Donald Trump cheated everyone he ever did business with. He never signed a contract he wouldn't violate. He was a draft-dodger of the lowest order. He repeatedly cheated on all three of his wives. He is a known associate of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He played no role in the lives of his children until they were adults. He is an adjudicated rapist and has been convicted of thirty-four felonies. When the Evangelicals continue to see Donald Trump as ethical, it illustrates the disconnect between religion and morality about as well as it can be. Trump has played the Evangelical preachers for the fools they are.
It's the 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 evangelicals. The black evangelicals, whose core theology matches the white evangelicals, see Trump for the nasty piece of work he is. The racism is a strong factor.
There's a great article in the Battlefields.org website on why non-slave-owning Southerners fought for the Confederacy. Scroll halfway down to the section called "What the churches were saying." Hoo boy.
"The prominent South Carolina Presbyterian theologian James Henley Thornwell did not mince his words. “The parties in the conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground – Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake.”"
Not always Joe. Some of the black fundies love trump, hate abortion access and vote against themselves. Crazy is crazy, no matter the color. But there are certainly more white Fascists.
Of course neither group is a monolith. There is a small percentage of the white evangelicals who are against Trump and everything he does, while there is also a small percentage of black evangelicals who love the shitstain on humanity. Neither demographic is at 100% on either side of the graph.
Yeah; I'm not totally sure how I feel about this article not giving as much attention to the divide between black/white Protestants? I would've discussed it more and I think the fact that black protestants appear to be the group least supportive of trump presents fruitful questions for secular folks to consider: how can we build coalitions across that particular religious divide to achieve shared goals while not compromising secular values; what do our own racial divides look like and why; etc. At the same time, this is an atheist blog, so it does make sense to focus on the nonreligious.
The divide in the non-religious seems to be more rooted in transphobia than along racial lines. Have you seen what the transphobic trolls do to the comment section when Hemant posts something critical of Dawkins?
I think of it more as a deal was made. Evangelical leaders launder Trump to their followers, and Trump uses his power to give their religion more control and influence while demonizing other religions. No evangelical leaders actually think Trump is a model of their brand of morality, but if getting enough in exchange, they whitewash and sell him to their congregation.
I am not so sure they are fools in the dictionary sense. Hypocrites for sure, but they have made a deal with the MAGA rethugs that gives them total behavioral control over society in exchange for supporting an amoral psychopath. Religion is their excuse, but the real goal is to have a white-supremacist patriarchy running the entirety of society except for the rather big chunk the oligarchs will/do run.
The CCC or Council of Conservative Christians founded in 1985 St Louis, MO. They are the modern regrouping of the KKK. Established during the Moral Majority years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Quote: “We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people. … We therefore oppose the massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime. We believe that illegal immigration must be stopped, if necessary by military force and placing troops on our national borders; that illegal aliens must be returned to their own countries; and that legal immigration must be severely restricted or halted through appropriate changes in our laws and policies. We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called ‘affirmative action’ and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.” — Statement of Principles, Citizens Informer, 2007
See what’s happenin’ here? What it is is exactly clear. (paraphrase CSNY)
It is really pathetic when people view the color of their skin as some kind of accomplishment. Humanity has paid a horrific price for the conceit of racism.
Okay, so who's surprised by this? Anyone? Considering that your average evangelical is probably getting all their news from Fox and rarely if ever pick up a newspaper or be bothered to look at an alternative news source, the above should catch any one of us unawares on a day that doesn't end in Y.
The fact is that it hasn't really hit the fan just yet. When the store shelves at Walmart and Target start to go empty, we may find something of a different story here.
As it comes to that, we may not have long to wait.
The super-religious ones have turned rejected Fox as too liberal. They get their news from one of the prosperity gospel pastors' private cable networks.
