Why Would Pro-Trump Evangelical Christians Send A Campaign Letter- And Survey - To An Atheist (Like Me)?

"The American Evangelical Church isn't so weak that it needs Trump's version of secular salvation...Yet the church is acting as if it needs Trump to protect it. That's not courageous. It's repulsive. And so long as this fear continues, expect the church's witness to degrade further. In seeking protection from its perceived enemies the church has lost its way" - David French, 'The Evangelical Republic Of Fear', TIME, July 8, p. 16)

 I've often wondered about events that seem contrary to reason and expectation, at least in my frame of political reference. For example, the NRA sending me a contest entry to win a gun collection sweepstakes, e.g.

Seriously? NRA Tries To Get Me To Join With Guns "...

But not even that compares with the recent campaign letter on the "2020 Project"  I received from evangelical extremist Ralph Reed, an introductory segment of which is shown below:

I remain unsure exactly why Reed believes I am an evangelical - but kind of relish the irony of him sending this campaign missive to an Atheist  - or a member of the "radical anti-Christian left" (in his misbegotten view).  Readers may recall that it was none other than Ralph Reed who admitted back in June, 2018 that he believed Trump  - the orange maggot traitor - to be some heaven- sent entity and also to have admitted seeing the irony in that, i.e.

"God must have quite a sense of humor to have brought evangelicals and Donald Trump together. Sometimes the most unlikely people become our staunchest defenders and he certainly has!" - Ralph Reed, quoted in a June, 2018 article in the NY Times.

We now know Reed  and others of his ilk (e.g. Tony Perkins) are among Trump’s staunchest defenders. They are uniquely brazen to the extent they can justify any means to favored ends. The Pussy Grabber's evangelical Christian supporters, for example, are willing not merely to excuse Trump’s adultery and deceit but also to embrace them. The more vulgar he is, the more he fulfills his supposedly divine mission.  I mean you have dozens of weaklings giving him "mulligans" in golf, but  the sheer scale of this  evangelical adulation boggles the min.

Think about it!  To be awarded honors and obeisance  in spades for serial morality transgressions-  and by a bunch who profess to be holier than any other sect in the US of A.  They "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ", but don't you dare say a word against the pussy- grabbin' Dotard!

Some may question whether these miscreants like Ralph Reed are as 'all in' with Trump as they appear. But one need only scan some of the vicious reaction to  the Christianity Today  anti-Trump editorial to behold the proof. That hyper -psychotic assault demonstrates  that  any break with this partisan alignment will be instantly denounced as heresy. 

Worse, one only read some of the letters from evangelicals in the mainstream corporate press to see the extent of their brain-jacking.  For example this bit from a William A. Hoppel (WSJ, Jan. 15, p. A16), referencing why evangelicals are totally committed to Trump:

"Evangelicals dislike his brash behavior but are equally turned off by the hatred the left has for him and its ridicule of evangelicals' concerns and beliefs.  We have doubts about President Trump's Christianity, but that judgment belongs to the Lord." 

 Adding:

"Christianity Today erred, not in pointing out President Trump's unchristian behavior, but in calling for his removal from office which might well be construed as questioning God's providence."

Seriously?   Questioning God's providence? So when we call for the removal from office of a self-proclaimed pussy grabber, grifter, traitor and shakedown artist we are calling into question the divine will?   No, folks, you cannot make this stuff up. You saw the "argument" here first.

Another cretin (Thomas Bell) in the same letters section of the op-ed for the date actually claims that we secular Americans "seem to long for a humanist version of a theocracy that replaces God with the a flawless leader."

Actually, mate, we'd just settle for a President who commands a degree of respect, doesn't tweet putdowns at fellow citizens 5 hours a day, refuses to collaborate with hostile foreign powers, doesn't betray his oath of office with bribery- extortion and doesn't grab pussies!  "Theocracy"?  No way! Just a regular, normal but respectful American president who does his damned job while commanding the respect of other nations and our own citizens.

But the above merely shows the extent of rationalization that the typical evangelicals (Ok, at least the ones willing to commit to paper) will go to defend and enable Trump.

