Does Evangelicalism need image consultants for damage control? Evangelicals on the Trump train – are they on the wrong track?
I ask because there are certain Christians who think that the image of Evangelicalism has been damaged by an “unholy” association with Trump and his supporters. Certain Christians are worried about what people think about Evangelicalism with its brand of Jesus and the gospel.
The Build Back Better campaign to restore the image of Evangelicalism is concerned about two things: Evangelicals promoting a man of Trump’s character and (using the language of the Left) the “extremist” and “fascist” character of so-called Christian nationalism.
No doubt, Trump has an earthy communication style. He’s from New York. He speaks like a New Yorker and not like Evangelicals and Evangelical elites. On the record is a September 2005 conversation when he spoke in graphic, vulgar language about trying to commit adultery and forcing himself on women.
Eleven years later (October 7, 2016) and one month before the United States presidential election, the Washington Post published a video and article about the conversation between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush. Trump immediately issued an apology on Facebook, posted Friday, October 7, 2016:
“Here is my statement. I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me, know these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, it was wrong, and I apologize. I’ve travelled the country talking about change for America. But my travels have also changed me. I’ve spent time with grieving mothers who’ve lost their children, laid off workers whose jobs have gone to other countries, and people from all walks of life who just want a better future. I have gotten to know the great people of our country, and I’ve been humbled by the faith they’ve placed in me. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow, and will never, ever let you down. Let’s be honest. We’re living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today. We are losing our jobs, we are less safe than we were 8 years ago and Washington is broken. Hillary Clinton, and her kind, have run our country into the ground. I’ve said some foolish things, but there is a big difference between words and actions. Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.”
After hearing about the conversation, Trump’s wife Melania put out her own statement:
“The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world.”
And Trump’s former campaigner, Corey Lewandowski, said on CNN, “Is this defensible? I don’t think so.”
“But we’re not choosing a Sunday school teacher here.”
I wonder. Should all Christian Never Trumpers have their past conversations exposed, as was done to Trump? I think it should be done. Never-Trumpers, as they are wont to tell us, are very concerned about the character of those they surround themselves with and support. For example:
Christians Against Trumpism & Political Extremism, was founded by friends and partners John Kingston and Joel Searby. It is at root a spiritual endeavor, because John and Joel believe in the potential for renewal in our church and the nation.
The wife of the staunch Never Trumper David French, Nancy French, is a supporter of this organization as are other of our Christian “betters” who are very worried about “the darkness of Trumpism and other political extremism.”
But the following recent report is sullying for all in support of this “informal yet organized group of Christian leaders, thinkers, influencers, and everyday believers who publicly stand against the personal behavior, degrading policy proposals, and poisonous rhetoric modeled by President Trump and extremist groups from the far left and right.”
The “Christians Against Trumpism” co-founder [Joel Searby] is facing charges for lewd/lascivious conduct, two counts of obscene communications related to luring a minor to meet for sex, and using a two-way communications device to facilitate a felony.
‘Christians Against Trumpism’ Co-Founder Arrested for Soliciting Sex from 15-Year-Old Boy | The Gateway Pundit | by Brian Lupo
And, here’s Never-Trumper David French in “extremist” mode:
CANNON: Never-Trumper David French Picks Half a Million Abortions Over Trump Being Re-Elected… Seriously. – The National Pulse
And, again, David French in “extremist” mode:
NYT Columnist Says Trump Support Less Excusable Than Slavery. (thenationalpulse.com)
~~~
Can Anything Good Come Out of Trump Tower?
Would God use a person of “questionable character” to lead the country?
In the previous post I wrote . . .
Like all of us, Jacob is a work in progress. He is of questionable character and not someone we would have thought of to be the namesake (Israel) of a nation of people who are to represent God’s character to the world. But God, in His wisdom and mercy, works with Jacob – his faults, his dysfunction, his deceitful ways, and his sins – and seeks to redeem him for his purposes. God is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy (cf. Psalm 103: 6-18) (unlike many judgmental types today who are loathe to work with God to redeem relationships with those they do not consider worthy of redemption.)
No doubt, if today’s Evangelical image consultants lived back then they would have worked vigorously to keep the scoundrel Jacob out of that role. They sure wouldn’t associate with Jacob. “He’s not one of us,” they would say.
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
-The gospel of Mark 9:38-41
Over and over in the gospels I find Jesus being counter-cultural. He isn’t constrained by demands of the image consultants – the Pharisees and legal experts, the religious types.
There are certain Christians who are very ‘concerned’ about Trump being associated with Evangelicalism because he is “not one of us.” (Trump’s not the squeaky-clean sweet old Sunday School teacher type– someone who looks Evangelical and talks Evangelical-ese – that we had in mind for the position.)
But haven’t Never-Trumpers and all Americans received a cup of water in the form of humanitarian goodness – peace and prosperity – under the scoundrel Trump’s first term? Was Trump working against Christians or for us? Wasn’t the Unprecedented Economic Boom under Trump something of a miracle?
The arm chair holier-than-MAGA disparagers no doubt benefitted from Trump’s presidency.
Trump Administration Accomplishments – The White House (archives.gov)
A summary:
Unprecedented Economic Boom (3-1/2 years before the Chinese-Fauci virus), including:
Jobless claims hitting a nearly 50-year low
The number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the population hit its lowest on record
Incomes rose in every single metro area in the United States for the first time in nearly 3 decades.
