Caring for the Stranger

Posted on November 9, 2025 by hessd

For me, the dramatic center of Niall Williams’ novel Time of the Child is this confrontation between a doctor and a priest.  This interaction takes place in Faha, a very small and very Catholic town in Ireland.  There is emotional power in the setting, aided and abetted by the amount of whiskey consumed by both parties during the confrontation.  There is emotional power as well in the doctor’s venture out beyond his customary independence and restraint.  

In this scene, he is not so much “the doctor” as the father of a young woman who has fallen hopelessly in love with an infant who was brought to the house where her father and she live by people who thought the baby was dead.  It is this circumstance that has forced Dr. Troy to approach the priest, Father Coffey, to make his case.

This is an away game for Dr. Troy.  All of it will be played on Father Coffey’s home field and by his rules.  This will be a hard argument to win, but the father really has no choice.  This is the theological infrastructure justifying an action both men know is wrong.

Here, I would like to recount the story by steps.  In this game, I am the play by play analyst and I will follow the play as it unfolds.  Williams’ text is in italics; my comments are not.

Here, the Doctor tells as much of the story as we need to know.

‘The child was left at the fair,’ said the doctor, when he had resumed his chair. His voice was even and unchanged by sipping his fourth measure. ‘She was thought dead. She was brought here, she revived. My daughter cared for her, then fell in love with her.’

The priest responds with uncharacteristic candor, having already failed to deal with this matter by establishing the facts.

Father Coffey knew something was being asked of him here. He was moved the same way he always was by the truth, which had an intimacy that was privileged and tender, and in its company something essential and profound was occurring. He took a sip of the brandy. Souled. Then leaned forward towards the doctor who still had his eyes closed and asked, ‘What is it you are trying to do, Jack?

In Williams’ look at Father Coffey, he establishes what “the truth is.”  It is what Dr. Troy has just said.  It is that truth which is said to have “an intimacy that was privileged and tender” and in the presence of which “something essential and profound was occurring.”  We can see that it is the relationship between the priest and the father that is privileged, but it is not yet clear what is being said that is “essential.”  What is “of the essence” of this dispute?  What is it that has been, in a sentence of a single word, “Souled.”

As a way out of the thicket, Father Coffey asks the most direct question available to him.  “What are you trying to do?”  But Dr. Troy’s answer returns both men to the briar patch.  What he is trying to do, Dr. Troy says, is “to be a Christian.”

This is the best case Dr. Troy can make to Father Coffey.  In my role as play by play commentator, I think I will want to say that that the case is not true.  Dr. Troy has experienced some very powerful emotions around the reception of this child into his life and into the life of his daughter who “loves the child.”  To do that, he is willing to play the game the priest must play.  Troy knows that the Coffey does not have choice of what the contest must look like, but he does and he knows it.  He must distort “Christianity” into the single demand that we “care for the stranger.”

This one duty—care for the stranger—is “being a Christian” in the present context.  That and no more.  The obstacles are few and formidable. 

‘Only the Church and the State are in my way.’

The doctor launches the next argument.

My father left the Church, or it left him, I can’t be sure which. He could not stay in an institution that had Father Kelly in it. But one evening after dinner he set me a question. “What if,” he said, “what if it’s the people that have a higher sense of what’s right and wrong than those conscripted to enforce it?”’ The doctor paused. He drew his forefinger across the spittle on his mustache, then asked: ‘To love the stranger, isn’t that what God wanted?’

“What if,” the doctor continues, remembering a question his father had asked him, “it’s the people that have a higher sense of what’s right and wrong than those conscripted to enforce it?”’   Here are the opposing teams as Dr. Troy has named them.

“The church and the state”—that includes, most pointedly, Father Coffey—have been “conscripted” to enforce the official, institutionally determined “sense of what is right and wrong.”  In this new alignment, “the people”—not the conscripts—have the higher sense of “what is right.”  The people—that is the doctor in this scene—are free to know and to do what is right.  They have not been “conscripted” and are therefore “free.”

The particular action that is “right” is keeping the baby his daughter fell in love with. [1]  Furthermore, it is the one divine command that is cited in this conversation.  Father Coffey is now back on defense again.  He tried to move to offense by making the doctor the source of the proposed action.  The doctor, rather than God.

“Jack,” he says, You can’t put yourself on God’s level.”  But Dr. Troy is ready for him. In the argument Father Coffey offers him, it is God who knows and God who has the authority to do.  The bereaved father would lose both of those.  The setting he offers instead in difficulty.  Isn’t it more difficult for me to do the right thing here than it would be for God?

“That would be easy. God knows all the answers. I’m trying something more difficult, the human level.”

The question now moves in the direction of authority.  If we are to care for the stranger because God requires it of Christians, then “the people” are only obeying God and the church is only in the way.  It is not a strong point.  It is, in fact, only an accusation.  But Dr. Troy has much more in mind.  He has laid the groundwork for it by the “difficulty” argument and now he can go on offense again.  To stay with the American football metaphor, the father unveils a triple option.  There are three steps.

The first step is to characterize God as a being who, already knowing all our wrong turns, still loves us.  God loves us not because of all these wrong turns (God is a righteous God), but despite them. Father Coffey cannot object to that.

Dr. Troy deploys the second option; he moves away from God’s nature to God’s direct action.

He has already seen that child and seen to it that she was brought to this house, and seen to it that my daughter would love her. 

God’s foreknowledge has now become God’s active providence.  “He has seen to it…”. It was because of God’s providence that the baby was brought to our house and also God’s providence that the daughter would love it.

It is God’s nature to see, to know, and to do.  But God also has intentions for his human servants.  This brings us back to God’s nature. God is not only loving, but He created us with the intention that we should love.  And he is patient.  We are, after all, human beings and God, who knows everything, knows also that He must be patient with human beings.  Here is the argument.

Because in some part of Him, in some part of Him He remembers that He made us with the intention of love. And that no matter how many times, no matter how many ways we find to defeat that intention, it is still there. Still there. 

The “it” in “it is still there” is God’s intention that we should love.  In the context, that must refer to taking the actions love requires.  In cannot mean only having the feelings that such a love produces.  Otherwise, it would make no sense to say that the state and the church are obstacles.

