By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Who can be president? 

Did you ever have a response to a political announcement that made you shake your head in despair? I did recently and my reaction made me worry even more about the future of our country. What caused my dilemma was reading that Pete Buttigieg was deciding if he wanted to run for the Senate or for the presidency. I greatly admire Buttigieg and think he would be a wonderful president. So why was my first reaction that he should definitely not run for president? Because in a country that voted for Donald Trump for president, a country that is rolling back rights for the LGBTQ community and taking personal medical decisions out of the hands of women, I don’t think that, as a gay male, he stands a chance of being elected. That’s right: I don’t think a woman, a person of color or someone from the LGBTQ community can be elected president in the current climate. If the Democrats want to win the next presidential election, then the candidate needs to be a straight, cisgendered, white male. And that thought makes me profoundly sad. 
Before you say, “Wait, we had an African American president,” let me remind you that the current backlash against minority rights began when Barack Obama was elected president. While I think Obama is a wonderful human being, I don’t think he was a great president. He was just too nice. Sometimes a president needs to fight and fight dirty, but Obama never did that. He never even called out the racism that was clearly part of the Republican response to him. That party worked hard to prevent any legislation Obama put forth from being passed, even if it benefitted their constituents. One example is the opposition to the Affordable Care Act. That included people who falsely insisted that the act would result in death panels. (By the way, we already have death panels: they’re called insurance companies and they can refuse coverage for needed live-saving treatments, leaving people to die.) 
As much as I hate to say it, we have to eliminate a number of wonderful candidates because of the bias against minorities if we want a different type of president in office in 2029. That is, if we even have an election. The image of Trump dressed as a king that was recently shared by the White House is even scarier than my fear that no minority will ever again be elected president. Even if the image was a joke, it was not a funny one because the potential destruction of our democracy is not a laughing matter. 

Ukraine

Repeat after me: In 2022, Russia began a full-scale aggressive invasion of Ukraine. Let’s be clear, this was truly an act of unwarranted aggression. If you are going to talk about Ukraine causing the war by not wanting to cede territory to Russia or because it wanted to join NATO, then you have a problem. A sovereign nation has the right to its own territory and the right to pick its alliances. The reasons Russia puts forward are its way of excusing its act of aggression. That excuse is not a great one if you consider the American past.
Do you know that Japan felt that it had good reason to bomb Pearl Harbor? The country was trying to stop American interference with its desire to conquer parts of Asia. After all, the British, French and other European countries had colonized a good portion of the world and Japan felt it had the right to do the same. In addition, the United States had taken control of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the Spanish American War. The U.S. also annexed Hawaii during that war, which had been an independent territory. Japan didn’t see why anyone should prevent it from becoming an empire.
If we object to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, then we should feel the same about what is happening in Ukraine. So, please repeat the following until you stop believing the fake news being offered by our president and Vladimir Putin: In 2022, Russia began a full-scale aggressive invasion of Ukraine. That was an illegal and immoral act.