Income inequality fell for two straight years, and by the largest amount in over a decade.
The bottom 50 percent of American households saw a 40 percent increase in net worth.
Wages rose fastest for low-income and blue-collar workers – a 16 percent pay increase.
Tax Relief for the Middle Class
Massive Deregulation
Fair and Reciprocal Trade
American Energy Independence
Investing in America’s Workers and Families
Life-Saving Response to the China Virus – Restricted travel to the United States from infected regions of the world.
Remaking the Federal Judiciary
Achieving a Secure Border
Restoring American Leadership Abroad
Serving and Protecting Our Veterans
Making Communities Safer
Cherishing Life and Religious Liberty, and more.
During Trump’s first term there were NO wars. There was a Middle East peace deal – the Abrahamic accords. Constitutionalist SCOTUS justices were installed, securing Democracy. (Abortion decisions are to be made at state level.) And, . . .
Supreme Court delivers MASSIVE VICTORY for J6 politcal prisoners and a crushing blow to regime’s lawfare…
Supreme Court overturns Chevron deference, striking MASSIVE blow to the administrative state…
By shooting down ‘Chevron deference’ doctrine, SCOTUS restored democratic rulemaking, experts say | Just The News
Under Trump there was no invasion of our southern border.
There were no flood of illegals murdering our daughters.
Illegal Alien From Turkey Accused of Raping 15-Year-Old Girl in Albany, NY (legalinsurrection.com)
Open Borders Subject Women and Girls in the US to Rapes and Wanton Violence | Frontpage Mag
Under Trump there was no deluge of fentanyl killing people.
There was no surge of terrorists, gangs and drug cartels.
Inflation was around 2%. People had money to support themselves, buy a home, and to give to charitable causes like The Roy’s Report and The Trinity Forum, (where Never-Trumpers hawk their Never-Trumper wares.)
Americans weren’t ghosted by Trump. Trump was ghosted by Never-Trumpers who supported the mess we have today.
Under Bidenomics – “You will own nothing and be happy.”
This Is Fine: Average Salary Required to Own a Home Increased 80.5% Under Biden – Twitchy
During Trump’s four years in the White House, Never-Trumpers sat around and whined and nitpicked about all things Trump. They had the time and the means to write books about terrible Trump and Evangelical MAGA “extremists” who will destroy “Democracy!!”
~~~~
“White Raging” Rubes and MAGA Christians
Keep in mind two of Saul Alinsky’s 13 Rules for Radicals that are at work in Never-Trumper’s campaigns:
– “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.”
– “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
The sneering class has deemed people of MAGA persuasion “deplorables” “bitter clingers” “extremists” “conspiracy theorists” “xenophobes”, “authoritarians”, and “fascists.” And MAGA Christians are deemed not just “a threat to Evangelicalism!” but to “DEMOCRACY!”
This while, (Our Statement – Christians Against Trumpism) . . .
“Political extremism, whether from the “left” or the “right,” uses violence, chaos, and degrading language as tools for social change.”
See above for who uses degrading language. But who uses violence and chaos as tools for social change? The “extremist” Left, for example;
Portland’s grim reality: 100 days of protests, many violent | AP News
47 arrested, 59 officers injured in Seattle protests that turned violent – KIRO 7 News Seattle
Masked Activists Violently Attack Jews at North Carolina Public Library – Algemeiner.com
Judge Rejects Biden Admin Bid To Dismiss Lawsuit Over ‘Illegal and Dangerous’ $1.5 Billion Palestinian Payment Plan (freebeacon.com)
We are told on MSM that us hobbits are white raging rubes who don’t know any better and are in a cult of personality and that the Christians in this sad group are making Christianity look bad. With the election season upon us, there’s a growing list of shaming screeds promoted on MSNBC.
These Never-Trumper books are meant to make readers feel morally superior if they make the ‘right’ choice: to not support and vote for Trump. Three of these authors want to move you in the direction of being an ‘acceptable’ Christian and politically ‘acceptable’ in their eyes:
Tim Alberta and The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, published December 5, 2023
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman with White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy published on February 27, 2024
Jim Wallis: The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy, published April 2, 2024
The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics, Nancy French and Curtis Chang, based on project by David French, Russell Moore & Curtis Chang, published April 23, 2024
Please don’t tell me that these authors are writing and talking about these things to protect Jesus from the rabble. “Put down your sword, Peter.” Jesus – very God and the One who cast out demons and calmed the storm – is not beholden to anyone for protection. Their version of Christianity is what they are protecting.
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman of White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy went on MSNBC to push their polemic rant of a poorly researched book. They posit “fourfold threats” coming from the “White rural” rube demographic:
- Rural “Whites” are racist and xenophobic, adverse to DEI and are an impedance to a pluralist society
- Rural “Whites” embrace conspiracy-mongering because of their proclivity to anger
- Rural “Whites” rubes form authoritarian rebellious groups with “right-wing” money
- Rural “Whites” harass, intimidate, and are violent
Victor Davis Hanson reviewed On White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman: All the rage | The New Criterion. He handily refutes the book’s “often-incoherent polemic.” Here’s his response to number 3 of the “fourfold threats” posed by raging “Whites”:
“In their psychodramatic formulation, the authors allege that
“U.S. democracy is in peril. Ballot blockers, wannabe authoritarians, White Christian nationalists, and constitutional sheriffs each pose existential and often overlapping threats to American constitutional government. Unfortunately, rural Whites form the tip of the spear for each of these movements.
