Charlotte's Web Thoughts

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

While she was at Howard University, Vice President Kamala Harris worked at McDonalds to earn spending money, and now that she’s the Democratic nominee for president, the rightwing blogosphere is attempting to push the absurd conspiracy theory that she lied about it.

They apparently realize it’s not great that Donald Trump—infamously gifted enormous sums of money from his father coming out of college—is being juxtaposed with VP Harris making french fries and working the cash register, and they’re freaking out about it.

And they should be freaking out about it. While Trump was born with a silver foot in his mouth (thank you, Ann Richards), Vice President Harris has had to actually, you know, work in a job familiar to working class families who are struggling to make ends meet.

Here’s the heart of their claim: because VP Harris didn’t put McDonalds on resumés and job applications after college, this must mean she’s lying. They’re now demanding proof that the Vice President worked at the Golden Arches almost 40 years ago.

Okay, lemme explain why this is ridiculous.

During my junior and senior years in high school, I worked at Papa John’s Pizza, and in case you’re wondering, yes, it definitely sucked. I took orders, dealt with angry customers, made pizzas, folded boxes, and spent a lot of time simply cleansing the store of dough dust and marinara.

I earned $5.15 an hour the entire time I was there—about 18 months—and despite two excellent job reviews (perfect scores, thankyouverymuch), I was denied a pay raise on both occasions because our regional manager was a greedy little man who cared more about his margins than his employees.

But the thing is… despite this being less than 20 years ago, with a corporation that very much still exists, I have zero proof that I worked at Papa John’s. None. Zilch.

I have no name tags, no uniform shirts or hats, no pay stubs or copies of my W-2 or employee documents. I have no pictures of myself in a Papa John’s polo and khaki shorts. I have no way of contacting my former colleagues and boss because I’ve forgotten their last names. Because, you know, 20 years and all.

The location itself was shuttered by Papa John’s many years ago, probably somewhere around the end of the Bush Administration.

I never put my time there on any resumé or applications, including for the few odd jobs I worked between high school graduation and joining the Army.

All I have to prove that I worked this shitty minimum-wage job as a young lass are the promise of an affidavit from my grandmother, the permanent muscle memory earned from folding many thousands of pizza boxes, and a lingering resentment toward late stage capitalism.

In the eyes of the rightwing blogosphere, I never worked at Papa John’s, and to be fair, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I’d love to forget that I ever worked there, so, maybe, in my particular case, their bad faith could be obliquely read as a blessing.

This is a pretty common experience for minimum-wage laborers from working class families who have the opportunity to get a college degree and enter the salaried ranks, long separated from keeping corporations afloat for dollars an hour.

So, if I, twenty years down the road, can offer no tangible proof that I worked at a fast food joint, it’s not one bit surprising that the sitting Vice President hasn’t offered up a McDonalds cap wore almost 40 years ago.

It’s also not one bit surprising that so many in rightwing media don’t understand this common experience of those who came from working class families and hunched over an oil vat for hours at low pay to make ends meet.

These are the same people who claim raising the minimum wage and mandating universal health care and requiring paid family leave for working class families will somehow irreparably harm our economy.

They are detached from the struggles of workers, led by an egregiously entitled and effete Nepo-Baby-in-Chief, and to compensate, they’ve decided to show their asses by attempting to erase the experiences of a progressive politician who understands, firsthand, what workers experience.

And they’ll do this while sitting in fast food drive-throughs and being served by the same folks whose livelihoods they spend every waking moment of their privileged lives trying to make harder.

Same as it ever was.

By the way: Papa John’s Pizza sucks. Get your pies elsewhere.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

Folks, we’ve been here before. We know how this will end. It’s no mystery what happens next.

I will never begrudge anyone who offers a good faith critique of elected officials, even ones I really love, because good faith criticism is essential to a healthy democracy.

There are plenty of valid reasons to critique Vice President Harris and Governor Walz because I recognize that the Democratic Party and the progressive movement are not monoliths and certainly not cults.

I would say it’s absolutely correct to claim that the Democratic Party’s biggest strength is that its a “big tent” — there are a wide range of opinions and priorities, and so often, these clash in disagreement. And that’s a good thing.

That disagreement makes us stronger. We can have hard conversations and come out the other side better for it. We are the party of iron sharpens iron.

But where I draw the line in this election is the completely absurd, selfish, absolutely ridiculous claim that “both parties are the same” and then making the profoundly selfish and narcissistic decision to sit this one out because Vice President Harris isn’t saying and doing everything you want.

Good faith criticism is fine, even healthy, and certainly encouraged when it’s actually productive. But threatening to not vote or signaling to others that it’s fine to not vote doesn’t make you a progressive; it makes you a childish clown who clearly doesn’t understand the stakes.

Pick your issue, any of them, and there’s a chasm of difference between Vice President Harris and Trump. And it’s not even close.

Angry about late stage capitalism? Trump will brag about making billionaires richer, laugh off the struggles of working class families, and sell the state to the highest bidder, all for his lining his own pockets.

Angry about Gaza? Anyone being even the least bit honest with themselves knows that the horror inflicted on Palestinian civilians through Netanyahu’s cruelty and incompetence will be several magnitudes worse under Trump. If you wanna give Bibi a blank check, root for a Trump victory.

Angry and worried about climate change? If you think progress on that has been soul-crushingly slow, wait until Trump strips away every existing environmental regulation and jokes about it in the Oval Office.

Angry about our two party system? Pissed about our duopoly? Hey, Trump’s got you covered there, too. If he wins, you’ll never have to be angry about two parties ever again. Under Project 2025, there’ll only be one party, and it really won’t be a party. It’ll be an insecure tyrant costuming as a party.

You won’t have to worry about voting because even if you technically get to vote, it won’t be counted. You won’t have to worry about protesting, either, because the growing, fascist Supreme Court majority will figure out a way to curtail that to a toothless action, if not outright banned.

The most anodyne thing that can be said about this election is that it’s the furthest thing from normal; the most honest thing that can be said about it is that our country—and the world—will never recover from a Trump victory.

If you thought the first Trump term was horrible, trust me when I say the suffering inflicted on innocent people by a second Trump term is only limited by your imagination.

Actually, that’s not wholly accurate. Describing it as a “second term” implies he’ll leave office when his actions and words have consistently suggested otherwise.

