Reflection at an Inflection Point
Accuracy, Honesty, Trajectory
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.” - T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
In Rochester, New York, we know the truth of T.S. Eliot’s reversal of Chaucer’s high opinion of April. It is a cruel month of sudden reversals and contrasts. The promise of warmer weather teases us with a few good days, before the cold, snow, rain, and gray clouds return to vent their fury. Soldiering through these last few outbursts of winter’s scorn, though, yields real lilacs - Rochester’s annual Lilac Festival!
There have been moments in this April 2025 when our collective political lives - and I speak as part of the cognitive resistance to the Republican Administration, as Americans, and as a planet (Happy Earth Day!) - have felt whiplashed by extremes of hope and despair. The totalitarian takeover by the Republicans has met resistance in pockets of the judicial branch (including the Supreme Court), in the tour of AOC and Bernie Sanders, in the filibuster of Cory Booker, in the refusal of Harvard to bow to the Republican Administration’s demands - and now the collective actions by universities - and in the journey of Senator Van Hollen to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Ábrego García. But overwhelmingly the important change has happened in the streets - regular people protesting the take-over of their government, and the stripping away of civil rights, human rights, and freedom of speech - most notably in the mass nationwide protests of April 5th and 19th.
The Republican Administration, though, has remained pathetically resolute, refusing ever to admit any error or misjudgment, and exercising anger and power over those who cross their bull-headed path.
The Black Knight, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in denial about the seriousness of his injuries, and maintaining that he is winning despite all evidence to the contrary
The Republican Administration’s self-inflected wounds - “unforced errors” as they are called in tennis - keep increasing.
The tariff tango/tangle
The tanking of fiscal trust in America
The obviously doctored photo of Kilmar Ábrego García’s hands to read MS-13 (as well as the Republican Administration’s ludicrous obsession with tattoos, despite the lack of evidence)
The mocking of Ábrego García’s plight
The contrast between the Oval Office visits of Nayib Bukele and Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Not addressing the problem that is Pete Hegseth
The lies and subterfuges about Social Security and Medicare
But despite all of these mistakes, and a steady loss of confidence in the Republican Administration (and even in America as a place and an idea) by everyone from our (formerly) foreign allies, to businesses, to regular people, the DOGE and the Don still have a lot of ammunition:
The ability to disintegrate, denigrate, de-skill, and destroy the Federal Government, especially its branches that address that which is good for society (e.g. foreign assistance, health care, scientific research, libraries, museums, universities, Social Security, the arts, etc. etc. etc.)
A high-ranking band of fierce loyalists in the Executive Branch, who lunge like attack dogs if they or the “beautiful hair” of their figurehead leader are challenged in any way.
A compliant right-wing press (though Joe Rogan is making noises of displeasure)
A still largely compliant Congress. Most Americans now perceive that the Legislative arm of the government is either entirely cowed or useless.
An internally contradictory judiciary, especially a Supreme Court that could swing either way, when they are done waffling around with intentionally ambiguous words like “facilitate.”
Nominal (though untested) control over the most powerful military in human history.
Note that of these six, the final three may not be absolutely sturdy. That is noteworthy, and leads me to wonder if we are at an inflection point.
A business model graph of the inflection point - the point at which a curved line changes direction.
Contrasts of Easter Weekend
The death of Pope Francis came within hours after he met with J.D. Vance. Think about that - one of the pope’s last acts on earth was holding J.D. Vance to account. Or, at the very least, contrasting the Pope’s moral authority with Vance’s villainy.
At the same moment that the Pope was living his final day on earth, the Republican President launched an “Easter” greeting that showed zero compassion, zero grace, and zero humanity. It also shows zero intelligence, but that’s not news.
And while he was writing this screed, he’s ensuring that hundreds of people remain detained in El Salvador. Now there is even talk of these incarcerated men being human-trafficked back to the very Venezuela that they fled - and 100% OF THEM HAD NO DUE PROCESS!
Great Goddesses! Even the Roman Freakin’ Provincial Government gave Jesus a show trial. The American government gave Nazis better treatment around deportations in the middle of World War II.
The lack of due process is a danger to all of us - as the abductions of American citizens, permanent residents, and graduate students attests. The lack of due process in these immigration cases needs to be translated into language that everyone - left, right and center - can understand (see below). Until that happens, to quote from William Lloyd Garrison’s first editorial in The Liberator: “The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.”
This is the best shorthand I’ve found so far for explaining due process.
In these mean times, in answer to all of the perfidy of the Trump Administration stood the opposing forces of the mass protests on April 19, and the Pope’s death just as he had once again reaffirmed a global commitment to immigrants’ rights.
The Catholic Church is a deeply flawed institution, with a centuries-long criminal record of repression, suppression, misconduct at personal, institutional, and global levels, collusion with imperialism, fascism, and triumphalist militarism. They have attempted to construct bulwarks against women’s rights, lives, and voices, and against lesbian, gay, and trans existence. Their corruption and craven capitulation to tyrants over the centuries is well-known.
