How do faith-based ethics and secular humanism collide when political power rewards spectacle, fear, and compromise in the United States?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner examine how political spectacle and moral systems interact in the United States. They correct claims about Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize, then discuss reports of a Nobel medal being handed over and why the prize itself cannot be transferred. Rosner links the episode to fears about hardline immigration enforcement, threats to civil norms, and contingency planning under possible authoritarian drift. They contrast transcendental, faith-based ethics with secular humanism, arguing that MAGA-aligned Christianity often overrides the Golden Rule, while humanists struggle to balance compassion with strategic electoral compromise. Both warn that living memory fades.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: President Donald Trump did not receive a Nobel Peace Prize today. What has been reported is that FIFA awarded him its inaugural FIFA Peace Prize at the World Cup draw in December.

Separately, reports say Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, visited the White House and gave her Nobel medal to Trump. Trump accepted it and framed it as a gesture of mutual respect. The Nobel institutions responded that a Nobel Peace Prize cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred, even if the physical medal changes hands.

Rick Rosner: That episode feeds into a broader concern: nothing seems off-limits anymore. In Minnesota, the administration has carried out a major immigration enforcement surge. Reporting indicates that roughly 2,000 federal agents were dispatched to the Minneapolis–St. Paul area, and that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has been publicly associated with the operation.

State and local officials have urged calm and nonviolence amid protests and backlash. At the federal level, Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the unrest. Invoking the Act could expand the federal government’s ability to deploy forces domestically, but it does not give a president lawful authority to cancel federal elections, which are set by statute and constrained by the Constitution.

If the situation deteriorated into widespread political detentions, that would raise practical questions about personal safety and contingency planning. In historical cases of authoritarian escalation, people who left early often had more options, including the ability to preserve assets, than those who waited until exit routes narrowed.

Jews who tried to leave Germany in 1936, 1937, or 1938 often escaped with almost nothing. Many were forced to surrender their assets to the Nazi state in order to obtain exit permits. That historical reality raises a practical question: if conditions start turning seriously authoritarian, do we begin thinking about moving savings abroad? Is that even possible?

Am I scared? Not yet. But conditions are deteriorating.

Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller have been associated with messaging suggesting that people may now be asked to prove U.S. citizenship. As a general rule, citizens are not required to carry proof of citizenship in daily life. Nonetheless, aggressive enforcement practices can proceed regardless of legal norms. That is the concern.

So no, I am not afraid yet. But we are perhaps 20 percent of the way toward something openly authoritarian. Twenty percent is not close—but it is not trivial, either.

Jacobsen: That leads to a larger question: ethics.

There are two major, competing ethical narratives, each composed of many internal variations. The first is traditional and longstanding. It is often transcendental, frequently religious, and grounded in the idea of external or divine moral authority. Some of these systems are transnational; others are local. In some cases, closed groups or cults develop their own internal ethical frameworks, as with Keith Raniere. I am not judging those systems here—only noting their existence as systems.

The second narrative is more modern and emerged more clearly in the twentieth century. It appears in ethical culture movements, Unitarian Universalism, and secular humanism. Think of figures such as Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. I have interviewed Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, and that conversation was published as a feature in The Humanist. She remains active in public intellectual life.

I see these as two large, aggregated ethical systems shaping contemporary conflict. One assumes another world beyond this one; the other is grounded in the human world as it exists. One relies on faith-based divine law; the other relies on empirically informed, evolving ethics shaped by reason, context, and human well-being.

So how do you see this landscape, and who is winning?

Rosner: At present in the United States, religion-based ethics are being hollowed out because many of the loudest Christian voices align with MAGA politics and excuse nearly any behavior in service of Trump, including conduct that is plainly unethical. By contrast, secular liberals and humanists are more consistently focused on humane treatment and ethical restraint.

If the question is who is upholding ethical principles more coherently right now in the U.S., it is humanists rather than faith-based actors. Who is winning politically is less clear. But if you are looking for people who think humanely, you are more likely to find them on the left at this moment.

There are plenty of conscientious conservatives. By that, I mean perhaps 20 to 30 million independents, right-leaning independents, and conservatives who act in good faith. But there are at least as many MAGA adherents who operate on a zero-sum worldview. They have been propagandized into believing they must protect their own at all costs, and that it does not matter what happens to people outside their group—often framed as brown and Black people, or whoever Trump tells them to fear.

Jacobsen: That brings me to a related question. What is your assessment of ethical systems on their own terms, not as they are currently practiced socially or politically?

Rosner: I am comfortable with any ethical system whose objective is the decent treatment of people in general. Humanism does this. Religious ethical systems can also do this, within limits.

The problem with humanism is that it is poorly equipped for ruthless political environments. The problem with religion is that it can prioritize abstract or doctrinal values over living people. Christianity, for example, often places the moral status of unborn fetuses above the well-being of people who are already alive. It can also enforce rigid ideas about sex and gender, privileging heterosexual and cisgender identities while marginalizing those who do not conform.

Religious ethics can therefore become strongly in-group–oriented and punitive toward out-groups.

In short, humanism is structurally prepared to lose political battles. A committed humanist position might support allowing trans athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity. Republicans have turned this into a major political issue, despite the fact that the number of trans athletes involved is extremely small.

States such as Idaho and West Virginia enacted laws barring trans youth from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity and carried those laws through the courts to the Supreme Court, which has not yet issued a definitive ruling. In practical terms, each of those states has only one known trans athlete affected by the legislation.

It is disproportionate. The issue is magnified because it mobilizes voters. The rhetoric does not acknowledge how small the numbers actually are. Instead, it creates the impression of a large-scale threat, as though a wave of trans athletes were about to overwhelm women’s sports.

