The Dying Throes Of A Monster-- Batten Down The Hatches

Yesterday, on his blog, Ameritecture, William Steding wrote The Allure of Madness, positing that "As the country descends into chaos, driven by a mix of structural inequities and a ruthless pandemic that requires leadership far beyond the grasp of Trump World, we each have a choice: stand in resolution guided by values and virtue, or hitch a ride on a comet of madness toward a romanticized return to a mythical normal that will never be normal again. Regression-- the fantasy of returning to yesterday-- is the fault line of the selfish and uninspired. Progress requires clear-minded honesty and transcendent courage acknowledged with the certainty of sacrifice.  It has been curious, and at times shockingly sad, to watch which path people choose."

Brent Larkin-- former editorial director of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who retired in 2009-- returned Sunday to give hope to people on the same path as Steding and to explain why Trump is going to lose in November-- he’s lost his grip on swing voters-- and won’t get them back. He points out that many swing voters stood by Trump for years while he lied "almost every time his lips moved," while he bragged about physically assaulting women, while he caged children, mocked a disabled man, insulted war heroes and Gold Star families, while his appointees, pals and campaign officials committed crimes, faced trials and went to prison (or managed to get pardoned), and while we all saw a mountain of evidence that he made military aid to a foreign government contingent on that government seeking dirt on Joe Biden and on his son. For five years, this corrupt and incorrigible man convinced millions of Americans none of this stuff mattered nearly as much as Hillary Clinton’s emails."

But then, Larkin wrote, suddenly "it all fell apart." Swing voters started abandoning him in droves as the reality of the pandemic hit home and "Trump made it so readily apparent to them that he cares far more about winning a second term than he does about the lives of the more than 328 million Americans he took an oath to protect and serve." Yep-- COVID-19 killed Trump's electoral chances as much as it had the over 143,000 American who died because of Trump's incompetence and narcissism.

[I]t was during those dark days of late winter and early spring when seniors and soldiers and women and young people figured out Election 2016 had produced the most incompetent and morally bankrupt president in its history.

Here’s how it happened:

On March 14, after spending six weeks largely dismissing the coronavirus as scarcely worse than the flu, that it was being exaggerated by his political opponents and would soon magically disappear, Trump attended his first televised briefing of his coronavirus task force.

In the weeks that followed, Trump took the world on a guided tour into the darkness of his soul. As the death toll mounted and fear gripped the nation, Trump offered not a whiff of empathy or genuine concern.

Instead of selling citizens on a thoughtful plan to contain the virus, as leaders of developed countries throughout the world have successfully implemented and nearly completed, Trump sowed chaos. He aired personal grievances. He lied. He touted preposterous, maybe deadly, cures.

By late April, Trump ended his five-week television run. It was a rating success and a political catastrophe.

So here we are, in the country with the greatest health care system on the planet and one of the highest coronavirus death rates. It’s not because hospitals and doctors failed us. It’s because the president lied, passed the buck, dragged his feet and failed to lead. An ABC News/Ispos poll taken in early July showed 67 percent of Americans disapprove of how he’s handled the crisis.

A July 10 editorial in the Washington Post put perfectly: “The nation’s dire situation is made worse by Mr. Trump’s ignorance and denial. He’s still claiming incorrectly that soaring case counts are due to more testing. He falsely and callously says ’99 percent’ of cases ‘are totally harmless.' The president is disconnected from reality.”

Most Americans are not disconnected from reality. When it mattered most, they wanted and deserved a measure of comfort. What they got from their president was an American carnage that has made the United States of America a global pariah.

Trump hates losers. As president, there’s never been a bigger one. The most mishandled health crisis in U.S. history wrecked two things-- the economy and Trump’s standing with swing voters.

The economy will recover.

Exposed as a fraud, Trump will not.

Since late April, it’s gotten worse.

Like using the military to attack peaceful protesters outside the White House.

Like reports the president, who boasts of loving soldiers, ignored intelligence reports that Russian operatives offered bounties to Taliban militants for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Like the law-and-order president nullifying a judge’s sentencing decision by commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence after a jury had found Stone, Trump’s longtime friend and the holder of many Trump secrets, guilty of seven felonies.

Like Trump’s laughable and demonstrably false claims about vote fraud, a scare tactic desperately designed to suppress turnout for the Nov. 3 election. As evidence of his astonishing ignorance, on July 10, Trump tweeted, “Absentee Ballots are fine... Not so with Mail-Ins.” Truth is, they are essentially one and the same.

And like rhetorically wrapping himself in the Confederate flag and running a campaign to the right of George Wallace, with pathetic and racist attempts to ignite a culture war over undeniable incidents of racial injustice.

Watch carefully how Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. Rob Portman react in the weeks ahead when Trump brings his racist roadshow to Ohio. Both know Trump lacks an ounce of empathy, that his unchecked narcissism, along with his lies and cruelty, have harmed the presidency.

