About

Author Motivation and Background

"They're not talking to us... Oh my god...they're not talking to us."

These were the words that accompanied the deep sense of terror I experienced witnessing the Republican National Convention this year. 

Up until the RNC, I wrongly and naively assumed that the behavior of Donald Trump's administration was merely the absolute worst outcome that our extremely imperfect democratic political system could create: a sitting US president who is massively unprepared for the challenges of the presidency and doesn't care about anyone but himself.

On the evenings of August 24th and 25th of this year, I realized that the situation we're in is, in fact, much, much more dangerous than that. The overt themes of racism, nationalism, militarism, along with the extremely manipulative rhetoric and myth making sent a chill through my soul. Down in the polls, the Republican party made not even the slightest effort to appeal to anyone who wasn't already in their base. To my utter horror, I woke up in that moment to the reality that the Republican strategy this year has nothing to do with winning an election. It is a strategy for maintaining power by destabilizing the country. 

We're not dealing with a president that is merely the next ugly step in our long-deteriorating political culture. We're dealing with an extremely real and imminent existential threat to any semblance of democracy as we know it. Because of that, we are also experiencing steeply increasing violence against marginalized peoples and the planet, as well as a greater risk of nuclear war.

As a teacher of history, politics, and language, I'm disappointed to not have woken up to this reality sooner. Many astute observers have been working feverishly since 2016 to tell us that Donald Trump is not just another Republican president. And, while I could see that much, I was hesitant to begin applying the language and analysis of authoritarianism to describe his behavior because I was wary of using unnecessary hyperbole that would only drive us further apart. But I can see now that trying to make sense of Trump as a president acting within a democracy can't work, and it's irresponsible to continue to do so, as people like Masha Gessen have been desperately trying to get us to see since Trump won the election. 

Because I know these claims may seem like just more harmful partisan allegations, the type of which Democrats and Republicans have been throwing at each other for far too long, I wanted to create a blog to explain them as clearly and concisely as possible. 

If you don't know me, my name is james. I'm a thirty-seven-year-old white guy who was born in New Mexico and currently lives in Seattle. I'm a high school teacher by profession, but I have also have done some work as a writer and as a personal fitness trainer. I'm fascinated by history, politics, religion, public education, quantum physics, culture, diet, and exercise science, to name a few. I don't identify with either political party because I don't think either party represents a significant percentage of the American people. While I have typically voted for Democrats in the past, I couldn't bring myself to vote for Clinton or Trump in our last presidential election. I believe the lack of true public spheres and the degradation of our community ties has led increasingly to fortifying political camps of people who mistakenly believe they have far less in common with "the other side" than they actually do.

My intention for this blog is to serve as a space to help us all make better sense of what's happening right now, nationally and globally. I hope that you'll find some meaning in this space, and you'll consider offering your own carefully considered thoughts to help further all of our thinking.

Foundational Questions

There are two lines of questions that I'd like to devote this blog to exploring:

1) What is democracy? What does democracy demand in the 21st century? Why is democracy worth working vigorously for? And how can we do that?

2) What is fascism? How is it linked to (but different than) racism and authoritarianism? Why is it a rising global phenomenon right now? How can we avoid carrying it with us into our future?

A Note on Approach

A few notes on how I'm approaching my writing here:

1) In the past, I often attempted to include lots and lots of hyperlinks in my blogging for readers to find evidence for my claims or learn more about whatever I was writing about. While I've not become completely anti-hyperlink, I have cut down on them because of research that suggests hyperlinks degrade a reader's attention and ability to follow an argument all the way through. So, I will use hyperlinks here when I think they're absolutely necessary, but I will otherwise include links to important information in the "Other Authors and Resources" page that you can access by clicking on the "Other Authors and Resources" link at the top of the page, next to the "About" link.

2) Political language is becoming trickier and trickier to use in our world. Widening gaps in political perspectives and what amounts to a full-on assault of language by many of our politicians mean that if I use a word like 'liberal,' or 'politics,' 'democracy,' or 'president' here, it's very likely that the meaning I want to convey may not match with what the reader interprets. For that reason, I will do my best to clearly define terms that make up the foundations of my thinking. If you find I've failed to do that in any part of this blog, please email me to let me know at thereflectiveeducator@gmail.com.

3) As author of this blog, I take responsibility for the words and ideas presented in the posts. As moderator of the comments, I welcome vigorous and spirited discussion and debate based on facts and reasoned analysis. I will not, however, tolerate any sort of language or political speech that disseminates misinformation or perpetuates possibilities of violence or systems of oppression, including but not limited to racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ+, classist, anti-immigrant, or generally bigoted or unkind speech. Depending on whether that becomes an ongoing problem, I may decide to ask comments to be submitted for approval first, or turn comments off altogether.