Most Americans — 65 per cent, according to PRRI — may now find Trump's behaviour undignified and damaging to the presidency, but not white evangelicals. They are, in fact, the only religious group in the survey to disagree.Still not sufficiently despondent? Then watch the following:
There are only two reasonable explanations for this. Trump is the white evangelicals' version of V.I. Lenin's useful idiot, a character who is helping achieve their apocalyptic fever dreams, but who will perish along with the rest of us as the faithful perch in the clouds. Or the white evangelical version of Christianity is a darker, uglier thing than the smiles and the welcoming hugs and the blessings would have you believe.
White evangelicals, for example, are in general keenly alert to Trump's white nationalist, nativist leanings. When he orders families separated at the southern border, most white evangelicals are right there with him.
When he proposes removing protections from transgender people, surely among the most vulnerable of us, they're A-OK.
When he invites children visiting the White House to help build his border wall with their own personalized bricks, his loyal white evangelicals are right there with him.
The 17 women who have publicly accused him of sexual misconduct are just shrugged off as leftist harlots. The senior officials who have spoken out against his abuses of power or investigated him are just the infidel Deep State.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
If You Want Another Reason To Be Pessimistic ....
This is unspeakably depressing.
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Katherine Hayhoe, the Canadian-born, evangelical climate scientist/professor from Lubbock, Texas, exposed these supposed Christian evangelicals as a political rather than a theological movement. They're fellow travellers of Trump's maniacal 'spiritual advisor' from that clip you posted the other day, the one who said that 'Trump is God.'
ReplyDeleteThis Christo-fascist movement is explored by Phillips in "American Theocracy," by Kruse in "One Nation Under God," and by Bacevich in "The New American Militarism." I almost forgot Chris Hedges' scathing indictment of them in "American Fascists, the Christian Right and the War on America."
I've acquired those books over the past 15 years or more. Each explores this group, which has formed Trump's base, from a somewhat different perspective. What emerges is a group that has acquired an incredible amount of power - political, societal, even within the US military.
So emboldened are they that they're even producing their own New Testament with all Jesus' socialist bits expunged. They're editing the 2,000 year old teachings of Christ to conform to their ideology.
When you see them make common cause with this presidential satyr their true face becomes inescapable. They are a very dark force. Hedges was right.
Their fanaticism makes them very dangerous, Mound, and Trump knows it. Everything he does is to engage them so that they will turn out in droves in 2020, which may indeed be a winning strategy.
DeleteI had not heard they are producing their own version of the New Testament, but with their hubris, it makes perfect sense.
Just between you me, and Mound, Lorne . . . one of these days these clowns [And I will throw yobos in general into the mix.] will get so out of hand that a clip upside the ear is only thing they are going to listen to.
DeleteAs long as they keep it in their own yard and don't scare the horses all was well. The curse of under-intelligence is over-confidence. Or in a word, hubris. Which, someone wise here has pointed out, is always stalked by nemesis.
Karma is a strange force It is not always instant justice but, it is always inevitable justice. At least I hope so! laugh
Reminds me of an old tagline from usenet days, "Mom! Your karma ran over my dogma!"
As always, the key is being around long enough to see it make its appearance.
j a m e s
May we all live to see that day, James.
Delete"Karma" means "action." We all have to pitch in. It's worth it short term, for sure. Long-term ... as in Economics; you can plan short term, or you can plan middle-term but in the long-term ... we're all dead." So, I figure ... better stack up some good karma while I still can.
Deletej a m e s
It is makes no sense to me and never has. I cannot understand the blind adherence to such a vile and empty person. They are a cult.
ReplyDeleteI think that is as apt a description as I have heard about those people, J MacDuff.
DeleteThe evangos are the cult. They believe if a president fawns over them it's proof that he's been chosen by their gawd. His flaws, no matter how flagrant, don't matter because he has been chosen and hence is divine. You have to be mentally ill to believe such claptrap but that's routine among cultists.
Delete.. excellent post & the comments too..
ReplyDeleteMound mentions 'mental illness' .. but also look up extreme partisanship.. as there are excellent learned essays on the basis or strange thinking process. Though I often reference hockey sweaters & teams as an analogy.. the 'mental illness' comment is valid. I tend to look upon the spectrum of comorbid belief or membership in unhinged fanatical political loyalty with 'invisible friend upstairs' belief.. as essentially diseased - mental illness, usually seen in an environment of ignorance.
That does not explain the bizarre behaviour of say.. an Arthur Hamilton, or a Nigel Wright or Ray Novak or Stephen Lecce however, none of whom are ignorant or uneducated, not deprived. If we look upon 'greed' as an ingredient or contibuting factor, we come across the likes of Joe Oliver or Jason Kenney, not very 'religious' in their thought & deed. Are they mentally ill? One is Jewish, one is purportedly Catholic. Its confusing isn't it.. but scumbags must put on a hockey sweater, choose a team.. or they don't get to 'play'.. Harper just bought an entire franchise, the Progressive Conservatives.. so he could get to wear the CANADA sweater.. Presumably, Canadian taxpayers bought Andrew Scheer's Canada jacket that he flaunted everywhere during his election loss. Mental illness ? Sociopathic ? Faux christian ? Fake family values ? Who knows in these strange days..
No doubt there are an array of pathologies at work here, Sal, all with the same result, unfortunately: discord, antipathy and disunity, the very things that are inimical to a country's well-being and an individual's spiritual health.
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