Notice the pushback here isn’t that @CTmagazine was actually wrong about Trump… https://t.co/oHNaBEAET5
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 20, 2019
Trump just raged at Christianity Today for calling for his removal.
But Trump responded to CT's *moral* critique of him with a defense that's thoroughly *transactional.*
I'm giving Evangelicals a good deal, so shut up about my corruption!
New piece:https://t.co/87WgC2hu2k
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 20, 2019
… The magazine’s core indictment is that Trump “attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader” to “discredit” one of his “political opponents.” It adds that Trump “abused his authority for personal gain” in a “profoundly immoral” manner that damages the presidency, the country, and “the spirit and the future of our people.”…
Indeed, the transactional cast to Trump’s rage over this is particularly instructive, once you understand that Trump and his top advisers have consciously enlisted the nation’s evangelicals as an army of Trump defenders in the war against impeachment, which is widely depicted in the evangelical movement as a kind of epic persecution of Trump carried out by the godless and the damned.
As Sarah Posner details in a terrific piece, this effort is concerted, multifaceted and highly organized. Numerous high-profile evangelicals regularly depict impeachment as a disruption of God’s plan for America to be governed by Christians in accord with “biblical” values.
Impeachment is merely the weapon that the secular, satanic left is wielding to carry out its broader pro-abortion, anti-religious-liberty agenda, which requires the removal of Trump, the savior of Christian America, all to keep the persecution of Christians going at full throttle…
The editor of Christianity Today just ‘clarified’ that they are, indeed, merely haggling about the price of their vote, now:
… [T]his is neither a criticism of the evangelical Trump voter nor an endorsement of the Democrats. The 2016 election confronted evangelical voters with an impossible dilemma: Vote for a pro-choice candidate whose policies would advance so much of what we oppose, or vote for an extravagantly immoral candidate who could well damage the standing of the republic and the witness of the church. Countless men and women we hold in the highest regard voted for President Trump, some wholeheartedly and some reluctantly. Friends we love and respect have also counseled and worked within the Trump administration. We believe they are doing their best to serve wisely in a fallen world.
We nevertheless believe the evangelical alliance with this presidency has done damage to our witness here and abroad. The cost has been too high. American evangelicalism is not a Republican PAC…
Would you *please* stop saying the quiet parts out loud, Pastor Trump?…
Gosh, congrats on supporting such a Godly man who has done so much for religion. You must be proud.https://t.co/IR3nncxuMQ
— TwoArticleHat (@Popehat) December 20, 2019
Trump certainly has done a lot for religion itself He has made me invoke God more than any other president in my lifetime. I mean, it's usually preceded by "oh my f—ing" but the point still stands.
— ??Dante Atkins?? (@DanteAtkins) December 20, 2019
Oh, whew. For a minute there, I thought it was just about political power at all costs and not about deeply held religious beliefs. https://t.co/HK9OTyZARe
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 21, 2019
Naa it’s just game recognizing game. https://t.co/KQUdWpHbhp
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 21, 2019
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The shock bit of is there is anyone left in movement with any morality.
Mike in NC
Ralph Reed has been out there grifting almost as long as any member of the Trump Crime Cartel.
The Dangerman
OK, I understand that looking for coherency from a Trump tweet is a fools errand, but WTF does that even mean?
mrmoshpotato
What Jesus do these people follow?
How long until the dead walk the Earth?
Duane
Ralph Reed talking about irrelevance is so irrelevant. That CT editorial really hit a nerve given the butthurt whining it’s caused. Sweet!
Mallard Filmore
@mrmoshpotato:
Eh? Zombies? Is the rapture and the battle of good and evil really World War Z?
