Cats and Dogs

In case you missed the presidential debate between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, you should know that this happened in Philadelphia. Now I don't think that Fox News has ever made it onto my blog before. But when I Googled to find that moment on YouTube, that was the first hit. And I think it's good that it's not MSNBC. He really did say this live and millions of us who were watching saw it in real time. It's not AI created. And he was not joking. He was dead serious. 

The lie was exposed in real time. He got it from a person that even Marjorie Taylor Green thinks is unhinged, which is saying something. The same person who said if Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry. 

But I honestly believe that he believed it which is more disturbing to me than anything else. If he believes a racist fool, then he can be manipulated by a former KGB guy. Here it is, again: 

I cannot count the number of memes I've seen on Facebook since featuring cats and dogs reacting. Most are pretty funny. But cumulatively I find them disturbing and here is why: he was targeting an immigrant community (Haitians) because this is what he does, what he did, what he will do. It's not a misstatement; he targets the vulnerable consistently. And that has real world consequences.

I wrote a post a month ago that can be found here, about the November election. I promised to avoid my own partisan stuff and try to the best of my ability to stick with truth and love and to stay in my lane as an ordained leader, not a politician. Some may be upset that they feel this post ignores those self-imposed boundaries but I respectfully feel I cannot be silent or complicit. 

In the Bible, in both testaments, we are taught not to fear the stranger (xenophobia) but to love them. To love immigrants, to love our neighbors. In both testaments. It goes to the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't demonize the other; you break bread with them. You work for strangers to become friends, as Brian Wren puts it in one of his Eucharistic hymns. Full stop. This is true. This is loving. This is how we live our faith.

Now imagine being a 7th grade Haitian student going to school in Springfield this week and what it's like for that kid at the lunch table. Middle schoolers can be mean to start with. What's that your mom packed for lunch? Somebody's cat? 

This is not new. Although the former president sows seeds of fear regularly, he didn't invent it. Fear was the tactic used to intimidate black people seeking equal rights under the law. You burn a cross in one lawn and everyone is afraid. Fear is always what you sow to appear to people's worst instincts. "Those people" are coming for Fluffy and Fido. Watch out!

But what he claims is happening is not happening. It's easily fact-checked and the moderators discredited immediately after he said it, leading him to say (of course) that the media is unfair to him. 

But words have consequences. Lies destroy neighborhoods. The truth will set us all free and I pray that we will truly make America great again, this great unfinished experiment, when we remember our core values - the values proclaimed to the world from New York Harbor: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” A place where all are welcomed and where the dignity of every human being is respected.