Yes, they're probably sad that the Botox-scowled Tucker got fired. It has to be Botox. No one can naturally keep their face in that expression voluntarily. LOL
Ahhh I have fond, distant memories of the atheist meetups in Broward County, Florida, around Darwin Day and Sagan Day! I'm pretty sure Randi was there for at least one of them. We drove all the way across the state with our two small children, one time getting stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam, to get there.
White Evangelicals are a lobbying group. Nothing more. So long as he caters to their whiteness and bigotry and fundamentalist desire for control, they will adore him.
He could declare himself God and demand worship and most of them would follow.
Is anyone surprised that white s̶u̶p̶r̶e̶m̶a̶c̶i̶s̶t̶s̶ evangelicals think everything Danger Yam has done is great? They are the most susceptible to believing things that aren't true despite the evidence. Indoctrination is one hell of a drug, and that helps to explain why they are so worshipful of der Führer. The restcan be explained by how much open hate he allows them.
Franklin Graham, John Hagee, James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Dumb Idiot Ken Ham, Paula White. The list of evangelical nitwits, dimwits, and knuckleheads who are highly loyal to that Stupid Idiot goes on and on.
Trump told four whopper lies that should have disqualified him from anybody with any moral sense whatsoever.
Children go to school and come home the opposite sex. Ignorance, stupidity, dishonesty on a completely massive scale. But because it agrees with their terror on matters of sex and gender, the application of a minimum of critical thought which is not going to make the appearance.
Democrats want abortion even after birth. Ignorance, stupidity, despite, and dishonesty on a completely massive scale. Anybody not terrified of issues around sex might think that that is what it is: an outright lie. That’s because abortion after birth is called murder.
The election was stolen from him in 2020. That was even though his own election security guy said that it was the most secure election ever. They are so greedy for power that no matter what they heard they would believe that.
Haitians in Springfield Ohio were eating pets. The mayor of Springfield said no. the right wing governor of Ohio said no. And yet, they believed it because it denigrated immigrants and Black people.
His People do not live in the same world that the rest of us live in. This is quite apart from his known adultery, his proclamation of sexual assault, his felony convictions, his bankruptcies.
They simply don’t care. Because for them, it’s all about power, money, religious dominion and revenge.
Blatantly lying and daring critics to do something about it is a classic authoritarian power move. Even when the MAGAts do recognize his lies as lies, they probably get a kick out of him being able to get away with them so effortlessly.
When their tomatoes from Mexico cost them $4 per pound (half kilo) next winter instead of the $2 per pound they paid 6 months ago, that might shake a few loose. Most will blame Biden.
Sadly, that may indeed be the case. One wonders what kind of mindset could sustain thoughts like that when THEIR cupboards are as bare as the store shelves are.
I’m convinced they wont. They take great pride in the Bible verses about Christians being persecuted. It just means they’re better Christians when their life goes into the crapper. They’ve never repented for slavery and segregation which their churches taught. They’ve never repented for their domestic violence and sexual abuse. They’ve never repented for centuries of genocide and oppressing people in the name of capitalism, greed, and power. It’s who they are.
"Normal isn't coming back. Jesus is." I saw cross-stitched wall art with that saying at the Watermelon Festival in Central Florida. They are literally delusional. They WANT to bring on the apocalypse.
I was in Malta all of this last week. I was simply amazed that how much death and torture makes it into the artwork and these rather magnificent churches. Quite apart from the usual Jesus on the cross stuff. Just lots of it.
$90-120 a week at Wal-Mart for one person. Diet Pepsi has more than doubled in price since 2020 and I expect it to get much worse in another month or two.
I cannot underemphasize the role of cult tactics in this. Evangelical Christians are all trauma-bonded, they enable abuse of many kinds. They, like the people surrounding Trump, think abusive, controlling, manipulative behavior is normal. They think that covering up sex abuse scandals is normal. I'm more and more shocked and disgusted at each new religious sex abuse scandal I see--and it's not just Christians. Chassidic Jews are no better. They're all just a bunch of Jeffrey Epsteins and R Kellys using religion as a business and coverup for their activities. Frankly, I think they're all envious of Warren Jeffs, with his child labor and child sex slaves. Disgusting. And meanwhile, your average liberal Democrat has no clue that any of it is going on and they don't seem to want to know of the "dark side."
