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Rather than renouncing him when it became evident that Trump was unsuited for office, Republican support rose from 81% (the number who voted for him) to 90%. The hatred that Republicans and Democrats feel toward one another is such that 5% had rather see the country fail than for their opponents to succeed.
When Peggy and I recently heard the supposedly shocking news that 44% of America's evangelicals feel physically threatened by Muslims, we weren't surprised because we feel threatened by evangelicals (nearly all of whom are Trump supporters), the extent of the threat being proportionate to the extent of their political power. Many such people are like Peggy's father who is polite, soft-spoken, dresses well, works hard, teaches Sunday school, holds political office, flies the flag on patriotic holidays, and never cheats anyone. Unfortunately, they also favor military solutions; support repression in the name of religious freedom; have so little actual faith in God that they elected a president devoid of integrity; and even agree with that president when he says that a free press "is the enemy of the people."
For most of my life, I voted for the candidate rather than the party, and I tried to respect the motives of those with whom I differed, but I will never again vote Republican, and I despise Trump supporters. Of America's recent presidents, Barack Obama reminded me of a gum chewing college freshman; Bush II was an inarticulate moron; and Bill Clinton a lying sexual predator; but perhaps the only president who ever attained to Trump's level of wickedness was, aside from himself, his favorite president, Andrew Jackson. Jackson was infamous for having a hair-trigger temper; committing bigamy; fighting duels; holding himself above the law; ignoring a Supreme Court ruling that forbade the state of Georgia from stealing lands from the Cherokee; and for forcing 50,000 poorly provisioned and broken-hearted Indians to undertake a mid-winter death march to Oklahoma even as the people who stole their homes were warming themselves before fires for which the Indians themselves had provided wood.
Trump adores Jackson because, like Jackson, he believes that obedience to the law is for suckers. In fact, Trump so adores Jackson that he hung his portrait in a prominent place, and announced that a long awaited plan to replace Jackson's image on the $20 bill with that of a black female abolitionist will never happen during the eight years that he plans to be president. The Georgia white people who believed that God had given them Indian lands (just as he had given the ancient Jews lands that were owned by others), were the spiritual ancestors of those whom today are kept busy looking for ways to shaft anyone who doesn't share their looks and religion. For instance, they just enacted a federal "conscience rule" allowing health care workers to make on-the-spot refusals to provide services, including emergency services, to LGBTs, women with abortion complications, and any and all others of whom they disapprove. Likewise, they were the spiritual ancestors of Christian lawmakers who, despite presiding over the nation's most dysfunctional states (in terms of crime, mortality, illiteracy, poverty, and every other quality of life measure), nonetheless find plenty of time to pass "Religious Freedom Protection Acts" that legalize Christian bigotry, and, more recently, "Human Life Protection Laws" that prohibit abortion after six weeks, which is before most women know they're pregnant. When lawmakers in the various states with new anti-abortion laws were asked if they planned to expand their already woefully underfunded social services in order to help the many desperately poor women who will now be having unwanted babies, they said that raising other people's children isn't their problem, and if a woman can't afford a child, she shouldn't get pregnant, although the same lawmakers who oppose abortion tend to oppose birth control.
As Trump's hatred for the leaders of free nations; his adulation of Putin; his self-described love affair with Kim Jong-un; his strange affection for neo-Nazis; his high-regard for Jew-hater Viktor Orbán; his reference to black-run nations as "shit-hole countries;" his preference for Northern European immigrants; his contempt for human rights; and his belief that the law only applies to others, would suggest, Trump is a Hitler wannabe (albeit a decades more aged and with much less energy and charisma), his only hindrance being the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, neither of which would stop him if he had sufficient popular support.
Hitler had that support, his power growing out of the Great Depression, hyper-inflation, Germany's anger at the rest of the Western world following the Treaty of Versailles, and his promise to erase the bitter taste of military defeat by making Germany great again. His 1934 propaganda film, The Triumph of the Will, consists of two hours of impassioned speeches, mass rallies, torch-lit parades, happy Aryan soldiers, the glorification of militarism, and thousands of worshipful faces uplifted to his in rapt adoration. Eleven years later, this man who pledged, "I will make Germany great again," had reduced it to ruin, brought death to 80-million, and lasting misery and debility to hundreds of millions more.
