Denver Catholic

22 MARCH 12-25, 2016 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Resisting the demagogue Y ou've got to have a good memory for mid-Sixties pop music to remember the Seekers, an Aussie quartet that once vied for the top of the Brit- ish charts with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and did quite well here in the U.S., too). But this isn't a pop culture quiz; it's a refl ection on our increasingly disturbing 2016 presiden- tial election, with a little help from, yes, the Seekers. Why? Because it struck me last week that their 1965 hit, "A World of Our Own," written as a bit of Sixties romantic whimsy, might well serve as the theme song of the 2016 Trump cam- paign. For readers under sixty, here's the refrain: We'll build a world of our own That no one else can share All our sorrows we'll leave far behind us there. And I know you will fi nd There'll be peace of mind When we live in a world of our own. The notion of America as a refuge from the world's harsh realities has a long pedigree in our national cultural history. It took its most dangerous form in the 1930s, when isolationism so par- alyzed American politics that Hitler almost won the world empire he sought. Today, that impulse to "build a world of our own" seems to be driving the Trump campaign, which is long on emotional appeals to making America great again, and very, very short on specifi c policies for achieving that goal. Yet Mr. Trump's appeal to a narrow idea of American exceptionalism, married to an unblush- ing demagogy about "the other" that he deploys with a vulgarity that would have gotten a child's mouth washed out with soap once upon a time, clearly appeals to voters who are mad as hell and deter- mined not to take it any more. To be sure, those voters include good people and there's a lot to be angry about. The Great Recession has led to the Great Stagnation. Globalization has disproportionately clobbered work- ing class people, and defenders of free markets have done too little to address their legitimate grievances. Racisms of various forms are back, polluting the public atmosphere in the most racially egalitarian country on the planet. Polit- ical correctness chokes o¬ free speech and corrupts education. It's scandalous that neither major party can address immigration policy with prudence and compassion. And that's before we get to the fact that, thanks to Obama adminis- tration fecklessness, the next president is going to face the most dangerous world situation since 1947. So by all means, fellow-Americans, be angry. But please don't channel that anger into support for a candidate who is utterly unfi t – by character, by wit, or by life experience – to lead America for the next four years. Catholic a¬ ection for the United States has been based in large part on the story of the U.S. as a political com- munity in which the sphere of common care and protection is an expanding one. We've been drifting away from that noble inclusiveness in recent decades, most lethally because of the abortion license. The toxic identity politics of the moment is also fragmenting the country, just as our popular culture has become so debased that it can no longer sustain an "us" that's larger than a "me." There's plenty of blame to go around for this meltdown. But the point to be empha- sized just now is that Donald Trump, far from o¬ ering a compelling remedy for American fragmentation, is exploiting it with a demagogic energy and a package of authoritarian prescriptions not seen since the heyday of Huey Long, fi ction- ally immortalized in All The King's Men. There is nothing remotely Catholic about the Trump sensibility. There is nothing in Mr. Trump's record or his current campaign to suggest that he gives a fi g for the life issues, for religiously freedom in full, or for the constitutionalism that is America's unique expression of Catholic social doctrine's principle of subsidiarity. Rather than lifting us above anger to renewed common purpose, Mr. Trump is dragging our politics even deeper into the muck, impeding a serious conver- sation about freedom's relationship to self-command – about greatness rooted in virtue. There are alternative ways to regis- ter one's discontent than by voting for Donald Trump. Serious Catholics will act on those alternatives. Tales from the Sleep Deprived I t's not that people didn't warn us. "Your life is about to change," they said. "It's going to be hard"; "Better, stock up on sleep now."§ And we did listen to what people were telling my wife and I before we welcomed our fi rst child into the w orld a little more than a month ago, but I don't think we really grasped the depth of what they were saying. Throughout the fi rst two weeks of my daughter's life, I was convinced that there was a conspiracy of silence about newborn babies. There is no way that human existence would have continued if people actually knew what was going to happen to them once they got home from the hospital. I realize now that part of the reason for this is that every baby brings di¬ er- ent challenges. With our daughter it was weight loss—double the accepted norm. Our fi ght over the next weeks was getting her to eat often and enough. We are committed to breastfeeding, and even in my darkest moments I always knew it was the best route to take. My moments of frustration, doubt and pain came mostly in the middle of the night when it was time to start feeding her again 15 minutes after we had just fi nished her last meal, as we were advised to feed her every 90 minutes. We desper- ately needed the baby to eat due to her dramatic weight loss, but how could this continual pace be possible to maintain? I was more tired than I had ever been before. I was looking into my wife's eyes and could see that it was nothing compared to the exhaustion she was experiencing, and my wife completed an Ironman triathlon! Even using a hospi- tal-grade pump, we couldn't stockpile enough milk to be able to stay ahead of the baby's needs. One morning I was lamenting over the co¬ ee pot about how much I hate mornings. I was contemplating never going near my wife again, because there was no way I was going to risk going through this a second time. I was also fairly certain I could come up with a device that would sit on my nightstand and inject co¬ ee directly into my blood- stream when my alarm went o¬ . Somewhere in between these mud- dled musings it became very clear what I had to do. I needed to stop trying to take care of my daughter. Instead of trying to take care of myself and my daughter, I needed to focus on taking care of my wife. This meant that I was going to have to get up another hour earlier each day and take care of everything to get the day started. Start co¬ ee, feed and let out the dog, clean the kitchen, get laundry started, make breakfast, take the dog for a walk. Get everything o¬ of my wife's plate so she could concentrate on taking care of the baby. This meant I needed to self-sacrifi ce. I had to put myself last on the priority list. Yep, that means even after the dog. I realized that I had wanted to be one of those dads that was directly involved in the care of our child. I wanted to get lots of kudos for changing diapers and my skill at lullabying the baby to sleep, but those were wishes for myself, not for the baby or for our family. It's not glamorous to do the dishes, and you don't get the credit for cleaning up after the dog that you do for chang- ing dirty diapers. What did happen though, was that my wife felt supported and cared for. She was more rested and calm, and I believe that helped her be more successful in feeding and caring for our daughter, which subsequently helped the little one be more calm, eat and sleep better. Self-sacrifi ce isn't and shouldn't be about what you might get back in return, but I can tell you that in our house a better rested and more calm mom started letting dad get more sleep during the night. She became happy for me to go workout, and even spend time with friends. Believe me, I am completely aware that the only reason any of this works is because my wife is absolutely amazing. It's not all rainbows and unicorns. No matter how hard I try, I do forget to do some things and some other things I do badly. Even if I do everything right, there is still times that my wife gets frustrated in the middle of the night and there are times when I come home and her eyes are fi lled with tears because the job is that hard. I've got to jump in and give her a break no matter what kind of day I've had. And sometimes, or maybe even just once, self-sacrifi ce also means that you have to eat an extra-large portion of ice cream in order to clear out space in the freezer for milk. Daniel Barela is a husband, soon-to-be dad, native Coloradan and a newly minted Catholic. He's discovering everyday what the whole Catholic thing is about. Freshman Catholic DANIEL BARELA George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The Catholic Di› erence GEORGE WEIGEL Mary Beth to give talks other adults on sex, love, Theology be reached Guest Column WIKICOMMONS

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