When Demanding Political Perfection Leads to Tyranny

 The Andrew Branca Show

Vice President JD Vance is widely perceived as the most likely candidate to be America’s 48th President, followed closely by the excellent Marco Rubio.  And certainly Vance presents many personal and professional qualities one would seek in a President of the United States, not least his patent love of nation. 

The elephant in the room, of course, is that JD Vance is married to a woman, Usha, who although born in America is in many ways culturally Indian, including in her religious dietary practices. 

This at a time in American history when we seem awash in tens of millions of Indian migrants who appear utterly resistant and disinterested in assimilating into our American culture, instead establishing their own ethnic enclaves, arguably engaging in predatory take-over of many American industries that were traditionally paths of upward mobility for American citizens, and to a large extent making America less America and more Indian—which would seem to be in neither the interests of America nor India.

This has led some prominent voices on the American political right, perhaps more accurately termed the nationalist right, meaning prioritizing the interests of the American nation over other interests, to proclaim that if JD Vance is the candidate they will decline to cast a vote in the 2028 Presidential elections on the grounds that they are not interested in voting for an American president with an “Indian” spouse. 

Nolte — Report: Trump Backs Vance over Rubio as 2028 Successor

Anna Moneymaker/Getty

John Nolte

24 Jul 20264,199


President Trump has a luxury problem on his hands: Does he choose Vice President JD Vance as his successor or Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Both are remarkably gifted politicians. Both are trusted and well-liked by Trump’s MAGA base. Both are more than capable of defeating whichever loser the Democrats sacrifice in 2028.

What to do?

What to do?

Well, for now at least, according to this report from MS Now, Trump sees Vance as his chosen and likely successor.

“For months, Trump treated Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as something like rival contestants, polling aides and donors on the two men and floating each as a possible heir without tipping his hand,” reads the report. “In recent weeks, that has stopped, according to five people familiar with the president’s running commentary on the race to succeed him in 2028.”

The apparent tipping point was Vance’s successful book tour, where he walked out of interviews smelling like a rose after parrying with the harridans on The View, with Bill Maher, Megyn Kelly, and various Fox News hosts.

Trump is also reportedly happy about Vance’s recent weight loss and his work leading the antifraud task force.

This paragraph, though, makes the most sense to me:


Whether Trump was ever really weighing Vance against Rubio is itself contested. Camps for both men have insisted that any rivalry between the two has been overblown and that Trump has historically enjoyed keeping potential successors competing for his favor rather than settling on one.

A good manager, and Trump is obviously one, knows how to create a productive (rather than toxic) climate of competition to get the best out of people.

And let’s not forget that Rubio has already stated and restated that if Vance chooses to run in 2028, he won’t challenge him.

Rubio is young enough (55) and talented enough to make an excellent vice president for Vance before running for president himself at a relatively young 65.

But let’s face it, both men are made of presidential timbre. Both are superbly gifted politicians. Both dwarf anyone currently huddled on the Democrat Party bench. Kamala? Gavin? Pete? AOC? Whatever.

The thing is that no matter whether it’s Rubio or Vance, Trump will still rule the MAGA roost. That might sound like a bad thing, but it’s not. He is the force that holds that base of support together, and that base is what has won two presidential elections — some people might say three.

Finally, Rubio and Vance seem to genuinely like one another. Granted, you never know about these things. After all, everyone said Barry Obama and Hillary Clinton liked one another when we all knew they didn’t. Still, the public has an instinct for these things, and JD and Marco both seem secure enough in who they are not to let political aspirations get in the way of a genuine and mutual respect. Besides, they can help one another reach those aspirations. Honestly, if they don’t allow pettiness and jealousy to sour their friendship, this could be remembered as one of history’s great and effective political partnerships.

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Losing Democrat Candidate Charges 13 Bucks For Water After Dumping $24,000,000 On Failed Bid

Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images

Anthony IafrateAssociate EditorMarch 18, 20261:29 PM ET


Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois held an election night party that featured a cash bar charging nearly $13 for water and soda and over $20 for wine.

The campaign of Krishnamoorthi, who lost the Democratic Illinois Senate primary Tuesday, hosted the celebration at The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago, according to a photo shared by Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Gregory Royal Pratt. The reporter, who stated in an X post that he was in attendance at the party, enclosed a picture of its cash bar’s pricey drinks menu —which listed water and soda at $12.85 a drink, domestic beer at $15.34, premium beer at $18.03, and wine or spirits at $21.87.