“No data is supplied to support such an “existential” threat, much less one originating in rural white America—other than polls that suggest about half the nation feels that America is a Christian nation.”
Hanson’s impression of the book . . .
“White Rural Rage is for the most part a compilation of misleading polls, left-wing news accounts, interviews with state and local Democratic politicos, and sloppy, cherry-picked references to and quotes from kindred academics that reinforce the authors’ preexisting belief in a vast rural white cabal of violent racists and conspiracists. . .
“In the end, White Rural Rage is not so much a warning about a national, seething, rural white danger to democracy as it is a projection of the fears of elite white authors, conspiracy-minded as they often are themselves.”
Tim Alberta, journalist and staff writer for The Atlantic and author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, was also showcased on MSNBC to promote his own psychodramatic formulation about MAGA Christians. He also podcasted on The Trinity Forum where he talked about his book and on The Roy’s Report where he talked about The Corrupting of American Evangelicalism. Julie Roys interviewed Tim Alberta and shares his concerns about Evangelicalism.
Listening to the Trinity Forum podcast, I understood Tim Alberta to say that Christians should understand that as Christians they live “under siege” and basically that they should cool their jets (don’t get out of hand) and get used to abuse and persecution because that’s the way it is for Christians. I get the sense from Tim that Christians should be more like white suburban women, like Julie Roys.
Alternatively, on The Roy’s Report website – “reporting the truth and restoring the church” – Julie Roys posts articles and podcasts exposing abuse within the church. Victims of abuse (typically women) submit to the abuser (typically male) for a while and then they react and take action. You hear their stories on the website’s podcasts.
Per Alberta, shouldn’t church abuse victims just be quiet and take it like good little Christians?
Are we to believe that reacting to church abuse is more Christian than reacting to political abuse?
Isn’t it good to work to forestall persecution in society? Should Christians clamor to be martyrs?
Is it OK to expose and denounce abusive leaders in church but not leaders in politics? Never-Trumpers criticize Trump all day long. If MAGA criticizes what is being forced on them by the Left they are labeled
“extremists” and “a threat to democracy.”
What about “reporting the truth and restoring America” – is that out of Evangelical bounds?
Aberta labels “Trumpism as a kind of sub-cult in the evangelical world,” Wow. To use his own term, that is “extremist” language.
Is it Ok for Never-Trumper Christians to vilify MAGA Christians?
~~~~
“Unholy mix”
The Roys Report promo for Corrupting of American Evangelicalism podcast:
“On this edition of The Roys Report, bestselling author and journalist Tim Alberta joins host Julie Roys to explore a disturbing phenomenon in American evangelicalism. Though once evangelicals understood that the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of men are separate, now the two are being combined into an unholy mix. And sadly, for millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—and proper adherence to their political ideology is their litmus test for Christian orthodoxy!
“. . .major players and institutions within the evangelical movement that have succumbed to political idolatry.
“. . . mixing political advocacy with the gospel is misleading and wrong.”
Huh?!? You wouldn’t advocate for someone willing to abolish slavery and drug and sex trafficking? You wouldn’t advocate for someone willing to bring peace and prosperity and uphold the rule of law? Are these good things outside the bounds of The Roys Report gospel?
“Though once evangelicals understood that the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man were separate, now the two are being combined into an unholy mix.” Huh?!?
When Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man came together in an “unholy mix” and Christians have been trying to sort out what that means.
And when Jesus sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. Now there’s an “unholy mix” according to the scribes of the Pharisees – guardians of their religion’s image.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray May your kingdom come, may your will be done, as in heaven so on earth? Sounds political, especially when the elements of this world fight against that happening and work to divide Christians with books, documentaries, media campaigns, etc.
Calling Jesus “Lord” is political. Living under his lordship is political.
(I don’t understand Jesus of the gospels as docile, demure and worried about image. He did take offense when the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” They were implying unholy things about the Holy Spirit.)
(Note: In the podcast, Tim Alberta and Julie Roys set their disapproving sights on Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Sr., Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress, and Ralph Reed. They don’t talk about Francis Schaeffer, Focus on the Family or other Christians who were engaged early on in the culture and politics.)
The Roys Report put out another NeverTrump article, one written by Jim McDermott promoting a documentary:
‘Bad Faith’ Sounds The Alarm On The Past & Future of Christian Nationalism (julieroys.com)
(BAD FAITH is a feature-length documentary that explores the dangerous rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States. Part archival chronicle, part exposé, the film reveals the secretive political machinery that has relentlessly sought to weaken and destroy American democracy in order to promote its authoritarian vision. Bad Faith – Movie Reviews | Rotten Tomatoes)
Jim McDermott writes:
“In Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, filmmakers Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones trace the origins of Christian nationalism from the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century through the creation of the Moral Majority, the sudden rise of the tea party and the election of Donald Trump. What they uncover is an essential aspect of our current political situation, one that puts evangelical Christianity in new light.”
(Note: The records of Congress reveal that not one Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for the 14th Amendment. Three years after the Civil War, and the Democrats from the North as well as the South were still refusing to recognize any rights of citizenship for black Americans.”)