I once received some weird screed from Warren Jeffs ( not to me personally, but the mail staff didn’t know who to give it to). Must have been targeting certain companies. It was definitely worthy of a circular file disposal.
The mythos Trump created for himself is simple but powerful: I do great things; if I am doing it, by definition it’s great. Originally he directed this at his business acumen, so that despite all objective measures to the contrary, people who didn’t think much about it were convinced he is a great businessman. As he entered national politics he stretched this to encompass virtually every aspect of his doings, with a hefty dose of white nationalist propaganda and imminent doom rhetoric to give followers more cover and reinforcement. Trump created a belief system that doesn’t stand up to any rational scrutiny, but those who want to can simply choose to believe that if it’s great he is doing it, and if he’s doing it, it’s great. They choose to believe him because he invites people to cede their morality to him, so they don’t have to feel any responsibility for his actions.
He also plays to their baser instincts with his revenge politik speech. He actively solicits stochiastic terrorism, and he gets results, which is terrifying all by itself. This is a zeitgeist which I don't think any of us imagined was possible until Trump showed up.
I agree though I think the target audiences are different. The calls for violence and retribution aren’t for evangelicals. They get the story of a man who made mistakes, who learned from them and was humbled, who now wants to serve the righteous. It’s ridiculous obviously, but each audience gets the version of Trump that best resonates with what they want to hear.
This is who white evangelicals in the US have always been. They've always been racist, they've always been homophobic, they've always wanted to punish vulnerable groups for existing, they've always wanted the government to favor them. There is no reason at all to expect this group to be anything else; this is who they are and what they like and while they might deny it to outsiders, their ethics have always been terrible and their willingness to support authoritarian regimes frightening. It's lovely that Pew Research is willing to do the legwork on this one, but the result is hardly surprising.
I am glad to see fewer groups going quite so all-in for the Trump bandwagon now, I am. I just wish they'd voted that way back in November. At this point, I'm not willing to drop too much sympathy their way just yet because I'm saving that for those who voted for Harris. Trump told us what he'd do, that he intended to completely destroy rule of law, and now he's doing it, which is exactly what these white evangelicals wanted - or at least, that's what they thought they wanted. Authoritarians always seem to wind up biting the hand that put them in office to begin with, it's just a matter of how long before it happens. We'll have to wait and see how many bites it takes before they start changing their tune.
It was only a matter of time before the most gullible pack of rubes in the Western Hemisphere fell for the most obvious con job in human history. They'd been trained up for generations to be the perfect suckers- eagerly willing to be led around by the nose, hungry for promises of preferential treatment and righteous vengeance, devoid of critical thinking skills and empathy. They were an army of dupes in waiting, lacking only a sufficiently bombastic showman to ascend the throne and start barking orders. When they got one, they saw in him everything they aspired to be, and in that moment they were his.
And this, in a nutshell, is why we can't have nice things. It's also proof that those who have abandoned reason and believe in fairytales, are unable to distinguish between facts and lies, between reality and delusion. We are a post-truth society, where 'feeling' are all that matter, and no amount of proof will ever change the minds of the majority of people. #sad
Donald Trump cheated everyone he ever did business with. He never signed a contract he wouldn't violate. He was a draft-dodger of the lowest order. He repeatedly cheated on all three of his wives. He is a known associate of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He played no role in the lives of his children until they were adults. He is an adjudicated rapist and has been convicted of thirty-four felonies. When the Evangelicals continue to see Donald Trump as ethical, it illustrates the disconnect between religion and morality about as well as it can be. Trump has played the Evangelical preachers for the fools they are.
