Saturday, April 06, 2024
MAGA Loyalty to Trump Ends in Sorrow
When I saw the news that the stock price of Truth Social went into freefall after the company initally went public for $8 billion, I immediately sent a joke to a friend text circle: "Whoever allowed the contract to keep Trump from dumping the stock until 6 months post-sale is gonna be covered in ketchup." Shortly after it was released, the company's stock soared to $70 a share, initially meaning Trump, on paper at least, had netted $3 billion in wealth. But Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, told CNN he was "confident the stock price will eventually drop to $2 a share and could even go below that," because Truth Social's business model is not conducive to profit.
"Pump and dump is an unethical practice where influential figures talk up a stock they own a lot of shares in, artificially inflating the value, and then sell it off for a major profit before the rubes realize they bought a lemon. Because Trump is contractually obliged not to sell his shares yet, he's watching the value slide downhill before he can cash in, while other hustlers openly brag to Reuters they used the blind loyalty of Trump fans to pull off the pump-and-dump.
One investor bragged he bought at $35 when the stock first released, waited "for Trump's fan base to hear about it," which doubled its value, and then dumped it. Because of these shenanigans, Trump's already lost a billion of his initial $3 billion valuation.
We do not know yet how many ketchup bottles lost their lives due to Trump's anger over this, but he's found a public way to lash out at his underlings: He's suing them.
In a lawsuit filed right before public SEC filings showed Truth Social lost $58 million last year, Trump tried to push the blame onto his co-founders, two former "Apprentice" contestants named Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky. . . . That is, of course, how it goes: Bend over backward to help Trump out, and he will thank you by coating you in rage-ketchup.
Trump regularly offers paeans to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, holding a ceremony to honor those who are facing legal consequences for their criminal efforts to help him overthrow the government. Sometimes he even promises pardons. All this is done for a nakedly obvious purpose: To convince followers to risk their own skins in the future on Trump's behalf. But it's telling that Trump never offers any material support to the over 1,300 people who have been charged with crimes. Despite his claims to be a "billionaire," he hasn't paid their legal bills or helped their families after they lost their jobs.
Wednesday, yet another Jan. 6 defendant was convicted. Taylor James Johnatakis got 7 years in federal prison for carrying a megaphone and barking orders at rioters as they attacked police. "In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr. Johnatakis was a leader," the judge said, correctly.
All of this fake support for people who commit crimes for him seems to have bamboozled Tyler Vogel, 26, of Lancaster, New York. Last week, Vogel was arrested by Erie County authorities for texting threats to New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York Justice Arthur Engoron, who prosecuted and presided over Trump's civil case for committing decades of fraud in New York.
Not that Vogel deserves an ounce of sympathy, but this is yet another pitiful example of someone throwing everything away for a man who would not give them a penny if they were starving. It's especially pathetic to see someone give up his freedom to defend Trump's "right" to keep private jets and golf courses that were obtained through decades of fraud. Trump has been on social media for months, unsubtly begging his supporters to get violent against law enforcement trying to hold him accountable. But we can all guess how much he'll do for this one guy who did what his orange god-emperor asked of him: Absolutely nothing.
Yet that reality never seems to breach thick MAGA skulls, where the faith that Trump cares about them — despite daily evidence he does not — seems immovable.
MAGA never learns, though.
After months of insisting to the press that she would prevail in court, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake declined to defend herself against a defamation lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican official she's been lying about for years in her efforts to pretend the 2022 election was stolen from her. The reason she backed down, of course, is the same reason Giuliani eventually did. And it's the same reason why Infowars host Alex Jones refused to cooperate in the defamation lawsuits he lost: They know the evidence they lied is so overwhelming it's impossible to argue against it.
Considering that a jury will soon decide how much Lake owes Richer for lying about him, you'd think she'd shut up and start performing the remorse she is clearly incapable of feeling. . . . Richer has documented the death threats against him and his family, for which people are still getting arrested.
