From time to time, I have had people approach me about the need for a new political party in Tennessee or about “leaving” the Republican Party for the Constitutional Party. But after the “revolutionary" events of January 6th and reading comments this week by Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, I wonder if an anti-Revolutionary Party is needed. It has been done before

This week, a bill sponsored by Tennessee state Representative Scott Cepicky took a first step in the state House toward keeping biological males from competing against biological females in high school sporting events. Here are grounds on which I could oppose the bill, or at least the reasons given in support of the bill (do not jump to conclusions!)

In December 2016, I published a commentary entitled, “Will the Trump Revolution Bring Real Change?” I said it would not unless one thing happened that Trump could not do. It did not. With President Biden, God has given our Country another crack at it.

I have often quoted Alexis de Tocqueville’s statement that “if lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord” and that “[c]onfining ourselves to practice, we may lose sight of basic principles, and when these have been entirely forgotten, we may apply the methods derived from them badly.” Mask mandate legislation just filed in the General Assembly showed how dimly the lights had flickered in me until the last few years. I could verbalize basic principles, but the connection between them had not hit home as it should.

On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul said of President Biden, “I think most importantly, what we have to hear is that he’s not going to radically transform the country into some sort of socialist dystopia.” I submit that years ago he, along with the rest of us, should have thought more deeply about the direction we have been heading for a while.

Over the last week, I have observed one remarkable sign of unity in our nation. Virtually all sides—Republicans and Democrats, Christians and non-Christians, “secular leaders” and “Christian” leaders/ministers—have engaged in pointing fingers, placing blame, attacking the character and reputation of others, and those attacked making defensive rebuttals

After the electoral events of Tuesday and Wednesday, multiple thoughts ran through my mind. I scoured the news, praying that I might be given something insightful to say that has not already been said. Whether my prayer was answered, you can judge, but for me, at least, it was.

Sometimes stories become so familiar that we can only see in them what we have always seen. About three years ago, my life and view of the world changed when I saw something I had never seen before in the story the Bible tells. Now, though, I see it everywhere. It is even in the most familiar telling of the Christmas story—Luke’s recounting of the shepherds who were on the hillside the night Jesus was born—and I had not seen it… 

As I head into the new year, a friend’s response to one of my recent post-election commentaries weighs on me. My friend asked, “David, is the republic lost? What can we do?” Sentiments like this have been expressed to me before, but I sense it is more widespread than ever and the earnestness by which it is expressed is greater. After the year we have all had, I think the start of a new year calls for an answer to these questions. If we can’t or won’t answer them, there may not be much that will be “new” in 2021. 

I have searched high and low for legal arguments from lawyers explaining why the substance of Texas’ claim regarding the presidential electors clause in the U.S. Constitution was, in the words of many, baseless, absurd, and other like words. I did not find any. I did find two thoughtful commentaries from two really sharp legal experts on why the lawsuit should not have been heard. However, their arguments left me shaking my head.