Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity

The Economist has a great review (behind a paywall) of a new upcoming book entitled "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity" which looks at the systemic racism in American Christianity, especially among Southern Baptists and white evangelicals. The book bears out my view that the rise of racism within the Republican Party directly correlates to the rise of evangelicals and "conservative Christians" within the party base.   A piece at CNN also looks at the book to be released next month and has an overview which many white Christians - especially those in the South - will find uncomfortable to face even though the author uses numerous surveys and studies to document the book's damning conclusions.  Here are excerpts from CNN (sadly, those who most need to read the book will likely not do so):

Growing up in the South, Robert P. Jones attended Southern Baptist churches, Sunday schools, even a Southern Baptist college.

But it was only in seminary, in his mid-20s, that Jones says he learned the full truth about Southern Baptists' white supremacist roots. The denomination was founded to defend slavery and did not formally rebuke its past until 1995, when Southern Baptists voted to apologize for their history of racism.

"White Christian churches have not just been complacent; they have not only been complicit," he writes in his book, "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity," publishing next month.  "Rather, as the dominant cultural power in America, they have been responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect White supremacy and resist Black equality," he writes. "This project has framed the entire American story."

In the book Jones, CEO and founder of Public Religion Research Institute, blends church history, memoir and contemporary public opinion surveys. Together, they make a clear and compelling case for why White American Christians need to reckon with their past.
 But American Christianity's past is only part of the problem. In survey after survey, said Jones, contemporary white Christians repeatedly deny that structural racism is a problem, that shootings of unarmed Blacks are not isolated incidents, or even that African Americans still face racism and discrimination.
 One of the challenges, historically, has been that the Christian theology developed in White churches intentionally blinds White Christians to racial injustice. White Christians are nearly twice as likely as non-religious Americans to say police shootings of unarmed black men are isolated incidents. That is a moral and theological problem. As long as White supremacy has a hold on our culture, it's pretty comfortable for White Christian churches to say their theology is about personal salvation and personal lives. Theology has been constricted to be only about personal piety, disconnected from claims of social justice. Everything outside of salvation has been labeled "politics."

It's a self-protective move. If you read sermons in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s you would have no idea that there was a Civil Rights movement. It was a lulling of white consciences to sleep.
 I see the last four years as a moment of reckoning for White Christians. The election of President Trump, who has put White supremacy front and center, has brought these issues from just barely below the surface into plain view. Charlottesville changed things. Charleston changed things. Dylan Roof was a confirmed Lutheran, who, in his journal while imprisoned has been drawing crosses and white Jesus and is completely unrepentant. White Christians have inherited a worldview that has Christians on top of other religions, men over women, Whites over Blacks. There is a top-down authoritarian structure to it. 

82% of Evangelicals Continue to Embrace Immorality

The results of a new Pew Research Center survey has been released and they again confirm that white evangelicals are the worse hypocrites and modern day Pharisees of any religious group as they continue to support the most immoral individual to ever occupy the White House.  Eighty two percent say they will vote for Trump in November.  The survey take away is that decent, moral people should not be fooled by the false piety and claims of religiosity from evangelicals given that Trump is the antithesis of Christian conduct and Christ's social gospel message. White evangelicals are not the only ones whose claims of being "Christian" should be questioned.  Majorities of white "Christians' also support Trump although not at the levels of evangelicals who, in my view, lead the nation in moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy.   One cannot be a moral person if they support a man who is the embodiment of immorality.   Here are highlights from the survey:

Amid rising coronavirus cases and widespread protests over racial injustice, President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped among a wide range of religious groups, including white evangelical Protestants – though they remain strongly supportive.

The same survey finds that if the 2020 presidential election were held today, 82% of white evangelical Protestant registered voters would vote for Trump or lean toward voting for him, while 17% say they would back the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden. By comparison, a Pew Research Center survey that was conducted just after the 2016 presidential election among those who were identified as having voted found that 77% of white evangelical Protestant voters backed Trump, while 16% voted for Hillary Clinton.

The June survey was conducted after Trump’s controversial visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, and in the immediate wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark LGBTQ ruling on June 15.

Trump’s continued support among white evangelical Protestants – a group that is highly religious and overwhelmingly Republican – is matched by their dislike of Biden.

While no other religious group is as supportive of Trump as white evangelical Protestants – and his rating has slipped among most Christian groups in this analysis in recent months – [Trump] the president continues to garner support from half or more of other white Christians. More than half of white Protestants who do not identify as evangelical (56%) say they approve of the job Trump is doing, as do 54% of white Catholics – and roughly six-in-ten voters in these groups say they would vote for him if the election were held today.

On the other hand, large majorities of Black Protestants (83%), Hispanic Catholics (74%) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (74%) say they disapprove of Trump. Among Black Protestants, levels of disapproval have increased to 83% from 74% in April, but are roughly similar to where they stood in January, when 10% approved of Trump and 87% disapproved. And among Black Protestant voters, just 8% say they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, while 88% would vote for Biden.

Black Protestants, who overwhelmingly identify as Democrats or as Democratic-leaning independents, are the religious group with by far the most positive views toward Biden.

Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, another strongly Democratic constituency, opinions on a possible Biden presidency are more tepid. (The religiously unaffiliated, also known as “nones,” are those who describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”) Fewer than a third of “nones” (27%) say Biden would be a good or great president, while 39% say he would be average and 33% say he would do a poor or terrible job. Nevertheless, this group’s views toward Biden are much more positive than toward Trump: Seven-in-ten “nones” say Trump has been a poor (13%) or terrible (56%) president, and a similar share of unaffiliated voters (72%) say they would vote for Biden if the election was today.

It's telling that the so-called "Nones" are more moral than evangelicals as evidenced by their stron rejection of Trump.