“In case you’re wondering, the senate candidate has spent more than $20 million on succeeding [Democratic Illinois Sen.] Dick Durbin but the campaign party is cash bar,” Pratt wrote in his post.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) records list the total receipts of Krishnamoorthi’s failed campaign as over $30 million, its total disbursements at about $24 million, and its cash on hand at nearly $7 million, for coverage ending Feb. 25. Meanwhile, Democratic Illinois Lt. Gov. Stratton’s victorious campaign listed only $4 million in total receipts, just under $3 million in disbursements, and more than $1 million in cash on hand, for the same coverage period.

Border Czar Tom Homan Holds News Conference in Minneapolis

Meet Maya Handa, the campaign manager behind Zohran Mamdani’s historic win in New York’s mayoral polls

Handa was appointed to the role in July this year, succeeding Elle Bisgaard-Church, and is credited with helping Mamdani steer his historic campaign to victory against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

By: Express Web Desk
New Delhi,November 6, 2025 06:06 PM IST

Handa has also been associated with prominent national and local figures including former New York Representative Jamaal Bowman and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. (LinkedIn, AP)

Maya Handa, a rising name in progressive political circles, served as the campaign manager for New York’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani. She was appointed to the role in July this year, succeeding Elle Bisgaard-Church, and is credited with helping Mamdani steer his historic campaign to victory against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Before joining Mamdani’s team, Handa managed State Senator Zellnor Myrie’s unsuccessful mayoral bid and had previously worked with Mamdani during his time in the New York State Assembly as per a report by NYT. Known for her experience in progressive politics, Handa has also been associated with prominent national and local figures including former New York Representative Jamaal Bowman and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

According to CNN, Handa has collaborated with the Working Families Party, a key progressive force in New York City politics. Mamdani’s campaign statement also highlighted her previous work with Queens Assemblymember Claire Valdez and Brooklyn Councilmember Shahana Hanif, though those roles were not listed on her LinkedIn profile.

Obama privately backs radical socialist Zohran Mamdani for New York mayor

Antonia Langford
Sun, November 2, 2025 at 9:03 AM EST

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, has been widely projected to triumph in the race - Stephanie Keith/Getty Images


Barack Obama praised Zohran Mamdani in a private telephone call on Saturday, with just days to go before the New York City mayoral election.

The former US president described Mr Mamdani’s campaign as “impressive to watch” in the call and offered his services as a “sounding board”, according to The New York Times.

Mr Obama, still a highly influential voice in the Democratic party, has avoided intervention in municipal contests since he left office and has not endorsed any candidate publicly in the New York race, which will go to the polls on Tuesday.

In the phone call, which lasted roughly 30 minutes, Mr Obama expressed his support for Mr Mamdani’s success beyond the election and discussed the challenges of staffing a new administration and how to enact the frontrunner’s policies of affordability in the city.

The 34-year-old relative newcomer in politics has seen a meteoric rise in the polls since his shock victory over Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, in the Democratic primary in June, and has long been widely projected to triumph in the race.

Mr Cuomo is running against him again as an independent candidate, while Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, is the Republican nominee.

But Mr Mamdani has been slow to attract endorsements from major holdouts in his party, who have attempted to sidestep association with his radical, far-Left policies.

After distancing himself from Mr Mamdani for several months, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, finally endorsed the Democratic nominee on Oct 24.

The division is also symptomatic of the rudderlessness of the Democratic Party, which is suffering from a crisis of identity as it continues to reel from sweeping losses in 2024, which saw it squeezed out of power in the federal government.

But the Democrats have been flocking to lend their support to a knife-edge vote in neighbouring New Jersey.

Mr Obama made an appearance at a campaign rally there on Saturday evening in support of Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat running for governor against Jack Ciattarelli, a Trump-endorsed candidate.

NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani trolled over 'Aunt In Fear After 9/11' remark

NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani trolled over 'aunt in fear after 9/11' remark

Northeast Live

Oct 28, 2025 #newyorkcitymayoral #zohranmamdani #muslimnewyorkers

Liar, insensitive: NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani trolled over 'aunt in fear after 9/11' remark

New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani has found himself in deep trouble after netizens detected inconsitencies in his claims that his aunt feared travelling on a subway in a hijab following the 9/11 attacks.

