Chevalier de la charité

Tomorrow is Election Day, and if the polls are to be believed, the Democrats are in for a drubbing. According to FiveThirtyEight as of Nov. 4, control of the Senate is still up for grabs but the GOP wins the House in 84 of 100 statistical scenarios.

Mind you, I remember vividly going to FiveThirtyEight’s website late afternoon on Election Day in 2016 and then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was winning something like a 91 out of 100 statistical scenarios. In Ohio, pollsters had the presidential candidates running within the margin of error going into both the 2016 and 2020 elections, but Donald Trump carried the Buckeye State by more than 8 points both times. Polling errors, at least since 1948, have made Democrats think they were doing better than they actually were, and the actual results were more favorable to Republican candidates.

Still, the numbers appear daunting and one number stands out about all the rest. $64.10. That is what it cost to fill up my car the other day. It was around $55 a month ago.

So, tomorrow night, if you are trying to figure out if the polling is correct or if the Democrats will somehow manage to hold on to one or both chambers of Congress, here are some contests I will be looking at early in the evening.

Polls close early — at 7 p.m. — in both Georgia and Virginia. The Georgia Senate race pits incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock against former football player and Republican candidate Herschel Walker. FiveThirtyEight pegs this as the contest most likely to decide which party controls the chamber.

If the race is close, and we have no winner until Wednesday or Thursday, then maybe the GOP wave will not be as high as some fear. If the networks call Georgia for Walker before midnight, the Democrats are not going to maintain control of the Senate.

Virginia’s 7th Congressional District is a classic swing district, stretching from the suburbs of Richmond to the exurbs of Fredericksburg. It was in GOP hands since 1971, but in 2014, an outsider, libertarian candidate, David Brat, upset House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the primary and went on to win the general election.

In 2018, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger narrowly defeated Brat, and went on to win reelection in 2020. A former CIA officer, Spanberger leans into her centrism, even voting against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker in 2019. If she holds on, the night might not be as dismal as Democrats fear. If she loses in a narrow contest, it will be a long night. If she gets clobbered, the Democrats are in deep trouble.

Here in Connecticut, the 5th Congressional District pits incumbent Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes against Republican George Logan. The district covers the northwest of the state, with old manufacturing cities that have seen better days like Waterbury and Meriden, as well as affluent towns like Kent and Litchfield. Democrats have held the seat since Republican Nancy Johnson lost in 2006. The only New England Republican in Congress currently is Maine Sen. Susan Collins. If Logan wins CT-5, you can bet the Republican wave will be big.

Another New England congressional seat that Republicans might win for the first time in a long time is next door in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District. There, former Cranston Mayor Republican Allan Fung is giving state treasurer, Democrat Seth Magaziner, a run for his money to succeed Rep. Jim Langevin, who is retiring. Fung is just the kind of moderate Republican who was once common in New England politics: Think Prescott Bush, Lowell Weicker and John and Lincoln Chafee. I had to drive to the Italian deli in Providence the other day, and the lawn signs were evenly divided. So are the polls. If Fung wins, it will be a good night for the GOP.

In New Hampshire, a new poll from St. Anselm College’s Institute of Politics showed Republican challenger Don Bolduc with a 1-point lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. One month ago, the same poll had Hassan up by 6 points. The closeness of this race is especially upsetting because Democrats spent heavily during the GOP primary to make sure Bolduc, the most extreme, Trumpian candidate in the race, won the nomination. He did. The Democratic strategy was cynical, to be sure, but it was also risky, as I explained in July. If Bolduc makes it to the Senate, the Democrats will have only themselves to blame.

As the night progresses, I will be paying close attention to voting patterns in south Texas where Trump did quite well in 2020, and where the GOP has mounted a strong effort to win Latino voters. This year, Republicans are also trying to reach out to Hispanics in Texas’ major urban centers, emphasizing the fact that the economy is in bad shape and Democrats are pushing a cultural agenda far to the left of most Latino voters.

And, in Nevada, Latinos will be decisive in the contest between incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortes Masto, the first Latina in the U.S. Senate, and Republican challenger and former state attorney general Adam Laxalt. The race is very close.

