Searby serves as Director of Light4America working to empower people of faith to make January 6 "Faith in Democracy" day.
On January 6, 2021, some of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol wore shirts and hats and carried banners showing that their faith helped motivate them to attack American democracy. One of the first rioters to enter the Senate Chamber carried a Christian flag. Others at the Capitol that day waved Bibles and “Jesus Saves” and "Jesus is my Savior/Trump is my President” banners.
We want to flip the script on January 6. We want to make it a day of unity and peace. I am the Project Director of the Bridge Alliance partner Light4America (L4A). The Franciscan Action Network (FAN) and Light4America, supported by the Declaration for American Democracy (DFAD), are hosting the interfaith "Faith In Democracy'' vigil on Thursday, January 5, 2023 from 6pm - 7pm ET. The power of people of faith as uniters, not dividers, inspires the Light4America motto: “Fight Fire with Light.” All the major religions use light as a metaphor to show understanding, tolerance and peace. Our vigil will show how sacred scripture from many traditions supports these values.
The vigil will have a different tone and tenor from some of the other gatherings DFAD is supporting commemorating the January 6 attacks, with a focus on unity and hope to draw a broad audience spanning different faith traditions and political perspectives. As FAN Executive Director Michele Dunne has said, “As Franciscans, we are called to act as peacemakers and bridge-builders. January 6 continues to divide Americans and create concern about the health of our democracy as well as our ability to resolve political differences without violence.”
Speakers and participants will pray for democracy and peace with music by Hip-artist Anthony “Wordsmith” Parker, a nonprofit leader who sings in the “ Concert for the Human Family ” series of the Episcopal Church. The hybrid event will be held in person on the Mall by the US Capitol and online across the country. Confirmed speakers include: Sr. Carol Zinn, Executive Director of Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR); Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; Rabbi Stephanie Crawley, Associate at Temple Micah; Rev. Paul Raushenbush, President & CEO Interfaith Alliance; and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Director of the Kairos Center and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
Together we can carry on the never-ending work of forming our more perfect union in America. People of all faith traditions should feel welcome at our event, including nonbelievers. We hope that this vigil with the support of DFAD and other great partners will not be the last. We see great potential for making January 6 a day of unity and peace in America, not division and violence. A day of healing, not hurt.
To register online: https://www.mobilize.us/jan6hearings/event/546043/ or register live: https://www.mobilize.us/jan6hearings/event/545952/.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.