The United States is a breeding ground for the worst people on the planet. When the Heavenly Angel came down to rescue Dante from The Furies in Hell, he called them “Outcasts of Heaven, you twice-loathsome crew.”
I thought about this, Your comment that Miller is Eichmann. I think Miller is Himmler and Vought is Eichmann. The latter is the embodiment of the banality of evil, hes quiet disposition and his accountant-like suits. Either way they both are more dangerous than the press describes them.
Miller is Goebbels, Kristi Noem is Himmler, Vought is Martin Bormann, Pam Bondi is Reinhard Heydrich, Pete Hegseth is Hermann Göring, Marco Rubio is Albert Speer, Tom Homan is Adolf Eichmann, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Dr. Josef Mengele,
Pam did not help her credibility by constantly looking at her rolodex/playbook for talking points. She will rot with the rest of them once truth and accountability are restored
Protests, boycott corps, anything that takes miney out if billionaires pockets, call reoresentatives, write postcards, join the Save America Movement, help register viters, help staff voting polls during election.... there is an Indivisible group in almost rvery town, or one near. They have many activities. When the general nationwide strike is set up everyone should oarticipate.
Thank you. Respectfully, I have filled up my retirement hours with almost everything you've listed here. Demonstrations are ignored. I call Congress (NJ and PA) almost every day. Letters, postcards, signs, boycotts, demonstrations, spreading the word, assisting with voting... I feel like the elections are really out of our hands. Don't get me started on what I believe happened last November. The only thing I have faith in is a prolonged painful huge general strike - I think we agree on that. It has to be a big shutdown - like Covid without the virus.
I agree. I'm retired and have done the same. I remember when Nixon was ousted. It seemed like it took so very long. Then, one day, like magic, poof, he wasnt president anymore. I hope the same happens this time. I hope they are smart enough to try all of them as traitors. If not, we will go through this again in the near future. Hang in there, we are going to fix this.
It’s the only thing the guilded class understands. When they get kicked in the “ nards “ wallet they pay attention. Besides that they could give a wit about the working classes.
When their pool isn’t cleaned, when their golf greens aren’t mowed, when their cabanas on their private beaches haven’t been cleaned, when their private jets have no one to fix them, fly them or gas them up………….then they might wake the fuck up to the dumpster fire that is happening to our country.
I don’t begrudge them the money they have. They just need to pay their fair share. They breathe the same air as we do. They drive on the same roads. They drink the same water.
A general strike. People will have to stay home and not work or spend money for days or however long it takes to get the point across. The CEO's and oligarchs will have to make Trump back off because their money flow will stop.
It’s all complete insanity and I’m sick of insults and threats that keep spouting from their mouths. They are purposely destroying the country that they were ejected to serve. The sheer waste of taxpayer money is incomprehensible .
The generals and admirals who were lectured to and told they were killers and destroyers (clearly understood that that is what this regime wants from them) hopefully will not comply. They know they are being told to kill their own countrymen. They also know the damage that killing fellow Americans would do to the troops.
This is really unbelievable. Thank Steve for seeing this and pointing out "Plenary Authority." You are right, Miller knew that if he just shut up that CNN would go to a break. I'm really disgusted and heartsick.
So, we are all their enemies! they are the New NAZI regime, and we will all be subservient to them for in in their mind we are the enemy, we are to be sick with no health insurance, no money for food, the tariff makes us poor, they closed all benefit's, they are the Masters, we are the slaves. The White Racist Nationalists Regime [white racist nationalism]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), the German Lutheran pastor and theologian executed for his part in resisting Nazism, never penned a systematic treatise entitled “character in politics.”
Yet his sermons, letters, and major works—especially The Cost of Discipleship, Ethics (unfinished), and Letters and Papers from Prison—converge into a moral vision that illuminates what character in political life must be.
For Bonhoeffer, political character is not an inward quality divorced from action but the visible fruit of costly discipleship: a life shaped by responsibility to neighbor, humility before God, and the courage to resist injustice—even when resistance demands personal sacrifice.
Central to this portrait is his withering critique of the “arrogance of power,” which clarifies both the pathology political character must oppose and the humility it must embody.
True political character begins with discipleship. Bonhoeffer’s stark claim that “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” insists that moral integrity is forged by costly obedience. A leader of character is measured not by rhetorical skill, electoral success, or managerial efficiency, but by fidelity to moral truth and a readiness to bear personal cost rather than betray justice. This discipleship converts private piety into public responsibility: the commitment to live under God’s claim and to refuse compromises that injure others.