Mamdani has a massive backlash on social media, with netizens accusing him of lying and faking Islamophobia.

Last week, Mamdani recounted how Muslim New Yorkers, including his aunt, have lived with fear and humiliation since the attacks. First let's listen to what Mamdani said about his aunt last week.

'No Kings' protesters in NYC explain why they are voting for Zorhan Mamdani...

Cuban-born biotech honcho enters NYC mayoral race seeking to upset Mamdani: ‘I despise socialism’

By
Rich Calder
Published Aug. 16, 2025, 10:31 a.m. ET

He’s the anti-Mamdani.

A Cuban-born biotech entrepreneur decided to make a longshot bid for NYC mayor because he loathes the radical left-wing ideas pushed by socialist frontrunner Zohran Mamdani — and saw just how dangerous they are in real life, he told The Post.

“I was raised in a socialist communist society, so I am the antithesis of Zohran Mamdani’s ideology,” declared Joseph Hernandez.

“In fact, he’s a motivator for me to fight in this race. I despise socialism. I am a believer in the American dream. I’m a believer in capitalism. It’s not perfect, but it’s lifted more people out of poverty than any other ideology,” he said.

Hernandez dismissed the notion his run for mayor would split votes between those seeking an alternative to the current frontrunner, socialist Zohran MamdaniHernandez for NYC / Facebook

Zohran Mamdani meets with powerful Democrats in D.C. in hopes of getting...

NYC Mayor Adams: ‘This Is Not a City of Handouts’ | WSJ News

Zohran Mamdani Is a Public Menace

Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks at an emergency rally held by the Working Families Party to criticize the Trump administration after ICE agents arrested Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark and New Jersey Democratic candidate for governor, at Foley Square in New York City, May 10, 2025. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

By The Editors

June 23, 2025 6:30 AM

National Review is typically not in the habit of weighing in on Democratic primary races. But, even were we not founded and headquartered in New York, the fate of the world’s most important city would still matter to us, as it does to America. Therefore, decency requires us to state the obvious: Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old progressive candidate in tomorrow’s election for the Democratic mayoral nomination, belongs on nobody’s ballot — whether ranked first, fifth, or 100th.

Mamdani — acknowledged by all to be the only candidate threatening the resurrection of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s political career — is currently the progressive darling of New York, which on its own terms is enough to disqualify him for the position he seeks. He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, with a list of campaign promises that revisits nearly every discredited left-wing fantasy of the past decade: universal health care, rent freezes, the use of “social workers” as opposed to policing to control urban violence, etc. His most prominent campaign initiative is a promise to eliminate city bus fares, a fantasy which would, if implemented, blow a hole in the MTA’s budget and inevitably lead to service reductions. He has also advocated the eventual implementation of a $30 minimum wage.

New York City need only look at the fate of Chicago — with its ultraprogressive and despised mayor, Brandon Johnson — for a truer vision of the sort of future Mamdani is advertising. Instead, we oppose Mamdani’s moral unworthiness: He is worse than a democratic socialist; he is — as evidenced by an adult life’s worth of political actions — a deeply committed pro-Hamas activist and advocate for the abolition of Israel.

Mamdani has stated repeatedly — including during a recent mayoral debate, when pressed directly on the issue by both Cuomo and the moderator — that he does not believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. Invoking (by now) familiar code language, he instead argues that Israel can only exist “as a state with equal rights” — that is to say, the “right of return.” A week ago, in an interview, Mamdani refused to condemn use of the phrase “globalize the intifada” — universally understood as a call to bring Hamas’s particular tactics of “resistance” to the Western world — and doubled down by favorably comparing the term to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

These are not fashionable or late-adopted positions for Mamdani. While in college at Bowdoin, he co-founded his school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. For years (including during his brief tenure as an assemblyman), Mamdani has been a vocal supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement designed to academically and intellectually isolate Israelis and Zionist Jews from Western scientific discourse. He has repeatedly and emphatically called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.” In 2017, he recorded a rap song sending his “love” to the “Holy Land Five” — leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development convicted in 2008 of providing “material support for terrorism” to Hamas. Perhaps most tellingly of all, when news of the October 7 massacre first arrived, Mamdani issued a statement saying nothing about Hamas; he instead called for “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”

The mayor of New York has a job unlike that of any other politician in the United States. Theoretically, he is just another local politician; in reality, he is a representative for America on the global stage, the leader of the most important metropolis in the free world, the gathering place of the United Nations. The city is also home to more Jews than anywhere outside of Israel, a population increasingly threatened by hatred and violence. For the sake of the city, America’s global reputation, and simple decency, voters should leave Zohran Mamdani’s name off their ballot altogether. He is not merely the worst choice on offer; he is unacceptable under any circumstances.

