The number one British single today in 1969 wasn’t from Britain:
The number one U.S. single today in 1969 came from a cartoon:
The number one British album today in 1969 was from the supergroup Blind Faith, which, given its membership (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker of Cream and Steve Winwood), was less than the sum of its parts:
Democrats who joined in reckless political attacks on police need voters to forgive and forget the crime surge that followed. Don’t count on it, especially when it comes to candidates who continue to attract the enthusiastic support of defunders.
Eric Bradner, Omar Jimenez and Donald Judd report for CNN:
Republicans in Wisconsin have in recent weeks hammered Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes on crime, casting the Democratic nominee to take on GOP Sen. Ron Johnson as “dangerous” as they seek to reach the small swath of suburban voters who could decide one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races.
Public safety is not just an issue for suburban voters. Today it’s difficult to find any jurisdiction in Wisconsin—or anywhere in America for that matter—where citizens want fewer police officers on the streets. Therefore even leftists like Mr. Barnes have been sticking to a consistent script in the 2022 election cycle. CNN reports:
In Wisconsin, Barnes, in his own ad launched two weeks ago, said Republicans are trying to scare voters, calling the charge that he wants to defund the police “a lie.”
“I’ll make sure our police have the resources and training they need to keep our communities safe and that our communities have the resources to stop crime before it happens,” Barnes says in the spot.
But even CNN can’t completely ignore his record, reporting:
The attacks so far have focused on Barnes’ efforts as a state lawmaker to end cash bail, as well as a 2020 interview with PBS Wisconsin — weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minnesota — in which Barnes suggested that funding should be redirected from police budgets to other social services.
“We need to invest more in neighborhood services and programming for our residents, for our communities on the front end,” he said then. “Where will that money come from? Well, it can come from over-bloated budgets in police departments.”
“Wisconsin saw a 70% increase in murders from 2019 to 2021,” notes CNN, and voters should hold politicians who supported defunding accountable. In February, Daniel Bice wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
… Barnes is now distancing himself from two unpopular, far-left political movements — defunding police and abolishing ICE — despite support from groups backing these efforts and past social media activity referencing these causes.
Indeed, in the case of “Abolish ICE,” the 35-year-old Milwaukee Democrat even got the T-shirt.
“Don’t know how I missed this reply, but I need that,” Barnes tweeted July 4, 2018, when a Madison activist offered him a red “Abolish ICE” shirt from the Democratic Socialists of America in his size.
Mr. Bice noted a different message in the current election cycle, although its meaning could be open to interpretation:
“I am not a part of the Abolish ICE movement because no one slogan can capture all the work we have to do,” Barnes said in the statement.
Mr. Bice reported more of the disturbing history:
Barnes has received the endorsement of five national groups that have called for defunding the police… In November, Barnes was a speaker at a major meeting of the Center for Popular Democracy, which is a supporter of defundpolice.org. The center tweeted last year, “Defund police. Defund police states. Defund militarized occupation. Defund state-sanctioned violence.”
… As for the numerous groups that favor defunding police but are backing him, Barnes had little to say.
His campaign declined to provide the Journal Sentinel with his answers to the endorsement questionnaires from the Center for Popular Democracy, Democracy for America, Indivisible, MoveOn.org or the Working Families Party. Each of these groups also supports the movement to eliminate ICE.
As radical as the defunders are, it’s hard to say they haven’t made progress in achieving their goal. A recent report for PBS Wisconsin by the nonprofit Badger Project notes:
The number of law enforcement officers in the state ticked down again in 2022, setting a new record for the lowest statewide total since the Wisconsin Department of Justice started tracking the numbers in 2008.
To relieve some of the burden on law enforcement agencies, and attempt to de-escalate encounters between police and civilians, some cities and counties across the state are experimenting with sending non-police employees to answer some 911 calls.
Nothing scares criminals like a non-police presence in response to 911 calls. The idea is to dispatch the non-cops to take information about low-level offenses. But in no way does this mean that serious offenses are getting the attention they deserve.