Norfolk Modern Day Pharisee Sues Virginia Over LGBT Protections

Today was the first day that Virginia's new LGBT non-discrimination protections became effective and sure enough a Norfolk Christofascist who believes he should be above the law has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia, claiming that the ban on discrimination against other citizens, namely those who are LGBT, tramples on his "religious beliefs." Also not surprisingly, the virulent hate group Alliance Defending Freedom - the organization's name truly ought to include the words to be "to be a bigot and hate monger" - is representing Chris Herring, the Norfolk photographer who claims his religious freedoms are being trampled upon.  Seemingly missing from Herring's complaint is any evidence that any LGBT clients actually sought to force him to provide wedding photo services under the newly effective Virginia Laws.  Frankly, in my view, Herring is but another example of the self-centered and hate driven individuals of today's "conservative Christians" who show themselves to be anything but true Christians.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the lawsuit and Herring's demand for special rights to discriminate against other Virginians.  The irony, of course, is that Herring and those like him would scream bloody murder if decent, moral people discriminated against him based on their religious beliefs and Christ's condemnation of Pharisees. Hopefully, decent, moral Virginians will boycott Herring's business.  Here are article excerpts:

A Norfolk wedding photographer is suing Virginia, arguing a new [LGBT] anti-discrimination law that took effect Wednesday violates his First Amendment rights. The photographer, Chris Herring, believes the Virginia Values Act forces him to promote same-sex marriage against his religious beliefs.

Herring “faces an impossible choice: violate the law and risk bankruptcy, promote views against his faith, or close down,” his attorneys wrote in the suit, filed Tuesday in federal court. “And this was exactly what Virginia officials wanted for those who hold Chris’ religious beliefs about marriage. Legislators who passed Virginia’s law called views like Chris’ ‘bigotry’ and sought to punish them with ‘unlimited punitive damages’ to remove them from the public square.”

The new law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations and access to credit.

Herring, who [falsely claims he] is Christian, already serves LGBT clients for brand and adventure shoots, said Kate Anderson, senior legal counsel with the conservative Christian nonprofit [certified hate group] Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing him. But he does not photograph same-sex weddings and feels that doing so would be creating art and sending a message against his beliefs, Anderson said.

Anderson said Herring wants to post a belief statement on his business website, but is concerned that Virginia could levy enough fines to drive him into bankruptcy.

“Because of my faith, I can only photograph consistent with who I am and what I believe. I can only photograph what celebrates God’s creation and design for the world,” reads the proposed statement. “I won’t photograph ceremonies that contradict God’s design for marriage as something between one man and one woman.”

The attorneys say in court documents the language of the law would force the photographer “to create and convey photographs and blogs celebrating same-sex weddings because he does so for weddings between a man and a woman.”

Anderson noted in that and a similar case in Minnesota, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring “filed briefs supporting the government compelling artists to speak messages that violate their core convictions. So there’s no doubt that’s how (he) will interpret this law.”

The attorney general [Mark Herring] , who is not related to the plaintiff, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Spokeswoman Charlotte Gomer said in an email Wednesday that his office is reviewing the complaint and will respond in court.

“Attorney General Herring believes that every Virginian has the right to be safe and free from discrimination no matter what they look like, where they come from, or who they love,” Gomer said. “LGBT Virginians are finally protected from housing and employment discrimination under Virginia law and Attorney General Herring looks forward to defending the Virginia Values Act in court against these attacks.”

Filed the day before the law went into effect, the freedom alliance said the Norfolk case is what’s known as a “pre-enforcement challenge,” allowing citizens to challenge a law before it’s enforced against them.

According to court documents, Chris Herring started his company in 2017 and operates mostly in Norfolk and Chesapeake. After initially doing only adventure photography, he expanded to weddings aiming to promote “God’s design for marriage which reflects Jesus’ sacrificial relationship to his Church.”

Again, decent, fair minded individuals and businesses need to boycott Chris Herring and his business and with luck, it will wither and die. Chris Herring is no different than "Christians" of old who cited the Bible to support slavery.  Hate and bigotry is still hate and bigotry even when wrapped in the smoke screen of religion.

The False Christians Who Loved Trump’s Photo Op Stunt

A photo shopped image that confirms Trump is
mutually exclusive of true Christian values.

As a piece in Mother Jones notes, few Congressional Republicans could bring themselves to condemn Donald Trump's tear gassing of peaceful protesters and the roughing up of an Episcopal priest (who was also tear gassed) as Trump used St. John's Episcopal Church for a photo op yielding a photo of Trump holding a bible in front of the historic church.  As the piece notes, only Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) called the stunt for what it was: “I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop”  Even more sickening than Republican political whores has been the reaction of so-called Christians - some of whom seem to have had lobotomies given their inability to see Trump for what he is - who have applauded Trump's crass and brutal stunt.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at Trump's disturbing reality TV like stunt and the modern day Pharisees who continue to rally to his banner.  Trump's supporters care nothing about true Christianity.  Rather their focus is on power, white privilege and special rights for far right Christians, a segment of society that hates almost everyone else.  Here are article highlights:

He wielded the Bible like a foreign object, awkwardly adjusting his grip as though trying to get comfortable. He examined its cover. He held it up over his right shoulder like a crossing guard presenting a stop sign. He did not open it.

Even by the standards of Donald Trump’s religious photo ops, the dissonance was striking. Moments earlier, he had stood in the Rose Garden and threatened to unleash the military on unruly protesters. He used terms such as anarchy and domestic terror, and vowed to “dominate the streets.” To clear the way for his planned post-speech trip to St. John’s Church, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.

A few hours after the dystopian spectacle, I spoke on the phone with Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor and indefatigable Trump ally. He sounded almost gleeful.

“I thought it was completely appropriate for the president to stand in front of that church,” Jeffress told me. “And by holding up the Bible, he was showing us that it teaches that, yes, God hates racism, it’s despicable—but God also hates lawlessness.”  “So,” he added, “I’m happy.”

In many ways, the president’s stunt last night—with its mix of shallow credal signaling and brutish force—was emblematic of his appeal to the religious right. . . . . .most white conservative Christians don’t want piety from this president; they want power. In Trump, they see a champion who will restore them to their [in their minds] rightful place at the center of American life, while using his terrible swift sword to punish their enemies.

This dynamic was on vivid display throughout the night. Even as cities across the country once again spiraled into chaos, prominent conservative evangelicals cheered Trump’s performance on Twitter.

“I don’t know about you but I’ll take a president with a Bible in his hand in front of a church over far left violent radicals setting a church on fire any day of the week,” wrote David Brody, a news anchor at the Christian Broadcasting Network. . . . .

Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, heaped praise on Trump for his visit: “His presence sent the twin message that our streets and cities do not belong to rioters and domestic terrorists, and that the ultimate answer to what ails our country can be found in the repentance, redemption, and forgiveness of the Christian faith.”

Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Clemson University, has argued that Trump’s religious base can best be understood through the lens of Christian nationalism. In his research, Whitehead has found that white Protestants who believe most strongly that Christianity should hold a privileged place in America’s public square are more likely than others to agree with statements such as “We must crack down on troublemakers to save our moral standards and keep law and order” and “Police officers shoot blacks more often because they are more violent than whites.”

Whitehead told me in an interview that Christian nationalism is often not really about theology (and thus can’t be ascribed to all conservative churchgoers): “It’s about identity, enforcing hierarchy, and order.”

That Trump’s religious posturing has little to do with religion has long been a matter of conventional wisdom (see: Corinthians, Two); fewer have grasped the extent to which that’s true of Trump’s “religious” base as well.

After the president’s unannounced visit to St. John’s, Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., gave an outraged interview to The Washington Post. “Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence … he’s done everything to divide us, and has just used one of the most sacred symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” she said.

But, of course, sacredness has never been a concern of Trump’s. He didn’t open the Bible he was brandishing for the cameras, because he had no use for its text. He didn’t go inside the church he was using as a backdrop, because he had no interest in a sermon.

To Trump, the Bible and the church are not symbols of faith; they are weapons of culture war. And to many of his Christian supporters watching at home, the pandering wasn’t an act of inauthenticity; it was a sign of allegiance—and shared dominance.

Just as Trump is a disgusting, immoral individual, so too are the falsely pious "Christians" who continue to blindly support him. They are NOT decent, moral people no matter how much they parade around wearing false piety and talking about god and prayers. 

Trump v. Jesus: Christians Can’t Follow Both

As regular readers know, I have a problem with many Christians.  First there are the toxic white evangelicals who have embraced Donald Trump and his racist, divisive policies, including policies that harm the poor, the sick, the elderly and advance religious based bigotry.  Then there are the "good Christians" who try to follow the New Testament teachings of Christ - as opposed to the Old Testament so loved by white evangelicals who cherry pick brief passages as a means to condemn others - and do not seek to harm others.  My complaint with these Christians?  Their silence and failure to loudly and openly condemn (i) Trump and the GOP policies that are the antithesis to the Gospel message, and (ii) the white evangelicals who are killing the Christian brand and fueling the flight of the younger generations from religion entirely.  One exception to this damning silence Rev. Jim Wallis and 90 other religious leaders who have joined in a statement in support of the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.   The point these religious leaders make is simple: support of Trump and following the Gospel message are mutually exclusive.  Read the statement here. Here are highlights from a piece that looks at this position. 

Many Christians pluck a line from the Bible and pretend it is the entirety of Scripture, using the command as a club against anyone who makes them uncomfortable. Their religion is a green light from God Almighty to harass gays, plague women, and of course support Donald Trump, the living embodiment of their faith.

“I love him so much I can hardly explain it,” said right-wing pastor and Trump adviser James Robison.   Many echo Robison; 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump.

But there are also Christians like Rev. Jim Wallis.  “There is a conflict between the politics of Jesus and the politics of Trump,” said Wallis. “Racial bigotry is a deal breaker for the Gospel. White nationalism, which Donald Trump embraces and champions, isn’t just racist — it’s anti-Christ. Dehumanizing immigrants isn’t just racist — it’s anti-Christ. Demeaning women isn’t just sexist — it’s anti-Christ. At some point, Christians have to ask themselves: Are the teachings of Christ going to be followed or not?”

Nor is Wallis alone: 90 Christian leaders joined him signing a call for this Sunday, Oct. 13, to be a National Day of Prayer “for the truth to be revealed through the impeachment inquiry.”

“For the sake of our nation’s integrity and the most vulnerable in our society, we call on fellow Christians to support the current impeachment inquiry,” read the statement. “Now is the time to shine the light of truth.”

“Trump appeals to our worst demons,” he said. “There really is a worst of America, and he is a marketer for it. He’s deliberately dividing our country.”

Wallis believes much of the powerful evangelical movement isn’t based on religion, but on politics. “In 1980 there was a political effort by Republican operatives, who approached Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and said, ‘Give us a list of your followers and we’ll create a new right wing movement and make you household names.’ It’s a political mobilization. Not theological. Not religious.”

But the faith that can be corrupted to serve Trump can also, Wallis believes, light the path away from him.

“There’s is a religious right that wraps political ideology around faith to polarize the country and, I think, silence and sabotage Jesus,” said Wallis. “He’s been hijacked. I want to try to reclaim Jesus and what He said. Those who turn to the politics of Jesus will defect from the politics of Trump,”

Any indication that those who have sold their souls to Trump are now willing to renege on the deal?

“A lot of white evangelicals are breaking from their parents over climate change, over LGBTQ issues,” Wallis said. “There are a growing number of white evangelical suburban Republican women who are shifting, [saying] ‘We care about life in the womb, but we also care about life on the southern border, about kids being ripped away from their parents.’”

“Jesus says, ‘I was a stranger. How you treat the stranger is how you treat me. How you treat the sick is how you treat me. How you treat the poor is how you treat me,’” Wallis said. “These are the most important people to Jesus and the least important to this administration.

“If you are followers of Jesus, you can’t ignore what Jesus said,” said Wallis. “So much of what Donald Trump says and does and makes policy is literally antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. No one can deny that. So how can you support him when he is contrary to everything Jesus said and did?”

Ken Cuccinelli Defends Trump's Anti-Refugee Bigotry

Racist - and homophobe - Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli.

Decent and moral Virginians have long known that Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli is a miserable excuse for a human being who feigns supposed Catholic religiosity while engaging in the types of hatred and bigotry decried not only by the Gospel message but also the Catholic Church's social gospel. Before losing his gubernatorial bid in 2013, Cuccinelli pushed every right wing Christian message of division and hate - ironically, the man is in my view a self-loathing closeted gay - while embracing an agenda that sought to disenfranchise anyone with non-white skin color.  Now, as Trump's acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director, Cuccinelli is vigorously pursuing the Trump/Pence regime's anti-refugee against not only Hispanic refugees at the nation's southern border but also in the context of Bahamians seeking entry to the U.S. A. in the wake of Hurricane Dorian's almost unimaginable devastation of the northern Bahamas.  A piece in Crooks and Liars - an apt title for Kookinelli - looks at Cuccinelli's despicable conduct.  Here are article highlights:

Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ken Cuccinelli insisted on Sunday that Bahamians should help themselves instead of fleeing to the United States after thousands were left homeless by Hurricane Dorian.