Like Trump, Hitler was an amoral narcissist who couldn't admit to mistakes, so as Russian tanks rolled into Berlin, he blew his filthy brains out after blaming the German people for having failed him. Pre-Trump, I couldn't understand how the German masses trusted a man whom, like Trump, was initially dismissed as cartoon-fodder by the intellectually serious, but I eventually concluded that my previously low confidence in the intelligence and clear-headedness of the masses had nonetheless been overrated. Generally speaking, the masses: are one issue voters; regard blind faith as the only path to ultimate truth; are highly susceptible to fake news; think in terms of right versus wrong and us versus them; are impatient with complexity; hold logic and evidence in low esteem; are deeply suspicious of scientists and intellectuals; and are easily swayed by politicians who reinforce their religion and bigotry.
They also equate having a legal right to think a certain way with having a rational right to do the same. The Trump era is described as "post-truth" in that unfounded opinion is held in higher regard (by Trump and his supporters) than scientific fact. All that Trump, a man who boasts of never reading, need do is to pronounce global warming non-existent (or unrelated to human activity--he has done both), and government agencies can be underfunded, and climatologists threatened with job loss if they warn of climate changes more than twenty years down the road. Such is the mentality by which America is being governed.
Another aspect of living in a Trumpian post-truth world is that morality has been reduced to a matter of convenience. This allows Trump to defame his opponents with vague innuendo, often starting sentences with: "A lot of people are saying..." This week, he even justified accepting election help from hostile governments by saying, "Everybody's doing it," which is the sort of logic that many teenagers use to justify bad behavior. Likewise, his Christian followers can deny that they're trying to shut down abortion clinics while imposing regulations that shut down abortion clinics, and they can bypass the legal challenges of using tax money to erect Latin crosses and Ten Commandment monuments on public property by claiming that those monuments "have no religious significance." I grew up in an era in which preachers criticized Communism on the grounds that Communists believe the end justifies the means. This being true, evangelical Christianity and its bastard child, Republican politics, has come to look much like Communism, in that its moral impetus has been directed away from positive admonitions to do good and toward an endless refrain of "Thou shalt nots" that use the law to destroy the lives of anyone deemed "not nice."
I believe that the blind faith which the religious masses place in an egregious politician like Trump--and other morally-challenged leaders of his party--is facilitated by their equally blind faith in an ancient savior, my premise being that when a person regards logic and evidence as obstacles to the realization of ultimate truth, he or she is more likely to apply the same standard to other forms of inquiry. As unkind as it is for scoffers to say that, "When believers go to church, they check their brains at the door," religious faith does require a segregation of a person's mental faculties, a segregation that at the very least requires one to say, "While reason and evidence might be appropriate when it comes to determining the boiling point of water on Mt. Everest, unfounded faith is a virtue when it comes to discovering the existence and nature of God."
Trump has told one demonstrable lie after another, repeatedly prefacing them with, "Believe me..." When the news media began calling him on his lies, Trump urged members of his cheering crowds to assault reporters; labeled reporters the enemies of the people; put and end to press conferences by his press secretary; and demanded that the press be legally muzzled. Threats against reporters and their families have become such that they never know when the cost of criticizing Trump might be death.
Yes, I am frothing with loathing. While I despise nearly all of America's presidents for using the military (funded by my tax money) to commit mass murder in the name of political expediency, I formerly tried to tell myself that they were at least acting in the best light that they had. I cannot so excuse Donald Trump because his depravity is too brazen and unremitting, nor can I excuse his followers because they have continued to support him long after all possibility of doing so in ignorance ended. These people, most of them followers of Christ, know exactly what kind of a man Trump is, and they wouldn't have him any other way.
16 comments:
I strongly suspect that if I lived in your country I would join you in your frothfest.