It seems that MAGA people believe they are endowed with the impunity that Trump has so long enjoyed, due to his wealth and status. It is repulsively true that Trump wriggles out of consequences for his crimes time and time again. But that is because he is a master at finding someone else to take the fall for him, from the January 6 defendants to his former lawyer Michael Cohen to Fox News and Rudy Giuliani. Loyalty to Trump doesn't mean getting a piece of his unbelievable levels of undeserved privilege. It just means being the next in line to be thrown under the bus as Trump escapes accountability yet again.
Friday, April 05, 2024
MAGA Politics Could Hurt Business in North Carolina
Taco Tuesday was oddly slow, but Elizabeth Turnbull wasn’t worried. If roasted pork on homemade tortillas failed to lure diners on this pollen-dusted spring evening, the 42-year-old restaurant owner could count on private parties. Three companies had booked her space for next week.
Firms and universities around North Carolina’s Research Triangle buoyed her Cuban eatery when tables otherwise sat empty. With a new Google office in town and Apple projected to expand nearby, she expected group orders for crispy octopus to only grow — as long as politics didn’t get in the way.
Turnbull, a registered Independent, was alarmed when candidates she viewed as bad for business, all MAGA devotees prone to trumpeting conspiracy theories, recently clinched the Republican nominations for crucial state offices. There was Dan Bishop for attorney general, who’d echoed false claims the 2020 election was stolen. There was Michele Morrow for the top education seat, who’d commented “Death to ALL traitors!!” under an illustration of former president Barack Obama in an electric chair. And there was Mark Robinson for governor, who’d declared that transgender women should be arrested if they enter the ladies’ restroom.
As far-right contenders dominate the GOP ticket in a state known for its flourishing economy, the business community is bracing for potential fallout — the kind that stung North Carolina eight years ago when industry rebelled against America’s first “bathroom bill.” That decree, which restricted public restroom use by “biological sex,” crumbled just 12 months later after PayPal, CoStar, Deutsche Bank and Adidas all scrapped projects. Bruce Springsteen and other artists canceled shows. The NBA and the NCAA shuttled games and tournaments elsewhere.
The law’s defenders blamed Democrats for whipping up a national controversy that spooked investment. Backlash to HB2 cost the state almost $4 billion, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said at the time, citing an analysis by the Associated Press that measured the impact’s 12-year tail.
Today, however, Republicans dismiss concerns about a repeat . . . . Yet the demand to embrace inclusivity has swelled, too. The North Carolina Chamber of Commerce rebuked “partisan ideologues that cause division and create controversy” in an unusually biting statement last month, saying the March primary results offer a “startling warning of the looming threats to North Carolina’s business climate.” Officials there did not put a dollar amount on projected losses.
Rhetoric widely condemned as discriminatory could remind executives of the HB2 chaos and chill recruitment efforts, said Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University, who tracked the damage in 2016.
“You lose jobs,” he said. “You lose construction activity. You lose an additional tax base. You lose some prestige.”
Centrism, beloved in boardrooms, is eroding across the country but hanging by a thread in Raleigh, where the Democratic governor adds fragile balance to a Republican legislative supermajority. High-income workers flocking to urban centers have pushed the state left, though not enough to flip power regularly. The November elections could unleash a consequential reset as lawmakers tackle abortion access, education curriculum and LGBTQ rights. Social policy could hold steady, strategists predict, or veer sharply right.
And that, Turnbull thought, could determine if her business blossoms or tanks.
Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in a tight race, had especially freaked her out. He’d climbed from laboring in a furniture factory to serving as the current lieutenant governor, and she could see why people respected that. But why did he have to quote Adolf Hitler on Facebook and refer to homosexuality as “filth?”