During an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan, Cuccinelli was asked why the Trump administration is making it "harder to flee to this country" for Bahamians who were left homeless by the hurricane.

Cuccinelli, however, argued that the Trump administration is "making it easier" for Bahamians to travel to the U.S.

"The Bahamas is a perfectly legitimate country capable of taking care of their own," the USCIS chief said. "We rushed resources in, whether it was from USAID or the Coast Guard, who were downright heroic."

"I've got to leave it there," Brennan said, concluding the interview, without pointing out that Cuccinelli's orders actually forced Customs agents to refuse entry to Bahamians who were made homeless by the hurricane for not having the proper travel visas.

A piece in Time noted why the Trump/Cuccinelli visa requirements were so discriminatory against Bahamian refugees, the majority of who - you guessed it - are not white:

U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott [both Republicans] wrote an open letter to Trump asking the president’s administration to “waive, or otherwise suspend, certain visa requirements” for Bahamian citizens who have relatives in the U.S. as the country recovered from Hurricane Dorian. Rubio also noted that many lost — or lost access to — their identification and other relevant documents during the hurricane.

Cuccinelli personifies why so many of the under 30 generations want nothing to do with Catholicism and Christianity itself. The  man is simple horrible and a hypocrite.

New Photos Emerge of Jerry Falwell, Jr., at Miami Nightclub

I had said that I hope the media scrutiny of modern day Pharisee and grifter Jerry Falwell, Jr., would continue in the wake of Politico's lengthy expose that looked at both questionable financial transactions, sex rumors and boasting, and drinking and dancing - both things that are banned at Liberty University and could lead to the expulsion of students guilty of such transgressions.  In true lying Christofascist/professional Christian form, Falwell claimed that photos of him dancing and drinking at a Miami nightclub were "false" or hand been "altered."  Now, the owner of the club has released an additional batch of photos putting Falwell's hypocrisy on further display.  Politico looks at the release of the additional photos.  Here are highlights:

One day after POLITICO published a piece in which Jerry Falwell Jr. denied visiting a Miami Beach nightclub in July 2014 and alleged that any images showing such were “photo-shopped,” a new trove of photos showing Falwell at the club has been released. 

Seth Browarnik, the owner of World Red Eye, a photography company that documents Miami’s bustling nightlife scene, says he was unaware how many photos he had of Falwell until Falwell alleged that his site’s images were manipulated—prompting Browarnik to explore his photo archive to prove otherwise.

On Tuesday, Browarnik published the newly unearthed photos on his website, WorldRedEye.com, along with a strongly worded “rebuke” of Falwell’s claim of photoshopping. In the article, Jerry Falwell Jr. repeatedly claimed that the photos—which POLITICO obtained from World Red Eye, which World Red Eye has had on their website for five years, and which show Falwell partying at Wall on July 19, 2014—were manipulated. “If the person in the picture is me, it was likely photo-shopped,” Falwell said.

Browarnik said he felt insulted. “My integrity is everything in this business,” he said. . . . . For the past 21 years, Browarnik has photographed Miami nightlife. Because of his trusted reputation as a photographer, he thought it was important to quickly quash Falwell’s accusation.

“That’s why I have an archive of five million photos,” Browarnik told me. “That’s why we catalog everything.”

In the images, the Falwells can be seen in the middle of the club’s dance floor while lasers and other light effects reflect around them. In at least two photos, Falwell family members can be seen holding alcohol. (Liberty University is notoriously strict about alcohol consumption, and students can receive demerits for co-ed dancing and be expelled for drinking.)

The Moral Rot of Today's GOP

The Republican Party continues to have its apologists who claim that the party is not racist and generally misogynistic.  Yet, the truth is that their gyrations to explain away the moral rot that is in plain sight, starting with the occupant of the White House simply do not fly and are underscored by four state party's that have cancelled primaries so that no one can even attempt to challenge Der Trumpenführer.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at two such apologists - Ross Douthat at the New York Times and Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner - who in apparent fits of delusion blame liberals for racism rather than the actions of conservatives, the vast majority of whom sold their souls to Trum as is underscored by Trump's high approval ratings among Republicans and evangelical "Christians."  I put Christian in quotes since, in my view, no true Christian could ever embrace Trump.  The simple reality today is that, if one supports the GOP, one supports a racist agenda and no amount of pretense changes that reality. Here are article highlights that look at the facts and the sad manner in which "conservative intellectuals" - an oxymoron in the age of Trump - refuse to admit that without racism, the GOP base would collapse:  

The Republican Party controls the White House, the United States Senate, and the majority of governorships and state legislatures. Champions for the political project of conservatism — specifically, the people focused on shaping law and policy and winning elections for the GOP — control the Supreme Court and the most watched network on cable television, Fox News. From this perch, they’ve pursued an agenda dedicated, in large part, to demonizing immigrants from Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East, while extolling the virtues of those from Europe; curtailing voting rights and seeking to reduce political representation for black and Hispanic people, for the express purpose of winning elections; and criminalizing abortion and reducing affordable health-care options in states where maternal and infant mortality rates are worse than in many less developed economies, especially for black women and children.

They’ve advanced their cause by uniting behind a president, Donald Trump, who spouts racism and xenophobia as a matter of routine, but whose approval ratings among Republican voters nevertheless consistently top 80 percent. Whenever they’re polled on the subject, large shares of these voters express bigoted views — 40 percent think black people are “lazier” than whites, nearly half think black people are more “criminal” and “violent,” and close to 60 percent hold unfavorable opinions about Islam.

This is to be expected: Racism has been fundamental to American conservatism, and the GOP in particular, since the mid-20th century realignment of the parties — even as its purportedly defining tenets have proven to be negotiable, from small government to antagonism toward autocrats to reduced deficit spending. None of this precludes the existence of non-racist conservatives, to be sure. It just makes them some of the least influential people in their movement, and renders their claims to broader relevance akin to shouting into a void.

