So, Let's Think About This...The Midterms Are Over, the Democrats Got Control of Both Houses, Now What?

We are seeing a frenzy of campaigning in advance of the 2026 midterm elections, and from my own memory, I can't remember a previous one in which the frequency and intensity of the rhetoric has been quite the way it is right now.  I counted from the time my phone pinged the first message I received this morning at 6:00 a.m. until just a few minutes ago, and I have received 21 emails, texts, and notifications asking me to give money to someone running for office.  The primary in my state is over, so 18 of those messages came from candidates in other states.  

I think my previous record was in 2024, when, after I made a small contribution to the Harris campaign through Act Blue, I got 10 notifications the next day.  

It's really pretty obvious that the momentum which I believe will carry Democrats to majorities in both houses of Congress in November is built on the unbelievable incompetence and corruption of the Trump administration.  We can talk about our issues, things we would like to see done, our politics, and a lot of those running for office are doing this.  But the fact of the matter is that the real agenda that has taken over, and in some cases has forced Democratic politicians to get out of their old school politics and regular old way of doing things is that Donald Trump is actually the existential threat to American Constitutional Democracy that has become the cliche phrase of current politics, and Democrats must acknowledge this if they are going to win.  

As much as we would like to think otherwise, we are not going to win the midterms with our own agenda.  The Republicans are going to lose the midterms because they are complicit with the crimes and unconstitutional corruption of the man they nominated to serve as President.  Democrats and our agenda are not nearly so popular as Republicans and Trump are unpopular.  And that reality is going to dictate what Democrats must do when we get control of Congress if we want the momentum to continue and if we want to win the Presidential election in 2028.  

The Playbook For This Has Already Been Written

It's called, "How Republican Majorities In Congress Rendered the Clinton and Obama Administrations Totally Ineffective."  

Remember Contract with America?  And if you do, it should sound familiar, because aside from the nastiness of the politics that surrounded it, guess who had a big hand in putting it all together for Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey to introduce into the House?  It was the Heritage Foundation.  That's right, the same group underwritten by billionaires, promoting the fascist pseudo-Christian nationalism that has embedded itself in Republican party politics of the Trump administration.  These people have been enemies of the American republic for a lot longer than most people realize.  

Gone was the compromising, the deal making, the give and take that was required for Congress to effectively do its job.  In its place, a political wall of resistance, determination through being stubbornly oppositional and uncompromising to cause the other side to be seen as the failure.  The commitment to make sure that government did not work while a Democrat was in the White House was the reality of a good part of both the Clinton and Obama administrations, which had to put up with oppositional Republicans for the better part of their terms.  

It was so bad, that the Republicans, under Mitch McConnell's leadership, stole--and I use this term correctly here--the opportunity for President Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice by simply using their majority to delay until he was out of office.  The inept and failed court that we have now is the direct result of that theft.  The GOP became the "party of NO!" a reputation they deserved as a result of using the power they had when in the majority.  

Democratic Political Success in the Future Depends on How Aggressively They Attack the Trump Administration After Gaining Control of Congress

It's turned out to be a good thing that David Hogg didn't last long at the DNC after his appointment to serve as its assistant director.  His organization, Leaders we Deserve, is still relatively new, but its fundraising power is growing, they've seen some electoral success in their candidate support, and they are lighting a fire underneath the cumbersome, slow-to-react Democratic party.  That's where my contribution is going at the moment.  There's an energy there, and a sense of direction along with the ability to clearly articulate the problem and the solution.  They have, in fact, had a strong enough voice that the Democratic Governors Association has been seeking their support.  

Coming at the Trump administration with something along the lines of Contract with America isn't going to be strong enough.  Getting things done without a single Republican vote should be strategized and prioritized, there are clearly ways to do it and it must be done.  A lot of the momentum and support for the No Kings days has come from political independents.  It is time to leverage that, and shoot it like a cannonball at the GOP.  Let's see how they handle it.  