Then at one February campaign stop, Robinson charged back into the bathroom fight, asserting he aimed to protect women. . . . Robinson’s team argues he’d nourish the economy by cutting taxes, slashing onerous regulations and curbing unnecessary spending, offsetting any upset from his positions on LGBTQ issues. . . . . “There are certainly cases where they’ve said stuff in the past that is problematic or is easy to take out of context or was done in frustration,” Woodhouse said. “But they’re serious people with serious proposals.”
Turnbull disagreed. Scanning the candlelit bar of COPA, the restaurant she started with her husband in 2018, she mulled what they stood to lose. Like, perhaps, the guy sipping red wine at her quartz counter and typing on a MacBook, who she’d never seen before.
Was he here for a conference, the kind that might again get canceled if transgender people could get arrested for their restroom choice? Or maybe he was one of Google’s fresh hires, who probably had the budget to splurge on three tacos for $15.
The core of COPA’s clientele was “highly educated professionals,” she said, the bracket of spenders Apple was supposed to draw here by the thousands over the next two years. That deal was well underway before Robinson announced his candidacy. But if he won and started signing laws Big Tech detested …
Turnbull recalled then-Gov. Pat McCrory (R) applauding PayPal’s decision to hire 400 workers in Charlotte — only to doom that 2016 plan weeks later by enacting the restroom restrictions.
“There’s a real, tangible ripple effect,” Turnbull said. “We lose our ability to recruit companies and people with the income to eat here.”
Thursday, April 04, 2024
The GOP is Doubling Down on Misogyny
"Stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do."
This is the wedding night advice offered to brides by Josh Howerton, a senior pastor at Lakepointe Church in Dallas, Texas. Lakepointe, according to the Dallas Morning News, is one of the biggest megachurches in Texas, . . . . Howerton opened Sunday morning services on February 25 with this paean to sexual coercion.
Claiming that the bride has "been planning this day her whole life," and so the groom should indulge her: "Stand where she tells you to stand, wear what she tells you to wear, and do what she tells you to do. You'll make her the happiest woman in the world."
Then he hits folks with this counterpoint: In exchange, the bride should take a submissive role in what he pointedly calls "his wedding night," to "make him the happiest man in the world."
Sheila Wray Gregoire, a Christian critic of purity culture, responded on her Bare Marriage podcast with an episode titled, "Why Evangelical Honeymoons Often Go So Badly." Howerton responded with two beloved defenses of bigoted rhetoric on the right: that it's out of context and just a joke.
Gregoire responded in a thread arguing the context "makes this worse" because the "joke" assumes men "don't have to take on ANY of the mental load, emotional involvement, or work of the wedding," and also that "at the wedding night, you get to act like a porn director and direct her every move so you get exactly what you want." . . . "In both the wedding, and the wedding night, she does all the work for him." It's an apt rebuttal to those who claim these rigid gender roles are "fair" because they're "balanced." In reality, it's just more of the same sexist assumption that the work of marriage belongs only to women.
All critical discourse, but my first thought upon watching this clip, I must confess: This is why the GOP is doomed in its "outreach" to claw back female voters they've lost in the Donald Trump era.
It's not just the assault on abortion rights, which they can't seem to hold back from, despite the resounding unpopularity of the anti-choice stance. It's that the MAGA base is getting ever more vitriolic with its misogyny. Part of that is due to the more secular dirtbags of the Joe Rogan/Elon Musk variety, who have become such a loud part of the Republican coalition under Trump. But this escalation of boldly misogynist rhetoric is also coming from the evangelicals. Republicans can't win without keeping those people happy, since the Christian right is where the GOP's organizing power still mainly resides.
. . . . [T]he trend of evangelical leaders using "vulgarities." But it's not just a matter of using curse words. The vulgarities in question mostly center around an over-the-top performance of toxic masculinity: throwing around sexist terms like "sl*t" and "wh*re," homophobic slurs, and using phrases like "grow a pair." It's definitely got an overcompensation vibe to it. But along with the increasingly violent queerphobia, this means evangelical sexism is getting more overtly nasty. A lot of the faux-chivalrous condescension is being replaced with blunt malevolence and sexual objectification.
