I'm getting a lot of good and thoughtful responses to my Sunday essay. I could have written 2,000 more words on the role of staff and boards in enabling abuse, but in lieu of that, here are a few tweets. /1 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-crisis-o…
In dysfunctional religious celebrity cultures, key staff gain not just their livelihood but also their cultural clout from the proximity to the "great man." They have everything to lose if he falls, so they guard him zealously and often crush internal dissent. /2
As for board members, if they also gain prestige from their association with the "great man," they're often unwilling to hold him accountable. Again, the board member also has something to lose if the leader falls. Their own clout is at stake. /3
The result is that every single internal power dynamic reinforces the celebrity's authority (even the alleged accountability structures), and so it takes immense courage to stand up. /4
And the celebrity? He gets used to the culture of impunity and the layers of protection -- so he often gets more brazen and more reckless until it all spills out. And then people say, "How did he get out of control?" He was enabled, every step of the way. /end
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I'm not sure if you're noticing, but there's been a recent shift in the anti-anti-Trump defense of Trump's deranged behavior from "these lawsuits might have merit" to "hahahaha this is revenge for the 'Russia hoax' and impeachment." This is absurd, for many reasons. /1
Trump's defenders constantly want to memory-hole his campaign's misconduct, but there were real reasons to investigate his campaign. His son, campaign chair, and son-in-law met with a Russian lawyer in the attempt to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. /2
Trump's campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was in active, clandestine communication with a Russian agent and provided the agent with internal campaign information. The campaign attempted to use Roger Stone to set up a back-channel communication with Wikileaks, a Russian asset. /3
So my former colleagues at @AllianceDefends are under fire. A few things:
First, ADF is so "hateful" that it recently joined with the ACLU and NAACP to press for the single-most important civil rights legal reform of our time -- ending qualified immunity. naacpldf.org/wp-content/upl…
Second, it's extraordinarily successful free speech/religious freedom litigation (including a glittering record at SCOTUS) has resulted in concrete civil liberties gains for ALL people, not just Christian believers. My cases at ADF expanded liberty, for example.
Third, at Blackstone and throughout all of ADF's programs (including litigation) there has long been an emphasis on doing the right thing, the right way -- with integrity, civility, and decency.
This is an excellent development, and the opinion is exactly right. Capitol Hill Baptist's plan -- outdoor services, socially-distanced and masked -- was extremely responsible based on everything we now know about the virus. Yet DC said no, while it said yes to mass protests. /1
The key line from the opinion is below. In plain English it means that it's time for courts to stop simply deferring to the judgment of local officials and start applying standard levels of scrutiny to state actions during a pandemic: /2
That doesn't mean that all pandemic measures should be struck down. It means that the time of simple judicial acceptance is over. Mask mandates pass legal review easily. But placing more restrictions on outdoor worship services than outdoor protests or outdoor dining? Nope. /3
How can the Breonna Taylor grand jury reach its result? Because the officers who directly returned fire were operating under a series of SCOTUS precedents that made clashes between armed homeowners 1) lawful; 2) inevitable; and 3) unjust (short thread): frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/supreme-cour…
SCOTUS has given police wide latitude to violently enter homes. Castle doctrine gives homeowners wide latitude to defend themselves. Thus, you can have a terrible, violent clash that EMPOWERED by the law, and you will end up with lawful tragedy. /2
There's a difference between officers serving a lawful (though unjustly granted) warrant returning aimed fire and the officer who wantonly fired outside the apartment. The grand jury decision properly reflects that distinction. /3
In my newsletter (🔒) I look at the impact of the Senate Intelligence report on two Russia hoaxes. Yep, two. The first is represented by the extravagant claims of the Steele Dossier. It still doesn't hold up. It never did. But what's the second hoax? /1 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-senate-i…
This one comes from the right, and it's the persistent minimization (especially on this website) of Trump campaign misconduct and the argument that the "real" story is that the campaign was the victim of a deep state smear job and government abuse of power. Wrong. /2
Yes, the Mueller Report should have decisively debunked the "move along" defense of the campaign, but the right waved it off as a partisan witch hunt. But what about the bipartisan Senate conclusions? The Manafort/Kilminick disclosures alone are extraordinary. /3
In the latest newsletter (🔒), I dive into the newly-released, more-complete George Floyd body cam footage and argue that the depraved indifference to his life makes conviction more likely. Also, l examine whether a person has the "liberty" not to mask: /1 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/new-george-f…
On masking, a President wouldn't have the generalized police power to order universal masking, but he can get (mostly) there in other ways. And if governors order masking, do citizens have the liberty to refuse? Nope: /2
Moreover, if I don't have the liberty to disrobe at Target (after all, some folks argue that nudity is a form of "expression"), then I don't have the liberty to drop my mask: /3