"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, November 08, 2020
Midnight Meme Of The Day!
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by Noah
Sunday Thoughts
I've seen homeless people on the streets of New York act just like this but this is Paula White, President Trump's personal Spiritual Advisor, at least when Stephen Miller isn't around. Jeeez, and we thought Jerry Falwell, Jr. was bad. Years ago, I used to see speed freaks and acid casualties in Tompkins Square Park doing the same rap. Just play the above clip and then let it soak in that, basically, the entire Trump White House staff and his Cabinet are just like this poor, demented and godforesaken soul. I imagine she sits on an oval office couch, or on some of the My Pillow guy's pillows in the corner, chanting this insane gibberish. It's probably piped all over the White House 24hrs a day. Does she get into Don, Jr.'s Meth stash? Nah, she doesn't need to. She comes by what you see naturally. It's just her. We used to have people like Paula White in asylums but Ronnie Raygun let them all go. He, like all Republicans, was soft on insanity.
It's been said that she gives opening "prayers" to cabinet meetings, and we do know that she counts dozens of Republican congresscretins among her fans. In turn, their voters think she's the tops! I'd love to see her on FOX "News" with Rudy Giuliani; just the two of them doing what they do best, for a whole hour. What a conversation that would be. Keep your hands above the desk, Rudy! Maybe they could bring in Screamin' Jeanine Pirro or Sarah Palin for the last 5 minutes before the whole thing just clicks to black in a sudden explosion.
By the way, I think the guy wandering back and forth in the background is a nice touch. Poor guy's probably just trying to find his way out of the building, quickly.
Want more of Paula White? Check this out, and, no, it's not a comedy act.
Talking About Twisting Yourself Into Knots, Can Anyone Believe In Jesus And Trump At The Same Time?
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When I sat down on Monday morning to write this post, YouGov had just released 3 new polls for battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania-- collectively 46 electoral votes that Trump can't afford to lose. The Elections Research Center report on the polling noted that Trump is losing more and more heavily in these states as time goes on-- and as more people vote early. By Monday morning 60,507,338 people had already voted, including 1,985,687 Michiganders, 1,461,135 Pennsylvanians and 1,344,535 Wisconsinites. Among voters who had already cast their ballots, Biden is ahead by wide margins:
In all three states, Trump's hold on his racist, neo-fascist base has remained the same but a larger share of undecided voters have decided-- and they're largely voting against Trump. Also, significant numbers of voters who had been toying with voting for third-party candidates have decided to vote for Biden instead.
When the pollsters factored in voter intention of those who haven't cast their ballots yet, it's closer, of course-- but not that close:
One of the demographic cohorts most likely to be sticking with Trump are poorly educated white evangelicals. On Sunday evening, Matt Kaufman, a former editor for Focus on the Family’s Citizen magazine, explained to Bulwark readers why Christians should dump Trump. A conservative Christian himself, Kaufman is offended by Trump's torrential lying and gaslighting; pathological narcissism; pettiness, bullying, and cruelty; Twitter tantrums and schoolyard name-calling; corruption and abuse of public power for private interests; assaults on institutions and standards across government and culture; admiration and emulation of dictators; derogation of public servants, statesmen, and heroes; elevation of cranks, crooks, and clowns; bizarre rants and conspiracy-mongering; shameless appeals to the ugliest instincts; blatant racism; staggering ineptitude; and sheer stupidity. And that was just the beginning! He claims there are many Christians like him-- disgusted with Trump-- who are keeping it to themselves. But most conservatives won't abandon him because they see him as the lesser evil compared to Democrats.
That’s their eternal bottom line. No matter what this president does, no matter how indefensible, the greatest dangers they see always come from the left. How can I fail to back Trump, they wonder, with those threats looming? The closer Nov. 3 comes, the more urgently some of them want to know.
...If a president is (say) an utterly amoral, unstable, incompetent, insecure egomaniac, then he’s just got to go. Likewise if he acts like an autocrat, a thug or a criminal. Or if he’s beholden to hostile foreign powers. Or if he tramples the constitutional boundaries of his office, undermines basic norms and institutions, shreds the social fabric, poisons civil discourse, promotes tribalism and sets Americans at each other’s throats. He’s. Got. To. Go.
...It’s not enough for us to behave well individually if we collectively support someone who behaves like Trump. How many people will believe we’re not motivated by hate and fear if we tie ourselves to someone who traffics in both-- someone who invites the worst elements of society to come out and play? How many will believe we are motivated by conscience if we rally behind someone who’s devoid of one? What kind of Christian witness is that to the world?
In short, how much do our political allegiances damage the faith that we’re supposed to be spreading?
In the end, this might be the most compelling reason for Christians to reject Trump. There’s no shortage of others. Yes, he’s bad for our society in so many ways. Yes, he’s bad for the very causes some of us see as reasons to support him. Above all, though, he’s bad for the cause of Christ-- in ways more destructive than an army of avowed enemies could ever be.
From a Christian’s perspective, nothing should matter more than that. And if something does-- like defeating Democrats at all times, at all costs-- then I fear we’re falling into the devil’s trap. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis had some things to say about the spiritual perils of politicized Christianity-- how factionalism and partisanship can skew our priorities. See for yourself in chapter 7: Like most things Lewis wrote, it’s worth the time.
I know the partisan temptation well: I’ve felt it often enough, particularly when I was a young man. And in my line of work, I also know the temptation to focus so heavily on certain issues that you lose sight of the big picture. Breaking away from those mindsets is a long-term process that takes conscious effort. But break away we must. If the Donald Trump experience doesn’t motivate us to do it, I don’t know what will.
I'd like to ask you to consider how Kaufman's analysis fits a young candidate the Republican Party is allowing to build himself up into a superstar of their future, North Carolina Nazi Madison Cawthorn, who we've written about since his surprise primary run-off win in June for the seat vacated by far right extremist Mark Meadows. Young Cawthorn is far to the right of Meadows and he was the subject of Judd Legum's attention this week, noting that "as election day approaches, a darker side of Cawthorn has emerged." Like virtually all Nazis, Cawthorn is also a racist and a virulent white nationalist. What pisses Legum off is that Cawthorn's racism hasn't stopped some of America's most prominent corporations from backing his campaign.
[A]fter Cawthorn scored an upset, the Republican Party lined up behind Cawthorn and corporate money began to flow to his campaign. Recent corporate PAC contributions to Cawthorn's campaign include:
Popular Information contacted all ten of these entities and asked whether Cawthorn's racist attack had any impact on their support for his campaign. AT&T and Exxon Mobile acknowledged the inquiry but did not provide a response. The other entities did not respond.
Cawthorn's truth problem
Over the course of the campaign, Cawthorn has been caught lying to create a more compelling narrative for voters. One of his campaign videos, for example, says that Cawthorn "planned on serving his country in the Navy with a nomination to the U.S. Naval Academy... until tragedy struck." But in a 2017 deposition related to the car accident, Cawthorn admitted he was rejected from the Naval Academy before the auto accident.
...Pressed on his lack of experience to be a member of Congress, Cawthorn said in an October 2 interview with a local media outlet that he had worked full-time for former Congressman Mark Meadows for two years.