Those are some of the races I will be watching especially closely tomorrow night. This election could scarcely be more important given the number of election deniers on the ballot. Democrats will need to defy gravity to hold on to either chamber, and it sure looks like it will be a good night for Republicans.

Margins will matter. Think of the power West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has been able to exercise over the Democratic agenda because the chamber was evenly split. If the GOP takes control of the House and the margin is small, could someone like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene exercise similar control over the Republican agenda? If the Democrats hang on to the Senate, how will Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema position herself for her 2024 reelection bid? Elections have consequences but, first, we need to find out who wins!

The life of Emmett Till ended with a lie. 

There have been discrepancies over the decades about what was alleged to have transpired that fateful day in Chicago, Illinois, when a 14-year-old Black boy crossed paths with a white woman. He whistled at her; he said something slick at her; he assaulted her. 

But at the end of the day, it was all a lie. Even before the damning revelation directly from Carolyn Bryant — the white woman in question — would come out about her recanting her allegations while noting that there was « nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him, » it was always a lie. 

There’s always been something painfully unremarkable about Till’s death that’s informed Black people’s intuition on the truth of the matter. How many Black boys before and since his murder have we heard of losing their own life after being caught on the wrong side of a white woman’s tears? His death and the depraved, perverse pleasure the men who carried out his killing took into maiming Till’s body, and their inevitable acquittal read like a retread of current events. 

So what was it about Till’s death that nearly 70 years after his murder, his name still conjures strong emotions? Accounts of his murder are passed down to each generation of Black children like a dark inheritance. (I myself was just 13 when I was first told this horror story.) Much like the many Black boys who have been robbed of their lives by white supremacy, power has been posthumously given to Till. His spirit has been exhumed and restored to a state of cultural immortality. 

The recently released film « Till » is the latest in the excavation of the late teen’s life, this time from the perspective of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler). who dedicated her life to activism after her son’s death. Mamie famously insisted on having an open casket funeral, forcing the world to see what it had done to her son.

« Till » follows Mamie’s turn to activism. The role of the mother in the movement has become a vital figure within the post-Black Lives Matter era, as the mothers of state violence victims turn their grief into a journey of being coerced into mining their children’s death for moral importance. Mamie’s actions, however, were unprecedented. 

The film does its best to capture the weight of Mamie’s decision, focusing less on the brutality and gore of the events that transpired and more on Mamie’s life following the tragic events. There’s been continued discourse on the responsibility of artists when depicting the horrors of white supremacy and the line between telling the truth and overindulging in showing the blood and the guts of racism. The recent Netflix series « Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer story« , which depicts the crimes of the infamous serial killer that disproportionately targeted queer Black and brown men, has been heavily criticized with even members of some of the victims’ family condemning the series for its glorification of Dahmer. 

Broad resistance to depictions of the brutality of white supremacy in the name of Black joy, flattens Blackness in the same way many critics have said endless portrayals of violence does. 

Even in our efforts to keep Till’s memory alive, we often render him into a mere symbol — static, permanently fixed as inanimate in our collective memory. Till’s name has been invoked often as a rhetorical device, used euphemistically to talk about Black boys who have been caught on the wrong side of a white woman’s tears. His lynching has been credited with kickstarting what would become the civil rights movement. 

Mamie’s decision to have an open casket was a reminder to the world that there was a life that used to animate her son’s body. Before his head had been beaten and swollen beyond recognition, there was a shy boyish smile that used to stretch across Till’s face. He was a 14-year-old who loved and was loved. Emmett was no martyr. He was Mamie’s son.

Pope Francis sketched a broad peace plan for the twenty-first century in an address to an inter-religious summit here on Nov. 4, calling on world leaders to reject imperialistic and nationalistic impulses that he said lead to « child-like » wars, and, instead, to prioritize the needs of those on the margins.

While Francis did not name any world leaders directly, he warned of « bitter consequences » if the world continued to « persist in stubbornly imposing our own models and despotic, imperialist, nationalist and populist visions, if we are unconcerned about the culture of others, if we close our ears to the plea of ordinary people and the voice of the poor. » 

In off the cuff remarks during the 15-minute address to the summit, the centerpiece of his four-day visit to the Persian Gulf nation, Francis went on to call for an end to the war in Ukraine, pleading for serious peace negotiations to begin.

