Check out the lighting in this video! I was able to upgrade because several of you upgraded your subscriptions last week. Be a builder. Become a paid subscriber today.
There are moments in a democracy when the choice becomes stark, the stakes undeniable, and the moral line unmistakable.
Recent events in our nation have made a simple fact painfully clear:
There is no redeeming this presidency. And now it’s time to say what millions are thinking but too few are willing to say out loud.
Trump has to go. Legally. Immediately. Without equivocation.
For years, the nation has been conditioned to treat his authoritarian outbursts as spectacle—entertainment even.
But this week, we witnessed what happens when unrestrained power intersects with unchecked ego, and we’re watching democratic norms buckle beneath it.
Have we grown numb?
Because we seem to have normalized the kind of rhetoric that should end presidencies, not energize them.
A President Calling for Hanging His Political Opponents
Let’s begin with the most jarring moment.
In response to a video from six military and intelligence-affiliated members of Congress urging service members to honor their oath to the Constitution, the President of the United States posted:
“Seditious behavior. Punishable by death.”
Then amplified a comment by reposting: “George Washington would hang them.”
Let that settle.
A sitting president, openly calling for death—hanging—of elected officials.
He chose violent language, knowing exactly who would hear him and how they would take it.
Words are not just rhetoric.
Words create the opportunity for action.
We watched it on January 6, 2021 when thousand stormed the U.S. Capitol building after words from Trump.
We nearly witnessed it with the planned kidnapping of Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We have seen it in the murder of Melissa Hortman and her husband.
And still, he escalates.
How do you come back from that? How does a nation continue to be led by a man who threatens the lives of fellow public servants?
Cozying Up to a Killer
Then there was the meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
When asked about the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the President waved it off with: “Things happen.”
Things happen.
A journalist murdered and dismembered.
The CIA concluding the Crown Prince approved the operation.
And the President’s concern was not justice, but not wanting to “embarrass our guest.”
This is moral rot at the highest level of office.
Quiet, Piggy
And then the moment that still makes my stomach turn.
When a female journalist asked Trump a question he didn’t like, he snapped:
“Quiet, piggy.”
Words of pure contempt.
“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
And what spilled out in that unguarded moment revealed exactly what resides there.
We would rebuke a coworker for speaking like this.
But the President of the United States gets a pass.
He Must Go—and Accountability Must Follow
Removing him is necessary, but not sufficient.
If we follow the well-worn American pattern—choosing “unity” over accountability—we will repeat the failures of Reconstruction, when Confederate leaders were pardoned en masse and white supremacy re-emerged stronger than before.
If we don’t break the pattern, the pattern will break us.
Accountability must be the example.
People Power
Democracy means demos (people) + kratos (power). The people have power—if we use it.
Politicians will not save us.
A handful of Republicans could stop this tomorrow, but they haven’t yet. Pressure moves politicians in the direction of justice.
It is the only thing that ever has.
And we must turn up the pressure to remove this man from office.
This moment demands moral clarity, not moderation.
Conviction, not convenience.
Courage, not quiet.
He’s got to go. And we cannot shrink back from saying it
Join Me for the Vision Casting Meeting
I want to take a moment to share something important.
The Justice Briefing is just the front porch of a much larger edifice.
I’m building something more significant than a podcast or even Substack publication.
I intend to build an alternative to the far-right, Christian nationalist media ecosystem shaping so much of our country.
I’m hosting a Vision Casting Meeting for something I’ve never publicly unveiled until now—TISBY MEDIA.
This is the multimedia ecosystem we’re building together: historically grounded, theologically rooted, and action oriented.
I want to invite you to be part of the founding moment.
The meeting will take place on Sunday, December 7th at 4 pm ET
It’s going to be a space where I lay out the full vision, the institution we’re building, and the role this community can play in helping to create a multimedia ecosystem empowering joyful changemakers, grounded in faith and history, transforming their communities toward justice.
This is not just an announcement. This is an invitation.
If you want to help build something meaningful—something rooted in faith, history, justice, and joy—then join me online on December 7th at 4 pm ET.