The approach to the remainder of the Trump presidency should mirror the approach McConnell took to the Obama presidency, and that was to do everything possible to make the President fail and do absolutely nothing that could be considered to his political benefit.  That's exactly the approach Democrats now must take with Trump.  No compromise, shut down everything that can be shut down and make sure he owns the consequences.  We need leadership that is politically savvy and sharp enough to make that happen and if it requires some dusting and cleaning the musty corners of the current status quo, so be it.  Let 'em go.  

The corruption must be exposed and expunged.  I will be highly disappointed if impeachment proceedings are not brought immediately, even though there might not be a possibility of conviction, but I'm not opposed to putting whatever pressure can be put on enough Republicans to force them to vote to convict.  There's certainly enough pork barrels in each red state to make them think about their own self-preservation.  

There are a lot of things that can leverage the President's ability to stay in office or be forced to resign, and all of that needs to come out.  Every aspect of his involvement in the Epstein scandal should be exposed.  The cases regarding his document theft and sedition on January 6th should be lined up with evidence, publicized and prepared to start trial the day he leaves office.  Let him dare to veto things that are popular with voters.  

Well, you get the drift.  We need to come out in an overwhelming way, force issues and expose it all.  

I hope, after the election, we have the leadership to do this.  

Evangelicalism in America Will Not Survive Trump

At this point, I would say that it is already past any point of no return, and is headed for a fall.  What is known and identified as "Evangelical Christianity" in America will not survive the Trump Presidency.  The declines in membership and attendance, and in the number of people who self-identify as "Evangelical" has dropped 25% since Trump first descended the escalator to announce his run in 2016, and it is getting difficult to determine where the lines have been drawn at this point.  

The Apostle Jude, in his very short, but straight to the point epistle in the New Testament warned the church about "ungodly" intruders who had slipped into the churches to subvert its message and use it for their own purposes.  They were in and among the membership, their deception unidentified, and in a position to influence others with immorality, along with denying the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.  

This is what I see happening now, as congregations come under the influence of intruders who are perverting the gospel, because the practice of its principles, which is Christianity itself, does not support their use of religion as a political tool.  And while there have been some Evangelical churches who have insulated themselves against this intrustion, and have not allowed it to pervert their preaching and teaching, the fact of the matter is that many churches have been subverted and corrupted, and there are plenty of those ready to step up to do the same in churches that have remained faithful to the Christian gospel.  

Evangelicalism Has a Faulty Theological and Doctrinal Basis

The Fundamentalism that developed in the 19th century following the Second Great Awakening, as a result of the lack of seminary trained preachers and pastors, led to some faulty theology and doctrines that skewed the interpretation of the Bible, and launched multiple groups that were more cult than Christian.  The historical and cultural context in which the Bible was written, along with the original meanings and purpose of the writers was lost in interpretations which failed to use the words of Jesus as an interpretive standard.  Belief in what Fundamentalists call the "verbal, plenary" inspiration of the Bible, and that it is without human error in its "original manuscripts," have led to the development of a theology and practice that is very different from twenty centuries of Christian faith and practice.  

Failure to consider the words of Jesus as the criterion for interpreting all of the rest of the Bible has led to all kinds of theological aberrations, including a very legalistic faith practice requiring intellectual assent to a specific set of doctrines in order to be considered "Christian," or experience conversion.  And the failure to connect to the historical and cultural contexts that determine the original meaning of each author's words has led to false prophetic outlines of doomsday threats, with "end times" scenarios based on those faulty interpretations of the Bible.  Things like "Seven Mountains dominionism," and a false way of looking at the book of Revelation known as "dispensationalism" have led to a postmillenial perspective among many Evangelicals that translates into white, Christian nationalism.  They think that by creating a Christian theocracy in America, they will usher in the second coming of Jesus.  

Blending extremist right wing politics with this white, Christian nationalism isn't Christian.  It does not lead to conversion, nor does it lead to the kind of influence, being salt and light as Jesus described it, that Christianity was designed to be.  It creates a power and money hungry cult, and it traps people who think they are sincere Christians inside, with no way to escape. 