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Maxine Waters Punished For Accepting Illegal Donations

(Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)\\

Andi Shae Napier

Congressional ReporterJune 02, 202511:57 AM ET

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ congressional campaign has been fined $68,000 for violating several federal campaign finance laws during her 2020 reelection bid.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) recently published investigation documents showing Waters’ 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, understated contributions and spending by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Waters campaign has agreed to pay the fine and “send its treasurer to a commission sponsored training program for political committees,” nonpartisan campaign finance research group OpenSecrets reported. (RELATED: Maxine Waters Has Four-Minute Meltdown Shouting About How Much She Dislikes Trump, Musk)

U.S. Attorney holds news conference on indictment of NYC Mayor Er...

No stranger to the Vatican, Biden has a rocky past with US church

Elise Harris

Apr 27, 2019

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT




U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, are greeted by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in 2013. (Credit: L’Osservatore Romano/CNS.)



ROME - Now that Joseph Biden has officially tossed his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination as President of the United States, he’s quickly become his party’s presumptive front-runner despite the fact that he’s tried twice before without notable success.

Although the nineteen months between now and November 2020 represent several lifetimes in American politics, meaning anything could happen - and then unhappen, happen again, and metamorphosize into something else entirely by the time all is said and done - should Biden actually succeed in unseating Donald Trump, he would bring to the job a wealth of experience in engaging the world’s preeminent “soft power,” i.e., the Vatican and Pope Francis.

Biden and his wife are both Roman Catholics and regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. He wears a rosary on his left wrist, a gift his younger son, Hunter, gave to his older son, the late Beau Biden, after a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Biden’s experience of the Vatican while holding political office dates to at least June 2011, when he traveled to Rome for an unannounced private visit to then-Pope Benedict XVI. President Barack Obama had met Benedict in 2009.

As the Vice President from 2009-2017 under Obama, Biden was the highest-ranking Roman Catholic in America at the time. He was in Rome to mark the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.

Details of Biden’s encounter with Benedict, which was not included on the list of the pope’s regular scheduled events that day, were never provided. However, it is believed part of the discussion focused on the U.S. role in the Middle East since both Biden and Benedict had met with other political officials the same day to discuss the issue.

Two years later, Biden returned to the Vatican for the inauguration of Pope Francis’ papacy in March 2019, leading a delegation that included House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Republican Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico.

Chasten Buttigieg emerges as Mayor Pete's secret weapon

Alex Gangitano
5 hrs ago

© The Hill Chasten Buttigieg emerges as Mayor Pete's secret weapon 

Chasten Buttigieg has emerged as a star in the Democratic primary, becoming a key part of his husband Pete Buttigieg's campaign and helping the South Bend, Ind., mayor stand out in a crowded field.


The 29-year-old school humanities and drama junior high teacher from Michigan not only functions as a much sought-after campaign spokesman and adviser, but he is also helping humanize the first gay major presidential candidate in a country that only legalized same-sex marriage four years ago.

But as Pete Buttigieg, 37, becomes a major contender for the nomination, questions are emerging about whether the gay couple will have the same appeal in more conservative parts of the country as they do with Democratic primary voters.

"The bigger question is: if he were to win the nomination how voters in key states who might not know any married gay couples and be uncomfortable with their relationship may react, and I think that remains to be seen," Tim Miller, former communications director to Jeb Bush and GOP strategist.

For now, as Pete Buttigieg, also widely known as Mayor Pete, has surged in the Democratic polls, so has the attention lavished on Chasten Buttigieg, who took a leave from the Montessori Academy to join him on the campaign trail.

Though Pete Buttigieg is not the first gay candidate to seek a party's presidential nomination -- Fred Karger ran in the Republican primary in 2012 -- he is widely seen as the first with a genuine shot at winning.

And he has done so by making his biography as a gay Christian millennial, Rhodes Scholar and Afghanistan war veteran a key part of his campaign, including his love for Chasten Buttigieg.

