(credit:sandiegouniontribune.com)
After having heard time and again how the President of the U.S.A. has propagated polarization amongst the populace, it may come as a surprise to learn that Trump has also been a unifier! Forgive me if this seems a trifle banal, but never have I known my evangelical cousins (let me shorten that to EC in this article) in the U.S. to be as united as at the time of the just concluded presidential elections. Every single one of them votes Republican; an extremely affectionate, yet incorrigibly fractious lot (in the best of times), this is one bunch of immigrants after the own heart of the GOP.
The opinions in favour and against Trump are so well known worldwide that they do not need an extensive treatment. The Democrats are sick and tired of the man’s bluster dissipating everywhere like bullets from a blunderbuss through his liberal use of the medium of twitter (or the Corona virus if you prefer a variant!). The Republicans in the meanwhile manage to find reason enough to sing his praises. One of the cleverest paens the GOP loves to echo is a piece by Leonard William QC that employs a deceptively apophasistic style.
Let me quote:
There is no doubt that Trump is a BUFFOON! I am sure you all will agree! HOWEVER , read this:
The buffoon in the White House just brokered two Middle East Peace Accords, something that 71 years of political intervention and endless war failed to produce.
The buffoon in the White House is the first president that has not engaged us in a foreign war since Eisenhower.
The buffoon in the White House has had the greatest impact on the economy, bringing jobs, and lowering unemployment to the Black and Latino population of ANY other president. Ever.
The buffoon in the White House has exposed the deep, widespread and long-standing corruption in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Republican and Democratic parties.
The buffoon in the White House turned NATO around and had them start paying their dues.
The buffoon in the White House neutralized the North Koreans, stopped them from developing a further nuclear capability, sending missiles toward Japan, and threatening the West Coast of the US.
The Buffoon in the White House turned US relationship to the Chinese around, brought hundreds of business back to the US, and revived the economy. Hello.
The buffoon in the White House has accomplished the appointing of two Supreme Court Justices (make that three) and close to 300 Federal Judges.
The buffoon in the White House lowered taxes and caused stock market to move to record levels over 100 times, positively impacting the retirements of tens of millions of citizens.
The buffoon in the White House fast-tracked the development of a COVID Vaccine – it will be available within weeks. We still don’t have a vaccine for SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, or a host of diseases that arose during previous administrations.
The buffoon in the White House rebuilt US military which the Obama administration had crippled and had fired 214 key generals and admirals in his first year of office.
The buffoon in the White House uncovered widespread paedophilia in the government and in Hollywood. The buffoon in the White House is exposing worldwide sex trafficking of minors and bringing children home to their families.
The buffoon in the White House works for free and has lost well over 2 billion dollars of his own money in serving – and done all of this and much more – in the face of relentless undermining and opposition from people who are threatened because they know they are going to be exposed as the criminals that they are if he is re-elected.
I got it, you don’t like him. How special of you! He is serving you and ALL the American people. What are you doing besides calling him names and laughing about him catching the China virus.
74 years old.
A billionaire.
Doesn’t need a cent.
Could be on a beach anywhere in the world.
Has worked his whole life.
Raised children who have work ethics out of this world.
Possibly the most hated man in America right now.
Diagnosed with Covid.
Still showing up.
Have you ever wondered if you were 74 years old, a billionaire, and diagnosed with Covid, if you would still be showing up, fighting for a country where millions of the citizens hated you?
Unquote
With a view to presenting a varied position on Trump let me call upon the Guardian. Referring to Trump as a jerk in a recent article therein, Thomas Frank celebrates Trump’s defeat in the poll saying, “Finally, we have come to the end of Donald Trump’s season of extreme misrule. Voters have rejected what can only be described as the crassest, vainest, stupidest, most dysfunctional leadership this country has ever suffered.”
The view from my ECs as you can expect, is the exact opposite; a full one hundred and eighty degrees. One of the WhatsApp posts from this worthy group went to the extent of calling Trump the best President ever! So full of virulence was the writer of the post that the mere mention of the name of Kamala Harris allegedly gave her a puking sensation. My ECs being by and large Tamil speaking people of Indian origin, at the very least one would have expected a scintilla of national and linguistic fellow feeling to surface keeping in mind Kamala Harris’s links to Tamil Nadu. But none whatsoever was displayed. The Democrats were the devil’s agents – wholesale – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton most notably so !!
The scripture savvy evangelistic crowd which at one time was eagerly quoting Psalm 109:8 which says “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership” as a divine edict on Barrack Obama midway through his tenure was surprisingly accommodating to Trump’s reported inappropriate behaviour with no fewer than 27 women, his highly publicized dalliance with Stormy Daniels that ended in hush money, his pally pally parties with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, his willingness to play ball with the Taliban and Kim Jong-un, his dodgy prevarication on the disclosure of his income tax returns, his national security-compromising attempts to strike dubious deals with foreign government in return for dirt on domestic political opponents, his withdrawal from international obligations, frequent mendacious tweets, high handed approach to quell domestic racial tension, patently hypocritical appearance with the Bible in hand at a church, heartless treatment of vulnerable and desperate immigrants’ children of would be immigrants – locked up in a cage, frightened, cold, hungry and missing their parents.
