Gerardo Martí

I know its an awkward term, but I think "capricracy" still works.

From December 2024:
Chaos as Strategy: Trump and the Rise of Capricratic Rule

Reclaiming a Racially Conscious Theology of Immigration What we lose when we detach immigration from racial justice

Christians are told, often in the same breath, to 'welcome the stranger' & to 'respect the rule of law.'

What does a distinctly Christian perspective on immigration actually demand?

Thank you — Excellent scholarship here, and the book’s Conclusion brings insights and current relevancy together really well.

< Crime 101 Movie Poster >

Old school fun, with lots of Los Angeles landscape

Andy Warhol’s Queer Catholicism — The Revealer How MAGA wants to co-opt the famous artist, and the truth about the pop icon’s religiosity

The Catholic Warhol

"Conservative news outlets have repeatedly spread fake news about…Warhol’s “secret Catholicism” & “secret piety.” The right has tried to depict the famed artist as a “Catholic traditionalist.” Reactionary bloggers have disseminated the lie that Warhol practiced strict celibacy."

The Accidental Winners of the War on Higher Ed Go to a small liberal-arts college if you can.

Davidson College highlighted amidst higher ed anxieties:

“I went to visit four elite liberal-arts colleges—Amherst, Davidson, Smith & Vassar—where I joined prospective students & their parents for their campus tours, sat in on classes, and spoke with undergraduates, professors, and administrators…”

ZONE ROUGE A NOVEL MICHAEL JEROME PLUNKETT "Zone Rouge promises to both devastate readers and reassemble them in new ways. - SEBASTIAN JUNGER, AUTHOR OF TRIBE

Part of today’s reading

Today attended a church under a highway overpass in Texas.

I'm still SHOCKED by the obscene rise in billionaire election spending since Citizens United in the NYT piece, despite already knowing that election corruption w/ $ was profound. (Recall that BCRA fought dangerous campaign $ in *2002*)

The article data didn't have a graph, so I made one to show it.

The cartoon portrays Donald Trump styled as a classic vampire, sweeping open a dark, high‑collared cape as if dramatically revealing or defending himself. A hand from off‑panel holds out a small purple stuffed rabbit labeled “BAD BUNNY,” m referencing the Puerto Rican music star. The joke comes from the contrast between an ominous, predatory vampire persona and the seemingly harmless toy, implying that such a lovable thing could destroy him.

😝

Three Amigos

👇👇👇

The cartoon shows Donald Trump standing in profile, holding and speaking through an enormous megaphone labeled “RACIST MEGAPHONE,” which is pointed toward the left side of the frame. On the ground in front of them lies a clapperboard-like object reading “DONALD TRUMP SHARES OBAMA APE VIDEO,” linking Trump’s speech through the “racist megaphone” to an explicitly racist depiction of Barack Obama. Two suited, balding white men stand to Trump’s right, one holding a small dog whistle, and one of them asks, “CAN YOU GO BACK TO USING THE RACIST DOG WHISTLE?”

Today

The cartoon depicts a game show called “FACTS DON’T MATTER!” in which three contestants stand at podiums facing a host on a brightly lit stage. The host tells one contestant, Jeannie, that although her answer was correct, another contestant, Kevin, loudly shouted an incorrect answer over hers and therefore receives the points.

😆

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor, alleged on X that the utility company "was so focused on woke policies and DEl that it failed at its most basic responsibility: keeping the power on.”

Nashville is furious about power outages. Republicans say 'woke' is to blame.

NBC News

On the Side of ICE Shows how police serve to assist ICE despite sanctuary laws insisting otherwiseIn the United States, local law enforcement agencies are legally and organizat...

Using body camera data as well as reports and ethnography, shows how even police in sanctuary jurisdictions, those who explicitly label themselves as immigrant-friendly, nonetheless still informally multiply ICE’s forces through voluntary cooperation.

From NYU Press

Detailed tables: Trump job approval, January 2026

If you're looking for detailed crosstabs showing Trump's current approval rating among various demographic groups in the US, we've published those here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

For example, 32% of men under 30 currently approve of Trump's job performance; 67% disapprove.

Do voters want the occupant of the White House to use the FBI to seize their local ballots?