Mathguy
One interesting bit from the Nichols thread was a Pew Research study finding that people identifying as Christian has dropped about 10% in the past 12 years. People identifying as Catholic dropped from 24% to 20%. As someone teaching at a Catholic university, I can assure you that our administration and admissions people are freaking out, combined with the demographic cliff-a serious drop in the number of 18 year olds–starting in 2026. You are going to see a huge shake out in higher education during the last 5 years of the next decade, if not before.
r€nato
the President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. The man with his finger on the button. The stable genius.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lashes-out-windmills-again-says-they-will-kill-many-bald-eagles-i-never-understood-wind-1478756
John Revolta
@The Dangerman: It means God should be on His knees every day thanking Donald Trump for all he’s done for Him.
mrmoshpotato
@Mallard Filmore: When there’s no more room…
mrmoshpotato
@The Dangerman: It means pick between downing a beer (or 12), or slamming your head against a brick wall. :)
I think the tweet is sarcastic, but Dump does see himself as the Devil’s gift to humanity.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@John Revolta:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@John Revolta: God on His knees with tears in eyes His thanking Trump.
EDIT Darn, Bill beat me.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Oh thank Myself for Donald Trump!” ?
Sister Golden Bear
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It means God should be on His knees every day with tear in his eye, telling Trump, “Thank you for everything you’ve done for Me, sir.”
Bill Arnold
I actually enjoyed that new CT piece; it’s fairly brave, and could (if it doesn’t start a shift in the landscape) end in their downsizing or destruction.
My shorter, it’s saying that the more political American evangelicals are indulging in a form of (unholy) religious syncretism that has been likened to combining manure and ice-cream: “Mixing religion and politics is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn’t do much to the manure but it sure does ruin the ice cream”
This is on point:
Bill Arnold
@r€nato:
From the previous thread,
This directly addresses DJT’s false claims:
Wind Turbines Are Not Killing Fields for Birds (Sep 3, 2019)
An enterprising journalist might estimate the number of birds killed by D.J. Trump’s buildings, or the Wall if it were to be built, and ask him about it in a press conference.
Suzanne
He has said a lot—a lot—of unbelievably dumb shit. This may be the absolute dumbest. Like, I read this, and my mouth literally dropped open.
mrmoshpotato
Just knowing this idiot is out there blabbing this stupid shit makes me feel dumber.
Bill Arnold
Note the date; this was a rushed and shoddy propaganda job. (This sort of thing has been circulating in wingnut lists.)
Remember that ‘Christianity Today’ is Backed by George Soros (December 20, 2019)
(Hint: the article provides no evidence backing the title, at least not when i drilled down a bit into the links.)
Another piece gives their game away, bold mine:
“Christianity Today” Must Be Replaced with Alternative Christian Media (News Division, December 20, 2019)
Where the “alternative Christian media” is religious wingnut publications like pulpitandpen.
r€nato
what’s to understand about the wind? It blows, just like you Donnie.
Suzanne
@Mathguy: I hate-read Rod Dreher sometimes, and he and his commenters are similarly lamenting the decline in religiosity. When they’re feeling braver, they debate with one another about why people are leaving. Usually, it’s blah blah blah, the same schtick about terrible culture and “Big Trans” (no lie, he calls it that) and cities and college educations. But every once in a while, someone brings up that Trump and some other high-profile hypocrites are not doing their cause any good. I keep waiting for them to take the next step and realize that countless people have stopped associating themselves with Christianity because they find many Christians—INCLUDING YOU, ROD—to be the antithesis of Christ. But that would require honesty, and they don’t have much of that.
James E Powell
American evangelicalism is very much a Republican PAC and it is a whole lot more. Evangelicals are the major source of campaign volunteers. The organizations and their leaders are major components of the Republican propaganda network. They are the foot soldiers of the White Supremacist movement.
Suzanne
@r€nato:
I have nothing humorous, or insightful, or even scathing to offer in response. This is just so fucking dumb that I’m completely shocked.
Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
Donald Trump is the Lionel Messi of saying unbelievably dumb shit.
Suzanne
@Amir Khalid: If I was legit sitting around trying to come up with extreme examples of dumb Trumpy shit to say, I could not come up with anything this fucking stupid.
