America and rogers professor, the presidency of vaernd built university, hes an nbc news and msnbc contribute by thetor jon meacham. Karine will be with us in a moment as will mark. I couldnt help think of you this hol siday season as one of the wealthiest men in prison was using his get out and vote campaign. I mean, well, your wit, i mean, a profile has to be im not has to be coming up there. But, i mean, its straight out of a charles dykens novel, isnt it . Yeah, it was a great well, this happens what . I guess the day before christmas and who broke the story . Was it the intercept that Mike Bloomberg or his campaign or some contractor affiliated with the campaign was enlisting prison labor to make some kind of phone call related to the campaign and the campaign quickly was publicly horrified and said that they discontinued the relationship. Yeah, i mean, its exactly the kind of story that you love to see the day before christmas. But looks like didnt it didnt blow up the campaign, the campaign seems to be alive and kicking and here we. Well, again, its i mean, in 2019, its hard to blow up a campaign in the age of trump. Exactly. No matter what you do. Jon meacham, of course you, of course, being the amiss pailian was that you are, you, i understand, only use methodists to do work around your house. Its something you understand. Talk, if you will, its very interesting throughout the weekend this christianity today editorial got good pickup. A lot of people talk about it. And the atlantic had a story that caught my eye about leaf anderson who has one of the large large largest evangelical groups in the country. Thts evangelical leader is a strange, strange man. Hes an outlier. He is actually like the preachers that i grew up with who actually would rather talk about jesus than politics. And thats whether youre for trump or whether youre against trump. I mean, there was a time in america where pastors were concerned primarily with the faith of their flock and spreading the word to others. And to not get as ensnarled in politics as they have over the past 30 years. But there are some who say, hey, listen, my jobs not to talk about politics, ive got the greatest message ever given to any man or woman or child. And im going to spread that message. Its it really harkens back to those premor moral majority days, doesnt it . As everything is, its complicated. The abolitionist movement, the Civil Rights Movement was driven in large part by religious fervor. Martin luther king was a bankruptist pastor. So theres been a great tradition of people motivated by religious conviction staying the life of the nation in immensely positive ways. So there is that. You know, in terms of the last 30, 40 years, i would really date it from either 1962 and the School Prayer decision, i used to go to political rallies. I was covering politics in north georgia. It was it turns out its now doug collins district. And you probably saw this in pensacola. There would be people with homemade signs there listing social indicators, divorce, abortion, murder, all from know the from 1973, from roe, but from 1962 from engel versus vitaly. Where they believed if you took god out of the classroom, that america had been sontet on a seemingly irreversible decline. They admit, to yus your phrase, he was about saving souls, not winning notes, until the morning he read about the roe decision in january of 1973. And that transformed what he was about. You know, cal thomas saw this coming, the columnist. He coauthored a book 30 years ago or socalled blinded by the might. Blinded by the might where he worried that the religious right would replace the pursuit would replace the pursuit of virtue and salvation and spreading the gospel message, which is the central injunction of the new testament, with political power. And thats whats happened. A lot of folks who profess this faith have become pursuers of four and the n power and not reledgeous message. I read about this in the Washington Post the number of people in christian knitty has been reduced to the number of federal judgeships. It really has. If you if you hold a position different on abortion or on the family and what constitutes the family, nothing else matters, which of course has given donald trump free rein do whatever he has wanted to do. If you say as so many on the right say get me federal judges who agree with me on one issue, then you have just signed a blank check for donald trump to run around to doing everything donald trump says for saying the second article two gives me unlimited power, i can do whatever i want to do. I can hug vlad pud, i can turnover the middle east to him, i can i can make a fool of myself in north korea. I can attack federal judges, i can attack the press, and i can behave as if article two does give the president of the United States unlimited power. I can do grave violence to those madisonian checks and balances that conservatives ran around talking about, those checks and balances to stop the executive branch from becoming too powerful if the you say i only care about the collection of federal judges as not only a lot of republicans have done but also a lot of socalled religious leaders, so called leaders of the evangelical faith, its socalled, theyre not religious leaders, theyre politicians, then i think cal thomas was right. Then this is not about faith, this is about power. And thats thats a real reckoning thats coming not only to the Evangelical Church but to the church in general. David ignatius, recent oped for the Washington Post. You wrote this about how americans can break our bitter impasse. You write in part, its cheering this christmas week to repeat the promine love thigh neighby many of us seem to hate our numbers. We dont understand how other people can oppose