The cover shows a stylized black shooting-range silhouette shaped like the Statue of Liberty, complete with pointed crown, printed against a tan background with a vertical red band along the left edge. Bullet-hole markings and concentric white scoring rings cover the head and torso of the silhouette, emphasizing the chest and face areas. At the top, partially obscured by the crown tips, is the red title “THE NEW YORKER,” with the price “PRICE $10.99” at the upper left and the date “FEB. 9, 2026” at the upper right.

Publishing next week

Politics and Religion (2026), 1-14 doi: 10.1017/S1755048325100217 ARTICLE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Tilled fields for Christian Nationalism: Project Blitz and the evolution of the Christian Right Kimberly H. Conger University of Cincinnati Email: congerky@ucmail.uc.edu Abstract Christian Nationalism has been an increasing focus of scholars as it has seemingly come to dominate much of the Republican Party and its voters. Existing research, however, has focused almost exclusively on individual attitudes. In this article, I examine a key piece of the Christian Nationalist agenda, policy change at the state level, seeking to change individuals' perception of the religious foundations of the United States through symbolic legislation. I focus on Project Blitz, an organization that creates model bills for state legislators to introduce all over the country. Project Blitz is an explicitly Christian Nationalist effort, and its origins and supporters help demonstrate a key missing piece of the scholarly and popular conversation about Christian Nationalism: the current power and influence of Christian Nationalist attitudes and activities is based on the historical influence of the Christian Right social movement. Keywords: Christian Nationalism; Christian Right; Public Policy; Social movement

Project Blitz: acting on a Christian Nationalist agenda, organizes for policy change at state level to change peoples’ perception of the religious foundations of the US thru symbolic legislation by creating model bills for state legislators all over the country.
resolve.cambridge.org/core/service...

< Opening paragraph > Donald Trump's desire to name everything from the Kennedy Center to the Gulf of Mexico after himself ("I wanted to call it the Gulf of Trump," he declared in January) can seem almost comically childish. But it has become a killing joke: his regime brands those it executes terrorists and drags their names through the dirt. This renaming is an assertion of absolute power, and the United States is at a moment when Trump's claim to dominion over language has become lethal-both for individuals and for the American republic itself. If the murder of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis cannot be called murder, an authoritarian regime has passed one of its crucial tests: it can reverse all meanings, turning the ultimate moral transgression upside down, making the victim the perpetrator, the perpetrator the victim.

“Watchfulness is the most dangerous form of resistance because it obstructs the Trump regime’s project of habituation. Fascism works by making the extreme normal.”

The Crime of Witness
Fintan O’Toole
The New York Review
www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

Opening paragraph 👇

As Springfield's 15,000 Haitians brace for deportations, local churches train to resist ICE SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (RNS) — Over a year since Donald Trump and JD Vance spread falsehoods about the city's migrants eating pets, Haitians’ temporary protected status is set to run out Feb. 3.

Good to know it’s happening, and good to know how exceptional this is

🤣

We had eradicated this disease.

And now because of targeted disinformation, children, immunocompromised people, elderly folks, and so many others become victims in this proxy war and we have a new avoidable pandemic.

The graph shows that large and growing majorities of white religious attenders have voted for Donald Trump in every election from 2016 to 2024, and that support consistently rises with more frequent church attendance. Overall pattern - In all three election years, Trump’s share of the two-party vote among white voters is lowest among those who never attend services and increases stepwise at each higher level of attendance (seldom, yearly, monthly, weekly, weekly+). - By 2024, Trump wins clear majorities in every white attendance category, with his strongest backing among the most frequent attenders. White voters by attendance - Among whites who never attend, Trump’s support is a minority in each year (around two-fifths in 2016, about one-third in 2020, and slightly higher but still below half in 2024). - Among whites who attend seldom or yearly, Trump’s share is in the mid-to-high 50s in 2016, around 55–60% in 2020, and mid-50s to mid-60s in 2024, indicating durable Republican majorities. - Among monthly attenders, his vote share rises from just over 60% in 2016 to mid‑60s by 2020 and 2024. - Among weekly and more‑than‑weekly attenders, Trump’s support is extremely high and climbs over time: roughly low‑ to mid‑80s in 2016 and 2020 and reaching about 90% among the most frequent attenders in 2024. ### Illustration: white attenders (approximate Trump two‑party vote share) | Year | Never | Seldom | Yearly | Monthly | Weekly | Weekly+ | |------|-------|--------|--------|---------|--------|---------| | 2016 | 40% | 57% | 59% | 62% | 72% | 85% [3] | | 2020 | 32% | 55% | 60% | 64% | 74% | 86% [3] | | 2024 | 36% | 56% | 66% | 68% | 78% | 90% [3] | Nonwhite voters - Among nonwhite voters, Trump’s support is much lower overall, but it also increases with more frequent attendance and rises modestly over time. - Nonwhite never‑attenders remain solidly Democratic, while Trump approaches or passes the 40–50% range only among the most frequent nonwhite attenders by 2024.