But the void got slightly louder on Wednesday. Two op-eds by conservative columnists were published with essentially the same theme: American conservatism has a racism problem, and conservatives who care must build a movement that is unwelcoming to racists. The first, by Ross Douthat at the New York Times, uses this argument to qualify the real purpose of his piece, which is to lambast a handful of liberal commentators for falsely accusing four individual conservatives of being racists. The second piece, by Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner, is more soul-searching. It documents his dismay at realizing the conservative movement has been an alarmingly hospitable home for racists; his recognition that racial disparities in America stem from racism; and his belief that “the right thing” to do for conservatives is to scare away racists and make the best interests of nonwhite people central to their politics.

Douthat and Carney both insist that liberals will invent racism where it doesn’t exist and call conservatives racist no matter what; conservatives therefore need to fight racism on their own terms, for and among one another, without worrying about what the other side says.

This casting of liberalism hinges on the belief that liberal accusations of racism are as cynical as conservative denial of them. It’s an odd way of dismissing the very people who sounded the alarm about where the GOP was headed when much of the conservative intelligentsia was busy using op-ed pages and cable-news appearances to launder its descent. It’s a tall order to thank one’s political opponents for their honest assessment of you, to be fair. But the bigger problem for Douthat and Carney is that there’s little evidence that a market for the brand of conservatism they’re proposing exists — at least not in significant enough numbers to win elections and influence policy.
[B]oth writers are strikingly focused on minutiae: Their personal discomfort, the presence at once-respected conservative think tanks and online publications of individual white nationalists, and their dogged insistence that these realities don’t actually represent conservatives, many of whom, they insist, aren’t actually racist.

But the flagrant racism conveyed in Trump’s speeches and Jonah Bennett’s emails at the Daily Caller is less intractable than a movementwide mobilization behind a racist agenda. That Republicans have built a reliable coalition of racists and purported non-racists by pairing tax cuts and abortion restrictions with the subordination of black civil rights to states’ rights suggests that even those who oppose racism are willing to overlook it for their own self-interest.

[I]t also undermines the notion that conservatism’s racism problem stems from infiltration by a few bad eggs. On the contrary, it’s been apparent since the Nixon administration that the Republican Party would collapse without support from racists. Perhaps such a demise is Douthat and Carney’s unstated goal. In any case, the GOP hasn’t been able to convince most voters that corporate welfare, reduced protections for marginalized people, and diminished health-care options for all but the most financially secure are good things on their own terms, without using racism to sweeten the deal. This wouldn’t matter if conservatism was a fringe ideology. But the writers’ portrayal of their movement as one victimized by unfair smears and mischaracterization belies its status as the most powerful political movement in America today . . . .

As a result, the implementation of conservative policies means that migrant children are dying in cages, black voters are being purged from voter rolls by the thousands, Native lands are being plundered for oil infrastructure, and black mothers are losing their lives and babies because adequate health care is out of reach. It’s unlikely that many of them are moved by the gradual awakening of some conservatives to what they’ve known all along, or by Douthat and Carney’s insistence that a more benign conservatism, of which they’ve personally seen no evidence, exists. The mid-century black exodus from the GOP was no fluke or paranoid manifestation. It was a response to sustained antagonism toward their rights by Republicans.

There are no innocents among today’s Republicans. There’s only the ugliness they’ve unleashed, and whether they’ve the courage to risk political ruin in order to eradicate it.

Some White Evangelicals are Difficult to Recognize as Christians

Despite its many problems and failings, Catholicism continues to push for a social gospel that attempts to mitigate the sufferings of the poor, the homeless and refugees. Such cannot be said for many of today's white evangelicals in the United States who feign piety, express shock at Donald Trump's foul language, yet totally betray the social message demanded by the Gospels by virtue of the policies they support.  In a column in the Washington Post, former Republican Michael Gerson who was raised as an evangelical lets loose on the modern day Pharisees who comprise perhaps the vast majority of white evangelicals. I often say that one cannot be a decent moral person and be a member.supporter of today's Republican Party.  Gerson more or less states that one cannot be a Trump supporter and be a Christian.  Here are column excerpts:

After a recent speech by President Trump, Hardesty — who is a conservative, pro-Trump Democrat — received phone calls from Christians complaining of the president’s use of the term “goddamn.” In a letter to Trump, Hardesty pronounced himself “appalled by the fact that you chose to use the Lord’s name in vain on two separate occasions.”

This is hardly a national groundswell for decorum. But I don’t want to be dismissive of people revolted by the steaming, stinking cesspool of Trump’s public rhetoric. The problem is one of proportion.

Hardesty admitted that evangelicals Christians had been willing to overlook many of the president’s character flaws, but he ventured that on the matter of blasphemy, Trump’s “evangelical base might be far less forgiving.”

Consider this statement in the light of some recent developments:

*The Trump administration seems intent on sending to Congress a more than $4 billion package of budget cuts focused on diplomacy and foreign-assistance spending. These proposed reductions would likely affect efforts to fight the spread of Ebola, programs to encourage food security and nutrition across Africa, aid to countries taking the brunt of the refugee crisis, and democracy support in Venezuela, Ukraine and Tibet.

*[Trump] The president continues to vilify refugees as national security threats without the slightest bit of evidence. This year, the Trump administration capped the number of refugees who can resettle in the United States at 30,000 . . . . And the administration is now considering cutting that number to nearly zero next year.

*Along the southern border, the Trump administration has tightened the rules on asylum, making it more difficult for applicants to seek protection when family members face threats, and barring migrants seeking asylum if they passed through a third country while making their trek. The administration’s policy of family separation, its abusive treatment of migrants, its policy confusion and its general incompetence have contributed to a humanitarian crisis on both sides of the border.

There is an obvious response to Hardesty and other offended evangelical Christians.

Massive budget cuts to hunger-relief programs in Africa, refusing to take in desperate Syrian refugees and separating crying children from their parents at the border are tolerable, but using the Lord’s name in vain is a bridge too far? Pathological lying, spreading conspiracy theories, misogyny, making racist comments and dehumanizing others are permissible, but swearing somehow crosses the line?

This kind of Pharisaical preference for rules over humans reveals a large gap of spiritual education. In a poll conducted last year by the Pew Research Center, only 25 percent of white evangelical Christians said the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees, while 65 percent of those not affiliated with a religion affirmed that duty. . . . this reveals cruelty, corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Christian faith.