the values we chair riv risch most. Their behavior sin fewer rating and it often seems unforgivable. If we are lucky we escape this blockage not conceding our old grief answers but putting them aside. Actually putting grievance aside. It doesnt work in politics. When each sides narrative becomes inflamed and reinforced bipartisan politicians and media koent commentators and is reconciliation possible or desiebl when fundamental matters of principle seem to be at stake in more and more i hear people expressing doubt about compromise and reconciliation in the age of trump. Thats part of what makes politics so poe tent atent and s dangerous. Its not the art of the deal but frankly our death. America doesnt feel to me like a country hided toward a second civil war. Turn off the television. Amen. Go to a ball game. Listen to some music. And the din from washington fades. This season, i id bet that a version of our Love Thy Neighbor is a political winner. As angry as people are, most americans want a way out. Truer words never written and certainly when comes to american politics mika and i through the years have probably given hundreds and hundreds of talks at colleges, rote terry clubs. Someplace in iowa, middle america, people are so tired of the infighting. And thats not me being pollyannaish, thats my political antenna going up. That if you can prove to americans that youre strong and youre powerful and youre not just looking, you know, powerful personality and youre not just looking for the mushy middle, that you want, like, you know, reagan, like lbj, like fdr, youre Strong Enough to bring people together and sort of force a political peace upon them. They want that sort of leader thats going to bring america together again. Joe, i found myself in this christmas week trying to think differently about politics as i wrote in this column. I have written dozens this year about our political impasse, the dark days that lie ahead for america, all the things that we worry about. We talk about most mornings. And tried to think, is is there a different way to look alt theat these issues . And obviously if youre a christian your faith tells you that yue you ne that you need to begin with the sermon on the mount. Like you ought to not just, you know, love your friends, you ought to love your enemies too. You ought to reach out to the people who you think have wra wronged you and try to somehow break the impasse with them. I kept thinking about that in our personal lives i think every one offo one of us knows theres a truth to that. We have trouble with our friends, relatives, marital partners, and the only way out of them is to reset and escape that corner into which weve backed ourselves. Ive been wondering, is there a similar thing that can happen in politics with people who are so angry at each other, each is so convinced theyre right. And official i wouldnbviously id that i came up with an answer, by did try to think this through and what you coated at the equo i think the people thatsies want to love my neighbor and be the candidate that can do that has a powerful message this year, more than usual. I dont know, is joe biden that person . I dont know. But its a message that the public really wants to hear. You know, karine, its so interesting youve always heard the saying the generals are always fighting the last war. Ive always felt that in politics. People look at the results as the election booth as buckley wrote in his great manifest from last week, and are chained to that. Believe that becomes the new reality. Donald trump won by you know, donald trump won the election, but he lost the popular vote by a greater total than nixon and jimmy carter and jfk all three won their elections. It was a strange political race and yet we seem to tie our political realities all to what happened on that one day in 2016 as if thats the future that we we are stuck with in the future. And yet, you know, i disagree with that. I think i think that was an anomaly, historical anomaly that people are going to be shaking their heads about 30 years going to wait a second, how did that happen . And yet you see a party, my old party, you see a church, my current church, the evangelicals, and you see commentators who support donald trump saying the most hateful things because they think thats the future. They think thats i saw two things pred yesterdyesterday, i twitter briefly because i knew ways going to do this show. In the afternoon i went into a darkened corner and said im going to look at this for a minute or two. Two of the first tweets i saw was a very well known donald trump supporter attacking jill biden for giving food to hungry refugees on christmas day. And i sat there thinking about the sermon on the mount, as david said, and all those wonderful red letters in the bible. Jesus words, the story of the good samaritan, helping a foreigner when his own people wouldnt help him. And i thought, is there more unchristlike tweet on kmis dchs day than that . Tha and then i scrolled down and it said this is the true reason for the season. And it showed Hillary Clinton and bill clinton almost being harmed by falling lights. And i sat there thinking, these poor fools think that this is the new reality and theyre going to be rewarded for this sort of activity being that hateful to attack a woman for actually helping poor, hungry refugees on christmas day. I mean, obviously they never read matthew 25 about, you know, when you give give food to the hungry or clothing to the naked or give hope to the hopeless. Its as if you were giving to jesus himself. And yet, this is the state of politics for many people who follow donald trump in 2019. It is the state of politics, exactly, joe. If you think about it, donald trump is the symptom to your point about it