And now, finally, the third option.  Dr. Troy now asserts that God commanded love and that—Love—is what came into our lives (mine and my daughter’s) on the day the baby was discovered and brought to our house.  And, further, that Love beats any regulation made by human beings—any regulation or ruling or decree or code—because Love predates all those that although it was commanded, it did not really need to be commanded.  It was first.  Here is the text of that last point.

And beats any regulation, ruling, decree or code, is beyond all jurisdiction or legislation made by man, because it pre-dates all, didn’t even need to be commanded. Love. That’s my understanding. And that’s what’s in that kitchen. That’s what came to this house the day of the fair. And that’s what I am going to try and keep alive.

It is in that last sentence that Dr. Troy moves from the nature of God and the plain command of God to the situation God foreknew, and on to the actions that he, himself, in going to take—in order to be a Christian, just in case you have forgotten the doctor’s first move..

He is going to try to keep it—Love—alive.  He says it with the capital letter, but he has a particular lower case love in mind and they have become the same.


Father Coffey would have to be very fast off the mark to interrupt the flow of this play.  Williams says that in the space of two breaths, Dr. Troy starts in again.  This time his topic is forgiveness.

‘What I am doing may be wrong. But’ — the finger was pointing again – what I am going to choose to believe is something I heard in church once. Forgiveness. Forgiveness for mistakes made down here, because we are down here, and can only see what we can see and think. This seems the right thing to do. Forgiveness, which I’m going to say seems to me an essential component of, an outright necessity of,’ — he wet his lower lip — ‘love. And so that’s what I’m going to choose to believe in, and in patience and forgiveness that pass our understanding, except where we get glimpses of them, like I have, in that kitchen. Father…

Here he states that he believes in forgiveness.  It is something he heard in church once.  Under what circumstances might forgiveness be required and while we are at it, who is going to do the forgiving?  The circumstances are: a) that the mistakes are made down here, because b) we are down here.  Therefore c) we can only see what we can see.  This is a recapitulation of his earlier case that what he is doing here is more difficult than what God would have to do because we act in ignorance and God acts in full knowledge.

Forgiveness is something he is going to choose to believe.  The first half of the argument says why such forgiveness will be needed.  The second half says why it is crucial.  It is crucial because it is an essential component of love.  And so—this is the reason he is choosing to believe in it—love is an essential component, an outright necessity for love.  

Dr. Troy is going to believe in patience and forgiveness that “pass our understanding.”  No one will miss the allusion to Ephesians 3:19 in which it is “the love that Christ has” that will pass our understanding.  So on the time Dr. Troy was in church, the time he heard about forgiveness, there may also have been a reading from Ephesians, during which time the “passeth all understanding” phrase attached itself to his consciousness.

Williams may be counting on the readers to catch the source of the reference, but we all know that Father Coffey does.  That means that Dr. Troy’s final step is to establish that God knows what He is doing and the he and Father Coffey do not.  Father Coffey, having been forced to play defense is now told that he does not know enough to do even that if it is God who is on the offense.

[1] Love and Forgiveness are brought into the contest, but God’s only real demand is to “do what is right.”

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Paying Attention to the News: Part I

Posted on October 24, 2025 by hessd

It’s not as easy as it used to be.  Today, I would like to explore some of the reasons I feel that way and prepare for an essay in which I describe a few of the things I have done to adapt to it.

I call it “paying attention” because I have for some years, treasured the focus that “paying” brings to the idea.  We pay. It costs us.  The metaphor asks us to think about what we get in return for our “payment.”  And lest you think that the problem could be solved by just saying “attending” rather than “paying attention,” I regret to say that it is not a problem that can be solved that way.  The Latin tendere means “to stretch” and adding ad- to the word, (ad-tendere) gives it the sense of “to stretch toward,” which sounds effortful to me.

Picture yourself stretching toward something.  Your desire to grasp it (the object) is naturally opposed by gravity [1] and that is why it costs you to stretch toward, i.e. to attend, i.e. to “pay attention.  That is, in fact, my experience of coming into contact with someone’s narrative about what has happened over the course of the news cycle.  It costs.  Seeing the news costs me more than reading the news, but that’s just me.  I respond to meanings, like everyone else, but I also respond to images.  The negative ones “cost me more” than I am willing to “pay.”

I do, nevertheless, attend to (read) the news.  I will say now that the reason I am establishing this fact—I

do read the news—is so I can consider some of the ways in which I have tried to reduce the cost.  Someone will say that I could reduce the cost even more by not reading the news at all.  That is true, but not knowing the information that I learn in my reading bears other costs, and I am not willing to pay those either.

First, I am a citizen of the United States.  I hold the status that Milton Mayer, the Quaker journalist, called “the highest office in the land.”  I do have some obligations therefore.  I am obligated to play what I think is my part in the governance of the country.  I am always a little nervous about using the language of obligation when I cannot say clearly to whom I am obligated. [2]

Nevertheless, I recognize an obligation to be a part of the governance of the nation—as the Constitution specifies—and that requires that I know some things.  Beyond that, and much clearer in my mind, is the obligation I owe to my fellow citizens, both those who see matters as I do and to those who do not.  To some I owe understanding and support; to others, I owe understanding and opposition.  You see the common element there.  That is why I attend to the news. 

But beyond that, I have preferences for the conduct of the public’s business.  More vigorous words than “preferences” could be used—commitments, demands, causes—but I want to keep “preferences” even though it forces me to say silly-sounding things, like that I have a “preference for social justice.”  I don’t feel that I have given away anything of value by starting with preferences.  It is the preferences that the commitments are built on and the commitments that the public actions are built on.  So I’m OK with “preferences.”

And finally, even beyond that, I have obligations to my fellow citizens, both those in the large collective noun we share and those I see and talk with daily.  I need to know things to cooperate with the larger category and to interact with the smaller category.  

So not knowing what I need to know is not an option for me.  I am reminded that in ancient Athens, the population was divided between those who took part in the public affairs of the state (citizens) and those who led entirely private lives.  The Greek word for that second category of people was idiotēs.

