Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, October 29

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 

THE POPE’S NEW CARDINALS - AN ANALYSIS: From Fr. de Souza at NCRegister.

ANTHONY ESOLEN ON THE PERSONALITIES WITHIN THE CHURCH IN A TIME OF BATTLE: Four types.

II. PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

HYPERVENTILATING ABOUT TRUMP: Buchanan on the fake outrage of Hillary et al:

Mr Trump’s refusal to “accept the results of the election” until he sees how the process is conducted “horrified” Mrs Clinton and a host of journalists from networks of every stripe. This was historical amnesia posing as moral outrage. Is not accepting the results of an election really a threat to our proud tradition of “the peaceful transition of power.”  Mr Trump is historically quite similar to Andrew Jackson as an outside candidate. Jackson never accepted the "stolen election of 1824” which brought John Adams to office in a deal with Henry Clay. More recent history is the Bush Gore election in which the “results were not accepted" but contested in court. Was that lawsuit a threat to our institutions?

Maybe everyone so incensed at the audacity of Donald Trump to run for President should “get a grip.” This should start with FOX news moderator Chris Wallace who certainly did the best job of all debate moderators this year. Yet in the end he carried plenty of water for the “community of journalists” in accepting their parameters of appropriate questions for the debate.  It was his follow up question which cast Trump’s answer as a threat to the Republic which set the fire blazing. Wallace’s  major goal was to win acceptance for Fox News as part of the media club. Mission Accomplished.

TRUMP VS. CLINTON: Betting on a long shot. The sexual revolution is the most modern in a long line of revolutions running from the French bloodbath through the Haiti race war and the Soviet slaughter. The Clinton syndicate who started the baby-boomer ascendance in the presidency now hopes to finish off the American sexual cultural revolution. We hope we can learn from the Chinese who eventually put an end to their own national psychosis. A man who knows of revolutions says he would wish no revolution on any nation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn honors the peasants of the Vendee who resisted the French cosmopolitan intellectuals.

A FAVORITE LOCAL WRITER ARGUES THE TRUMP CASE ON THE HILL:
Cain Pence on the flawed but deserving Donald Trump.

The best arguments  for Trump.

Michael Moore tells why Trump will win. [language alert]

III. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

PUTIN, RUSSIA, CHRISTIANITY: From soulless Soviets to Orthodox Russia.

RUSSIA, UKRAINE, AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE: The founder of 20th-century Poland, Roman Dmowski, wrote about the Ukraine after the Treaty of Versailles allowed Poland back on the map as a free nation. His very different perspective seems to validate the Putin policies and question the national independence of Ukraine. All this from a Polish patriot who knows history.

THE PHILIPPINES NATIONALIST PRESIDENT PIVOTS TO CHINA: New characters emerge in Asia who will recognize the dominant power in the South China Sea. President Duterte will not be the last. Duterte’s Flip flop. On the flight home from Japan, God commands Duterte to stop swearing.

CHINA GROUP-THINK: Missing from foreign policy discussions about China, the "nine dashed line," and the Spratley's. Empathy, Curiosity, and Humility.

NATIONALISM EMERGES: An excellent historical excursion of the triumph of nations in the last 100 years by Michael Lind at National Interest.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE - THE REAL 1000-YEAR REICH: A review of a new book by Peter Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire.