Bob Schwartz

I received a message from a friend who is a politician. A person of quality and bright prospects in an era of uncertain and sometimes shady and compromised politics. He wrote, “These are certainly interesting and potentially transformative times.”

That phrase “transformative times” stuck with me. As someone who writes so frequently about change, I know that I can also get mired in the seemingly static day-to-day messiness of our current public life (not to mention our private lives too). Opportunities for change and transformation abound, if we can see, hear and believe in them. Actually, change and transformation are the reality, like it or not.

By coincidence, this morning I came across a poem by Rilke about this very matter:

Earth, isn’t this what you want? To arise in us, invisible?
Is it not your dream, to enter us so wholly
there’s nothing left outside us to see?
What, if not transformation,
is your deepest purpose?
(The Ninth Duino Elegy)

So let us see, along with my friend, what we make of these transformative times.

Saints are in short supply—in your family, in your community, at work, in politics, in your mirror. So if the search for them is likely to come up empty, what’s the point of looking?

In the intersecting realm of faith, policies and character, it is balance we seek, not absolutes or perfection. You stand certain on a line, maybe informed by your god and your traditions, and believe that everything else stands closer or farther on that line, in one direction or another. You can measure the distance and decide when someone has gone too far.

In the case of faith, policies and character, there are at least three dimensions. Trying to evaluate people in that space is hard and uncertain. Some think this gets us creeping toward relativism, where suddenly everyone and everything is acceptable. But it is no such thing. It just means that we are asked to look at everyone and every circumstance on its own, for itself, eyes wide open, in our own well-considered light. That is a lot of work, and so we want a shortcut. We may think we are able to take shortcuts, but there are no shortcuts, only understandably lazy paths.

Saints are in short supply because even saints are not saints. That is the point. Go easy on yourself and others, or go hard. Do the work, if you have the time and inclination, and don’t depend simply on a bible verse, a rule or an ideology. You are gifted, so use those gifts wisely.

At a final rally before the Alabama special election, Roy Moore’s wife Kayla denied the portrayal of the couple as anti-Semitic:

“Fake news would tell you that we don’t care for Jews. I tell you all this because I’ve seen it all, so I just want to set the record straight while they’re here. One of our attorneys is a Jew.”

How beauteous mankind is! 
O brave new world
That has such people in’t!
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Act 5, Scene 1)

Those are famous lines from Shakespeare made more modernly famous by Aldous Huxley in his dystopian novel Brave New World.

In the play, Miranda has been isolated on an island with her father Prospero, and this is her exclamation as she gets her first excited view of beautiful and wondrous men. (Prospero, who is experienced and has seen a thing or two, warns her about the seeming novelty: “Tis new to thee.”)

“Brave new world” has come to mean progress in things and processes, whether for good or ill. But the Shakespeare quote suggests a more essential point. A new world is about new people, not new things.

Our difficulty is that it is easier to make new things than it is to make or be new people.

The supply of new things appears endless. But as for new and better people, at least in some highly visible and powerful segments, we seem to be moving backwards. Some of that regressing comes from people who piously and hypocritically claim that they are all about being new and better people.

If we want to consider new things the markers of a beautiful and wondrous new world—and some of them are— we should at least balance that with aspiring towards beautiful and wondrous and better people. New things make it easy to forget this, and the newer and more plentiful the things, the easier to forget.

To a new world with new people.

Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI. He escaped other charges, including treason, for transactions, with a foreign power (Russia) during the presidential transition—after Trump was elected but before he took office. During that period, President Obama was in exclusive charge of U.S. foreign policy.

The Treason statute reads:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. (18 U.S. Code § 2381)

From what we know so far about the discussions between Trump officials and the Russians offering to ease Obama sanctions (an indication that Russia was not our friend), the Russians were likely made to feel “comfortable” about their prospects.

Flynn is cooperating with the Special Prosecutor, which makes it more likely that more will be revealed about these transactions and the people involved. Just because Flynn was not charged with treason—though he still could be if he reneges on cooperating—doesn’t mean that others won’t be.

Three final points.

Is treason a “high crime or misdemeanor” under the impeachment provision of the Constitution? You don’t have to be a lawyer to guess that it is.

Will anyone be executed if treason is found? Certainly not, but the range from five years to life in prison is a long one.

Will Trump pardon anyone, including himself, if charged with any crimes stemming from the Russian transactions, treason or otherwise? Yes, with the exception of those, like Flynn, who are cooperating. They don’t deserve his generosity, demonstrating none of the loyalty and obedience that Trump expects and prizes.

In an interview yesterday, the President of the United States said:

I’m the only one that matters.

If you think this must be out of context, here’s the context. He was asked about there being so many unfilled high-level positions in the State Department, the foreign affairs arm of the American government. He dismissed the need for these people:

So we don’t need all the people they want. I’m a businessman, and I tell my people, ‘When you don’t need to fill slots, don’t fill them.’ But we have some people that I’m not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.

“I’m the only one that matters” is something you might hear from someone you’re in a difficult relationship with, or from the person who owns the company you work for, or from a dictator. But no American President has ever publicly said this. Being chief of the public enterprise that is America means that lots of other people matter—even if only a little.

The one blessing of Trump’s disorders (see Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is his unrestrained need to reveal exactly what is in his head at the moment, since these are the greatest thoughts in the world, the only ones that matter. This quote reveals something that everybody already knew, but it is still helpful to hear it from the horse’s mouth.