There are Christians in most conservative Evangelical churches who see it for what it is, and who are doing their best to escape it.   Evangelicalism has lost over 16 million members of its churches since the 2016 election.  However, for the most part, the same gullibility that causes people to fall victim to this intrusion of false doctrine into the church also lends itself to their inability to see Trump as a corrupt, morally bankrupt, mentally imbalanced narcissist who is incapable of being President of the United States.  

Exposing the Pseudo-Christian Evangelical Cult Will Lead to Its Demise

The blend of extremist right wing politics, which is showing signs of complete collapse, with ultra-conservative Fundamentalism, especially some of the "word of faith" prosperity gospel cults, has exposed this intrusion of an "ungodly perversion of grace," as the Apostle Jude calls it in his epistle, verse 4.  And as Americans set aside the Trump version of populist politics, so will they set aside the Evangelicalism that supported this attack on Constitutional democracy.  

Christianity was never intended to be the kind of theocracy that once governed ancient Israel.  That was a unique aspect of revelation that had its own time and place, and then passed off the scene.  What it left behind was a deposit of information about how those people who had lived at that time perceived the idea of God.  When Jesus came along, according to Christian tradition, his divine nature not only provided a much clearer revelation of God, but also made it possible for him to be the sacrificial offering for human sin.  

What he left behind was not a faith that needed any kind of financial or political power to survive and to fulfill its mission and purpose, but a faith practice that exhibits a specific lifestyle, aimed at uplifting and encouraging others, and bringing human beings together in a spirit of  unity.  

In the aftermath of this Christian nationalist nightmare, the political power that Evangelicals now have because they are virtually the only Americans who are now loyal to the President will collapse.  And while there are always gullible people who will still think that this is the truth, even though it is not consistent with the Christian gospel, and has been demonstrated to be an immoral intrusion, the influence that this group will have in both political circles and in religious influence, will be minimal.  

It's in the Math

In addition to the fact that there are about 16 million fewer Americans who call themselves "evangelical" than there were a decade ago, real evidence is showing up, in denominational membership statistics, that people are leaving Evangelical churches.  The largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, has seen its membership fall from 16.2 million members in 2015 to just 12.2 million members in 2026.  This figure, reported by the churches themselves, adds up to almost 250,000 members per year.  

In 2026, several church research groups reported that attendance and membership in churches that self-identify as "evangelical," "conservative," or with the Charismatic or Pentecostal movement, has dropped significantly in the last decade.  And it's not just the church researchers willing to speak the truth.  Census data on religious belief and attendance has shown that there are an equal number of members between Mainline Protestant denominations and Evangelical conservatives.  Those numbers haven't been equal for more than 30 years. 

This is the United States, so it's not likely the number of conservative Evangelicals will fall below about 2% of the population.  But I believe that it is safe to say that there are not enough of them to have any kind of an effect using their normal tactics.  Authentic Christianity spends its resources and its time in helping people out, not on political campaigns.  

Being Salt and Light

Hopefully, the remnant of those in Evangelicalism who have turned away from white, Christian nationalism and the populist cult will become what Christ intended his church to become, using the terms "salt and light' to describe its mission and purpose.  Christianity is a faith that is practiced through lifestyle values like peacemaking, humility, integrity, a sense of human community and equality that works to make life better for those around us.  The fact of the matter is that the true practice of the Christian gospel that was revealed and preached by Jesus is woke, in every sense of that word.  

In Christianity, the core principle of practice is belief in the existence of God, and the only manner in which that belief is demonstrated is by loving one's neighbor as one's self.  Jesus defined that as the first and greatest commandment.  And I tend to think that this translates itself into action that includes caring for the elderly, using government resources on things like universal health care, education, improving housing, making the abundant food resources we have in this country accessible to everyone.  Loving our neighbor means lifting up, not putting down.  

