A political proverb: Election campaigns are about addition, not subtraction. Reality: recorded history tells us that subtraction is often used for addition.
Subtraction has rarely enjoyed such an important tactical moment. Donald Trump’s campaign is built on damning various people and groups. Most of his assertions demonize some opponent; elect me he says, to “Make America Great Again”, as if unity is an anachronism.
Hillary Clinton, presumably to demonstrate the moral superiority of her followers, called half of Trump’s supporters “deplorables.” Not, I understate, a leadership moment.
There are numerous theories on how we arrived at this moment, but one observation (outside the election cycle) that deserves further comment was made by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a University of Chicago Law School presentation. Ginsburg, when asked for reflections on Roe v. Wade, said the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that “affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion was too far-reaching and too sweeping.”
Justice Ginsburg favors a woman’s right to choose, but now understands the downside of such an abrupt and sweeping preemption of State laws on an intensely personal issue that for many attacks an important religious belief.
Post-Roe v. Wade we are still feeling the shrapnel from that decision and especially in this election cycle.
In a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, the noted Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer and Christian media personality, Eric Metaxas wrote: “It’s a fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected, the country’s chance to have a Supreme Court that values the Constitution—and the genuine liberty and self-government for which millions have died—is gone. Not for four years, or eight, but forever.” I can feel the shrapnel.
If Hillary Clinton, who praises Roe v. Wade, shares Justice Ginsburg’s wisdom, it is not apparent. If she were to publicly embrace this more cautious judicial view, I believe there would be a significant political upside for her and the nation.
I am a Christian and strive to understand what that means in relationship to the political world where I spent part of my career. When I was nominated to be Chairman of the FCC, three Christian-right political activists who preached in the halls of Congress, opposed my confirmation. They wanted to tell President George HW Bush who to appoint. While Chairman, I took on Howard Stern (a Trump enabler) and was praised by those who were earlier damning me.
Stepping back, as faith requires, I am reminded of William Wilberforce, Fredrick Douglas and Martin Luther King. Wilberforce, an evangelical, led the successful fight to abolish slavery in Britain. Douglas fought it in the United States, and King fought 20th Century discrimination. Each spoke about their faith and its importance in shaping them and their mission.
And each spoke of disappointment and sadness when they saw Church leaders yield to politicians who were appealing to our worst instincts.
Martin Luther King in commenting on the early Church captured that sadness in Letter From Birmingham Jail: “There was a time when the Church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”
Metaxas, in his biography on Bonhoeffer, chronicled Bonhoeffer’s departure from Germany’s state church to form the Confessing Church. Hitler had co-opted, what was called the German Church and it ended up supporting his nationalism. Bonhoeffer was implicated in the attempt to assassinate Hitler and in its aftermath he was executed. We should all get to know Bonhoeffer, Wilberforce, Douglas and King–those who courageously followed Jesus Christ.
Coming back to today’s campaign I will leave you with my heroes of faith except to say that I believe the Church and its leaders are best when they are concentrating on saving souls and serving those left behind. The more the Church, in all its diversity, reflects the life and teaching of Jesus Christ the more influence it will have. The influence will not be due to its political advocacy, but to the faithful living lives of grace and the extraordinary influence of that reality.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
James Nick says
It is endlessly fascinating that in the age of the Internet and Google, where the truth of the matter can be found only a few clicks away, that people still persist in trying to spin an argument their way by boldly stating half-truths and distortions of facts. After reading Mr Sikes’s latest post a casual reader might be left with the impression that even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a stalwart liberal Supreme Court Justice, has, upon reflection, finally come to her senses that the Court’s decision in Roe v Wade was in great error. Specifically, Mr Sikes takes the statement by Justice Ginsburg that Roe “affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion was too far-reaching and too sweeping” and then willfully extrapolates it to suggest Justice Ginsburg now understands Roe was actually an attack on important religious beliefs.
Nonsense. This is the sort of cherry-picking, statements of half-truths, and distortions that are hallmarks of the Republican brand. It’s right up there with Obamacare Death Panels.
The fact is that Justice Ginsburg did not and does not repudiate the Roe decision nor the principle that women have a constitutional right to make their own reproductive choices free of interference by the state. Rather, she simply questioned the logic of the majority opinion which stated that the primary right to be preserved in the Roe decision was that of the physician to practice medicine freely absent a compelling state interest – not women’s rights in general. Justice Ginsburg’s preference is that abortion rights be recognized under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, based on the view that having a child should be a woman’s choice.
As for Justice Ginsburg’s personal opinion that Roe v Wade was too far-reaching and too sweeping, this was based on her concern that by the Court moving too far too fast on the abortion issue, it would animate the conservative anti-abortion proponents who consider Roe a monumental act of judicial overreach, not unlike the blowback from the recent Court decision on marriage equality. At the same University of Chicago Law School presentation that Mr Sikes cites, Justice Ginsburg also said “… That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly… My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change.”
As for Mr Sikes’s aside about Mrs Clinton labeling trump’s followers as Deplorables as indicative of her lack of leadership, I have to wonder what a better collective term is to describe the KKK, the neo-Nazis, the white supremacist, the separatist militias, or the anti-immigrant terrorist groups like The Crusaders, three members of which, were recently arrested in Kansas for planning to bomb an apartment complex and a mosque. By any measure these groups are deplorable. While they may not represent “half” of trump supporters (an estimate that was walked back), spokespersons for these groups have left no doubt where their sympathies lie in the presidential contest. Meanwhile, trump has been a nothing if not a walking, talking abusive insult machine from the moment he entered the race.. He has insulted entire religions, nationalities, races, and genders. Is this leadership?