Saying or implying that you’ll sit this one out because Vice President Harris doesn’t meet your threshold of political purity and you’ll simply back a more progressive candidate in 2028 against then-President Trump is the height of selfish naiveté.

Expecting anything approaching a free and fair election in 2028 with Trump back in office would almost be comical in its absurdity if it weren’t so terrifying.

Nothing matters more than stopping Trump this November.

Every progressive cause, every progressive conviction, every progressive goal you have will fare many, many times worse under Trump.

Our definitive purpose right now should be electing Vice President Harris.

If you think this is “vote bullying” or whatever, I really and truly don’t give a s**t. I could not care less about the feelings of people who are so stridently self-absorbed that they would intentionally put the lives of countless millions of vulnerable people at direct risk because of their insufferable performativity.

Be critical about our elected officials and be loud about it. That’s encouraged.

But claiming there “isn’t really a choice here” is b******t, and that’s why every reasonable adult is furious at anyone who frames this election on any one issue when Trump and his far-right acolytes could not be more clear that every issue you care about will be unimaginably worse under his power.

There are no other options on the table.

Either you choose the brilliant, experienced, and progressive Vice President—who actually cares about what happens to all of us and is hellbent on doing something about it—or you get the aspiring fascist who will literally sacrifice anyone for his own ego and ensure you don’t ever get a choice again.

I would tell you to consider and choose wisely, but in this election, it shouldn’t take considerable wisdom to figure this one out.

Basic common sense will do just fine.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

Today, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck dropped a major story detailing North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s particularly troubling history of online posts in a messaging forum.

Made between 2008 and 2012, the posts include Mr. Robinson referring to himself as a “Black Nazi,” expressing support for the reinstatement of slavery, fondly reminiscing when he enjoyed “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a teenager, and admitting that he enjoys watching transgender porn.

The first three of these things are completely and undeniably wrong, but, of course, I have a terrible feeling we’re about to see a news cycle in which considerable shaming will be projected on Mr. Robinson from various corners for his private porn viewing habits.

And that would not only be missing the point but harming trans people in the process.

I don’t give a damn what any consenting adult is or isn’t into, does or doesn’t do, when it comes to their sexual interests. It’s absolutely none of my business, nor is it anyone else’s. It’s not my place to judge the consensual and private sexual practices of any other adult.

If a non-trans adult has a kink for trans people, I really don’t care, and moreover, I really don’t wanna know. I would prefer not knowing how they privately fetishize trans folks, and also: I see nothing wrong with them doing what they want in private, so long as they keep it to themselves and act in a consensual manner.

The problem here is that central to Mr. Robinson’s political brand is an aggressive and cruel dehumanization and shaming of trans people, in addition to the LGBTQ community generally.

Mr. Robinson has called for trans women to be arrested for using public women’s restrooms and went further than that, stating that if trans people need to use a public restroom, we should “find a corner outside somewhere.”

Like dogs, of course.

Mr. Robinson has promoted the completely absurd, misogynoir conspiracy theory that former first lady Michelle Obama is secretly a trans woman (he called her a “man”) and implied that she and former president Obama are secretly a gay male couple, slander which is often thrown at Black women public figures.

In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were brutally murdered and 53 wounded, Mr. Robinson posted on Facebook:

“…homosexuality is still an abominable sin and I WILL NOT join in ‘celebrating gay pride’ nor will I fly their sacrilegious flag on my page. Sorry if this offends anyone, but I’m not falling for the media/pop culture ‘okey-doke.’”

Mr. Robinson has stated that LGBTQ people are the downfall of civilization and referred to us as “devil worshippers,” which, I must say, as a Christian trans woman, is certainly news to me.

This is all in addition to his Holocaust denialism, frequent invocation of horrible antisemitic tropes, beliefs that women should neither have the right to vote nor breastfeed in public, statement that Muslim Americans are “invaders,” and consistently holding that abortion should be entirely outlawed, without any exceptions, despite having paid for an abortion himself.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more this sad, cowardly, insecure person has said and done throughout his public life that makes him beyond disqualified, many times over, to run for any elected office.

So, am I surprised that Mr. Robinson viciously attacks trans people publicly while enjoying transgender porn privately? Not even a little. It is the opposite of shocking.

He is simply part of a long pattern of MAGA extremists who weirdly sexualize the bodies of trans people and are deeply unsettled by their own desires and bizarrely address that internal quagmire by projecting their conditioned self-loathing and resulting rage on those of us who are trans.

I don’t care about Mr. Robinson’s sex life, and I really don’t want to know anything about it. And I certainly have no interest in shaming him for his consensual sexual interests, mostly because that would require knowing about them and again: I don’t wanna know. Nor do I have the right to know.

If we were the last two people on earth, and it were his dying wish to confide in me his transgender kink, I would politely decline, wish him a smooth exit of his own, and mercifully alone, wait for Death’s sweet embrace, peacefully and blissfully unaware of his interior life.

I just wish he and other Trump acolytes wouldn’t feel the need to make their sex lives our business through this constant and cruel projection.

Perhaps that’s an extraordinary request for extremists like Mr. Robinson, and yet, here I am, naively hoping they’ll someday understand such a simple concept.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

A few months ago, in the midst of the national fervor over President Biden’s debate performance, I was in a pretty terrible mood listening to it all and decided to take a long walk through D.C.

I put on some sunscreen, popped in my earbuds with a good playlist, and took a stroll around town, about an hour later finding myself on a residential street.

As I was wandering down the sidewalk, I saw a cyclist approaching from the opposite direction pretty fast and carrying a 7/11 Big Gulp in one hand, his other paw on the handle bar.

Before I could process my curiosity over the balance and hand-eye coordination it takes to do that, he tossed the cup, underhand, in a high arc, right onto the grass divider between the street and the sidewalk.

He had passed by a public trash can not thirty yards away at the intersection. He simply decided to deposit his garbage there, on the grass, and let someone else clean it up for him.

Like I said, I was already in a bad mood, and this just pissed me right off. I was also stunned because who the hell does that? Without really thinking, I tried shouting something, but all that came out was a weak, anger-tinged “Hey!”

He heard me, and without turning his head around, tossed up his right middle finger, formerly holding up the Big Gulp, and sped away.

So, now, I felt both angry and ridiculous for saying something, and then I felt angry at myself for feeling ridiculous for saying something.

