<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"> P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} </style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Thank you, Marshall, for this perspective. I see that Defense Secretary Mark Esper has been fired--having refused to use military troops on protestors. Lots to process.--Diann McCabe, San Marcos, TX<br>
</div>
<div>
<div id="appendonsend"></div>
<div style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:12pt; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<br>
</div>
<hr tabindex="-1" style="display:inline-block; width:98%">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> OE <oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of W. J. via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, November 9, 2020 11:54 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net><br>
<b>Cc:</b> W. J. <synergi@yahoo.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Oe List ...] Thoughts on TrEXIT</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="x_yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size:16px">
<div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Thoughts on TrEXIT</span></div>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Much as I totally detest her surreal political biases, I say that we NEED to pay attention to Susan’s voice. While I disagree with her stance that Mr. Biden is not (yet) President-elect, Susan HAS pointed out the obvious:
that almost fifty percent of the voting electorate is ALL FOR continuing the mirage of Trumpworld. More or less. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Or maybe they’re just stuck in their little time-warped bubble of political illusion and reductionistic, fear-filled defensiveness.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">So Susan is the canary in our coal mine.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Let us pay very careful attention to the thrashing, dying throes of this political Monster.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">And to the unnamed grief of seeing their longed-for political messiah slumping off the stage and, likely, going to jail.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">I, for one, have struggled with co-existing with my Trump-voter siblings in my family of origin.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">But their reality is that they’ve never even <i>tried</i> to understand me and/or my <i>weltanschauung</i>, let alone the former Order:Ecumenical. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Instead, they went for the obvious Evangelical Jesus-y version of Trumpworld. All to get a conservative Supreme Court majority, mostly. And to reverse everything from Roe v. Wade to Obergefell v. Hodges. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">So they winced at the pussy-grabbing and still pushed the Trump button.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If I have just ONE insight after four years of living in Trump Hell, here it is:</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">MOST Trump voters WERE--and some still ARE--somewhere between naïve and innocent.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">They <i>innocently</i> voted for the Monster (as he turned out to be) who promised them their version of Heaven in America.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What I fail to understand is <i>why</i> they voted for him twice!</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Especially considering the incredible pile of more than a quarter million corpses of those who died because of his malfeasance—and worse.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We need to make room for our national grieving process. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We have ALL lost a major war with a virus that resisted our half-hearted, scatterbrained, self-sabotaging attempts at containment. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">And it WILL get way worse before January 20.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Our grieving needs to include grief over realizing our complicity in letting all this come down on us. Divided as we are politically, we are ALL in this together, and ALL of us need to take on the burden of social
reconstruction.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What we must face is like nothing since the aftermath of the Civil War. </span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">And it’s WAY BEYOND the aftermath of the Viet Nam War that still continues as we fail to reckon the human cost of that political disaster in body bags and ruined lives.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">And it’s NOT as simple and easy as making a political course correction “back to normal“ after a short four-year side trip to the edge of the Abyss.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">It ain’t over until those on <i>both sides</i> of our polarized body politic can engage in a healing process.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">So let’s get over our exuberant partying and horn-honking in the streets. After four years of Hell, it’s a wonderful moment! But enough already!</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">We are witnessing the slow, painful, final hours of the Monster as Trumpworld gradually disintegrates into a steaming, slimy pile of fetid lies and frivolous court cases designed to poison the American
electorate with mountains of disinformation and Trumped-up conspiracy theories.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">It's a direct assault on democracy that seeks to plant the seeds of disillusionment and support targeted attacks on American institutions and marginalized groups of scapegoated people.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">And the Monster of creeping </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">Trump-tocracy is just now entering the breakthrough stage.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">To quote The New Yorker:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">"When it is no longer possible to reverse autocracy peacefully, the autocratic breakthrough has occurred, because the very structures of government have been transformed and can no longer protect
themselves. These changes usually include packing the constitutional court (the Supreme Court, in the case of the U.S.) with judges loyal to the autocrat; packing and weakening the courts in general; appointing a chief prosecutor (the Attorney General) who