Thus a bozo like Ralph Reed can afford the luxury of being confident his flock will largely fall in line- no matter how many crimes Trump commits. Reed's letter, as odious as it may be, nonetheless reveals the plan of attack for this segment of the Trumpist army. That is, their intent to "register 5 million new Christian voters in battleground states in 2020."  Ok, they misfired on me, so now they are aspiring to register successfully 4,999,999.  That still may be enough to hand the Electoral College to Dotard again, despite any Dem candidate winning the popular vote.  This means we have to get out every last voter on our side we can.

Indeed, on page 3 of his missive Reed brags:

"The reason the polls keep getting it wrong is the pollsters are not picking up on what 'FAITH & FREEDOM' is doing all year long under the radar with our 'ground game'".

Then asserting their strategy is double everything they did in 2016 - i.e. "double their 12,000 field staff, double their volunteers who "knocked on 1,256,778  doors"

In his letter Reed also identified the "16 key states" that will be targeted: Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Nevada.

For all our sake, the Democrats had better have their own  ground games geared up for all these states -  where I imagine this election will either be won or lost. Whether we still have a Republic in January 2021 or an authoritarian Theocracy.

See also:

David Cattanach

Religion

Christianity in a Time of Change

by David Cattanach | January 30, 2020 - 6:57am |

And:

Donald Trump

For Christ's Sake, Jesus, Straighten These Crazy People Out

by Jaime O'Neill | January 20, 2020 - 7:35am | permalink

Excerpt:

Dear Jesus,

It might seem strange for you to be getting a short note from a guy who thinks you must have been a pretty good dude, but who doesn't believe that you were divine. Given that, this is just another desperate human being crazy enough to write letters to dead people. But Jesus, if you're listening, you've got to do something about these people who are taking you name in vain, profaning it more blasphemously than has heretofore seemed quite possible.

For instance, a lot of people who claim to be believers in you are now under the impression that Donald Trump is Jesus 2.0 in spite of the fact that the man doesn't seem at all like you, not in style, nor in substance. Maybe they think you were a failed prototype and that your all-knowing and all-powerful celestial dad just screwed up last time, and that Trump is the result of what the Big Guy in the Sky learned from his mistakes with you.

The Sad and Sorry Spectacle Of Evangelicals All Too Willing To Be Trump's Lapdogs

"God must have quite a sense of humor to have brought evangelicals and Donald Trump together. Sometimes the most unlikely people become our staunchest defenders and he certainly has!" - Ralph Reed, quoted in a June, 2018 article in the NY Times.

"The American Evangelical Church isn't so weak that it needs Trump's version of secular salvation...Yet the church is acting as if it needs Trump to protect it. That's not courageous. It's repulsive. And so long as this fear continues, expect the church's witness to degrade further. In seeking protection from its perceived enemies the church has lost its way" - David French, 'The Evangelical Republic Of Fear', TIME, July 8, p. 16)


I'd always believed white evangelicals (especially), were pathetic in their adoration of Trump.   But that perception amped up exponentially after their turning a blind eye both to his pussy -grabbing and assaults on nearly 23 women (documented to date) , as well as sleeping with Stormy Daniels even while wife Melania was having a kid. E.g.

Why Do White Christian Evangelicals Worship A Pervert ... - Brane Space

brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/01/why-do-white-evangelicals-worship.html

So in that sense the Evangelical clown Ralph Reed is correct in claiming it was ironic that Trump and his bible puncher brigade found each other. (Though I seriously doubt any deity had a thing to do with it, for the sake of humor or otherwise.) I didn't think it could get much worse than that until learning that at Trump's Orlando send off he actually had a white woman preacher calling down perdition on anyone opposing her master.

In one of the less noted batshit crazy outbursts out of Trumpdom, we learned last Tuesday (WSJ, p. A15, Crispin Sartwell) that one TV preacher named Paula White fairly went ape shit.  The televangelist wench led the crowd of yahoos at Trump's Orlando campaign launch by bellowing (ibid..):

"Right now, let every demonic network who has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of Mr. Trump, let it be broken. Let it be torn down in the name of Jesus! And I now declare that President Trump will overcome every strategy from Hell and every strategy from the enemy!"