In the prepared portion of the speech, the pope railed against what he termed a « few potentates, » whom he said are « caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests. » The stakes, he warned, could not be higher, alluding, as he has done often in recent months, to the threat of nuclear war. 

« We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario, » said Francis. « In the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs, weapons that bring sorrow and death, covering our common home with ashes and hatred. » 

« After two terrible world wars, a cold war that for decades kept the world in suspense, catastrophic conflicts taking place in every part of the globe, and in the midst of accusations, threats and condemnations, we continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall, » he said. 

Francis was speaking in remarks to the « Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence, » a gathering of some 200 various religious leaders held on the grounds of the country’s royal palace. 

The pope told those gathered there is only one choice for people of faith: to work together for peace and unity. « If we sail alone, we go adrift, » Francis said.

The pope arrived in Bahrain on Nov. 3, becoming the first pontiff to ever visit the kingdom. In an address that day to government officials, Francis urged the country to strengthen its commitments to human rights, especially by ending the death penalty and religious discrimination. 

Leading human rights organizations have charged the country’s Sunni-Muslim leadership of religious discrimination against its Shiite-Muslim majority population. They accuse officials of imprisoning and torturing political dissidents. 

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, host of the inter-religious summit, has maintained that the country is resolved to being a beacon of human rights in the Middle East and committed to religious pluralism.  

During his speech at the closing session of the interfaith gathering on Nov. 4, Francis sought to nudge that commitment forward. 

« Any form of religious coercion is unworthy of the Almighty, since he has not handed the world over to slaves, but to free creatures, whom he fully respects, » said Francis, seated next to King Hamad. 

« Let us commit ourselves, then, to ensuring that the freedom of creatures reflects the sovereign freedom of the Creator, that places of worship are always and everywhere protected and respected, and that prayer is favored and never hindered, » he said. « It is not enough to grant permits and recognize freedom of worship; it is necessary to achieve true freedom of religion. »   

During his remarks, the pope also drew on the 2019 document on « Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, » which Francis signed with Grand Imam Ahmad el-Tayeb of Al-Azhar, during the pope’s first ever visit to the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates. 

The document is widely viewed as a major advancement in the Catholic Church’s relationship with the Muslim world, and among its notable declarations is a vehement rejection of terrorism and the use of religion to justify war and violence. 

In Bahrain, where Francis was again joined by el-Tayeb, the pope doubled down on those joint pledges. 

« It is not enough to proclaim that a religion is peaceful; we need to condemn and isolate the perpetrators of violence who abuse its name, » said Francis. « Nor is it enough to distance ourselves from intolerance and extremism; we need to counter them. »

In a venue with representatives of most of the world’s major religious traditions present, Francis said that the true measure of leadership is the attention they devote to the most marginalized in society. 

« The Creator invites us to act, especially on behalf of all those many creatures of his who do not yet find a sufficient place on the agenda of the powerful: the poor, the unborn, the elderly, the infirm, migrants, » said Francis.

« If we who believe in the God of mercy, do not give a hearing to the poor and a voice to the voiceless, who will do it?, » he asked. « Let us take their side. » 

Just like the United States of America, South Africa is not a perfect country. No such perfect place exists in this world. However, since spending several weeks in South Africa a few months ago I have found myself continuing to reflect on the opening sentence of its constitution and wondering what it would mean if the U.S. were to adopt a similar preamble.

To be clear, the current U.S. Constitution doesn’t have a terrible start. Its opening sentence reads:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It’s a perfectly fine opening statement, and there are some genuinely positive elements here. Beginning with the people as the source of governmental authority and power, this opening line presents mostly a forward-looking or aspirational description of what the American founders hoped would succeed in replacing British monarchical rule.

Among the key priorities identified are unity, justice, tranquility, common defense, general welfare and civil liberty for those drafting the document and their descendants. At first glance, who could disagree with these priorities and commitments?

Having been born and raised in the U.S. I admit to taking this opening line for granted almost as much as I have the opening line of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address or other well-known documents like them. These are classics of American history, which we studied from elementary school onward. They appeared in my textbooks and on posters in many of my childhood classrooms.