If you recognize the idio- in there, it might remind you of “idiosyncrasy,” and it should.  The idio- is the same.  It means “one’s own;” private.  The idiotēs of Athens were private ONLY.  I don’t want to do that.

That brings me to the lip of the next topic, which is how to reduce the cost of “paying” attention.  It will require a distinction between attending to and attending for.  The latter is the heart of my solution to the problem.

[1] This sets up for a pun about the gravity of the news these days, but that is not where I am going.

[2]. I reject the idea of being obligated to any kind of “what.”  The only way I would say I am obligated to “it” is if the “it” is the name of a collection of persons, in which case, “it” is only shorthand.

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What are the rooks doing?

Posted on October 12, 2025 by hessd

That is a perfectly reasonable question for anyone to ask who is reading Tana French’s novel The Searcher for the second time.  Or third.

When I first read this book, I opened to the first page and read:

When Cal comes out of the house, the rooks have got hold of something.  Six of them are clustered on the back lawn amid the long wet grass and the yellow-flowered weeds, jabbing and hopping.  Whatever the thing is, it’s on the small side and still moving.

That’s the first paragraph.  It’ the one I want to talk about, but it might not be too far afield to note that further down on that same page Cal considers putting the creature out of his suffering.  He does not because: a) the rooks have been here a lot longer than he has and b) it would, therefore, be “pretty impertinent of him to waltz in and start interfering with their ways.”

The rooks are an important part of the little Irish town to which Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago cop, has moved to have a relaxed retirement.  The rooks never become a major character; they never reveal or interfere with the plot.  That would be pretty impertinent of them.

On the other hand, I now know, having read the book once, that they keep coming back and that Cal thinks about them in several revealing ways.  And since I know that about the story, I was surprised to see them as the major actors—it is hard not to say “a major metaphor”—of the book.  They didn’t have rooks in Chicago; they are new to Cal.  And if they had had rooks, Cal would very likely have felt that he needed to do something about them.

But that was his old life (cop) and his old setting (Chicago) and we learn in this first paragraph that Cal is not feeling that way about Ardnakelty in the west of Ireland.  He is not a cop here.  Ardnakelty is not Chicago.  The rooks were here first. He bought a fixer upper and hopes to live there.

I know what is going to happen in Cal’s life.  It starts to happen two pages later.  But it begins when someone or something disturbs the rooks.  Cal doesn’t care that something disturbed the rooks because that feeling he used to get on the back of his neck—he calls it “an alarm system”—has been turned off.  Why would he need it in the empty spaces of western Ireland?  

Then one night the back of his neck flared.  This is a feeling he learned to pay attention to in his many years as a cop in Chicago and he turned it off when he got to Ireland because he knew he wouldn’t need it.  But something disturbed the rooks.  

The rooks are his alarm system and he doesn’t know how not to pay attention to them.  He just doesn’t know what it means.  Very shortly, of course, he finds out.  The behavior of the rooks is confirmed by the feeling on the back of his neck a few nights later and the plot is off and running.l

When you start the book for the first time, you take the rooks for granted, just as Cal did.  But when you know that their behavior means something and that Tana French is using the rooks to get you ready for it–that’s what I know now–you read it differently.  You know that someone or something would have to play that part.  We have to see Cal as carefully fitting in to his new surroundings.  You know he would not have thought it “impertinent” to check out what a bunch of crows were doing in an alley in Chicago.  But “impertinent” is a real thing here and that hesitancy is emblematic of how he hopes his life will be here in Ireland.

Fortunately for all of us readers, Cal’s impertinence is about to be trampled underfoot and there will be a very engaging story about rural Ireland.  With the rooks returning regularly to remind us that they are there.

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The Value of Glory, Part II

Posted on September 29, 2025 by hessd

Rebecca got the better of the contest last time.  She had a better first half, as we often say about a football team.  But there are two halves, even in the time of Chivalry and the Crusades, and Ivanhoe does better in the second half.

In the first half, Rebecca went on the offensive, taking apart what I have been calling “the glory machine” piece by piece.  She doesn’t deny that there is a machine.  She argues, that it is only temporary and is, besides, rude and tacky.  “Glory” is not worth the price Ivanhoe is paying for it.  Here is his first response.

“By the soul of Hereward! ” [1] replied the knight, impatiently,“thou speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone dis­tinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honor, raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace. 

Ivanhoe here begins to rebuild the value of glory, starting with social distinctions.  It is chivalry—alone!—that distinguishes what is noble from what is base.  It distinguishes the knight from the churl [2].  A churl is a man of low degree, but he is part of the ordered society in which the novel takes place.  The next distinction, however leaves even that.  Glory—only glory!— distinguishes the knight from the savage.

And glory establishes a kind of character in the knight as well.  It ranks the life a knight well below his honor.  The commitment to glory overcomes challenges that would in other circumstances be daunting.  Ivanhoe names explicitly, pain, toil, and suffering.

At this point there are distinctions Ivanhoe makes not only between the sex of Rebecca but also her faith.  I want to come back to that after we finish the glory games.

Ivanhoe here begins to take some of Rebecca’s criticism into account.

Chivalry! Why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection, the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant. Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.”

Here Ivanhoe begins to address questions that Rebecca has not brought up and very likely has never considered.  She does touch on the topics Ivanhoe raises but only as they bear on the nation, Israel, and only in a very long context of history.  That is not what Ivanhoe has in mind at all.

Chivalry is the backbone of three important transactions, but they can be summed up, as Ivanhoe does at the end, as “liberty.”  Very likely he means liberty for the nobility—that is how it developed in English history—but liberty is the core value he chooses.  We’ ll look here at three elements of that treasured notion.

The first is that chivalry is “the stay of the oppressed.”  Very likely, he has in mind here that a noble class that is being stressed, like the Saxons under Norman rule, can count on chivalry to hold off that oppression.  He doesn’t say that exactly, but it is a good guess that is what he means.  He certainly is not referring to the people whom the Saxon nobles oppress.  He has already distinguished the noble knight from the churl.  No need to go back to that question.  

The second is that chivalry is a redresser of grievances.  Note that in this role for chivalry, the grievances have already taken place.  Chivalry as the stay of the oppressed might mean that the oppression is prevented; chivalry as the source of a redress of grievances grants that there are grievances.

