Walking and Chewing Gum at the Same Time. Faith and Political Power in the Public Square in US Catholicism

Walking and Chewing Gum at the Same Time Faith and Political Power in the Public Square in US Catholicism

By Dr Tarcisius Mukuka

Kwame Nkrumah University

Kabwe

Zambia

1. Introduction

According to the Online Free Dictionary, to “walk and chew gum (at the same time)” is a humorous, and in my view, typically American saying meaning, “To be able to do two or more things at once.”¹ The key is doing two or more things at the same time, which in theory should be par for the course, except for faith and politics. This is the case with the symbiosis between one’s faith or religion and holding political office, especially if the holder of the office is a Catholic and an American to boot. At such times, it seems as if the person in question is constrained to either walk (govern) or chew gum (practice one’s faith) or vice versa. Never the twain shall meet, it appears. A binary position is the default position. This is the challenge that faces Joe Biden as only the second Catholic President of the United States of America since John F Kennedy whose public Catholic faith was arguably questionable. Either he walks or chews gum, seems to be the expectation of the American Catholic hierarchy. Often used in the negative to convey ineptitude, I am spinning the saying more positively in favour of Joe Biden being able to govern and to practice his Catholic faith at the same time. The American Catholic bishops seem to be willing him to trip up on account of two Catholic litmus tests: abortion and gay marriage. In the process they are forgetting one simple fact: Joe Biden is President of all Americans. I think Sam Sawyer is right when he opines I agree with Bishop [Robert] McElroy that the theological reasoning around a national policy barring politicians from the Eucharist is destructive because it tries to achieve coherence through exclusion without enough concern for encouraging conversion. But while that point ought to be sufficient to warn the bishops away, it is not the only reason to avoid this course of action. A policy of exclusion will have destructive consequences not only because of what it says about the Eucharist but also because of what it says about abortion and the way the Church advocates for the defense of human life. By making abortion into a litmus test which predetermines how Catholics must vote in every circumstance, by failing to engage with the complex prudential considerations around how to vote and legislate so as to protect unborn life, the Church’s voice on abortion is heard as merely partisan advocacy rather than as a cry for justice and an integral part of the common good that all politics ought to seek.²

This article examines the theological nexus or lack thereof, between two living Catholic leaders, one from the United States of America and the other from Argentina, both of whom I admire and one group or institution I am not so sanguine about. Joe Biden and Pope Francis fall in the former category. About the latter — the US Conference of Catholic Bishops — I am ambivalent. A few of them distinguished themselves as cheerleaders of a President who will go down in infamy as being the worst US President ever. A day before Joe Biden was sworn in as the forty-sixth President of the US, Tim Naftali wrote President Donald Trump has long exulted in superlatives. The first. The best. The most. The greatest. “No president has ever done what I’ve done,” he boasts. “No president has ever even come close,” he says. But as his four years in office draw to an end, there’s only one title to which he can lay claim: Donald Trump is the worst president America has ever had.³

After scouring the media, both mainstream and social since 2016, my argument is a simple one: Joe Biden and Pope Francis model authentic use of power driven by Catholic Social Teaching and faith in the public square, especially the former who as a non-ecclesiastic doesn’t have to. If he performs half as well as his campaign promises indicated, he may well earn the distinction of being considered a shoe-in for canonisation as an example to Catholic and Christian leaders that they need not compromise their faith in the public square, especially in congenitally dirty politics. For the Pope, leading by example is par for the course but his reform programme puts him head and shoulders above Popes in the last one hundred years, earning him enemies even from within, such as the ecclesiastical lone wolf rogue Carlo Maria Viganò. I find the US Catholic bishops less authentic as models. They talk a good game but tread in ambivalent mire. They seem unable to walk and chew gum at the same time without tripping themselves. I point to three examples: demonisation of Joe Biden during his campaign for the US Presidency, canonisation of Donald Trump and their handling of sexual abuse by priests, bishops and cardinals, in particular the case of one Theodore Edgar McCarrick.