Did I mention I was in a terrible mood and the whole point of this walk in the D.C. summer heat was to reset and clear my head?

I took a few moments to calm down. I told myself that I was probably making way too much out of the actions of this dorkass, inconsiderate weirdo, and then, I walked over and picked up the ice-rattling Big Gulp and threw it in the trash.

I was still incredibly annoyed, but if I can be emotionally undone by some random, littering clown, isn’t that on me? That’s what I told myself, anyway.

A week-and-a-half later, my friend Gautam invited me to a matinee showing of “Funny Girl” at the Kennedy Center, a much needed reprieve from the never-ending hell that had become July. It was fantastic. We had a great time. I felt better than I had in weeks.

I walked for several blocks after the show and decided to call a ride home. While I was sitting in the outside section of a restaurant on that street and waiting, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a woman slowly making her way down the sidewalk.

She was wearing a floppy hat and carrying a trash bag and a litter picker (there are, apparently, many names for this device, but I’m going with that one). I watched as she meticulously made her way down the sidewalk, grabbing every bit of trivial debris she could find and tossing it in the bag.

She was clearly focused on her task of cleaning the street, and I didn’t wanna interrupt but my curiosity got the better of me.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, can I ask: are you with an organization?”

There were probably more elegant ways to inquire, but my sleep-deprived brain was doing the best it could.

She looked up at me, offered a kind (and perhaps bemused) smile, and said: “Nope, this is just something I like to do.”

Ah.

“Well, thank you for doing that,” I replied. “I hope you have a lovely day.”

“Of course! You have a lovely day, too.”

My ride pulled up a moment later. On the way home, as I sat in the backseat, I couldn’t help but regret letting myself get angry at Trash Cyclist a few weeks prior, allowing, even for a second, someone that uncaring to get to me. What a waste of my emotional energy.

Our country has always had people like Trash Cyclist, folks who have given up on moving through the world with empathy and consideration for those around them, people whose chronic nihilism has metastasized into the public square and everyone around them is forced to clean up their mess.

That’s the uncharitable take, of course.

Maybe the charitable take is that Trash Cyclist was having a bad day, too. Maybe tossing his garbage on the street and flipping off a complaint was uncharacteristic. Maybe his life sucks right now because the world hasn’t shown much consideration and empathy for him.

That’s possible. I don’t personally know the guy. Perhaps if I ever got to know him, I’d learn that he’s got a lot of pain inside from any number of unfair things life has thrown his way and has no idea how to deal with it and tossing a Big Gulp in the street like a complete dillweed is his response.

It ain’t likely, mind you, but I can’t deny that’s possible.

But the thing is: when I felt enraged that day, furious at our political environment and then taking out my anger on this dipstick-on-wheels for throwing his trash on the sidewalk, I made choices myself. I chose to get angry. I chose to remain annoyed.

Sure, I threw away the cup, which took all of ten seconds, but I could have made the choice to get a trash bag and clean up that whole sidewalk myself. It wouldn’t have taken long, maybe ten minutes total.

I could have done something kind and thoughtful in response to something maybe done out of hurt. It probably would have made me feel better.

But I didn’t make that choice.

No one asked that woman in the floppy hat to spend her afternoon cleaning up the sidewalks in her neighborhood as an unappreciated public service. She simply chose to do it because it needed to be done, and it made her feel better.

I think we’re living through a time in which it’s much easier for us to decide that the world sucks and society is exhausting and why even bother? It may not manifest in tossing our garbage in the streets, but maybe it does manifest when we let that distract us to anger rather than service to each other.

I think there’s often a great courage in consistently centering an imperative to serve others we don’t know, especially when it’s thankless. I admit it’s not a quality I’ve yet mastered.

I promise these two individuals are not shoehorned stand-ins for Vice President Harris and Trump. I don’t know the respective politics of the Lady in the Floppy Hat and the Trash Cyclist. They’re complete strangers, and I only saw them both in mere snapshots of their lives.

But I do think that conscious effort to serve others, to do something for the greater good as an antidote for existing mess, an often thankless approach, is magnificently embodied by Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz.

I think if they’re consistently doing that and I’m not, when I certainly have the time and space to do so, any grievances I have over our national community maybe don’t hold as much water as I’d like to think.

Maybe I need to carry a folded-up trash bag with me on those long walks and do something about it.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

All of us kids were sleeping in my mother’s room when the gunshot went off. The three of us who weren’t holding a gun woke up almost immediately. My mother, improbably, slept through it.

I sat up, obviously startled and a bit foggy, and saw my younger stepbrother, almost four at the time and barely over three feet tall, standing next to me and facing the bedroom window.

He was holding a small revolver, a faint trace of smoke billowing from it. I turned in the direction of the window, and there, in the early morning light, was a bullet hole in the center of the glass and a spider web of cracks extending in each direction.

Being the eldest, five at the time, I immediately woke up my mother, who took a few seconds to absorb the situation and then quickly grabbed the gun.

Everything after that is a blur, like a photograph misted with bleach. I vaguely remember the cops paying a visit. I vaguely remember my mother in a frantic state, but I don’t remember what was said.

Her second husband—my first stepfather—kept the handgun in the top drawer of their nightstand. It was not secured in any way. No trigger lock. Loaded, obviously. And my stepbrother and I knew it was there. We knew it was there because he didn’t keep it a secret.

I don’t know remember exactly what happened next. I don’t recall either of them being arrested or detained. I don’t think CPS was called. No one had been hurt, and so, I guess it was decided there would be no further consequences.

My mother and I only spoke about it once. I must have been nine or ten. She had escaped that abusive marriage a few years prior. We were sitting in the living room, just the two of us, watching television. I asked her if she remembered it.

She took a drag from her cigarette, never breaking eye contact with the television, offered a long exhalation into the air, and said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And that was that.

Maybe six months later, my father moved back to Texas, and we’d visit him on the weekends. He’d decided I was at the age where I needed to start learning about gun safety. He bought me a .22 caliber rifle for Christmas, and the education began immediately.

He drilled four rules into my head: 1) always treat any firearm like it’s loaded (keep it on safe), 2) never point a firearm at anything you don’t intend to shoot; keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, 3) never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot, and 4) always store the firearm properly.