It's the 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 evangelicals. The black evangelicals, whose core theology matches the white evangelicals, see Trump for the nasty piece of work he is. The racism is a strong factor.
Good point. One could make the case that white evangelical churches serve as legitimized gatherings of the ku klux klan.
The Southern Baptist Church was founded as a pro-slavery institution.
When the master loses his slave, he fights like hell to get him back. When the slave tastes freedom, he fights like hell to keep it.
There's a great article in the Battlefields.org website on why non-slave-owning Southerners fought for the Confederacy. Scroll halfway down to the section called "What the churches were saying." Hoo boy.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/why-non-slaveholding-southerners-fought
"The prominent South Carolina Presbyterian theologian James Henley Thornwell did not mince his words. “The parties in the conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground – Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake.”"
The more things change......
Not always Joe. Some of the black fundies love trump, hate abortion access and vote against themselves. Crazy is crazy, no matter the color. But there are certainly more white Fascists.
Of course neither group is a monolith. There is a small percentage of the white evangelicals who are against Trump and everything he does, while there is also a small percentage of black evangelicals who love the shitstain on humanity. Neither demographic is at 100% on either side of the graph.
Like the three bigot stooges.
Yeah; I'm not totally sure how I feel about this article not giving as much attention to the divide between black/white Protestants? I would've discussed it more and I think the fact that black protestants appear to be the group least supportive of trump presents fruitful questions for secular folks to consider: how can we build coalitions across that particular religious divide to achieve shared goals while not compromising secular values; what do our own racial divides look like and why; etc. At the same time, this is an atheist blog, so it does make sense to focus on the nonreligious.
The divide in the non-religious seems to be more rooted in transphobia than along racial lines. Have you seen what the transphobic trolls do to the comment section when Hemant posts something critical of Dawkins?
I'm trans, so I try not to look directly at it for the sake of my mental health. Sucks to be the scapegoat du jour.
Or any of the other Capital-A Atheist douchebro darlings.
I'm also curious to know what the breakdown was among religious non-Christians.
I think of it more as a deal was made. Evangelical leaders launder Trump to their followers, and Trump uses his power to give their religion more control and influence while demonizing other religions. No evangelical leaders actually think Trump is a model of their brand of morality, but if getting enough in exchange, they whitewash and sell him to their congregation.
Yes, it’s highly transactional. I hope Trump becomes a permanent stain on white evangelicals and their mission
I am not so sure they are fools in the dictionary sense. Hypocrites for sure, but they have made a deal with the MAGA rethugs that gives them total behavioral control over society in exchange for supporting an amoral psychopath. Religion is their excuse, but the real goal is to have a white-supremacist patriarchy running the entirety of society except for the rather big chunk the oligarchs will/do run.
The American Taliban
Possibly not, but their inability to see Trump for what he is meets my definition of a fool though.
They need tRump. He is their ticket to Gilead.
oraxx, All true…🎯
The CCC or Council of Conservative Christians founded in 1985 St Louis, MO. They are the modern regrouping of the KKK. Established during the Moral Majority years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Quote: “We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people. … We therefore oppose the massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime. We believe that illegal immigration must be stopped, if necessary by military force and placing troops on our national borders; that illegal aliens must be returned to their own countries; and that legal immigration must be severely restricted or halted through appropriate changes in our laws and policies. We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called ‘affirmative action’ and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.” — Statement of Principles, Citizens Informer, 2007
See what’s happenin’ here? What it is is exactly clear. (paraphrase CSNY)
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/council-conservative-citizens/
It is really pathetic when people view the color of their skin as some kind of accomplishment. Humanity has paid a horrific price for the conceit of racism.
It’s gotten to the point where if you ever shake hands with him, check to make sure you still have all your fingers.
And these are his good qualities.