These days even when budgets are available to hire more cops, it’s harder than ever to find people willing to do a dangerous job that too many Democrats love to demonize when it suits them.
In Wisconsin, the resulting tragedies are not concentrated in the suburbs but in the state’s largest city. The PBS report continues:
Milwaukee has taken the brunt. In 2020, the city set a record for its highest number of homicides in one year: 190. In 2021, it broke that new record by reaching 197. And with 160 homicides recorded by the end of August 2022, the city is on pace to break that record again.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel maintains a website tracking the data and now reports:
There have been 163 homicides in 2022.
This is 30 more than last year at this date.
The PBS Wisconsin report adds:
Instead of “Defund the police,” some law enforcement reformers have promoted a different slogan: “Solve every murder.”
Amen.
At the risk of over-simplifying, there are three types of Republicans/conservatives today (at least from an economic perspective).
- Reaganites – principled supporters of smaller government and individual liberty.
- Trumpkins – populists or national conservatives who don’t care about the size of government
- Bushies – the establishment crowd that often supports a bigger burden of government
Regular readers know which option I prefer, but I can appreciate anyone who has a consistent point of view (hence, my Ninth Theorem of Government).
Today’s column, however, is about how right-leaning organizations deal with the different strains of conservatism. Particularly when they have to deal with politicians.
I’m motivated to cover this topic since the Heritage Foundation (where I worked from 1990-2006) is under attack.
We’ll start with some excerpts from an article in the Dispatch by Audrey Fahlberg Charlotte Lawson.
…some former employees believe Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation since December 2021, and other senior leaders have lost sight of the think tank’s original mission. Where it used to function as a haven for conservative intellectuals to shape the Republican Party’s agenda, many worry that the institution is attaching itself to a faction of the conservative movement that prioritizes partisanship over policy. …Several former employees cited Heritage’s departure from its foundational commitments—without the knowledge or consent of the scholars hired to translate them into policy positions—as their reason for leaving. Others pointed to one-on-one confrontations with the members of the leadership team over the organization’s ideological trajectory. Fights over who sets Heritage’s “one-voice policy”—which requires that all staff be publicly aligned on any given issue—have caused much of the friction. …Whereas scholars at right-leaning 501(c)(3) research institutions like Cato Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) are permitted and often encouraged to disagree with each other about policy issues, Heritage prides itself in projecting the same voice on every policy issue.
The main bone of contention is whether to give full support to Ukraine.
The disputes extended beyond the debate over Ukraine and preceded Roberts’ leadership. Several former experts and researchers detailed limitations on their intellectual freedom beginning in the Trump era… “There were several instances where I was asked to scrub the phrase ‘President Trump’ from my pieces. I think it was to tamp down any suspected criticism,” said one former Heritage employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics. “We were definitely discouraged from mentioning the Biden administration by name as well, unless we were attacking them.” …At the tail end of the Trump presidency, one former communications staffer said, the media team shut down requests to schedule economics scholars for television appearances about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to preemptively quash any public criticism of Trump’s support for the trade deal. …Some tension has emerged between establishment conservatives and the national conservatives on Capitol Hill, though national conservatives are from the dominant force in the GOP today. That’s not necessarily the case at Heritage. Tori Smith—a former trade policy analyst at Heritage…observed that a similar “tension is playing out at Heritage, and the nationalist conservatives are winning, it’s abundantly clear.”
In a column for the Washington Post, Josh Rogin opined about this controversy inside the conservative movement.
The Heritage Foundation’s turn toward the “new right” is the clearest symbol yet that the MAGA movement’s foreign policy is becoming institutionalized… Some former staffers told me Roberts has prioritized political messaging over policy formation. As Heritage becomes beholden to the MAGA movement’s political whims, these analysts allege, the organization is now following the mob rather than leading it… On Ukraine, Heritage has broken with center-right think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute and is now aligned with the Center for Renewing America (run by Donald Trump’s former budget director Russ Vought), the Koch Institute, and conservatives at the Quincy Institute, who all argue for “restraint,” meaning the opposite of the long-standing internationalist bipartisan D.C. foreign policy consensus. …at the National Conservatism Conference, Roberts said, “I come not to invite national conservatives to join our conservative movement, but to acknowledge the plain truth that Heritage is already part of yours.” …on Fox News, Roberts said it’s time for the United States to declare independence from the “liberal world order.”