He took me to the gun range numerous times. He showed me how important it is to wear proper ear and eye protection. He taught me how to shoot and the proper terminology and gun range etiquette and how to clean a firearm.

“This is not a toy,” he told me. “This could kill someone. You could kill another person or yourself if you’re not careful. Don’t ever let me catch you treating this like it’s not a deadly weapon.”

He taught me that there are no accidents, only irresponsible gun owners. Firearms may malfunction, but if you’re following a handful of common sense rules, no one will be killed. There are no “accidental deaths” when gun owners are responsible.

He kept my firearm and all of his locked in a safe in his bedroom. He showed me the trigger locks he put on the firearms. He never told me the combination to the safe or where the keys were kept. He told me I didn’t need to know, and that was that.

He also did something else: he told me that any time, no matter what he was doing, if I wanted to see any of the firearms, hold them, check them out, whatever, all I had to do was come to him and ask.

My father and I struggled to connect. We didn’t have the same interests, he was not one to be vulnerable, and trying to talk to him about life was like pulling teeth. We were not close, to say the least.

But the five or six times I asked to see the firearms, he immediately stopped what he was doing, led me over to his bedroom, asked me to stand completely outside of eye line while he punched in the combination, and then, he would hand over the guns and let me check them out.

He never rushed me, never left me alone with them, and patiently answered every single question that came to my mind about guns or shooting. I don’t mind admitting that I would occasionally ask to see the firearms because it was consistently the closest we ever got to bonding.

When I was done, he’d store the firearms back in the safe, remind me of the rules of gun safety, and we’d go on with our day.

I never did tell him about the incident with the revolver when I was younger, and I never told him that his educating me on gun safety removed any and all anxiety I had about firearms from that incident. He absolved the fear I had about them. I’ve never been afraid of guns since.

But I am afraid of the wrong kind of people having access to guns. I’m afraid of irresponsible people owning firearms. I fear for children in homes in which guns are left out in the open, displayed behind glass panes or kept on a wall rack.

I fear for children whose parents keep a handgun in an unlocked glove compartment with no trigger lock or under a pillow or nestled in the top drawer of a nightstand.

It is impossible for children to steal firearms from responsible gun owners. If an adult who owns firearms does everything they’re supposed to do—keep them secured in a safe, use trigger locks, teach about the importance of gun safety, etc.—no child, regardless of age, would steal them.

I firmly believe that any adult whose child “steals” their firearm and kills another person should be held criminally liable to the fullest extent. At minimum, they should be charged with involuntarily manslaughter.

I think if any adult fails to properly secure their firearm and its theft leads to the murder of another person, they should be required, on top of criminal charges, to publicly apologize to the loved ones of that slain human being and pay for their funeral expenses.

I think firearm ownership in our country should be as strictly regulated as car ownership and driving privileges, and I feel this is common sense.

I believe in responsible gun ownership under a rational application of the Second Amendment, and I realize there are some progressives who aren’t exactly thrilled with that position.

I also believe that civilians shouldn’t be permitted to legally own AR-15s and their variants or any other weapon that has no reasonable justification being in civilian hands, and I realize there are some conservatives who aren’t thrilled with that opinion.

The gun reform debate has room for many valid viewpoints, and yet, somehow, it’s become the most absurd public policy discussion in our country, overwhelmingly due to the bad faith witnessed on the right in response to children being horrifically and needlessly slaughtered at their schools.

None of the NRA loons are able to reasonably explain how a 14 year-old had access to a firearm in an environment with supposedly adequate gun laws, so instead, they'll yell as loudly as they can that an amendment written in the time of muskets is more important than your kids' lives.

I sure as hell don’t buy it, and I don’t think any responsible adult does, either.

We owe the children of this country a lot more.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

It always amuses me when some folks who are into hyper-traditional marriages claim that progressives are out to destroy them or that we’re somehow offended by their existence.

Folks, I don't know how else to tell you this: we don't give a damn how you decide to proceed with married life. You're grown adults. As long as you both enthusiastically consent, we don't care what you do.

If you both want to build and decorate your home to early Eisenhower America specifications, with only the husband working while the wife stays home in heels, a polka dot dress, and an apron, and you both gleefully seek to live out your Lucy & Ricardo fantasy life, go for it!

If your ultimate dream is finding a spouse whose conservative views on marriage and family would make the ghost of Phyllis Schlafly pay a midnight visit to warn that maybe you’re going too far, enjoy! Go chase your happiness. If you both want that life, no one else’s opinion matters.

It ain't none of my business. I couldn't care less.

The problem comes when you need everyone around you--not just friends, not just family, but every person in the country--to personally validate, and seek emulating, your home life.

The problem is when your entire personality revolves around aggressively proselytizing your marriage and family structure to everyone else, and should anyone decline, they immediately become an enemy of America and Sweet Baby Jesus and all that is good.

J.D. Vance is really not that much of an outlier. There are millions of conservative men in this country who clearly can't stand the thought of marriages that look very different from theirs, let alone the concept of any grown woman living her best independent life.

Or the fact that these men are so deeply threatened by husbands who stay at home and take care of the kids and don’t anticipate any longterm consequences to their sense of masculinity should they pick up a broom and dustpan occasionally.

Then there’s the whole TradWife phenomenon, in which all these women who post TikToks claiming to solely desire having a godly submissive role in their marriage inexplicably need all other women to want exactly the same thing.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve never met a confident person whose worldview precariously hinges on the outlook of every stranger they meet.

The weirdness isn’t the part where two adults enthusiastically agree to a life together that happens to work best for them but isn’t my cup of tea; it’s when they become obsessed with weighing every other marriage against theirs that it gets very weird.

I don't think I've ever given two seconds to wondering about consenting adults in a hyper-traditional marriage. If that's what they want, great! Why would I care?

But when you turn your hyper-traditional marriage into a relentless PR campaign and political movement for which the obvious end goal is to exercise some degree of control over the marriages of others, we're gonna think that's pretty damn weird.

Because it is.

As the next Vice President of the United States so eloquently says it: Just mind your own damn business.

I hope this helps.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before.

A Navy SEAL, a doctor, and an astronaut walk into a bar.

They’re all the same guy.

Last week, NASA announced that 40 year-old U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Jonathan “Jonny” Yong Kim will deploy to the International Space Station in March onboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-27 with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky for eight months.