I examine the triumvirate of relationships between Joe Biden, the US Catholic bishops and the Pope through the lenses of political science theory, politics of power and Catholic Social Teaching which I broach after a brief discussion of state sponsored terrorism which I see as one of the main challenges of the Joe Biden administration. In discussing the relationship between Joe Biden, Pope Francis and the US bishops, I show how Political Science Theory, Political Power and Catholic Social Teaching intersect. Joe Biden and Pope Francis are presented as singing from the same hymn sheet.

I find the US Catholic bishops quite ambivalent for reasons already stated above. Americans would describe most US bishops as previous water carriers if not megaphones for Donald Trump and that their doctrinal fixation on pro-life, contraception, abortion and homosexuality limit their full engagement with Joe Biden whom they consider doctrinally dodgy. Methodologically, Political Science Theory provides me with nine models of Political Power borrowed from Franz Neumann (1950) within which I insert both the former US President, Donald Trump and his successor, Joe Biden. I show how the latter’s exercise of political power is informed by Catholic Social Teaching although this has not received the clearest endorsement from US bishops. His predecessor was driven by pure and unadulterated narcissism. Republicanism will never be the same again. The significance of this article is to highlight what is already known or suspected in Political Science Theory — that democracy is vulnerable, as the beacon of that commodity saw on 6 January 2021 when mobs descended on the Capitol, egged on by a President who could not accept that literally his days were numbered.

2. Democracy’s Achilles’ Heel in a Disunited States of America

There are two mutually exclusive positions on democracy vis-à-vis terrorism and I am inclined to think the second scenario to be more likely. Belgin San-Akca sums them up as follows, “One is that democracy reduces terrorism because it creates an environment in which dissenters can pursue their interests through peaceful means. The other argument states that democracy encourages terrorism due to the intrinsic liberties and freedoms that provide an opportunity for terrorists to easily organize, recruit, and mount operations” (San-Akca 2014: 1286). The recent insurrection in the US would seem to evidence the latter. The Chinese’s clamp on democracy and the absence of terrorism on the Chinese mainland would also lend credence to the latter. Belgin San-Akca’s hypothesis is that “democracies are vulnerable and can easily be exploited by terrorists since they have an environment conducive to terrorist activities” (San-Akca 2014: 1286). What was shocking about the American scenario was that it was groomed and incited by the sitting President albeit on the way to vacating the most coveted seat of power. Unprecedented is an overused adjective but not in this case.

When Daniel Byman opined that “Open and active state sponsorship of terrorism is blessedly rare, and it has decreased since the end of the Cold War” (Byman 2005: 117), little would he have imagined that 16 years later we would be talking about his own country, the US as not only a passive sponsor but active sponsor of terrorism. He pointed out, “Such passivity in the face of terrorism can be deadly. In conducting the 11 September 2001 attacks, al-Qaeda recruited and raised money in Germany with relatively little interference, enjoyed financial support from many Saudis unobstructed by the government in Riyadh, and planned operations in Malaysia. None of these governments are active sponsors of al-Qaeda — indeed, several are bitter enemies — but their inaction proved vital to al-Qaeda’s success. Despite the importance of what I call ’passive sponsors’ of terrorism, we lack any comprehensive understanding of their role. As a result, attention has been paid almost exclusively to active sponsors, and we often try to solve the problem of passive support with the same instruments we use against active sponsors, leading to the failure of coercion and, at times, making the problem worse” (Byman 2005: 117). Luckily, it appears to me, Joe Biden does not need to expend much attention to this passive sponsorship of terrorism. It is the home-grown variety — thanks to Donald Trump’s legacy — that he needs to worry about and his Catholic Social Teaching will have a lot to say about that, in particular its teaching on human solidarity, epitomised in Paul VI’s famous saying, “If you want peace, work for justice.”⁴ For Joe Biden, overcoming terrorism, both foreign and homegrown, is about working for peace and justice. Many hotspots of terrorism, particularly abroad were sown by US foreign policy since the Cold War days.