I’m not an expert on foreign policy, but I fully agree with the folks at Heritage that non-military foreign aid will not help Ukraine.
But I am wholly sympathetic to that country’s fight against Putin’s aggression. And I’m not sure if Heritage’s opposition to the “liberal world order” means standing aside while Ukraine is attacked.
I’ll close with a broader point about Trump, so-called national conservatism, and think tanks. Heritage’s president said that his organization is “already part of yours” in a speech to national conservatives.
This worries me. At the risk of understatement, national conservatives don’t seem very interested in controlling the size and scope of government.
I’m a believer in “fusionism,” the idea that conservatives and libertarians can be strong allies on economic issues. But that won’t be the case if groups like the Heritage Foundation throw in the towel.
As previously noted I consider myself a “conservatarian,” an economic conservative and somewhere between a social conservative and social libertarian. Another way to put it might be to be a “Wall Street Journal conservative,” since the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s five-word mission statement has always been “free men (people) and free markets.”
Reagan wanted to reduce the size of government, but political forces got in the way. The common feature of Mitchell’s Bushism (or “compassionate conservatism”) and Trumpism is that neither cares about reducing the size and scope of government as long as they are in charge of government. (That’s also a Wisconsin GOP feature.) That is the wrong approach.
Mitchell wrote in August 2020:
I’m skeptical of “common-good capitalism” in the same way I’m suspicious about “nationalist conservatism” and “reform conservatism” (and it should go without saying that I didn’t like the “kinder-and-gentler conservatism” and “compassionate conservatism” we got from the Bushes).
Here’s what I prefer.
Whether you call it libertarianism or small-government conservatism, this is the approach I wish Republicans would follow (or Democrats, if the spirit of Grover Cleveland still exists in that party).
But there are many self-styled conservatives who disagree. They think Reagan and his successful policies are passé.
Interestingly, the desire to move beyond Reaganism comes from pro-Trump and anti-Trump outlets.
David Brooks, a never-Trumper with a column in the New York Times, thinks Reagan’s anti-government approach is misguided.
If you came of age with conservative values and around Republican politics in the 1980s and 1990s, you lived within a certain Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher paradigm. It was about limiting government, spreading democracy abroad, building dynamic free markets at home and cultivating people with vigorous virtues… For decades conservatives were happy to live in that paradigm. But as years went by many came to see its limits. It was so comprehensively anti-government that it had no way to use government to solve common problems. …Only a return to the robust American nationalism of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Theodore Roosevelt would do: ambitious national projects, infrastructure, federal programs to increase social mobility. The closest National Greatness Conservatism came to influencing the party was John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid. He was defeated by a man, George W. Bush, who made his own leap, to Compassionate Conservatism. …The Reformicons tried to use government to build strong families and neighborhoods. …Most actual Republican politicians rejected all of this. They stuck, mostly through dumb inertia, to an anti-government zombie Reaganism long after Reagan was dead and even though the nation’s problems were utterly different from what they were when he was alive. …there is a posse of policy wonks and commentators supporting a new Working-Class Republicanism… But if there is one thing I’ve learned over the decades, it is never to underestimate the staying power of the dead Reagan paradigm.
Maybe I’m just an “anti-government zombie,” but my response is to ask why Brooks thinks the federal government should be in charge of state and local infrastructure.
Even more important, it would be nice if he could identify a government program that successfully promotes social mobility. There are several hundred of them, so the fact that he doesn’t offer any examples is quite revealing.
By contrast, the Reagan approach of of free markets and limited government works anywhere and everywhere it is tried. And he was right that big government is bad government.
But at least Brooks’ column reminds me to add “national greatness conservatism” to my list of failed philosophical fads.