Maybe that will be the result of the demise of the pseudo Christian nationalist cult.  I can only hope.

 

Why Did I Expect More of a Reaction to this From a Republican Gubernatorial Candidate?

Trump posts a picture of himself as Jesus, complete with vestments and hand ostensibly healing a man by touching his forehead.  It finally got a reaction from some of the pseudo-Christian cult among his MAGA party, and some tongue clicking disapproval, along with lengthy apologies from supporters who are as incapable of criticizing him as he is of recognizing and acknowledging his own mistakes.  

Darren Bailey, Republican Candidate for Governor of Illinois

Bailey is a guy who wears his MAGA identity and his fundamentalist Evangelical religious beliefs on his sleeve.  It's the way he runs for political office, and it led to a landslide win for his opponent, J. D. Pritzker, last time around.  It is apparently going to give Pritzker a very easy path to the governor's mansion this time around.  

Bailey: "I was shocked..."

Bailey's reaction:  I was shocked...

But that's it.  

He wasn't offended or outraged by a blasphemous mockery of one of the Trinity, one who had just ripped into the character and integrity of the Pope.  Bailey's not a Catholic, he's an Evangelical who runs a "Christian" school that has plenty of anti-Catholic rhetoric in its textbooks and classrooms. 

His disrespect of the Pope is far out of bounds for a man who has been credibly accused of rape, guilty on multiple occasions of adultery, theft, and credibly accused of supporting a pedophile, if not participating in his work.  His denial of his own need for forgiveness of sin because he claims he hasn't committed any disqualifies him from criticizing any religious leader, especially the pope.  

Bailey's reaction is a little but on the understated side and that makes me question whether his claimed Evangelicalism is something he actually believes or something he plans to use to get votes.  

We, The People, Impeach and Remove This President of the United States

Let's face the facts.  Electing Donald Trump as President was both a terrible joke, something to be tried just to get a laugh but, not taking into consideration the number of ignorant, stupid Americans who believe crazy conspiracity theories, populist rumors without any factual basis and a media owned by billionaires chasing money rather than serving as a free press, he got in.  

He's not qualified, far from it he is an emotional cripple raised in a psychotic, anti-social family that makes its living grifting and exploiting who ever and whatever is can, including the United States government,  Our own ignorance of what America's founding principles involve, and what we stand for as a nation has contributed to putting  just enough similar dumb-asses into the voting pool to bring about the reality that one of the dangers of Democracy is the freedom it provides to the people to destroy it by electing subversives. 

One of the other problems is electing an opposition that is also not capable of reversing the trends that are in the process of destroying it.  Democrats are too distracted by fundraising for their own nest, and by their own political interests to do much more than be the opposition.  We will win a landslide of seats in the House and probably enough in the Senate to control both, but only because the Republicans lost.  

What Can We Do About It?  

You mean, beyond throwing up our hands with a tsk, tsk, tsk, and whining about the fact that we can't do anything because we are not in power, and turning our focus back on the mid-terms?

A lot of responses to my throwing up my hands and trying to push to do more is met with the question, "What can we do?"  I no  longer accept that response.  We can do more, starting by just making an effort to be on solid Constitutional ground and figure it out.  

And I have a plan.  

The People's Impeachment

The "No King's" marches and rallies have brought out over ten million Americans in three separate events.  I keep wondering what effect that kind of massive political protest will really have in a country of more than 300 million people.  It has had massive impact.  In accomplishing its ends of drawing attention to a real problem and how much support the opposition has, it has been very effective.  

So let's take that a step further.  

Use the Effect of the Public Impact

I propose that the various organizing groups across the board get in touch with each other accross the country, since they seem to be keeping names and lists.  We need a formal effort with a date attached to it to ask every single participant in every rally to do the following: 

• Contact both Senators in their state with the message that when an impeachment vote comes their way, they must vote to convict Trump and remove him from office  Every GOP Senator would get a massive pile of email, contact on line or letters or phone calls from millions with the message, REMOVE TRUMP.  
• Contact their own Member of Congress with the same message about voting to impeach.  This means that every member of Congress would receive, on average, over 20,000 contacts, letters, emails, in-box messages, and phone calls advocating they vote to impeach the President.  
• This would be coordinated to take place starting on July 4, 2026, and ending on July 10.   