That commitment issues in concrete responsibility rather than abstract moralism. For Bonhoeffer, ethical principles become real only when enacted in the particularities of human life; moral judgment must be made in relation to concrete persons and situations.
Thus a politician of character assumes responsibility for the effects of decisions on actual human beings, resisting the temptation to hide behind technocratic rationales or impersonal legalisms. Character shows itself in situated judgment aimed at protecting neighbors—especially the weak—rather than in invoking neutral rules to evade accountability.
Opposing the arrogance of power is essential to this account. Bonhoeffer observed how power easily corrupts by assuring itself of rightful domination, sanctifying violence, or claiming moral exemption.
The arrogance of power manifests when rulers mistake authority for moral superiority, treat subjects as instruments, and cloak self-interest in the language of necessity or destiny.
Against that temptation, Bonhoeffer insists on humility: leaders must recognize their finitude, answerability, and the moral danger of seeing power as an end in itself.
Political character therefore requires resisting the seductions of authority—eschewing triumphalism, revealing the limits of one’s judgments, and refusing to reduce neighbors to mere means.
Closely related is moral courage: the disciplined willingness to resist evil rather than accommodate it.
Bonhoeffer condemned Christians who adapted to Nazism through compromise, seeking peace at the price of justice.
Courage in politics is not reckless heroism but conscience-shaped resolve, exercised within accountable communities and informed by prayerful discernment. It may require civil disobedience or clandestine action when legal structures themselves perpetrate injustice. Such resistance is generated by humility before God and solidarity with the oppressed, not by the arrogance of asserting one’s own righteousness above others.
Bonhoeffer’s critique of “cheap grace” sharpens the moral diagnosis. Cheap grace separates forgiveness from repentance and ethical transformation; politically, it shows up when leaders use pious words to excuse moral laxity, manipulation, or exploitation.
True character repudiates this hypocrisy through continual repentance, transparency about failures, and a commitment to moral formation. Leaders must not hide behind sanctimonious rhetoric to mask compromises with injustice; they must confess error, make amends, and be re-formed by service to neighbors.
His realism about ethical life adds another dimension: character must include prudence in the face of tragic choices.
Bonhoeffer rejects both moralism and pietism—neither rule-bound legalism nor private religiosity suffices.
Political actors will sometimes face situations where every option involves some evil; character is demonstrated by the capacity to weigh conflicting goods, choose the lesser evil when required, and bear the burden of that choice without self-justification.
Prudence here is disciplined judgment, attentive to consequences but not paralyzed by them.
Community and accountability form the soil in which character grows.
Bonhoeffer understood the church as a community that shapes conscience; likewise, political virtue requires institutions and public practices that correct, restrain, and ennoble leaders.
Character is relational: openness to critique, willingness to be corrected, and readiness to answer publicly for one’s decisions. Such accountability counters the arrogance of power by insisting that authority is service under the law of neighbor-love.
Finally, Bonhoeffer’s ethic centers service and solidarity with the weak.
Power rightly exercised is servanthood: policies and political conduct should aim to protect human dignity and secure justice for those at society’s margins. Leadership is judged by its effect on the vulnerable, not by displays of dominance. Coupled with humility, courage, and prudence, this posture is sustained by hope—an abiding fidelity that resists despair while acknowledging human fallibility.
In Bonhoeffer’s terms, then, political character is the moral backbone forged by costly discipleship: a tempered unity of humility, responsibility, courage, prudence, service, and accountability that directly opposes the arrogance of power.
It refuses the seduction of domination, resists easy compromises, and accepts the burdens of concrete, often tragic decision-making while remaining open to repentance and communal judgment.
Evaluating leaders by their willingness to accept personal cost for justice, their record of service to the vulnerable, and their habit of transparent, accountable decision-making captures the practical implications of Bonhoeffer’s vision. In the end, Bonhoeffer asks not for leaders who simply wield power well, but for those whose character transforms power into service—leaders who, because they live for others under God, can stand against injustice without becoming the very thing they oppose.
Thank you David Hope for this essay about Bonhoeffer. It is true inspiration for how to live a life for justice, community and helping others, which he certainly did.
At this moment, we have two viable topics that we can own:
1. Trump's excitement about making healthcare unaffordable or fully unavailable for millions of Americans to give billionaires tax breaks. This is a winner! Do not waver, Dems! Stay the course! Keep the government closed until Trump folds, which he will.
2. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Do not be distracted, Dems! Keep asking about Epstein, keep the story alive, front and center. Force MAGA to defend a child rapist. It's a horrifying topic, but a winner.
Remember, this is not the first No KIngs Day. There were several before and I hope you participated in all of them as I have and many others. But what else can be done? Let us fight for the use of Amendment 14, Section 3. Talk and protests are getting us no where. It's time to demand action against trump and vance for what they have done againt the citizens of our United States. Write to your representative and senator and see just how much kuts they have to get this started. Impeachment is not the solution. We need them all out now.
You should peacefully protest even ever you want. I agree all this planning with huge gaps of time between protests is such a waste of time. If you need to take the summer off, then maybe fighting for democracy isn’t your thing. During the Vietnam War protests quite often just grew with people just showing up and the protests grew organically.
Steve Schmidt, you have such clarity of thought, such clarity in your analyses. What would you have us (patriotic, liberal) we, the citizens of the United States, what would you have us DO? And are you willing to do it right alongside us? Is it time for us to form an insurrection? Can you even answer that question without putting a lot of people in peril?
Miller said what he truly believes - that the president has absolute authority (he, of course does not). He just got a little ahead of himself. First Trump will declare Illinois is in rebellion against the US. Then Miller will be back with his plenary power BS - trying to claim that the law allows it. Instead of that, why doesn't he just declare the New Reich and announce himself as deputy Fuhrer.
Know that we are doing all in our power in our little Ozaukee County Democratic Party in Wisconsin to STOP this!
Thank you for your noble effort. It is remembered
Thank you for standing strong in the face of this heinous oppression! You are not alone, my fellow Patriot! Solidarity!
The United States is a breeding ground for the worst people on the planet. When the Heavenly Angel came down to rescue Dante from The Furies in Hell, he called them “Outcasts of Heaven, you twice-loathsome crew.”
He was referring to MAGA.
I thought about this, Your comment that Miller is Eichmann. I think Miller is Himmler and Vought is Eichmann. The latter is the embodiment of the banality of evil, hes quiet disposition and his accountant-like suits. Either way they both are more dangerous than the press describes them.
Miller is Goebbels, Kristi Noem is Himmler, Vought is Martin Bormann, Pam Bondi is Reinhard Heydrich, Pete Hegseth is Hermann Göring, Marco Rubio is Albert Speer, Tom Homan is Adolf Eichmann, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Dr. Josef Mengele,
I forgot a couple: J.D. Vance and Ka$h Patel are pool cabana towel boys.
I did not hit the "like" button because I like the people you mentioned (and what they do.) I am disgusted by all of them.
I hit the like button because of what you pointed out.
I like your comparison too!
If the shoe fits…..
And Hegseth is Roehm.
I feel the same way. So glad someone else is of like mind.
Pam did not help her credibility by constantly looking at her rolodex/playbook for talking points. She will rot with the rest of them once truth and accountability are restored
From your mouth to god's ear!
To stop this it takes one word UNITE
Thank you for elucidating.
Serious ask: What. The. Fuck. Can. We. Do?
Protests, boycott corps, anything that takes miney out if billionaires pockets, call reoresentatives, write postcards, join the Save America Movement, help register viters, help staff voting polls during election.... there is an Indivisible group in almost rvery town, or one near. They have many activities. When the general nationwide strike is set up everyone should oarticipate.
Thank you. Respectfully, I have filled up my retirement hours with almost everything you've listed here. Demonstrations are ignored. I call Congress (NJ and PA) almost every day. Letters, postcards, signs, boycotts, demonstrations, spreading the word, assisting with voting... I feel like the elections are really out of our hands. Don't get me started on what I believe happened last November. The only thing I have faith in is a prolonged painful huge general strike - I think we agree on that. It has to be a big shutdown - like Covid without the virus.
Karmama,
I agree. I'm retired and have done the same. I remember when Nixon was ousted. It seemed like it took so very long. Then, one day, like magic, poof, he wasnt president anymore. I hope the same happens this time. I hope they are smart enough to try all of them as traitors. If not, we will go through this again in the near future. Hang in there, we are going to fix this.
Peace and solidarity
It’s the only thing the guilded class understands. When they get kicked in the “ nards “ wallet they pay attention. Besides that they could give a wit about the working classes.
When their pool isn’t cleaned, when their golf greens aren’t mowed, when their cabanas on their private beaches haven’t been cleaned, when their private jets have no one to fix them, fly them or gas them up………….then they might wake the fuck up to the dumpster fire that is happening to our country.