One of its filmmakers, Stephen Ujlaki, spoke in an interview by phone in Los Angeles, about the making of “Bad Faith”. Here are excerpts from that interview:
“When Trump got elected, I was shocked. Nobody thought he had a chance. He was obviously a joke. It was never going to happen. When he got elected, I realized I didn’t really know anything about what was going on. I was in a bubble.
“More than anything, . . . the film was just to find out: How did [Trump} do it, how did he win, and who were the Christian evangelicals (who supported him)? But then I discovered all of this plotting, all of these deals, and the fact that those behind them were anti-democratic from the beginning.”
“Would it be fair to say Christian nationalism’s goal is fascism? Yes. It’s pure fascism. It’s pure power.”
“Bad Faith” . . . tells of how a large swath of religious voters came to believe that President Joe Biden is in league with the devil while Trump is essential to the spiritual salvation of America.”
(Not: Joe Biden is in league with a lot of bad actors as we find out more and more about his dealings. Trump during his first term did “save’ the nation from decline and left Democracy still standing.)
Ujlaki wants us to know that Christian nationalism “has nothing to do with theology, nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with God or with Jesus. I don’t even consider Christian nationalism as a religion. What is its ethos? What is its morality? It’s actually amoral, which is why it uses the church. The church lends it that moral, ethical authority that it doesn’t have otherwise.”
“If you look around you at the divisiveness and the distrust of institutions that exist today in this country, you will realize how incredibly successful they have been in executing their plan. It’s been like a slow-motion revolution in a way, happening bit by bit all over the place.”
The creators of Bad Faith have shown their own Bad Faith by knowingly misrepresenting, with a broad brush, Christians who want to restore America and Chrisitan values when having to deal with Progressivism’s in-your-face values. It appears the documentary, like the books above, was created in time to impact the 2024 election – to scare voters away from anything Chrisitan and Trump.
Never-Trumper David French has continuously railed against Trump. He thinks Trump supporters have “unrighteous rage.” In this self-promoting mea culpa, French uses the divisive language of the Left: “rage.”:
“French, who has now spent the best part of a decade bemoaning the 45th President, now acknowledges the “bond” between Donald Trump and most Republican voters and concludes:
“I don’t regret my arguments against Trump. I’d make them again, and I will continue making them. I do ask myself how I missed the sheer extent of Republican anger. And I’m deeply, deeply grieved by the thought that I did anything in my life before Trump to contribute to that unrighteous rage.”
Do white suburban women and their epicene men find railing against Trump both titillating and necessary to emote their tribal scorn of Trump?
BTW: Democratic strategist James Carville is very concerned that ‘preachy females are to blame for Biden’s polling numbers:
“A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females. Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you – the message is too feminine,” Carville said. “If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election. I’m like: ‘Well, 48 percent of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?”
‘Preachy females’ blamed for Biden’s polling numbers: ‘This is about driving men out of the Democratic Party’ | Fox News
~~~
“unrighteous rage”?
According to people like French there were no catalysts for MAGA anger. There was no hellish COVID handling with church closings, social distancing, masking and vaccine mandates. There has been no “fundamental transformation” of America. Our children were never indoctrinated with CRT and Queer Theory. There has been no “trans” mutilation of children, no drug trafficking and fentanyl deaths. There has been no FBI monitoring of Catholics who want Latin masses. There has been no massive illegal migration. No highest rate of inflation. There has been no janky lawfare to hamstring Trump and no political persecution. Yeah right.
This Is Fine: Average Salary Required to Own a Home Increased 80.5% Under Biden – Twitchy
The Left, along with the enabling Never-Trumpers, have created the existential crisis they claim Christians on the Right have created. The Left, along with the Never-Trumpers, have created a Constitutional crisis just like what happened before the Civil war. Our country has been exposed to great evil, incompetence, and risk under Joe Biden and the Democrats with the help of the Never-Trumpers who put them in power.
We are told that Christian Nationalism poses “a threat to democracy!” This is projection and a lie. It is the Democrats who are putting political opponents in jail. It is the Democrats who wanted to take Trump off the ballot. It is the Democrats who stole the 2020 election and are working to steal the 2024 election.
15 Secretaries Ignore Subpoenas While Refusal Lands Bannon In Jail (thefederalist.com)
Tell me, is it the Christians who are in control of things or is it the Progressives who taken over every aspect of society with their long march through the institutions? Progressive Christians write against Christians who oppose them calling them an “extremist threat.” But Christians working against Progressivism’s lies and authoritarian ways are not “a threat to democracy!”
Given that it’s an election year, Democrats and Never-Trumpers will unleash every tactic under the sun to disrupt the 2024 election. See the above for a sample. They are franticly trying to keep Trump out of the White House. Trump will take apart the administrative state that rules every inch of our lives, that so enjoys having rule over every inch of our lives.
Who will the Never-Trumpers vote for this November? Will they vote or stay home? Will they vote for the continued destruction of America and more of the Biden regime. Will they vote for neo-con Nikki Haley and more wars? If they vote solely on the basis of character, as they say they do, then who will they vote for? Is there someone who looks and talks Evangelical like the stiff Mike Pence? Ron DeSantis?
It seems that elite Christians, of either political stripe, spend their days with their tribe and in their bubble. And it seems they believe themselves to be the voice of reason, pluralist, inclusive, and magnanimous to a fault. Next to the Trump they portray they come across as good little Christians. And that is why they are loved by the Left and paraded thru MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, NYT, etc. They are controlled opposition.