Okay, so who's surprised by this? Anyone? Considering that your average evangelical is probably getting all their news from Fox and rarely if ever pick up a newspaper or be bothered to look at an alternative news source, the above should catch any one of us unawares on a day that doesn't end in Y.
The fact is that it hasn't really hit the fan just yet. When the store shelves at Walmart and Target start to go empty, we may find something of a different story here.
As it comes to that, we may not have long to wait.
Trump started the REAL war on Christmas. This is the time of year that Christmas decorations and toy parts are shipped and the ports are EMPTY.
DAMNED good point!
OT: The Norwegian word for shoe is sko.
It's also an abbreviation for "let's go."
In Norwegian?
English.
Oh..this must be circulated! Good catch Sko!
The super-religious ones have turned rejected Fox as too liberal. They get their news from one of the prosperity gospel pastors' private cable networks.
Fox is too liberal now because after paying out a billion dollars for lying, they tell the truth once or twice a month.
Yes, they're probably sad that the Botox-scowled Tucker got fired. It has to be Botox. No one can naturally keep their face in that expression voluntarily. LOL
🤦🏻♀️
They would have to take off their blinders that say only conservatives straight white men are competent first.
The ability to be radicalized, propagandized, and hypnotized plays a big part in fundagelical religion and reichwing politics.
Trump has and will continue to blame it on Joe Biden. And his cult takes his word as ultimate truth.
Fanatigelicals are as blind to the reality of Trump as they are to the reality of the universe as it truly is.
IOW, they cling desperately to fantasies, hoping they'll be saved. May those fantasies bury them.
James Randi said it: "No amount of belief ever made something a fact." That's a lesson they desperately need to learn.
Ahhh I have fond, distant memories of the atheist meetups in Broward County, Florida, around Darwin Day and Sagan Day! I'm pretty sure Randi was there for at least one of them. We drove all the way across the state with our two small children, one time getting stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam, to get there.
Randi was brilliant!
"Fanati-genitals" is how I read that at first. Then I thought, that works too!
😄
White Evangelicals are a lobbying group. Nothing more. So long as he caters to their whiteness and bigotry and fundamentalist desire for control, they will adore him.
He could declare himself God and demand worship and most of them would follow.
Are you saying they are a cult?
To be honest I find his followers/cult members a tiny bit more dangerous than their leader.
The problem with Trump's followers is that a lot of them have guns and know how to use them. I doubt Trump would know which end of a gun to pick up.
He attended a military academy for a while.
pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-the-bully-how-childhood-military-school-shaped-the-future-president/
Is anyone surprised that white s̶u̶p̶r̶e̶m̶a̶c̶i̶s̶t̶s̶ evangelicals think everything Danger Yam has done is great? They are the most susceptible to believing things that aren't true despite the evidence. Indoctrination is one hell of a drug, and that helps to explain why they are so worshipful of der Führer. The restcan be explained by how much open hate he allows them.
Franklin Graham, John Hagee, James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Dumb Idiot Ken Ham, Paula White. The list of evangelical nitwits, dimwits, and knuckleheads who are highly loyal to that Stupid Idiot goes on and on.
Trump told four whopper lies that should have disqualified him from anybody with any moral sense whatsoever.
Children go to school and come home the opposite sex. Ignorance, stupidity, dishonesty on a completely massive scale. But because it agrees with their terror on matters of sex and gender, the application of a minimum of critical thought which is not going to make the appearance.
Democrats want abortion even after birth. Ignorance, stupidity, despite, and dishonesty on a completely massive scale. Anybody not terrified of issues around sex might think that that is what it is: an outright lie. That’s because abortion after birth is called murder.
The election was stolen from him in 2020. That was even though his own election security guy said that it was the most secure election ever. They are so greedy for power that no matter what they heard they would believe that.
Haitians in Springfield Ohio were eating pets. The mayor of Springfield said no. the right wing governor of Ohio said no. And yet, they believed it because it denigrated immigrants and Black people.