Yet they also contain within their institution contradictory impulses for good. Charity, love, peace, recognition of all human beings as having worth. And they are the most international of all non-governmental organizations, having outposts in virtually every country on earth.
I feel it is tedious to have to clarify this continually, yet I must. I was born and raised Catholic, but left the faith as an apostate at the age of 22, and have never looked back with a fond glance. I am not going to whitewash the Catholic church, or Christianity in particular, or religion in general. But the strategic importance their position and global presence gives them, and the concepts that a humanist can share with them at our core - like kindness, peace, love, justice, and so on - means that throwing out all reference to religions (as some of the Leftist movements of the 20th century did, and it cost us all dearly in a resurgent religious right), is short-sighted.
In short - I am not a Catholic Christian, or any named religion - but as Bernice Johnson Reagon wrote in describing how uncomfortable and difficult coalitions can be:
“You don’t go into coalition because you like it. The only reason you would consider trying to team up with somebody who could possibly kill you is, because that it is the only way you can figure that you can stay alive….There is nowhere you can go and only be with people like you. It’s over. Give it up.”
So I am willing - even eager - to form coalitions with those whose pathways differ from mine, but who are still trying to build towards a more human and humane future.
While the story has been embellished with security guards and a regular homily, it is still a fact that Pope Francis spoke to Special Olympians, and this girl (an Olympian herself) spontaneously joined him. He then held her hand while delivering his remarks. Hard to imagine Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene behaving this way without being saccharin or smarmy about it.
So, looking out from within this odd coalition of mine, I see the Catholic Church using its considerable power, reach, and audience to keep repeating a pro-migrant, anti-war, pro-human rights stance. While it has also continued to be anti-women and anti-LGBTQI, they might yet change their policies there. They might enter the 21st century sometime by the 23rd century. For now, their core values are needed as part of a broad tent of decency, my philosophical, political, and feminist objections to them notwithstanding.
Accuracy, Honesty, and Trajectory
Rally sign, anonymous person, anonymous location
We need accuracy in reporting - whether in the day-to-day nightmare, or in drawing on the annals of history. Truth has been muddied by the slanders of “fake news” and the opprobrium thrown on any/all of us who do research into issues of power and difference (whether in feminism, race, imperialism, or capitalism). Recovering respect for truth requires us to give careful attention to rigor - the train of verifiable facts that elicits agreement in people who, in turn, give careful attention to that same set of facts.
Many of us read the regular essays of one of Substack’s best, Heather Cox Richardson. A trained academic historian, she has used her broad knowledge to inform people about the complexities of our past as a nation, in order to better illuminate our contemporary erasures, oversights, and errors of ignorance. I treasure her columns, and I am sure others among my readership do, too. Likewise, Rachel Maddow has consistently combined research with a thorough scan of the day’s news, including perspectives from the participants themselves at the 50501 rallies. But neither Maddow nor Cox Richardson goes far enough for me.
As a revolutionary philosopher, I am trying to follow the dialectic, to anticipate how forces of both the reactionary Republican Administration, and the people opposed to it, arise, move, and change. In other words, I seek to detect and follow directions suggested by how the movements are moving.
So there is a constant feedback loop between news, reflection, archival/historical study, attending events, listening to others who keep their eyes on the prize of human freedom. It is my conviction that accuracy and honesty helps us to understand the possible trajectories as they are unfolding.
So when I combine my own experience at the rallies, monitoring the news, and reflecting on all I have learned through my study of history - and remaining humble and especially open to new voices and perspectives I have not encountered or genuinely heard before - I feel that this past week, and especially the weekend, could signal a change in the trajectory of our time. The League of Women Voters has declared we are in a constitutional crisis. People within the military are leaking information about Hegseth’s incompetence. The Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm on the Republican Administration’s handling of the economy. The 50501 protests are generating new unity of purpose and unity across a range of issues. Democrats are taking the lead in the Kilmar Ábrego García by actually going to El Salvador. Harvard is getting positive favorability ratings! Trends that seemed improbable or impossible back in January, are coming into clear view with some momentum behind them.
Then the contrast of the Republican Administration leaders with Pope Francis, at the time of the most significant holiday in Christianity, laid bare the opposition between humanity and inhumanity. Not because Pope Francis was perfect but because his death makes him a potent symbol for a focus of attraction, one that is distinct, and better, than what the Republican Administration is projecting. It is not adequate to adopt the Catholic church’s positions en toto. But at this moment in time, in the context of the growing discontent with the DOGE and the Don, having Francis’s legacy set before us - the son of immigrants who always spoke and acted for the universal values of mercy and love - helps to clarify the stakes. It is a moment, not a stopping point. The resistance remains restive, never at rest. Momentum shifts are crucial though. Maybe, in retrospect, they will be seen as inflection points.
Right now, WE THE PEOPLE are like the figures in those long boats. We must persist! Hokusai, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” Adobe Stock Educational License.