"Every demonic network"? Uh, lady, ever heard of the 'enemy within'?    (Ever heard of meds  for psychosis?)  That is your great leader who is himself the Devil in sheep's clothing,  you numb nut!  Plus,  how much evidence do you need given we have photos of him palling around with child sex pervert and predator Jeffrey Epstein?.  See e.g.

Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Were the Only Two Guests at a Party with 28 Women Flown in for the ‘Entertainment’: NYT Report

Let's concede there's a point at which style overwhelms substance and madness trumps (no pun intended)  even residual embers of sanity.   That has clearly transpired with the white Evangelicals now drooling over Trump as their new "Savior".

Trump’s staunchest defenders are uniquely brazen to the extent to which they justify any means to favored ends. His evangelical Christian supporters, for example, are willing not merely to excuse Trump’s adultery and deceit but also to embrace them: The more vulgar he is, the more he fulfills his supposedly divine mission.  I mean you have lots of weaklings giving him "mulligans" in golf, but this boggles the mind - to be awarded them in spades for serial morality transgressions-  and by a bunch who profess to be holier than any other sect in the US of A.  They "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ", but don't you dare say a word against the pussy- grabbin' Dotard!

And yet as David French writes in his TIME essay, these forlorn and misbegotten fools actually believed Hillary was the greater demonic threat, writing:

"They responded with raw fear at the very idea of a Hillary presidency. They believed she was going to place the church in mortal danger."

Little realizing the person that would really place their church - as well as their entire moral credibility in mortal danger would be the No.1 Pussy grabber Trump.  And as French put it (ibid.):

"That wasn't faith speaking. They were the words of fearful men grasping at failing influence by clinging to a man whose daily life mocks the very values that Christians look to advance."

And what about the firebrand TV preacher Paula White? Well an objective observer would wryly note that while she was railing against "strategies and enemies from Hell" - an actual imp had taken over her brain as well as the brains of all those eating her drivel up in Orlando.   My sister-in -law Krimhilde:


 Before she fell victim to Alzheimer's, actually had the evangelicals and their Trump connection pegged perfectly - relating to us at a family gathering in Barbados,  in April of 2016:

"They preach love and God's mercy to sinners, but their souls  have been degraded by  hate. This hate is against all others unlike them, whether immigrants, poor black people  or gays, or atheists.  So they seek to remake  their god hateful in their image.  They also knew they needed a strong  darkness to cover and protect their own hateful darkness so they used Trump to that end.  They really have sold their souls to purchase what they believe is spiritual security but is really selling their souls and faith to a human devil."

Hmmmm....echoes there of Faust and Faustian bargains.   How else explain a sanctimonious putz like Tony Perkins (Family Research Council president) giving Trump such blind allegiance that he dismisses all sexual allegations against Trump as "sour grapes"?  Oh, and dismisses the Mueller Report in the same fashion.


Despite all this,  many of these same Xtian supporters claim to seek a "constitutional revival" with slimy Dotard.. In particular, they believe that the judges he has named atone for every other presidential sin.  (Presumably including the ones in New Orleans now set to scotch Obamacare and toss 20 million off their health care.)  I hate to break it to these lunatics with refried brains but there aren't enough judge candidates in the entire U.S. to achieve that 'atonement'.  You can't confect an  atonement for a piece of human garbage who won't atone.

But there is a point at which style and posturing overwhelms substance. Trump’s staunchest defenders are uniquely bold in the extent to which they justify any means to favored ends. His evangelical Christian supporters, for example, are willing not merely to excuse Donnie Dotard's adultery and deceit but also to embrace them: The more vulgar he is, the more he fulfills his supposedly divine mission.

Of course, it never occurs to these sorry troglodytes  that by doing so they have effectively destroyed their own moral credibility and with it any divine mission.  And as David French puts it, this is motivated by fear which in the end totally destroys any claim to religious witness. Or good faith.  This is given one cannot aspire to good faith or good deeds, by embracing a person of bad faith, namely one who lies with every breath.  Oddly, it is the Christian version of Shaitan ("Satan") who is referenced as the ultimate Liar.   So what does it say about evangelical Christians if they so shamelessly embrace perhaps the consummate Liar in U.S. history?  Shaitan worshippers?

