If it were not for three hours of sanity, from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. Central time each morning, I do not know how I would be handling this election and its results. For me, it's on an AM radio station, WCPT in Chicago, which is the only radio station to which I now listen, since the music station I used to put on in the afternoon has CBS news on the hour. The steadfast beacon of reason and hope through what I see as impending disaster for this country has been the Stephanie Miller show.

Stephanie Miller stands to lose as much as anyone in the media on the left. People sometimes look at me driving in traffic like I'm an idiot because I'm fist pumping or applauding some pithy, insulting thing they've said about Trump. There have been mornings when I've laughed so hard, I've had to pull over and get out of traffic because I literally couldn't see or hold my composure well enough to drive. Who'd have ever thought that political reality could be so terrifying and yet so funny at the same time?

She is one of just a few media personalities whom I now trust to tell me the truth. She hasn't backed down. She's shared the same fears and feelings we all had when the election results were announced and the same sense of being lost, not knowing what to do, and wondering where we are headed. But she's remain steadfast in her convictions, and her approach, the manner in which she delivers her message, and the truth she tells, and nothing has changed in spite of her clear awareness of any and all possibilities as Trump's administration settles in.

When I tuned in and listened to her program the morning after the election, I cried. Not because I was disappointed in the results, though I had cried about that earlier, but because I was listening to some truly genuine people who thought like I thought, and who were expressing the same feelings, in public, on the air, as I was feeling at that very moment. I've been tuned in every morning since then. I work in an environment that would get pretty hostile and uncomfortable quickly if I had her show on the radio in my office. I have a hearing device and I can connect it to the live stream from my phone and listen that way, and no one else even knows.

John Dewey, known as the founder of American progressive education, declared that "Democracy, and the one ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." As an educational reformer, and one of the most prominent American scholars in the early twentieth century, Dewey believed that an informed and educated electorate was the key to preserving America's constitutional democracy.

Dewey was right. Events leading up to and including this 2024 election in the United States have proved his words to be correct. If the election is an accurate reflection of the political will of the people, then this one is a reflection of appalling ignorance about the issues at stake, and of the ability of sheer propaganda to penetrate and saturate the electorate to achieve a result not consistent with reality. We have an electorate that is blatantly apathetic, appallingly ignorant and inexcusably uneducated that has just allegedly elected leadership bent on the destruction of American Constitutional Democracy.

And the clown that was elected is lining up a group of individuals whose incompetence and inability to manage the parts of the executive branch to which he plans to appoint them will destroy what they don't intentionally ruin when they get there. For anyone who might be placing hope in a group of Republican senators to stop this clown show, and demand that the people appointed to these cabinet positions at least be competent and capable of doing the job, and not flawed by a criminal record, or by a subversive, treasonous relationship with Vladimir Putin, or by their own deviant sexual behavior, I'll tell you now you will be disappointed. No Republican anywhere in that party's leadership has integrity any more. They're just protecting their assets at this point, like pathetic Lindsay Graham, who trots around after Trump with toilet paper and tissues, to wipe his ass and blow his nose.

So what should we now expect from the leadership of the Democratic party, after losing an election they convinced most of us to believe was the most consequential of our lifetime? Is it politics as usual? Is is an attitude of, "Well, at least I won my election and I'll be able to take my seat and collect my government paycheck and expenses." If this election was so consequential, and our democracy is now in the most danger it ever has been in, then I need to hear from the party leadership, and I need to see something that convinces me that they don't just think this is all intense election rhetoric aimed at getting contributions and votes and now we're all just going to hunker down and endure until the next election gives us a chance to change things.

If our democracy really is in danger, there may not be a "next election."

I'm going to need to see more than what I'm seeing now. If, somehow, someway our democracy does survive the next four years, the person who gets my vote will be the one who led the way through this darkness, confusion and terror of what's coming, shows no fear of Trump, challenges any moves he makes to abuse the law to get even with his enemies, and leads a genuine resistance movement that I will gladly volunteer to join and financially support.

The Southern Baptists just had a major sexual abuse scandal exposed by two Texas daily newspapers, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express News. This particular expose only dealt with cases that had been reported, verified and adjudicated. Tipped off by victims who had reported abuse that had occurred at the hands of pastors and church leaders, and had their reports covered up at the denominational level, the denomination's leadership has delayed, resisted and obfuscated when it comes to getting to the bottom of what's going on. The rank and file membership of the denomination has demanded action with overwhelmingly huge affirmative votes at their annual convention, only to have their desires stymied by a balking bureaucracy bent on protecting the reputation of some of the denomination's prominent, prestigious pastors and denominational leadership.

One of the denomination's most prominent pastors, who served as its President for two terms, and then was promoted into leadership at its North American Mission Board was implicated in the investigation, and confessed to an "inappropriate relationship." He then got four of his close friends to take him through what they called a "restoration," in which he became repentant, and they pronounced him "restored" to his conference and preaching ministry business, which nets him millions in annual income.

Sound familiar?

