[Iowa] Evangelicals on Trump: "God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker,' so God gave us Trump."
[Iowa] Evangelicals on Trump: "God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker,' so God gave us Trump."
In the 2016 caucus, religious voters in the state stayed away from Donald Trump. They've since become a vital part of his base.
The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump's standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.
doesn't the Bible specifically warn about people like Trump?
For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
— 2 Timothy 3:2–5, English Standard Version
Get out of here with your pinko agenda. What are you, some kind of long haired, bleeding-heart, sharey fairy, hippie, Jew?
Behold: The supply-side Jesus.
Yes, but it doesn't matter, these people don't read the Bible. For them, it's just an excuse to do whatever it is they're doing.
Yes, but it doesn’t matter, these people don’t read the Bible.
They do read the Bible though, at least in my experience. I've gone to a number of different churches, Evangelical and otherwise, and the Evangelical or otherwise Calvinist folks were the ones that read the Bible the most and in the most detail — but perhaps also the ones who came to horrible conclusions the most often. Like that you should shine the light of Christ into the world by blocking women for promotion at your job, because 1 Tim 2:12 says that Paul does not permit them to have authority over men. (Real example, if possibly the worst one I've seen.) Maybe my experience is not representative, but I don't think the problem is primarily that Evangelicals don't read the Bible.
I have a long theory about some of the ways that Evangelicalism distorts Scripture, but one root of the issue is that (IMHO) Scripture was written by humans, reflects the biases of the authors and their societies, and has a lot of horrible things in it. If you take a sola scriptura view and then read it through a lens that's been cultivated over years to reinforce patriarchy and supremacy (see e.g. Manifest Destiny, the curse of Ham, etc) then you will end up absorbing the genocidal and supremacist bits and not the hospitable and altruistic bits.
For them, it’s just an excuse to do whatever it is they’re doing.
For sure. People don't want to repent. They want to find justifications for what they were already doing, or planning to do.
In the case of the creator of the video, they literally don't.
The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, characterizes himself as Christian and a man of faith but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church.
Source, which then links to a video also on the NYTimes.
"There's a portion of the evangelical community that's very attracted to the idea that God knows everything and God appoints leaders," he said. "They believe that Donald Trump is the appointed leader at this moment in time."
"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."
-- Romans 13:1 NIV
Except, of course, if the current leader is a Democrat.
A key line for me ...
"Would you rather have someone whose tongue is maybe a little wild, but has incredibly good policies that make your life better?" he asked the congregation. "Or someone who has a silver tongue and says all the right things and has terrible policies which ruin your life and those of your children and grandchildren?"
Partly out of confirmation bias as I've been saying this since before his victory in 2016 and highlighting it as the thing lefty/intellectual/"elites" don't get about his appeal. Trump hits the "right" buttons while his wildness, lack of "refinement" and apparent sense-making are all features. So many want "change" ... Trump is "change", right from his personal nature and demeanour.
Another ...
And he said that the decline in church attendance over time had meant that many of those who considered themselves religious were less influenced by spiritual leaders and more by right-wing media and politicians - Mr Trump foremost among them.
Oh ... JFC!! I suppose this is a good predictor of how the west collapses. Deepening class separation across all spheres of civil life allowing chaotic manipulation by demagogues. Can't help but think of the fall of the Roman Republic and Dune here. Also can't help but think that the whole Hitchens/Dawkins anti-religion thing, which feels like it got a bit old for the mainstream, really has an essentially important fundamental point ... as a whole type of institution and cultural phenomenon, it may simply not be worth it on the whole.
So many want “change” … Trump is “change”, right from his personal nature and demeanour.
Back in 2016 when Trump as sill "new" I fell very squarely into this. I was still too young to vote and had just started learning about politics. Looking at both major parties all I saw was people who didn't care about normal people, politicians that seemed too involved in the political game to actually get anything done. I remember seeing Trump as a kinda of wild card that would hopefully stir things up enough to hopefully get something done. That someone removed from the traditional nepotism in politics could make real changes.