This would require organization, information and coordination well beyond the capacity of The Signal Press.   Though we would ask for the help of those who have organized the No Kings rallies to get the word out, we will do our part by making this post go as far and as fast as it can do.  Congress is the most disapproved of body in the country and the impact of nine million messages delivered to their routine contact email in such a short period of time would communicate that we are no longer going to tolerate their moribund idleness when it comes to getting rid of Trump.  The rhetoric, especially directed at Republicans, needs to be sharp and threatening, not violent, but of the use of the tools we have at our disposal.  The number of communications from individual Americans to Congress would be in historic proportions.  

The fact of the matter is this is how our Democratic Constitutional Republic is designed to operate.   Congress is supposed to have open doors and open commnication with constituents was the best way members were supposed to receive the will of the people.  

If there's interest in giving this a try, I will contribute the use of the blog, and whatever means necessary to get the word out.  I think this is the natural and effective ends of the effect on public opinion of all of the  rallies and marches we've been having.   This is one channel for the energy to go.  And while many of the people involved are probably already communicating with their Congress member, I think it will stun Republicans, who aren't hearing this.  

Come on, let's give this a try!     

Let's Set the Record Straight: Voting in the United States is Secure, and All Voters Are Identified

 Having lived, and voted, in six different states, I can't address how the others make sure that those who cast ballots at the polls are the same people who are on the voter registration roll.  In every state where I registered, I had to sign the voter registration roll and provide proof of address to make sure my ballot reflected the correct precinct.  When I showed up at the polls, I had a voter registration card that had been mailed to me, which matched the numbers and information on the roll.  I think a couple of the states where I registered used a bar code that was unique to the voter card they sent, and one state had the signature on the card.  

The problem comes if the signatures don't match.  And there are inherent risks in someone making an attempt to vote with someone elses credentials.  First of all, what would be accomplished?  The likelihood of getting caught is high, the penalties are not fun, and what would be gained by doing something like that.  I always hear the argument that "signatures can be faked."  Yes, but not as easily as photo ID's. 

There are, in fact, so few instances of attempted voter fraud, or instances where more than a small fraction of individuals, a fraction of a percent of the total number of voters, have attempted fraud and succeeded.  

This is the point where those who can't see the facts start complaining about how much voter fraud there is.  But the fact is that states which require photo id's do not  have any more or less voting irregularities than those who don't.  

The fact of the matter is that every voter who casts a ballot in an American election can be identified and their vote can be verified.  What's being pushed is not simple voter ID, it is some kind of proof of citizenship, an accusation made based on another baseless rumor that people here illegally are getting to vote.  That is faactually inaccurate.  It's not happening.  It sounds sinister, ooh, bad government look at how they are winning elections, but the fact of the matter is that there's not enough statisticaal data in this area to bother with changing a system that is working so well.  

See, here's the problem.  Trump sweated out election night in 2020, because ballots were still being counted in some swing states.  That's because one of them, the one that would make the difference, did not start counting mail-in ballots until after the polls closed, and it took a week to count, verify signatures and make sure vote totals were correct.  Trump couldn's comprehend that, because he had a lead in the same day ballots and he just wanted to stop counting at some point during the night and declare  victory.  

But almost half the population had voted by mail, and while it made Trump mad that those votes narrowed his lead significantly as every day passed, and the last 150,000 or so, all legitimately cast and mailed before the election put Biden over the top and in the White House.  He ignorantly and stupidly tried to convince people that these ballots were fraudulent, added in after it was clear he won, when that was not the case at all.  

