An adulterous, white supremacist president who bragged of sexually assaulting women endorses a law-breaking theocratic racist pedophile running against a distinguished prosecutor most famous for convicting Klansman for murdering young African-American girls.

A concise summary of the State of the Union.

Christopher Hitchens famously said of conservative Christians, "How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape."

Obedience. The obedient accept, for instance, the author of Kansas' disastrous tax cuts reproducing his scheme at a national level. They do not object to oil spills or poisonous air. They can dismiss refugees and send 'em back to wars and disastrous conditions, like Haiti.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. - James 2:14

My Christian scholar pal distinguished a certain sort of American Christianity as often useless and detrimental to human betterment. It's the sort that Johnny Cash warned us about in "So Heavenly Minded You're No Earthly Good."

But it ain't going to last. Dogmatic patriarchy is on its last legs. Theocratic radicalism worldwide is aware that the woman wins the room, eventually...

Norman... Boy Scout, New Englander, and a terrific (commercial) artist. Consider his four paintings inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms of the Union address: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want (yeah, the syrupy turkey dinner), & Freedom from Fear. He delivered that speech in 1941 as a rebuke of Nazism. It's also a pretty solid defense of socialism (from an era when rich were taxed appropriately).

I'm not arguing for a return to that United States. We've moved on. I'm thankful that we're going to beat white supremacy (again) and the outcome will be a more diverse and interesting United States. It'll require a lot of cleanup, but she'll be great. Again.

In the meantime, toast your own bad selves and have a glorious Thanksgiving.