“I don’t have 40 years of work experience, I’m only 25 years old, but I have worked in a congressional office for two years,” Cawthorn said.
Asked if that was full-time, he responded, “Yeah, I was full time.”
That was false. Records show "Cawthorn worked part-time on Meadows’ staff from Jan. 15, 2015 to at least Aug. 1, 2016." Cawthorn's campaign acknowledged that he was not, in fact, a full-time employee. He was paid about $1300 per month. "Madison was a permanent employee for Meadows who was paid on a part-time basis because he was physically incapable of performing some normal office duties due to his accident," a Cawthorn spokesperson said.
Cawthorn also regularly describes himself as a real estate investor and public speaker. But his financial disclosure, filed in March as a requirement of his candidacy, lists no income from either vocation. The form does not list any earned income from any source.
Multiple women allege Cawthorn made "unwanted sexual advances"
While Cawthorn was not accepted by the Naval Academy, he did attend Patrick Henry College for about a year. Ten of Cawthorn’s former classmates authored a letter this month condemning Cawthorn for his “gross misconduct towards our female peers” during his time as a college student.
During his brief time at the college, Cawthorn established a reputation for predatory behavior… Cawthorn would take young women to secluded areas, lock the doors, and proceed to make unwanted sexual advances. It became a regular warning in the female dorms not to be caught alone with Madison Cawthorn. Additionally, he referred to female students as 'bitches' and 'sluts,' both in private amongst his friends and often publicly. He also called our female peers these derogatory names when they refused to go for a ride in his car.
The letter was signed by 166 current students and former alumni of Patrick Henry College.
In response, Cawthorn’s campaign told the AVL Watchdog that the letter contained “unsubstantiated and anonymous accusations” and accused without evidence opponent Moe Davis for spurring the allegations.
Days later, the campaign published a letter of endorsement from Patrick Henry College alumni. It was signed by six people-- two of whom work on Cawthorn’s campaign. This letter describes the original letter as an attack from “liberal sources, as well as, discontented PHC alumni.” According to the AVL Watchdog, however, the authors of the original letter were not in contact with Davis’s campaign or any other political group. In fact, many of them describe themselves as conservative Christians.
In August, World, a Christian news magazine, reported that Cawthorn had made unwanted sexual advances on at least three women since 2014. “Two women say he forcibly kissed them. One woman told me he grabbed her thigh and moved his hand an inch or two beneath her dress,” wrote Harvest Prude.
Even before World published its report, one of the women mentioned in the piece, Katrina Krulikas, took to Instagram in August to publicly describe how Cawthorn forcibly tried to kiss her in 2014. Krulikas was a member of the same Christian homeschool community as Cawthorn.
“This older guy had taken me to the woods on our first date, only to pry into my sexual past and then try to force himself onto me,” Krulikas said. “I texted a friend, expressing how I didn’t feel comfortable being alone with Madison again, how he had been extremely aggressive and creepy towards me.”
Cawthorn’s campaign told World that Cawthorn had previously apologized to Krulikas “if his attempt to kiss her when he was a teenager made her feel uncomfortable or unsafe.” At the time of the alleged incident, Krulikas was 17 and Cawthorn was 19.
According to Krulikas, Cawthorn’s apology was “insincere.” He told her he “thought [she] was playing coy” and that “[he] can see in hindsight how that was over the line.”
“I believe that it should be noted that this [apology] came 6 years after the fact, when his political career is now at stake and he faces the possibility of public scrutiny,” wrote Krulikas.
Cawthorn cozies up to QAnon
In August, Cawthorn posted a video claiming that cartels were coming into the country and “kidnapping our American children and then taking them to sell them...on the sex slave market.” This claim, which is not supported by experts on human trafficking, is commonly echoed by QAnon believers. “I want to set free all the American children who have so tragically been taken from us,” Cawthorn said.
Cawthorn, who was visiting a private border wall at the time, suggests in the video that this information is coming from official channels. “I’m here meeting with a lot of ICE agents, a lot of federal agents and many sheriffs,” Cawthorn said.
On the trip, Cawthorn posted a photo with Lauren Witzke, the GOP Senate candidate who was photographed in a QAnon t-shirt and repeatedly posted QAnon hashtags. (Witzke nevertheless claims she does not believe in the conspiracy.) Cawthorn also took a photo with Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of Trump’s advisory board, who was disinvited from the RNC after promoting an anti-Semitic, QAnon conspiracy theory.
A spokesperson for Cawthorn told the AVL Watchdog that Cawthorn “categorically disavows ‘QAnon.’” When asked by the AVL Watchdog to provide sources for Cawthorn’s statement, the spokesperson shared a March 2019 news release by The Department of Homeland Security. The release, which focuses on migrants, made no mention of American children being trafficked by cartels.
This isn’t the first time Cawthorn pandered to the fringe. Cawthorn met with congressional candidate Lauren Boebert. Boebert, who is running for office in Colorado, once said that she hoped Q was real because it meant “America was getting stronger.”
Moe Davis is now polling even with Cawthorn and, although the DCCC is ignoring the race, has a shot at beating this monster, who is already planning a Senate race in 2026 against Cal Cunningham, another step towards his eventual goal. If you'd like to give Davis some last minute love for his Get Out the Vote efforts, please use the ActBlue thermometer above.
When Will American Evangelicals Figure Out That Christianity Does Not Work Without Jesus?
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Babies in Cages by Nancy Ohanian
Friday morning, Tim Murtaugh, the official spokesman for the Trump campaign, was on CNN’s New Day talking about the hundreds of children of migrants who were kidnapped and "lost" by the Trump Regime. Murtaugh called it "a regrettable situation" and went on to assert to John Berman that "The fact is it's not as simple as you make it sound or Joe Biden made it sound on the stage last night to locate the parents who are in other countries And when they do locate them, it has been DHS’ experience that in many cases the parents do not want the children returned."
Trump has done a lot of unpardonable things since occupying the White House. Many people say this episode of stealing peoples' children was the most vile of them all. (And when I say "people," I mean normal people, not Satan-worshippers who call themselves evangelicals, who celebrate this and reward Trump for it with their devotion.
Last weekend, we talked about the other kind evangelical pastor, Keith Mannes, who walked away from his west Michigan church because he just couldn't handle all the MAGA-ness any longer, Yesterday, the Reformed Journal published a powerful essay by Mannes, Why Are Christians So Mean? He began answering by pointing to "a church-guy" in his small town flying a flag depicting Trump as Rambo. "Seriously! It is an airbrushed cartoon, with Donald Trump’s head attached to the body of Rambo, with a rocket launcher in his hands. This is an elaborate fantasy-- on oh-so-many levels. How did that church-guy get to the place in his mind where he would relish a fantasy like that? Figuratively, Trump is launching rockets every day. Meanwhile, one of his main bases of support comes from Christians. Why do the 81% so easily dismiss, minimize, and side-step the many evils of this man? Why do they attend Trump’s bombastic rallies? How did the Rambo-Trump flag-flyer, and the church with him, get so mean?"
