Our worry about fake news is more corrosive to our trust in media and in institutions than actual fake content has been. We wonder if we can trust anything we see.
Debra RienstraMarch 7, 2020
But perhaps individual virtue-modeling (what we used the call “the character question” in American politics) is not the only question. What if we also ask whether our leaders create an atmosphere that cultivates virtues?
Debra RienstraNovember 10, 2018
Shakespeare is right to show us that there is no guarantee of reward for choosing integrity and mercy. Over against the example of his sources, Shakespeare eschewed a reparative ending. In Shakespeare’s final scenes, the noble among the younger generation pay a heavy price for…
Debra RienstraSeptember 29, 2018
Since we have entered the Age of Resistance, it’s important to keep one’s protest muscles well-toned. With all the marching, kneeling, standing, sitting, walking out, gesturing, and pumping of hand-lettered placards up and down—not to mention furious typing on Twitter—ordinary citizenship in the United States…
Debra RienstraMay 26, 2018
Here’s how it works. If you don’t like what a person or news article or books says, you pronounce it “biased,” and you’re done. You have destroyed the person or source’s credibility. No need to consider what is being said on its own terms. End…
Debra RienstraJanuary 6, 2018
In any case, Evangelicals of the contemporary American variety have always felt to me like the cousins my family visits only once a year for a day or two on out-of-state road trips. We are related, of course, but when we get together our differences…
Debra RienstraSeptember 23, 2017
“There are two elements of the constitution, wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867, the efficient and the dignified. … The efficient has the power to make and execute policy, and is answerable to the electorate. … The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient, and…
Debra RienstraDecember 17, 2016
I’m grieving. Not because I have policy disagreements with the winner. Not because the lady didn’t win. Those things matter, but it’s so much bigger than that. I’m grieving because a person who rode to power on a calculated surge of hatred and bigotry, who…
Debra RienstraNovember 12, 2016
Last Friday, when the Trump video hit the news like a meteorite, my spouse spent the day watching the reaction in the news media and Twitterverse and reporting back to me every hour. By evening, we were floating on waves of Schadenfreude, wickedly enjoying the…
Debra RienstraOctober 14, 2016
