Last week we were thunderstruck to watch the entire East Wing of the White House reduced to rubble, with no permissions asked and no warnings given. In fact, the US president had promised the nation that the existing structure would not be touched—“it won’t interfere” and will “be near but not touching it,” he proclaimed. His big, beautiful ballroom project would pay “total respect to the existing building which I’m the biggest fan of.”
So much for presidential promises. Or memory. Or both.
An archeologist who spent years documenting the recovery of ancient artifacts looted and destroyed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, contrasted Trump’s “authoritarian” destruction of the White House to the cultural vandalism ISIS committed “to destroy the past to paint one side of a story.”*
Equally disturbing was the cost of the project, which jumped overnight from $200 to $300 million. The promise that many of the president’s corporate buddies would pay for it, is not a clear plus—what is the cost to American democracy? What quid pro quo from these billionaire benefactors lurks behind the scenes? Will we ever know?
Meanwhile, an unprecedented shutdown of Congress continues unabated—even while the government itself is shut down and not paying its bills. Every other time there has been a government shutdown, Congress convened to try to work through it. Not this time. A White House and congress literally in shambles.
Thom Hartmann calls the congressional shutdown “the coup that finally worked,” and argues speaker Mike Johnson “succeeded where the insurrection failed.”**
The coup of January 6 didn’t reach its objective, but now we have a Congress that, by erasing health care and food stamps, can kill millions of Americans. To its credit, the Democratic party is standing tall in resisting this murderous consequence of the so-called “big, beautiful budget bill.”
Meanwhile, something profound and historical occurred this week, when King Charles III, head of the Anglican church, visited the Vatican to pray with Pope Leo XIV, marking a religious reconciliation after 500 years of separation.
This event signals a positive sign of our times—the coming together of world religions. It is time that religions, under the joint stresses of global warming and potential nuclear war, get their basic acts together around shared fundamentals of belief: Peace, Justice, Compassion, and Forgiveness such as Jesus taught, and other spiritual traditions teach. While respecting their historical, cultural and spiritual diversity.
A new book, Interspirituality: The Heritage is being published today that commemorates this same movement of Deep Ecumenism or Interfaith, edited by Kurt Johnson. I was privileged to write a Foreword for it and to share the cover with an endorsement from the Dalai Lama.
The future of humanity—if humanity has a future—is to practice more simply and surely the teachings of its inspired spiritual and religious founders. To call forth from deep within humans our better angels—our capacity for passion and compassion, fairness and justice, and celebration of life—biophilia therefore, that trumps necrophilia in all its expressions including war, hatred, cruelty and selling democracy to the highest bidders.
Yesterday, I saw a film I highly recommend called Truth and Treason. It was very well done and based on a true story of resistance to Hitler in the Nazi times by three teenagers, in particular Helmuth Hubener, who at 16 years of age used his considerable writing skills and intelligence—and conscience—to spread word about truth in opposition to Hitler’s lies that had taken over a nation.
He, unlike other church members and his bishop pastor, had the courage and wit to do something to resist the onslaught of sadism and hatred that fed the Hitlerian machine, and that so many older adults supported. He paid a price not unlike that of Jesus, who taught him to stand up for truth.
A timely and urgent story for today, where courage is so rare in Congress and elsewhere. And holding up the young for their leadership in acting on their outrage at injustice and sense of right and wrong, that seems so lacking in their compliant elders.
* Tom Latchem, “Real Life Indiana Jones Torches Trump’s White House Teardown with Scathing ISIS Comparison,” The Daily Beast, October 24, 2025.
** Thom Hartmann, “The Coup that Finally Worked: How Mike Johnson Succeeded Where the Insurrection Failed,” The Hartmann Report, October 24, 2025.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: The former lobby of the East Wing of the White House. Photo by Harrison Keely. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree it is time for deep ecumenism? And conscience? And courage and resistance?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Traditions.
“The Cosmic Christ and Deep Ecumenism,” in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 228-244.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
4 thoughts on “Big But Quiet News Buried Behind the News of White House Rubble”
YES! YES! YES! Recently on No Kings National Rally around the country 7+ million Americans raised their voices and physical presences declaring YES to Democracy and NO to authoritarianism/fascism/dictatorship represented by Trump’s regime and the. acquiescent Republican Party and conservative Unsupreme Court. Hopefully, most American institutions and individuals will continue resisting and voting for Truth, Justice, & Freedom in the upcoming congressional elections of 2026 so that Democrats can begin restraining authoritarian Trump and saving our Democracy, God willing!
Steve Bannon just did an interview where he said plans are in place to have Trump be president in 2028 and that it is God’s will that Trump be president. The Republicans are busy gerrymandering and creating new districts that silence the votes of people of colour, with the help of a complicit Sumpreme Court, in order to rig the midterms in Trump’s favour. As a Canadian, I fear it may already be too late to stop Trump and his worshippers and their quest to destroy democracy and create a Christian Taliban fascist state. As a Canadian, all I can do is pray for your resistance, and do everything I can to stop the spread of it’s influence in Canada.
One more Canadian, adding my prayers for all of you – for the courage and the strength to resist this spreading evil, for compassion to reach out and help those who have been hurt and terrorized (lost jobs / unjustly imprisoned / or just plain afraid of what is going to happen next…) and show that whatever happens – Love and faith will shine through to rebuild what has been broken
I think that it was clear from the first few months of this administration, when Congress toadied to every illegal act, when there was basically no government resistance to the destruction of programs under DOGE and their free access to all of our private information, when universities and media organization gave into bullying, and when the occupant of the White House ignored every judge and even the Supreme Court to get his way, that the coup had already occurred. Yes we need deep ecumenism, courage, and resistance. And I wish more would turn to the wisdom of our indigenous and black and brown neighbors, who have always lived under the tyranny of racism. This is nothing new to them, only more open and deliberate. The question here, in my opinion, is what we do next, how we are to be the hands and feet of Christ in this moment in time, how best to support those have been targeted and the organizations that help them. There is potentially great risk. Can we dare?