The [North Carolina] Republican gubernatorial nominee, Mark Robinson, is a good example. He loudly proclaims himself an evangelical Christian and occasionally is invited to preach at conservative churches. He also prefers a shock jock vibe when attacking women being sexual or demanding equality. He declared that women are to be "led by men" and, "I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote." Last week, resurfaced comments showed he's consumed by hatred for Beyoncé, who he called a "skank" who teaches "our young women to be hyper-sexual wh*res."
Robinson's ascendance shows there's a major appetite for grossly misogynist talk among Republican voters, including those who clutch their Bibles while claiming they're doing it all for Jesus. A likelier explanation, of course, is that religion is just an increasingly thin pretext for resentment of women for getting education and jobs and more independence from men. That's why, even though it's hurting Republicans at the polls, Christian conservatives keep pushing for ever more draconian restrictions on abortion and contraception. It's even turning into a growing chorus of Christian leaders attacking no-fault divorce, which makes it easier for women to end bad or even abusive marriages.
[T]here's an increasingly effective religious pressure campaign on the GOP to claw back a woman's right to leave her husband. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, recently decried divorce, even to escape domestic violence. The Texas Republican platform, additionally, calls for the state legislature to "rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage."
What's wild is [Alabama Sen. Katie] Britt's syrupy presentation was initially framed as Republican outreach to women. I guess the thinking was female voters can relate to being trapped in their kitchens and hiding their ambitions from men by talking like toddlers. But it ended up feeling like more of the same pandering to the worst sort of men, the kind of men who call Beyoncé a "skank" and respond to being asked to wash the dishes by lobbying for an end to no-fault divorce.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., recently shrugged off the GOP's loss of female voters by saying, "for every ‘Karen’ we lose, there is a ‘Julio’ and a ‘Jamal’ ready to sign up for the MAGA movement." The statement wasn't just racist because of his trolling word choice. It was also an effort to shove responsibility for the increasingly noxious sexism of the GOP onto the shoulders of men of color. But, really, the loudmouthed misogyny is less about expanding the Republican coalition and more about base maintenance.
It's happening for a lot of reasons: Trump creates a permission structure. Social media incentivizes getting attention by being the biggest jerk on the internet. Fury over the #MeToo movement plays a role. All this has come together to create this crotch-grabbing zeitgeist on the right, even in the Christian spaces that used to pretend at a higher calling. Whatever is fueling it, however, Republican politicians know they have to tend to this burbling cesspool of toxic masculinity, which is going to get in the way of their already weak efforts to appeal to female voters.
Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
Republicans’ Abortion Problem Just Got Worse
It has been less than a day since the Florida Supreme Court allowed one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws while also agreeing to put the issue before voters in November. But already, the fight for Florida has begun, the rulings transforming a once-lackluster race into what is now likely to be a fierce duel.
“We have a new situation here in Florida,” said Jayden D’Onofrio, chairman of Florida Future Leaders, a new group aligned with the Democratic Party that was handing out condoms and tulips after the rulings. “Florida is in play.”
Democrats face an uphill battle in the Sunshine State. . . . . A large segment of the electorate, however, nearly 30 percent, is registered with no party affiliation. In light of Monday’s rulings, Democrats see an opportunity to mobilize both those who identify with the party and the 3.5 million voters potentially stuck somewhere in between.
“If they feel strongly about protecting a woman’s right to choose, then at the presidential level, there’s a clear choice there with Biden versus Trump,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.
The abortion rulings — as well as a third decision Monday putting recreational marijuana on the ballot — have energized a moribund Democratic Party in Florida, where Democrats have elected just one statewide candidate in the past decade.