Maybe it tells us what Mr, French attempts at the end of his essay:

"It is time for evangelicals to exercise their political veto power. America's conservative people of faith should seek a primary challenger to Trump and send a message to the GOP that it will not compromise any longer."

But is that even feasible given how much  of their moral authority the evangelicals have already compromised ?  If one  really believes that, then I have an acre of ocean side land in Barbados to sell you for one Bajan buck.

See also:

William Barr and Opus Dei, the Secretive Ultra-Conservative Catholic Organization

Why Do White Christian Evangelicals Worship A Pervert Prez Who Loves Spankings & Golden Showers?

"Stormy! Why ya had to spank me so hard! I can hardly sit, or pee!"

By now most everyone in the US of A knows what a pervert Donald Dotard is, and it was interesting to see last week, former Bush Jr. WH ethics guy (Richard Painter) fulminate about it, e.g.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/richard-painter-slas-trump-over-stormy-daniels-nothing-sexy-about-dirty-old-men-in-politics/


As well as insinuating there may be other legal ramifications,  including from paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in the amount of $130,000.   It didn't appear to have worked as that story,  including lurid details, managed to reappear in a republished 2011  In Touch interview with Daniels. Therein she described having a sexual affair with Trump which included her beating his ass with a FORBES magazine. (The spanking was revealed in a string of emails) Subsequently,  Mother Jones basically confirmed all the sordid details that Daniels described from her 2006 encounters  For reference, see:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/stormy-daniels-trump-spanking-forbes-and-shark-week.html

According  to a trove of  2009 emails exchanged between political operatives (advising Daniels at the time on a possible political campaign), the adult film actress claimed that her affair with Trump included spanking him with a copy of Forbes.  By one account,  a political consultant to Andrea Dubé related in an email that:

"He made her sit with him for three hours watching Shark Week. Another time he had her spank him with a Forbes magazine," 

The magazine used evidently had Dotard's  face on the cover which no doubt provides endless material for any Freudian school psychiatrists and psychologists.   See this humorous take from  late night host Stephen Colbert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gMiiZOSYQ

Recall also this isn't Dotard's first pervert rodeo. From the Steele dossier we already know he was into "golden showers". As reported therein by former MI 6  spy Christopher Steele's sources:

"Trump's perverted conduct in Moscow (2013) included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. where he knew President and Mrs. Obama (whom he hated) had  stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers'  (urination) show in front of him.   The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to."

This was reported in 2013, while Trump's spanking antics  with Stormy Daniels occurred in 2006,  little more than a year after his marriage to Melania and barely 3 months after the birth of son, Barron.  All of which makes the inquiring secularist ask: Why aren't the white Christian evangelicals crawling all over his ass about his infidelity as well as predilection for perversion?  Have they no shame? Or are they just moral hypocrites? This inquiring atheist wants to know. Same way as I did when the RC Church tried to take back their fictitious moral high ground after their priestly pederasty was exposed.

Look, like any other red-blooded 'Murican, Trump is entitled to indulge in his unusual sexual proclivities as long as they are consensual.  Where I and many others have problems is when white Christian evangelicals support his  most radical,  un-Christian behavior,  (like praising Nazis as "very fine people")  then giving him a pass. . See e.g. Tony Perkins of the hyper self -righteous, conservative Family Research Council,  giving Trump his benediction via a "Mulligan" (moral do over):

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/politics/tony-perkins-trump-affairs-mulligan/index.html

But as  conservative WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin put it at the end of All In last night, "This isn't about Perkins or his group promoting any faith, but politics." Of course!  The white evangelicals know they have a puppet who will come out swinging against the LGBT populace, sign any anti-immigration laws he's given, and appoint all the anti-abortion justices he can. Just don't tell him to give up his porn star spankings! Hell, someone needs to discipline this deranged imp. 