But later in life, especially as I studied more of American history in high school and college — not just the exciting and positive dimensions, but also the more complicated and sometimes downright shameful ones — I found myself contextualizing better that opening line and asking some questions. For example, whose liberty was being secured or whose justice was being sought?

When the Constitution was ratified in June 1788, this didn’t include women, immigrants or enslaved Africans, nor did it include the native peoples whose lands were being unlawfully appropriated and reimagined as a new country in the name of « freedom. »

Like many others, I came to realize the incoherence of talking about constitutional « originalism, » realizing that despite the lofty rhetoric surrounding the founding of a new country, there was no recognition of either the price paid by oppressed and enslaved populations or acknowledgement of who was excluded from this ostensibly grand vision from the start.

I continue to be flabbergasted when a woman or Black Supreme Court justice, such as Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas, respectively, claim to espouse an originalist juridical hermeneutic. In both illustrative cases, there seems to be little consideration of the irony that the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution would never have imagined (let alone permitted) women or people of color to have fundamental democratic rights like voting or property ownership, let alone serve on the highest court of the land.

This sort of observation is neither new nor particularly interesting, but it does help explain why I was so captivated by the opening sentence of the post-apartheid South African Constitution ratified in 1996. It reads:

We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

While I don’t think it is in any way realistic to think that Americans are poised to amend our Constitution to include a statement such as this — a fantasy made all the more remote in an age of heightened political polarization and mutual distrust — I have allowed myself in recent months to consider what the implications of such an American statement might imply.

First, we would begin with acknowledging our national « original sins » of Indigenous genocide and chattel slavery. We could also add to that centuries of sexism, xenophobia, religious discrimination and other forms of « injustices of our past, » many of which persist and continue to harm still vulnerable communities. Such admission of « what we have done and what we have failed to do » should not appear strange to Roman Catholics who regularly pray the Confiteor at liturgy. And yet, there remains a strong resistance to even acknowledging these past injustices, let alone seeking atonement, especially from many Christians generally and Catholics in particular.

Second, while there would certainly be a place for honoring those who have served in the military and peacekeeping efforts here and abroad, we would also expand our recognition to include those pioneers for justice and inclusion who have not always been recognized but were often subjected to violence and even death because of their work. Those who have and continue to fight on behalf of LGBTQ inclusion, equal rights for women, civil rights for communities of color, justice for migrants and refugees, environmental activists and a whole host of others who have, as the South African Constitution puts it, « suffered for justice and freedom in our land. »

Third, instead of succumbing to tribalism and manifold forms of cultural and political polarization, perhaps we could « respect those who have worked to build and develop our country, » including our political representatives, educators, first responders, laborers, and all those who physically and metaphorically build and rebuild this place we all call home. Too much energy is spent by groups identifying who ought to be excluded, and too little respect is paid to those whose contexts and experiences may be different from one’s own.

My last reflection involves the last line of the South African text, which says that this country « belongs to all who live in it. » This includes those of various immigration status, those who practice different religions, those who think differently, those who love differently and those who vote differently. All who live here ought to have equal claim to the nation they call home. But the increased xenophobia and nationalism in the American context promotes the opposite condition.

The last line also includes the call to unity amid diversity. Difference is neither an error nor a weakness, but it is often presented as such by those seeking to galvanize political support in our country. Our differences should be seen as mutually enriching gifts given to us by God. Our unity shouldn’t come at the expense of another person or community’s dehumanization, vilification or dismissal. Our unity should be grounded in our shared origin as beloved creatures of an incomprehensively loving Creator.

While South Africa continues to struggle to live out this powerful constitutional vision, these beautiful words serve as a reminder of what is hoped for and may someday be more fully realized. But their existence was only made possible when the country launched efforts, imperfect as they were, to begin acknowledging the truth of an unjust past in order to strive toward the possibility of reconciliation someday.

We in the United States have not even taken the first step in such a direction and have only seen efforts to suppress the dangerous memories of our collective past increase with book bans and censorship. But I will not give up hope that another way is possible, even here in the U.S.

And the beauty of that one South African sentence bolsters me, as does the wisdom of St. Francis of Assisi who is remembered to have said to his fellow friars near the time of his death: « Let us begin, brothers, to serve the Lord God, for up until now we have done little or nothing. » It is never too late to begin again.