Now let’s shift to an article from the Trump-friendly American Conservative. Rod Dreher also argues that Reaganism is no longer relevant.
Reagan nostalgia has long been a bane of contemporary conservatism, because it prevented conservatives from recognizing how much the world has changed since the 1980s and how conservatism needed to change with it to remain relevant. …by the time Trump came down that escalator, Reagan conservatism was about as relevant to the real world as FDR’s New Deal liberalism was in 1980. It is no insult to Reagan to say so. Until Trump arrived on the scene, it was difficult for right-wing dissenters from orthodox Reaganism—critics of free trade, immigration skeptics, antiwar conservatives, and others—to break free of the margins to which establishment conservatives had exiled them. …It is impossible to see the clear outlines of a post-Trump future for the Republicans, but…Reaganism—the ideology of globalized free markets, social and religious conservatism, and American military and diplomatic domination—is never coming back.
Sadly, I don’t think Dreher is correct about “New Deal liberalism” being irrelevant.
How else, after all, would someone categorize Obama’s policies? Or Biden’s platform? It’s “We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect,” just as FDR advisor Harry Hopkins stated.
And Reagan’s policies are definitely still relevant, at least if the goal is to improve the well-being of the American people.
Yes, Dreher is right that “the world has changed since the 1980s,” but that doesn’t mean that good policy in 1980 is no longer good policy in 2020.
I think the problem may be that people think Reaganomics is nothing more than lower tax rates, perhaps combined with a bit of inflation fighting. And it’s definitely true that Reagan’s tax rate reductions and his restoration of sound money were wonderful achievements.*
But the Reagan economic agenda was also about spending restraint, deregulation, trade liberalization (he got the ball rolling on NAFTA and the WTO), and other pro-market reforms.
To be sure, Reagan’s policy record wasn’t perfect. But the policies he preferred were the right ones to restore American prosperity in the 1980s.
And while there are different problems today (the need for entitlement reform, for instance), the Reaganite approach of smaller government is still the only good answer.
*Let’s also remember to applaud Reagan for the policies that resulted in the unraveling of the Soviet Empire.
P.S. As explained in the Fourth Theorem of Government, pro-growth, Reagan-style policy can be smart politics.
Trump-style conservatism got rejected in 2020. Reagan won two presidential elections with it. The evidence is clear that voters don’t vote for gloom-and-doom candidates, even if that candidate would have been a far better choice (see 2020).
The number one single today in 1960:
Today in 1969 the number two single on this side of the Atlantic was the number one single on the other side …
… from the number one album:
Michael Smith:
In Memphis, Tennessee last week, about sixty miles north of my Mississippi hometown, there was a violent kidnapping, rape and murder of a young teacher committed by a man of disposition little removed from that of a feral animal. This horrific act was closely followed by a random shooting spree that was livestreamed on Facebook by another man absent his humanity. Then there was the vile reaction to the peaceful passing of a British Queen in Scotland by a Carnegie Mellon professor, Uju Anya, who tweeted she hoped Queen Elizabeth died an excruciating death.
These things are connected by a question as old as history.
What is it in the hearts of men that make them do what they do?
It seems such an appropriate question in the first two instances, but the savaging of Queen Elizabeth II and her memory would logically seem to be something different.
It isn’t.
For a long time, I have pondered the role of morality – or the lack thereof – in our contemporary society and how morality either restrains or promotes our actions.
There are certain things civilization once placed off limits, some important enough to do by force of law (murder and mayhem) and some culturally enforced (such as restraint when condemning others).
I was reared in the South during a period when a genteel culture still undergirded small town live. Very much akin to the Victorian culture in England, from which it was clearly cloned, people were polite to a fault, and even the fallen within the eyes of the community were spoken of in polite, hushed tones, if they were spoken of at all. There was a sense that speaking ill of the dead (or those who rejected civil order and civility) should be done in private – and to a very large extent, it was.
That doesn’t mean that people didn’t recognize evil, in many ways, it sharpened the focus on it because it was so out of bounds in society.