Growing up in the Christian Reformed Church, Mannes wrote that he learned "some weird circuitry in the motherboard of our theology. We had weird circuitry, for example, with King David. David was, as every preacher always glowingly pointed out, a man after God’s own heart. David, the gentle shepherd, sang worship songs with his Old Testament guitar. Then he killed lions with his bare hands. David also worshiped while dancing nearly naked, because he loved God so much. Then killed 200 Philistines and cut off their foreskins so that he could buy a wife. Somehow sermons about David always ended up talking about Jesus, and how David was a forerunner of Christ. We loved Moses, because he had a speech impediment and had to overcome his own insecurities. He had to find courage, and the first sign of his emerging sense of justice was when he killed an Egyptian slave-driver. Later, Moses waved God’s staff and the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea. I loved that-- how the walls of water saved our people, and then the walls collapsed to kill our enemies. We wandered in the desert for forty years. All kinds of suffering and sin happened to us. Like in Numbers 25 when those pagan Moabite women tempted our guys, and it was a sex-fest out there. Then Phineas the righteous hero stopped the plague by killing two people with his spear. Oh-- and Samson, and all those Philistines he killed with the jawbone of a donkey. At the moment of his repentance, he humbled himself before God and sacrificed his life and in the process killed thousands of pagan sinners. And then we talked about Jesus and grace."
I had no doubt Mannes wasn't headed towards any anti-Semitism and then he said he assumed his readers knew where he was going "with these very quick examples: the weird circuitry says that God’s heroes stopped sin by slaughtering God’s enemies. Maybe you also noticed what I did there: The Egyptians and the Moabites were the enemies of 'our people.' That’s what was preached."
With the slip of a few words, images, and brain synapses, we imaged ourselves, fervently, as ancient Israelites. So, when Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, that was us, marching around the city and killing every man, woman, child, and animal. When Jael pounded a tent peg into Sisera’s brain, that was our gutsy act of faith.
That’s how we get to the place where a devout, church-going, Bible-reading, prayer-offering, Jesus-talking man imagines the work of God is best done with Rambo-Trump as president. A flat, unnuanced, literal reading of the Bible tells him so. This is why Donald Trump was so quickly and easily embraced by Christians. People say, “Oh, I don’t like how Trump talks, and I know he’s an awful person, but he sure does good things.” These people would vote for Samson for president.
We desperately need to rewire the motherboard with Jesus. The era of Moses, Jael, David, and Samson is over. Those people have been replaced and surpassed by Jesus, the Good Samaritan of the world, who stoops down to tend the wounds of the weak and who carries them to safety. It is Jesus who stands in defense of a sinful woman about to be executed under Mosaic Law. It is Jesus who taught that anyone who speaks with cruelty to another person is in danger of the fires of hell. Jesus says love your enemies and pray for them.
Righteous Religion by Nancy Ohanian
In a nation where gun sales are at record highs and people are digging up the shrink-wrapped weaponry in their backyards because they have been stoked into frenzy by Trump’s racial fury, we do well to remember Jesus speaking, as if calming the waves of the sea, to the wild-eyed, sword-brandishing disciple in Gethsemane, saying, “Put your sword back in its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 27:52) Jesus said he could call down armies of angels if he needed or wanted armies to accomplish his mission. He rejected the idea that he was leading an earthly rebellion: “My Kingdom is not from this world.” (John 18:36). In contrast to Samson, when Jesus humbled himself and laid down his life, he saved sinners.
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world” (II Corinthians 10:4). Rambo-Trump, selling a racist, hate-filled, dominant, violent Christianity, has proven himself to be anti-Christ.
Abandon, then, the weird, evil, motherboard of Trumpism. Rewire and refresh your mind and soul in the life, example, and teaching of the true Lord of the Kingdom. Leave the meanness. Pray and work against it, and together let us lean into the peace and goodness of Christ.
Down in western North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn, an actual Nazi, is the Republican candidate for Congress-- butwith his eyes on the Senate and the White House. He's a scary, dangerous Trumpist who abhors decency and truth and who is being heavily backed by evangelicals in the rural parts of the district, even though he's running against an upstanding and much-decorated devoted patriot, Moe Davis, the former chief prosecutor of Guantanamo who quit rather than use "evidence" obtained via torture. On Thursday, Tim Miller wrote at The Bulwark that, among the evangelic candidate's many attributes is also racism. "A new attack website put up by the Madison Cawthorn campaign," wrote Miller, "includes an explicitly racist broadside against his opponent, Moe Davis (D-NC), for associating himself with people who want to 'ruin white males.' For real. The website, MoeTaxes.com takes aim at Davis over his purported association with a local journalist, Tom Fiedler. It says that Fiedler 'quit his academia job in Boston to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker who aims to ruin white males.' Putting the atrocious syntax aside… Quitting one’s job to work for someone who isn’t white is… a problem now? Booker’s blackness is the issue that offends you? In Donald Trump’s white grievance party, apparently so. Cawthorn’s despicable smear echoes President Trump’s recent racist dog whistle (dog horn?) attacks on Booker. Trump has made a feature of his stump speech a line about how Joe Biden plans to send Cory Booker of all people into the suburbs to somehow ruin everything for reasons that are a total mystery. Wink. But Cawthorn is happy to say the loud part even louder: Cory Booker… you shouldn’t work for him because he’s 'non-white'… and 'ruining white males.' Horrific."
[L]ike the rest of Generation Trump, Cawthorn is also learning that while it’s easy to dominate a Republican primary with this stuff, winning a general election is harder. The National Journal Hotline reported this morning that a Democratic internal poll has Davis ahead by 3 points, which may explain Cawthorn’s increasingly aggressive tactics.
If Cawthorn goes down in defeat, at least we know he won’t go work for anyone who is black, since his closing message against Moe Davis is Make America 1950 Again.
Republican "Christianity" Is Entirely Pre-Jesus-- If Not Anti-Jesus-- Theirs Is A God Who Is Judgmental And Punitive
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Keith Mannes, giving his final sermon in East Saugatuck one week ago
On Saturday evening, the Washington Post's Hannah Knowles did some Trump reporting from the front lines of one of his super-spreader events, this one in Muskegon, Michigan. He told supporters there was "something very beautiful" about "watching everybody get pushed around" in Minneapolis as National Guard troops responded violently to the peaceful protests after George Floyd’s murder. "Wasn’t that beautiful? In Minneapolis‚ they came in, these soldiers … And they had their tear gas, and they had their pepper spray, which the other side doesn’t want you to use, because it’s not nice. They can throw cans at you. They can throw rocks and stones and hurt your police, but you’re not allowed to guard yourself with tear gas, pepper spray." The forces "marched forward," said the would-be Hitler, "and the whole thing was over" as his fascist followers cheered. "There’s something about that when you’re watching everybody getting pushed around, there’s something very beautiful about it."