The image consultants of Build Back Better Evangelicalism have no clue about us Hobbits. They view people from top down – not as one of them. Middle America has been ghosted by them.
God works in mysterious ways, but the elites – the scribes and Pharisees of Christianity – proscribe ways, fundamentalist ways, that God must not work. How sad! My Lord doesn’t need image management. And I don’t need their sanctimonious scolding.
~~~~~
Are people now afraid to put the American flag in front of their home out of fear people will think them patriotic and Christian and nationalist? Fear is the psyop produced by the Left to get people to back off love of their country. Progressives along with Globalist-dominionists have plans for you. Totalitarians include, as I have written about, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Democratic party.
“If you grew up in the 21st century, all you know is our current hangdog, ashamed, self-conscious country, embarrassed by its own shadow, tail between its legs, stooping and supplicating, begging everyone’s forgiveness for its sins.
“But if you were fortunate to have experienced any of the last few decades of the 20th, then you know: it was not always thus! The national vibe (until quite recently!) was cool confidence bordering on arrogance.”
American Swagger – Peachy Keenan’s Extremely Domestic
Independence Day is Thursday. Put your flag out.
Patriotic picture of the day
“After a windstorm last July, the flag in front of our home got flipped up and stuck on the flagpole. My boyfriend, an Air Force veteran, went outside to untangle it. About 15 minutes later, I realized he was still there, admiring the flag and watching the cars go by. I grabbed my camera and took this photo from our kitchen window. My boyfriend had no idea until he came inside, but now he thinks it’s just as idyllic as I do.” —Michele Garrant, Mooers Forks, New York
~~~~~
Evangelicals, after all, have made heroes of those who have smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain, who have sought to evangelize tribes that met them with arrows, and who have engaged in bait-and-switch campaigns closer to home, such as “study skills seminars” offered on college campuses or “neighborhood clubs” hosted in summertime backyards that conclude with an unadvertised gospel call.
The ultimate end of winning souls justifies a sometimes-startling variety of means. One might wonder to what extent this tradition of pragmatic ethical bargaining has enabled evangelicals to support Donald Trump.
Evangelical support for Trump continues to be wildly inconsistent with some basic Christian values. It is also, however, consistent with a combination of fear and exceptionalism—along with a flexible pragmatism—that has been part of the story of American evangelicalism going back to its seventeenth-century roots.
Donald Trump and the Exceptions of American Evangelicalism – The University of Chicago Divinity School (uchicago.edu)
~~~~~
The Left Doesn’t Want You to See What You See
Remember Build Back Better and the Inflation Reduction Act?
The Biden Economy Image Consultants want us to believe Trump will be a disaster for the economy.
But, The Nobel Laureates Strike Out | City Journal (city-journal.org)
Modern Monetary Theory employed by the Biden Regime has created the massive debt and inflation that we and our children and grandchildren must live with.
“Most Americans believe it is unhinged to deliberately destroy the border and allow 10 million illegal aliens to enter the country without background audits, means of support, any claims to legal residency, and definable skills. And worse still, why would federal authorities be ordered to release repeat violent felons who have gone on to commit horrendous crimes against American citizens?
“Equally perplexing to most Americans is borrowing $1 trillion every 90 days and paying 5-5.5% interest on the near $36 trillion in ballooning national debt. Serving that debt at current interest exceeds the size of the annual defense budget and may soon top $1 trillion in interest costs, or more than 13% of the budget. . .
“The Biden years did the country great damage and rendered Biden himself one of the most unpopular incumbent presidents in American history. But his agendas may have fundamentally changed the country for decades, if not longer—and will require tough remedies that may be almost as unpopular as the wreckage they wrought.” – Victor Davis Hanson
The Logic in All the Madness – Victor Davis Hanson
~~~~~
The Character of The Lincoln Project:
21 Men Accuse John Weaver, Lincoln Project Co-Founder, of Online Overtures and Harassment – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Inside the Lincoln Project: Claims of harassment, sexism, ‘toxic’ workplace (usatoday.com)
Lincoln Project founders knew of alleged harassment months before they claimed (usatoday.com)
Anti-Trump ‘Lincoln Project’ Paid $35,000 to Hackers. (thenationalpulse.com)
Lincoln Project, Co-Founded by ‘Predator’ John Weaver, Funded ‘Bloodbath’ Hoaxsters MeidasTouch. (thenationalpulse.com)
The Lincoln Project: Leadership
Regarding Steve Bannon going to prison:
~~~~~
Water, Rural Rage, and Popular Classes
June 13, 2024
Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler talk about the California water madness, the Gaza pier bust, white rural rage hoax, and why the international leftists hate the popular classes.
Water, Rural Rage, and Popular Classes – Victor Davis Hanson (victorhanson.com)
Home – VDH’s Blade of Perseus (victorhanson.com)
Biography – VDH’s Blade of Perseus (victorhanson.com)
Read this instead:
The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart: Carl, Jeremy: 9781684514588: Amazon.com: Books
The Unprotected Class – Chronicles (chroniclesmagazine.org)
No wonder, then, that we should expect some sort of similar hoax to arise before the 2024 election. Do not be surprised when told of a “secret” Trump plan uncovered to round up critics in 2025 and send them to “camps,” or lurid revelations about “evidence” that Trump is in worse physical and mental shape than is a debilitated Biden, or some fantastic MAGA plot to implement “voter suppression,” or allegations that the Trump campaign’s “dark money” involves “collusion,” “disinformation,” and “sinister foreign actors.”
