Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This publication is free for now, but please consider clicking on the button at the bottom to become a paid subscriber to enjoy this along with Monday’s “Off The Shelf” feature about books and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.
Dear Friends,
It has been quite a week. In Wednesday’s Quarter Inch I offered some reflections on the very dark cultural turn the Nashville shooting has brought about. Since then things have simply gotten worse. What started as innuendo—that the transgender murderer is the real victim—is now just openly maintained. The President of the United States can’t bring himself to offer any real words of comfort to the Christian community in Nashville, but he can offer endless sympathies to the LGBTQ+ community—as if they are the ones suffering.
This man began his press conference to talk about the shooting deaths of three children and three adults like this:
That is real. He began with a sickening stand-up comedy routine. And then, later, when a reporter asked him if he thought that Christians in particular were targeted in the shooting, he said, “I have no idea.” The reporter followed up by saying Senator Josh Hawley had said so, and the President replied, “I probably don’t, then.”
I don’t have any measured words for what I think of Joe Biden, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.
I also highlighted on Wednesday the heroic actions of Officers Rex Engelberg and Michael Collazo, and suggested that you not watch the bodycam footage unless you’ve got a strong constitution. If you are one of those people, I found fascinating this analysis of the video by former Green Beret Mike Glover. It’s eye-opening having an expert walk you through every move these guys make. He’s got nothing but praise.
The other big news this week was the indictment of former President Donald Trump by a grand jury in New York, related to his hush money payout to a porn star with whom he’d had an affair. I think the indictment is likely very weak on legal grounds, and prosecuting Trump for that instead of, say, his attempt to strong arm Georgia’s Secretary of State into “finding him” 11,000 votes or trying to overturn the electoral college by fomenting a riot on Capitol Hill is a bit like nailing Al Capone for “tax evasion.”
One might think this is a miscalculation by the district attorney. Can’t he see that this indictment does nothing but help Trump? His die-hard fans love this stuff; he loves this stuff. There is nothing Trump loves more than playing the role of a persecuted martyr. That sort of narcissism is at his very core, if he can be said to have a “core.” All this indictment does is energize his base.
But this is not a miscalculation at all. Drill this into your brain. Deeply internalize this because it will help you make sense of politics this election season: there is nothing the Left wants more than for Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. The easily manipulated person looks at the indictment and laughs, “Haha! What an epic fail! That will backfire spectacularly! That just makes us love Trump all the more!” And the New York DA just smiles. Yes. Yes, indeed. Love him. More. By all means.
They want Trump to be the nominee. I would suggest that if you, like me, do not want to do what is politically advantageous to the progressive left, we will NOT MAKE DONALD TRUMP THE NOMINEE. They want Trump because they fear more formidable candidates—particularly Ron DeSantis—and they know that Trump’s electoral ceiling is simply too low for him to win. But dim-witted (sorry to be frank) MAGA folks take the bait and swallow it whole. They are true believers; they think Trump can win with his existing coalition, and in this they are, in my estimation, delusional.
Supporting Trump and rallying to his cause plays right into the hands of the people we are supposed to believe are our “enemies.” It’s like an “own goal” in soccer, or shooting oneself in the foot. Maybe you’re not convinced of my analysis here. Try this: take a look at how outfits like The Bulwark and The Lincoln Project are acting. Their entire reason for existence has been to oppose Donald Trump by every available means, and yet they spend all their time these days attacking … Ron DeSantis. They want Donald Trump to be the nominee. They need him to be the nominee. Who knows what their logic is, but they believe (rightly) that Trump loses a general election.
If the GOP wants to win, they need to not fall for this obvious gambit from the Left and pick a candidate they don’t want to face.
It was also a big week around here because after twenty months of waiting, my new guitar arrived, safe and sound. As I’ve mentioned in the past, this custom instrument is an extravagant gift from a friend who has a philosophy of “blessing”—in this case, blessing both me and the artisan who built the guitar.
I knew it was going to be amazing, but one is actually never really prepared for artistry and craftsmanship like this. I’ve “played it ‘til my fingers bled,” as Bryan Adams famously put it (really, my right forefinger did start bleeding because I was hammering the strings so aggressively), and I sometimes just pick it up out of the blue just to double-check: “Did it really sound that good?” Every time: yeah, it did.
I filmed an introductory video review for this fabulous instrument for your viewing pleasure.
Thanks for reading The Square Inch Newsletter! Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll be back in your inboxes next week.
nice axe.