Finally, chivalry is a curb on the power of the tyrant.  A “curb” tells the tyrant that he can come this far and no farther.  It is a limitation.  The tyrant is still there and very likely Ivanhoe is thinking principally of Richard’s brother John, who is pretending the be the king of England as long as his brother cannot be found.

So chivalry, which Rebecca demeaned by her remarks about second rate tombs and third rate ballads, is defended on political as well as personal grounds.

That is really all the argument that deserves to be grasped by its rhetorical elements, but there is one more transaction that I think ought to be touched on before we let this conversation go.  This one has to do with ethnicity—they would have called it “race”—and religion.  Here Ivanhoe has the opening shot.

Thou art no Christian, Rebecca ; and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprize [3] which sanctions his flame.

Ivanhoe has in mind, although he doesn’t say it, the beautiful Saxon maiden, Rowena.  The match between Ivanhoe and Rowena is the highest hope of Cedric the Saxon, but things are not looking good right now.  I mention that because Rebecca will close with it.

Rebecca is no Christian and therefore she cannot know the feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden (he is thinking of Rowena) when her lover (he is thinking of himself) has done “a deed of chivalrous endeavor.”  It is her feelings that “sanction” his flame.  Earlier, Ivanhoe as the champion of the tournament, won the right to officially honor a “Queen of Love and Beauty,” who was watching from the stands.  He chose Rowena.

But Ivanhoe’s idea is that a noble Christian (like a Saxon or a Norman) can understand these feelings and that a Jewess cannot.  She is a lower form of being.  Not a “churl,” as above, but not “superior” as a Christian would be. [4]

Rebecca’s response is noteworthy.  I will give you two pieces of it: the one she speaks aloud; the other she murmurs to herself.  Here is the public one.

“I am, indeed,” said Rebecca, “ sprung from a race whose courage was distinguished in the defense of their own land, but who warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken. Sir Knight: until the God of Jacob shall raise up for His chosen people a second Gideon, or a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to speak of battle or of war.”

The race that produced Rebecca showed its courage in defending its own land but attacked no one else “save at the command of the Deity.”  She grants that Ivanhoe’s criticism is plausible, but only until “the God of Jacob shall raise up a national hero.”  Until then it is unseemly for a Jewish woman to speak of war.  But then…she allows the next stage to linger on…maybe it will no longer be unseemly.

That was the public response.  Here is the private one.

“How little he knows this bosom,” she said, “ to imagine that cowardice or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would to Heaven that the shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of Judah ! Nay, would to God it could avail to set free my father, and this his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor ! The proud Christian should then see whether the daughter of God’s chosen people dared not to die as bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north! ”

He thinks I am cowardly, Rebecca says, because of what I have opposed in him.  She refers to it as “the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes (Christians).” She means “fantastic” is a form of “fantasy,” i.e. of self-delusion.  She promises to herself that she would gladly close the shedding of her own blood drop by drop if it could free her father and also Ivanhoe.  

Question: How bravely could she die?

Answer: As bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden (slap #1) who boasts her descent from some petty chieftain (slap #2) from the rude and frozen north (slap #3).  

It is probably a good thing she spoke these last thoughts only to herself because the vain Nazarene maiden she has in mind is almost certainly Rowena.t

I began by celebrating the kinds of things you can turn up by reading well-written books over and over.  I rest my case.

[1]. Hereward is a major figure in English lore, representing both resistance against the Normans and also the moral commitments underlying chivalry.

[2] A word modern English knows only from churlish, but it carried the connotations of low is standing and unworthy.

[3]. From about 1300, the term has referred to “deeds of chivalrous endeavor.”

[4]. It is probably worth a note that “Christian” in Ivanhoe’s lexicon is a racial and social category, not a religious one.  In has nothing to do with personal religious faith.  Rebecca’s embrace of Judaism is a good deal more authentic.

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The Worth of Glory

Posted on September 28, 2025 by hessd

One of the things I like about reading a good book many times is that unexpectedly, on the manyeth time, something really good jumps out at you and you wonder how you could have missed it on all the other times.  This is an exchange—it isn’t an argument because they are never talking about the same thing—between two of the principal characters in Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel, Ivanhoe.

Ivanhoe has just been wounded in the tournament and has lost a lot of blood.  Rebecca—often “Rebecca

the Jewess”—knows a lot about healing and has been tending to his wound.  At the moment, they are both in a castle under siege and Ivanhoe, from his bed, is asking Rebecca to tell him what she can see from the window.  She sees one very large and overpowering knight whom no one seems to be able to oppose successfully.  It is to that person Ivanhoe is referring when he says, “that good knight” in his first remarks below.

In the conflict I am looking at here, it is the conflict between two starting points and two kinds of logic–not between two persons–that is the focus. I know I will be losing a good deal of the power of the engagement, but it is the way each speaker supports the case that caught my eye this time and that I what I want to follow.

Ivanhoe, immediately after saying he would follow anywhere the knight Rebecca has described, justifies his desire as a kind of compulsion.  Here is the sequence.

“ Rebecca,” he replied, “ thou knowest not how impossible it is for one trained to actions of chivalry to remain passive as a priest, or a woman, when they are acting deeds of honor around him. The love of battle is the food upon which we live —the dust of the mêlée is the breath of our nostrils. We live not—we wish not to live—longer than while we are victorious and renowned. Such, maiden, are the laws of chivalry to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold dear.”

Notice how he moves from “one trained to the actions of chivalry”—he means warfare—to remaining passive.  It is a compulsion only at this point.  Then he says clearly that it is love of battle is the food of the soul and the breath of the body.  Finally he says that he has no wish to live longer than he is victorious and renowned.  And not only that, but such as he are also sworn to uphold the laws of chivalry.

But Rebecca’s response to this impassioned defense also moves through several stages and in none of them does she challenge what Ivanhoe has said is the most powerful reason why he is who he is.  Here is the first step.