I watch with horror and the hope that our own politicians don't take his success and his methods to heart. A hope which I fear will be denied.
This line struck me in your post ' if a woman can't afford a child, she shouldn't get pregnant, although the same lawmakers who oppose abortion tend to oppose birth control.' Am I right in thinking that these same lawmakers don't consider rape an acceptable reason for abortion?
All I can say is DITTO.
Nice work. Not even his revolting sexual escapades crucified him. It is with no pride in my own country, but at what point was America great? That is great for all its citizens? Interesting to learn about your native people and the dispossession of their land, as happened here. In your surmation, you are quite correct. Trump is seriously depraved.
Yes. I read a criticism of Franklin Graham recently. It was scathing about him being a super high profile Christian aligning himself with an evil regime. I doubt the religious right will pay attention, except maybe to cry "persecution" but at least the criticism has been voiced and nobody can say they didn't know
I also find Trump totally self centered. What intrigues me is not that he has blind followers but that there is now a slow global undoing of political parties globally. And much is blamed on influx of immigrants and refugees who really are not the issue. Brexit willl weaken EU where already other nations are becoming divided. The deeper question might be what is the cause behind the undoing of political parties all around?
Is it possible that there is a group or movement out there that has mastered the art on manipulating masses into blind belief thus splitting up their once functioning system ? Do followers believe this will lead them to have more self governance and more say? Surely it is clear that the greater the divine of masses the more those at the top will benefit. These days the most imprtant power lies in the bottom line of the stocks globally. The 24/7 stock report is as frequent as the weather report.
And speaking of the weather no human has figured out how it can be controlled. The global ragging winds and rains will likely become a bigger world issue faster than anyone imagined. Trump’s golf courses and Towers will suffer as much as anyone one else’s properties. And blind faith in any religion will not help fix violent weather and it’s power over all on this planet.
You make great comparisons of past tyrants yet I fear we all have to face a new one. The storm. Recently golf ball size hail in Munich pelted down so hard glass of car roof and windows were destroyed. Add to the green houses and major flooding.
In UK 580 home ended up under water this week as a river burst due to torrential rain. And US storms are also more violent.
"Am I right in thinking that these same lawmakers don't consider rape an acceptable reason for abortion"
Yes, because if a person regards abortion as murder, then rape or incest do not justify abortion, and an aborted fetus is properly regarded as a human corpse. The US Supreme Court recently upheld an Ohio law that even requires that aborted fetuses be accorded funeral services, and various other states have passed "Personhood Laws" that make a woman's egg a "person" from the moment of fertilization. Most such states are in the South, along with Mormon Utah and a few Midwestern states.
"...what point was America great?"
I think we played an admirable role in two world wars, and while, at age 70, I look far more askance upon any war than I once did, I tremble to consider what might have happened had we stayed out of those wars. I also think that our "Founding Fathers" included some of the greatest minds who ever lived, and that those men provided us with a system of government that has survived for over 200 years, and that is the only thing that is protecting us from an attempted coup by Donald Trump.
The common myth here is that America is "great" because we're smarter and work harder than other peoples, but the main reason is that we serve the Christian deity more faithfully, and he has therefore rewarded us by making us the world's premiere nation. It is important to note that the growing number of laws that favor Christianity here come at a time when there are as many religious "nones" in America as there are Catholics or Protestants, and so it is feared by religious peoples that our nations is going to incur God's wrath if we don't turn things around). As to what our present greatness looks like exactly, we still have more individual liberties than many places, and while our standard of living has been dropping for years (the result of our "wealth gap" increasing), it's still high for most Americans. America takes greatness for granted in the same way that a person born with wealth takes money for granted. Both attitudes are apparent in the behavior of Donald Trump. He runs the country like he runs his life, his assumption being that he can treat our allies like shit because we hold all the cards and they have no choice but to suck up to us, but if they don't, then he doesn't care because, as he sees it, they are nothing but a bunch of parasites who have been taking advantage of America for years. Trump has destroyed so much of the world's trust in America that I don't think it will recover during my lifetime because even if we elect a liberal like Obama during one election, we might very well elect another fascist in the next. I thank my lucky stars that I don't have (or simply want to) travel overseas because I would feel so humiliated that I couldn't look people in the eye.