His People do not live in the same world that the rest of us live in. This is quite apart from his known adultery, his proclamation of sexual assault, his felony convictions, his bankruptcies.
They simply don’t care. Because for them, it’s all about power, money, religious dominion and revenge.
Democrats want abortion even after birth
That would actually be the people who want the death penalty.
Blatantly lying and daring critics to do something about it is a classic authoritarian power move. Even when the MAGAts do recognize his lies as lies, they probably get a kick out of him being able to get away with them so effortlessly.
I agree with that.
Photoshopped image of gang tattoo on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles as one more reason for not returning him to the U.S. against a judicial order.
And a badly photo shopped tattoo with that. I’m something of an expert on the subject.
cuz jeezyboy...
Hey, Evangelicals...
From Trump's first term as POTUS:
"Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters"
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/
Thou fools.
"God often chooses non-Christians to do His Work." They always have an excuse.
I am surprised after 100 days, and with the price of eggs* skyrocketing, 40 % of people still trust him.
* I hope those who couldn't bother to vote for Mme Harris for this pretext enjoy them now.
It will likely take a serious shock at the grocery store to shake them out of their torpor. Question is: how long will that take?
When their tomatoes from Mexico cost them $4 per pound (half kilo) next winter instead of the $2 per pound they paid 6 months ago, that might shake a few loose. Most will blame Biden.
😝
*Mode pinaillage*
Une livre US is 453.6 g, half a kg is 500 g.
I was rounding for convenience. 😔
I am not convinced they will ever snap out of their bubble.
Sadly, that may indeed be the case. One wonders what kind of mindset could sustain thoughts like that when THEIR cupboards are as bare as the store shelves are.
"Heathens are suffering too so that's good" or god' swill.
Me neither.
I’m convinced they wont. They take great pride in the Bible verses about Christians being persecuted. It just means they’re better Christians when their life goes into the crapper. They’ve never repented for slavery and segregation which their churches taught. They’ve never repented for their domestic violence and sexual abuse. They’ve never repented for centuries of genocide and oppressing people in the name of capitalism, greed, and power. It’s who they are.
"Normal isn't coming back. Jesus is." I saw cross-stitched wall art with that saying at the Watermelon Festival in Central Florida. They are literally delusional. They WANT to bring on the apocalypse.
It is and always has been, a death cult.
I was in Malta all of this last week. I was simply amazed that how much death and torture makes it into the artwork and these rather magnificent churches. Quite apart from the usual Jesus on the cross stuff. Just lots of it.
$90-120 a week at Wal-Mart for one person. Diet Pepsi has more than doubled in price since 2020 and I expect it to get much worse in another month or two.
YEOUCH!
I've just found this advert ... and I thought that it might appeal to some folks here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjrI_Tw9kpo
(They've been making utterly cracking ads, for years!)
Maybe look into replacing Pepsi with our (other) national drink?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxuFQCDis
:-)
We're the canaries in the coal mine, singing our asses off before the roof caves in...
White evangelicals are the most dishonest people I've ever met and incredibly stupid to boot.
"I love the poorly educated."
-- Donnie Dumb-Ass
“What about ethics? 69% of white evangelicals think the Trump administration’s ethical standards are “excellent” or “good.””
And I am leaving my obligatory, this is because for them, the ends of political power justify the means of lying and cheating.
Most of those people couldn't even spell "ethics, "let alone know what it is.
Over here there are people who think ethics ith thomewhere near Thuththex.
I cannot underemphasize the role of cult tactics in this. Evangelical Christians are all trauma-bonded, they enable abuse of many kinds. They, like the people surrounding Trump, think abusive, controlling, manipulative behavior is normal. They think that covering up sex abuse scandals is normal. I'm more and more shocked and disgusted at each new religious sex abuse scandal I see--and it's not just Christians. Chassidic Jews are no better. They're all just a bunch of Jeffrey Epsteins and R Kellys using religion as a business and coverup for their activities. Frankly, I think they're all envious of Warren Jeffs, with his child labor and child sex slaves. Disgusting. And meanwhile, your average liberal Democrat has no clue that any of it is going on and they don't seem to want to know of the "dark side."