A second column in the Washington Post looks at how abortion rights may prove to be an anchor around the necks of Republican candidates who pander to the evangelical/Christofascist minority and ride rough shod over the desires of the majority of voters. Here are column excerpts:
The November election will feature abortion measures in many states that could impact competitive races. While Maryland is already a deep-blue, pro-choice state, a measure on the ballot in November enshrining abortion rights in the state’s constitution spells trouble for Republican Senate candidate and former governor Larry Hogan, who has tried to duck the issue but faces a GOP backlash if he deviates from the MAGA party line. (As governor, he vetoed a bill expanding abortion access.)
A referendum is also likely to be on the ballot in Arizona. This measure would expand access to abortion beyond the current 15-week limit. That has implications for the swing state’s presidential race, as well as its U.S. Senate race, in which extreme MAGA Republican Kari Lake is facing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Meanwhile, in Florida, where Sen. Rick Scott (R) is up for reelection and hope springs eternal among Democrats to win at the presidential level, Democrats could get a boost from the proposed Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion, which provides: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
The proposal collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot this fall, but Republicans challenged the measure in court. This echoed the GOP’s unsuccessful effort last year in Ohio to beat back a referendum to expand abortion rights by trying to change the rules to amend the state constitution. On Tuesday, Florida’s supreme court ruled that the state’s six-week ban could go into effect but also held that the pro-choice measure could appear on the ballot. That will set the stage for a high-stakes abortion battle.
And in Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in a tough reelection fight, “a proposed ballot initiative would affirm in the state’s constitution ‘the right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion’ and would prohibit the government from ‘denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability,’”
These measures might well drive Democratic turnout, helping the party’s candidates up and down the ballot. Moreover, they keep abortion uppermost in voters’ minds. The unbroken string of victories for pro-choice measures since Dobbs and the subsequent washout of the red wave in the 2022 midterms suggest abortion has changed the electoral landscape.
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg (one of the few analysts to throw cold water on predictions of a 2022 red wave) has repeatedly warned that “Dobbs changed everything.” During an MSNBC interview in September, Rosenberg explained that there was a “huge heightened Democratic performance” after Dobbs in more than two dozen special election races.
A cottage industry — the same that predicted Dobbs would be a nonfactor — insisted that the abortion issue’s impact would diminish. However, if attention had drifted, certainly the recent Supreme Court case about banning the abortion drug mifepristone woke up many women.
“Republican lawyers are preparing to use the Comstock Act to prohibit all abortions, not just pills.” In short, MAGA Republicans might try to apply this “zombie relic” law so widely that a Trump Justice Department could push to “make all abortion care a felony.” Democrats are bound to highlight that shocking prospect ahead of the November elections.
In sum, Republicans are likely to keep reminding voters that their party is not about to let public opinion stand in the way of extreme maneuvers to try to ban abortion in every state. Democrats would do well — as they did in 2022 — to lean into the abortion issue. Watch for more Democrats during this election cycle vowing to repeal the Comstock Act, to enshrine abortion rights in federal statute and to use the Justice Department aggressively to defend women’s right to choose. That’s how they can draw a sharp contrast with Republicans’ cruel, dangerous agenda.
Supporting Trump = Supporting a Culture of Violence
Voters need to confront the reality of what supporting Trump means.
On Good Friday, Donald Trump shared a video that prominently featured a truck with a picture of a hog-tied Joe Biden on it. I’ve seen this art on a tailgate in person, and it looks like a kidnapped Biden is a captive in the truck bed.
The former president, running for his old office, knowingly transmitted a picture of the sitting president of the United States as a bound hostage.
Of course, Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung quickly began the minimizing and what-abouting: . . . . Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
I cannot recall prominent elected Democrats calling for hurting Trump or his family. . . . . And there is certainly no evidence to suggest that Biden or his spokespeople ever promoted the idea that the 45th president should be taken hostage. Over the weekend, Trump’s defenders took to social media to keep raising the 2017 picture in which the comedian Kathy Griffin held up an effigy of Trump’s severed head. So let us all stipulate: Her stunt was ghastly. . . . . She paid for it: The Secret Service investigated her, and her career at CNN was torched.