The problem does not lie in Christianity but in the moral formation of Christians. Are they getting their view of refugees from Christian sources? Or are they taking their view from Fox News, talk radio and Trump? I suspect the latter. And the worship of political idols is ultimately a spiritual problem — a different kind of blasphemy.

Many white evangelical Christians hold a faith that appeals to the comfortable rather than siding with the afflicted. They have allied themselves with bigots and nativists, risking the reputation of the gospel itself. And, in some very public ways, they are difficult to recognize as Christians at all.

Unfortunately, nothing seems likely to change evangelicals.  Thus, all one can do is hope that the flight from religion accelerates and that in time evangelicals shrink as a percentage of the population and that their toxic influence wanes. When that day comes, they best hope that they don't receive the kind of treatment that have inflicted on others.

The Cruelty of the GOP’s Food Stamp Policy

Increasingly, the Republican Party has had to rely on "conservative" Christians as part of its core base. These are people who claim to support Christ's message yet seemingly ignore his exhortations to care for the less fortunate, including feeding the poor and hungry. These claims are exposed, in fact lies, if one looks at the policies of the political party these self-proclaimed Christians support: slashing the social safety net to give tax breaks to the wealthy.  Nowadays, the only things that matter to these people - other than foolishly thinking they will benefit with lower taxes themselves - is seeking to harm LGBT individuals, obsessing over abortion (while caring nothing for children once they are born) and demonizing non-white immigrants.  The disconnect from Christ's message could hardly be more complete. Now, Trump is about to make the GOP war on the poor even more extreme and evangelicals seemingly are cheering on his agenda.  Here are highlights from a piece in the New York Times: 

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced proposed rules that would cut more than three million people off food assistance. This latest plan confirms what many have long suspected: The only thing unifying its policies on poverty is cruelty. Prior right-ring assaults on the poor at least claimed some semblance of a coherent theme. In contrast, this proposal, and earlier ones, are a grab-bag of mutually inconsistent ideas seemingly selected only to maximize harm.

When President Ronald Reagan attacked anti-poverty programs, he claimed to be limiting assistance to the poorest of the poor. He insisted he was protecting a “safety net” for the “truly needy.” To do this, he denied aid to millions of working families. Under the rules he pushed through Congress, almost any wages were enough to disqualify a family from cash assistance and Medicaid within a few months. Working families had their food assistance cut and their paperwork requirements increased.

Of course, his concern for the extremely poor went only so far: The savings from these cuts paid for his massive tax cut for the rich, not for helping the poorest families afford food or housing.

A decade later, another Republican, Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House, carried out even deeper cuts to anti-poverty programs, contending he was addressing a failure of recipients of public benefits to work. . . . Most welfare recipients did in fact seek and find work — but they were promptly thrown off the assistance rolls when they did.

Here again, the supposed concern was more rhetorical than real: The savings from cutting off recipients without current employment did not go into supports for the working poor but rather more tax cuts for the rich.

But at least Mr. Gingrich had a story. The Trump administration does not.

Last winter, it claimed to be picking up the Gingrich “pro-work” baton when it proposed to end food assistance to almost a million people unable to find work in areas with high unemployment. Nothing in the plan would give job training, help people find work or even do community service in exchange for continued assistance while seeking paid employment.

This spring, the administration released a murky plan to lower the federal poverty line, perhaps sharply. If the administration follows through and lowers the income thresholds that federal and state agencies apply — a change that it probably lacks legal authority to do — millions, possibly tens of millions, of people will be purged from programs that base eligibility on income. Those include Medicaid, school meals, energy assistance and much more. A disproportionately large fraction of these people are members of low-wage working families.

The Trump administration’s initiatives, by contrast, are federal power grabs. Current rules allow childless workers to receive more than three months of food assistance while they seek jobs only when their state certifies that they live in areas with insufficient jobs. The administration would strip states of that power.

The one constant is helping to pay for huge, unaffordable upper-income tax cuts. Mr. Trump pushed through a $2 trillion tax cut in December 2017. This reversed years of declining federal deficits. Most of the benefits went to extremely affluent individuals and corporate shareholders, many of them foreign.

And the day after persuading the congressional leadership to increase the debt limit to accommodate those deficits, the Trump administration announced that, yet again, the burden should fall on those least able to afford it.

How one can claim to be a true Christian and remain a Republican nowadays is mind numbing.  The two are mutually exclusive.

America Is Losing Its Soul

This photo sums up the horrors of Trump?pence. 

America has much ugliness and many horrors in its history, ranging from genocide committed against Native Americans, to over two centuries of slavery as a legal institution, to concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII.  Most of us like to think that at least since WWII America has by and large embraced its better angels and cast aside the hate and bigotry of the past.  Yet, as the ongoing human rights crisis at America's border with Mexico reveals, a portion of Americans, including Donald Trump and Mike Pence, exhibit a moral bankruptcy not that far removed from that of Germans who either participated in or conveniently looked the other way as Hitler and his Nazi regime committed atrocities and millions were murdered. Among those seemingly condoning the horrors at the border are evangelical Christians who continue to support Trump and his nightmarish policies.  Indeed, as I have noted before, in the era of Trump, one cannot be a decent and moral person and be a Republican or Trump supporter.  The two are mutually exclusive.  For the rest of us, if we do not do all in our power to remove Trump and his acolytes from power, we become as soulless as his followers.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at America's steady loss of its soul.  Here are excerpts:

The photograph conforms to all the necessary standards for a media image depicting tragedy. It shows a father and his daughter, face down, at the edge of a river, their bodies floating in the muddy water. They can’t be identified and their faces are not visible, which would violate standards of “taste” at many media outlets. But the story of the two people in the photo by Julia Le Duc has been documented.

Salvadoran migrant Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his toddler daughter, Valeria, died Sunday after being swept away by a strong current while the family was trying to cross the Rio Grande into the United States. Unknown to most of the world until this week, they are now briefly famous, a toddler in red shorts and tiny shoes, tucked inside her father’s dark T-shirt, seemingly at rest as if napping with her dad on a hot afternoon.