Muskegon is a 50-50 county on the shores of Lake Michigan. Hillary actually edged Trump there is 2016-- 36,640 (47.5%) to 35,962 (46.6%). Interestingly, Muskegon was Bernie Country that year. He didn't just beat Hillary in the Democratic primary, he beat Cruz, who won the Republican primary and had far more votes than Trump:
In 2018, Muskegon voters turned out for Debbie Stabenow in the Senate race (52.3% to 44.8%) and for Gretchen Whitmer in the gubernatorial race (50.3% to 40.3%). In the congressional race, it was the only Democratic-performing county in MI-02. Since then, 2,790 county residents have been infected by COVID-19 and 78 have died.
Saugatuck is a small township in Allegan County 47 miles south of Muskegon. No doubt there were residents who drove the 50 minutes to see Trump Saturday. In 2016, Trump won Allegan County with 61% and two years later Stabenow and Whitmer each lost the county. It's part of MI-06, where progressive Democrat state Rep. Jon Hoadley is taking on long-time incumbent, conservative Republican Fred Upton. In 2018, Allegan was one of Upton's top bases of support-- performing for him at an R+22 level.
If you're a regular here at DWT you know I was one of the earliest supporters of what turned out to be an anti-Trump evangelical group called Vote Common Good. The pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in East Saugatuck, Keith Mannes, is part of that group as well. He's been the pastor for over 3 decades-- until last Sunday, when he gave his last sermon and walked away from his ministry in the midst of "increasing political tension and divisiveness." His parishioners are overwhelmingly MAGA supporters.
While Mannes loves the congregation he served at East Saugatuck CRC for the past four years, he says the church as a whole has “abandoned its role” as the conscience of the state in support of Trump, leading Mannes to step away.
“There’s a quote from Martin Luther King where he said, ‘The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,’” Mannes said. “That just hit me hard because I think, broadly, the white evangelical community in our country has abandoned that role.
“The question of the church largely and how it’s functioned in this moment has been really disturbing. That’s been troubling enough that I need to lay it all down.”
A divide within the faith
Mannes is not the only Christian feeling the strain. He said he knows several other pastors who are feeling the same things.
Additionally, polls show that while white Christians still favor Trump, that support has decreased.
In a poll conducted by Pew Research Center from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, Christian support for Trump had dipped since August.
In the poll, published Oct. 13, 78 percent of white evangelical Protestants said they would vote for or lean toward voting for Trump if the election were held that day. That’s down from 83 percent in August.
White non-evangelical Protestants supported Trump 53 percent of the time in the latest poll, while white Catholics sat at 52 percent, down 6 and 7 percentage points since August, respectively.
According to Pew, 44 percent of registered voters are white Christians, making it a key voting demographic.
Why the strain on the faithful?
George Lundskow, a sociology professor at Grand Valley State University who studies the sociology of religion, said support from the religious community is tied to how people view God.
Lundskow said that while some of the president’s actions may not align with Christian values, he has aligned himself with conservative Christians by acting similar to how they see God-- judgmental and punitive.
″(His actions) don’t seem very Christian, much less conservative Christian,” Lundskow said. “I don’t think it’s about that. It’s something else about religion-- whether you see God as punitive and judgmental or the loving, forgiving version of God. That definitely shapes political views as well.”
Lundskow said this divide between conservative and progressive Christians based on their view of God is a point of division within the faith in terms of political support.
The professor explained that those who see God as punitive tend to support Trump, saying they see him as strong-willed for the way he attacks opponents and “punishes” people for being poor. Lundskow added that Christians who view God as loving and forgiving tend to be more liberal and progressive, welcoming immigrants and “seeking social justice” for the poor.
Years in the making
Mannes has been feeling a disconnect between the teachings of the church and the actions of the political candidate it largely supports for years. It started when Trump announced his campaign in June 2015 while descending down an escalator at Trump Tower.
“From the time he came down the escalator,” Mannes said of when he began to feel an internal struggle. “It’s only been building ever since. From the beginning I thought there’s something about this man and the instrument that he is for a lot of things that are just very not Jesus.”
He said the congregation at his church has “saved (his) faith in many ways,” but what he’s seen from Christians nationally has challenged it.
That includes when white supremacists gathered for a rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 which led to three deaths and dozens of injuries, after which Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Mannes was part of a group of pastors that walked 130 miles from Charlottesville to Washington, D.C., in August, hearing the stories of people there during the 2017 events.
He called Trump’s photo holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Church in Washington in June, following the use of tear gas and riot control to clear protesters from the area, a “tremendous violation of something deep and holy,” and said it was a key moment in his views.
“It just floors me how church-going people who read the Bible and sing the hymns can show up at a (Trump) rally and just do that deep bellow like an angry mob supporting these horrible things that come out of his heart and his mind. It just began to trouble me so much that I am a pastor in this big enterprise.”
While some, like Mannes, may be turned off by Trump’s actions, Lundskow said many look past them because they believe Trump was sent to be a representative of God.
“If I’m somebody who sees Donald Trump as God’s chosen representative, the leader God has chosen to bring the country back to the right direction, I’m willing to overlook his personal failings,” Lundskow explained. ”(Christians think) if he’s good enough to be God’s representative, he’s good enough to be president.”
The decision to leave
As the tension in his heart and the world around him continued to grow, Mannes said his feelings began to show in his sermons, causing discomfort for some parishioners.
Trying to keep his thoughts internalized became more and more difficult as time went on.
“What it was really doing was tearing me up,” he said. “I’ve had to be very careful to not speak about these things directly with members of the church.
“It’s not only me, but quite a number of pastors I know are just like, ‘This is it? All this preaching we did about Jesus and there’s this big of a disconnect?’ I think that’s a real burden on a lot of pastors’ hearts. I love these people, I love God, I love Jesus, I love the church, but there’s something happening here.”
Mannes sat down with the elders of his church in September to express the tensions he had been feeling. After a long and emotional meeting, they agreed it was time to part ways.
“We got down on our knees, many of us wept. It was a really hard decision,” Mannes said. “It was time for me to lovingly and with great peace and loss separate from the church. It was really crushing because I’ve given my life to the church, and thankfully so.”
‘Be the conscience’
Mannes says he understands many Christians will vote for Trump, and he will still love those who do, but implores them to think about what it means to be a Christian before making their choice.
“I would just implore anybody who claims Christ to just look very seriously at the core things Jesus called us to do and be,” he said. “Do some serious soul searching about who you’re serving and how you’re trying to accomplish that purpose in the world.”
He calls on his fellow Christians to be the conscience of the president, whoever it is, and force them to be better than the division that has become common.
“We’re supposed to be the conscience of the president and we have refused to do that,” Mannes said. “I don’t know that a church who believes in Jesus as we do, can abandon its conscience and not say, ‘Mr. President we’re calling you to better than that and you need to call our nation to better than that.’”
A few weeks prior to his last sermon, Mannes spoke with a member of the church, who asked him to reconsider his decision. The person asked him about his plans once he walked away, with no guarantee that the issue will even persist after Election Day.
“He said, ‘What are you going to do? What are you going to have?’” Mannes recalled. “Well, at least my conscience.”