But Griffin is not a former president seeking once again to become commander in chief of the armed forces and the top law-enforcement authority in the United States. And Griffin did not incite a mob of rioters—some of whom were bent on homicide—to attack the Capitol. Donald Trump is, and he did.
Meanwhile, Trump also had words last week for the people trying to hold him accountable—or, more accurately, for their children. The day before he promoted imagery depicting the torture of the sitting president, Trump fired off a Truth Social post in which he mentioned the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over his hush-money criminal trial: “Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately,” , , , ,
Then, on Saturday, Trump blasted out a New York Post article that included Loren Merchan’s picture to his followers.
Trump’s fan base will shrug off its leader’s condoning of violent fantasies and implied threats of violence as more harmless lib-owning. But what Trump is doing is dangerous, and the time is long past to stop treating support for his candidacy as just one of many ordinary political choices. As the historian of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted on Friday on X: “This is an emergency. This is what authoritarian thugs and terrorists do. Trump is targeting the President of the United States.”
Other Americans are well within their rights to wonder if this is what Trump supporters actually want to see in 2024.
Perhaps a thought experiment might help: Would today’s Trump supporters think it hilarious, say, to see Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter bound in the same way that Biden was depicted? Perhaps Bill Clinton or the Bushes tied up like hostages?
After seeing Trump post this video, I found myself wanting to ask his voters the questions that always occur after one of his outrages: Is this okay with you? Is this something you’d want your children to see?
Trump’s apologists—especially those who claim to be against Trump but are sympathetic to the movement he leads—will complain that such questions are un-American, and that we should not judge other citizens for their choices. This is disingenuous caviling: Every day, both in politics and in our daily lives, we reach moral conclusions about one another’s choices. More to the point, tolerating and even celebrating violent images and despicable language is a perfectly legitimate cause for looking down on the people who engage in such behavior.
(The whining about judgment is particularly ironic coming from Trump adherents, who constantly judge others while cheering on Trump’s descriptions of other Americans as “vermin” and “thugs”—all the while constantly complaining about how others are judging them.)
Another thought exercise might clarify the problem. Imagine someone who seems, in every way, like a perfectly good neighbor, but in a discussion he says that his favorite candidate for president would be the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
I doubt many of us, faced with a neighbor who supports a racist and former Klansman, or idolizes a rambling anti-Semite, would shrug and take comfort in how neat he keeps his lawn. We might start to suspect that such a neighbor is not a good citizen—and, given the hate that he supports, maybe not a good person, either.
[A]t some point, we have to decide when to levy a moral judgment that puts these choices beyond the realm of a normal political argument. . . . .Unfortunately, we’re not getting much help in making those determinations from some of the media.
Every ardent Trump supporter should be asked when enough’s enough. And every elected Republican, including the sad lot now abasing themselves for a spot on Trump’s ticket or in his possible Cabinet, should be asked when they will risk their careers for the sake of the country, if not their souls. We have reached an important moment—one of many over the past years, if we are to be honest. After all we have learned and seen, and all of the questions we might ask of Trump supporters, perhaps only one simple and direct question truly matters now: Is this who you are?
Monday, April 01, 2024
The Delusions and Moral Bankruptcy of MAGA Christians
In 2015, I was a Republican. However, I became increasingly alarmed by the political rise of Donald Trump and the evangelical support he garnered. It was clear to me at the time that Trump was intellectually, psychologically, and morally unfit for office and that it was delusional for anyone, especially evangelicals, to think otherwise.
My alarm only grew as increasing numbers of evangelicals threw their support behind Trump with his selection of Mike Pence, a devout Christian, as his running mate. It was at that time I began to write opinion pieces criticizing Trump and challenging evangelicals to stop buying into his self-glorifying lies. With very few exceptions, my op-eds fell on deaf ears.