[I]t recalls the vulnerability of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey in 2015. Nilüfer Demir’s picture of the boy, who seemed to be resting after play, became one of the most searing images of the European refugee and emigration crisis. Both images share elements with other photographs in which the innocence of childhood highlights the cruelty of human or natural forces . . . .

[T]hese images have already broken through our own resistance to seeing pain and tragedy in the world, we imagine that they must break through the collective conscience as powerful political icons. They enter our consciousness almost by stealth and then explode, and that is how we assume they’ll work in the public square, too.

As it circulates, we believe it will acquire enough force and familiarity that our political leaders will have to do something different — change policies, reverse course, revise their own understanding of the severity of a problem. For more than a century, this metaphor has been in operation behind the scenes whenever journalists, or activists, hold up photographs to the world, and say: This is a truth you must acknowledge.

The metaphor of “breaking through,” however, relies on an understanding of the human conscience that is being sorely tested at the moment, not just in the United States, but in every country where nationalism and nativist populism are creating divisions between us and them, between the rightful “folk” and the supposedly illegal outsider.  . . . The thing that needs to be broken through is a basic sluggishness in the moral apparatus, a resistance to doing the hard work of humanizing the other.

But when nationalism has successfully dehumanized the other, there is no breaking through, and people who imagine that a photographic message must assuredly be so powerful that it will touch all hearts are forced to grapple with a more confounding truth: Not all consciences operate alike, not everyone is susceptible to what seems a basic, even rudimentary level of empathy. And so, there is a paradox: We resist the idea of living in an us-vs.-them world only to find that our basic sense of “us” is already fractured. We look out at our fellow humans and can’t honestly understand how their minds work. At some level, we think, “Can’t you see what is happening in this image?” As if seeing and understanding are identical.

This one photograph tells us very little about Ramírez and his daughter, and perhaps with all the attention it has received, we will learn more about the reality of who they were. But just as important is the imaginative reality of the viewer’s effort to sense them as humans, absolutely identical in value and dignity to any person in our most intimate circle of acquaintance.

Of course, one doesn’t have to do this work. Images of tragedy that arrive in a divisive political context often have an off-ramp. You may look at this photo and think that its deep message is “We are all hoping for a better life and will take extraordinary risks on behalf of those we love.” But someone else will probably say, “People shouldn’t cross borders without permission.” The drowning becomes a kind of punishment, a river stands in for ideas of human authority, and the photograph doesn’t break through anything. It merely reiterates an old and cherished belief: Bad things happen to those who break the rules.

There is a fundamental difference between these two interpretations: One requires time and effort, an act of engaged empathy, while the other is a quick judgment that reaffirms an existing sense of the world.

The day after these two people perished in the Rio Grande, the president of the United States dismissed an accusation that he had sexually assaulted a prominent author and columnist in the 1990s. He used a phrase similar to ones he has used in the past to deflect similar allegations: “She’s not my type.” It is a terrible thing to say, with a specifically misogynistic meaning in the context of how men practice violence against women.

But it is a perfect summation of our new and deformed American conscience. . . . . For anyone who wants an off-ramp to the moral demands made by this image, this could be the universal caption: “They weren’t our type.”

Once again, I find myself deeply ashamed to be an American.  As for the "Christians" supporting Trump, they make an outstanding case not only of their own hypocrisy, but of why one should reject their form of Christianity entirely.

Sarah Sanders to Leave White House Position

Sarah Huckabee Sander - in my view, less truthful than a tawdry prostitute.

After Donald Trump himself, few among the White House staff has lied more often or more brazenly than Sarah Huckabee Sanders. A tawdry prostitute like has far more credibility when it comes to truth and veracity than Huckabee Sanders. Indeed, the only thing that can be said in her defense is that she was raised in a household where lying and scamming the gullible was part of her father's job description as a Baptist minister/scamvangelist and it obviously warped her ability to tell the truth from a lie.  How else to explain her indifference to objective facts and regular regurgitation of demonstrable falsehoods.  With Sanders leaving her position as press secretary, the only question is whether Trump has found someone even more willing to prostitute themselves and engage in non-stop lies. At the same time, Sanders' statement that she wants to spend more time with her school-age children leaves me wondering what moral harm she will inflict on her children.  With a morally bankrupt ,calculating lying for a grandfather and for their mother cut from the same cloth, one has to worry about these children.  One can only hope that history will be most unkind to Ms. Huckabee Sanders. A piece in Politico looks at Sanders much welcomed departure.  Here are article highlights:   

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose fierce loyalty to President Donald Trump and clashes with reporters defined her tenure, is stepping down at the end of the month.

[Trump] The president announced her departure on Twitter Thursday afternoon. Trump said she would be returning to her home state of Arkansas, adding that he hoped she would decide to run for governor.

Speaking to reporters in her office on Thursday, Sanders did not rule out a run for governor, something that her associates have been buzzing about for months. "I learned a long time ago never to rule anything out," she said. Sanders’ father, Mike Huckabee, was governor of the state from 1996 to 2007. She became a lightning rod for some of the Trump administration’s most controversial policies, for which she was called out by both reporters and the public.

Last June, the owner of a rural Virginia restaurant asked Sanders to leave, later citing the administration’s push to ban transgender people from serving in the military as a reason. “I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation,” Sarah Murray, the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., told The Washington Post.

In recent months, Sanders has refused to hold formal briefings, instead opting to appear on Fox News and brief reporters in the White House driveway, a Trump-approved strategy that has prompted fierce criticism from journalists.

Sanders' critics have repeatedly questioned her credibility, especially in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. The report revealed that Sanders acknowledged to investigators that there was no basis for her 2017 assertion that “countless” rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in James Comey, a claim she used to rationalize Trump’s decision to fire him as the bureau’s director. Sanders told reporters that she hoped to spend more time with her school-age children this summer. She said she informed the president about her decision earlier Thursday. Her press team formally found out about her departure less than an hour before it was announced, in an apparent bid to keep the news from leaking. Sanders got her start in politics working for her father‘s first campaign for governor, and later served as national political director for his presidential campaign. She co-founded a consulting firm in Arkansas and later joined Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as a senior adviser. She is the latest senior administration official to announce plans to leave the White House. Others recent departures include Shahira Knight, the White House legislative affairs director, and senior White House adviser Johnny DeStefano.