“Alas” said the fair Jewess, “and what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a passing through the fire to Moloch? What remains to you as the prize of all the blood you have spilled, of all the travail and pain you have endured, of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man’s spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse? ”

First, she redefines what he has said.  Not the rationale, but the action.  And she does it is a very Jewish way.  The reader wonders whether Ivanhoe understands more than the general argument she is making, but the reader does.  She redefines his “deeds of chivalry” first as “a sacrifice to a demon,” then, more specifically, as a passing through the fire to Moloch.

Ivanhoe may or may not know that Moloch was a Canaanite deity, condemned by the Israelites as demanding the burning of babies as the required sacrifice.  Moloch is the “demon” Rebecca has in mind that the “deeds of chivalry” Ivanhoe has described are truly no more than that.  Note her language: “What is it…save a passing through the fire to Moloch?”

Furthermore, Rebecca’s argument moves on to collateral damage.  The burned babies are the focus of the sacrifice, but Rebecca now brings in “all the blood you have spilled” and “all the tears which your deeds have caused.”

All Ivanhoe’s case has to do with his own commitments and the glory that comes from being true to them.  That is not what Rebecca is talking about.

Ivanhoe is a direct response to Rebecca’s last point (What remains after all this?) says it is the glory that remains: “Glory that guilds our sepulchre and embalms our name.”

That response is poetic and beautiful, but Rebecca swats it away as if it were a fly.

“Glory!” continued Rebecca; “alas! is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb, is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pil­grim—are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

There is real rhetorical art here, I think, and none of it is aimed at the value of glory.  It is aimed at the guided sepulchre.  Watch the sequence.  First, glory is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment [a coat of arms complete with its Latin motto]  over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb.”  Find the “glory” in the “mouldering tomb.”

Read that and then return to “the glory that guilds our sepulchre.”  Rebecca says “Glory is…” and then begins a series of descriptions that are not horrible so much as tacky.  “The glory that guilds our sepulchre” requires a good deal from the people who will keep the glory machine running.  It is on those people that Rebecca centers her attack.

She has done the “rusted mail,” but Ivanhoe still has his coat of arms (that is the “hatchment”) in mind.  About that, Rebecca says that it misread by an ignorant monk to an inquiring pilgrim.  The ignorant monk is no part of what I am calling “the glory machine” as Ivanhoe envisioned it.  But it gets worse.

The next step is the “rude rhymes” of a wandering bard.  It is through these rhymes that Ivanhoe and other heroes of glory and chivalry become heroes, instead, of those ballads with vagabond minstrels (slap in the face #1) sing to drunken churls (slap #2) over “their evening ale (slap #3).

You might doubt me about slap #3, but Ivanhoe has in mind a death of glory forever cherished.  It is the routine of “evening ale” that is the enemy of Ivanhoe’s “glory.”  Not to mention the disrepair of the glory machine represented by the ignorant monk, the vagabond minstrels, and the drunken churls—and, of course, the setting of a rural village pub.

It would be a shame, too, in taking apart the glory machine, to pass over what Rebecca says Ivanhoe is ignoring in his quest for glory. She names them as “domestic love, kindly affection, peace, and happiness.”  Ivanhoe, given the opportunity, could fight her on the last two, but I think even he would have to grant that in his pursuit of glory—even a successful pursuit—he is bypassing the first two.

Ivanhoe does mount a kind of rebuttal, however, and we will look at that in the next post.

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The Last Fair Election

Posted on September 10, 2025 by hessd

According to Heather Cox Richardson’s column today, 

MAGA loyalist Steve Bannon recently said: “They’re petrified over at MSNBC and CNN that, hey, since we’re taking control of the cities, there’s going to be ICE officers near polling places. You’re damn right.”

People like me—I am on the left edge of democratic liberalism and a career-long political scientist—instinctively react with horror to Bannon’s remarks.  I look at my own attachment to free and fair elections and the clear threat to them Bannon promises and it makes me angry.

Lately, however, I have begun trying to separate the clear meaning of statements like these from the feelings they convey.  How could the emotional tone of Bannon’s remarks be received, leaving the content of the remarks aside?

“They” are described in the classic way to clearly say “not us” and to imply “bad guys.”  The bad guys are further specified as MSNBC and CNN.  That will have clear and particular meaning for people who regularly watch Fox News and who hear President Trump casually and routinely refer to everyone but Fox as “fake news.”

Add to that the broadly established finding that a substantial part of the Trump base is already angry [1] and you have a public that is ready to celebrate both the defiance and clarity of the remark.

Imagine for a moment that Churchill routinely made extravagant and negative remarks about Hitler.  Now imagine a committee for “Fairness in the Press” publishing after each such speech, analyses that correct and rein in Churchill’s remarks.  This is at a time when the war is raging and the prospects are dark.  What I am inviting you to imagine is the emotional reaction of most Britons to Churchill and then to the Committee for Fairness.

All you have to do is to put this group of pro-Trump voters in the position of the people of Briton in 1940 and you can see how the response would be more to the tone of Churchill’s remarks than to the specific proposals.

Bannon is clearly implying that there will be coordinated federal intimidation of any voters who are likely to vote for Democrats.  But he isn’t saying that.  He is saying two things.  One, “the bad guys are afraid.”  Two, ‘You’re damn right!”

I genuinely hate the plan Bannon is talking about and also the language he is using to convey that plan.  But I try not also to be foolish about the things I hate and I think that disguising from ourselves how satisfying Bannon’s plan and his emotional appeal are—is just that: foolish.

So what does that mean in terms of electoral advantage?  Does it mean that more Democrats ought to learn to talk like that?  Does it mean that the people, generally, are going to see that language like that is associated with catastrophic outcomes for them? [2]

At this point, I think it could go either way.  Governor Pritzker’s rebuke to President Trump is a good model for Democratic language, but you have to wonder how many Democrats have that tool in their toolkits.  The alternative is to wait for the 2026 elections to see if the voice of sober moderation—what we have been trying for some time now—will work better as the crisis becomes more vivid.

[1]. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s superb book Stolen Pride is very good at conveying both the realities and the emotional reactions to those realities.

[2]. I am not thinking of economic outcomes.  I don’t think that will move enough voters, particularly since they have already been likened to “the necessary pain that follows a crucially important surgery.”  It will have to be culturally catastrophic and there will have to be an alternative other than armed revolt.