Fast forward to today, and the unfitness of Trump to occupy the Oval Office is only worsening as is the delusional view many evangelicals have of him. MAGA evangelicals, like lambs led to the slaughter, continue to believe the things that come out of Trump’s mouth, something deeply concerning given that he is widely seen as a pathological liar.
Shame on Trump for conning evangelicals into supporting him in 2016. Shame on evangelicals for being conned back into supporting him in 2024 given his catastrophically bad presidency and noticeable unfitness for office. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and Trump-supporting evangelicals are among the most blind Christians to ever engage in politics.
Before going any further, I want to define delusional as I’m using it in this piece. A person being delusional is “characterized by or holding false beliefs or judgments about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.” It is my contention that many MAGA evangelicals are delusional in that they continue to see Trump in an extremely positive light even though who he is would suggest seeing him in an extremely negative one.
Along these lines, Trump-supporting evangelicals appear to be especially good at cherry-picking verses from the Bible to justify their support of Trump, but they seem to have a strong aversion to dealing with sections of Scripture that clearly warn against doing so. I believe there are two primary biblical passages that argue against supporting Trump for president. In focusing on these passages, I have two questions I would like evangelicals who support Trump to answer.
How do you support someone for president who unrepentantly practices the things God hates?
One of the most important passages in the Bible for understanding Trump, one that MAGA evangelicals often ignore, is Proverbs 6:16-19. It says, “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.” From my perspective, this is a word-for-word description of how Trump operates. . . . . Evangelicals, how do you support someone like this for president?
How do you support someone for president who God tells you to ignore?
A second passage for understanding Trump that many of his evangelical supporters refuse to acknowledge is 2 Timothy 3:1-5. It is, from my perspective as a psychologist, a description of a malignant narcissist: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will become lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people (italics mine).” Again, I would argue that this is a word-for-word description of Trump.
Trump exhibits malignant narcissism in that everything is about his needs being met and how great he is. . . . . he seems to have a strong penchant for loving evil and evil dictators in what guides his actions. Finally, Trump portrays himself as a godly man when there is no substance behind it. Trump recently said he was proud to be a Christian, something no humble Christian would say, and he has been out hawking Bibles lately while portraying himself as someone who loves the Word of God.
No matter what the cost, Christians must stand up for truth
It is not inherently delusional to hold conservative or liberal values. Both sides of the political aisle have core values that are admirable and worth fighting for. What turns holding these values problematic is when a person takes them to radical extremes and weaponizes them for personal gain and glory while not caring how much damage he or she causes the country in the process. Trump is such a person, and, consequently, I believe it is both foolish and delusional to support him holding the highest office in the land.
Within the body of Christ, there appears to be little willingness to reason anymore, and unbridled emotions seem to be running the show. We are deeply divided as to whether or not supporting Trump is wise or foolish, biblical or unbiblical. But this is part and parcel of how Trump operates—sow discord and division among groups of people, even Christian groups he claims to be a part of, and ride that division all the way to the White House for his glory and not for the glory of God.
I think our country is strong enough to withstand another Trump presidency. But, to be honest, I don’t want to find out. It’s a risk we can’t afford to take. I respectfully ask Christians who support Trump to reconsider. The stakes are incredibly high in every election but are especially high in this one. If you’re conservative like me, please consider voting for someone else in November. Please vote for someone who, though imperfect like all of us, genuinely cares about truth, doing good, the sanctity of human life, compassion for the downtrodden, and unifying our country, not someone like Trump who gives the appearance of doing so for self-serving gain.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Trump Is No Savior
It is fitting that the biggest movie in the world this year is the story of a messiah gone wrong.
I’m speaking, of course, about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” sequel, the story of a savior who broke bad in a specific way: He manipulated prophecy to unleash the religious fervor of an entire people against a hated foe.