I don’t begrudge them the money they have. They just need to pay their fair share. They breathe the same air as we do. They drive on the same roads. They drink the same water.
I’d debate the water…
Fair point.
If you live in Flint, Michigan? Yeah, not the same at all.
More places than Flint..
Agitate and never submit to the distortion of the rule of law.
A general strike. People will have to stay home and not work or spend money for days or however long it takes to get the point across. The CEO's and oligarchs will have to make Trump back off because their money flow will stop.
https://generalstrikeus.com/ spread the word.
It’s all complete insanity and I’m sick of insults and threats that keep spouting from their mouths. They are purposely destroying the country that they were ejected to serve. The sheer waste of taxpayer money is incomprehensible .
I’m right there with you.
The generals and admirals who were lectured to and told they were killers and destroyers (clearly understood that that is what this regime wants from them) hopefully will not comply. They know they are being told to kill their own countrymen. They also know the damage that killing fellow Americans would do to the troops.
This is really unbelievable. Thank Steve for seeing this and pointing out "Plenary Authority." You are right, Miller knew that if he just shut up that CNN would go to a break. I'm really disgusted and heartsick.
Then, CNN edited out the remark!
Yes, I just saw that. Mainstream media strikes again.
They can roll a tank over me, i’ll never back down
Schkoyach, Ken. Pain is temporary, pride is forever, and character is destiny.
I had to look that one up, David. 😊 well , thank you! I know that there are more of us than them and they cant lock us all up.
So, we are all their enemies! they are the New NAZI regime, and we will all be subservient to them for in in their mind we are the enemy, we are to be sick with no health insurance, no money for food, the tariff makes us poor, they closed all benefit's, they are the Masters, we are the slaves. The White Racist Nationalists Regime [white racist nationalism]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), the German Lutheran pastor and theologian executed for his part in resisting Nazism, never penned a systematic treatise entitled “character in politics.”
Yet his sermons, letters, and major works—especially The Cost of Discipleship, Ethics (unfinished), and Letters and Papers from Prison—converge into a moral vision that illuminates what character in political life must be.
For Bonhoeffer, political character is not an inward quality divorced from action but the visible fruit of costly discipleship: a life shaped by responsibility to neighbor, humility before God, and the courage to resist injustice—even when resistance demands personal sacrifice.
Central to this portrait is his withering critique of the “arrogance of power,” which clarifies both the pathology political character must oppose and the humility it must embody.
True political character begins with discipleship. Bonhoeffer’s stark claim that “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” insists that moral integrity is forged by costly obedience. A leader of character is measured not by rhetorical skill, electoral success, or managerial efficiency, but by fidelity to moral truth and a readiness to bear personal cost rather than betray justice. This discipleship converts private piety into public responsibility: the commitment to live under God’s claim and to refuse compromises that injure others.
That commitment issues in concrete responsibility rather than abstract moralism. For Bonhoeffer, ethical principles become real only when enacted in the particularities of human life; moral judgment must be made in relation to concrete persons and situations.
Thus a politician of character assumes responsibility for the effects of decisions on actual human beings, resisting the temptation to hide behind technocratic rationales or impersonal legalisms. Character shows itself in situated judgment aimed at protecting neighbors—especially the weak—rather than in invoking neutral rules to evade accountability.
Opposing the arrogance of power is essential to this account. Bonhoeffer observed how power easily corrupts by assuring itself of rightful domination, sanctifying violence, or claiming moral exemption.
The arrogance of power manifests when rulers mistake authority for moral superiority, treat subjects as instruments, and cloak self-interest in the language of necessity or destiny.
Against that temptation, Bonhoeffer insists on humility: leaders must recognize their finitude, answerability, and the moral danger of seeing power as an end in itself.
Political character therefore requires resisting the seductions of authority—eschewing triumphalism, revealing the limits of one’s judgments, and refusing to reduce neighbors to mere means.
Closely related is moral courage: the disciplined willingness to resist evil rather than accommodate it.
Bonhoeffer condemned Christians who adapted to Nazism through compromise, seeking peace at the price of justice.
Courage in politics is not reckless heroism but conscience-shaped resolve, exercised within accountable communities and informed by prayerful discernment. It may require civil disobedience or clandestine action when legal structures themselves perpetrate injustice. Such resistance is generated by humility before God and solidarity with the oppressed, not by the arrogance of asserting one’s own righteousness above others.