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Or Else…what?

Posted on September 3, 2025 by hessd

It should not be too hard to grasp the idea that you can’t give ultimatums to people who have alternatives.  The classic formulation of this occurred in a memorable episode of the West Wing in which Leo McGarry, the President’s Chief of Staff cranks up the heat on the President.  It is clear to Leo that there is an action that only the President can take and that it is urgent that he take it immediately.  He leans over the President’s desk and says something to the effect of “You HAVE TO do this!.”  Finally, President Bartlett looks up and says, “Or else….what?” 

A foreign policy governed by ultimatum is a very tricky thing at best.  For one thing, it changes theOr Else….What?

It should not be too hard to grasp the idea that you can’t give ultimatums to people who have alternatives.  The classic formulation of this occurred in a memorable episode of the West Wing in which Leo McGarry, the President’s Chief of Staff cranks up the heat on the President.  It is clear to Leo that there is an action that only the President can take and that it is urgent that he take it immediately.  He leans over the President’s desk and says something to the effect of “You HAVE TO do this!.”  Finally, President Bartlett looks up and says, “Or else….what?” 

A foreign policy governed by ultimatum is a very tricky thing at best.  For one thing, it changes theOr Else….What?

It should not be too hard to grasp the idea that you can’t give ultimatums to people who have alternatives.  The classic formulation of this occurred in a memorable episode of the West Wing in which Leo McGarry, the President’s Chief of Staff cranks up the heat on the President.  It is clear to Leo that there is an action that only the President can take and that it is urgent that he take it immediately.  He leans over the President’s desk and says something to the effect of “You HAVE TO do this!.”  Finally, President Bartlett looks up and says, “Or else….what?” 

A foreign policy governed by ultimatum is a very tricky thing at best.  For one thing, it changes the traditional idea of U. S. foreign policy.  In the shadow cast by the present chaos, it is easy to idealize the recent—post 1945—conduct of American foreign policy, but this at least can be said.  The centerpiece of American foreign policy has been the construction and maintenance of alliances that will accomplish the goals of the members.  The policy of Containment—if the Soviet Union can be kept from expanding, it will eventually implode—may not be our finest hour, but the goals were clear, cooperation was widespread, and it was successful.

The U.S. served as the nation to formulate the idea, to specify what part other nations would need to play in this strategy, and to support them in those efforts.  So long as the threat was clear and imminent, holding the coalition together was manageable.  But under all circumstances, the policy choices involved the practices of the alliance.

One of the very early effects of President Trump bargaining practices is to fracture alliances into sets of two-party dealmaking.  Driving hard bargains with a trading partner—or even with a military partner—is a tricky proposition.  I want to consider in just a moment some of the things that make it tricky, but it is worth noting in passing that the alliance is gone when we do that.  The politics of managing an alliance to achieve common purposes is, of course, difficult, but it is simply incompatible with splitting the alliance up into bargaining units and dealing with each so as to maximize U. S. advantage.  So when we move from the one mode of foreign policy practices to the other—from an alliance-based to a deal-based mode—we lose all the advantages of the alliance.  We can hope—clearly President Trump DOES hope that the deals we will be able to make will be so good for America that the loss of the alliance partners will be compensated for.  The nations who were the alliance partners do not go away, of course.  France, Germany, and Britain are still where they were; but the common purpose that made them alliance partners has been lost in the rush to make one on one deals.

That’s the major problem, as I see it, in shifting to dealmaking among allies.  It is, briefly, that they are no longer allies.  But what happens to nations who were, until recently, being courted?

Everyone knows that depending on the question being asked, there are our guys, their guys, and those who have not make up their minds on the question being asked.  The U. S got in the habit, during the Cold War, of thinking about those groupings in very broad and stable categories.  We called “our guys” the First World, “their guys” the Second World, and those who were not playing the game or had not yet chosen sides, “the Third World.”  That seemed appropriate for issues as broad as “freedom under U. S leadership” v. domination under “Communism.”

But when we change to one on one bargaining, the categories lose their power and the question comes up of just how far you can push an antagonist in bargaining.  If he has no option but to comply—in another setting, we might quibble about whether that is really “bargaining” at all—then the U. S can push their demands quite far.  Always keeping an eye on that line that separates “continuing the conversation” from “opting out entirely.”

A good example of a nation in this dilemma is India, the most populous country in the world and an economic powerhouse.  The Trump administration has been bringing a good deal of pressure to bear on India, beginning with tariffs, as usual, to comply with U. S economic demands.  The level of pressure seems to presume that India has no alternative but to continue the conversation and try not to lose more than they can afford.

Briefly, the question we ask India by pushing them to the wall is, ‘Or what..”  

India has begun to answer that question by opening discussions with Russia, China, and North Korea.  We bargained with them—“tariffed at them”—as if they had no alternatives, but it might turn out that they do.

The loss of India as a partner in Asia would be a catastrophic loss, but it is a solid answer to the dangling question, “Or else…what?”traditional idea of U. S. foreign policy.  In the shadow cast by the present chaos, it is easy to idealize the recent—post 1945—conduct of American foreign policy, but this at least can be said.  The centerpiece of American foreign policy has been the construction and maintenance of alliances that will accomplish the goals of the members.  The policy of Containment—if the Soviet Union can be kept from expanding, it will eventually implode—may not be our finest hour, but the goals were clear, cooperation was widespread, and it was successful.

The U.S. served as the nation to formulate the idea, to specify what part other nations would need to play in this strategy, and to support them in those efforts.  So long as the threat was clear and imminent, holding the coalition together was manageable.  But under all circumstances, the policy choices involved the practices of the alliance.

One of the very early effects of President Trump bargaining practices is to fracture alliances into sets of two-party dealmaking.  Driving hard bargains with a trading partner—or even with a military partner—is a tricky proposition.  I want to consider in just a moment some of the things that make it tricky, but it is worth noting in passing that the alliance is gone when we do that.  The politics of managing an alliance to achieve common purposes is, of course, difficult, but it is simply incompatible with splitting the alliance up into bargaining units and dealing with each so as to maximize U. S. advantage.  So when we move from the one mode of foreign policy practices to the other—from an alliance-based to a deal-based mode—we lose all the advantages of the alliance.  We can hope—clearly President Trump DOES hope that the deals we will be able to make will be so good for America that the loss of the alliance partners will be compensated for.  The nations who were the alliance partners do not go away, of course.  France, Germany, and Britain are still where they were; but the common purpose that made them alliance partners has been lost in the rush to make one on one deals.