This wasn’t a feature limited to the upper classes of my small hometown, it cut across all socioeconomic boundaries to extend to all members of the community. My maternal grandmother, the wife of a farmer and mother of six, would often chastise children and adults alike to hold their tongues when she was witness to abridgement of our informal rules.
For me, I see a tie between Christianity and morality. I was reared in a strong Christian family, with strong Christian values, so I guess that is unsurprising – but I also have traveled the world, been exposed to hundreds of different cultures and the various religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism, Islam (Sunni, Shi’a, Ibadi, Ahmadiyya, and Sufism), Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and many more variations on those belief systems and when it comes down to it, there are a very select few morals all of these religions share.
The inference I draw from that is that morality isn’t uniquely Christian. I’ve also known people who don’t have a religion, even some who reject the existence of God, who act according to moral codes equal or superior to those to which religious people abide.
I also allow it is possible to follow a moral code without being explicitly “moral” or connected to any religion.
But what I have also observed is that those without religious ties are often those most likely to transgress both moral and corporeal (human enacted civil and criminal) laws.
Humans need religion. One thing every human has in common is a search for something to explain the unexplainable or a way to unknow the unknowable, and in almost every case, these searches for meaning evolve into religions. Doesn’t matter if they are monotheistic, polytheistic, agnostic, or simply atheistic, something that fits the definition of a religion always develops.
There is a balance in religion as there is always in nature. When something is taken, something else takes its place to maintain balance. Such is true when we think about a God derived religious morality and the morality that lacks God as a basis. In general terms, the latter is called secular humanism, a religion rooted in science, philosophical naturalism, and humanist ethics.
Secular humanists eschew any reliance on faith, doctrine, or mysticism, and substitute compassion, critical thinking, and human experience to find solutions to human problems.
Secular humanism has attracted quite a following these days, not because it is a positive evolution, I think, but because secularism involves a “flexible” morality where everything is allowed based on what is popular among members of that belief system.
I’ve heard it termed “popular morality”, a fluid system subject to what is allowed or ignored.
Whether we want to recognize it, the secular humanists in our society and culture are sending a message to criminals and university professors alike that your most vile actions and words aren’t going to be eliminated from society.
Who are we to judge?
It certainly seems to me that when anything is fluid, it is meaningless.
Something the French philosopher Albert Camus said, that “’Everything is permitted’” does not mean that nothing is forbidden…” holds universally true.
A morality rooted in God’s Law is that thing that draws the line between what is forbidden and what is allowed. It is what makes taking a life evil, it is what makes lying unacceptable. Secular humanism is seen as “enlightenment”, but not only can it not draw that line, it will not.
Often, secular humanism searches for ways to approve the action that God’s morality forbids, even when that action harms both believers and non-believers alike.
As I noted, I believe people without a religious moral code can act morally. It would seem it is past time for all of us to recognize that whether one believes in God, one must believe that system of morality leads to the type of civil society and tolerant culture that protects freedoms for us all.
We begin with the National Anthem because of today’s last item:
The number one song today in 1961 may have never been recorded had not Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in 1959; this singer replaced Holly in a concert in Moorhead, Minn.:
Britain’s number one album today in 1971 was The Who’s “Who’s Next”:
(more…)
Today in 1931, RCA Victor began selling record players that would play not just 78s, but 33⅓-rpm albums too.
Today in 1956, the BBC banned Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rockin’ Through the Rye” on the grounds that the Comets’ recording of an 18th-century Scottish folk song went against “traditional British standards”:
(It’s worth noting on Constitution Day that we Americans have a Constitution that includes a Bill of Rights, and we don’t have a national broadcaster to ban music on spurious standards. Britain lacks all of those.)
Today in 1964, the Beatles were paid an unbelievable $150,000 for a concert in Kansas City, the tickets for which were $4.50.
I heard someone once say that eschatology, the study of the end times, is the only theological study framed by our present view of history. Eschatological theology in early twentieth-century Europe was pretty bleak but pretty optimistic in America. As World War II broke out, American eschatology turned dour, but books written after World War II were pretty upbeat about the end of days.