"I read a criticism of Franklin Graham recently. It was scathing about him being a super high profile Christian aligning himself with an evil regime."
Do you have a link? If I recall correctly, Graham, unlike many, doesn't regard Trump as a shining example of Christianity, but he does think that God has "raised him up" to defeat the armies of Satan. To one like Graham, the fact that God would use such a deeply flawed man to bring about his will is indicative of God's greatness.
"I doubt the religious right will pay attention, except maybe to cry "persecution" but at least the criticism has been voiced and nobody can say they didn't know."
Despite running, in large part the national government and many state governments, Evangelical Christians regard themselves as the most persecuted group in America, and they say this is true because those who hate God just naturally hate them. On result of the marriage between evangelical Christianity and conservative politics is that people who formerly had a live-and-let-live attitude toward religion are coming to regard religion, on principle, as the enemy.
"The global ragging winds and rains will likely become a bigger world issue faster than anyone imagined."
Trump has gone from calling global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, to acknowledging that it probably exists but denies that human activity has anything to do with it. Trump's people--most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo--are even claiming that, far from being a bad thing, global warming represents a wonderful economic opportunity. Take the Dutch of example, having their lands flooded sure didn't bother them, and he has said that climate refugees, by definition, can always relocate. Then there's the wonderful fact that the melting of Far North ice is starting to make shipping possible year round. I even heard one Trump apologist say that as winter becomes a thing of the past, he looks forward to being able to enjoy the "great outdoors" year round. The idea of interconnectiveness, mass extinctions, and carefully balanced systems doesn't phase such people.
I fear it’s not only in your country but in mine and many others.
Fear, bigotry and bullying is becoming the way to govern the idiotic masses
Unfortunately the masses won’t see it until it’s too late
"Fear, bigotry and bullying is becoming the way to govern the idiotic masses."
A Kansas farmer complained that Trump's trade war with China was hurting Kansas, saying, in effect, that he had expected Trump to do things that would hurt other parts of the country, but that Kansas was Trump country. He was right, though, in that Trump really does go out of his way to harm those states and cities that don't support him for instance by dumping illegal immigrants (who are awaiting an immigration hearing) in places that have sanctuary laws. Yet many people are still homeless in Florida (which, like Kansas, is Trump country), although the hurricane that devastated the area hit seven months ago. I would guess that people will eventually get fed up, that this could happen overnight if the economy tanks) and when they do, they'll swing back in the opposite political direction, just as they did during the Great Depression, when millions of Americans became socialists.
Oregon has a lot of failings, but we don't pass laws to regulate women, or to give rapists parental rights, or harbor sheriff deputies/preachers who suggest those in the LGBT community be tried and executed. I'm proud of Oregon, with all its faults, for holding a line on these behaviors. Therefore I too, one who used to vote for candidates and thinks political parties should be abolished to encourage thinking for oneself, refuse to consider a Republican for any reason now.
I tried hard to find the link I referred to but it's lost to the mysteries of the web.....
Sorry about that
"I too, one who used to vote for candidates and thinks political parties should be abolished to encourage thinking for oneself, refuse to consider a Republican for any reason now."
I don't suppose that Republican approval of Trump's endlessly hateful rhetoric toward any and everyone who disagrees with him means that they will continue to app;rove if, when a Democrat holds the office, the hatred is directed at them.
"Oregon has a lot of failings, but we don't pass laws to regulate women, or to give rapists parental rights, or harbor sheriff deputies/preachers who suggest those in the LGBT community be tried and executed."