The “Dune” movies present a beautifully shot, marvelously acted, fantastical tale set in a distant future, but they’re very much grounded in the dark reality of human nature here and now. When people are angry and afraid, they will look for a savior. When that anger and fear is latched to faith and prophecy, they will yearn for a religious crusade.
There’s a version of this same story playing out in the United States, but because the anger and fear are so overwrought, the prophecies so silly, and the savior so patently absurd, we may be missing the religious and cultural significance of the moment. A significant part of American Christianity is spiraling out of control.
The signs are everywhere. First, there’s the behavior of the savior himself, Donald Trump. On Monday of Holy Week, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, posting on Truth Social that he received a “beautiful” note from a supporter saying that it was “ironic” that “Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”
On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social to sell a $60 “God Bless the USA Bible” (the “only Bible endorsed by President Trump”), an edition of the King James Bible that also includes America’s founding documents. “Christians are under siege,” he said. The Judeo-Christian foundation of America is “under attack,” Trump claimed, before declaring a new variant on an old theme: “We must make America pray again.”
Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, told a Christian gathering that Democrats “want full and complete destruction of the United States of America.”. . . . “I do not think you can be a Christian and vote Democrat,” Kirk said, and “if you vote Democrat as a Christian, you can no longer call yourself a Christian.”
All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of so-called prophetic utterances that place Trump at the center of God’s plan to save America. According to these prophecies, Trump is God’s choice to lead America out of spiritual darkness, to save it from decline and despair. In this formulation, to oppose Trump is to stand against the will of God.
At the same time, ancient hatreds are re-emerging in the Christian far right. On March 22, the Daily Wire, a right-wing website founded by Ben Shapiro, fired Candace Owens, one of its most popular personalities. Like Kirk, she has millions of followers on social media. She is not a fringe figure. Owens engaged in a series of antisemitic statements, which included the claim that a “small ring of specific people … are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism” and “they will kill people before they allow that ring to be exposed.”
In response to the end of her relationship with the Daily Wire, both Owens and many of her followers began to post “Christ is king,” a sentiment aimed directly at Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew.
[T]he argument that “most Christians aren’t MAGA” or “the majority of evangelicals abhor antisemitism” is cold comfort when MAGA and its antisemitic fringe are as prominent as they are in Christian public discourse. It’s also cold comfort when it’s evangelicals who helped push Trump over the finish line in the Republican primary race.
The MAGA method is clear. First, it whips up its people into a religious frenzy. It lies to convince them that the Democrats are an existential threat to the country and the church. It tells worried Christians that the fate of the nation is at stake. Then, just as it builds up the danger from the Democrats, it constructs an idol of Trump, declaring his divine purpose and spreading the prophecies of his coming return. He is to be the instrument of divine vengeance against his foes, and his frenzied foot soldiers are eager to carry out his will. They march eagerly to culture war, flying the flag of the House of Trump.
Sadly, all of this spilled into the open on Holy Week, the very week when the actual example of Jesus Christ should thoroughly rebuke MAGA’s fear and MAGA’s will to power. Christ came to a nation that was groaning under the weight of a real oppressor, the Roman Empire. At every turn, he rejected the effort to transform him into a political leader or, worse, a warlord.
Even though the people of Israel faced oppression that the American church can scarcely comprehend, he did not pick up the sword. Nor did he bend the knee to the Roman regime. In the end, he died on a cross, rejected by Romans and Israelites alike.
He left behind an upside-down faith. In Christ’s kingdom, the last are first. You love your enemies. You pray for those who persecute you. His teachings consistently contradict our will to power. They frustrate our very human desire for vengeance. They channel religious devotion into compassion, not ferocity, and compassion should define our lives.
Jesus was emphatic. In Matthew 25, Jesus said he would know his followers as people who served: “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.”
One does not hate one’s way into the kingdom of God. If our hearts are so cold that we fail to exhibit those virtues, it does one no good to respond, “But Lord, I posted ‘Christ the King’ to troll my enemies.”
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