After a month of heavy travel, the Convocation team was all back together for our live show, which we do the first Thursday of every month. This week—for two weeks in a row—we brought mostly good news to the conversation. We talked about the most important lesson from the blue wave 2025 election results: that an authoritarian future is not inevitable.

Just one year into the Trump presidency, there are signs that everyday Americans are stepping up to say that Trump’s lawlessness, chaos, cruelty, and corruption are not in fact what they want in a president. In Virginia, for example, while 80% of white evangelicals continued to vote Republican, 7% of 2024 Trump voters flipped and supported the democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger. The exit poll breaks by race and gender showed that majorities of every subgroup voted for Spanberger except white men. Latinos in Virginia and New Jersey, who moved toward Trump in 2024 largely over economic concerns, moved strongly back into the democratic column because of both continued economic stress and objections to ICE and harsh immigration enforcement. And importantly, people participated in the democratic process. Turnout was high for an off-year election, which was conducted freely and fairly. We spent the last half of the call taking questions from the live audience.

The group discussed Robert's manuscript feedback from his editor and Diana's experience promoting her book "A Beautiful Year" at events, leading to a decision to focus the podcast segment on exploring Robert's book themes rather than PRI studies. The panel shared holiday traditions and decorations, particularly focusing on interfaith celebrations and the liturgical calendar. The main discussion centered on Diana's new book "A Beautiful Year," which examines alternative narratives to Christian nationalism through the lens of the liturgical calendar, with participants exploring its themes of hope, harmony, and peace while discussing its academic and theological foundations.

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This week, we spent most of the show talking about some important signs that the resistance to Trump’s authoritarianism is finding its feet. This week MIT and eight other universities stood together and refused to sign agreements to allow the Trump administration control over their admissions, research, and teaching in exchange for preferential treatment in disbursement of government research funding. Over at the Department of Defense, all five major broadcast news organizations—including Pete Hegseth’s previous home Fox News (must have been awkward!)—refused to sign a document that would give the government control over stories they wrote about the military and DOD. While their reporters were required to turn in their security badges, they vowed to continued their critical reporting from outside the building. There continues, of course, to be some disturbing news, such as the chilling racist, homophobic, sexually violent, and antisemitic language uncovered among a large, ongoing Young Republicans’ private group chat. We wrapped by talking about the importance of the upcoming No Kings rallies scheduled all over the country.

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Jemar Tisby- JemarTisby.Substack.com