The Power of the Powerless, by Francis X. Maier

Another Red Hat for a McCarrick Ally, by Phil Lawler
August 10, 2022
CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE: The UN Push to End National Sovereignty Worldwide, by  Michael J. Matt
August 10, 2022

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 10, 2022

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

I started this column hoping to focus on Václav Havel’s great 1978 essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” collected here.  I’ll get to that.  But in the meantime, the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, an action unprecedented in U.S. history.  So adjustments must be made.

Just four weeks ago in this space, I suggested that

The threat of impending “Fascism! Right around the corner!” – a treasured anxiety of the Trump Dark Ages – might oddly come true.  Just not from the direction you thought. Mr. Trump, with his vulgar style and legion of faults, nonetheless had the effect of a sun lamp or disagreeable medicine on a nasty boil: He drew all the hysteria, fanaticism, and arrogance of hardcore progressive thought to the skin’s surface, where the boil and its poison popped. …