It’s the latest extraordinary chapter in the life of Dr. Kim, who previously served as an enlisted Navy SEAL early in the Global War on Terrorism before completing undergrad, whilst earning an officer commission, and subsequently graduating from Harvard Medical School.

While finishing an internship in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Kim applied to the NASA Astronaut Corps after meeting physician-astronaut Dr. Scott Parazynski and was selected as part of Astronaut Group 22 in 2017.

Okay, so, obviously, this is an all-timer professional trajectory, so profoundly accomplished that it’s hard to imagine it inspiring any degree of career jealousy in the hearts of his peers because, honestly, any reasonable adult has to ask: what caliber of human being could even do all this?

If the LinkedIn summary of this man’s life was all you had to go on, maybe certain assumptions would be front-of-mind. Maybe you’d think he had an especially nurturing childhood. Maybe he had particular advantages, even with hard work, that made the above possible.

That’s where his story, at least for me, gets even more mind-boggling.

Dr. Kim was born to Korean American immigrants a few years after they arrived in the United States. They were a working class family. His father struggled with alcoholism and was abusive. His mother attempted to make the very best of a volatile home life. Neither had a college education.

Growing up, Dr. Kim took on the role of a protector for his mother and younger brother, constantly shielding them from the violent outbursts of his father. In high school, this came to a head when his father, armed with a handgun, threatened to kill his mother.

Rushing to his mother’s aid, Dr. Kim was pepper-sprayed and bashed in the skull with a dumbbell by his father.

The police were called to their home. After learning he was barricaded in the attic and likely still armed, authorities cordoned off the house. There was a standoff, shots were exchanged, and his father was killed.

Despite the overwhelming trauma of this early horrific experience, Dr. Kim kept focused on his childhood dream of serving as a Navy SEAL. He enlisted in 2002 after high school graduation, eventually completed training with BUD/S Class 247, and got assigned to SEAL Team Three.

He was primarily trained as a combat medic but soon completed the highly competitive SEAL Sniper Course and then deployed twice to Iraq, undertaking over a hundred combat missions and earning the Silver Star and Bronze Star (w/ valor) along the way for life-saving actions.

So, you got this guy who went through an especially rough childhood but overcame it to flesh out a sterling career any of us would admire. The odds were long, yet the success has been off-the-charts. So, as a person, it wouldn’t really be surprising to find out he’s a bit cocky, right?

I’ve watched several interviews with Dr. Kim and dozens of video snippets of his fellow Navy SEALs discussing the man’s character and professional competence. I highly recommend the five-hour podcast chat he did with retired SEAL officer Jocko Willink.

(By the way, Mr. Willink is an exceptional interviewer and does a fantastic job of guiding the conversation throughout.)

There’s also a standout, hilarious clip in which two of his fellow SEALs talk about a presentation Dr. Kim made during Sniper School that was so deeply impressive that all they could do was laugh when remembering it. Definitely watch it.

Here’s what’s abundantly clear: there may not exist a greater chasm between the professional achievements of one human being and the unyielding humility and selflessness they inhabit.

Dr. Kim’s fellow SEALs have nothing but high praise for him in a community that is not known for its penchant to publicly acclaim any of its living brothers given all who have made the ultimate sacrifice. So many clips I’ve watched were SEALs bringing up Mr. Kim unprompted and in glowing terms.

In watching his interview with Mr. Willink, I was quite taken with the numerous times Dr. Kim answered questions about his service in the framing of his SEAL brethren and other fellow service members, always reverting back to those lost and their sacrifices.

I don’t know how else to put it, but there’s such a pure humility in this man that comes across as steadfastly authentic, almost appearing to be embarrassed that his accomplishments would be discussed at all.

As I’ve done research on Dr. Kim, I’ve come across too many predictions to count that he may one day—and should be—president, which struck me as not only true but somehow—ironically—unlikely.

It’s not for his lack of ability. If Dr. Kim could understandably be described as a political novice given that his entire career has been spent outside of formal politics, it’s difficult to think of any political novice more likely to be equal to the task.

You get the sense that if he were thrown into the Oval Office tomorrow and without warning, Dr. Kim would find a way to make it work. Hell, you get the sense that if you told the man he needs to learn how to juggle flaming swords, he’d come back an hour later with a routine set to music.

No, it’s the relentless selflessness so clearly at the core of his being that might be the only factor of skepticism, particularly in a political system disinclined to reward selflessness as a prevailing characteristic.

In Dr. Kim’s own analysis, he’s not perfect. He’s made growth-ready mistakes throughout his storied career, listened to advice, made adjustments as necessary, and always focused on self-improvement and most importantly: the team, the team, and the team.

While speaking with Mr. Willink, he said this: “I'm not gifted. I'm not smarter than everybody else. I'm not stronger. I just have the ability to stick to a plan and not quit."

And that’s a great value statement, but in honor of Labor Day, here’s one that resonated even more with me:

“You should never think you're too good to do a job. And I think you should be like that in everything you do. 'Be a forever new guy' is what I try to emulate… never think that you are above taking out the trash.”

Well said, Sir.

Jonny Kim is the kind of American who makes me hopeful about the future of our country and the kind of leader who best expresses, by example, the greatness we should all aspire to.

I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

I’ve had a nagging feeling over the past several years that there’s an important aspect to evangelical church culture in the United States that’s been consistently overlooked, or simply unknown to most of the public.

I was a senior in high school when I became a Christian, and while I was certainly primarily motivated by Christ’s teachings, there was another factor that played an enormous role in keeping me going to church: the warmth of community.

My family had been fractured and fraught all throughout childhood, so when I was invited by a friend to her church service, I was taken aback by the easy embrace of belonging there. I say that in the general sense, of course. Being queer, for example, was not-so-welcome. More on that in a second.

I was in that church for nine months prior to my enlistment in the Army, but when I arrived at my duty station in Washington, D.C., I eventually found myself attending another church on a friend’s invitation, which was also evangelical.

This was in 2006, and back then, the public’s understanding of political motivation behind predominantly-white evangelical congregations was not nearly as savvy as it is now. Being invited to that church didn’t carry with it immediate alarm bells. If anything, it felt like a welcome invitation.

I had been trying for a year to find community in D.C. because I certainly wasn’t gonna find it on base. The soldiers of my age and rank were far more interested in partying all the time, which is perfectly alright, but it just wasn’t my thing. I had a hard time finding human connection. I was lonely.