These days, John Pavlovitz's evangelical ministry is online. His blog, Stuff That Needs To Be Said is stuff that needs to be read. Today he wrote one aimed squarely at Trump supporters: No, I Won’t Agree To Disagree. You’re Just Wrong. "At this point, with the past four years as a resume," he wrote, "your alignment with this president means that we are fundamentally disconnected on what is morally acceptable-- and I’ve simply seen too much to explain that away or rationalize your intentions or give you the benefit of the doubt any longer. I know what your reaffirmation of him is telling me about your disregard for the lives of people of color, about your opinion of women, about your attitude toward Science, about the faith you so loudly profess, and about your elemental disrespect for bedrock truth. I now can see how pliable your morality is, the kinds of compromises you’re willing to make, the ever-descending bottom you’re following into, in order to feel victorious in a war you don’t even know why you’re fighting. That’s why I need you to understand that isn’t just a schism on one issue or a single piece of legislation, as those things would be manageable. This isn’t a matter of politics or preference. This is a pervasive, sprawling, saturating separation about the way we see the world and what we value and how we want to move through this life."
And he was just getting started, perhaps with Keith Mannes' struggle in the back of his mind.
Agreeing to disagree with you in these matters, would mean silencing myself and more importantly, betraying the people who bear the burdens of your political affiliations-- and this is not something I’m willing to do. Our relationship matters greatly to me, but if it has to be the collateral damage of standing with them, I’ll have to see that as acceptable.
• Your devaluing of black lives is not an opinion. • Your acceptance of falsehoods is not an opinion. • Your defiance of facts in a pandemic is not an opinion. • Your hostility toward immigrants is not an opinion.
• These are fundamental heart issues.
I’m telling you this so that when the chair is empty this Thanksgiving, or the calls don’t come, or you meet with radio silence, or you begin to notice the slow fade of our exchanges, I want you to know why: it’s because I have learned how morally incompatible we are. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect you or even love you, but it means proximity to you isn’t going to be healthy.
I’ve been disagreeing with people all my life. That isn’t the issue here.
Were we talking about anything less than the lives of other human beings, I’d be more than willing to disagree with you and, but since we are talking about the lives of other human beings-- I can’t.
I believe you’re wrong in the ways that are harming people.
You’re wrong to deny the humanity of other human beings.
You’re wrong to justify your affiliation with this violence.
You’re wrong to embrace a movement built on the worst parts of who we are.
I simply can’t agree to that.
Now, give yourself a Sunday treat and allow the Resistance Revival Chorus to show you what Mannes' courage to speak truth to power sounds like in song:
Do You Think ANYONE Took Trump Seriously When He Said Biden Wants To Hurt God?
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Actually, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Congress' most knowledgeable Constitutional scholar is taking it very seriously. He e-mailed his followers and warned them, telling them that "Trump said that Joe Biden as President would 'hurt God and the Bible.' This comical bit of pandering to the religious Right came from the guy who has more than a dozen outstanding sexual assault and harassment claims against him and waved an upside-down Bible over his head after unleashing a tear gas and pepper spray riot by his secret police force against 2,000 civil rights protesters. For anyone who has read or watched The Handmaid’s Tale, Donald Trump’s America offers disturbingly familiar dystopian glimpses of misogynistic, anti-scientific, homophobic, and authoritarian religion driving the affairs of state. In Congress we face a constant drive to stifle science and promote discriminatory religious dogma in government."
No one knows more about the evangelical hive mind than Frank Schaeffer. This morning he told me that "Trump got the emotions right. He won in 2016 because he understood that white evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic Republican voters were no longer motivated by any sense of hope; they were motivated by a menace, resentment and fear. Since we think of God as a bigger version of ourselves thus Trump is correct: Biden hurts God-- if, that is, God is a reflection of Trump’s white evangelicals’ denial of the teachings of Jesus. In that universe Biden’s simple humanity is an affront to a God who endorses separating children from parents and locking them in cages, approves flying confederate flags to remind American Blacks that slavery was God’s plan all along, is titillated and pleased by clubbing and gassing protesters who dare to get in the way of a photo-op in order to wave a Bible in front of a church a few yards from where you signed a check to pay off a porn star. All this hurts God- once you’ve redefined the Creator as Satan and erected a new temple too him in the person of Donald Trump."
Jack Holmes, writing for Esquire noted that there's something to learn from Trump's unhinged rant about Biden wanting to hurt God. "Just as Vice President Mike Pence provided a clarifying look this week at how conservatives see the Supreme Court, his boss has been a clarifying force when it comes to American political religion. In short, the kind of Political Christianity that now dominates on the American right has very little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ, or even the Old Testament. That's how Donald J. Trump became the standard-bearer for Evangelicals despite personifying all of the Seven Deadly Sins at once, and despite his palpable disdain for believers even when addressing them directly. 'Two Corinthians 3:17, that's the whole ballgame,' he said at Liberty University way back in 2016. 'Is that the one you like?' It didn't matter that the president was essentially saying, I'm pandering to you because I think you're an easy mark, or that he clearly has no familiarity with even basic tenets of the Bible, or that he rarely, if ever, goes to church, or that he's cheated relentlessly on all three of his wives, paying hush money to multiple mistresses. It won't matter that he's demonstrated callous indifference to the deaths of 158,000 Americans, or that, as more than 1,000 of his constituents die each day and the current economic suffering is set to explode with the lapse in boosted unemployment benefits, he really packed his schedule Friday as he heads to one of his golf courses."
On Thursday, the last day that he and Congress saw fit to work this week, he gave a speech in Ohio in which he once again demonstrated that his strategy for courting Evangelical votes is just throwing things at the wall. The idea that a presidential candidate could "hurt God," a Supreme Being who exists beyond space and time, is not really the kind of talk you'd expect from someone who believes in or understands the concept. But this is a fairly revelatory look at the state of the conservative movement. As Trump has proven, this sort of Godliness and religiosity is less tied to any principles to live by than they are one facet-- along with gun ownership and, apparently, burning fossil fuels-- of a conservative identity around which the movement's base is organized. He doesn't mention opposition to nonwhite immigration here, or the larger concept that this is a country built for and by white people and everyone else should just be happy to be here, but those are the really animating features that drew movement conservatives to his candidacy in the first place. It's probably worth mentioning that insufficient religiosity is not among Joe Biden's issues, of which there are many, though many fewer than the incumbent president has. By all indications, the Democratic nominee is a man of faith, and it would take approximately two church visits a year for Biden to prove himself more devout and committed than Trump. (The president did visit a church recently, albeit after he had federal forces violently clear peaceful protesters so that he could stage a photo op holding a Bible upside down.) There is zero reason to believe Biden would somehow crack down on religious believers-- not even make them provide employees with health insurance that covers contraception, which is considered oppression in this country. None of this is to suggest Trump really believes any of what he says about this, or cares. Meanwhile, the actual problems that exist in reality have not gone away, and will not disappear beneath another culture-war food fight.