I once received some weird screed from Warren Jeffs ( not to me personally, but the mail staff didn’t know who to give it to). Must have been targeting certain companies. It was definitely worthy of a circular file disposal.
The mythos Trump created for himself is simple but powerful: I do great things; if I am doing it, by definition it’s great. Originally he directed this at his business acumen, so that despite all objective measures to the contrary, people who didn’t think much about it were convinced he is a great businessman. As he entered national politics he stretched this to encompass virtually every aspect of his doings, with a hefty dose of white nationalist propaganda and imminent doom rhetoric to give followers more cover and reinforcement. Trump created a belief system that doesn’t stand up to any rational scrutiny, but those who want to can simply choose to believe that if it’s great he is doing it, and if he’s doing it, it’s great. They choose to believe him because he invites people to cede their morality to him, so they don’t have to feel any responsibility for his actions.
He also plays to their baser instincts with his revenge politik speech. He actively solicits stochiastic terrorism, and he gets results, which is terrifying all by itself. This is a zeitgeist which I don't think any of us imagined was possible until Trump showed up.
And it desperately needs to be countered.
I agree though I think the target audiences are different. The calls for violence and retribution aren’t for evangelicals. They get the story of a man who made mistakes, who learned from them and was humbled, who now wants to serve the righteous. It’s ridiculous obviously, but each audience gets the version of Trump that best resonates with what they want to hear.
Allow me a moment here.
This is who white evangelicals in the US have always been. They've always been racist, they've always been homophobic, they've always wanted to punish vulnerable groups for existing, they've always wanted the government to favor them. There is no reason at all to expect this group to be anything else; this is who they are and what they like and while they might deny it to outsiders, their ethics have always been terrible and their willingness to support authoritarian regimes frightening. It's lovely that Pew Research is willing to do the legwork on this one, but the result is hardly surprising.
I am glad to see fewer groups going quite so all-in for the Trump bandwagon now, I am. I just wish they'd voted that way back in November. At this point, I'm not willing to drop too much sympathy their way just yet because I'm saving that for those who voted for Harris. Trump told us what he'd do, that he intended to completely destroy rule of law, and now he's doing it, which is exactly what these white evangelicals wanted - or at least, that's what they thought they wanted. Authoritarians always seem to wind up biting the hand that put them in office to begin with, it's just a matter of how long before it happens. We'll have to wait and see how many bites it takes before they start changing their tune.
He matches THEIR twisted idea of “ethics”, not ACTUAL ethics.
"Sin is the cudgel used by religion to pound hatred into the hearts of its followers."
It was only a matter of time before the most gullible pack of rubes in the Western Hemisphere fell for the most obvious con job in human history. They'd been trained up for generations to be the perfect suckers- eagerly willing to be led around by the nose, hungry for promises of preferential treatment and righteous vengeance, devoid of critical thinking skills and empathy. They were an army of dupes in waiting, lacking only a sufficiently bombastic showman to ascend the throne and start barking orders. When they got one, they saw in him everything they aspired to be, and in that moment they were his.
𝐴𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠, 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒. 𝑂𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡'𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑛.
-- H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
The man was positively prescient!
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘸!
What did Mark Twain say about the first con man and the first fool?
Misattribution. It actually came from Voltaire.
"Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."
He had no love for organized religion due to its potential for causing division and great harm.
And this, in a nutshell, is why we can't have nice things. It's also proof that those who have abandoned reason and believe in fairytales, are unable to distinguish between facts and lies, between reality and delusion. We are a post-truth society, where 'feeling' are all that matter, and no amount of proof will ever change the minds of the majority of people. #sad