wisconsin right now. Each year, I understand more and more why Upper Midwesterners are so skilled at talking about the weather. There always seems to be so much of it, is the thing. Our household strategy for surprise school closures is that I take the kids during the day and, after putting dinner on the table for the family, I tag off with my wife and post up somewhere convenient for a night of work. Last night, my office was a corner bar/community hall/bowling alley in the neighborhood, a Milwaukee-coded venue if ever there was one.

I am sharing all this stage setting not because I am under the delusion that all the news that’s fit to print includes my household’s division of labor, but to showcase how determined I was to not write an essay about any of the ceremonial goings-on of the first two days of the new Trump administration. My time and energy being limited, I didn’t feel like I could metabolize forty eight hours worth of over-boiled actions and reactions and offer something novel in response. Instead, I grabbed a stool at a chillier-and-emptier-than-usual Falcon Bowl, ordered a Hamms, and committed to focusing, damnit.

My intended area of focus, for better or worse.

My plan was to bang out a couple thousand words about all the podcast episodes I’ve recently consumed where Marc Andreessen (the tech bigwig and venture capitalist who, even by the standards of that particular cohort, stands out for how desperately he wants you to know that he is the smartest human being on the planet) gloated about Trump’s victory and what it means for the ability of masters of the universe like himself to colonize our lives more fully. It was four different podcast episodes, by the way. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s too many by four.

God, have you ever listened to Marc Andreessen? He’s so smug, but so unconvincing in his smugness. He wants you to believe that Trump’s victory was a landslide, that there’s no logical reason besides sociopathy that anybody would ever critique a tech billionaire, that there is no point in opposing what the administration and its hangers-on have in store for us. He speaks like a Powerpoint. Bullet pointy. Declarative. Superficially confident, but eager to advance the slides before anybody asks a follow-up question. His current media tour appears at first to be celebratory, but it begs an obvious question. If you truly believe that this election has vindicated your worldview, why do you have to sit down with Bari Weiss, Jordan Petersen, Joe Rogan AND Ross Douthat to repeat the same stories about how traumatic it was to get criticized by woke, entry-level tech employees? Why can’t you just enjoy your unfettered access to the President and your Scrooge Mcduff-sized pool of money in peace? Who, Marc Andreessen, is all this for?

This is the second time that I’ve sat down to write a full essay about Andreessen but then got distracted. The first was when I got a text from another parent that there was a code red at my son’s middle-school. Last night’s interruption was far more welcome. What happened was, I did end up checking the news before starting what was to be a solely Andreessen-focused essay. Just a quick peek, but long enough to hear that Trump went to church yesterday and the bishop had a message for him.

"Let me make one final plea, Mr. President"

It was the calm that got me, the quiet matter-of-factness. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde posed it as a request, but she wasn’t begging or cajoling. It was neither argument nor viral takedown. It was just a simple statement of fact. The incoming President has proposed a set of policies that will hurt people— queer and trans people and immigrants in particular— and those people deserve to have their humanity recognized.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now… there are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

"The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

You all, this is not my first Trump administration. I am well aware of the limits of “have you no decency, sir?” moral appeals. I too had an Internet connection in 2017. I already know how we metabolize headlines like this. Bishop Budde’s homiletics will be replayed and celebrated on MSNBC and replayed and derided on Fox News. Various emotionally manipulative social media accounts on both sides of the aisle have and will mine it for content. Trump will say something rude, perhaps more than once. And then we will advance to the next news cycle. Hearts and minds will not be changed, justice will not flow like a river, nor righteousness like a mighty stream.

Pictured above, justice, failing to flow like a river

Yes, but also.

Perhaps it is just my overly tender heart. Perhaps it is my inner liberation theologian, the version of me that once dreamed of being a circuit riding Methodist preacher that I’ll never completely quit. Perhaps I’m just desperate for a source of warmth on days when the cold is both clumsy metaphor and meteorological reality. But goddamnit I can’t be cynical about words like those, not from a pulpit, not delivered with such clarity and calm, not spoken directly to the President’s face.

Policy was not changed yesterday, but something meaningful still occurred. An administration that desperately wants us to believe that all this is inevitable had to listen to a woman tell them that even if that is true, it is not just.

In response, Trump squirmed in his seat and feigned boredom, particularly once it became clear that the sermon’s theme would not be “Let Us Now Praise The Lord For Our Perfect President.” But JD Vance looked livid, as did other members of the Trump entourage. The Vice President smirked and cocked his eyebrow and whispered asides to his wife. Now, I should know better than to psychoanalyze men who have long since sold their souls for fame and glory. I don’t actually know what JD Vance was thinking. But goodness I know that look. He looked like he wanted to complain to Bishop Budde’s manager (God). He looked like he was about to get away with it, if not for that pesky lady in the clerical vestments. He looked, quite frankly, like a man who has been spending a lot of time with Marc Andreesseen, who wants so badly to believe all the narcotizing lies about how he and his cronies are not just world-historically powerful, but morally justified.