How Left-wing Conspiracies Work – Victor Davis Hanson (victorhanson.com)
~~~~~
Watch Young Voters Explain Why They’re Walking Away From Joe Biden and the Democrats (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
I said this would happen:
Outrage as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Declares Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis
The Democracy-Challenged
April 27, 2025 Leave a comment
The Confederacy of coastal and globalist elites, networked with the deep state blob, the media, the federal courts, controlled-opposition Christians, and other useful idiots, is threatened by a turn to common sense normal that ignores their “expertise” and instead affirms America, Americans, and the law. Trump’s election, by a vast margin, exposed the Confederacy of coastal and globalist elites et al as Democracy-challenged.
Not to be outdone by the rancor of David Brooks promoting a hostile takeover of the country in the NYT (see previous post) because Brook’s “normal” doesn’t include Trump and MAGA voters, comes another columnist for The New York Times who has wet himself – his “normal” is being exorcised by Trump.
Thomas L. Friedman says “I Have Never Been More Afraid for My Country’s Future – GV Wire. He goes on to make ridiculous statements. I’ll address a few of these:
First Friedman: “. . .when [Trump] singles out coal miners for praise while he tries to zero out development of clean-tech jobs from his budget — in 2023, the U.S. wind energy industry employed approximately 130,000 workers, while the solar industry employed 280,000 — it suggests that Trump is trapped in a right-wing woke ideology that doesn’t recognize green manufacturing jobs as “real” jobs. How is that going to make us stronger?”
First Reply: Something that must have had Friedman shaking in his booties:
Biden admin quietly admits canceling Keystone XL Pipeline cost thousands of jobs, billions of dollars
The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.
The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.
But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline’s permits, effectively shutting the project down. (Emphasis mine.)
How did being trapped in a left-wing “Green” ideology make us stronger, Thomas?
Friedman is worried about “Green” job cuts under Trump. But, let’s look at recent history posted on the U.S. Ways and Means website: Biden-Harris Record: Job Losses for Small Business While Adding More Government Bureaucrats.
Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Jason Smith, 9/24: “A stumbling job market is a part of the price Americans are paying as the Federal Reserve tries to clean up the inflation crisis created by the Biden-Harris Administration’s runaway spending.” (Emphasis mine.)
“-Smallest Businesses Cut Jobs: Small businesses employing less than 10 people cut 43,100 jobs in the last year (Intuit Quickbooks Small Business Index)
“-More Part-Time Jobs: Since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration in January 2021, 1.7 million more Americans have had to take multiple jobs. In August alone, 264,000 more Americans took on part-time work for economic reasons.
“-More Bureaucrats: Since the Biden-Harris Administration began, 30 percent of new jobs have come from hiring for government salaries. In August, government agencies added 24,000 to taxpayer-funded payrolls.
“-No “Manufacturing Boom”: In August, manufacturers cut another 24,000 jobs and the United States has shed 14,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year.”
Was Thomas L. Friedman never “more afraid for America’s future” then?
What about when transportation secretary Buttigieg had $7.5 billion at his disposal to install EV charging stations around the U.S. from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, but only managed to complete a few dozen projects. Where did money and jobs go?
Regarding Green energy and Coal: From the Institute For Energy Research:
President Trump has signed executive orders to boost the coal industry, which once was the backbone of the U.S. generating system. Despite coal’s ability to provide reliable baseload power, massive subsidies and state mandates have resulted in significant solar and wind power additions that are causing grid instability. To protect the grid and to help meet rising electricity demand from AI data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrency, President Trump is using emergency powers to keep existing coal plants online. He is also reopening western lands to coal leasing, looking to name metallurgical coal as a critical mineral, and ordering the attorney general to investigate states that have implemented laws against fossil fuel use so that the federal government could waive those rules. (Emphasis mine.)
What should be obvious by now is that intermittent wind and solar power don’t meet the needs for baseload power – the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time. Green energy options certainly will not meet the need for AI data centers. I favor clean nuclear power as do those behind the rise of AI.
Trump, by signing EOs to boost the coal industry, is keeping the lights on. He is working to grow industry, and preparing for the future job growth at home, not globally.
A week after boasting it had achieved 100% renewables energy power for the first time, Spain’s power grid suffered a crippling blackout, along with Portugal’s. Apparently, this was due to over-reliance on what are always fluctuating power sources vs. the base power that comes from fossil fuels, nuclear, or storage batteries. (Emphasis mine.)
Have You Built Your “Grid” Correctly? | ZeroHedge
Friedman is an open borders globalist and is well aware of coal pollution mitigation. He should criticize China (instead of pestering trump) for China’s enormous use of coal. The U.S. has 204 operational coal-powered plants that use coal pollution mitigation. China has 1,161 apparently without coal pollution mitigation.
Second Friedman: “This whole Trump II administration is a cruel farce. Trump ran for another term not because he had any clue how to transform America for the 21st century. He ran in order to stay out of jail and to get revenge on those who, with real evidence, had tried to hold him accountable to the law. I doubt he has ever spent five minutes studying the workforce of the future.”
Second Reply: This statement is beyond idiotic. It is demonstrably false and comes from a bitter bully.
