In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, you’ll likely see a lot of “election information”-type posts on social media and digital ads. Not all of these are legit.
For instance, a website called Vote Safe, at Votesafe.org (I suggest using an incognito window if you want to look at it), is made to look like an official and reliable website to help you register to vote. Instead, it will collect a bunch of your personal information, which it can then sell or share with campaigns, but it will not register you. The site is run by America PAC, Elon Musk’s super PAC.
Instead of that site, go to Vote.gov. This nonpartisan site is run by the federal government. It won’t collect your personal info and it will link you to the official election information in your state. Once at your state’s election website, you can get information like your registration status, polling place, voting hours, and a preview of your ballot.
Another website I sometimes use is Ballotpedia.org, which is run by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Lucy Burns Institute. This website is good for seeing candidate issue positions, which can be especially helpful for the less-publicized races.
As you become inundated with election information, keep in mind that some of these sources will be reputable nonprofits; others will be untrustworthy, angling for partisan advantage. Knowing which is which requires discernment. A site asking for personal information like your name and address isn’t necessarily a bad actor, but it is a red flag. Proceed with caution.
What We’re Reading
CNN: “Inside the Texas courtroom where toddlers face immigration judges”
Most of the children, dressed formally with neatly styled hair, waited impatiently for the judge. Among the first to appear before the judge was a 13-year-old Honduran boy named Angel. He didn’t have an attorney.
Asked whether there was a reason he couldn’t return to Honduras, Angel told the judge, “My mom and almost my entire family are here. It’s too dangerous to go back.”
But that wasn’t enough for the judge, who told the boy he did not qualify for asylum. “Would you like to request voluntary departure, or should I issue a removal order?” The judge asked.
“I don’t know,” Angel replied before bursting into tears. He stared ahead stoically and continued to cry, eventually saying: “I have no one. I have nothing.”
“I understand, but based on your answers, US immigration laws are very strict,” the judge concluded, and gave Angel until the end of the month to appeal his deportation order.
The Bulwark: “An Evangelical Kingmaker Is Lost in the Age of Trump”
The Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit was once a marquee political gathering for evangelicals and their allies in politics. But at this year’s event in Leesburg, Virginia, decline was evident everywhere, from the downsized venue far outside the Beltway to the sparse attendance and general lack of interest from elected officials. When the organization’s leader, Tony Perkins, addressed the audience, it became clear that he has been relegated to the D.C. sidelines after enjoying years of high-contact play as a leader in the anti-abortion movement.
Perkins’s position had once made him something of an evangelical kingmaker. But those who followed his lead in earlier times now largely get their information and political impetus from a shrinking number of online channels or from Trump himself. Perkins’s voice doesn’t resonate the way it once did with conservative audiences. This became clear from watching the crowd while he spoke.
Christianity Today: “The Anti-Gospel of American Politics”
This is the story Jesus told his followers to embody. It is the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and, practically speaking, we embody it by obeying the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ other teachings. “If you love me,” Jesus said, “keep my commands” (John 14:15), commands of meekness, mercy, purity, peace, courage, and self-sacrificial love, even for our enemies (Matt. 5).
None of that “works” in our political climate. This climate is, in Hauerwas’s words, one of “mendacity and fear.” Our politics lie to us about people who are not like us, making us angry and afraid. Are all Republicans racists and fascists trying to pull this country into tyranny? Are all Democrats Marxists trying to brainwash children and overthrow the family? The answer is obviously no—but lies like this are everywhere in our country. They teach us to “bite and devour each other” (Gal. 5:15), even our siblings in Christ.
It is in exactly this kind of turmoil that the church of Jesus is called to stand as a witness to an alternative story, a story where God makes his enemies his friends and offers them a place at his table (Rom. 5:10). If that is not the story we’re telling—if the loudest thing we’re saying is a Republican story, a Democratic story, or any story from American politics—then the world will not hear the truth of Jesus, nor will we ourselves be able to hear God’s story rightly. We will tickle our own ears and ultimately clog them to the truth.
WSJ: “Homeland Security Money Financed Pro-Trump Television Ads”
The Trump administration used federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security to finance a set of controversial pro-Trump advertisements that recently began airing on television, according to people familiar with the matter.