Good riddance and, again, I hope history will be most brutal on Ms. Huckabee Sanders who apparently subscribe to the Josef Goebbels school of propaganda - for Fox News viewers, Goebbels was Hitlers propaganda minister.  Yes, I am harsh, but despite her upbringing, Sanders could have opted for honesty and integrity, but she chose the "dark side." Shame on her.

Mayor Pete Called Out the Hypocrisy of Trump-Supporting Evangelicals

Trump with evangelical hate group leaders.

Christians for a long time.  Indeed, there are few groups that lie more frequently, hate so many others so maliciously, and parade around in displays of utterly false piety. If there is any positive aspect of the Trump presidency, it is that the loyalty of evangelicals to the toxic demagogue has displayed their hypocrisy and hate writ large for the world to see.  They are morally bankrupt and have no more moral authority that the Catholic prelates who aided and abetted child rape for decades if not centuries. To call them modern day Pharisees, insults the Pharisees of the New Testament. The candidacy of Pete Buttigieg may do even more to expose they foulness of these people, especially since Buttigieg seemingly has no intention on being reticent about calling them out.  A piece in Esquire looks at Buttigieg's willingness to confront Christofascists and also looks at just how ladened with hypocrisy evangelicals are in fact.  Here are article highlights:

Amid all the chaos and cruelty, perhaps the one enduring benefit of Donald Trump's presidency will be The Great Unvarnishing. The acidity of Trump's public persona—his blatant narcissism and vindictiveness and lack of ethics and selfishness and greed—has worn on the top coat of paint many people have applied to themselves, gradually exposing what lies beneath. It isn't often pretty. All the pretense has gone straight out the window as [Trump] the president has seized control of one of our two major political parties while saying the quiet parts out loud.

No one pretends Donald Trump is an ethical person. He and his allies scarcely even pretend he is a president for all Americans. Everyone knows for whom he is the president: The Base, and especially the core Republican constituency of White Evangelical Christians. This is all the more revelatory because no one pretends Donald Trump is a man of God, really. His pantomimes of Devout Religiosity during the campaign were so half-assed that few adult humans could realistically believe he's a believer. The guy who bragged about grabbing women "by the pussy" and OK'd calling his own daughter a "piece of ass" was suddenly pretending to have accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

It was all there: the obvious unfamiliarity with the material, and the open disdain for anyone who actually was familiar. Trump, the ultimate snake-oil salesman, couldn't resist calling out his newest and easiest marks for what they were while he made the sale. Except, again, it's doubtful many Evangelicals who pulled the lever for Trump really believed he's a God-fearing man. . . . They knew what they were getting.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a rising star in the 2020 Democratic field, said as much recently when he declared of [Trump] the president, "It's hard to look at his actions and believe they are the actions of somebody who believes in God." Chuck Todd of Meet the Press asked him to square that with Trump's Evangelical support on Sunday.

It's only "hypocrisy" if you believe the most important word in the phrase White Evangelical Christian is "Christian"—as in, you prioritize, above all else, the teachings of Jesus Christ. Of course it isn't. It has always been "White." The current all-encompassing figurehead of the Republican Party has merely laid this bare, because the question, What principles of Jesus Christ does Donald Trump embody? can only be met with derisive laughter. The better question might be which of the Seven Deadly Sins—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth—does he [Trump] not embody.

No, the important part of White Evangelical Christian is White. These folks had called themselves Values Voters, which mainstream politicos would accept without much examination even though the most important values seemed to be abstinence-only sex ed and opposition to marriage equality and abortion. Jesus never devoted much time to any of these topics, and all his talk about giving aid to the poor and the sick never got much play in Republican politics.

They believe the United States was at its best in the postwar boom of the 1950s and '60s, but not necessarily because programs like the G.I. Bill—a dreaded Big Government initiative—enhanced social mobility and gave young (white) men the chance to establish middle-class families. They're more interested in who made the rules back then: white, Christian men, who accepted input from other white, Christian men. This is politics, and politics is about power.

Trump has merely exposed this longstanding force in conservative politics for what it is, even if he pays lip service to the concerns of people in the industrial midwest who've been left behind by globalization. His basic appeal is as a bulwark for White America against a changing world, where The Others—chiefly, Hispanic immigrants and worshippers of Islam—are the villains in American life. That is the potent symbolism of The Wall, which Evangelicals support more than any other group. This is also the psychological thicket of power and identity where America's gun culture resides.

Trump's brash disregard for consequences—a symptom of the collapse of shame as a social force—has also spilled over onto some of the Thought Leaders on the Christian Right. . . . One thing that never seems to come up is, say, this:

For 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 invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

"Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Trump enjoyed the support of 71 percent of Evangelicals shortly after his administration embarked on its "zero-tolerance policy," the inevitable consequence of which was to separate children from their parents at the southern border. He continued to enjoy their support after the Mobile Locker Room tape, and after it emerged he'd paid $130,000 to silence a porn star about the affair she alleges they had shortly after the birth of his youngest child. He enjoyed their support after his administration teargassed migrants—The Stranger whom Jesus implores us to Invite In—which apparently was a rare moment of Trumpian praise for Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security Secretary who also oversaw the family separations but now has been forced out because she's insufficiently extreme.

He will continue to enjoy their support because he is a potent vector of weaponized nostalgia, and he has made it a priority to install Conservative Judges—not to be confused with Great Legal Minds Who Happen to Be Conservative—to enshrine in the judiciary these politics of backlash against the changing world.

Yes, Donald Trump has given us one gift: The Great Unvarnishing. Racism cannot be dismissed as some vestigial legacy of America's past mistakes—it is one of the core animating forces in our society, a vehicle for power that still runs smooth as ever. Everything is malleable in the face of power and riches. People who oppose crony capitalism in theory support it in practice—as long as they're the cronies. And self-proclaimed Men of God will support Donald Trump, American president. It's almost like everyone has personal standards of ethics, and what religion you practice doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your morality.

On the bright side, you never have to listen to Political Christians again if you don't want to. Again: what principles of Jesus Christ does Donald Trump embody? Would you even let the guy babysit your kids? 

With luck, the exodus of the younger generations from religion will accelerate thanks to the glaring hypocrisy of the evangelicals.  If we are even luckier, evangelical Christianity itself will die in time.  In view, that cannot happen soon enough.