Walking into that D.C. church on the first Sunday was a balm. There was so much joy and excitement. I could tell that folks wanted to be there, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. There was a very strong familial vibe to it all, and it didn’t feel forced at all. Quite the opposite.

I was immediately greeted at the door. Throughout the service and afterward, so many folks I didn’t know came up to introduce themselves. They were kind and lovely. I would later learn this was simply the culture. New congregants were readily embraced and made to feel at home.

Before I knew it, I was spending all my time with folks in their 20s and 30s who attended the church. Being just 19—and thus, one of the younger folks in the group—I never felt pressured or put upon. I was just one of the gang. They quickly became my friends, and at long last, I found community. I found family.

I still keep in touch with many of those friends, and I certainly don’t regret that period in my life. Most of these folks were good people who simply loved Jesus and enjoyed spending time around others who felt the same. We all had friends outside the church, but that particular bond was (mostly) rock solid.

The problem came over time in ways that were unexpected and often jarring. Some people I met through the church would occasionally bring up, say, LGBTQ rights in not-so-kind ways. Same for abortion and other hot button issues.

They would offer unsolicited political opinions to me that, quite frankly, even then, at my relatively young age, felt half-baked at best and asinine at worst.

Gender roles were an ongoing theme. The pastors would often allude to the purpose of faithful men and faithful women. Men were supposed to be the leaders: in church, in family, in society. Women were supposed to lift up men.

This was all quite curious to me because our congregation had no shortage of women who were leaders outside the church: doctors, lawyers, military officers, Hill staffers, and a few academics. One woman in our church would eventually be elected to Congress.

And yet, it felt like we all constantly got the message from the pulpit that women should essentially defer to men in all areas of life. It would be couched in softer tones, but the thrust of that ideology was undeniable.

I recall a married couple inviting me to dinner at their home on the Hill. The husband was a former White House staffer, and the wife was an attorney. They both worked, but he explained to me that he made all the decisions for the direction of their family because that was God’s intention.

I was obviously closeted at the time, and his wife not only seemed perfectly at ease with the conversation but made a point in insisting to me that when I get married someday, I should understand that my godly responsibility is leading my future wife in all ways.

This accomplished lawyer told me she doesn’t make any decisions without her husband’s approval. She encouraged me to understand my future role in that regard.

To be abundantly clear, it didn’t work the other way around. They told me that her job was to advise him in their marriage but that he got the final say on everything. His relationship with God gave him a divinely-conferred authority to which, as a woman, she did not have access.

They were otherwise nice people, but that was the first night I recall feeling deeply uneasy. These were grown adults, and I still believe that what they consensually do in their own marriage is none of my business. But it was their insistence to a 19 year-old on what I should be doing that felt a bit off.

I think “grooming” is perhaps too strong a word, but looking back, it did feel more than a little inappropriate. It felt borderline manipulative. It felt like the dining room table at which we sat was within shouting distance of cultish behavior.

I would soon learn that this was pretty normal in the congregation: married couples telling young congregants what is and isn’t godly in marriage. And what their position should be on LGBTQ rights. And how they should feel about abortion. And any number of other things the far-right obsesses over.

I kept hanging out with friends in the church my own age, but I soon stopped accepting dinner invites to the homes of married couples. Something about it felt oddly orchestrated, like a pipeline in which lonely young people were taken under their wing and turned into God’s soldiers.

I was definitely a Democrat back then, and I wasn’t alone. There were a number of Democrats in our congregation, but they weren’t vocal, that’s for sure. They certainly weren’t as politically vocal as the Republicans, including all the pastors.

I realize a lot of folks reading this will say “and yet, you still stayed there,” but I promise you it’s not that simple.

Imagine you’re a young person away from home, especially a young person like myself without a healthy family to fall back on, and these wonderful people take you in and make you feel like one of their own—safe and welcome and worthy of love—and offer the warmth of family.

Try to imagine you’re a young person who has never been so loved, and suddenly, here are all these older folks who would do anything for you: help you find an apartment, coach you through a job application, take you out to dinner or a ball game, offer a personal loan.

Suddenly, you have loving parental figures for the first time in your life. How do you let that go? How do you reject their advice? How do you not seek their approval?

And meanwhile, even aside from that, you love your similarly-aged friends in church. You love being around them. They cheer you on, they show up when you need them, they make a point of being supportive. They’re simultaneously fun and grounding.

Yet at some point, I had to accept that my values were not compatible with this church, and I eventually left, which, I gotta tell y’all, was really hard. But what about the young person who, for whatever reason, can’t leave — perhaps afraid to lose that sense of family, despite misgivings?

Evangelical churches are exceptionally skilled at building loyal communities, and central to that dynamic is offering emotional nourishment to young people who are starved for a (mostly) judgement-free environment in which they receive the care and attention they’ve never had.

It’s not just young people. I knew plenty of older, unmarried adults—some without children, some with children—who seemed quite cemented in the social structure of the church, and I often wondered if they had anywhere else to go outside of it.

I’m not talking about older adults who are simply obsessed with their church community. That’s different. I’m talking about older adults who don’t have anything in the way of a support system outside their church community because they don’t know how to create one.

I believe loneliness is a highly effective driver of the evangelical movement.

In his book The Great Good Place (1989), the sociologist Ray Oldenburg popularized the concept of “the third place,” or spaces that most nourish us outside of home and work. Your home is your first place, work is your second place, and third places are all the other spaces that allow for creative human engagement.

Your third place is your book club, your recreational softball team, your local bar, maybe the park around the corner where you see friends regularly — all spaces which don’t have any explicit obligation to hold you but to which you voluntarily and regularly go for nourishing human interaction.

More and more Americans are now constantly online as their sole third place. This can be fine in moderation, of course, but do I really need to point out all the ways in which this could go very wrong? And often does?

The Surgeon General released a report last year that found about half of surveyed adults experienced “miserable levels of loneliness” even before the pandemic and that young people aged 15-24 had “70 percent less interaction with their friends” than American youth 20 years ago.

I often wonder how many folks in this country truly understand what it means to feel utterly lonely, unmoored and socially malnourished. And if folks who feel that way come across a community that does nourish them socially, can we really be surprised they make concessions to stay? Maybe you would?

