I'm not making some earth-shattering observation here, though wading through Trump and Vance rhetoric is a good way to induce vomiting. They are betting that bigotry and racism, anti-Semitism, and separating people in America by race, ethnicity, personal wealth, religious beliefs and cultural identity, and favoring the bigots, racists, wealthiest, straight, white people by promising them all of the favor of government while discriminating against everyone else who doesn't fall in that category will get them enough votes to win.
And so, in the world's most prosperous, and ideologically and politically most free country, the fact that there are enough of these people to make an election as competitive as it seems, and might well be, is a damning indictment. The fact that, in spite of our freedom, in spite of our prosperity and our resources, in spite of our ideology, in spite of our Constitution and the groundwork laid by our founding fathers, in spite of the claims of the heavy influence of Christianity on the nation, this hideous, hateful, divisive, subversive ideology has as much of a following as it does is a sign of the failure of multiple government, cultural, social and religious institutions.
There are few words to describe the complete and total lack of any kind of humanity that Trump and Vance spew out every day. Total depravity is one term that comes to mind, from the theology developed by Jean Calvin during the Reformation to describe what he believed was the state of mankind apart from God.
Depravity of Trumpism is so Prolific, We Fail to be Shocked by it
Vance has done more to give voice to the depraved bigotry, insensitivity, racism, and hatred than any other Trump surrogate, with the exception of Trump himself, and maybe he has actually been worse than Trump, though they are both giving Satan a run for his money. An unbelievable remark, which should have sent a shudder through the hearts and minds of every parent of a school-aged child in this country made its way out of Vance's mouth in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Georgia.
School shootings are just "a fact of life."
In this country, they are. But not anywhere else in the world.
The fact that a candidate running for Vice-President of the United States can make a matter-of-fact statement like that, and not get any real reaction from anywhere in the media is a testimony to the fact that the media has lost its effectiveness as a protector of free speech and as the people's advocate in this nation. Please point me to any media outlet that is expressing genuine, horrific outrage over this statement. I'll gladly take this comment back. Until then, at least part of the blame for this collapse of American values falls on the American news media. All of them.
The founding fathers never thought that they needed to put guardrails on a democracy where people, who they believed were decent, generally law-abiding and respectful citizens, were responsible for vetting candidates. They never imagined that someone who was so degenerate and depraved, who would commit crimes with impunity and adopt a political ideology aimed at destroying everything they had carefully constructed, would ever be able to pass the scrutiny of public opinion and get into position to run for office. So they never developed ways to prevent it from happening. They left that up to we, the people. Somewhere along the way, our stewardship of democracy has broken down, to even allow this man to be nominated by a major political party.
A Complete Collapse of Religious Conviction
Since this blog was started, the cowardice and failure of conservative Christians to live up to their claims, both doctrinally within their own house, and politically, with their cult-like voting requirements to claim Christian faith as a title, has been underlined and emphasized. I've never seen such a complete and total abandonment of conviction and values, in exchange for recognition and political power to get things done. Obviously, conservative Evangelicals do not trust the Holy Spirit of God to answer their prayers, so they have turned to Donald Trump.
It is within the Evangelical branch of American Christianity where the bigotry that fosters racism still exists, and still spreads it to other parts of the culture. It is an open, unconfessed sin and in spite of a few pronouncements and resolutions that half-heartedly condemn it, it has been from within these narrow minded, willfully ignorant, education-resistant churches that racism has welled up and spilled out. These people, and their leaders, are not practicing any faith, they are clustering around mysticism and superstition, fed by their own ignorance.
Trump, who rejects every core principle and doctrine of conservative, Evangelicalism, figured out how to tap into the energy of the racism and that's what keeps this attraction going. He has nothing but contempt for their ideology, but he realizes the value they are to his ability to get the power he needs for self-preservation. That's why conservative Evangelicals continue to form the core of his MAGA base. Their values system was built on sand and it has collapsed in the face of pressure. It has sold its soul to a real devil, a deceiving antichrist [Matthew 24:24]
Author and Atlantic magazine magazine journalist Tim Alberta recently told an audience at Baylor University that the American church has become, "in some ways every secularist's fever dream--hateful, bullying, hypocritical--more consumed with winning culture wars than with promoting peace on earth, goodwill toward men."
"The stench of scandal and the lack of accountability that perpetuates it drags the name of Jesus through the mud," he said.
He correctly identified pastors who push politics and who "weaponize the word of God to justify their own lust for worldly idols. grafting the enduring power of the gospel onto their ephemeral obsession with winning elections, subjugating their enemies and imposing a version of Christianity focused on strength and status."
Alberta describes what is going on as a crisis in the American church. It is a crisis, at least among conservative Evangelicals who have seen their church attendance and membership begin to decline as their involvement in politics increased, going back as far as the Reagan days. But the sharpest drop in attendance has come since 2016. To use a biblical analogy from Jesus himself, if politics seems to be creating a crisis among Evangelicals, it may also be doing sincere Christians a favor by separating the sheep from the goats. Far right Evangelicals who are completely wrapped up in right wing Trump politics do not exhibit any characteristics that identify them, from a biblical perspective, as Christians. In fact, they fit the Bible writer's descriptions of the pagan populations that surrounded and persecuted Christians in the first three centuries of the church's existence.
How Deep Does White Supremacy Run?
We're going to find out, this election cycle, just how deep the evil of white supremacy and racist ideology runs in the United States. If, over the course of our existence, we have been a progressive nation, overcoming those things that we associate with a more primitive, less knowledgeable past, and have truly made progress toward recognizing the equality and value of every human being on the face of the earth, regardless of their skin color, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, language or their level of intelligence and capability of free thinking, then we will see the result of a free and fair election that sets us free from the narrow minded bigotry of Trump Republicanism.
If we have not made that kind of progress, then let's at least hope there is a big enough majority in the electorate to see the difference between what's being offered by the extremists on the right and the progressives on the left, and continue to keep a window open through which progress can still happen. Otherwise, our society and our nation will fall. Trumpism isn't capable of productive government and that will lead to anarchy.
And that's exactly what our enemies have been hoping for, waiting for and working for.
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