Recently Daniel Byman assessed “Different forms of passive support” and as he explains, “particularly because state passivity is often vital for jihadists and white supremacists, two of the greatest terrorism dangers today. Sponsors could be considered along different spectrums, such as informal versus formal support and direct aid for violence versus incitement. Similarly, punishments could be linked to different categories, and it should be far easier to be removed from the list if a state’s dangerous behaviour changes or to reduce penalties if its support for violence declines” (Byman 2020: 2). In the case of the US, Daniel concludes that “The political and analytically flawed nature of the state sponsor list and process, however, is as much by design as it is by accident. It is a foreign policy tool that gives the United States legal authority at home to punish states whose behaviour Washington finds objectionable. Thus, many of the problems and contradictions can be seen as virtues by some policymakers, and changes are especially difficult as a result” (Byman 2020: 14). When Daniel Byman stated the following definitions of terrorism, little would he have imagined that they would also apply to state sponsored terrorism of the home-grown variety, “Terrorism has many definitions, but U.S. government and leading academic studies often focus on several criteria. These define terrorism as political in nature (say by trying to change policy), involving non-state actors, intended to create a psychological effect (often by intimidating and coercing governments and populations), and violent. Some definitions emphasize that terrorism is directed against civilians, while others include attacks on military forces in select circumstances.” The 6 January 2021 insurrection ticks all these boxes and the pity was that the US senate contrived to acquit the inciter-in chief, Donald Trump.

It is not my intention to explore this phenomenon in this context in much more detail than this but simply to highlight it as one of the challenges that Joe Biden faces and in my view his faith in Catholic Social Teaching places him in a better position than his predecessor to address it. His predecessor was more likely to fan the flames of terrorism, particularly of the white supremacy kind. During the US 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden called out his presidential nemesis, Donald Trump, “This president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation. His low energy, vacant-eyed mouthing of the words written for him condemning white supremacists this week didn’t fool anyone at home or abroad. The energetic embrace of this president by the darkest hearts and most hate-filled minds in this country say it all.”⁵ The flurry of presidential orders by Joe Biden, many of them reversing his predecessor, point in that direction. What many political commentators do not realise is that such an attitude to terrorism, both foreign and home-grown is not driven by political expediency but what his Catholic Social Teaching says. I have summed its main tenets below.

3. Political Theory, Politics of Power and Catholic Social Teaching

This article examines the intersection of political theory, politics of power and Catholic Social Teaching. I am indebted to John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips for the following summary of political theory.⁶ John S Dryzel et al define political theory as “an interdisciplinary endeavour whose centre of gravity lies at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political science. Its traditions, approaches, and styles vary, but the field is united by a commitment to theorize, critique, and diagnose the norms, practices, and organization of political action in the past and present, in our own places and elsewhere. Across what sometimes seem chasms of difference, political theorists share a concern with the demands of justice and how to fulfil them, the presuppositions and promise of democracy, the divide between secular and religious ways of life, and the nature and identity of public goods, among many other topics.”⁷ Part of our task in this article is precisely to “diagnose the norms, practices, and organization of political action in the past and present” with particular reference to Joe Biden, Pope Francis and the US bishops. John S Dryzek et al go on to identify seven “Contemporary Themes and Developments” of political theory which I now summarise briefly. I will let the reader her from the horses’ mouth as much as possible.

i. Liberalism and its Critics

According to John S Dryzek et al, “In its classic guise, liberalism assumes that individuals are for the most part motivated by self-interest, and regards them as the best judges of what this interest requires. In its most confident variants, it sees the material aspects of interest as best realized through exchange in a market economy, to the benefit of all.”⁸ As Joe Biden put it in the US context, “For the next four years, I wanna make sure the news is the American people.”⁹ I see Joe Biden, not as an out and out liberal but a pragmatic Catholic liberal democrat, the subject of the next paragraph.

