"The country is in chaos."
That's been an ongoing theme of political and religious conservatives that has been used to characterize their view of how things are going politically when Democrats have control of the government. Regardless of reality, the media bubbles and silos they've created enable them to use this theme and imply that because there's a Democrat in the White House, life cannot be good. Crime must be up, there are drugs and alcoholism everywhere, the economy is in a shanbles because prices are high, immorality is everywhere, and the whole country is going to hell in a handbasket.
I'm certain that this was the theme in countless churches across the country yesterday, in the wake of the assassination attempt at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. It's a theme that generally emphasizes impressions, ignores facts and looks at reality only from a conservative political perspective, influenced heavily by a conservative, Evangelical religious perspective. Here's just another example of a world gone crazy because America no longer has a government that is "faith friendly," according to them, and that is becoming increasingly hostile to the morals and values of the good old days.
As far as yesterday goes, that ignores the fact that this shooting took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, a county where local law enforcement is very much in sympathy with the Trump, MAGA cult, and where everyone has a gun and there's no restrictions on obtaining or owning one is the law. So how is it, in the middle of a place like that, a 20 year old, just two years out of high school, connected to a very conservative gun ownership club, apparently climbed a building in plain sight of the open arena where Trump was speaking, and got off two shots from a high powered assault rifle that was legally purchased by his father?
It also ignores the fact that right wing Evangelical Christianity in America is in chaos. I was raised Southern Baptist, and have been involved in the ministry activity of a local, conservative, Evangelical church for most of my life, sometimes vocationally. I've seen the emphasis shift in the preaching and in the leadership of churches, as the Christian gospel found in scriptures Evangelicals claim are inerrant and infallible, is set aside in favor of political themes. I've watched as the core values of the gospel, things like turning the other cheek, loving your neighbor, loving your enemies and becoming sons of God by being peacemakers, have given way to militant themes. I've seen churches make the transition from claiming dependence on spiritual power through the Holy Spirit, to advocating for political power to achieve their own ends.
And it has had an impact on the church. The denomination in which I was raised, the Southern Baptist Convention, has seen a membership decline of 25% since Trump took office in 2016. That is no coincidence, and the numbers don't lie. The annual reports to the convention have reflected membership losses of more than 400,000 in just a single year. Leadership has tried to explain this away by widely conflicting reasoning, but numbers don't lie. And while they are loathe to attribute the loss to the increasing political intrusion of godless, worldly Trumpism into the church, along with a growing influence of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, if you ask the people who are leaving, that's what they'll tell you about why they're going.
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount has been attacked by Trumpers and characterizes as "liberal talking points," They particularly find "turn the other cheek" to be deplorable, something that gets them nowhere in their world of money and corporate greed. "Liberal talking points" is the term some church members have used to describe sermons based on the Beatitudes, the first part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus outlines the values of the Christian gospel. Humility, mourning the lack of righeousness, and peacemaking are "woke" values. And I can tell you that this shift away from the preaching of the gospel, as much as some have tried to hide it or couch it in different terms, is visible, along with the anger and advocacy for violence that is a clear indicator of the presence of a false gospel having intruded into conservative American Christianity.
Investing Partisan Political Power Has Corrupted the Judiciary Branch
The federal judiciary and the justice system have also fallen victim to a similar intrusion, and displacement of trust, honesty and what were core American values with deceit, subversion and the partisan use of judicial power to get around the will of "we, the people," as expressed in election results in this Constitutional Democracy. Republicans have been aiming at control of the court system since they realized, when President Clinton defeated George W. Bush in 1992, that their legislative power would be limited.
One of the biggest turning points in this fight was Mitch McConnell's denial of President Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland to the court, based on its being "too close to the election." But the expectation of those appointed to the federal bench, to be as partisan in their rulings as possible, and to do favors for the President who appointed them, is a practice unique to Trump.
Groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition have long been making lists of candidates for the judiciary out of conservative law schools operated by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and from Catholic institutions that are influenced by right wing political groups within the church. Historically, the Catholic church has been very adept at using political influence to enforce dogma and church practices, and to figure out how to channel tax dollars into their schools so it's not a surprise that five of the six conservative justices on the court are Catholic.
The Country is in Chaos, and Has Been Headed That Way for a While Now
Under President George W. Bush, attempts were made to divide up the assets of the United States govenrnment and sell them off to the highest corporate bidders, to "privatize" operations and services and give control of everything to the billionare class. Fortunately, a recession, caused by Bush's disastrous economic policies, got a Democratic Congress elected to put a stop to the corporate takeover of goverment, in time to keep Social Security from being privatized and bankrupted by the profiteers.
Politically, what kicked over the can, so to speak. was the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. This election, in 2008, was, incredibly, the first opening up of government to a segment of the American population that had been excluded and shut out for the entire existence of the nation. I lived in Texas at the time and I can say, from observation, that I've never seen people get so furious, enraged, and have their perspective completely distorted by their bitterness, over the fact that a black man was going to be President of the United States.
Somewhere in that period of time, amid all of the vitriol being spewed and hatred being displayed, the core group of white, Evangelical Christian leadership and their followers lost their salvation. I was there, and I saw it, in the church. An anger and resentment unlike anything I've ever witnessed boiled up and for many Christian pastors and church leaders, that justified stepping outside of the boundaries of the principles, values and morality of the Christian gospel to engage in a culture war that based itself on distored interpretations of Old Testament passages that led most of American Evangelical Christianity down the short path to apostasy.