NotMax
@Suzanne
The stupid, it
burnsphasers.Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
We just don’t have Trump’s genius at producing spectacularly dumb shit. That’s why he is the master and we are all mere peasants.
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
He mixes in a few raisins of sanity-preserving obviously true statements, like “the world is tiny compared to the universe”. Probably by accident, though maybe even that is malicious, to get people to trust the rest of it.
It you listen to the video, the audience eats it all up.
r€nato
Oh, so NOW he cares about the environment. So you’ll be restoring all those environmental regs that you gutted, yes?
I thought not. Just more owning the libs.
Amir Khalid
@Bill Arnold:
The Force gives Trump power over weak minds.
r€nato
@Mathguy:
Who can afford to have them any longer? Heckuva job, late-stage capitalism!
Amir Khalid
I’m going to cut over to the brand-new used Win10 laptop soon. Wish me luck.
Mike G
You can’t insult something that doesn’t exist.
patrick II
@r€nato:
This is twice in a week I thought something here was so ridiculous that it had to be a joke. Last week it was the photoshopped cover of Time, and now this. I would like to return to a place where reality was a little easier to discern.
noncarborundum
@r€nato:
He cares deeply about all the “fumes and gases” that wind turbine manufacture purportedly spews into the air in China and Germany. The air in the U.S., on the other hand, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about.
sukabi
@mrmoshpotato: more like “oh fuuuck me!! It’s Donald Trump. Sure screwed the pooch with that one.”
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
“Although the Sun is bigger than the Earth, it is much farther away.”
:)
(And if anyone else can identify the source of that quote, you get octuple brownie points and a slow motion digital salaam.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Good Luck, we’re all counting on you.
patrick II
The original Protestant revolution against the Catholic Church was based on the assertion that each man, through the study of the bible, should come to his own personal relationship with God and not have it determined by the Pope. But few Catholics are as slavish in their devotion the Pope as evangelicals are to the Falwells, Grahams, and Robertsons.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Good luck! Firefox and Adblock Plus are your friends.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Welcome to future shock.
:)
Steeplejack
Watching the 1925 Ben-Hur on TCM. Pretty amazing. No CGI.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Ramon Novarro!
Mr. Kite
So Lev Parnas of Fraud Guarantee fame, had another company called Loan Crime Inv. Group. This is ridiculous.
– Hey Igor?
– Yes Lev?
– I like name Fraud Guarantee you came up with. When we do fraud, is good fraud, we guarantee it. I need another name. This thing we do now, what is it in English?
– I think in English is loan crime
– Hm. I make it loan crime investment group so is less visible crime.
– crafty.
– You have working credit card? Need five dollars to register this LLC.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Firefox is Satan.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
The path to eventually get it to the screen is practically a movie in itself. And the linked synopsis doesn’t even mention the astronomical $600,000 (that’s in 1921 dollars) paid for the movie rights.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Pretty buff as a galley slave!
Just saved Arrius’s ass in the naval battle and now has a sweet gig in Rome.
smike
@Steeplejack:
Seconded.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Satan can be your friend.
Moving on . . . I got an Echo Show 5 and a couple of TP-Link smart plugs as a proof-of-concept project. What do you recommend as a system going forward (if I do)? Thinking Philips Hue. My needs are not elaborate—mostly light regulation, stream music, etc. No thermostat or complicated gadgets.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Unless you can find a deal(I did), Hue can be a bit pricey. I use Smartthings, but I have the thermostat and smart locks. One thing I would suggest as a useful command center on the PC is a windows app called Home Remote, even if you have disparate stuff from various manufactures, it will integrate them in one place.
Calouste
@Bill Arnold: I attended a memorial service recently, and one of the speakers was an evangelical pastor who was about as coherent as the imPOTUS. Apparently this kind of gobbledygook is what evangelicals hear every week, and they think it’s insightful or something.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks. I’ll see how it goes. I may end up needing just the couple of on/off switches.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
And willing to overlook failure.