ii. Liberal Egalitarianism

Following the above, “There has been a particularly significant convergence, therefore, in the debates around equality, with socialists unexpectedly preoccupied with questions of individual responsibility and desert, liberals representing equality rather than liberty as the “sovereign virtue” (Dworkin 2000), and the two combining to make liberal egalitarianism almost the only remaining tradition of egalitarianism. One intriguing outcome is the literature on basic income or basic endowment, which all individuals would receive from government to facilitate to facilitate their participation in an otherwise liberal society (van Parijs 1995; Ackerman and Alstott 1999).”¹⁰ One of Joe Biden’s first presidential orders was to raise the federal minimum wage from US $7.25 to US $15 for both men and women. As CNN reported, “President Joe Biden reaffirmed his support for raising the federal minimum wage — gradually — to $15 an hour at CNN’s town hall on Tuesday. While he acknowledged that increasing the wage could squeeze some employers, he pointed to economists and studies that say the impact would be minor. Plus, the President argued, it would help those stuck at the minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009.”¹¹ His egalitarianism is evident in his proposed cabinet which includes both men and women, gay and straight, natives and non-natives.

iii. Communitarianism and Political Theory

Liberal egalitarianism had its critics. As John S. Dryzek et al point out, “Communitarians like Michael Sandel (1982), influenced by both [Hannah] Arendt and [Charles] Taylor, argued that in stressing abstract individuals and their rights as the building blocks for political theory, liberalism missed the importance of the community that creates individuals as they actually exist. For communitarians, individuals are always embedded in a network of social relationships, never the social isolates that liberalism assumes, and they have obligations to the community, not just to the political arrangements that facilitate their own interest.”¹² Philosophically, I do not think Joe Biden is going there but for Pope Francis and the US bishops, communitarianism is par for the course.

iv. Feminism and Political Theory

It seems to me that the major quarrel feminists had with liberalism and communitarianism is that, it appeared to couch issues of justice and rights in masculine and patriarchal hues, and failing, as a result, to highlight specific rights of women such as equal access to job opportunities and political leadership. As we speak, one of the most liberal and egalitarian societies on earth, the US, has never had a female President. Joe Biden may not wear the feminist jacket, but his principles sit comfortably even in feminist camps but the same may not be said about Pope Francis and the US bishops whose track record on feminism still leaves a lot of be desired. Regarding feminism in the Catholic Church, Tarcisius Mukuka has argued that “Although coming 62 years after the decision to renew the Code of Canon Law by Pope John XXIII, the recent decision by Pope Francis to modify the Code of Canon Law regarding female access to the ministries of lector and acolyte is a significant step — nothing short of a dog whistle — in Bergoglian reforms allowing women to access what Sacrosanctum Concilium described as ‘that fully conscious and active participation’ (Sacrosanctum Concilium 1963: par 14) of the people of God in the evangelising mission of the Church” (Mukuka 2021: 3).

v. Democracy and Critical Theory

I think the following characterisation of democracy is particularly pertinent to the case of the US. “In the literature on citizenship and democracy, liberalism has faced a number of critical challenges, but here, too, some of the vigour of that challenge seems to have dispersed. Republicanism pre-dates liberalism by two thousand years and emphasizes active citizenship, civic virtue, and the pursuit of public values, not the private interests associated more with the liberal tradition. Republicanism enjoyed a significant revival through the 1980s and 1990s as one of the main alternatives to liberal democracy.”¹³ But in the case of the US, the biggest challenge to democracy is home-grown terrorism, what Joe Biden has described as “this uncivil war”¹⁴ or what Sara Kamali dubs “home-grown hate,”¹⁵ as I have noted below, because it defies logic. The major challenge faced by Joe Biden in the intersection of democracy and critical theory is his so-called bi-partisan approach. The idea that two parties represent the entire nation is at worst un-democratic in the first place. It is inconceivable that the entire 350 million US citizens can be parcelled into democratic or republican. There is not ever the possibility of a coalition government.

vi. Green Political Theory

John S Dryzek gives the following historical background of green politics. “Green political theory began in the 1970s, generating creative proposals for ecologically defensible alternatives to liberal capitalism. The centre of gravity was left-libertarianism verging on eco-anarchism, although (at least in the 1970s) some more Hobbesian and authoritarian voices were raised. All could agree that liberal individualism and capitalist economic growth were antithetical to any sustainable political ecology.