Bonhoeffer’s critique of “cheap grace” sharpens the moral diagnosis. Cheap grace separates forgiveness from repentance and ethical transformation; politically, it shows up when leaders use pious words to excuse moral laxity, manipulation, or exploitation.
True character repudiates this hypocrisy through continual repentance, transparency about failures, and a commitment to moral formation. Leaders must not hide behind sanctimonious rhetoric to mask compromises with injustice; they must confess error, make amends, and be re-formed by service to neighbors.
His realism about ethical life adds another dimension: character must include prudence in the face of tragic choices.
Bonhoeffer rejects both moralism and pietism—neither rule-bound legalism nor private religiosity suffices.
Political actors will sometimes face situations where every option involves some evil; character is demonstrated by the capacity to weigh conflicting goods, choose the lesser evil when required, and bear the burden of that choice without self-justification.
Prudence here is disciplined judgment, attentive to consequences but not paralyzed by them.
Community and accountability form the soil in which character grows.
Bonhoeffer understood the church as a community that shapes conscience; likewise, political virtue requires institutions and public practices that correct, restrain, and ennoble leaders.
Character is relational: openness to critique, willingness to be corrected, and readiness to answer publicly for one’s decisions. Such accountability counters the arrogance of power by insisting that authority is service under the law of neighbor-love.
Finally, Bonhoeffer’s ethic centers service and solidarity with the weak.
Power rightly exercised is servanthood: policies and political conduct should aim to protect human dignity and secure justice for those at society’s margins. Leadership is judged by its effect on the vulnerable, not by displays of dominance. Coupled with humility, courage, and prudence, this posture is sustained by hope—an abiding fidelity that resists despair while acknowledging human fallibility.
In Bonhoeffer’s terms, then, political character is the moral backbone forged by costly discipleship: a tempered unity of humility, responsibility, courage, prudence, service, and accountability that directly opposes the arrogance of power.
It refuses the seduction of domination, resists easy compromises, and accepts the burdens of concrete, often tragic decision-making while remaining open to repentance and communal judgment.
Evaluating leaders by their willingness to accept personal cost for justice, their record of service to the vulnerable, and their habit of transparent, accountable decision-making captures the practical implications of Bonhoeffer’s vision. In the end, Bonhoeffer asks not for leaders who simply wield power well, but for those whose character transforms power into service—leaders who, because they live for others under God, can stand against injustice without becoming the very thing they oppose.
Beautiful review of Bonhoeffer. Shallow look at this (wonderful) post; the difference between PM Carney and what we’ve got. Pretty pathetic.
Thank you David Hope for this essay about Bonhoeffer. It is true inspiration for how to live a life for justice, community and helping others, which he certainly did.
You are more than welcome!
At this moment, we have two viable topics that we can own:
1. Trump's excitement about making healthcare unaffordable or fully unavailable for millions of Americans to give billionaires tax breaks. This is a winner! Do not waver, Dems! Stay the course! Keep the government closed until Trump folds, which he will.
2. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Do not be distracted, Dems! Keep asking about Epstein, keep the story alive, front and center. Force MAGA to defend a child rapist. It's a horrifying topic, but a winner.
I don't underestand why the No Kings Day was scheduled for so late. Why not now, or even before? What is so difficult to prepare for?
Remember, this is not the first No KIngs Day. There were several before and I hope you participated in all of them as I have and many others. But what else can be done? Let us fight for the use of Amendment 14, Section 3. Talk and protests are getting us no where. It's time to demand action against trump and vance for what they have done againt the citizens of our United States. Write to your representative and senator and see just how much kuts they have to get this started. Impeachment is not the solution. We need them all out now.
You should peacefully protest even ever you want. I agree all this planning with huge gaps of time between protests is such a waste of time. If you need to take the summer off, then maybe fighting for democracy isn’t your thing. During the Vietnam War protests quite often just grew with people just showing up and the protests grew organically.
Steve Schmidt, you have such clarity of thought, such clarity in your analyses. What would you have us (patriotic, liberal) we, the citizens of the United States, what would you have us DO? And are you willing to do it right alongside us? Is it time for us to form an insurrection? Can you even answer that question without putting a lot of people in peril?
Miller said what he truly believes - that the president has absolute authority (he, of course does not). He just got a little ahead of himself. First Trump will declare Illinois is in rebellion against the US. Then Miller will be back with his plenary power BS - trying to claim that the law allows it. Instead of that, why doesn't he just declare the New Reich and announce himself as deputy Fuhrer.