E.J. Dionne Jr.

I went last week to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the White House Faith-Based Office, sponsored by the Center for Public Justice.

Now, there are all kinds of arguments that I've been involved with over the years, too, about the proper role of government vis-a-vis religion.

And if anybody wants to see my views on that, there's a report I did for Brookings some years ago with my friend Melissa Rogers.

What hit me that day—

that gave me joy was how many people from churches, synagogues, mosques, and also lots of secular people who are deeply involved in helping homeless people, in helping immigrants, in helping the left out, in helping battered women, in helping...

poor people overseas, all these people in the country who in the midst of all this political chaos are out there working to help other people who are less well off than they are.

They exist.

God, if I may, God bless them all.

And we shouldn't forget that they are very much part of our national conversation too.

And we ought to think about those good folks and say, thank you.

Amen.

Do you realize how many arguments in living rooms that will set aside?

I know.

But also how many screaming at umpires is really fun, but we're going to lose some of that.

Yeah.

And I think that overlooking that, overlooking how much he is actually trying to fundamentally change and destroy, really, the traditional American system is something we have to face up to.

And I think the country as a whole really did after the shootings of Rene Good and Alex Preddy.

There have been

Police killings, there have been mishaps, but the country has never seen an entity like ICE operate completely outside the law in this way.

And there were a whole series of other things that happened, a whole series of corrupt pardons building on the extraordinary pardons he gave to all of the people involved.