I have to remind myself of that now as we hear so much from around the world — volcanos, earthquakes, pestilence, wars, rumors of wars, and increasing Christian persecution, among other things happening worldwide. We’re seeing a decline in Christianity in America even as it grows elsewhere. It is particularly destabilizing in places like China, where there are now estimated to be more Christians quietly living their faith than there are Christians in America, if not Americans total. President Xi has begun a crackdown not just on Muslims in China, but is bulldozing churches and jailing Christians as quickly as he can find them. Like with the Romans, it is only making the church grow.
But something seems to be happening in the world today, and it seems to be picking up speed. The rise of transgenderism and the collapse of social norms clash more and more with basic facts, science, and logic. The atheist pro-science crowd is turning science rapidly in the religion of scientism that is foundationally pseudoscience. Crystal shops and mysticism are starting to rise again as Christianity fades in the west — very old paganism is returning, which will actually regress science because while Christianity is premised in an absolute truth, paganism is relative. The Enlightment could spring out of a Christian society in a way it cannot from a pagan society where crystals have healing powers.
The world just seems to be headed back into some sort of dark age — complete with reliance on the wind and sun for power.
And that gets me to the point that is bothering me and I admit going into this that some could say I run afoul of this too; therefore, this is hypocritical to write.
But I have always tried to be clear that I’m doing analysis, cultural color commentary, politics, and theology. I’ve actually evolved on some political issues as my faith has grown deeper.
The other thing I’ve concluded is that if you define yourself by your faith, you can’t really be a braying jackass all the time in politics. Christ is going to wield the sword, not you. The overarching desire to turn right-of-center politics into a politics of “owning the left” is descending into intellectual prostitution without conviction. We actually have to love our neighbor — like really love our neighbor, not just in theory, and we’re not given exceptions to that because we hate them, their gender identity, their politics, etc. The Bible does not say it will be easy.
Peter, headed towards his execution, was still telling Christians to pray for the Emperor — not against the Emperor. I cannot tell you how many people I know who, when I point that out, will shuffle their feet and say, “Well, I’m praying for the President to repent and change or otherwise leave me alone or die” or some variation. Sure, pray for his repentance, but Peter’s point was that we should pray the leaders of the nation are authentic instruments of God’s will. We should pray for their health and competent leadership. We should not be praying that they give us our way or die or anything like that.
Now, I see loud and growing voices on the right who claim to be of faith, but they ignore it in their statements. They seem to think what we do on Sunday is separate from the other six days of the week. But you can’t pray for your enemies on Sunday and decide to punch them on Monday because you’re pretty sure they’re going to punch you otherwise.
I have long been critical of the progressive Christians embracing the idea of weepy, huggy Jesus and turning that aspect of Christ into an idol. I’m more and more concerned that conservative Christians are turning wrathful Jesus into an idol. He’s going to come back and sort this stuff out for us. You’ve got to love your neighbor as yourself, do to others as you want them to do to you, and seek the welfare of your local community while praying for it and your civic leaders. A masculine Christianity cannot be a Christianity of gymbro jackasses willing to give the left swirlies. It’s got to be one of men taking responsibility for their families and raising a future generation to love the Lord — a quiet strength in humble living.
While all of this is going on, I’m really more and more concerned about how many Christian influencers who are involved in politics are really engaged in performance. They’re trying to build their following by, and excuse the language but it is the language of the internet that best captures what they’re doing, shitposting those they disagree with. They can’t disagree — they have to pick a fight and rally a mob. I expect this of the theological left, but I see it happening within orthodoxy as well now.
They are conforming their faith to their politics, and where the two diverge, they’re not willing to speak up about their faith lest they fall outside tribal politics. Because Christians in America haven’t had to lead the quiet existence that so much of historic Christianity had to lead and even now must in places like China and Iran, they’ve decided to be loud, proud, and belligerent in defense of their faith. Where’s the humbleness, the humility, and the grace?
Really, yes, where is the grace? The willingness of Christian influencers in politics to ostracize, alienate, shun, and condemn fellow Christians because of political disagreement, not theological disagreement, is growing.