So now, his attempts to put forth voting reform, sieze ballots and all of that other rhetoric is simply his frustration over the fact that he lost, and he's using the claim that reform is needed to support his lie about those Pennsylvania mail in ballots.  He thinks that if he simply asserts some populist lie that his followers believe,  then it's true.  All that shows is the gullible stupidity of his MAGA base.  

There is not now nor has there been massive voter fraud in the United States, the system we have now works, non-citizens do not vote in elections and when that vote count comes in, it can be trusted. 

American Evangelicalism's Faulty Interpretation of the Bible Produces the White Christian Nationalism Heresy

For certain men whose condemnation was aritten abut long ago have secretly slipped in among you.  They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and ddeny Jesus Christ, our only sovereign and Lord.  Jude, v. 4, NIV

Even in the first few years of its existence, the Christian church faced the danger of false apostles and teachers infiltrating the membership for the purpose of exploiting the membership for their own purposes and benefit.  Jude is writing a warning to be distributed among Christians who were facing persecution.  It was easier to lead people astray during such times, so Jude writes with apostolic authority to warn Christians aboutt the fact that this was happening, and to set the primary focus of the Christian gospel back in place so that genuine Christian faith was defined and could be identified.  

Though the issues about which Jude writes took place in the first century church, history is full of similar kinds of intrusions into the Christian church, intent on gaining trust in order to introduce apostasy and use the church, its people and resourses for their own purposes.  

This is, in fact, happening right now, as a good sized segment of American Christianity, known as Evangelicalism, has been invaded by intruders for their own purposes, mainly political and financial gain, and has been hijacked and separated from the Christian gospel.  The glaring inconsistencies that are showing up time and time again from what is an unholy blend of legalistic fundamentalist Christian practice with extremist right wing politics with what has been considered authentic Christian practice, rooted in an in-depth, historical, contextual and intellectual study of the Bible make it seem like the two things are not even the same faith.  

The Christian Nationalism that has almost completely infiltrated conservative, white Evangelicalism bears no resemblance at all to the words penned in the New Testament, quoting Jesus as he laid out the Christian gospel and revealed God to humanity.  As they have been historically, evangelistic outreach and the spread of the Evangelical version of Christian faith has never been about winning converts, it's always been about acquiring political power to use against perceived enemies.  

The Fundamentalist Doctrinal Foundation of Conservative Evangelicalism

There's a reason right wing Evangelicals fear and disdain education.  Their doctrinal and theological system is based on ignorance, not on a thorough study of the Bible using its original languages, as much of its historical and cultural context as can be discovered and incorporated, and on understanding the unique situations it addressed as instructional and inspirational, not as a set of rules or commandments applied universally.  

What we now refer to as Evangelicalism in the United States started in the 19th century, among people who had no access to educated ministers and preachers, and who depended on a word for word, verse by verse rendering of the King James translation.  King James himself changed the text of scripture, by pulling out somewhere around 16 books that had been part of the original canon.  And his translators were careful to include his personal bias in their work.  

So what emerged from nineteenth century America was a branch of the Christian church that has a nasty disrespect for education, especially in the clergy, and a fundamentally distorted perspective of Christian faith. It's belief in what they call the "plenary, verbal" inspiration of the Bible--that every word of the Bible is inspired by God, and that every part of the Bible is equally inspired contradicts the revelation brought by Jesus/ The Bible's writers themselves do not support this idea, nor is there any indication from them at all that what they were writing includes any kind of prophetic prediction about anything that will happen in the future.  

The theology of "dispensationalism," which is not found anywhere in the Bible, is the idea that different eras of history are marked by events dividing them into "dispenstations."  And the manner in which the teachings of scripture are applied in one dispensation are different in another.  Without going into a long, complicated explanation of how that works, what it does is allow for setting aside the entire Christian gospel and the basic core principles of Christian practice taught by Christ, in favor of a war-mongering, murder-justifying apocalypse to usher in Jesus' second coming.  