Here, Freidman shows that he doesn’t have a clue about the historic economic boom of Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump achieved significant economic growth, creating nearly 4 million jobs and reducing the unemployment rate to its lowest in 50 years. He also implemented major tax reforms, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which provided substantial tax relief for middle-class families and businesses.
“Real evidence”? Another deep state media talking point that is an utter lie. The lawfare against Trump was all manufactured to keep him out of office. The lawsuits came about, then and now, because the deep state “normal” with its control of information and citizens was being affected, not for lawlessness.
After his first term, which was continually beset by attempts to render Trump and “Democracy!” ineffective, Trump, in his 70s, could have stayed home and enjoyed golf and avoided lawfare and two assassination attempts and all of the hassle.
Instead, like Cincinnatus, Trump returned from the feild to save the country from the managed decline “normal” that mealy-mouthed people like David Brooks and Thomas Freidman want to maintain.
Third Friedman: “By attacking our closest allies — Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea and the European Union — and our biggest rival, China, at the same time he makes clear he favors Russia over Ukraine and prefers climate-destroying energy industries over future-oriented ones, the planet be damned, Trump is triggering a serious loss of global confidence in America.”
Third Reply: Hyperbolic BS. “Attacking our closest allies”? A U.S. president should put the U.S. first, as do the nations mentioned above. The U.S., to advance America’s interests abroad, should not be a soft touch for anyone. The world is changing, away from globalist preening.
Trump favors peace not Ukraine or Russia. And, shouldn’t the U.S. pull Russia away from uniting with China? Shouldn’t we isolate China so the CCP falls under its own debt?
Perhaps Friedman is terrified because the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is calling for a long overdue overall of the State Dept.:
Today America confronts a new era of great power competition and the rise of a multipolar order with a State Department that stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests.
Have you heard about the corrupt USAID working against U.S. interests including free speech? Have you heard about the out-of-control Department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that [the Sec. of State] shuttered last week?
The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President of the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing “the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.” Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed.
There are internal and external forces at work to destroy America. Trump and his administration are working to overturn the losses and managed decline of America and America’s own confidence in itself so weakened by nihilist cultural Marxists and grandiose globalist elites who invite in all kinds multicultural crap.
Fourth Freidman: “While Trump is doing his “weave” — rambling about whatever strikes him at the moment as good policy — China is weaving long-term plans.”
Fourth Reply: Yeah, China is “weaving long-term plans.” It’s called world domination. Trump and his administration know this. That is why the changes at the Panama Canal and that’s why the tariffs – to stop China from taking advantage of us.
I listen regularly to the Zoom webinar series put on by the Committee on the Present Danger of China.
The mission of the Committee on the Present Danger: China is to help defend America through public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers posed by the People’s Republic of China. As with the Soviet Union in the past, Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom—one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat.
Americans would be more informed by listening to this series than by anything Thomas Freidman has to say.
Fifth Friedman: “But Trump’s constant bluster and his wild on-and-off imposition of tariffs are not a strategy — not when you are taking on China on the 10th anniversary of Made in China 2025. If Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent really believes what he foolishly said, that Beijing is just “playing with a pair of twos,” then somebody please let me know when it’s poker night at the White House, because I want to buy in. China has built an economic engine that gives it options.”
Fifth Reply: China has options because China has infiltrated the U.S. – its institutions, its land, its finances. China steals innovation from the U.S. and sends it home where it is replicated. Wall Street helps China steal America.
Instead of blustering in the former paper of record, Freidman should have listened to this webinar:
Trump’s America First Investment Policy vs. Wall Street’s China First One: Say ‘No’ to the CATL I.P.O.
Last month, President Trump told his administration to implement an “America First Investment Policy” to stop Wall Street’s underwriting – and greatly intensifying – the threat we face from Communist China.
This month, four prominent U.S. investment banks are defying his executive action by ramping up their China First investment policy. J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are helping a Chinese military company called CATL raise $7 billion dollars or more from American investors.
They have so far failed to mention President Trump’s directive, let alone its potential negative impact on the value of this foreign adversary’s corporation and its securities.
Sixth Friedman: “The world is now seeing Trump’s America for exactly what it is becoming: a rogue state led by an impulsive strongman disconnected from the rule of law and other constitutional American principles and values.”
And, “[Trump] is undermining our sacred rule of law, he is tossing away our allies, he is undermining the value of the dollar and he is shredding any hope of national unity. He’s even got Canadians now boycotting Las Vegas because they don’t like to be told we will soon own them.
“So, you tell me who’s playing with a pair of twos.
“If Trump doesn’t stop his rogue behavior, he’s going to destroy all the things that made America strong, respected and prosperous.
“I have never been more afraid for America’s future in my life.”
Sixth reply: Who in the “world’ is seeing Trump as you do Thomas? The impulsive rogues of the Blob? The Deep State media? Moral elitists who write in The Atlantic? Globalists who want to continue the plunder of America? Federal district court judges disconnected from the rule of law?
Yeah, Trump is different than the money-laundering Joe Biden, who sold off and told off America, and the infinitely pliable Kamala Harris, so amenable to NYT’s “enlightenment.”
“Undermining the rule of law?” Freidman, it is the federal district judges who pretend to have executive authority over the president that are undermining the rule of law.