Even though I support trans people, I am prepared to sacrifice the issue of trans athletes if it means Democrats win more elections. I do not support a nationwide ban on trans athletes, but I would prefer that outcome to Trump winning again. That may sound harsh, but the electoral consequences matter.

It is not fair, and it is not ethical in an ideal sense. But if taking the trans athlete issue off the table deprives Republicans of a reliable wedge issue, I am willing to accept that compromise, even though it is deeply unpleasant.

I think many humanists are unprepared to compromise politically in order to avoid being locked out of power entirely.

Jacobsen: Do political convictions supersede ethical convictions in the United States right now? 

Rosner: Yes. On the MAGA side in particular, many adherents claim to be Christian while supporting positions that directly contradict basic Christian principles, including the Golden Rule. Their worldview is zero-sum: for “us” to survive—often defined as white Christians—others must suffer.

There is an implicit belief that brutality toward outsiders is acceptable, even desirable, because it will deter others from coming. That is not Christianity. It is politics.

Jacobsen: Recently, news circulated that one of the last known survivors of Auschwitz had died. 

Rosner: Auschwitz was liberated nearly eighty-one years ago. The passage of time matters. Auschwitz did not allow infants to survive; they were killed immediately. Very young children had little chance of survival. Anyone liberated as a child in 1945 would now be elderly, likely in their nineties or older.

The point is not the exact age of the last survivor. The point is that living memory is disappearing.

That is why projects such as Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, begun decades ago, sought to record survivor testimonies on video—so the record would remain when the witnesses were gone.

The same is true of World War II veterans more broadly. Very few remain alive. The youngest possible veterans would have been teenagers at the very end of the war, often having lied about their age to enlist.

We are entering a period where firsthand witnesses are gone, and history becomes easier to distort. That should worry anyone who cares about ethics, memory, and political responsibility.

Jacobsen: The last known D-Day veteran died on November 25 of last year. That means the youngest World War II veterans are now close to 100 years old. 

Rosner: There may be only a few hundred left, possibly fewer. The exact number is unclear, but it is very small.

There is not much to say beyond the obvious: time passes, people age, and they die. The hope is that we have preserved enough of their memories and historical records that those histories still matter.

That history is already being eroded. The United States now has thousands—perhaps tens of thousands, possibly more—of young people who think Hitler “was not so bad” or that he had some good ideas. What is being lost is the instinctive moral revulsion toward Hitler and what he represented.

As we move further away from World War II, it becomes easier for bad actors to propagandize the uninformed into softening or relativizing the crimes of Nazism. Historical distance creates space for distortion. That should concern anyone paying attention.

Jacobsen: Do you listen to much music? 

Rosner: Not really. Mostly in the car, and I do not spend much time driving. I listen to stand-up comedy more than music.

Jacobsen: Do you sing along? 

Rosner: Yes, sometimes. If I hear a song I know well, I might sing along.

Jacobsen: What songs? 

Rosner: Years ago, I used to sing along to Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel, when it came out decades ago. It is an easy song to sing.

Jacobsen: Did it move you? 

Rosner: At the time, yes—mostly because I wanted to get laid. It is a song about trying to persuade a woman to sleep with you.

I know you meant love, not just sex, but that was the appeal then.

I have never done karaoke, which would be a great name for a song, incidentally.

If I can see the lyrics—everything is closed-captioned now—and I know the song, I might sing a bit. If there is a show where people speak with a strong accent, I sometimes imitate the accent.

I encourage Carole to do that too, but she will not. She is shy. I am less so.

When I was in first, second, or third grade, I had a music teacher who told me I was the least talented student she had ever had. That effectively ended any sense that I was musical, especially with regard to singing. I internalized it and thought, fine, forget it.

In my junior year of high school, my friends and I joined the choir for entirely different reasons. People in choir were partying heavily and hooking up, and we wanted access to that social world. I did fine in choir. I fell asleep a lot because there was a great deal of downtime while different sections rehearsed, and I tend to get sleepy. But I had no real difficulty singing.

If I had been trained properly, I would not have had a problem. Singing is enjoyable. The issue is that I never learned how to sustain a melody. I do not know how to remember the notes or guide my voice through them. I can usually manage the first few notes, and after that my voice goes wherever it wants unless the song is extremely simple, like Only the Good Die Young, or unless it sits on a single note for a long stretch.

I auditioned for Anything Goes during my senior year. I prepared It’s Still Lovely, a Cole Porter song from the musical. I went in, sang it, and the room went completely silent. I could not tell whether I had done exceptionally well or terribly.

Afterward, I asked a friend why everyone had been so quiet. He said it was because I had not sung the song—I had yelled it.

Despite that, I was cast. I played one of the sailors and sang in the chorus. I needed to be in that musical because it gave me a legitimate reason to stay at school after hours. That access was part of a larger plan to break into the office and obtain blank transcript materials so I could alter my academic records.

It turned into a full-scale heist.

I tracked down a student who had gotten into a fight with the vice principal and stolen his keys. He worked at a camera store that also cut keys. During the scuffle, the vice principal dropped his keys, and this student grabbed them, ran to the shop, and made copies. Those copies circulated among students who wanted after-hours access to the school.

I spoke with him and obtained keys to parts of the building. I still needed multiple keys: one for the front door, which had already been changed, and another for the office. He had the office key. By casing the place while rehearsals were ongoing, I figured out which desk drawer held the key to the transcript room, where the official school seal was kept.

The whole process took about a month.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

Photo by Anastasiya D on Unsplash

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