More recently, we have seen the progress of ‘post-exuberant’ ecological political theory, characterized by engagement with liberalism.”¹⁶ One of Joe Biden campaign promises was green and renewable energy. As Sarah Golden reported just after the former’s inauguration, “Biden’s position on clean energy is as diametrically opposed to his predecessor as this analyst can fathom. On his first day, the new president signed executive orders killing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and recommitting the United States to the Paris climate accord. As a candidate, Biden called for 100 percent clean energy in the U.S by 2035. He’s integrating climate experts across all departments in ‘the largest team ever assembled inside the White House to tackle global warming.’ The political sea change is larger than the whims of a single politician. It’s a reflection of the growing, influential force of the clean energy sector itself that will be difficult for serious politicians to ignore forevermore.”¹⁷ On this score, Joe Biden, Pope Francis, especially through his encyclical Laudato Si ’ and the US Catholic bishops will sing from the same page. The challenge for the bishops and the Pope comes from the philosophical approach known as post-structuralism which will cause conflict in Joe Biden’s chewing gum and being able to walk.

vii. Post-Structuralism and Political Theory

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Poststructuralism,” is a “movement in literary criticism and philosophy begun in France in the late 1960s. Drawing upon the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, the anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, and the deconstructionist theories of Jacques Derrida, it held that language is not a transparent medium that connects one directly with a ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ outside it but rather a structure or code, whose parts derive their meaning from their contrast with one another and not from any connection with an outside world. Writers associated with the movement include Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Michel Foucault.”¹⁸

But as John S Dryzek et al note, “Post-structuralism is often seen as merely critical rather than constructive. This mistaken impression comes from a focus on the intersections between post-structuralist theory and liberal theory. Some post-structuralist theorists seek to supplement rather than supplant liberal liberalism, to correct its excesses, or even to give it a conscience that, in the opinion of many, it too often seems to lack.”¹⁹ My guess is that this challenge of political theory is largely confined to academia and will not be a major headache for Joe Biden, Pope Francis and the US Catholic bishops.

4. Politics of Power and the Catholic Church as a Political Actor

Following on from political theory, we now turn to politics of power. In 1950, Franz L. Neumann wrote an article on political power, “Approaches to the Study of Political Power”²⁰ which gives me an opportunity to engage political science theory, presidency in general and the US in particular and Catholic Social Teaching. In the article he gives nine models of political power which I summarise below. This plethora of attitudes explains in part why there is so much diversity in understanding the exercise of political power as well as the fraught relationship between Church and State. In the US, which is our main political context of discussion, this diversity seems to have been whittled down to two avenues to political power: the democratic and republican. The result is that it leads to a tribal approach to political power which has beset American politics almost since inception.

First, here is a short discussion on the Catholic Church as a political actor, which Jodok Troy describes as “underestimated and unexplored actor” (Troy 2016) in the Social Sciences. Before I summarise the nine models of political power proposed by Franz Neumann way back in 1950, let me discuss what I can only describe as Vatican real politique. According to Jodok Troy, on a global level, the Catholic Church or the Vatican’s engagement with international relations has received renewed interest and “Three recent political events, all linked to the papacy of Pope Francis, warrant this observation: his interest in and use of the Holy See’s diplomatic service, which contributed to the thaw in US-Cuban relations; the formal accord between the Holy See and the state of Palestine, and his reference to the massacre of Armenians in 1915 as ‘genocide’” (Troy 2016). As early as 1948, Winston Churchill raised the issue of Church power in international relations in relation to a question put to the French Secretary of State by Joseph Stalin, “The Pope! How many [military] divisions has he?” Winston Churchill’s take on this question was that Pierre Laval, the French Secretary of State’s answer “was not reported to me but he might certainly have mentioned a number of [military] legions not always visible on parade” (Church 1948: 121). Jodok Troy uses this source to opine that “Those numbers, committed to the Catholic faith (i.e., identity), paired with normative claims of the Church, are the basis for the Church’s soft power, the ability to get others to want what it wants” (Troy 2016). Jodok Troy goes on to list the following instantiations of the Church’s political power, if any were needed.