Biden was America's first Catholic vice president. He has always seemed like a guy who takes Christianity and faith far more seriously than Trump does. But, as Stephen Crockett put it for readers of The Root, Señor Trumpanzee "believes that if Joe Biden is elected president, his first days in office would include Biden placing the Bible on the floor of the White House bedroom and the 77-year-old diving off the bed to deliver a big elbow to the helpless Bible. The president of people who’ve thrown out all their watches because he’s banned Tik Tok also believes that Biden is going to get into an argument with God that includes Obama’s former No. 2 sucker-punching God in the face. Or at least that’s how Trump’s been trying to spin it. The president of people who love the Bible yet openly and actively hate people who don’t look like them or love like them told a crowd that Biden wants to 'Take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy, our kind of energy.' And what energy would that be? Orange-painted-skin energy? Also known as Oompa Loompa energy?"
I was a little surprised that hundreds of so-called evangelicals showed up for a live Trump campaign rally-- headlined by crackpot Paula White-- yesterday. The hotels was fined for breaking the social gathering restrictions, although not enough for anyone to think twice about it. And speaking if crackpots, Ralph Reed was very excited about the whole thing. But what I wasn't surprised about was Rev John Pavlovitz's eloquent rebuttal letter to Trump: This is What Hurts God, Donald. "I know that actual spirituality is something foreign to your heart," wrote Pavlovitz, "that authentic faith is antithetical to who you are and how you view the world. I know that God is simply a prop you wield, a costume you put on, a resource you rent in order to manipulate religious people. If you knew anything about Jesus, if you’d ever read the Gospels, if you even once opened the Bible and saw what the Good News Jesus preached actually was-- you’d know the kinds of things that hurt God:
• 160,000 Americans dying without a shred of compassion for them. • Children taken from the arms of their parents and put into dog kennels. • Families pepper-sprayed for a sociopath’s Bible-wielding photo op. • Terrified refugees denied sanctuary from their suffering. • A leader who celebrates a rising NASDAQ and ignores a rising death toll. • Dehumanizing women by talking about their genitalia. • Black men murdered in the streets and a leader who will not condemn the executioners. • Rubber bullets fired into the bodies of young mothers standing silently in solidarity with those black men. • Someone trying to take away healthcare from millions of people in a pandemic.
The Jesus who implored his followers to love the least, to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, to visit the prisoner, to welcome the stranger-- this Jesus surely is being hurt in these moments." Pavlovitz was just getting started I suggest you redathe whole open letter on his website
Trump's Going To Hell-- Will He Drag The Evangelical Church Down With Him? Has He Already?
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Fascism Comes To America by Nancy Ohanian
Writing for Politico this week, Gabby Orr reported that only 1 in 4 Americans see Trump as a man of faith. Trump uses religion to manipulate his followers. Most Americans don't fall for it-- but 27% (of registered voters) do. 40% of evangelicals believe Trump is a Christian. "During an interview with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer last week," wrote Orr, "Trump, who was raised Presbyterian but infrequently attends church, was asked whether he’s 'grown in his faith' since becoming president. 'So I think maybe I have, from the standpoint that I see so much that I can do. I’ve done so much for religion,' he replied... Despite being perceived as religious by a majority of conservative Republicans, a slew of recent polls show that some key religious demographics are beginning to sour on the president-- a development that triggered alarm bells inside his reelection campaign late last month."
Data released last Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute showed a 12-point drop in the president’s favorability since 2019 among white Catholics-- 60 percent of whom supported Trump over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago-- and a 20 percent decline in his support among evangelical voters since March. In May alone, Trump’s favorability among all white Christians declined from 57 percent to 46 percent, according to the PRRI study. The erosion in Trump’s support among religious Americans, particularly white evangelical Protestants, disrupts a critical component of his 2020 strategy. To compensate for a staggering decline in the president’s appeal among suburban voters and women, his campaign has worked to strengthen his appeal for the religious right.
Die For Me by Nancy Ohanian
The American Conservative ran a Rod Dreher essay this week, The Coming Christian Reckoning, which begins with a long quote from Erick Erickson's final free post, which we'll get to in a moment. Dreher revisited his own book, The Benedict Option-- A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. "Fair or not," he wrote early in 2017, "conservative Christianity will be associated with Trump for the next few years, and no doubt beyond. If conservative church leaders aren’t extraordinarily careful in how they manage their public relationship to the Trump phenomenon, anti-Trump blowback will do severe damage to the church’s reputation. Trump’s election solves some problems for the church, but given the man’s character, it creates others. Political power is not a moral disinfectant. And this brings us to the more subtle but potentially more devastating effects of this unexpected GOP election victory. There is first the temptation to worship power, and to compromise one’s soul to maintain access to it. There are many ways to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and some prominent pro-Trump Christians arguably crossed that line during the campaign season. Again, political victory does not vitiate the vice of hypocrisy."
One reason the contemporary church is in so much trouble is that religious conservatives of the last generation mistakenly believed they could focus on politics, and the culture would take care of itself. For the past thirty years or so, many of us believed that we could turn back the tide of aggressive 1960s liberalism by voting for conservative Republicans. White Evangelicals and Catholic “Reagan Democrats” came together to support GOP candidates who vowed to back socially conservative legislation and to nominate conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. The results were decidedly mixed on the legislative and judicial fronts, but the verdict on the overall political strategy is clear: we failed. Fundamental abortion rights remain solidly in place, and Gallup poll numbers from the Roe v. Wade era until today have not meaningfully changed. The traditional marriage and family model has been protected in neither law nor custom, and because of that, courts are poised to impose dramatic rollbacks of religious liberty for the sake of anti-discrimination.
Dreher is advocating that conservative Christians turn "inward to build (rebuild) our spiritual houses, and cultivate not passion for 'issues,' but disciplines of prayer, catechesis, and cultivating a willingness to suffer for our faith... Even if Trump is re-elected, don’t be deceived: we are in the twilight of Trumpism. He is a spent force. There’s a report that White House advisers are considering having the president give a speech to the nation on racial unity. The only passions such a pre-discredited speech would inspire would be anger and mockery. Events of this spring and early summer have emasculated him-- that, and the fact that he wasted his presidency tweeting, making a fool of himself, and demeaning the stature of his office. It’s over. Even if the Democrats somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and America gets four more years of Trump, it’s over. As Erick Erickson points out, not only has Trump done little to stop the forces tearing the church apart in post-Christian America, he has actually accelerated them. To be fair, no politician could have stopped those forces, because they are spiritual and cultural forces, not primarily political ones. Still, he really has hastened the reckoning for believers, in part by anesthetizing a lot of them about the nature and severity of the crisis." So here's the Erickson essay he referenced, He Cannot Save You, "he," signifying Señor Trumpanzee. Erickson is a conservative Republican and evangelical from Georgia, a former member of the Macon city council, the former editor-in-chief of RedState and, currently, an Atlanta radio host on WSB-AM. He famously described Trump as "a racist" and "a fascist," vowed "I will not vote for Donald Trump. Ever." In February 2019, he endorsed Trump's reelection bid. This week he wrote that he does not recall in his lifetime "seeing a President with so much public loyalty and private revulsion among the same people."
