National & Minnesota Report
It has a been a tradition since 1945, the year after the death of former New York City Mayor Al Smith, a Catholic, and past presidential nominee, to hold a roast of virtually any person in the room, but every four years, largely the two major party presidential nominees for President.
The speech last night, in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria for the Al Smith Catholic Charities Dinner for the New York Archdioceses given by Donald J Trump (R) mostly overly rude, unfunny and not surprisingly, mostly about him and his grievances.
In her infinite wisdom, Vice-President Kamal Harris (D) opted to not attended and instead set a video with Molly Shannon recreating her Saturday Night Live character Mary Katherine Gallagher. Instead, Harris opted for a rally in Wisconsin, which does have a significant Catholic population at 23%.
This dinner has changes significantly, since Trump has entered the political fray and started with his roast of Hillary Clinton the night after their final Presidential Debate in 2016. He set tone and the low bar during that affair.
In our opinion, this event has a few significant political subtexts worth-noting. As a Catholic event the undercurrent is the abortion question and who best appeals to Catholic voters. Today, the Catholic vote is believed to be 25% to 27% of the national vote, with over 68 million members. Post COVID, the trend of all church attendees has been falling 20% of Americans attend church every week (Gallup) 41% of Americans are in monthly church attendance or more (Gallup).
In the four years before the pandemic, 2016 through 2019, an average of 34% of US adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days. (Gallup)
This event is just another example of how Trump has diminished an institutional aspect of American society.