No doubt you remember the now famous mantra: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. Can you believe that President Trump uttered these immortal words to a visibly discomfited Fox News interviewer in proof of his mental acuity? According to his puerile thinking, he had aced a mental-acuity test by correctly reciting them! Trump even praised himself for getting extra points after remembering the five words in the correct order. Extra points. “It’s actually not that easy,” Trump said. “But for me it was easy.” This Sir, is the President of the United States of America, arguably the most powerful person on the planet. How ridiculous can it get?
Joe Biden may not be John Kennedy in his popular appeal and international acceptance but he has largely been spared from charges of indecency, mendacity or prurience (to the extent anyone standing for the highest office can be). Plus he is a man who has been through the crucible of personal loss and suffering; therefore sensitized to offer empathy where needed. And he does come across as a righteous person.
But not to my ECs! They simply refuse to look at any good in the Democrats that accord with biblical values and freely demonize them for their liberal attitude. No sooner than the vote count went up for Biden were there dark messages suggesting that the Prayer Room in the White House was probably already being converted to the devil’s den. Never mind that Biden is a Catholic and Kamala Harris a Baptist Christian. When the whole world was laughing at America for the unedifying travesty of democracy on show ( with a defeated candidate refusing to play by the book), what were the evangelicals doing? Gathering signatures in a misguided effort to subvert the elections! Such was the spleen, spite and cynicism on view. Now is that Christian?
And what about Trump’s own boorish disregard for the democratic process made painfully clear by his refusal to concede? He may have been God’s man in the year 2016 according to His sovereign plan for the U.S. of A . Also maybe, he is unable now to read the writing on the wall drunk as he is with hubris and chutzpah. Maybe he needs a Daniel (not Paula White) to bring home to him the hard interpretation that ” when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory”(Daniel 5:20). Or may be he is like “the “post turtle” you come across while driving on a country road precariously perched on the top of a fence post. You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he didn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, he is elevated beyond his ability to function and you just wonder what kind of dumb idiot put him up there to begin with” (words not mine – attributed to an old rancher, read somewhere)
It was the minor prophet Micah who gave us the essence of what it is to be human in the eyes of God. He wrote “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8). It is a no brainer which of the two main presidential contenders comes close to this call.
Trump won the 2016 election with 81% of the white Christian evangelical vote, and support of evangelicals like Jerry Falwell Jr, president of Liberty University, who was obliged to leave office under a cloud of controversies related to his sexual misconduct.
Evangelical supporters made peace with Trump’s history of marital infidelity and his widely reported “grab them by the ____” comments, lauding Trump’s conservative court appointments and supreme court nominees. Galli raised questions about that moral compromise, writing: “This president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration.”
“To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve,” Galli wrote. “Consider how your justification of Mr Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?”. (a bold statement at a time when Franklin Graham himself seemed somewhat ambivalent)
Trump hit back at the publication, writing on Twitter: “A far left magazine … which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather … have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.” He added: “No president has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage.”
And my dear ECs, what did they do? They were quick to denounce Galli as the agent of the anti-Christ, their standard characterization of any one finding merit in the democrat campaign.
I am aware that CNN is tarred “fake news” uniformly by all my ECs, but surely it should be hard for an honest American not to nod in agreement with Van Jones when he reacted to Biden’s victory thus:
“It’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids that character matters. The truth matters. Being a good person matters.
Joe Biden will be our next president and Donald Trump will not.
This is vindication for a lot of people who have suffered under this administration. If you’re Muslim in this country, you won’t have to worry about the President not wanting you here. If you’re an immigrant, you won’t have to worry about your babies being snatched away. If you’re a Dreamer, you won’t have to be worried about getting sent away for no reason.
When George Floyd was murdered, he said “I can’t breathe.” Over these past four years, too many of us have felt like they couldn’t breathe.
Waking up every day to this President’s tweets has been exhausting. Going to the store while people get nastier and nastier as they become less and less afraid to show their racism makes you tired. Being worried about if your sister can just go to Walmart and get back into her car without somebody saying offensive something to her — it’s not okay.
We’ve spent so much of our life energy just trying to hold it together over these past four years. Biden’s victory is a huge deal for us. Now we get a chance to get some peace and reset.
The character of the country matters again. Being a good man matters again. I want my sons to look at this and understand: it’s easy to do things the cheap and easy way. You can get away with that for a while. But eventually, it comes back around. That’s a good thing for this country.”
And the last word on this subject was not a word at all. And Vance Jones did not try to hide it; it was, dear people, a tear drop.
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