Pope John XXIII’s engagement in a peaceful solution of the Cuban missile crisis.

The Solidarnosc movement, which contributed to Poland’s democratization.

The Philippine people’s power revolution, which led to the ousting of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The Holy See’s mediation in the Beagle channel conflict between Argentina and Chile.

Reconciliation efforts in new democracies or countries in transition, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa.

Peace-building fieldwork during the civil war in Mozambique and elsewhere by the Catholic lay community of St. Egidio (Troy 2016).

Jodok Troy makes the following conclusion vis-à-vis Church political power, which is relevant to our discussion of the triumvirate; that is, the newly elected president of the US, Joe Biden, Pope Francis and the US bishops.

The key question about a theological revolution (i.e., becoming more liberal/progressive, as is often desired in the Global North), sparked and accelerated by Pope Francis, is thus whether such a “revolution” will take hold in papal Rome. Pope Francis is arguably the first true “global pope.” Though John Paul II was a globetrotter, he certainly was no “global” pope. Francis, however, is an outsider in the literal sense, exemplifying the end of the long history of Eurocentrism at the Holy See (Troy 2016).

Part of my argument in this article is that such a theological revolution mentioned by Jodok Troy and whether it will take hold, first in Rome in general and Washington in particular has its best chance in the presidency of Joe Biden and the papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Referring to Joe Biden in particular, he was quoted by the Press after his first townhall meeting, “I’m tired of talking about Donald Trump. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. For four years, all that’s been in the news is Trump. For the next four years, I wanna make sure the news is the American people.”²¹ Now, that’s what a Catholic liberal democrat, fired by Catholic Social Teaching, sounds like.

No discussion on political power is complete without including Joseph Nye’s soft power, hard power and smart power. The point is not so much which one is best but having the emotional intelligence to discern which one is demanded by circumstances. Leaders who have the emotional intelligence of dwarfs like Donald Trump only know one exercise of power regardless of circumstance: hard power. I aver that what will distinguish Joe Biden’s presidency is the use of smart power. Let me give Joseph Nye’s explanation of the three types of exercise of power²² before concluding with Franz Neumann’s nine models of political power. This is how Joseph Nye explains the key term, smart power.

“Smart power” is a term I developed in 2003 to counter the misperception that soft power alone can produce effective foreign policy. Power is one’s ability to affect the behaviour of others to get what one wants. There are three basic ways to do this: coercion, payment, and attraction. Hard power is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction. If a state can set the agenda for others or shape their preferences, it can save a lot on carrots and sticks. But rarely can it totally replace either. Thus, the need for smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power (Nye 2009: 160).

Joseph Nye concludes the above discussion by providing a prescription of how the US can achieve smart power through the executive power of its president. This use of smart power can be seen in the way Joe Biden is dealing with Russia and China in contradistinction to the way his predecessor did. The latter completely capitulated when it came to dealing with Russia whereas Joe Biden is ready to call a spade a spade but at the same time he is ready to hold out an olive branch to Vladimir Putin.

The United States can become a smart power by once again investing in global public goods — providing things that people and governments in all quarters of the world want but cannot attain on their own. Achieving economic development, securing public health, coping with climate change, and maintaining an open, stable international economic system all require leadership from the United States. By complementing its military and economic might with greater investments in its soft power, the United States can rebuild the framework it needs to tackle tough global challenges. That would be true smart power (Nye 2009: 163).

5. Models of Secular Political Power

Having established that the Holy See is an actor in global political power and that Joe Biden will be a major co-actor, through the use of smart power informed by Catholic Social Teaching, we are now in a position to summarise the nine models of secular political power.

i. The Homo Politicus Model

According to Franz Neumann, this attitude to political power, however it is exercised, is exemplified by “Plato and Aristotle” for whom “political power is more than a separate function of the organized community. It is the community. Political power is the total power of the community, distinguished from other relationships merely by its techniques. There is, in this view, no distinction between state and society, economics and politics, morals and politics, religion and politics…. Every activity of the community and of its citizens is political” (Neumann 1950: 164‒165 — italics in the original). I will cite Aristotle to speak for himself about what he meant by humanity being a political animal.