If President Trump remains far behind by Labor Day, he will become increasingly dangerous, willing to inflict as much harm on the nation as needed in a desperate grab for 270 electoral votes.

Absent a politically catastrophic mistake, former Vice President Joe Biden, far from an ideal candidate, will beat him.

Biden will beat Trump because Biden is a genuine human being. Trump can’t demonize Biden the way he did Hillary Clinton, though he’ll probably resort to even more outright fabrications in an effort to do just that.

And Biden will beat Trump because I suspect voters may have stopped paying attention to Trump. They’ve figured out little of what he says is true. They’ve grown weary of the clown show.

But most importantly, they know Trump made little more than a halfhearted effort to prevent Americans from dying of a virus that has already killed more of them than the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

Trump won’t win those voters back by whining about the tearing down of statues of Confederate generals. Real Americans like presidents who don’t betray their nation.

Yes, that's right-- and many real Americans also liked John Pavlovitz's virtual sermon yesterday, The Problem With American Christianity Isn’t Jesus. Of course it isn't; the problem, clearly, is TRump's allies and cronies pretending to be Jesus' representatives while savaging his message. Outside of the Evangelical sphere, most people understand Jesus and his message. For example, they "know," wrote Pavlovitz, "that Jesus said, 'No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.' (Luke 16:13) That’s why they can’t understand so many American Christians’ myopic fixation with capitalism; their obsession with accruing wealth and protecting the economy and having more-- and why any proposed move toward systemic equity or generosity is immediately labeled 'Socialism,' loudly condemned, and dismissed out of hand."

And people who haven't been swept up into white American evangelism "know that Jesus said,  'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.' (Matthew 6:18-20) Because of this, they can’t reconcile how many professed followers of Jesus are so afflicted with materialism; so burdened to have more and better; why they live beyond their means, why they are addicted to upsizing-- and why they imagine someone else having more, automatically means them having less."

People who are exasperated with American Christianity, know that Jesus taught a parable about professed believers, who showed disregard for the poor and foreigner and the imprisoned, and who were condemned by God because of it:

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’  (Matthew 25:44-45).

This is why they’re rightly incredulous at so many American Christians’ cruelty toward migrants and their callousness toward outsiders and their resistance to help those with less than they have-- whether food or health insurance or opportunity. They recognize the sharp disconnect, of supposed disciples of this hospitable, effusively-generous Jesus, treating people in need as lazy, seeing foreigners as a threat, blaming the poor for their plight.

Non-believers know that the Bible records Jesus saying, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16).

This rightly makes them wonder how so many American Christians have shrunken down the expansive, planet-sized love of God, into a nationalistic, America First tribalism that resents Muslims and refuses to acknowledge the value of black lives and nurtures antisemitism. They know that this white, MAGA, exclusionary religion would be unrecognizable to a Middle Eastern, Jewish Jesus, whose ministry knew no barriers, whose love made no walls, and whose table was always expanding.

  People who have no use for so much of American Christianity, know that Jesus said, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1).

This is why they stand fully sickened watching a president’s tear gassed, Bible-wielding photo op; showy displays of staged White House prayer meetings; and politicians who tweet scripture verses that show up nowhere else in their lives or legislation.

Incredulous outsiders, know that Jesus taught that the greatest commandment, the very pinnacle of incarnating his life in ours was to, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind-- and to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Knowing this, they understandably can’t fathom why so many American Christians not only refuse to love their transgender neighbor, their black neighbor, their Muslim neighbor, their sick neighbor, their undocumented neighbor-- but seem intent on causing them harm. It defies explanation.

Jesus himself said that he was bringing good news for the poor, the imprisoned, the vulnerable, the oppressed-- and until American Christianity passionately and powerfully ushers in these things, it isn’t making good on the promise.

The people who have a problem with American Christianity, know that the problem with American Christianity isn’t Jesus-- it’s that so many professed Christians in America simply refuse to listen to him.

If they were to let the actual words of Jesus take root in the deepest recesses of their hearts, they’d transform a movement that has become such a source of injury and such a perpetuator of pain and such an incubator of injustice-- into an unstoppable revolution of love that simply could not be denied.

If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d reject the white supremacy, toxic nationalism, and ugly xenophobia of America First.

If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d be hopelessly burdened to make sure everyone has enough to be whole and healthy, whether they were born here or not.

If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d find generosity rising up like yeast in the dough, overcoming the selfishness and individualism America is so defined by right now.

If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d immediately reject Donald Trump and hollow, exclusionary MAGA religiosity, because it bears no resemblance to him.

If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d be the first ones wearing masks in a pandemic, the first ones opposing children taken from their parents, the first ones demanding refuge for exhausted foreigners fleeing violence, the first ones opposing police brutality, the first ones declaring that Black Lives Matter.

Those of you who are sickened by this version of American Christianity, who recognize it as a perversion of its namesake, who can’t comprehend how it passes as a movement of Jesus-- and who so desire something redemptive to take its place:

Take heart.

Many of us are with you

So is Jesus.