These people are not calling others to Christ but to their political tribe. And therein lies the problem. And, again, I know I could be accused of doing it too and sometimes have to rein myself in. But I am mindful of it and try to rein myself in, albeit sometimes badly.
The bottom line is just this — if you’ve got a platform and you hold yourself out as a person of faith who seeks to be guided by faith in politics, then you need to remember Christ is more important than a political party and God’s kingdom is more important than your nation. You cannot reconcile the two, and if you have convinced yourself you can and that your party and your politics can be an accurate reflection of Christ, you’ve committed a pretty grievous sin. At some point, you have to be willing to recognize this too will pass and what will matter most is how many people you helped lead to Christ, not to a voting booth.
I more and more bothered by Christians performing on social media, sometimes myself included. Very often, it is not the way those on the left rail against. I’ll put something up and some atheist or theological progressive with one foot out the door of Christendom will tweet “very Christian of you.” You have to ignore those. The theological progressive walking out the door of the church is often more hostile to our faith than the atheist who has never known the faith.
But I’m telling you — the constant dragging of evangelicals by those suddenly ashamed of evangelicals over politics and who view themselves as more righteous while pretending to be more humble and the constant dragging of authentic, orthodox Christians by evangelicals who disagree with those authentic, orthodox Christians politically on issues is doing nothing but playing into Satan’s hand.
Too many Christians on social media are building themselves up by speaking out not against the world but against other Christians or against the politics of those they disagree with while trying to claim their politics is closer to Christ. Where is the grace? Where is the Christian love? Where is the agreement to disagree civilly?
I have concerns social media is turning Christians into performance artists and distracting a lot of us from our mission, just as the cycles and rhythms of this world suggest our time is running out to spread the gospel, love our neighbor, and prepare our families for what is coming.
Eric Katz wrote this in January, but it applies again after Wisconsin’s embarrassing home loss to Washington State Saturday:
On paper, head coach Paul Chryst has had a successful tenure. He has a combined overall and conference record of 84-42, won three Big Ten West titles, two Big Ten Coach of the Year awards, and has only lost one bowl game. He also has had four double-digit win seasons in seven years. Chryst is also will most likely pass Bret Bielema for second all-time in career wins in program history. While all that is good, Badger fans are still clamoring for more and some even want him fired. While it’s alright to expect more from the program, fans should be careful what they wish for if they want Chryst gone. Badger fans should be more grateful for what Paul Chryst has done for Wisconsin.
Stability Was Needed
Before Chryst was lured away from Pittsburgh, the Badgers football program was in trouble. Gary Andersen departed bizarrely for Oregon State after just two years, in-state recruiting was in bad shape and if you thought this passing attack was bad the one Andersen left was worse. The program was headed in the wrong direction and was close to going back to the dark days. Knowing the lack of success Andersen has had since leaving Wisconsin, the ghost of Don Morton would return to haunt the program.
Andersen was a terrible hire, and UW athletic director Barry Alvarez should have been able to figure that out. UW got very, very lucky that Andersen left.
When Paul Chryst arrived, the program needed stability. Chryst has been with the Wisconsin football program for six years. Stability has been provided. High School coaches across the state of Wisconsin trust and have great relationships with him. With how in-state recruiting was under Andersen, I doubt we would have ever seen the rise of Braelon Allen without Paul Chryst coming back.
Remember When Nebraska Wanted More?
If you want to look at a program that got too greedy; look no further than the Big Ten rival Nebraska Cornhuskers. Despite all that Bo Pelini accomplished during his tenure, Nebraska couldn’t accept anything less than a National Championship. Nebraska fired Pelini and hired Mike Riley from Oregon State. Riley would last just three years and go 19-19 overall and 12-14 in the Big Ten. He also didn’t appear in a bowl game during his last season there. Riley would be fired after the 2017 season.