From these things therefore it is clear that the city-state is a natural growth, and that man is by nature a political animal [ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον], and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it (like the “clanless, lawless, hearthless man reviled by Homer, for one by nature unsocial is also ‘a lover of war’) inasmuch as he is solitary, like an isolated piece at draughts. And why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man, alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well (for their nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another), but speech is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-state (Aristotle, Politics, 1.1253a).²³

[...]

¹ The Free Dictionary (2021), “Walk and chew gum (at the same time),” https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/walk+and+chew+gum (Accessed on 12.05.2021)

² Sam Sawyer (11 May 2021), “No one can win the Communion wars over abortion,” America the Jesuit Review, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/05/11/communion-catholic-bishops-biden-politicians-abortion-240618?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9493&pnespid=0uN89.dBAVWNq.sxPFSrVTZkotHa.mxbnCo6rh0f (Accessed on 12.05.2021)

³ Tim Naftali (19 January 2021), “The Worst President in History,” The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/trump-worst-president-history/617730/ (Accessed on 12.05.2021)

⁴ Pope Paul VI (1 January 1972), “Message of His Holiness Pope Paul VI for the Celebration of the Day of Peace, 1 January 1972: If You Want Peace, Work for Justice,” http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_p-vi_mes_19711208_v-world-day-for-peace.html (Accessed on 27.01.2021)

⁵ Grace Panetta (7 August 2019), “Joe Biden accused Trump of ‘fanning the flames of white supremacy’ in a blistering speech,” Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-says-trump-is-fanning-flames-of-white-supremacy-2019-8?IR=T (Accessed on 19.02.2021)

⁶ John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (2013), “Overview of Political Theory ,” The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199604456-e-002 (Accessed on 20.02.2021)

⁷ Ibid

⁸ Ibid

⁹ Kevin Breuninger (16 February 2021), “I’m tired of talking about Trump: Biden Steers Clear of ‘the former guy’ in Covid relief Pitch,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/17/biden-steers-clear-of-trump-the-former-guy-in-covid-relief-pitch.html 9accessed on 17.02.20210

¹⁰ John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (2013), “Overview of Political Theory,” The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199604456-e-002 (Accessed on 20.02.2021)

¹¹ Tami Luhby (17 February 2021), “Biden continues to push $15 federal minimum wage,” https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/15-dollar-minimum-wage-biden/index.html (Accessed on 27.02.2021)

¹² Ibid

¹³ Ibid

¹⁴ Jonathan Chait (20 January 2021), “Biden: ‘We Must End This Uncivil War.’ Here’s What It Would Look Like,” New York Media, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/biden-inaugural-address-end-this-uncivil-war-unity-possible.html (Accessed on 29.01.2021)

¹⁵ Sara Kamali (2021), Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States, Oakland CA: University of California Press

¹⁶ Ibid

¹⁷ Sarah Golden (22 January 2021), “Biden and the future of clean energy politics,” Green Biz, https://www.greenbiz.com/article/biden-and-future-clean-energy-politics (Accessed on 27.02.2021)

¹⁸ The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020), “Poststructuralism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/art/poststructuralism (Accessed on 27 February 2021)

¹⁹ Ibid

²⁰ Franz L. Neumann (1950), “Approaches to the Study of Political Power,” Political Science Quarterly 65(2): 161‒180

²¹ Kevin Breuninger (16 February 2021), “I’m tired of talking about Trump: Biden Steers Clear of ‘the former guy’ in Covid relief Pitch,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/17/biden-steers-clear-of-trump-the-former-guy-in-covid-relief-pitch.html 9accessed on 17.02.20210

²² Joseph S. Nye (2009), “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs 88(4): 160‒163

²³ Aristotle, Politics, 1.1253a, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,035:1:1253a (Accessed on 17.02.2021)