Here, as far as I see it, is the current state of affairs. A cadre of profoundly craven men would like you to not bother standing in their way. They want you to believe that one of the narrowest popular vote victories in American histories is a mandate. They want you to believe that the vast majority of Americans— across all demographic groups— woke up on the morning of November 6th with an unquenchable desire to yell slurs, terrorize trans people and toss parents and children in separate ICE trucks. They want you to believe all the stories about how the left is deflated now, about how there will be no meaningful protests, that we of the bleeding hearts are retroactively embarrassed by our public displays of earnestness back in 2017 and 2020. They want you to believe that God is either on their side or, at the very least, is too overwhelmed to notice. God’s all about self-care now, they say. Let the moneychangers have the temple. Let them fill it with novelty bitcoin.

I listened to Bishop Budde’s entire sermon. It was simple but gorgeous, a message about how unity isn’t about agreement or consensus, but the holy choice to give a damn about everybody around you, no exceptions. She didn’t actually say “give a damn” because of bishoply propriety, but you get the point. When interviewed afterwards, she was asked an unnecessarily gossipy question about whether she had heard Trump’s dismissive response. Instead, she made clear that the message wasn’t just for him, that she was concerned that after the election that there were many who felt a “level of license to be really quite cruel.”

Back in the bar, I finished the sermon and took off my headphones. The crack of bowling pins in the basement alley competed with the sounds of Family Feud on the TV. Steve Harvey asked a contestant to name something that she’d like to give away but nobody would take. She deadpanned “my kids” and the audience chuckled, though they knew it was just a joke. I bought a few losing pull tabs and the bartender commiserated with me about my bad luck before returning to his conversation with another patron. Perhaps I misheard their conversation, but from a bars-length away it sounded like she was talking about how much crap she had to deal with as a trans woman. I didn’t interject, because the pair clearly trusted one another. Whatever she said, the bartender nodded empathetically. Some nights we exercise our license for cruelty, and others we remember that we are bonded together, strangers and friends alike.

My friends, we have such difficult years ahead of us. We will, more than likely, lose more than we will win. I fear that we will not protect everybody from harm. I fear that our moral pleas will quite frequently fall on deaf ears.

Trump and Vance did not leave the Cathedral yesterday and change their ways. You could argue, I suppose, that Bishop Budde’s prophetic message was unsuccessful. And yet, here’s the precedent she set. On their first full day of work, this administration had to sit silently while another American stared them directly in the eyes and say, in essence, that she could see through their lies. Polling data does not justify tossing families out of the country. A slim electoral victory does not justify making a queer kid’s life a living hell. A drooling phalanx of sycophantic tech billionaires does not justify setting all of our futures on fire. Have mercy, Mr. President.

And also, have mercy, America.

Bishop Budde’s message wasn’t primarily for Trump, though he deserved to hear it. It was for all of us, for the 1460 days in front of us where we can be, if we choose, living counter-points to those who proclaim that the church of the lowest common denominator is now ascendent. Some days, we will speak in sermons, other days in diatribes. Some days, it will be time to march. On others, we will need to link arms in front of a neighbor’s house until ICE turns away. Many days, we won’t even be paying attention to Trump at all, because we are too busy feeding and clothing each other, making sure that nobody in our orbit must weather this moment alone.

On every day, as the good Bishop reminded us: mercy. Not just as a plea to the powerful, but as a promise connecting all of us left out in the cold.

Mercy, mercy, mercy

Louder and louder and louder.

Every time we are told that there’s no use in opposition.

Every time we are told that hope is dead.

Every time that we are told that the real victims are the money-changers.

Every time we are told that somebody else must be harmed for us to flourish.

Mercy, mercy, mercy.

End notes:

1. As promised, registration is now open for the next round of Barnraisers classes. These ones will be about how to actually build and sustain strong communities. I have a good feeling that you’ll both enjoy and get a lot out of them. More info here and registration here. We’ve already got such a lovely group and it would be so fun to have you as well.

2. These classes are virtual, open to all (regardless of organizing experience), offered at many different times, and free (though donations are appreciated). How can I offer them for free? Well in large part because kind people like you (who also value these newsletters) chip in with a paid subscription. Thanks, as always, for considering. It’s a gift to get to do this work with you all.

3. It’s been a while since I’ve done a song of the week, but this essay felt like it deserved a certain variety of hymn, namely one that was written to be sung in cold, upper Midwestern bars. Here’s “Care” by Chicago’s own Advance Base.

It’s a lovely song, but you should really read the lyrics:

The full Song of the Week playlist is available on both Apple Music and Spotify.

4. Speaking of upper Midwestern bars, if you ever find yourself in Milwaukee working a night shift writing about hope and faith and speaking truth to power, there are far worse venues than Falcon Bowl.

5. After finishing this essay, I realized that Bishop Budde’s sermon felt familiar, not in its specific language but in the message it sought to deliver. If you’ve been here for a while, you’ve heard me retell the Archbishop Tutu “invite you to join the winning side” story. If that doesn’t ring a bell, though, you’re in for a treat. What was Bishop Budde’s message if not, “you are very powerful, but you are not Gods.”