On Tuesday this week our sitting president said at a most unusual cabinet meeting that “I am not a dictator.” Then he went on to say he could do “whatever I want” as president and that “many” Americans want a dictator.
That he can do whatever he wants is a lie. There are—or are meant to be—checks and balances in the American system of democracy on each of the three branches of government.
But from a practical point of view, the president may be spot-on. He so owns the souls of so-called representatives of the American Congress that they will do whatever he asks of them lest they lose their next election. Cabinet members at that strange meeting each tried to outdo the other in flattering the president –“you have saved the whales” said one, and “you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize” said another, all around the table.
Congress is both supine and sycophant. And bought. Apparently not one Republican elected to House or Senate has any soul left. What do they say to their children and grandchildren? And great grandchildren to come?
How do they respond to the questions posed by poet Drew Dellinger?
It’s 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren ask me in dreams
what did you do when the planet was plundered? What did
you do when the earth was unraveling
surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying? Did you fill
the streets with protests
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do once
you knew?*
The truth is they not only did nothing, they allowed the EPA to be dismantled. They defunded money for alternative energy sources. They gave billionaires (many of them fossil fuel champions) a trillion dollars of tax breaks. They wallow in denial of the reality of climate change. They passed a budget that will burden regular citizens with $4 trillion of additional tax burdens including interest on the give away. They cut Medicaid for 17 million people and food for hungry veterans and others.
They did exactly what they did with laws to curb gun violence such as occurred this week in a Catholic Church with school kids beginning a new school year. Nothing. Nothing but continued support for the NRA and the corporations that manufacture guns.
Hearing the president pronounce that “I am not a dictator” sounds awfully déjà vu to me. I am old enough to have heard Richard Nixon say, “I am not a crook.”
But months later, with the release of secret tapes he made of White House phone calls demanded by a then-reliable Supreme Court, everyone knew he was a crook. Republican senators and congressmen went to him and said he must quit the presidency. He left. Imagine that!
Today’s corrupt SCOTUS is completely owned by the wannabe dictator president. As conservative and respected Judge J. Michael Luttig put it in his recent Substack: The Supreme Court is never going to stop this intentional and deliberate corruption of the Federal Judiciary and Rule of Law by this President and his Attorney General…until the American People stand up and cry out ‘No More. We’ve had enough. We are a nation of laws, not of men.’ **
Unlike Nixon and Trump, the first-ever Republican president Abraham Lincoln believed in the American experiment in democracy and defined it this way: “That government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.”
We are currently very close to that experiment perishing. Time for all hands on deck resisting, organizing, demanding and speaking truth to power in whatever ways we can.
*Drew Dellinger, “hieroglyphic stairway” in Drew Dellinger, Love Letter to the Milky Way (Ashland, Oregon, White Cloud Press: 2011).
**Judge J. Michael Luttig, “Trump & Bondi versus the Rule of Law” on Substack.com. See also his interview on The Last Word with Laurence O’Donnell, Ali Velshi hosting, August 27, 2025..
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, “Opus Dei,” in Fox, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Letters to Pope Francis, p. 8.
Banner Image: The Minneapolis community gathered at Lynnhurst Park last night for a vigil following the mass shooting at Annunciation School and Church earlier in the morning that left two children dead and 17 others injured. Photo by Chad Davis on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you look ahead to what your children, grandchildren and great grandchdren are asking about “What did you do when the planet was plundered? And democracy was stolen?” What can we tell them?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The final section in the book focuses on birthing a truly catholic Christianity.
“This book should be read by everybody, not only for its ferocious courage, but also for its vision for what needs to be saved from the destructive forces that threaten authentic Christianity.” ~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope.
“In the gripping The Pope’s War, Matthew Fox takes an unwavering look at the layers of corruption in the Catholic Church, holding moral truth against power.” — Jason Berry, author of Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Letters to Pope Francis
Matthew Fox challenges the new Pope to live up to the promise of his namesake St. Francis and reshape a church that has been mired in corruption and bereft of authentic spirituality and rigorous theological debate. Former Dominican priest Matthew Fox presents a series of heartfelt letters to his brother in Christ about the great challenges facing the church today, drawing from the deep spiritual and theological sources that have been suppressed since Vatican II, and implores him to restore the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful) and reshape a church with justice and compassion.
5 thoughts on “Two Republican Presidents: “I am not a dictator.” “I am not a crook.””
If only 4 Republican Senators and 4 Republican Representatives decided to vote Independent until Trump is no longer President, the majority would shift in both chambers of Congress and MAGA would stall.
We need new PROFILES IN COURAGE
These questions, including the enclosed YouTube poem by Drew Dellinger are very heart wrenching. They’re also the questions asked by Indigenous spiritual peoples about Our Sacred Mother Earth and All Her living creatures. We have to hold these questions in Our Faithful broken hearts and daily compassionate creative actions in awareness of Our LOVING DIVERSE
ONENESS with All spiritual dimensions of Our evolving Co-Creation~Cosmos and Angelic Spiritual Realms in the Sacredness of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
Like many, I never feel like I am doing enough to resist MAGA but I do what I can. Some of that is serving as a peacekeeper as we rail against this president and his shockingly sycophantic minions. Occasionally, not frequently enough, I call my Democratic senators begging them to be creative and do all they can to preserve what little rule of law we still have. (There’s no point contacting my representative Eli Crane, whose newsletter is called “One in the Chamber.”) Throughout tRump’s two presidency I have written short plays and poetry meant to express in symbol and humor tRump’s malfeasant coterie. I wish I had a good production of my scathing play “Ryan’s Birthday Toast,” but I can offer a link to a humorous reading of it for Prescott Indivisible during tRump’s first time in the now-befouled oval office. It could be seen as a harbinger of current Oval Office meetings. I write these things to try to wake people up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lXih1NkKPM
Sadly, I see the complete collapse of anything resembling democratic government; MAGA is busy getting states to redistrict, there is a push to disallow mail in ballots (because you can’t intimidate mail), and, if all else fails, the executive can simply declare an election stolen. The takeover of Union Station and the desire to take over South Station in Boston is clearly for the purpose of controlling movement on the East Coast, especially when it is time to deploy troops en masse. Violence will be manufactured by agent provocateurs to justify cracking down with martial law. Someone needs to write a new book, “Profiles in Cowardice” about all of MAGA and most of Congress. Recruitment of ICE mercenaries will continue. I grieve for my grandchildren and great grandchildren and their children, to many generations. They will have to deal with a completely different world, and the best thing that we can do for them, in my opinion, is to preserve real history and pass it on, to include art like Michele’s plays and poetry. I hope it does not come to the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451, but they resisted by holding onto books as long as possible and by using their memories to pass on the truth.
I agree we are in the midst of a revolution, but not in the way that woman meant. It is a revolution to completely overthrow any sense of order, decency or rule of law. Watching that clip made me sick. As you sow, so shall you reap. Too bad so many of us did NOT ever ask for this. God bless the children…