impeachment

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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

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Con Don: Why some conservative Catholic news sites were duped by Donald Trump

Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, the discussion about his time in office and legacy is something that has become a media preoccupation despite Joe Biden being inaugurated last month.

That’s because Trump upended much of the way government worked. Add to that a media that can’t quit him (some outlets saw a huge increase in readers and viewers since 2016) and the U.S. Senate impeachment trial, and you can see why Trump remains a focal point.

The U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 is the coda to the Trump presidency and the reason why he remains a news cycle fixture. You may no longer see the former president on Twitter, but The New York Times and CNN — to name just two mainstream news organizations — continue to give him plenty of coverage.

This brings us to another development in today’s evolving news-media marketplace: Catholic media also blossomed during the Trump years.

What has been the result of some Catholic news websites giving Trump any form of editorial support?

Catholic news sites across the doctrinal spectrum should have done a better job calling out both sides — something the mainstream press no longer does, especially on moral, cultural and religious issues. Most often, they don’t run opposing opinion pieces and it appears that the selection of news stories and their arguments are often guided by politics.

However, if we have learned anything over the past four years it is that marrying one’s faith to a political ideology can be a form of idolatry. How else would you explain the zeal of some Catholics who argued that Trump should remain in office?

Catholics have been seduced by the concept that the government can remedy the nation’s problems. They weren’t duped by Trump in as much as they tried to find a solution for what ails society, from their point of view, by supporting an imperfect man. Catholics, like many people of other Christian denominations, wanted to believe Trump. They had too much invested in him and his policy decisions.

Where right-wing Catholics news sites, in particular, go from here remains to be seen.


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There are religion angles with a presidential run by Michigan Libertarian Justin Amash

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U.S. Representative Justin Amash is making a bid to shake up this oddly socially-distanced U.S. presidential campaign with last week’s announcement of an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party nomination. He becomes the first avowed Libertarian in the U.S. House after being its first Palestinian-American. Due to Covid-19, plans for the party nominating convention, originally planned for May 21-25, are in flux.

The Michigan maverick is by far the best-known of the Libertarian hopefuls. He won headlines last year by quitting the Republican Party to protest Trump-ism, became the House’s only Independent, and was the lone non-Democrat voting to impeach the president.

Reality check. No third party has taken the White House since the Republicans in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won with only 39.8 percent of the popular vote in an unusual four-way race.

The Libertarians’ best-ever showing was only 3.3 percent in 2016. Amash "uh-MOSH") got only 1 percent support against Biden (46 percent) and Trump (42 percent) in a mid-April Morning Consult poll. But he claimed to Reason magazine that he’s no “spoiler” and has a shot because “most Americans” think that Joe Biden and Trump “aren’t up to being president” and want an alternative.

Despite his anti-Trump credentials, Politico.com thinks it’s unclear whether Amash “would do more damage to Biden or Trump.” Showing the potential for conservative support, the Washington Examiner’s Brad Polumbo championed Amash against what he sees as the incompetent, “fundamentally indecent” Trump and the “frail,” too-leftist Biden.

Amash is also free of the sexual misconduct accusations against the two major party candidates — which they deny.

Religion reporters will note that Amash is one of only five Eastern Orthodox members of Congress. His Palestinian father and Syrian mother came to the U.S. as immigrants thanks to sponsorship by a pastor in Muskegon. He attended Grand Rapids Christian High School, where he met his wife Kara, later an alumna of the Christian Reformed Church’s Calvin University.

On the religiously contested abortion issue, Amash’s “pro-life” stand agrees with Orthodox Church teaching, and the National Right to Life Committee gives him a 100 percent rating.


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Thinking along with Mark Pinsky: On talking with Trump's lawyer who was raised Jewish

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I am sorry for the delay on this think piece from The Forward, since really should have run during the impeachment proceedings. However, I never thought of this as a piece about Donald Trump or any of his pack.

No, I thought GetReligion readers would want to see this because it was written by Mark Pinsky, the veteran religion-beat pro best known for his work in the heavily evangelical world that surrounds Orlando.

Pinsky is also the author of a book that I recommend when asked one of the questions that I hear all the time. That question: What is the best book to use in a college or university level course about covering religion news?

Well, of course I am going to recommend this project from my friends and former colleagues linked to The Media Project: “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion.” It includes my essay on religion-beat strategies for editors and publishers, “Getting Religion in the Newsroom.”