Majorities of white church attenders who vote Republican continue to rise, and the more frequent their attendance, the higher that proportion.

I wrote an article last year for church leaders discussing the implications of this partisan shift for racial justice 👉 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Public opinion still matters, and it has strongly turned against Trump.

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trumps-imm...

The second kind of politics is the politics of raw power. This is where things become difficult. The Republican Party, animated by fantasies of crushing liberals and minorities once and for all, is fundamentally devoted to achieving one-party rule. This is the intention of its base, its D.C. and state politicians, its Supreme Court judges, its propagandists and ideologists, and of course its would-be Supreme Leader. This intention can be seen everywhere from the evil fervor of certain administration apparatchiks to the decorous enablement by elder statesmen in Congress and on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts, for example, may not actively dream of a Republican dictatorship, but he has purposefully used his power to advance that scenario. The Politics of Raw Power Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake January 24, 2026 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/01/24/politics-of-raw-power-joseph-oneill/

The Politics of Raw Power
Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake
www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

Alex Pretti’s coworkers take a moment of silence this morning

👇👇👇

MIN S3AT STATEMENT FROM MATT MOBERG, CHAPLAIN OF THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES IF YOU'RE A CHURCH POSTING PRAYERS FOR PEACE AND UNITY TODAY WHILE MY CITY BLEEDS IN THE STREET, MISS ME WITH THAT SOFTNESS YOU ONLY WEAR WHEN IT COSTS YOU NOTHING. DON'T DRESS AVOIDANCE UP AS HOLINESS. DON'T CALL SILENCE "PEACEMAKING." DON'T LIGHT A CANDLE AND THINK IT SUBSTITUTES FOR SHOWING UP. TONIGHT AN ICE AGENT TOOK A PHOTO OF ME NEXT TO MY CAR, LOOKED ME IN THE EYE AND TOLD ME, "WE'LL BE SEEING YOU SOON." NOT METAPHOR. NOT HYPERBOLE. A THREAT DRESSED UP IN A BADGE AND A PAYCHECK. PEACE ISN'T WHAT YOU ASK FOR WHEN THE BOOT IS ALREADY ON SOMEONE'S NECK. PEACE IS WHAT THE POWERFUL ASK FOR WHEN THEY DON'T WANT TO BE INTERRUPTED. UNITY ISN'T NEUTRAL. UNITY THAT REFUSES TO NAME VIOLENCE IS JUST LOYALTY TO THE ONES HOLDING THE WEAPONS. STOP USING SCRIPTURE LIKE CHLOROFORM. STOP CALLING YOUR FEAR "WISDOM." STOP PRETENDING JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED BECAUSE HE PREACHED GOOD VIBES AND PERSONAL GROWTH. YOU DON'T GET TO QUOTE SCRIPTURE LIKE A LULLABY, WHILE INJUSTICE STAYS WIDE AWAKE. YOU DON'T GET TO ASK GOD TO "HEAL THE LAND" IF YOU WON'T EVEN LOOK AT THE WOUND. THERE IS A KIND OF PEACE THAT ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE IT REFUSES TO TELL THE TRUTH. THAT PEACE IS A LIE. AND LIES DON'T GROW ANYTHING WORTH SAVING. THE SCRIPTURES YOU LOVE WEREN'T WRITTEN TO KEEP THINGS CALM. THEY WERE WRITTEN TO SET THINGS RIGHT. AND SOMETIMES THE MOST FAITHFUL THING YOU CAN DO IS STOP PRAYING AROUND THE PAIN AND START STANDING INSIDE IT. IF THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE-GOOD. GROWTH ALWAYS IS.

Statement from the Minnesota Timberwolves team chaplain with alt text (ht @gregolear.bsky.social)