That’s the major problem, as I see it, in shifting to dealmaking among allies.  It is, briefly, that they are no longer allies.  But what happens to nations who were, until recently, being courted?

Everyone knows that depending on the question being asked, there are our guys, their guys, and those who have not make up their minds on the question being asked.  The U. S got in the habit, during the Cold War, of thinking about those groupings in very broad and stable categories.  We called “our guys” the First World, “their guys” the Second World, and those who were not playing the game or had not yet chosen sides, “the Third World.”  That seemed appropriate for issues as broad as “freedom under U. S leadership” v. domination under “Communism.”

But when we change to one on one bargaining, the categories lose their power and the question comes up of just how far you can push an antagonist in bargaining.  If he has no option but to comply—in another setting, we might quibble about whether that is really “bargaining” at all—then the U. S can push their demands quite far.  Always keeping an eye on that line that separates “continuing the conversation” from “opting out entirely.”

A good example of a nation in this dilemma is India, the most populous country in the world and an economic powerhouse.  The Trump administration has been bringing a good deal of pressure to bear on India, beginning with tariffs, as usual, to comply with U. S economic demands.  The level of pressure seems to presume that India has no alternative but to continue the conversation and try not to lose more than they can afford.

Briefly, the question we ask India by pushing them to the wall is, ‘Or what..”  

India has begun to answer that question by opening discussions with Russia, China, and North Korea.  We bargained with them—“tariffed at them”—as if they had no alternatives, but it might turn out that they do.

The loss of India as a partner in Asia would be a catastrophic loss, but it is a solid answer to the dangling question, “Or else…what?”

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The “Inmost” Self

Posted on August 26, 2025 by hessd

Sherry Turkle is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable critics of AI as a source of friendship and support.  Her book, Reclaiming Conversation is a wakeup call and a tightly reasoned argument. I agree with her concerns, but I am worried about the rationale.  I would really like a stronger one and I am not sure there is one.

She says that chatbots do not “have” empathy; they “perform” empathy.  That seems right to me, but is

it a criticism worth making?  Human society, as I experience it and as generations of sociologists have understood it, is a web of performances.  We greet each other with a courtesy we may not feel at the time, but we “perform it” because it is expected.  We ask after each other’s health, each other’s children, whether the vacation was all our friends had hoped.  We may sometimes experience the feelings from which these questions would naturally arise, but they will arise anyway because they are necessary.

They are performed interest, at the very least, and are done so as to suggest “empathy”. So what kind of criticism are we making when we say that the chatbots only “perform” empathy?  The only solid criticism I can think of is that than can not feel the feelings we feel—cannot by definition, “have” empathy.

That means that we can take for granted that the performance of an emotion by a chatbot is “insincere.”  It is “inauthentic.”  On the other hand, the performance is very good, and if that is what matters to us most, it may be something we will come to prefer.

Certainly we are saying that chatbots so not have the same feelings we have.  That would be empathy.  But are we saying that matters if the performance is good?  Turkle is worried that we may not continue to choose actual humans.  I am too, but I wonder what strong rationale there is for continuing to choose the variable performance of humans over the reliably competent vacuity of chatbots.

Here is Turkle’s reflection about a visit from psychologist Erik Erikson.

“I was a young faculty member at MIT in the late 1970s when the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson visited to talk about engineering education. After his presentation, he asked me what I was doing as a humanist at an engineering school. I told him I was studying how computers change people’s ideas about themselves, and he made this comment: ‘Engineers, they’re not convinced that people have an interior. It’s not necessary for their purposes.” 

And Turkle summarizes, “They see the complexity of inner life not as a feature but as a bug.”

According to Turkle, we need to continue to choose interactions with humans not because empathy is guaranteed, but because it is possible.  With the bots, it is not possible by definition.  Some argue that the illusion of human feelings—compassion, anxiety, pleasure—is good enough.  Here is Turkle’s argument that it is not good enough

“I argued for this assertion of agency in 2015, and now I argue ever more fervently. There is more than a threat to empathy at stake; there is a threat to our sense of what it means to be human. The performance of pretend emotion does not make machines more human. But it challenges what we think makes people special. Our human identity is something we need to reclaim for ourselves.”

She uses powerful words to sketch in what is at stake.  She says that “what it means to be human” is at stake.  OK, what does it mean to be human?  We know what it has meant, but is that what it fundamentally means?  How would we know?

She says it challenges “what we think makes people special.”  Are we right in thinking that the exchange of authentic emotions is “what makes people special?”  In the superficial sense, of course, it does.  If the bots cannot, even in principle, experience empathy, they human beings are “special” by definition.  But surely Turkle means more than that.

Turkle never talks about souls.  And there is no reason why she should.  I don’t talk about them either and I suspect it is for the same reason. [1]. But I do think that is where her logic will lead her.  If the superficial features of humans and bots are similar, then humans and bots will have to be distinguished by the authenticity of the superficial expressions.  Do they, in other words, express genuine feelings.  I think she and I would both say that bots don’t have “genuine feelings” no matter how effectively they perform them.

But if we cannot reliably say, based on our own experiences, which expressions are authentic and which are not, then we will have to continue on into the interior to make our case.  And what else is there?  Will we have to argue that humans are “better” because we have souls and the bots to not?

That is where I see the argument heading.  If we want to continue to prefer humans to bots and if we can no longer—or not much longer—distinguish the performance of emotion from the expression of an inner feeling, then what is left?  Souls are the next entity; that is, they are even more elusive than “authenticity.”  We have built our societies on the performance of empathy, requiring authenticity only of our most intimate relationships.  Is the next step to grant “authenticity” to the bots and if it is, what is left that they cannot have but that we can?

I think it is souls.  I am not happy about that.