Ms. Rubin added. providing some stark clarity:

"These white Christians are now, for the first time, not in the majority of the American people.  So they're no longer just leaders, they are grievance leaders.  They feel  this put upon, discriminated against, angry sentiment that their fellowship voices. They don't like being displaced from authority in society. They think women, they think immigrants, they think gays are somehow displacing them taking what is rightfully theirs. And these people are out to claim it. They believe - and in some really interesting polling - they think they are the victims and not African -Americans, and not gays in terms of discrimination in America. That is how twisted it is."

For which insights I give her a '10' out of 10. 

 Hmmmm....grievance leaders?  Poor little victims of those nasty "libtards", "commies", Blacks and gays. Oh, the pity!   But as Denver Post Sunday Editor Chuck Plunkett points out ('Donald Trump's True Believers',  Jan. 21, p. 1D) this does have repercussions for the integrity and propriety of evangelicalism - in much the same way their support of Roy Moore in Alabama cheapened their moral brand. 

As Plunkett wrote, after his interview with Jeff Hunt - director of the Centennial Institute of Colorado Christian University:

"When it comes to politics Hunt has one of the worst cases of true believer syndrome I've ever seen. Again and again his defense of Trump is purely partisan, no matter the violent it creates with Christian values and beliefs."

Which is precisely the point Jennifer Rubin also made about the white evangelicals and why they aren't doing more for  "the least among us", e.g. sick citizens in terms of health care, or the homeless, or Dreamers who've done nothing wrong.  Why aren't they in soup kitchens helping to feed the hungry instead of trying to take away social safety net after safety net? Why are they more obsessed over the life and health of a fetus than an already born 1 or 2 year old who needs expensive treatment for spinal bifida or cancer?

Well uh, because they feel hard put upon by all those damned minorities - which together are quickly rendering them a white minority. Excuse me, a white evangelical Christian minority.

As both Ms. Rubin and Mr. Plunkett put it: :White Christians "want power and Trump gives it to them."   He gives them power over those same minorities they detest. Never mind it comes with a toxic source, from a guy who's groped dozens of women who never wanted his attentions, never mind his spanking fetish.

The questions most of us in the secular political realm want answered are: How can evangelicals be so hypocritical? Why aren't they consigning this jackass to eternal perdition, because he sure as hell hasn't been saved? 

Nowhere is there any evidence that he truly believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the path to salvation according to the oft cited John 3:16.

Plunkett  himself pursues this dichotomy further, asking:

"What about that escapade with Stormy Daniels, the porn star that The Wall Street Journal reported got the hush money? 

According to Plunkett, Hunt at least agreed that he "wasn't supportive of the sins of pornography"  but he "wasn't sure the report was credible". In other words, like other ignorant putzes he believes it's fake news. Let's just dump this one time given the WSJ is not your typical "liberal rag"  but one of the more conservative (but still respected) news sources. Indeed, it's run by Rupert Murdoch who also runs FOX News.

Why though do the white evangelicals so ardently support this pervert prez? Plunkett lists the reasons as conveyed to him by Hunt:

-  Removing protections (from discrimination) for the LGBT-gay community

- Ending the requirement that employers pay for their employees' contraception

-  Placing conservative  justices on the courts to overturn liberal rulings

-  Repealing the Cole memo which was issued under the Obama DOJ and allowed states which passed MJ laws to preserve  their application and integrity.

When Plunkett pursued whether Evangelicals ought to support  a president without question, Hunt was non-committal.  Proving again Jennifer Rubin's take that he like Tony Perkins is just a "grievance leader" not a moral leader. Moral leaders would not support a presidential toxic turd like Donnie Dumpster fire.

Plunkett's conclusion?

"Trump is no Christian. He is a Judas playing evangelicals for fools. Sadly, that makes Hunt's unflinching support a Judas position."

It also renders all other evangelicals who support Dotard the same:   holding "Judas positions".  If the white evangelicals had a scintilla of moral or ethical fiber they'd be deserting Trump in droves. That they aren't discloses they not only support his toxic policies but his toxic morals - or lack of them -as well. 

Now Fundies Want to Go After All Those Practicing YOGA!