No wonder these people are not all that upset with the bankrupt moral character of Donald Trump and the cronies he is assembling to make up his administration. Their own moral character is lacking, and whatever power or influence they are after is more important to them than character. So they've invented all kinds of excuses to justify their association with evil, and they're ignoring the pathological lying, deceit, misogyny and abuse of women, and the complete and utter moral bankruptcy of Trump and his entourage.

In spite of known character flaws, moral impurity, illegal conduct and being untrustworthy liars, all things which the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, a highly respected Southern Baptist pastor and denominational officer, said disqualifies any candidate running for political office in the United States. So their support makes them complicit in his evil, and guilty of the sins they condemn in others.

These people believe that the prosperity and peace of the United States is directly affected by the collective "morality" of the nation, and if we get to the point to where we have more sinners than saints, making us do "worldly" things as a nation, such as give rights to LGBTQ persons, or allow abortions, then God will judge this country and remove its prosperity as a blessing.

I'm serious. That is, in a nutshell, what we are looking at with these people. The test of righteousness is shutting down a measurable amount of immorality in order to get back into God's good graces so he keeps the money streaming along, feeding our prosperity.

They have a very distorted view of the Christian gospel. They see themselves as agents of God's righteousness, and are not adverse to ignoring what Jesus claimed are the very core values of the Christian gospel to achieve a very different end. They no longer see non-Christians as "lost people" in need of saving redemption, they see them as enemies of God deserving of death. They believe people who are not intently committed to Christianity are reprobate, chosen by God for damnation, and unworthy of life.

I've told friends of mine for decades now that if the United States ever had a dictatorship in which Evangelical conservatives were determined to have a prominent role, they would be as merciless and brutal in their attacks on and elimination of their perceived enemies as the church of the middle ages was in pursuing and burning heretics at the stake. It's time to pay attention to "Seven Mountains Dominionists" and the kind of rhetoric being thrown around by people proclaiming themselves to be prophets and prophetesses. They subvert the Christian gospel by claiming that their words are a new revelation, replacing that which was preached and taught by Jesus, that what Jesus said then, pertained to that generation then, and what they say now pertains to this generation now. And they see their mission and purification of the world which makes them more than willing to murder to achieve their purpose.

But don't take just my word for it. The Oklahoma state school superintendent is giving a good primer in what's coming. The Women's Christian Temperance Union showed how religious intimidation worked. Today's Charismatic prophets and Fundamentalist legalists are angrier and more full of hate. I'm just saying, we better be ready.

As I have written before, Trump is the most dangerous, pathological, bullying and evil narcissistic wreck of a human being I’ve ever known. He is emotionally broken and spiritually bankrupt. He is enough to make me believe in the power of Satan and the reality of an anti-Christ.

Yet American evangelicals — including Southern Baptists — have continued to support him and praise him and glorify him by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to his crimes, his cruelty and his crusades.

The very people who say they believe in ultimate truth have abandoned concern for daily truth. Because if they admitted the lies their guy tells are lies, they would have to walk away. And they are not willing to walk away.

It is an indisputable fact that Donald Trump is the most voracious liar ever to occupy the Oval Office. And papering over such a torrent of lies has consequences.

We are seeing those consequences writ large with every announcement of a Trump cabinet nominee. In virtually every case, he proposes to put a fox in charge of the hen house. Because he wants the hens to all get destroyed since they’ve become “woke.” Better to have “broke” eggs than “woke” eggs.

The first time I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I experienced an emotional reaction to being in that place that brought me to tears. Standing there, with the small group of people that had been in the tour group to which we were assigned, I was listening to the park ranger describe the atmosphere in that room during the writing of the Declaration of Independence, each one of those Patriots sitting there just across that small hallway from the courtroom, which represented the justice system of the King, one of the motivating factors behind the Revolution.

I'm glad they preserved that room as well, because the description of the trials that took place there is chilling. Justice, at the discretion of a monarch, is not justice. It is cruelty designed to remove any motivation in the will for liberty. It was a constant threat when the Declaration was being drafted. It was the example of how not to administer justice when the Constitution was drafted, in the same room across the hall from that chilling courtroom.

I doubt that the founders envisioned a justice system paralyzed by motions for delays, frivolous appeals, diversions, lengthy time periods before trials begin, and more motions. The whole idea of "speedy trials" was to expedite getting down to the facts of a case so that a defendant did not have to be held for any longer than necessary. And I'll cut to the chase here. The influence of people with money have helped politicians build so many complications into the justice system that it is no longer effective in actually administering justice. Like almost everything else, it's become a partisan political tool.

The Constitution, however, is still the constitution. Is there a way to enforce the 14th Amendment without going through a cumbersome and ineffective justice department and court system? We've been told Trump is an existential threat to democracy. Shouldn't those who have sworn an oath to the Constitution be defending it by expediting a trial aimed at determining that Trump is not eligible to be President. Nor is J. D. Vance, since he doesn't see the insurrection for what it is.

So what recourse do we have at this point to bring about justice for the American people? This is an amendment to the constitution, and we have an obvious insurrection, and an obvious instigator. The courts have simply failed, due to their own lack of efficiency and effectiveness, to enforce the law. These are questions that I hear are being asked.