Trump Continues Tearing America Apart-- Who Profits?

SWAMP!

We've been hearing about the "religious right" for decades. I'm sure you know there are also Christians who take Jesus and his message seriously. That would be the religious left. One of the leaders-- a progressive with zero affinity for Trumpism-- is John Pavloviz, who served as a pastor at at megachurch in Charlotte, NC, the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church. He does a lot of writing these days and this week he dealt with being labeled a "radical leftist. "I just thought I was normal, ordinary, usual. I thought equity was important to everyone. I imagined America was filled with people who took that Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness stuff seriously-- for all people. I thought the Golden Rule was actually mainstream. Recently I took an inventory of my positions, screening for the extremism."

He didn't find anything that isn't mainstream. He did find a lot though, that the religious right abhors.

• I believe in full LGBTQ rights.
• I believe we should protect the planet.
• I believe everyone deserves healthcare.
• I believe all religions are equally valid.
• I believe the world is bigger than America.
• I believe to be “pro-life,” means to treasure all of it.
• I believe whiteness isn’t superior and it is not the baseline of humanity.
• I believe we are all one interdependent community.
• I believe people and places are made better by diversity.
• I believe people shouldn’t be forced to abide by anyone else’s religion.
• I believe non-American human beings have as much value as American ones.
• I believe generosity is greater than greed, compassion better than contempt, and kindness superior to derision.
• I believe there is enough in this world for everyone: enough food, enough money, enough room, enough care-- if we use our creativity and unclench our fists.

"I’m not sure," he wrote, "how these ideas became radical, though it seems to have happened in the last few years. I grew up being taught they were just part of being a decent human being. I grew up believing that loving my neighbor as myself, meant that I actually worked for their welfare as much as my own. I was taught that caring for the least in the world, was the measure of my devotion to God. I thought that inalienable rights of other people were supposed to be a priority as a decent participant in the world. I don’t think I’m alone... I think most people want more humanity, not less. I think the vast middle is exhausted by the cruelty of these days... I suppose humanity feels radical to inhumane people. In that case, I’ll gladly be here in my extremism."

This is what Trump has done to our country. And now that he's corned, his sense of grievance is going to grow-- and so is his savage nature. And with it so will that of the "religious right," virtually the only segment of the non-billionaire populace that still embraces him. "Victimhood," wrote McKay Coppins yesterday, "is at the core of the president’s identity-- and it’s likely to shape his approach to the coming impeachment battle." He's already wallowing in his own victimhood.

In the story Trump tells himself, he is a man continually besieged by a cabal of jealous insiders determined to destroy him. This conspiracy of saboteurs has taken different forms over the course of his career. When he was an outer-borough real-estate scion trying to make it in Manhattan, the bad guys were the city’s sneering blue bloods, who didn’t invite him to their parties and rolled their eyes at his theatrics. Then it was the bankers who refused to lend him money, and the media snobs who made fun of his short fingers, and the party hacks who refused to support his presidential-primary bid, and the “deep-state” bureaucrats who tried to subvert his administration.

MAGA! by Chip Proser

These “haters,” as he likes to call them, loom large in Trump’s imagination. Every failure he suffers is their fault; every success he enjoys is in spite of them. And nothing-- not even his initiation into America’s most exclusive fraternity-- can seem to ease his fear that there exists an even more elusive inner sanctum where his enemies are plotting to keep him shut out.

This odd form of presidential status anxiety gnaws at Trump even in the best of times. As I’ve written before, he tends to lash out most dramatically in moments of triumph, when he feels he’s being denied the respect and acclaim he’s owed. After formally accepting the Republican nomination in 2016, he embarked on a bizarre and bitter feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Gold Star parents who had criticized Trump’s treatment of Muslim Americans. After being sworn in as president, he descended into a seething obsession over the size of his inauguration crowd. (“You just won the biggest trophy in the world—who cares how many people were standing there to watch you get it?” one former Obama-administration official said to me at the time.) And as he approached his 100th day in office, Trump sent White House officials scrambling to manufacture a last-minute legislative achievement he could cite.

As his presidency has progressed, the victories have become fewer and farther between while the din of disapproval has grown louder. Still, for Trump, the threat of impeachment represents a new frontier in haterdom—and it seems likely to deepen his sense of personal grievance. If history is any guide, Americans can expect even more volatile behavior from a president already prone to volatility.

But that volatility doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll lose in 2020. Much of Trump’s political success has come from his ability to translate a lifetime of personal snubs and slights into something that sounds like populism on the stump. He has a knack for turning his own hurt feelings at the hands of “the elites” into base-rallying war cries that resonate with the MAGA faithful. Already, it appears his campaign is experimenting with ways to capitalize on Trump’s impeachment-related insecurities.

On Tuesday evening, Trump tweeted a slickly packaged video featuring an array of prominent Democrats talking about impeachment. At the end of the ad, the screen fades to black as an all-caps (and apostrophe-free) message appears: "While Democrats 'Sole Focus' Is Fighting Trump, President Trump Is Fighting For You."

Really? Do you think he's fighting for you? For your family? Or just for himself and his own family? He doesn't even really care about his own donors of supporters. Most conservatives do though-- them and no one else. Kim Williams is taking on wretched Blue Dog Jim Costa in California's Central Valley. He's a lot like a Republican is as much as he's all about the money. He super-serves wealthy donors and ignores the real problems of his own hard-pressed consituents, "Disparities in wealth ultimately lead to disparities in power," Kim told us this afternoon, "which is why our system is currently bending towards the will of the wealthy. They write the campaign checks and buy up advertising and news outlets to elevate their own voices while silencing others. We can hear their talking points in the press and in blue dog political speeches. Jim Costa, who claims that the campaign contributions he receives from billionaire growers and major polluters does not influence his votes, is remarkably active when it comes down to the needs of those in power. But his record on every matter of significance for the majority of his constituents is appalling. We have the dirtiest air in America and some of the highest poverty rates in the country. And where is he when we need a representative to introduce bills to address a multitude of crises in our district? More likely than not, he's at a fundraiser with the same wealthy individuals who want to maintain the status quo. This district, like much of America, is in dire need of corrective action and if billionaires would spare as much money for their employees as they spend on campaign contributions and ad buys, we wouldn't be in such an extreme place. Fortunately, more and more Americans aren't buying it. They are following the money, demanding change, and showing up at the polls. Costa and his rich allies know this, which is why he is rebranding himself as a progressive, and his donors are using more alarmist language in defense of their policy positions."