Where does it end? What drives these hyper-Christian freaks? (E.g. The Pastor Mike clones who propose things like 'national registries' for atheists). The latest target is Yoga! Put in the same category as Eckanckar  - which my niece Vanessa follows- it is claimed by the likes of former Pastor Mike and his clones to be a "Satan-devised teaching" and  "one of the most dangerous practices of giving an opening to demonic forces. " (Jan. 20, Mike's  'Straight Talk'  Blog). Jeebus, one wonders what lil ol' Mikey was drinking? (Hope it's wasn't Miramar Moonshine!)

My nieces, see their images in the March 6 blog, used to do Yoga all the time, following the example of their mom. They enjoyed it, plus meditating on the 'OM' focused their minds, assisted in helping them get through tough times (like the aftermath of the Cubana Airlines bombing and bloody parts washing up on Paradise Beach). While bro Mikey has bragged how he was a Marine and all that (during the 'Nam era) I doubt he saw as much blood and gore as my three nieces and I did that god-awful day in October, 1976. If he did, he's never mentioned it, and if he was on KP duty it's hard to imagine unless he sliced himself with a butcher knife while cutting chicken quarters.

Anyway, fast forward to the present bunch of anti-Yoga nuts. Since October, a group of parents in Encinitas, Calif., have been working with the Encinitas-based National Center for Law and Policy (NCLP) to stop one of the town’s public elementary schools from teaching yoga to its students and thus indoctrinating them in the Hindu faith. Never mind such teaching would solve a lot of problems and enhance student self-esteem and inquiry.


The NCLP is helmed by Dean Broyles, a lawyer who says he was “called to law school specifically to be trained to fight for religious liberties.”

Liberties? How about the liberties of the students to practice Yoga like my nieces?

But look at the source. This bozo apprenticed under Jay Sekulow, head of the Christian-right American Center for Law and Justice, and “received extensive training in pro-family, pro-life and pro-religious liberty matters” from the National Litigation Academies run by the virulently anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund).

In other words, the imputation is that yoga (a practice thousands of years old dating to before the birth of Christ) is anti-family, anti-life and anti-liberty. What a bunch of rank codswallop!

Truth be told, it's hard to fathom what these people are bitching over. The cold hard fact is the Encinitas program, like many American adaptations of yoga, has been stripped utterly of any references to prayer and reduced to a strictly physical regimen. Thus there is no sounding of the OM, the holy word of the universe bidding it to unify with oneself. (As my nieces practiced, and which helped them immensely to get past the horrors of the Cubana Airlines attack).


But  that’s not enough for Broyles, who bellows:  “Who decides when enough religion has been stripped out of the program to make it legal?” he asks. “That’s the problem when you introduce religion into the curriculum and actually immerse and marinate children in the program.”

But there is NO religion introduced, you numbnut! It's a purely physical exercise, like Pilates.


Broyles isn't the only far-right Christian hardliner to brood over the potential impact of yoga on vulnerable young minds. Tony Perkins, president of the anti-gay Family Research Council, in January lit into the U.S. military for "promoting the pagan art" among its members.


Perkins, on his stupid radio show referenced a weekly yoga class offered to U.S. Marines as a means of dealing with stress, Perkins lamented that “the military seems intent on driving religion out and replacing it with wacky substitutes. They’ve added atheist chaplains, Wiccan worship centers, and now, meditation classes. But none of them are as effective or as constructive as a personal relationship with God.”

I wouldn't be so bold as to say that! Look, imagine if my deranged brother Mike had had the benefits of Yoga while he was being subjected to all those indignities and humiliations at Parris Island. Chances are he would have emerged with at least some semblance of  good will and tolerance as opposed to ill will, class and race hatred and religious bigotry. To me he lost out though he insists he "saved his soul". All I can ask is: What soul? That  rancid, abhorrent, fulminating excuse for a thing you display every day on your pathetic blog? The one where you portray Obama as everything from a 1-eyed goblin, to a Nazi to an Antichrist? And you display your own kin boiling in fires with their eye balls melting while your image is there laughing at them from "heaven"?

Anyway, let us hope the ACLU and SPLC step in and put the kibosh on this derelict effort to eradicate student choice and health benefits.  As my niece Trudi  (seen in Mar. 6 blog photo on the left) said: "What have those kids got to lose? They have everything to gain!"

I totally agree!