is loyal to the autocrat and will enforce the law selectively on his behalf; changing the rules on the appointment of civil servants; weakening local governments; unilaterally changing electoral rules (to accommodate gerrymandering, for instance); and changing
the Constitution to expand the powers of the executive.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">"For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of the Trump Administration, his autocratic attempt checks most of the boxes."</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">And then, it gets WAY worse:</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">". . . if he is elected, Biden will likely proceed as if politics as normal has been restored, because he and the Democratic Party treat Trump as an aberration—cured simply by being voted out of office.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">"The last two days have, once again, shown that Trump is neither an aberration nor the product of Russian interference, but rather the conscious choice of roughly half of the voters, or some sixty-five
million Americans. This is a giant and, now, aggrieved movement, capable of carrying Trump or, more likely, one of his children, back into office in 2024 or 2028. . . . . If, upon his Inauguration, a President Biden acts as though our national nightmare is
over—if he attempts to build bridges and fetishizes bipartisanship in order to pass some watered-down legislation, rather than, say, even acknowledging the necessary and probably impossible task of unpacking the federal judiciary—then the autocratic attempt
can return, and it will be stronger."</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">I’m almost done, and this is more like a Rant than a Witness.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">But my truth is: I’m finally eighty years old, and I’m finally clear that I’m no longer Mister Nice Guy. Avoidance of truth-telling may have looked like a good idea in the past, but just LOOK at where
that got us!</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">So I’m going for our Painful Reality, rather than trying to make Nice, Meaningful Transestablishment-type Comments to try to make us feel a little better.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">And thank you, Susan, for alerting us to the internal reality of those who voted for Donald Trump.</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif; color:rgb(5,5,5)">Marshall</span></p>
<p class="x_ydp47c47abcMsoNormal" style="margin:0in; font-size:medium; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
</p>
<div><a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fnews%2Four-columnists%2Fby-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough&data=04%7C01%7Cdm14%40txstate.edu%7C1ef23205f8d84fc1020008d884d89666%7Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb%7C0%7C0%7C637405413067060646%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=KqcDDT6rtUZnrIdiI709De3C5r7FfS7rcZH0hFS1tKc%3D&reserved=0" originalsrc="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/by-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough" shash="TECBIeNtuqQ3J47hZp9xirjitVn/W6wj2XcYY4FqsNxQFTcirAHRKcbR7NuWsHBmosW3Ig+BNbZJRCIDZj0/H3nbT8C7S1omzLBjrficDw0k3EFDQ3Q2tBK9GI6+Siz6RUgqIKJNC2gVnu+b4ocMt8O1EZCjjsdyAkv6R9U1KpI=" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="x_enhancr_card_5709396066" style="color:rgb(149,79,114)">By
Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting an Autocratic Breakthrough</a></div>
<div class="x_enhancr-link-previews x_ymail-preserve-class x_ymail-preserve-style" style="margin-top:10px">
<h3 style="font-size:14px; font-weight:400; color:#454545; font-family:YahooSans,"Helvetica Neue","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin:0; padding:8px 0">
<span>Links in the message <span class="x_link-enhancr-preview-count">(1)</span></span></h3>
<div id="x_ydp6a41a6cbenhancr_card_5709396066" class="x_ydp6a41a6cbyahoo-link-enhancr-card x_ydp6a41a6cbymail-preserve-class x_ydp6a41a6cbymail-preserve-style" style="max-width:288px; font-family:YahooSans,"Helvetica Neue","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin:5px 5px 5px 0; display:inline-block">
<a href="https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fnews%2Four-columnists%2Fby-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough&data=04%7C01%7Cdm14%40txstate.edu%7C1ef23205f8d84fc1020008d884d89666%7Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb%7C0%7C0%7C637405413067070639%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=0ReomR3OcB3qbyWI9uaLj%2F6cOsx9ozBTpZA09P47l6c%3D&reserved=0" originalsrc="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/by-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough" shash="XbxDOHA9BE30b0FHZ2zA1FuNWqk1jI5+97cGECF90Mz0Jk8x+Dr7jI0iU5vxhip4lNC40/ZN/gLrqs8nVuIGxmKa7EfVKg8RiBa5OsMYx8Ldi2l0CNbnJ6HXCsifZYnWOm+52hzjldJQ+rpLzVvPm94U2LeKICm77OVV0qMNdlY=" class="x_ydp6a41a6cbyahoo-enhancr-cardlink" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none!important; color:#000!important">
<table class="x_ydp6a41a6cbcard x_ydp6a41a6cbyahoo-ignore-table" style="border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-color:rgb(224,228,233); width:288px; background-color:#fff; border-radius:2px" width="288" height="80" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width:80px; background-color:#000; border-radius:2px 0 0 2px; border-right:1px solid rgb(224,228,233)" width="80px">
<img class="" style="width:80px; vertical-align:middle; border-radius:2px 0 0 2px" width="80" height="80" src="https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/86fDxf.c89Q.hUnd9y6LmA--~A/Zmk9ZmlsbDt3PTgwO2g9ODA7YXBwaWQ9aWV4dHJhY3Q-/https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5fa42a0f751555c60ac68440/16:9/w_1280,c_limit/Gessen-AutocraticBreakthrough.jpg.cf.jpg"></td>
<td style="width:10px" width="10px"></td>
<td><img class="x_ydp6a41a6cbcard-object" width="24" height="24" src="https://s.yimg.com/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV2/23/logos/newyorker.png">
<h2 class="x_ydp6a41a6cbcard-title" style="font-size:14px; line-height:16px; color:rgb(38,40,42); font-family:YahooSans,"Helvetica Neue","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; margin:4px 0px; max-width:186px; text-decoration:none!important">
By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is A...</h2>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>