The couple speak openly about their relationship, including how they met through a dating app, their first date, and their marriage in 2018. They also own two dogs, Buddy and Truman, and Pete Buttigieg has talked about eventually having kids.

Chasten Buttigieg now introduces his husband at some stops and also branches out on his own, including addressing the Human Rights Campaign in Houston and visiting the Ali Forney Center, a shelter for homeless LGBTQ young people, in New York.

Pete Buttigieg's husband has also seen his social media following surge, and now counts over 100,000 followers on Instagram and around 300,000 followers on Twitter -- more than some of the 2020 candidates in the race like Reps. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) or Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

That visibility is unusual for a spouse or partner at such an early stage in the primary process, let alone a gay couple that remains one of the youngest in the Democratic field of over 20 candidates.

"Its still very odd for me to see what the most normal looking couple, or the least fretful," said Mark Rom, associate professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy, "is the gay couple in the race."

No other Democratic contenders has seen their partner or spouse have such a visible part of the campaign, though they have made brief cameos, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) husband in an Instagram video. Meanwhile, actress Rosario Dawson has talked about dating Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Watch: Bernie Sanders Speech To Kick Off His 2020 Campaign

February 19, 2019 12:58 pm







Brothers and Sisters–

I am writing to let you know I have decided to run for president of the United States. I am asking you today to join me as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least a million people from across the country.

Please join our campaign for president on day one and commit to doing what it takes to win this election.

Our campaign is not only about defeating Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history. It is not only about winning the Democratic nomination and the general election.

Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.

Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic and political life. I’m talking about Wall Street, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry and the large multi-national corporations that exert such an enormous influence over our lives.

Our campaign is about redoubling our efforts to end racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry and all forms of discrimination.

Our campaign is about creating a vibrant democracy with the highest voter turnout of any major country while we end voter suppression, Citizens United and outrageous levels of gerrymandering.

Our campaign is about creating a government and economy that works for the many, not just the few. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. We should not have grotesque levels of wealth inequality in which three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of the country.

Inter-America Division Embarks on Mission to Seek Former Church Members

 Libna Stevens

Intentional outreach initiative was launched territory-wide through an online program.
3 Min Read


Published on: 2 days ago

It’s no secret that people leave the church. This fact has Seventh-day Adventist leaders in Inter-America focused on a major initiative to seek and reconcile thousands of former members across the more than 22,000 churches and congregations in the territory.

Coined as the Inter-American Division (IAD) “Ministry of Reclaiming and Discipleship of Former Members,” the initiative was officially launched through an online program on January 12, 2019, from Miami, Florida, United States.

Seeking Missing Members

“This is a very important moment in the life of the church in Inter-America,” said IAD president Elie Henry as thousands watched in churches and offices online. “We must change the course of our actions and consider a new way of reaching [former] members and ensure to have a loving and friendlier church community.” 

Vatican to Host Conference on ‘Migration, Xenophobia, and Politically Motivated Populism’

Getty 16 Jun 2018

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has announced a joint venture with the Vatican to co-host a meeting next September on “migration, xenophobia, and politically motivated populism.”

The WCC said it is partnering with the Vatican department for Promoting Integral Human Development in preparing the conference to be held September 17-20 as part of ongoing work toward “peace-building and migration.”

The General of the WCC, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, said the meeting would be a “very useful and significant workshop to dig a bit deeper” into the problems of xenophobia as an expression of populism, as well as its links to racism, conflict, and violence in countries around the world.

Last September, the Vatican launched a two-year campaign to change people’s minds about migrants and to encourage a more welcoming attitude toward them worldwide.

“Brothers, we mustn’t be afraid to share the journey! We mustn’t be afraid to share the hope!” Francis said in his weekly General Audience on September 27, in which he inaugurated the new project, titled “Share the Journey.”

The global Catholic charities network Caritas Internationalis spearheaded the campaign in its aim to promote awareness and action on behalf of migrants and refugees, assisting them in building connections with local communities.

According to Caritas, the project was launched as a response to Pope Francis’s frequent summons for a “culture of encounter.”

Our world “faces not a migration crisis, but a crisis of global solidarity,” Caritas said on its website. “Be part of a worldwide campaign to reach out to migrants, change perceptions, open hearts and minds, and strengthen the bonds that unite us all.” 

‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaign aims to stop plans for longer trading hours

UNITED KINGDOM



British Christians give 5 reasons to respect Sundays. A The Guardian columnist argues politicians “worship the god of finance.”

