WHY WHITE EVANGELICALS LOVE TRUMP

Evangelicals, like the rest of the Republicans have had to come up with some rationale for supporting the most vulgar, sexist, moronic, pathologically lying, racist, immoral, biblically illiterate, vindictive thug conceivably on the planet, but definitely to occupy the White House.  They say that while they are uncomfortable with his crude childish boorish behavior, they support him because of his policies.  Apparently, they claim that his policies are in line with Christian values, even of his pussy grabbing isn’t. 

                One has to wonder which policies are so much in line with those of Christ that these truly righteous people can not only overlook Trump’s copious moral lapses, including drooling over his own daughter, but in some cases even deify him.  Could it be his rescinding of environmental safeguards and regulations that protect our water and air?  Perhaps it was his policy of snatching children from their mothers at the border.  Maybe it was his rolling back of regulations to restrict banks from gambling with taxpayer dollars.  Sound Christian?

                I found out why white Evangelicals would support a Trump candidate/president long before Trump entered politics when I lectured on spirituality at a Chicago area Christian college decades ago. I began my lecture with seemingly innocuous statements: The first law of spirituality is that we are all more alike than we are different.  The second law of spiritualty is that our religious persuasions are largely an accident of birth.  Most Muslims are Muslims because they were born into a Muslim society.  Most Christians are Christians because they were born into a Christian society.  Easy-Peasy.  Piece of cake, or so I thought.

                I always left plenty of time following my lectures for discussion, because that was where the real action was.  Yet as I looked out at the classroom all I saw were arms folded, lips pursed, jaws clenched, and I could have sworn, wisps of smoke emanating from their ears.  With some coaxing from their instructor they finally began to express their frustration and anger with me which started as a drizzle but escalated into a downpour.   One young man protested that my message wasn’t true because he had been a Presbyterian, a Methodist, and a Catholic.  I responded that I had not heard Hindu or Muslim, but different branches from the tree of Christianity.  Eventually I came to understand their ire. 

                By saying we were all the same, I was inadvertently attacking the central tenet of their religion; that they were the Chosen People. From the Old Testament in which God orders genocide,  through the Inquisition to the priests who accompanied the vicious New World explorers such as Francisco Pizzaro,  to Manifest Destiny the motif of Chosen People has given cover and justification  to all manner of mayhem.  Furthermore, the Chosen People didn’t get that way by accident.  As the name states, they were chosen.

The longer the class went on, the more the tables were turned as I learned all about them, but they were too invested in their belief system to learn anything from me.  I learned that unlike the sweet, paschal lamb that had been fed to minorities to keep them docile, their Jesus was a rough-and-tumble, take no stuff, tough guy.  And an American.  I knick-named him G. I. Jesus.  I was also curious as to how a class on spirituality could have found my message so foreign.  When I asked what they had been reading, they held up their texts, which were titled, “Fighting Satan.”  Their idea of spirituality was to fight evil spirits.  I realized they would rather curse the darkness than light a candle. 

Chosen people are nothing, by definition, if not tribal.  Who exalts tribalism better than Trump? Religion without spirituality is the religion of exclusion. Trump likes building walls.     Wheaton College just outside Chicago, fired a tenured professor for practicing religious tolerance!  Trump presents himself as their messiah.  Jesus said, “None come to the father but through me.”  Trump says,” I alone can fix it.”

Ultimately, whether Trump is religious or not is irrelevant.  The religion of these white Evangelicals is founded, not on morality, but on identity.  As long as he affirms that identity as the Chosen People (to paraphrase Richard Nixon, if they do it, it isn’t wrong) who must remain pure, he will never lose their support.

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WHAT DO THE GETTYSBURG ADRESS, AND DRUG ADDICTION HAVE TO DO WITH TODAY’S POLITICS IN WASHINGTON?

It’s ironic that the most well-known faux pas in Abraham Lincoln’s outrageously masterful Gettysburg Address, is that he asserts that his most famous speech would quickly be forgotten.  His exact words: “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here…”  Yet there is another hidden, yet more important mistake in his speech

After referencing “a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” Lincoln maintains that the Civil War was really about whether “that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”  In other words, did this experiment in egalitarianism inexorably lead to the civil war, and was it therefore doomed even before it began?

Yet the question should have been whether a nation conceived in genocide, (Indians) and dedicated to the proposition that whites had the right to treat African people as less than animals could long endure.

The Civil War was not fought because the country was conceived in liberty.  It was fought because the country was conceived in slavery.  Not only was the country not dedicated to all men of all races being created equal, but it did not allow that even white men let alone women) were created equal, hence the compromise that brought about the electoral college which plagues the political process to this day.  Basically, the founders did not trust the common man to see through subterfuge and vote intelligently, hence the need for an intermediary body to cast the actual vote.  (Once again, slavery played a major role in all this).  And once again the irony is downright exquisite that the two worst presidents in history were elected precisely because of this intermediary.

The point is that there are real reasons why the United Sates is leading the European world in self-cannibalization, just as there are real reasons why recovering addicts (alcohol or drugs) must make amends with all the people they hurt during their addiction. 

The issue is one of growing and becoming as well as the consequences for failure to do so.    As long as the substance abuser clings to the excuses he has made for his horrible behavior during his addiction, he will never be free to outgrow his addiction.  The more egregious the behavior, the more difficult it is to address it but also the sweeter it is to overcome it.   Without reconciliation the addict stagnates and is eventually consumed by his addiction. 

By disavowing his past egregious acts, the addict/sinner embodies the true meaning of being born again; and not the racist garbage espoused by the white supremacist Evangelical community.  America could have/ should have been born again at the end of the Civil War.  African Americans should have received their forty acres and a mule.  A rebirth should have produced a commitment to try to repair the unspeakable harm that had been done.

The exact opposite occurred.  The darkness that produced slavery continued to flourish as it was manifest as riots that destroyed successful black communities while the rioters demanded blacks pull themselves up “by their bootstraps.”  Jim Crow and lynching continued and racism/white supremacy has remained at the heart of the national conversation to this day. 

There have been other opportunities for redemption.  Losing the Vietnam war, like when an alcoholic hits bottom, provided just such an opportunity.  Unfortunately, there came a “hero” riding a mighty steed who would rescue America’s psyche at the cost of her soul: Ronald Reagan.  The darkness that produced slavery, manifest destiny, the genocide of Indians, Imperialism and international hegemony continued to flourish.

Fast forward to today.  As that darkness feels threatened by multi-culturalism-a black president, people of color in traditionally white roles- its desperation produces a willingness to sink to new lows in an ill-fated effort at self-preservation.  The darkness lashes about, injuring those who seek its protection as much as those it seeks to oppress.   It provides the impetus for a childish, malevolent, narcissistic, intellectually challenged pathological liar to occupy the Executive branch and a soulless hypocritical amoral Congress to remove any checks and balances.  Like the plant in the “Little Shop of Horrors,” the darkness grows; its voracious appetite fed by the white supremacy which in turn is fueled by militant, intentional ignorance. 
                                          
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