Righteous Violence by Nancy Ohanian
Describing rural Georgia Trump supporters in his new essay, Erickson wrote that "There is no real allegiance to the GOP, just to Trump. Republican candidates are forced to go through bizarre rituals to prove who is the most loyal. Some privately grumble. They know these voters will come for them if they are not loyal enough. There are others who stand with President Trump reluctantly. Frankly, for many evangelicals, the only person they can stand with is Trump even if they resent it. I imagine if he loses in November there’ll be a bit of a scene in some corners, not just among Senate Republicans, like the Witch of the West melting. Once Dorothy threw the bucket of water on her, the loyal soldiers were not so loyal. The flying monkeys might have been, but the soldiers definitely were not. We will see that among many in Washington who even now ostentatiously hump the President’s leg with reckless abandon. A number of begrudging Trump voters will be sad to see him lose because of the policies and appointments of Joe Biden, but even many of them will privately sigh some level of relief that perhaps the chaos and constant rage and rage tweets will subside. The President’s most hardcore voters will have dozens of would-be Trump poseurs to choose from for 2024 arguing over who best humped Trump’s leg or has the most Trumpian policies. The purges will happen with fights over loyalty in one corner of the right and fights over ever actually voting for the man in the other corner."
I have to say something to my evangelical friends-- Donald Trump will not save you. He cannot save you. In the rhetoric, tone, tenor, and levels of support for President Trump, I am struck by how many people still view him as some defense against the left. True, he is to an extent. But Christians are dealing with spiritual problems, not political problems. They are dealing with the things unseen, not the things seen. Donald Trump is, like the forces they are fighting, of the world. The world cannot protect you from the world. If you are a Christian voting for Donald Trump because he is pro-life, not at war with Christians through public policy, has great judicial picks, and will defend the police, I’m with you. But I continue to harbor a great belief that too many Christians are using Trump as a political savior for a spiritual problem both in their own lives and in the life of this country. Trump cannot stop the culture from turning against the faith and, if anything, more and more data shows Trump is a catalyst for the cultural turn. He is increasing the left’s turn against the faith at a more rapid pace as so many evangelical leaders constantly beclown themselves to hump his leg. He is also increasing the right’s turn against the faith at a more rapid pace as more political apparatchiks on the right do what is expedient for political victory, including tossing grace, truth, and love for neighbors to the wind. I think we are in a great sorting. It is not a sorting of the world, but a sorting of the church. Those of us within the church are being sorted between those of us who truly believe Jesus is the answer and those of us who think we can find stopgaps on the road to glory. I don’t advocate for escalation or to bring on the persecution. But I do worry a lot of Christians have harmed their own witness in how they are engaging in the world and politics. Many younger evangelicals are abandoning even a passing interest in politics and voting. Too many people, regardless of party, think they can and should behave like the President. They see him as a fighter, so they fight too. They have chosen to divide the world between us and them. They see the political fight of the day as a struggle between their way of life and something anathema to it. To a degree, they are right. But to a greater degree, they are so busy clinging to a way of life they identify as American or American Jesus that they cannot let go to cling to actual Jesus. Too many Americans on both sides of the aisle cling to the sovereignty of the presidency instead of to the sovereignty of God and fight accordingly. We all get so worked up these days and I keep hearing Republicans say we need to fight like the other side or be like the other side or something else. Democrats, for what it is worth, always think the GOP fights nastier, dirtier, and is more united. I’d just say we cannot do that. We are bound by a book with key lines carved in stone by the immortal Creator of all things who then carved those lines on our hearts. As we engage the culture, the world, and the politics of the age, we cannot be like those who are not bound by the Word. We shouldn’t even try. “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Rom 12:9) We are in a period of sorting and trying for the church. Stand for what is true and good, not for any man. If you’re on the right, Donald Trump cannot save you from what is coming. If you’re on the left, Joe Biden cannot save you either. But you and I can all love our neighbors as we go through this turbulent time-- including the ones with whom we disagree on politics, policy, and the future.
I turned to my old friend, Dr. Samir Selmanović, founder of Faith House Manhattan, an interfaith community of Christians, Muslims, Jews and humanists/atheists, who also served on the Interfaith Relations Commission of the United States National Council of Churches and currently chairs Vote Common Good and is a chef and life coach. "These articles," he told me, "show us what the coming reckoning looks like from 'the other side.' This is what the insiders see. Public opinion, progressive and spiritually-grounded Christians, and honest insiders of the Christian Right: all three are in agreement now. It's like watching what's happening in 3D. Christian Right insiders like Dreher and Erickson are bemoaning a number of things and the visceral temptation here is for all sides to turn their post-partisan thumbs up and say 'Finally!' From where I stand, however, as a former pastor, a currently-practicing Christian, and someone who believes that spiritual truth and authority reside in life itself, I am actually grieving. Grieving that the Christian Right has again missed the boat. The Trump debacle has presented an incredible opportunity for the Christian Right to learn something priceless, that for decades seemed so distant and foreign to them, and that they still, even in this sort of spiritual-political crisis, never talk about: the simple, essential act of receiving."
Babies In Cages by Nancy Ohanian
He was just getting going, noting that "They see society as their project for witnessing, conversion, and service. We, the rest of society, are their object. They give themselves sacrificially (making significant contributions of money, time, and energy) in order to bestow grace and truth upon the world. They see themselves as the ones tasked to change the world. This one-way-street dynamic is a fatal flaw. They cannot comprehend that people outside of their tribe also have grace and truth for them. They cannot imagine themselves as interdependent with the wider culture, in any need at all of insight, inspiration, and blessing from those who are not their kind of Christians. God is not among us, the Other, they maintain. Thus they see only two options: witness or withdraw. Two quotes from Dreher are illustrative:
"To be sure, Christians cannot afford to vacate the public square entirely. The church must not shrink from its responsibility to pray for political leaders and to speak prophetically to them." "There is nothing left for us but taking the Benedict Option, which is to say, turning inward to build (rebuild) our spiritual houses, and cultivate not passion for 'issues,' but disciplines of prayer, catechesis, and cultivating a willingness to suffer for our faith."
"Witnessing or withdrawing allows them to maintain their foundational premise that they are the only brokers of God to the world," Samir continued. "THEY are the only legitimate brokers of grace, truth, and love. That's why truth from the outside cannot be acknowledged, let alone received. That's why love and kindness from the outside are always suspect. Any 'outside' virtue is a threat to their elemental construct and must be explained away to preserve the undergirding view of the world as enemy territory. God cannot possibly be in the Other, they still maintain. Unlike Jesus, who was happy to receive from the other and be grateful for the other, the Christian Right has decided that where they are not in charge, God is absent. It is unlikely that the imminent and bitter denouement of their Trump Alliance will shake that. 'The world that God so loved' (John 3:16) is devoid of God, except maybe for beautiful nature, cool movies, and random and accidental kindnesses of the lost. That world, they are certain, has no real grace, real truth, or real blessing to accord them. And for God to reveal things to them from the outside (like God did in the Bible all the time by the way) would be tantamount to the capitulation of their religion to the world. That's what is so deeply sad. What was once a wonderful religion, refusing to deepen, to evolve, and turning on itself. The fear, cynicism, and victimhood will continue as long as they don't know how to receive from that God, the same as theirs, but who is comprehensively resident in the world. I pray every day that I am wrong about this. I fantasize that they will surprise us one day and come out, healed, humble, and all love. Perhaps joining a Jesus who is alive and well outside their churches, in a parking lot, tailgating with all the diverse, beautiful, powerful, and revelatory humans they have been missing out on."