SOURCES Relationships Foundation, BBC, The Guardian AUTHOR Evangelical Focus LONDON 13 JULY 2015 17:12 h

A shopping centre in the UK. / Archive

“We believe in having time for family, friends and community. We believe in time to rest and enjoy ourselves. We believe in working hard and living life to the full. And we believe in keeping just one day a week a bit special”, say the ‘Keep Monday Special’ campaigners. 

Many evangelical Christians support the campaign, propelled by the Relationships Foundation, asking the question: “Do I really need to go shopping on a Sunday?” 

“We don't want to tell people how to live their lives, but we do believe there need to be some limits to protect the things that matter most”, the initiative says.

Five reasons are offered for their case. Sundays should be kept as a special day to protect relationships, because “children need to spend time with their parents for healthy social and moral development, and adults need time to develop the relationships with partners, family and friends that give them support and well-being.”

A second reason is the preservation of community: “Sunday trading has a direct effect on a local community. Every voluntary organisation, club or society depends upon people having time off at the same time as each other. So with the erosion of Sunday as a different day from all the rest, communities are in danger of increasing fragmentation.

A third reason is saving local business: “When the big stores started to open on Sundays, the small convenience stores that used to be the only source of Sunday supplies suddenly lost valuable trade. The local independent traders that never used to open on Sundays suddenly found themselves having to open in order to keep up with the competition”.

Respecting faith is reason number four argued by the campaign: “For many people in this country, Sunday has a particular religious significance as a day set aside for worship and a day that's different from the rest of the week. Of course it's a view that's not shared by everyone in our multicultural Britain, but it's a view that we should respect.”

Finally, the campaign asks Sundays to be kept to just rest: “For many people, the choice to rest on a Sunday is one they can make for themselves. But for many others, there simply is no choice. Retail, transport, catering staff and everyone else involved in Sunday trading need protection from being forced to work on Sundays.” 

Shopping in the UK. / Getty Images


GOVERNMENT: “GROWING APPETITTE” FOR SUNDAY SHOPPING

UK’s government Chancellor George Osborne said in the last weeks that there was a “growing appetite” for shopping on a Sunday.

“There is some evidence that transactions for Sunday shopping are actually growing faster than those for Saturday. (…) The rise of online shopping, which people can do round the clock, also means more retailers want to be able to compete by opening for longer at the weekend.”

The Treasury pointed to research by the New West End Company - which represents more than 600 businesses in London - that suggested two extra hours of Sunday trading could create nearly 3,000 jobs in the capital.

It said such a move would also generate more than £200m a year in additional sales in London.

‘Keep Sundays Special’ accused the government of a U-turn. Its spokesman, Michael Trend, said it had received a letter on behalf of David Cameron in April which stated that there were “no plans” to relax the current laws.

COLUMNIST: “GOVERNMENT WORSHIPS GOD OF FINANCE”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, must get in the way of shopping and our ever increasing productivity. Instead of all those tedious family gatherings, we should be out there buying more things we don’t need with money we don’t have”, ironically writes Giles Fraser in a column in The Guardian. “A day of rest? God, no! We must be turning those wheels of finance, building those pyramids, getting into more debt.”

Fraser, who is Priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington (London) thinks the Conservative Party in power only thinks about growing the economy. “A strict monotheist, Business Minister Anna Soubry wants us to worship the god of finance on a Sunday. All other gods must be smashed, smeared, ridiculed. Only the god of money deserves our true and unquestioning obedience. Well, I do wish she’d stop ramming her religion down our throats.” 

So why is Sunday special?”, continues Fraser. “The Christian answer is more complicated than expected. Early Christians moved their ‘day of rest’ from the seventh day of the week to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday. Despite the fourth commandment mandating Saturday, ie seventh day, sabbath observance, this move was partly a way of honouring the resurrection, which happened ‘on the first day of the week’; partly about distinguishing Christianity from Judaism; and partly a way of colonising the posh Roman sun-worshipping day.”

Fraser adds: “Unfortunately, most Christians and Jews have conveniently developed a remarkable degree of forgetfulness about the political valence of sabbath.”

He finally adds that “there are perfectly good non-religious reasons for keeping Sunday special. Boredom is the mother of creative invention, and often a blessing. But it’s special to me because it’s a day when we are not forced to worship the market. And that’s why the Tories hate it”, concludes Fraser.


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