This perspective did not show up anywhere in centuries upon centuries of Christian theological study of the scripture.  It is, in fact, an aberration that did not emerge until the nineteenth century, out of an age when Great Britain was building an empire to economically exploit the undeveloped world, seeing themselves as "God's chosen," and when the manifest destiny enthusiasm of Americans, combined with the revivals of the Second Great Awakening, led to the push for military conquest of our weaker neighbors, most notably Mexico, cloaked and justified as an evangelistic effort.  

This Isn't Christianity, It's a Cult

The Bible is difficult enough to interpret.  It's easy to discern that the single affirmation which defines what it means to be Christian is the acknowledgement that Jesus was the Son of God, fully human and fully divine, the fulfillment of messianic prophecy, whose purpose was to reveal the person of God to his human creation, and to provide a path to reconciliation and redemption with Him.  

That doctrine comes from several places in the Bible, including Matthew, Mark, John, Paul and Peter, among the Apostles.  If that is the case, and the written record of what Jesus did and taught is accurate, and in fact there is no way to prove anything more than the accuracy of the transmitted text, then there is no possible way to even consider that other parts of the Bible are equally inspired.  The words of Jesus, who was Christ, are the interpretive filter for everything else in scripture.  

If that's the case, while it is difficult to try and figure out all of the contexts and historical background that influenced the writing of the Bible, most of which no longer exists and is actually unknown to us now, that is how systematic Christian theology is developed.  I doubt if there is one Evangelical in a thousand who has any idea of the history or inspiration of the Bible, and who sees it as anything more than a collection of sixty six books divided into chapters and verses, one of which could be their "life verse."  Nor are they aware that the sixty-six book Protestant Bible that we use isn't the full text of everything that the church, over its history, has accepted as canonical.  

People who are livid over things they see being 'added to" or "taken from" the text in Bible translations they don't like would be horrified to know the changes to the text made by King James alone, not to mention the things that church councils after the first century did.  The only remaining complete, preserved actual text, protected by its isolation in Ethiopia, is the 80 book  Ethiopian Bible.  Any full study of Christian theology requires looking at all of this history, which American Evangelicals won't do.  

The Apocalyptic Focus Which Doesn't Exist in the Bible 

Evangelicals are overly obsessed with end times scenarios and the violent judgment of the enemies of God.  They are waiting for a time when their preaching and evangelistic outreach is justified--a better term is avenged--and those who have refused to listen to them and their preaching are sent to hell.  That is preached and taught and put in the context of how it is done in most Evangelical churches, especially in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles where it is used to generate applause like a pep rally.  

And yes, as a former Evangelical myself, I've sat in church services where pastors generated rounds of applause by painting some picture in which godless liberals meet their maker and it's too late for redemption.  That's the "dispensation" they believe is coming, which will usher in the return of Christ.  And they get this all by simply ignoring the historical context of a couple of New Testament books, specifically Revelation.  In order to arrive at this particular futuristic, interpretation of the Bible, the accepted standards of interpretation must be changed because the intention of the original author is not to prophetically predict an apocalypse at the end of the world,  but to bring encouragement to the persecuted church in the first century.  

If you want a good example of just how far out of the realm of orthodox Christianity this kind of theology and doctrine goes, and what it looks like, listen to the rantings and shriekings of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.  It's characterized in the prayer of his pastor to bring death down on a politician with whom he disagrees, especially one who has a much clearer and accurate perspective of Christianity, Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico.  

Here's a clear, Christian theological and doctrinal point.  Neither the pastor, nor Hegseth, are demonstrating any belief or behavior that can be identified in any way as Christian.  That's not a judgement, that's just simple observation. 

There are encouraging signs that the Evangelical movement, I'm not going to call it Christian because it's not, is falling apart.  Among white Evangelicals, there are organizational connections building that help people separate their faith frorm Trumpism.  There's been a slow decline in membership and attendance among Evangelicals in the United States that shifted into high gear in 2016, resulting in declines that far exceed what the liberal mainline denominations have ever experienced.  And while white Evangelicals increased their support for Trump in 2024, up to 82%, the actual number of self-identified white evangelicals who voted was down a full 20% from 2016.  The largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, has lost almost 3 million members since 2016, a 20% decrease.  

