Author: John Pavlovitz

The sad irony of “Trump patriots” using “Back the Blue” flags to beat police during a criminal act of sedition

“What happened to the American dream? It came true. You’re looking at it.” – The Comedian, “Watchmen” (2009) Many of the faces were already familiar. We saw them in real-time, smashing Capitol building windows, scaling walls, and parading through the halls of Congress, beaming with self-satisfaction. We could see their every emotion as they desecrated monuments, urinated on carpets, and sat behind lawmaker’s offices as if winning something they had fought so very hard for; a treasure they had valiantly won after a long and brutal struggle. We saw their faces because they wanted us to. This was not...

Read More

Privileged Behavior: Mental illness is not why Trump became emotionally untethered from humanity

For years, people have been talking about Donald Trump’s “mental state,” throwing around the term mental illness as a lazy catch-all for his erratic behavior, inexhaustible cruelty, and inexplicable recklessness. In the wake of the election, a growing choir has assembled singing the same refrain. This has always struck me as particularly damaging, because it assumes something dangerous: that all mentally ill people are vengeful, bigoted, unrepentant sociopaths. We are not. As one of the 51 million Americans who battles a brain affliction, I can attest to the reality that the vast majority of us are not oblivious to...

Read More

Tragically Predictable: The coup by Trump’s Cult was not unexpected

“The United States effectively has three parties now: the Democratic party, the Anti-Democracy Trump party, and the Pro-Democracy Republican party.” – Jennifer Rubin A brazen act of white domestic terrorism on our nation’s Capitol: thousands of people streaming toward the seats of Congress, with nothing between them but a flimsy chain link fence and a few glad-handing police officers, who essentially gave the armed insurrectionists a warm welcome, a grand tour, and escorted them with kid gloves into the sacred chambers of the most vital work of our Republic: affirming the collective will of the people to choose their...

Read More

Year In Review 2020: On faith, politics, and stuff that needs to be said

2020 has been a turbulent period beyond the conventional methods of description. In terms of COVID-years, the past 12 months have had the glacial progress and weight of 12 regular human years. Each month brought a new chapter of events for the public to process, which required an expanded vocabulary to explain the news and a library of images to show the extent of what was happening. It was a very dangerous year for photojournalism with a pandemic and civil unrest. To be embedded in the heart of events as they unfolded required physical stamina, professional skill, and a...

Read More

How Freedom defeated America: We lost an entire year from COVID due to phony patriotism and cheap liberty

“Do not ever forget that nurses died after working in COVID ICUs wearing trash bags over their clothes while cops dressed like video game characters brutalized people who dared ask that they not be murdered in their beds.” – Molly Conger COVID beat America — completely, unequivocally, and historically. There’s simply no way around that truth. We have been decimated far beyond even the most dire calculations back in the Spring of 2020. The sickness has been unfathomable and the death toll staggering. We have been the planet’s most egregious cautionary tale on what not to do, how not...

Read More

We’re really not great: ‪The deaths of 250,000 Americans didn’t matter to 70 million Americans

I thought of Evangelicals today. I was reading the Bible. You may remember the Bible from a sitting president’s recent upside-down, tear-gassed, church steps photo op. I came across Matthew’s story of Judas’ final moments here on the planet: overwhelmed with guilt, in a searing, sweaty panic—realizing that he had betrayed his beloved Jesus and sent him to an unthinkably violent death, all for thirty cold pieces of silver that now felt worthless in his hands. He’d kissed him and he’d killed him, just to gain a quick windfall that he suddenly realized was fool’s gold. He died knowing...

Read More