shouldnt be the norm. This is not supposed to be the way that things are going to be in the future. Donald trump is not the future. And if you look at the last three years, joe, just putting on my political analysis hat, weve seen the change. Weve seen how people are tired of this. If you look at how democrats won in these red districts, why did they win in these red districts back in 2018 and give over the house to democrats . Because you had these suburban voters who said enough is enough. We are tired of this. We are tired of the madness and they hand over the reins to democrats in the house. If you think about louisiana, think about kentucky, the same exact thing. These suburban voters who voted for donald trump in 2016 said enough of this craziness, enough of all of this nastiness that we see from this president. And then you see this coalition of suburban voters, black voters, independents handing the reins back or over to democrats. So were seeing a change. This is not supposed to be the norm and it will not be the norm. And it is devastating to see when you think about evangelicals, when you think with your old party who are supposed to be the parties of rule of law, patriotism, handing that all over to donald trump. When you think about evangelicals handing over christianity, it doesnt exist anymore. Its a very sad time that were in. But the voters are speaking out in the last three years. Theyre saying enough is enough and now were heading into 2020 and so now this is where the big kind of the big opportunity to make sure that we hold donald trump accountable. And, jon meacham, obviously christianity exists and is doing well across the globe in many respects. But the evangelicals that you and i grew up around, still many go to church and worship the lord and keep politics out of it. But it is it is something that there are very loud, very outspoken people, leaders of the faith who actually have have basically turned their back on basic core beliefs that you can find in the sermon on the mount, in jesus parables. Just for a white house photo, just for the ability to appear on tv and be seen as one of the president s selected preachers. I saw one comment from from someone who an evangelical preacher who had worked with donald trump who said the reason they always fall in line, these these public preachers, is because they they cant handle the shame of a negative tweet or being disassociated or being outside the reach of power. Yeah. Yeah, as the psalm is said, put not their triey trust in prince it begins with Love Thy Neighbor as thigh sey self, love the lor god and on these commandments hang all the law and profits. Not a word there about a meet and greet with donald trump. Not a word there about a democratic nominee. This is a larger point than the partisan divisions at the moment, and its all about how a republic works, right . Its a republic is the u. S. Its parts. We u. Sum of its parts. It matters enormously because they find expression in the public square. Madison was very, very clear that he understood religion would play a role in the life of the country. We had to separate church from state, but we couldnt separate religion from politics because theyre both about people, theyre about how people think and how they act. And so this has always been an incredibly important american balancing act. How do you manage and marshal religious feeling in the public arena in a way that protects the rights of believers but does not tend toward theocracy. And at our best we have found that balance. It is always precarious. Its like Everything Else in the country. It is always precarious. And it depends on all of us. And it depends on a certain level of humility. The capacity to recognize, again, to go to the bible, who has known the mind of the lord . Whos been his counselor . If you want to believe that youyou really understand what the lord of hosts wants, take a if you minutes today and go read job, see how well that worked out. Thats in many ways the most important text in the bible about humility, understanding that the will of god on this side of paradise is a mystery, and lets work through this using our reason and using a sense of humility, of balance, of forbearance. And politics is complicated enough, thats what the founders understood. They were coming from a world where they were fighting wars over the formulation in the cannon canon of the mass. This was going for hard enough to set this will continent and project that government and power. They were trying to keep religious struggles out of politics. I think that the forward leaning religious folks for whom that is the central social identifier should find a way, seems to me, to think of their citizenship and their faith in a way that is not absolutely one but is a balance between those two things. And the balance needs to be restored and it certainly will. Still ahead on morning joe, president President Trump has Mitch Mcconnell in his pocket. He cant say the same thing about Lisa Murkowski. How the republican from alaska is shaking up the impending impeachment trial in the senate. Is. First crack in that wall of support that Donald Trumps enjoyed since the impeachment inquiry has begun . Well talk about that when morning joe comes back. Welln morning joe comes back. As a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. At liberty butchemel. Cut. Liberty mu. Line . Cut. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Cut. Liberty m. Am i allowed to riff . What if i come out of the water . Liberty biberty. Cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. air pump motors lamp crashes music its the final days of the wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. Too many afterparties. 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