But there really isn’t a religion-beat 101 book, a kind of manual for professionals who are starting the process of reading themselves up to speed on the myriad subjects, movements and vocabularies needed to cover this complex subject.

But there is a book that I recommend that does a great job of explaining WHY reporters need to take the challenges of this beat seriously and why they should strive to get inside the beliefs and worldviews of the believers they need to cover. That book is Mark Pinksy’s small volume entitled, “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.”

This brings us to the weekend think piece, that recent Forward feature that ran with this headline: “Trump Impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow says ‘I’ve never felt not Jewish.’ “

Why did Pinsky land this exclusive interview?

Sekulow said the interview with the Forward was the only one he planned to do ahead of the impeachment trial, and that he agreed to do it because I have been writing about him on and off for more than a quarter century — and because his great-uncle, Sonya Sekular, worked for the Forward in the 1940s, Sekulow said.


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Was Romney's faith taken seriously in impeachment coverage? Alas, few surprises here...

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In the end, the only drama in the impeachment vote didn’t involve the Democrats and Donald Trump.

No, it involved Sen. Mitt Romney and Trump. If you looked at this from Romney’s stated point of view, the final decision came down to Trump vs. God — as in Romney’s oath to follow his faith and his conscience, as opposed to loyalty to his political party.

The most dramatic moment in Romney’s speech on the U.S. Senate floor — that long, long, long pause as he fought to control his emotions — came as he tried to explain how his decision was linked to his faith and his family.

So how did this obvious faith factor show up in the mainstream coverage of the political story of the day? The results, for better and for worse, were totally predictable.

Take the New York Times, for example. Here is the crucial passage, pushed deep into the main Romney story.

On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Mr. Romney placed his decision in the context of his faith, his family and how history would remember it.

And that was that.

The political desk team at The Washington Post managed to get one snippet of Godtalk into its Romney story. Readers who made it to the 12th paragraph read the following:

Romney said he couldn’t let concerns over breaking with his party guide his vote, which he cast as one of conscience and rooted in his religious beliefs.

“I am aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters, I will be vehemently denounced,” Romney said on the Senate floor. “I am sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?”


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Pelosi points to her Catholic faith in denying she hates Trump. Will news reports offer any context?

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“Don’t mess with me.”

It’s the soundbite of a busy news day — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s confrontation with a reporter who asked if she hates President Donald Trump.

But as you probably already know, Pelosi pointed to her Catholic faith in the exchange, immediately pushing this political story into the realm of religion news.

Some of the crucial details, via the New York Times:

The flash of anger from Ms. Pelosi — “Don’t mess with me,” she told the reporter — came as she was leaving a news conference in which she had just finished discussing her decision to move forward with articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump.

“Do you hate the president?” James Rosen, a reporter for a conservative television network, asked loudly as Ms. Pelosi made her way offstage in a television studio near the Capitol.

Ms. Pelosi whipped around to face Mr. Rosen, wagging her finger at him and saying, “Don’t accuse me,” as he explained that he was asking her to respond to Republicans’ claims that Democrats were pursuing Mr. Trump’s impeachment out of personal animus against him.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office,” the speaker said sharply after returning to the lectern to speak into a microphone and face the still-rolling cameras. “As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone.”

“I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love, and always pray for the president,” she continued. “And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

In scanning the spot-news coverage today, I was curious to see if journalists would offer any background and context on Pelosi’s faith.

That information certainly seems relevant to the story, right?


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Obituary of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland haunted by religion ghosts

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There’s sad, sad news today in the world of politics: the death of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland.

The Associated Press obituary — which will be the one many thousands of Americans read — captures key highlights of Cummings’ prominent life.

Yes, those highlights include clashing with President Donald Trump:

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died Thursday of complications from longstanding health problems. He was 68.

Cummings was a formidable orator who advocated for the poor in his black-majority district , which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore and more well-to-do suburbs.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led investigations of the president’s government dealings, including probes in 2019 relating to Trump’s family members serving in the White House.

But read the full AP report, and it’s clear that something is missing.

Holy ghosts, anyone?

AP offers hints of a potential religious influence in Cummings’ life, including here:

It steeled Cummings to prove that counselor wrong. He became not only a lawyer, but one of the most powerful orators in the statehouse, where he entered office in 1983. He rose to become the first black House speaker pro tem. He would begin his comments slowly, developing his theme and raising the emotional heat until it became like a sermon from the pulpit.

Hmmmmm. Why might Cummings’ oratory have resembled a sermon?


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