Turkle’s actual program is unobjectionable.  In fact, I think it is crucially important. She says that we need to pay attention to what we are doing.  We need to consistently prefer humans, even when the immediate experience is not as pleasant as the reliable “camaraderie” of socially competent bots.  I think she is right.  Nothing but daring to prefer what only humans friends can give us, will keep us from morphing slowly into the bots most reliable accessory.

[1] My reason is that I would not know what I was talking about if I claimed some particular virtue for a “soul.”

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The Price of They/Them

Posted on July 16, 2025 by hessd

I read in the last week the there was a distinct Democratic downturn that showed up when this political ad (in all its forms) began to be shown. When I looked it up online, they gave the full text as “Kamala’s for They/Them. President Trump’s for You.”

I missed it when it came out because I was mostly hiding from the campaign, so it all feels new to me.

The power in this superbly conceived ad is the meaning of “Them.” All the ad says on the surface is that Kamala is expressing her preference for one way of using personal pronouns over another way. Who would have thought that such a small grammatical preference would carry such a payload.

But, of course, there is more to the ad than the surface meaning. This is aimed at people who have said “him” or “her” to someone and who have been corrected when the person asked to be referred to as “they.” Those people—the people who have been corrected—are the “You” that shows up at the end of the ad.

And like the first part, which seems to be only about a choice of pronouns, this part, which seems also to be only about pronouns, is in fact a powerful statement of advocacy by the Trump campaign. Had the ad said only “President Trump is for You” it would have been feeble and pointless. But this ad points out the alternatives. Kamala is the candidate of the people who look down on you and correct your grammar. Trump thinks your grammar is just fine.

And, in fact, your grammar WAS just fine. Yesterday. But things keep changing and you are supposed to assent to the changes no matter how bizarre they are and to conform to them because you will be “corrected” if you don’t.

And once we change from the correction that is being demanded to the people who are doing the demanding, the range expands very quickly. The same people who find themselves simply unwilling to address another person as “they” are also called racist, sexist, ageist, and whatever other -ists are currently being deplored. And the power of this ad is that it shifts the emotional grievance from the usage to the critics.

Here is how it comes out. Whatever bizarre claims are being made for a new kind of society—different work norms, gender norms, relationship norms, language norms—Kamala is for them and for the people who want all those new things, no matter how ridiculous they might be. And those are the people who look down on you and call you names. So, briefly, they are the “them” of They/Them. Why would you vote for someone who supports Them?

President Trump is against “Them” and he is for “You.” Clearly, “them” is a grammatical usage, but ‘you” refers to real people; people you know. Trump is us. Kamala is them.

So that’s the politics as I see it. That is the stream of public controversy that this usage taps. Down below all that, down among people who are engaged in the gender wars personally and daily, the question is only, “What do I want to be called?” The “they/them” choosers not only reject him and her as inadequate; they also reject the high priority that has always been put on him or her. The people who have been causing them trouble are people for whom: a) him and her are the only two options and b) which one you are determines how you are to be treated.

They/them is a protest against both of those. If I knew and liked someone who preferred to be referred to as “them,” I would make every effort to remember to use the term, despite a lifetime of understanding that it is wrong. But even for this person I liked, it would not take many times of being corrected for me to turn that favor I was doing for my friend into an unwilling obedience to their quirkiness. I would also be turned off by whoever among my friends thinks I ought to be more careful to use the preferred pronoun of the person I had just offended. And I would resent being turned off by people who think I should knuckle under to unreasonable demands.

And when that happens and I see a billboard that says I get to choose between someone who is for They/Them and someone who is for Me, the emotional force is all in one direction. It is Trumpish.

Finally, I, personally, despise Trump and everything Trumpish. I don’t like they/them either. It’s not a “personal preference” if everybody needs to use it. I am blessed with enough verbal fluency that I can manage to stay out of sentences that require me to use or to prominently avoid that pronoun. But I don’t like to have to be that careful all the time.

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“Don’t worry about it, ma’am.”

Posted on July 10, 2025 by hessd

I want to start this line of thought with a comment by Margaret Talev in Thomas Edsall’s New York Times column this week. She said, “Voters want to belong. If you want someone’s vote, you should ask for it. When it came to men, Trump did.”

It still seems odd to me to see an unqualified reference to “men,” but there is a meaning here that is clear enough that the reference is justified. She doesn’t mean “men” as a statistical category; she means “men” thinking of them in gendered terms. Men as males.

And Trump did ask for their vote, where Harris did not.

I was still thinking about Gov. Abbot when I ran across Heather Cox Richardson’s post. She cites an exchange that undoubtedly begins with a reporter asking who is to blame for the deaths caused by the flood in central Texas. Here’s what he said.

“‘[W]ho’s to blame?’” Texas governor Greg Abbott repeated back to a reporter. “That’s the word choice of losers.” “Every football team makes mistakes,” he continued, referring to Texas’s popular sport. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry about it, ma’am, we’ve got this.’”


Abbot dismisses the question of responsibility as a “word choice.” It is only losers who wonder whose fault an unfavorable outcome was. Then he doubles back to make his argument impenetrable. The word that does it for Gov. Abbot is “ma’am.”

This is not a reference to the reporter who asked the question. This is the language of legend. It is the women who are told not to worry and they are told this by the men. By the “real men,” presumably, like Gov. Abbot.

The gulf between the question of who is responsible for Texas’s inexcusable unpreparedness, on the one hand, and a woman “worrying about it” is a huge gulf. And in the context of that news conference, I would think that trying to cross that gulf would be hazardous in the extreme. A reporter who tried to do that would have to fight the charge that he is or represents the perspective of losers; that he is not making a charge about public accountability; and that he is not a (mere) woman, indulging herself in “worrying.”

That is the size of the gulf. It is a situation of great hazard. For the reporter. On the other hand, to return to Margaret Talev’s remark about belonging, Gov. Abbot offers a place to belong. You can be one of the real men who take it on themselves to reassure the worrying women. Or if you are a woman, you can take seriously the reassurance by this man that you are only worrying and things and well in hand. The next election, for instance.

It is hard not to focus on the blatant culpability of the governments involved, but I think the more important question here is whether Gov. Abbot is offering voters a place to belong and whether they want that more than anything.

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