;)
Steeplejack
Carmel Myers is the hotness as Iras.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Not even this “necessity?”
:)
TriassicSands
@mrmoshpotato:
He should be making you feel smarter. After all, you are.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Yeah, no.
Steeplejack
Chariot race! This is some epic filmmaking.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Hmmmm…
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
This looks a lot like dementia. Early mid stage. If the anger that has been reported is true, that can show up as dementia takes a stronger hold. But the stranger and less truthful/realistic the stories weaved, the stronger the case is made for some form of dementia.
Ruckus
@Calouste:
They don’t understand it but the delivery sounds, well pompous. And it doesn’t actually have to make sense, that detracts from the message, which is that the deliverer is smart and the receiver is not.
This was WF Buckley’s stick as well, use big pompous words that most people didn’t know and it all sounds like he must know something that the listener doesn’t. It’s propaganda at the very least. Keep up the stream, lessen any interference and you’ve got yourself a captive audience. The better your education, especially in language and the less it works.
Jay C
BTW, though we have to consider the source (a piece at Daily Kos – sorry, can’t link), apparently Christianity Today claims to have seen a big jump in subscription since publishing their anti-Trump editorial. Some cancellations, of course, but they say it’s been an overall plus for them ( a credible claim, given that “no false witness” thing and all).
Amir Khalid
Greetings from the new laptop. Which has a huge screen.
Quaker in a Basement
Can someone please check on the staff at The Onion? I think they just lost their last reason to live.
Joey Maloney
I remember in the late ’70s Ralph Reed looked like a little boy who you’d find wishing people into the cornfield. I can’t describe what he looks like now. It’s like he hasn’t aged, just…corrupted.
sab
Late to the thread. I just read in the local newspaper that our local Jesuit high school is now accepting state school vouchers for tuition. So the public school portion of my local real estate taxes are being siphoned off by the state of Ohio to finance Catholic schools.
My husband is aghast, and he went all K thru 12 to parochial schools.
This used to be unconstitutional. Now in Ohio it’s just the new normal.
debbie
@Suzanne:
That’s the part that really got you, amirite?
Kayla Rudbek
@Mathguy: gives your admissions committee a death glare in Gen-Xer.
Searcher
@Mathguy: I could have had college-aged children in 2026, but college debt and the 2008 job market had other opinions.
VOR
@sab: This is exactly why Republicans push so hard for vouchers. There is a pot of money going to public schools and they want to siphon some of it off to private organizations. Tuition at some of these private K-12 schools is higher than a state college.
Suzanne
@debbie: No, it was definitely the nonsense about asking people if they knew that we live in a world. Like….what?
This is mindblowingly dumb shit.
stinger
@Joey Maloney: Ralph Reed is an oil painting in Oscar Wilde’s attic.
Miss Bianca
Yeah, because a candidate’s stand on abortion is the only thing that matters. Why is Christianity Today so upset about what *else* happens when that becomes the only thing that matters? What’s the matter with them, anyway?
Neldob
I have wondered what would happen to Republicans (and their Christian PAC) if abortion were in fact made completely illegal. I also wonder if they would compromise. Something along the lines of serious sex ed starting in middle school, free, available birth control for all including free condoms in middle and high schools, free and available pre-natal care and first x years of life free medical care, housing and parent education and child care. That sort of thing. This would at least lower the abortion rate. Would they go for it?
brantl
@Neldob: No, they would not. They fought Head Start programs for 25 years, and only stopped when all of their own supporters would no longer listen to them, never minding the fact that every dollars spent on Head Start saved 5 dollars on prisons.
brantl
@brantl: Dollar in the first instance not “dollars“
Mathguy
@Searcher: That’s exactly it. The 2008 recession led to plummeting birth rates for the following 5 years.
Tehanu
@NotMax: Oh good, another Ramon Novarro fan! Consider this an upvote.