I want to be clear: I am not suggesting that loneliness is to blame for the extremism coming out of pre-dominantly white evangelical circles. That’s absurd. What I’m saying is that there are absolutely vulnerable people who are driven into nonsense environments because that’s what’s readily available.

One reason the Harris-Walz campaign excites me is that it feels like a demonstrable inflection point for the country’s sociological infrastructure, particularly faith in public life.

The campaign honestly feels welcoming in ways that, arguably, no previous presidential campaign has been able to accomplish: the excitement of Obama ‘08 combined with the “we’re all one big family” vibe of Biden ‘20.

More than anything, this moment in our history feels like a rare opportunity to build bridges with others, reconcile our differences, and heal old wounds that have been so cynically inflicted by bad faith actors in elected office and political media. It feels like a possible Era of Non-Weirdo Community.

This is why I can’t seem to stop talking online about Evangelicals for Harris, the group that has stood tall against Trump—despite admonishments from other evangelicals—because they, too, see in Vice President Harris and Govennor Walz kindred spirits who are more aligned with Christ’s teachings.

The group has exploded in popularity over the past month on Twitter (now boasting more than 24,000 followers — definitely follow them), released several ads, been featured on MSNBC, and even got a surprisingly positive segment on Christian Broadcast News (CBN), a channel not exactly known for its progressive bent.

A few weeks ago, they organized a zoom call for VP Harris that was attended by thousands of evangelical voters and featured as a speaker Jerushah Duford, the granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham, alongside numerous other evangelical clergy and leaders.

Ever since the group launched, I’ve regularly wondered how many lonely people in evangelical circles might, for the first time, be seeing a non-judgmental offramp to faith spaces that can be nourishing and inclusive and reality-based.

I don’t know, y’all… this moment in our history really does feel quite different, and I have to believe it isn’t coming a moment too soon. Because where we’re going, we’re gonna need more bridges built. We’re gonna need welcoming spaces for people who don’t know where else to go.

There are a lot of stranded, lonely folks looking for a community they can call home but no apparent way to get there.

If we’re not reaching out to them and offering a bridge they can cross into the light, how can we ever blame them for sticking with the dimly-lit haunts they’ve only ever known?

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

We practiced with caskets that were stored outside our barracks building. To simulate the weight of honored remains, we’d toss several full sandbags into the belly of the casket, and then, for hours and hours, we’d go through our exact movements.

Over and over and over and over.

Those were hot and humid D.C. summers, and it didn’t matter. Drink water. And then back at it. We’d march up crisply, pick up the casket, go through the entire funeral protocol—with an earned coordination that would rival any synchronized swimming team—and then do it again.

The first summer I was in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), the A/C stopped working in our barracks. Think of the most depressing college dorm you’ve ever seen and remove air conditioning. We’d wake up in sweat in the middle of the night and open the fridge and stick in our face for a little relief.

We’d run through flag-folding drills at night in those hot barracks. We’d stand in the hallway in our casket teams, and we’d fold and fold and fold until we could do it in our sleep. Whatever you’ve seen in movies doesn’t come close. It is an exacting choreography. No movement wasted or erred.

Does the flag look perfect in presentation? Are the red and white stripes hidden? Are the stars symmetric? Is the cloth tight in the final form? No? Why the hell not? You’d give this to a mourning relative? Do it again. We will be here all goddamn night until you get this right.

Your exhaustion doesn’t matter. Better get some sleep. No excuses. I arrived at the unit as a 19 year-old Army private, not even being close to knowing that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. You sure as hell better learn and quick. Figure it out. Get yourself right. Pray if you’re the praying type.

Because families are flying in from all across the country for what will be one of the absolute worst days of their lives, shattered, maybe beyond repair, and all we can meagerly offer them is choreographed dignity in place of irreparable loss. It will never be close to enough. Perfection is never enough.

We’d spend so much time on our uniforms. There were presses in the basement. You think your barracks room is hot? Go downstairs and be hugged by steam. Learn how to use the press. Get those creases sharp. Eradicate all wrinkles. Ignore the sweat dripping into your eyes.

We carried micrometers with us to ceremonial details to ensure our uniforms were right — down to the centimeter. We’d shine every metallic surface on our bodies. What are fingerprints? We don’t know. We’d coat the soles of our shoes with edge dressing to turn them from grey to black.

I can’t believe I’m saying this now, but learning rifle manual and element marching was taking a break from everything else. Tedious as all hell. We wore steel plates on our shoes to click as we marched. They’d bang into our ankles at times, and you’d try not to swear. That was our break.

It was constant stress, all day, every day, and yet, we had it easy. If you want hard, go volunteer for the Tomb Guards. Go ahead and throw yourself into the actual deep end and find out if you can swim. Just raise your hand when they ask for volunteers.

Go to the Tomb, and work 18-hour days for months and months. You will learn everything there is to know about Arlington. You will memorize pages and pages of information. You will recite it all from memory, or you will fail. You will barely get sleep. You will have no life. There is only the Tomb.

I knew, deep down, I wasn’t ready for that. I respected it too much to raise my hand. I didn’t volunteer. My roommate volunteered. It was a curious decision on his part given that he struggled more than any other private. He definitely wasn’t ready, but God bless him for stepping up.

It takes nine months to earn the Tomb Badge, which, at the time, in terms of rarity within the U.S. military, was second only to the Astronaut Badge. Only 500 military personnel have earned the Astronaut Badge. Only 864 have earned the Tomb Badge. Walk in space or walk in front of the Tomb. That’s rarity.

My roommate was back with us in three months. He didn’t make the cut. Sink or swim at the Tomb. There is one standard: it is perfection and that’s all there is to it. He came back to us and had the sharpest, most squared away uniform in our entire company until the day he got out.

But the truth is that the Tomb Guards had it easy, too. We all had it easy. Because the hardest job in Arlington National Cemetery doesn’t involve wearing a uniform. The hardest job is being a cemetery official who is given the impossible task of bringing comfort to families.

I arrived at the unit in April of 2006. In January of 2007, Pres. Bush announced a dramatic increase in troop deployments to Iraq, now known as the Surge.

For three consecutive months that year—April, May, and June—there were over 100 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq — the deadliest year for U.S. service members in the Global War on Terror.

