Recent news reports brought to my attention something that I completely missed when it first happened almost two months ago: JD Vance opining ignorantly and dangerously on Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings about “doing unto others as you would have done unto you.” Less than a month into the Trump/Musk/MAGA regime, Vance said this:
“You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Vance said.
Two weeks later in a letter to US Catholic Bishops Pope Francis responded strongly to this outrageous distortion of the teachings of Jesus, explaining:
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. . . The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.
“Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.
“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.”
You don’t have to be Christian or a religious person or even a supporter of Pope Francis to appreciate his willingness to speak truth to power, and his efforts to get US Catholic Bishops to do the same. On this issue, the Pope demonstrated timely and important moral leadership.
As I’ve gone through life I’ve increasingly come to view this particular teaching of Jesus of Nazareth as both an ideal I should very consciously, daily, strive for, as well as a needed approach when it comes to building organizations and movements that are about systemic political, economic and social change.
In my 21st Century Revolution book I said this along these lines: “There are many aspects of a winning strategy, but the one that I have come to believe is most fundamental, the one that is the key link to the social transformation process so urgently needed, is this: building and deepening a way of working together and developing organizations that is collaborative, respectful, democratic to its core and which, as a result, is truly transformative, built to last.” (pps. 22-23)
In other words, we need a way of working which puts love for others at the center. And this is true for each of us in the way we go about our organizing work whether we are Christian, religious in some other way, agnostics or atheists.
Vance speaking about his “concentric circles” approach to loving others is, however, of value. It helps to deepen our understanding of what is motivating him, Trump, Musk and other leading MAGA’s, with corruption and dishonesty at obscene levels among the billionaires and power-hungry politicians who lead this retrograde movement.
Fortunately, not all who voted for the MAGA’s in 2024 are this far gone. Polls and other developments, like the recent victory of a Democratic State Senate candidate in Lancaster County, Pa. in a district held by Republicans since 1889 (!), are concrete evidence of some MAGA disillusionment. Our job as progressive organizers is to do the visible and activist movement-building and outreach right now to keep this momentum going. Next up for all of us should be taking part in the massive and extensive April 5th Hands Off action this Saturday.
We must hold fast to the vision of a world where, yes, “do unto others as you would have done unto you” is a guiding principle of how human societies are organized. We’ll only get there if we live our lives accordingly.
Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.
Ted Glick has devoted his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973, he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August 1974 resignation. Since late 2003, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May 2006, he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October 2015. He is a co-founder (2014) and one of the leaders of the group Beyond Extreme Energy. He is President of the group 350NJ/Rockland, on the steering committee of the DivestNJ Coalition and on the leadership group of the Climate Reality Check network.
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