Is An Inability To Understand Jesus A Cause Or Just A Symptom Of What Has Ruined The GOP?

No One Hates And Fears Christ's Message Of Love More Than Republicans

"The Faithful" by Nancy Ohanian

I'm determined to not use the word "hypocrisy" in this post. Let's see if it's possible. As Ryan Lizza pointed out this morning for Politico readers, "Trump is like a standup comedian. He uses rallies, especially in the offseason, to work on material. He tests the reaction among his diehard fans and watches the mainstream media’s coverage. He then rewrites the lines, calibrating them for maximum effect inside the arena and minimal blowback outside of it. You can tell he believes he’s onto something with his mocking of trans people. There is a cynical strategy at work here. Targeting marginalized groups for ridicule forces more responsible actors to stand up for them. As Democrats have learned, Trump’s goal is to get them to spend their time outraged and defending the targets of his attacks rather than talking about their own message. The dynamic creates a built-in political advantage to any party that no longer sees it as taboo to scapegoat certain groups. Trump, of course, knows this and he has found a new target for 2022-- and perhaps beyond."

During his hate-filled bund-rally in Wyoming Saturday he went after some of the country's most scape-goated, bullied and vulnerable groups-- transgender people. And, Wyoming being the most politically backward state in America, the audience ate it up. Señor Trumpanzee: "Everybody’s afraid of not being politically correct. I’m the only one that talks about it." Hardly; bigoted rhetoric aimed at transgendered people is now fairly standard fare on the hate-obsessed far right. Saturday, his long riffs mocking transgendered people "were received with thunderous applause. The only other objects of derision that tickled the crowd with similar enthusiasm were mentions of undocumented immigrants or Cheney and the appearance of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who was booed when he showed up in a video at the rally." Worms like McCarthy should be booed every time he shows his ugly mug... but I'm pretty sure the Wyoming crowd booed him for all the wrong reasons.

By the way, Wyoming was Trump's electoral top state in 2020, giving him a 69.94% win over Biden's sad 26.55%. He won the state's 3 electoral votes by winning all but 2 of their 23 sparsely populated counties. The 5 most backward of the Wyoming counties not only gave Trump landslides, they are also among the least vaccinated counties in America-- and the best places to commit suicide-by-COVID if the pandemic sparks up again with a new variant. Imagine having to live among these woefully damaged, left-behind people!

• Crook Co.- 88.6% Trump (31% fully vaccinated)

• Weston Co.- 87.7% Trump (38% fully vaccinated)

• Campbell Co.- 86.8% Trump (31% fully vaccinated)

• Niobrara Co.- 85.5% Trump (32% fully vaccinated)

• Converse Co.- 84.9% Trump (32% fully vaccinated)

Alabama insurrectionist Mo Brooks isn't running in Wyoming but today he was on Fox News Sunday, spreading his Big Lie nonsense when he decided to blame the NRA/GOP mass murder of Hispanic children in Uvalde on what he sees in his twisted vision as declining "moral values." He told host Sandra Smith that "It’s almost impossible for a single parent to do the kind of job that two parents can collectively do. Unfortunately, the data is very clear. Those single parent households, for whatever reason, end up resulting in children who are more likely to be on welfare; who are less likely to get the kind of grades you expect in school; are more likely to be involved [with] drugs; and unfortunately, are more likely to be involved in criminal conduct." Sounds like he's describing the Trump family. He then offered his perscription for getting the country back on the right path: "If we teach proper moral values and if we teach respect for human life, then that is the way to fix the problem."

He could do a cross-country tour with JD "Vivian" Vance, who told Crisis Magazine that the culprit is... wait for the big fat projection-- pornography. "I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other." He told the woman interviewing him that he "wants to outright ban pornography." I hope plenty of Republicans in Ohio's top porno-consuming (per capita) counties, like Mercer, Darke and Auglaize, all of which were won by Mandel because he was viewed as the furthest right-- as well as Holmes, Putnam and Adams, which were won by Vance because he was viewed as furthest right. Half a dozen years ago, Amy Zimmerman wrote for the Daily Beast that in keeping with throwback conservatism and pseudoscience that marks the GOP, the Republican national convention decided to label pornography a public health crisis. "Anyone who follows American politics, Trump, and/or the Miss USA pageant will be quick to point out the hypocrisy inherent to this GOP initiative. Republicans’ moral outrage when it comes to porn is rivalled only by their love of porn. 2013 Pornhub statistics isolated 23 states where viewers on average spend the longest amount of time tuning in; of those 23 states, 16 voted for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Mississippi led the nation in time spent watching Pornhub videos, and in 18 of 24 conservative-voting states the number one porn search was 'creampie.'... Trump has a rich history of objectifying women, and his penchant for asking women to don bikinis or making jokes about getting them on their knees is more in keeping with a porn producer than an anti-porn politician. His Playboy cover is prominently displayed in his office, sometimes to hilarious effect. While his misogyny often manifests itself in sharp insults, it’s more consistently displayed through objectification-- a brand of over-sexualization that’s directly opposed to a family values platform. For proof, look no further than Trump’s numerous Howard Stern Show sound bites, where he rated women on a 1 to 10 scale and divulged that, 'A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.' Trump also attempted to monetize this misogynist worldview through his 1997 purchase of the Miss USA pageant, promising to get the 'bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher.'"

Now, let's look at the most discussed AP piece today, Christan nationalism on the rise in some GOP campaigns. It's not exactly the same thing-- though it certainly comes from the same mentality and (sick) world view. In discussing far right crackpot Doug Mastriano's Christian nationalist gubernatorial campaign in Pennsylvania, Peter Smith and Deepa Bharath wrote that "scholars generally define Christian nationalism as going beyond policy debates and championing a fusion of American and Christian values, symbols and identity. Christian nationalism, they say, is often accompanied by a belief that God has destined America, like the biblical Israel, for a special role in history, and that it will receive divine blessing or judgment depending on its obedience. That often overlaps with the conservative Christian political agenda, including opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender rights. Researchers say Christian nationalism is often also associated with mistrust of immigrants and Muslims. Many Christian nationalists see Trump as a champion despite his crude sexual boasts and lack of public piety."

American fascists often portray themselves as Christian nationalists, the slice of the Republican pie being the most simple-minded, gullible and by far the most easy to manipulate. Fascists who played the role this cycle and lost included two flat out Nazis-- polymorphous pervert Madison Cawthorn and Idaho Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin-- but many more won, like Georgia psychopath Marjorie Traitor Greene, who mixes some kind of warped view of the Bible with QAnon, racism, Putin-worship and a perverse take on nationalism.

Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, said those Jan. 6 displays were not surprising.

According to a recent survey by the institute, white evangelical Christians were among the strongest supporters of the assertion that God intended America as a “promised land” for European Christians. Those who backed that idea were far more likely to agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence ... to save our country.”

...Elizabeth Neumann, chief strategy officer for Moonshot, a tech company that aims to counter online violent extremism, disinformation and other harms, said Christian nationalism began picking up steam around 2015 amid a rising narrative of purported persecution of Christians.

Neumann, who served in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations and grew up in an evangelical Christian household, called the movement “heretical and idolatry” and an “apocalyptic vision (that) very often leads to violence.” Many pastors are pushing back against it, she added.

“I see Christian nationalism as the gasping, dying breath of the older generation in America that is afraid that Christians are going to be replaced,” she said.