Strayer is partly referring to the following Tennessee police detective: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tennessee-deputy-pastor-calls-for-execution-of-lbtq-people_n_5d0261bce4b0985c41994837, who wants LGBTs and adulterers killed. As for parental rights for rapists, that's the law in Alabama, assuming that the rapist wants such rights, and it too has a Biblical basis, although the Bible goes a bit further, the following text being from Deuteronomy 22: "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her." This marriage law didn't apply when the rapists were Israelite soldiers to whom God had given the little daughters of the parents they had killed, those unfortunate children simply being enslaved or murdered when their gang rapists got tired of screwing them. Remember the old hymn, "God is Love" ("Let us all rejoice and say that, God is Love"), well, there's your God of love, and I really hope you love him because he will send you to everlasting torment if you don't.
If these Southerners really think that America's troops should be allowed to murder non-combatants and rape their daughters, then they deserve a standing ovation for their consistency in practicing "God's Holy Word," because most Christians shy away from a lot of Holy Writ, but I would very much like to know if they would continue to think that such laws were fair if their own daughters were forced to marry the men who raped them. Also, how do they feel about slavery, stoning children who talk back to their parents, and other Godly values expressed in the Bible. For example, women being unclean when having their periods: “Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until evening. Anything on which the woman lies or sits during the time of her period will be unclean. If any of you touch her bed, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening. If you touch any object she has sat on, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening. This includes her bed or any other object she has sat on; you will be unclean until evening if you touch it. If a man has sexual intercourse with her and her blood touches him, her menstrual impurity will be transmitted to him. He will remain unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will be unclean." What I would like to know is whether Eve had periods because if she did, it would mean that feminine uncleanness existed in the perfect paradise of pre-fall Eden, there being no environment that is not dirtied by the presence of women.
I suspect that had the Hebrew deity been a woman, then Hebrew women would have had it better, but when your god is just another misogynistic male who goal it is to burden and humiliate you so that you despise your existence, then all you really have to look forward to is the day you return to dust, there being an equality about dust, it having no gender.
Kylie, I'm honored that you took the time to look for the link.
"AMERICA elected President Trump."
Although Trump won the electoral college, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%.
"You drank gallons of the Democratic Kool-Aid"
I am not a Democrat; I don't identify with the "Far Left;" and the people at Jonestown didn't drink Kool-Aid but Flavor Aid.
"you only know from biased “fake news” sources is truly ridiculous."
You've yet to give me a single source for altering a single factual statement I've ever made, and you've demonstrated a negative interest in exploring the sources that I've given you. I can well understand why you would feel insulted by this post, but please, oh please, just for the fun of it, give me some verifiable reason to see things your way.
"President Trump’s constitutes are not “ALL” anything."
Trump's supporters TEND to be male, white, Christian, Republican, authoritarian, xenophobic, over fifty, and reside in the South and Midwest. They voted for Trump because they value in him what they see in themselves.
"Generalities are the New Democrat bitchiness. Y’all deserve the likes of the ignorant waitress and Pelosi and Sharpton."
I see no connection between being ignorant and working as a waitress, but if what you say about generalities is true, you are a "New Democrat."
So, when all is said and done, Snow, what is your perfectly sensible solution to all the chaotic bullshit happening today AND for the past innumerable years in America and the rest of the world?
"what is your perfectly sensible solution to all the chaotic bullshit happening today AND for the past innumerable years in America and the rest of the world?"
When you comment anonymously, I would appreciate it if you would give me some name to identify you by. I favor democratic socialism as the best answer to a bad situation, although I think we might be doomed regardless. Why? Because our species seems incapable of doing much more than, metaphorically speaking, putting out fires as opposed to taking actions that would favor the longterm benefit of our species and our planet. The problem with this is evident in the case of global warming. It is already too late to stop it, and we haven't even started taking measures to alleviate it. When people look back at us fifty years from now, I can't imagine that they will view us with anything but scorn. I had a recent commenter blame baby boomers for all of the world's problems (even saying that every other group hates us), but I don't see younger people doing anything to remedy them either. Species evolve until they run into problems that they aren't evolved enough to handle, and then they become extinct. I think we are looking at our own mass die-off if not our actual extinction.
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