They came back in transfer cases on a C-130 at Dover Air Force Base, and I honestly don’t know how many of them wound up buried in Arlington. But I know there were a lot. I know we were pretty busy. All day carrying caskets or leading the caisson horses or marching behind them.

That’s not including the many fatalities in Afghanistan. That’s not including the old veterans who had passed and long ago earned the right to be buried there or their family members who qualified for burials, too. Funerals, funerals, and more funerals. That sums up 2007 for The Old Guard.

Who leads on caring for the families on one of the worst days of their lives? Who plays the painful combination of clergy and therapist to the aggrieved? Who does whatever they can for the ceremonial units? Who enforces respect for that hallowed ground?

Cemetery officials.

Day after day, month after month, year after year, it’s the cemetery officials, the civilians, some of them veterans, who undertake the ludicrously impossible task of cobbling together comfort and dignity for families who have had their hearts ripped out and stomped on by tragedy.

I can’t imagine doing what they do. If I were forced to make a choice between the public service they carry out for grieving families OR putting on a uniform to join a marching element, I’m going back to the steam room. At least in that procession, there’s an available freedom to be numb.

On Monday, according to reporting by NPR’s Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman, a cemetery official was allegedly assaulted and harassed by members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign because the official was enforcing a common sense regulation restricting filming or taking photographs.

Cemetery officials had issued clear guidance that only Arlington personnel are permitted to take video or photos in Section 60, the final resting place for those service members who were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Trump campaign staffers thought it didn’t apply to them. They were wrong.

Moreover, Arlington National Cemetery released a public statement confirming a report had been filed over the incident and included this bit:

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support, of a partisan political candidate's campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

What were Trump’s campaign staffers attempting to do that was so flagrantly in violation of this law that a cemetery official, in the midst of all their other necessary responsibilities, felt it necessary to step in and put a stop to it?

This comes almost two weeks after Trump, during remarks at a campaign stop, called the Presidential Medal of Freedom “better” than the Medal of Honor, a moment so completely and weirdly disrespectful that the VFW National Commander issued a statement condemning him.

This comes almost four years, nearly to the day, after reporting by The Atlantic that Trump had called American war dead “losers” and “suckers,” which was corroborated by several other news organizations, a senior official in the Defense Department, and a senior Marine Corps officer.

This comes more than eight years after Trump attacked and insulted the parents of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, drawing widespread condemnation from leaders in his own party.

This comes more than nine years after Trump slandered the military service of the late Sen. John McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years in captivity as a prisoner of war, being tortured, refusing to sell-out his fellow service members.

As you’ll probably recall, Trump stated: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

I fully admit to being a partisan, but for me, none of this is about politics because none of the Republicans or conservatives I have ever known would so much as consider showing anything but respect and admiration for our service members, our veterans, and their families.

This is not about favor for any party or campaign because the moment you enter Arlington, politics are to be left at the gate. It’s not about you or me or anyone other than those buried in that ground and their loved ones who will never see them again because of their collective sacrifices.

But Donald Trump is unwilling or unable to understand that because he cannot conceive of offering the highest degree of selfless service to our nation. The concept of “all gave some, some gave all” is entirely incomprehensible to him. And therefore, he cannot extend proper respect to our military.

I cannot wait for the time to come when this self-absorbed coward will permanently exit public life into a tarnished and thoroughly mediocre legacy that will haunt him for the rest of his days.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: [email protected]. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]

[NOTE: THIS IS A SATIRE PIECE WHICH I REALIZED MANY FOLKS WHO DON’T FOLLOW SPORTS TOOK QUITE SERIOUSLY AND EXPRESSED THEIR CONCERNS — I GUARANTEE YOU I WON’T MIX SPORTS, POLITICS, AND SATIRE AGAIN BUT FOR THOSE GET IT, DO ENJOY THE PIECE]Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has made a big deal about coaching high school football. The Harris-Walz campaign has boasted numerous times about his prominent role in leading the Mankato West High School football team to a state title in 1999.

This part of his public narrative has been so central to the campaign’s roll-out of his selection as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate that supposed former members of the team he claims to have coached were featured onstage at the Democratic National Convention last week.

Yet records show that not only did Gov. Walz never coach a football team at Mankato West—let alone win a state title with said squad—but there is no proof of any football team at Mankato West prior to 2006, according to a very quick Google search done right before publication of this reporting.

But first, some background for our readers.

The sport of football in its current form was invented in the 8th century on an island just west of the European continent that is now called Great Britain.

For many centuries, the game shifted sloppily into various offshoots with inconsistent playing frameworks until 1863, when a nine player committee representing a number of English boarding schools introduced a new set of regulations, now known as the Cambridge rules.

This coincided with the founding of The Football Association (FA), the world’s first national governing body for the sport, which still oversees the professional and amateur game in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man to this day.

According to the FA, the first sanctioned match under these rules took place on December 19th of that year between “Barnes and Richmond at Limes Field in Barnes,” which resulted in a scoreless tie, showing that even then the European sporting mindset was averse to outright victory.

Over time, the game spread beyond the borders of the island into other countries, which created their own regulatory bodies, and in 1904, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was established in Paris as the global authority for the sport, though England would not become a member until the following year.

Today, football is considered the world’s most popular sport, with billions of fans and established governing bodies in nearly every country. Every four years, in an offset schedule, the World Cup and the Men’s World Cup are played in a selected host nation and attract billions of viewers.

There is no record of Gov. Walz having ever been involved in football at any level, let alone coached a team in this sport to a championship, and repeated requests via phone and email to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment went unanswered.

When asked for comment or any documentation establishing the spurious claims made by Gov. Walz, the receptionist at Mankato West High School appeared to be confused by the request and then hung up.

We attempted to reach out to the supposed former players coached by Gov. Walz, but they were said to still be recovering from afterparties at the DNC and unavailable for comment.

A source close to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump offered that maybe Gov. Walz lied about his supposed coaching past because he hates America, which we duly report here to offer both sides an equal perspective on the matter.

We would like to directly ask Vice President Harris why her running mate blatantly lied to the public about his sporting achievements, but she refuses to hold a press conference, her campaign instead engaging with social media influencers on topics like national security, housing expansion, abortion rights, health care, and gun reform.

The next presidential debate is scheduled for Sept. 10th at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where we hope moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News will address Gov. Walz’s fabricated coaching record.

More on this story as it develops.

Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.