Supporting Trump requires ownership of every bad thing he stands for or does

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/08/supporting-trump-means-owning.html

And that puts a lot of far right wing political Christians in a very, very bad place as far as their faith and doctrine teach.

From Rodney Kennedy, author of Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy

"He is a low grade fascist, a demagogue, a renegade populist, a rhetorical pervert, a serial liar, and a rhetorical arsonist who will not hesitate to light the fire and burn down the house of democracy."

That works for me. And I will add that he has already helped his conservative, Evangelical supporters burn down their faith, and their church, destroying its reputation, its ability to fulfill its evangelistic, Christian, biblical mission and purpose and he has created massive divisiveness and introduced heresy in the form of criticizing the person of Jesus Christ and rejecting his core teachings. If you need evidence for any of that, take a look at church membership and attendance records since Trump became President in 2016.

If you're a Trump supporter, you must own the things that he is and that's completely contrary to honesty, decency and the kind of faith that loves its enemies and turns the other cheek.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. Evangelical Fundamentalists had rejected Jesus a long time ago

They have been waiting for their Anti-Christ, and were easily sucked in.

[lees1975]

2. It's really quite the experience to point out obvious inconsistencies between

something a Trumpie believes, and a direct quote of a passage from the Bible, and watch their facial expression. "How can you believe this and deny this?" has become one of my favorite questions. I got blank stares from two of my neighbors when I played a youtube video for them showing Don Junior telling a Turning Point audience that the reason Christians didn't have any worldly influence was because they turned the other cheek too much. "I understand the mentality--sort of," he says, and then proceeds to tell the audience that doing so is why they haven't gotten anywhere in the world.

It's like they are looking for something in the video to think that it is fake, mis-matched lips or something like that.

[usonian]

3. That's a good long read, and I'll think it through.

Having grown up in the 60's, I've seen a whole lot and I always try to put things in perspective.

One observation I've made, and I'll refer you to another post I made today, reiterating some points:
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18176977

There are "four horsemen" that got together over time.

1. politicians
2. the oligarchy
3. Corrupt "religious" leaders, irrelevant since the hippie revolution, seeking secular power instead.
4. Racism, the fascist's best friend.

They all got together in the " We’ve Been Headed Here for Decades." series in DKos way.

Remember "What happened in Kansas?".
The backlash to the "Aquarian Age" got enmeshed in politics.
The old morality was bullshit, and the hard-liners were stuck with loss of relevance (and influence and power and money)

I suppose you could make the case that all fascist takeover attempts have some kind of coalition like this.
Power, pretty much by definition, demands coalitions, even it those are the result of takeovers, as in taking over police forces, churches and so on.

I read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" at a young age. Memories were pretty fresh from the wars, and I'd rummage through my uncles' service manuals -- a Bluejacket's manual --- I got one of my own in the age of softcover books -- A big book on the B-17, and various Pacific guides. A book of Tagalog, survival manuals and so on. To see this pattern repeated is pretty disappointing.

Especially the anti-semitism and racism.

Well, I have mixed feelings about this. Evangelism isn't my bag, and it's obvious that it wasn't largely taken over by an external "enemy" force. It was corrupted in large part by the silence of people when really basic things like the golden rule were trashed.

They got Barrabbas.