With a program now in mediocrity, the Cornhuskers hired University of Central Florida head coach and former Nebraska quarterback Scott Frost. Frost was considered a hot hire at the time due to coaching the Golden Knights to an undefeated season. Since the hire, Nebraska has become almost irrelevant. Frost hasn’t had a winning season or have gone to a bowl game during his tenure. Most suspect that he wasn’t fired due to hot jobs being open this coaching cycle. Frost is facing a make-or-break year and Nebraska is far from where they were under Pelini. He also got the program under an NCAA investigation that is ongoing. This is meant to be a cautionary tale to Badger fans clamoring for more and wanting to fire Paul Chryst.
Frost was fired after the Cornhuskers’ game Saturday. He is leaving Lincoln with a $15 million buyout. Katz does not mention that Pelini’s predecessor’s predecessor was Frank Solich, who was fired for not being Tom Osborne — I mean, for only winning 75 percent of his games. Solich was replaced by former UW offensive line coach Bill Callahan, who was fired and replaced by Pelini, who was eventually fired and …
A History of Bouncing Back
Historically the Badgers have bounced back from disappointing seasons under Chryst. We can’t really use 2020 as a measuring stick due to the circumstances COVID-19 kept throwing at the program. For example, in 2018, the Badgers had high expectations to follow up a fantastic 2017 season. They opened the year ranked fourth in the country and had a lot of returning players. Instead, the Badgers finished the regular season at 8-4, including having bad losses to BYU, Northwestern, and Minnesota. They would salvage that year with a victory in the New Era Pinstripes Bowl.
In 2019, the Badgers bounced back in a big way. They finished the regular season with a 10-2 record and won the Big Ten West. This ultimately culminated in an appearance Rose Bowl which they were a bad pass interference call away from winning. The Badgers would finish the year ranked 11th in the country.
While there are still things that Chryst needs to fix with the Wisconsin offense. He seems to be on the right track so far. He recently moved Bob Bostad back to the offensive line, an offensive coordinator will be hired, and he got former UCLA wide receiver Keontez Lewis from the transfer portal. While we all want the offensive coordinator to call plays, at the very least he’ll take a lot off of Chryst’s plate. Coach Chryst has clearly learned that it’s too much work to be the boss, quarterbacks coach, offensive coordinator, and play caller. Not all coaches are willing to admit defeat like that.
Success Despite Wisconsin’s Academic Standars
Wisconsin will always be primarily an academically focused institution. The University will never admit a recruit who has bad grades but is successful on the field. Chryst has done an outstanding job embracing that challenge. He has been able to still recruit great players, develop legitimate NFL prospects, and be successful on the field. I doubt any other coach would be able to work with Wisconsin’s academics and be successful. Heck, it’s the reason Gary Andersen left in the first place. Having a coach who understands the University having gone there is what makes Chryst amazing.
Be Careful Not to Choke on Aspirations
For Badger fans wanting Chryst fired, be very careful what you wish for. Nebraska has become a poster child for what not to do if you want more. It took years for Wisconsin to be elevated to the heights they are at now. If it were to come crashing down, you’ll beg for Chryst to come back. While we all want the program to accomplish big things, Paul Chryst is good enough to make those dreams a reality. While there are problems that need to be addressed on offense, Chryst has fixed issues before and he’ll do it again.
I am always most aggravated by home losses. But nonconference losses are not nearly as damaging as conference losses. Recall in 1999 that UW inexcusably lost at Cincinnati, but went on to become the first Big Ten team to win back-to-back Rose Bowls.
Jeff Minter adds:
Wisconsin is the 7th winningest program the last 10 years
That’s consistency
So I ask this…if we aren’t talking about Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Notre Dame, LSU, Oregon and Oklahoma…what program has been more impressive in recent history?
Badgers are doing better year in and year out than Texas, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, USC, etc….
Chryst isn’t going to be fired anyway because UW still draws well. If people stop going to games (and therefore UW loses ticket revenue), that will be a warning sign for Chryst’s future, but not before that.
The number one song today in 1972 is simply …
Britain’s number one album today in 1972 was Rod Stewart’s “Never a Dull Moment”:
The title track from the number one album today in 1978:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 