If they want to survive after Trump falls, and he will fall hard, they'll have to educate themselves and their congregants in a truth that they do not know now, when it comes to the nature of Christ. 

Saturday, More than 3,000 "No Kings" Rallies Will Draw Out the Largest Protest in American History

And what will be accomplished?  

I certainly don't think this is a waste of time and effort, since I'll be joining in myself.  I think it is important to show support by showing up, one more of millions of Americans who see that Trump is trying to destroy this country's long standing democratic republic by subverting its constitution with his own will, while a do-nothing Congress lets him.  

The question in the opening paragraph is not merely rhetorical.  We've had fifteen months of a President ignoring the Constitution, doing as he pleases and a Congress that isn't exercising the balance of power they have to hold him in check.  We also have had a Supreme Court that, with a totally unconstitutional immunity ruling, perpetuated this insanity.  These marches and rallies need to do more than just get big turnouts, and give prominent and entitled politicians a speaking platform.  They need to make themselves felt among Republican members of Congress and the conservative members of the Supreme Court, in a way that robs them of their political security and puts them on edge as the mid-term elections approach. 

Oh, and About the Mid-Terms

The Republicans already know, they are going to lose big.  And so they are working as hard as they can on ways to prevent votes being counted for Democratic candidates.  We know this.  It happened in 2024, when they deliberately targeted the swing states and there is massive evidence they cheated to cost Harris an election she would have won otherwise.  It wasn't just voter suppression, there were multiple precincts in which voting machines were programmed to reduce her vote total.  We know this because those seven states were the only places where down ballot Democrats outperformed Harris.  

There were plenty of warnings and plenty of pleas to challenge the results, but all of the "no mass voter fraud" rhetoric spin by Democrsts had  them backed into a corner.  So no one did anything about it.  

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they are going to try and steal this election in every way they can.  Anyone who follows this knows that's a fact.  They are even telling us how they are going to do it.  The response I see is, "Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, they're going to cheat."  And no one doing anything to prepare, prevent or put a stop to it.  If we lose, it will be our fault for letting it happen.  

We can turn out millions for a march or protest, but we can't find enough people willing to make sure the Republicans can't cheat?  And maybe there are people keepng an eye on this, and if so, and it appears to be something effective, please let me know because I need reassurance and I am not seeing anything reassuring.  

What Will Change After Saturday? 

Nothing.  

We are 0 for seven or eight now in terms of success versus the number of rallies and marches and protests that have been held.  I'm sure Trump notices, as do those around him, but it has no effect at all.  In fact, I think he gets mad and plans to do something outrageous as a result, just to get back in the face of the protesters.  

I'm not sure that the political principle of percentate of the population it takes to engage in protest to bring about change works in this case.  When the founding fathers, and succeeding government leaders, put the means in the Constitution to remove ineffective, corrupt demagogues from office, they depended on everyone having common sense and they couldn't imagine the amount of money used to bribe members of Congress to do nothing about it.  

What we need is to put enough serious public pressure on a minority of Republican members of Congress to see this for what it is and impeach and remove Trump from office.  They need to see that if they don't, they are going to lose their perky job.  They need to know that the American people mean business.  The rhetoric needs to go beyond lauding the virtues of Democracy to what's going to happen electorially in November to Republicans in marginal districts who are going to be fired.  

When looking at what kind of turnouts it takes to make political change occur, I think action speaks louder than words.  These rallies need to show up at the doorsteps of Congressional offices everywhere, conduct impromptu town halls and they need to focus on registering every eligible voter in some of these districts where Republicans get less than 25% of the support, but win because of apathy.  

I go because I want to see change, and I'm involved because I believe my voice counts.  So collectively, let's find the most effective way to apply the necessary pressure to make the necessary changes.