Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Conservatism is just a "Calvin peeing on..." meme these days

This piece from yesterday is of interest in that regard

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/evangelical-trump-christians-politics/620469/

You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized.

There were church leaders warning about this back during the rise of Falwell and the Moral Majority.

And yet . . .

It's also rich that Peter Wehner wrote that article, as he's certainly helped contribute to the culture of White Evangelical Nationalism. Someone ought to tell him that if you make your bed and also shit in it, you can't wring your hands about your little oopsy-poopsy.

“Nearly everyone tells me there is at the very least a small group in nearly every evangelical church complaining and agitating against teaching or policies that aren’t sufficiently conservative or anti-woke,” a pastor and prominent figure within the evangelical world told me. (Like others with whom I spoke about this topic, he requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.) “It’s everywhere.”

good article so far, but had to lol a bit at this.

it's been everywhere for at least 30 years dude!!!

this is interesting, though, and something i haven't thought about:

“What we’re seeing is massive discipleship failure caused by massive catechesis failure,” James Ernest, the vice president and editor in chief at Eerdmans, a publisher of religious books, told me. Ernest was one of several figures I spoke with who pointed to catechism, the process of instructing and informing people through teaching, as the source of the problem. “The evangelical Church in the U.S. over the last five decades has failed to form its adherents into disciples. So there is a great hollowness. All that was needed to cause the implosion that we have seen was a sufficiently provocative stimulus. And that stimulus came.”

i've never really thought about catechism because it was never present in any evangelical context that i knew of. the pastor and the assistant pastor (aka "the music guy" who led the band through so many endless power ballads as people were saved) had degrees from some theological place, but in general, the vibe was "if you are an expert, you are an expert" everywhere else. it does seem like abandoning theological coherence and just leaving it to everybody to come up with their own ideas would soon lead to...the average republican?

The idea that the average white evangelical over the last 30 years would have renounced the political elements of their agenda had only they been better instructed in Christ's teachings is total and complete fucking bullshit made up by some evangelical numbnuts who apparently doesn't like realizing what side he's been on the last 30 years.

This isn't directed at you Karl so sorry if it seemed that way. Reacting to the quote.

i'm not sure that's what he said, though! or at least, not the claim that better instruction would have led to renouncing political elements.

i see it more as just making a connection between the empty theology ("great hollowness") and the willingness of white evangelicals, more than any other religious group, to go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there on conspiracy theories and anti-masking and shit like that

xp!

He's making a pretty direct comparison. The two paragraphs preceding your quoted paragraph are referencing the politicization of evangelicals. I don't see how Christ's teachings change that politicization - it's a feature, not a bug.

sure, but there are many ways to be politicized. the direction that evangelicals have gone isn't predetermined by those teachings. it would be amazing if all of a sudden evangelicals were focused on the jesus of the gospels and suddenly understood that they were supposed to have compassion for those they disagreed with, and also that they weren't supposed to be figuring out how to get more money all of the time, for example

I'm mildly curious as to what these anti-woke activist would say when asked to define what 'woke' means to them

Focusing on (or even mentioning) racial issues, because "I don't see color" afaik.

Sermons are short. Only some churchgoers attend adult-education classes, and even fewer attend Bible study and small groups. Cable news, however, is always on. “So if people are getting one kind of catechesis for half an hour per week,” Jacobs asked, “and another for dozens of hours per week, which one do you think will win out?”

I thought this was key. My parents do this with CNN and MSNBC. Their friends/relatives are 24/7 Fox, if they haven't moved on to the hard stuff like OANN.

yeah, basically CRT, woke, etc boils down to any discussion of race whatsoever.

Old people leave the TV on all the time, it seems. My parents still don't have cable!

I don't even have parents.

I don't even own a parent

i don't even have an alibi, TRUMP! full circle

I’m so grateful that my parents listen to classical music 24/7 and not news or cable.

Don't they watch The Price is Right anymore? What the hell is wrong with these boomers

just make sure they're not listening to wagner 24/7, that's a warning sign

Everyone always does that whole thing but whatever, having a house without TV or cable TV is actually good and I don't give a fuck if that makes me some sort of snooty asshole. TV sucks. Period.

He’s heard of many congregants leaving their church because it didn’t match their politics, he told me, but has never once heard of someone changing their politics because it didn’t match their church’s teaching. He often tells his congregation that if the Bible doesn’t challenge your politics at least occasionally, you’re not really paying attention to the Hebrew scriptures or the New Testament. The reality, however, is that a lot of people, especially in this era, will leave a church if their political views are ever challenged, even around the edges.

HENLEY: Well, yeah.

100%

xp to table

<3

this is gold pic.twitter.com/PY9mDTBNeg

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) October 31, 2021

(which was at this game - he announced that he was invited but they refuted that: he called and asked them : https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-refutes-trump-claim-they-invited-him-to-world-series-200004450.html )

Trump on Waukesha: The good news is he hated Trump pic.twitter.com/hE800i5Gvb

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 24, 2021

used to be disgusted by that stuff but turns out this is how the entire American right thinks

Little Rocket Man --> Little Rifle Man

Trump having a photo of Kim Jong-un on his wall is so painfully on brand https://t.co/Fcvh1maspa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 24, 2021

http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/injustice-league-hall-of-doom.jpg

MELANIA NFT

Melania Trump is getting in on the latest crypto craze -- NFTs.

The former first lady announced that she is selling an NFT, or a non-fungible token, titled "Melania's Vision" -- her first public endeavor since leaving office almost one year ago. https://t.co/Sg2ypIH7nw

— CNN (@CNN) December 16, 2021

Wow, she's like Mother Teresa reincarnate

Feels like a rare misstep - the rubes and marks who buy Trump shit are a different group than the rubes and marks who buy NFTs.

A lotta creepy middle-aged MAGA dudes furiously googling "NFTs" this afternoon.

The NFT is a "watercolor" by Marc-Antoine Coulon that includes an audio recording of Trump

Doesn't say which Trump

Surely there’s a “Be Best” joke here just waiting to write itself

hoping it's a recording of Trump, the famous Hearthstone pro

To be fair, apparently this whole scam is ostensibly a benefit for "Be Best" and will help foster kids learn computer skills

Of course, we all know the sordid history of Trump charities...

BE BEAST

Weird Trump Thing I Remembered Today: Going off on 'The Lovers' during rally speeches by playing both parts (and doing all the sound effects) in little one-man show about Strzok & Page making out.

Dud

Checking out what our friends at https://t.co/upnTTxj8TI think about Trump telling a crowd in Dallas that he got his covid booster shot pic.twitter.com/lpLdIGfZqu

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) December 21, 2021

I think they forced him to take the first vaxx and it changed his DNA and now he's a blonde redhead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDwhWF9WS70

xpost ^ Yet another bit of evidence that there's no reversing the process of sanity erosion once it's begun

Absolute devotion flipping to total scorn and rejection? The only through-line is the high drama that must be sustained every day, like a soap opera, but with more apeshit crazy.

He's either a deep fake or reptilian but he can't be both

That's exactly what They want you to think!

He tied it once or twice, found it all right for kicks
Now he's gonna find out it's a habit that sticks
and he's a Vax Booster addict