Article II of the Constitution says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
(Amy Coney Barrett – please stop being a soft-touch Catholic social justice warrior and professor at Notre Dame. You clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia! Get your head out of your you-know-what and Reread the Constitution! Get back to originalism!)
“Tossing away our allies”? C’mon. Our allies need to see a strong America and not a subset of One World Marxist handlers. And, what about tossing away $189 billion in military assets to the Taliban and leaving 13 Americans dead in Afghanistan? That is what Biden, Blinken, Milly, and Austin did. How do our allies see this? Should we return to that “normal” way of thinking, Thomas?
“Undermining the value of the dollar”?
Let’s start here. Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen left the U.S. with $7 trillion in USTs due this year.
To service our national debt, our government must now offer Treasury Bills at a higher interest rate to attract buyers. The higher interest rate affects our entire economy from car payments to mortgages to credit cards. The mishandling of the U.S. economy by the elites our budgets are well aware of.
Here’s a coherent perspective on the dollar:
Some believe Donald Trump’s economic policies are designed to end the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. Scott Bessent clears up such misinformation, affirming the dollar’s status as the reserve currency. In Trump’s Economic Revolution, we opined on the long-standing Bretton Woods Agreement that made the dollar the reserve currency and how Trump may be steering away from some of the “rules” that evolved since the agreement was signed in 1944.
The agreement and its unwritten rules are economically unsustainable. Trump is rightfully taking action to change them. However, that doesn’t mean he intends to change the dollar’s status as the reserve currency. As we summarized in the article mentioned above:
The dollar will likely remain the world’s reserve currency as no reasonable alternative exists. However, the unspoken agreements and promises surrounding the global economy may change drastically.
And another perspective: Bessent Says Recent Decline in the Dollar Is a Natural ‘Adjustment’
And, there’s this. DOGE is working:
US Treasury Unexpectedly Reports Sharp Drop In Debt Borrowing Needs, Rates Slide
“Shredding any hope of national unity”? You mean like when Joe Biden called half the nation “extremists”? Did you rah-rah that, Thomas?
“Canadians now boycotting Las Vegas”? Who cares. Fix the trade imbalance here, there and, everywhere. Bring manufacturing jobs home Apple.
There are so many Deep State media talking points echoed in in this article, so much blather, that I can’t address it all without making this post unbearably long.
It’s time for David Brooks and Thomas L. Freidman to put on big boy pants and stop whining like petulant little children who didn’t their Harris way the last election. Grow up!
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Government of the elites, by the elites, for the elites. Hence, the urgent calls for civil war and Color Revolution. Hence the encouragement of dark woke and talk that nods and winks at people taking matters into their own hands!
Far-left Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) is calling for mass demonstrations and mobilization with the intention to “punish” Republicans. The extreme language is being seen by some as a return to the violent political rhetoric that resulted in two assassination attempts on President Donald J. Trump last year.
Dem Governor Urges Mass, Extreme Protests Against Trump and GOP.
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A high school English teacher in Waterville, Maine identified as JoAnna St. Germain is being investigated by federal authorities officials after posting a series of extreme and disturbing messages on social media calling for violence against supporters of former President Donald Trump.
St. Germain doubled down on her comments, declaring, “I have zero shame about what I’ve said. I’m not backtracking a single thing. I believe Trump and every sycophant around him needs to die.” (Emphasis mine.)
A Maine female high school teacher is under investigation by federal authorities after calling on the Secret Service to assassinate President Trump
The coastal and globalist elites expected to continue the overthrow of the U.S. and the enslavement of U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants to their dictates and policies so that full-blown communism would take hold.
It is not surprising: Democrats Talk About Illegal Immigrants The Same Way They Used To Talk About Slaves:
“We need immigrants in this country,” Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Thursday during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing. “Our vegetables would rot in the ground if they weren’t being picked by many immigrants — many illegal immigrants.”
[Jerry] Nadler’s remarks recall the Democratic party’s past reasoning for supporting slavery. Federalist Senior Editor Mark Hemingway pointed out that Democrats in 1823 were backing slavery because if there were no slaves, “Who would pick our cotton?” Today, Democrats are making the argument that low-wage working illegal migrants are necessary to pick “our vegetables.”
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“This will Change Everything You Know… | Victor Davis Hanson”
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The Madness That Is The Green New Deal – Burning Coal To Clear The Air
GND Central Planning:
The Green New Deal and its accompanying legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act—have been based upon the belief that government agents can identify problems and impose solutions by directing resources through command-and-control. While their system gives a nod to prices and private ownership, at best, the organizational structure would resemble what came out of Italy and Germany in the 1930s, or Fascism. Profits and market prices don’t guide that system; indeed, the organizers of the GND and the IRA see profits and market prices as hindrances to their plans, for they represent the capitalist scourge of placing profits above people. . .
The Green New Deal has not failed because of a lack of political will or because government regulators were too good at their jobs. It failed because it is based upon a socialistic model of command-and-control akin to the former Soviet Union.
Whatever Happened To The Green New Deal? | ZeroHedge
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So Trump was right all along to use the Alien Enemies Act on Venezuela’s state-linked Tren de Aragua – American Thinker
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Filed under 2024 Election, 2025 Current Events, cultural Marxism, Economics, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with 2024 Election, Amy Coney Barrett, China, Donald Trump, economy, Geopolitics, John Roberts, NYT, politics, progressivism, Thomas L. Freidman, Trump