by Noah Sunday Thoughts: It doesn't get any more sacrilegious than the Devil steamrolling a crowd of peaceful protesters in a fit of state sanctioned violence just so he could walk to a historic church, stand outside, and wave a bible in our faces. Think of what kind of mind will order mounted police to use their horses to push through that crowd of peaceful protesters, including clergy, and have teargas and rubber bullets used on them as well, just so he can stand in front of a church while holding a bible as a prop for a photo-op that his party now applauds. Yet this is the man that the republican Christian devil worshippers adore. It's interesting that he wouldn't actually go into the church, isn't it? He already seemed so uncomfortable about even holding a bible, you might have thought he was afraid the bible would turn him into a pillar of flame, salt, or more appropriate in this case, a pillar of fly-covered excrement; for that is the only purpose this particular devil should have on Earth, a stinking place for flies to lay their eggs. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the the Episcopal Diocese of Washington had this to say about Trump's antics at St. John's Episcopal Church:
I am outraged. The President just used a bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for. He sanctioned the use of teargas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard. Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence."
Well, of course he has, Bishop. Trump is a psychopath. His wacked-out White House staff of cult followers was even gloating and high-fiving about their devil using a bible for a photo-op. They are literally calling it an "Iconic Moment." This is how far gone into Trump's world of insanity they are. The worship of violence, death and, mayhem is what Trump and his administration are all about and all for, whether it's healthcare, environmental issues, viruses, or the Constitutional right to peacefully assemble in a park and churchyard. We've seen that in every step of the way when it comes to the Trump presidency. Beware of false prophets.
Trumpist Pastor Who Keeps Infecting More Members Of His Congregation, Claims Death From COVID-19 Is "A Welcome Friend"
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Totally In Control by Nancy Ohanian
Thursday, a new Gallup poll showed Trump's pandemic job approval collapsing-- down 6 points in a month. Yesterday, ABC News released a new poll by Ipsos filled with more bad news for Houdini. Americans, the poll confirming what you probably have already surmised, are feeling pessimistic. ABC News reported that "three in four Americans think they will be able to resume their regular routine by the end of the summer, which is down from 84% who said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on April 3. In the newest poll, two-thirds of Democrats (66%) and an overwhelming 93% of Republicans view the end of the summer as the timeframe for a return to normal."
The Republican death cult is still adamant about infected normal people. In L.A. it's mandatory to wear a mask when entering a store. People without masks are-- to put it mildly-- shunned. I have seen two get beaten up, one seriously. But in Republican hell-holes people still don't wear masks. The poll also showed that Trump's handling of the crisis has a majority of Americans disapproving-- 54%, to just 44% who think he's doing an adequate job. You've probably heard about how religionist hecklers have refused to allow the pandemic to interfere with their cash streams and have insisted on continuing to rob their followers. On Thursday, Elizabeth Williamson reported on the results of the Jerry Falwell scam at Liberty "University," luring students back to campus to be infected. His campus is now a hot bed of contagion. In the last 2 weeks, over 70 in the community have caught it and they've had their first death. "[A] Liberty student on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit in a federal court in Virginia, saying that Liberty and Mr. Falwell had 'placed students at severe physical risk and refused to refund thousands of dollars in fees owed to them for the Spring 2020 semester,' according to a statement from the law firm filing the suit." Falwell told an unabashed Trumpist radio host, John Fredericks, that the media is behind the whole thing and that they "just want power, they’re authoritarian, they’re like nothing I’ve seen since, if you go back in history, to Nazi Germany. That’s what they remind me of." He's trying to have reporters arrested by campus security guards and threatening law suits.
Another member of the GOP death cult, satanic "pastor" Tony Spell of Baton Rouge has insisted on large church gatherings and has spread COVID-19 among the poor suckers who take him seriously. One parishioner died.
News of the death comes hours after a lawyer representing Spell and the church in an expected legal fight over the state's social distancing restrictions on churches confirmed he had been hospitalized and was on oxygen after contracting the virus. The lawyer, Jeff Wittenbrink, attended two events at Life Tabernacle Church-- an April 2 news conference and an April 5 church service, and has been at Baton Rouge General since Tuesday after progressively worsening conditions, including a high fever and persistent cough, he said. ...Spell's fight against the order, along with a handful of other religious leaders nationally against similar restrictions, has attracted worldwide attention. He has been charged with six misdemeanor counts of violating Edwards' orders. Spell, who has faced criticism over his stand, has made several provocative comments about the virus and the resulting controversy, including telling TMZ that true Christians do not mind dying from the virus but from "fear living in fear, cowardice of their convictions." While many houses of worship have converted to online services, Spell maintains that in-person services are essential to his congregation's faith and financial well-being.
Charlie Cook mused about what would be the deciding factor for voters in November. Unless it's a referendum on Biden, Trump will have virtually no chance at reelection. "When incumbent presidents run for reelection, it is normally a referendum on that incumbent. If that turns out to be the case again this time, what specific aspect of the Trump presidency will be judged-- voter’s personal views of President Trump, or more broadly whether Americans want to renew his contract for another four years? Or will it be purely about his handling of the coronavirus crisis? Will it be about Trump’s stewardship over the economy, and if so, about his first three years in office, or where it is for all of 2020, or just where it is over the past 60 or 90 days before the Nov. 3 election? Or could it be about something else, either involving Trump or the now-presumptive nominee, Joe Biden?" One thing is certain, Trump's inept, deceitful, dysfunctional and failed handling of the pandemic won't be helping GOP election efforts this year. "The pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000 Americans and left millions out of work," wrote Jonathan Lemire for AP, "has eviscerated Trump’s hope to run for reelection on a strong economy. A series of states he won in 2016 could tilt toward Democrats. In Florida, a Republican governor closely aligned with Trump has come under scrutiny for being slow to close the state. In Wisconsin, the Democratic victor in last week’s Supreme Court race captured 28 counties, up from the 12 that Hillary Clinton won four years ago. In Michigan, a Democratic governor has seen her approval rating rise against the backdrop of a fight with Trump. And in Arizona, low marks for Trump could be enough to turn the formerly Republican stronghold into a tossup."
In southwest Michigan, a knee-jerk Trump ally, Fred Upton, is known as a 100% Trump enabler. Upton's challenger this year is progressive state Rep Jon Hoadley. I asked him if Trump is turning out to be an anchor around the incumbent's neck. "Gov. Whitmer is doing the right thing by listening to scientists and public health experts to keep Michiganders safe," he told me last night. "Unfortunately, Congressman Upton is parroting President Trump and advocating for a rushed reopening that puts the health and safety of our communities at risk. When you need to fix your car, you go to a mechanic. When you’re sick, you go to a doctor. When we’re in a public health crisis, you should listen to scientists and public health experts. Voters across Southwest Michigan will remember Rep. Upton was following the lead of President Trump who called our global pandemic 'a hoax' instead of looking out for us.