And let's not forget that the instigator, the man at the bottom of the incitement of the vitriolic, racist hatred that blew up in an explosion when President Obama took the oath of office, was Donald J. Trump. This is the man who, without any evidence whatsoever, declared that President Obama was not legitimate because he was not a "natural born American citizen," but that he was actually born in Kenya. That's not all of the vitriolic rhetoric that Trump spewed. But that's the point we can identify when he became the focal point of the cult of racists and bigots that would become his political base.
It's Unfathomable, But it is the Political Reality of Our Time
It took just four years of a Trump Presidency to set the country up for the dissolution of its democracy and the destruction of its Constitution. But this is where we are.
Personally, I try to be as optimistic as I can be, defending the trust I've placed in certain institutions of society. I was raised Southern Baptist, and involvement in the ministry activities of a local church has been a huge part of my life. But I watched all of that come apart, not because of any specific event, but because, over time, the priorities of the church shifted visibly as reflecting the characteristics of the Christian gospel became "liberal talking points" and "wokeness," and things like turning the other cheek, loving one's enemies and becoming the sons of God through peacemaking gave way to sharp political rhetoric, characterizing Democrats as evil and worldly, and Republicans as the bearers of revival.
But Trumpism has brought no revival. On the contrary, it has split the church, causing an exodus of millions from congregations where the gospel has been replaced by extremist right wing politics. The Southern Baptist Convention has lost 25% of its total membership in less than a decade since 2016, and while their leadership blames it on everything else, and is loathe to admit that the influence of extremist right wing politics has pushed faithful people ou the door, the numbers do not lie.
And here we are, today, the day after an assassination attempt on the former President, by a 20 year old whose father walked into a gun shop and bought the AR-15 rifle capable of firing long distances, without any restrictions, under Republican-sponsored gun laws. Are we living in chaos, when anyone can purchase assault rifles, not for the purpose of hunting deer, but for killing people? What message does that send to our society?
Yes, Our Country is in Chaos
We've just seen six members of the Supreme Court do what George Washington warned us about in his farewell address as he stepped down from the Presidency. They are no longer administering justice and interpreting the law, they are inventing precedent and playing politics, and they know they suffer no consequences because they have a lifetime appointment, given in a day when trust in the honesty and integrity of judges was a requirement to serve. But we've just seen six justices demonstrate that they have no integrity and are not honest. Two of them should have never been put on the court, because the lifestyle they lived, and their previous behavior, should have disqualified them from service. But hypocritical Republicans, more interested in power and influence than in morals or character, did appoint them.
And now, these judges are using their political power to protect a criminal former President from justice. Today, Aileen Cannon dropped the whole documents case, not because it had no merit, but on a technicality that will eventually wind up at the Supreme Court to interpret. The fact that Cannon, a Trump appointee, ever was given jurisdiction over this case looks like a plan to me. Trump's judicial appointments are all corrupt, in that they carry the expectation that the judges will not rule based on law, but based on what is favorable to Trump.
Did anyone really believe that any of the more than 90 criminal indictments against Trump, all based on evidence, would ever come to trial? Only the case in Manhattan, which fell outside the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, reached a verdict, and even that is being challenged by the corrupt Supreme Court ruling on a concept of presidential immunity that never existed until they established it now. I don't expect that the case against Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection against the Capitol will ever see the light of day.
And with all of this court corruption going on, we have the Democratic party splintering over whether or not Joe Biden has the stamina to run for a second term. Look at this from my perspective, just an ordinary, everyday, professional wage earner, living largely from paycheck to paycheck, about to retire on Social Security and a very small pension. I must ask this question. How seriously are Democrats taking Trump as an existential threat to our democracy? That's been the theme since his attempt to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. But elevating a debate over the fitness of the prospective Democratic nominee in the middle of this chaos is inexcusable.
I, for one, do not believe that Trump can gather enough support to win the 2024 election unless too many good people stay home and don't vote. He's not winning any new voters. And it looks like we will have to fight more than just to get people to the ballot box. I have a feeling, with all of the current chaos, that once the votes are counted, if Biden comes out to be the winner of the electoral vote, there will be all kinds of court challenges, certification delays in red states or by Republican governors, and attempts to turn the vote the other way. So what I'm seeing now, is not encouraging when it comes to holding on to American democracy. There's a lot of money going into defeating it.
I am fighting back with what I have. I'm contributing, and I'm setting aside everything I can, including gathering the change I find in my car, to give more. I'm calling to try and motivate people to register. That's been encouraging because we have seen an increase in Democratic party voter registrations where we are working, in a swing state, and that's very important, as getting them to the polls in November will also be. I will continue to post here. We see about 2,500 monthly readers, not a huge number, some conservatives because of the comments I get, many deleted because of their inappropriate language. But we're here and we will continue to advocate for what is right, and call out what is wrong.
And maybe, just maybe, all of this chaos, and all of the corruption, will stop the apathy and get people up off their rear ends in order to save something they've taken for granted all of their lives, their personal freedoms and our country's constitutional democracy. We are fighting against a whole array of obstacles, including the potential disenfranchisement of votes cast by people supporting the President, and Democratic party candidates for office, especially in red states. This is all we've got left.
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