Unfortunately that's not what happened, and not really how any of this works. It seems like his presidency just made new problems, and all the old ones still persist.
Thanks for the personal perspective!
On the new and old problems front, in-line with the article … I wonder how many don’t see it that way. Getting the Supreme Court to take down abortion for instance seems like a big one for some conservatives , like maybe “best president in our life time” big. Not just because of the decision itself, but also knowing that the Court is now on “their side”.
By the way: His rambling does make sense.
Informally many people do speak in half sentences, zig zagging on tangents, especially schizophrenics. It takes a lot of energy to follow if you are not used to it and Republicans think we are the stupid ones for not being able to follow.
Try to follow his much derided nuclear uncle speech. It isn't that hard when you give it a go.
The best description I've heard, is: "finally a politician who speaks his mind!"
What people don't realize, is that Trump doesn't really "speak his mind", like a schizophrenic would. His longer rambling tirades are actually rehearsed, while the shorter ones he's been practicing for decades since becoming a professional con man, to the point where they've become second nature.
It's all a smoke screen, very effective at fooling those less experienced. He's particularly talented at saying something, and the opposite, plus a tangent. Which is something an actual schizophrenic would never do, but a con man can use to first get people to only hear whatever each one prefers, then over time cherry pick those same words and spin them into any narrative that's best for themselves.
Or in other words, but the same, don't you love words:
The best and worst description I've heard, because hearing is important, is: finally, at the beginning of it all, when someone changes things, a politician like you and me, running the country like a business, who speaks his mind then shuts up, because respect is important, I respect that!
Yea. And in a way, Trumps greatest political achievement may be that he proved or materialised the "elitism" facade around US Democracy and Government. While previously, to many, especially urban and higher/"educated" class types, it might have just been a Fox News culture war wedge, with Trump and how "no one" saw him coming or understood his appeal, the whole elitist facade and the safe bubble many had taken for granted was revealed.
I'm not a very religious person. But if Jesus (the human being) could see what his followers have become, he would be disgusted. I don't know how they can read the bible and say that Trump is the sort of person it heralded. There is a major cognitive dissonance in the miswired brains of these 'evangelicals'.
I don’t know how they can read the bible and say that Trump is the sort of person it heralded
That's the neat part: they have never opened that book.
how they can read the bible and say [...]
With a blindfold in the shape of their favorite preacher. You can make any book say anything, if you only read the parts that say what you want.
That is the "beauty" of that book. It is self-contradictory. It can and has been used to justify anything. Almost everyone reads just the bits they like and ignore the rest. Taken as a whole it is on par for what you would expect from 2 millennia old shepherds. Not some divinely inspired work of absolute truth.
Their theology is as bad as their choice of political candidate. I cannot think of any other politician that embodies the "Seven Deadly Sins" in public/private life moreso than Mr. Trump. I honestly do not get how the same "conservatives" used to crow about character being of the highest importance for an officeholder/candidate during the 90s, can get on this godawful bandwagon. I still am a Christian and live my life rather "conservatively", but if this is what Christianity and Conservatism has become, it is no wonder the next generation is saying "Count me out...".
As discussed in the article, of was never really about religion. It was about rhetoric. The bar for Democrats to keep states like Iowa blue was so incredibly low, requiring only action. But none could be taken, and it will now be incredibly difficult to overcome this loss.
The bar for Democrats to keep states like Iowa blue was so incredibly low, requiring only action.
What would Democrats have had to do? Is there any chance that any sort of Evangelical appeal from a Democratic candidate wouldn't be appealing to the rest of the democratic voters?
It goes back, I don't know, 30 years? With both agricultural US and union areas (sometimes the same places) the Democratic party consistently expected those votes without actually delivering anything. Bill Clinton and the party get blamed for things like NAFTA and jobs moving to other countries, etc. So eventually these folks drift to the Republican party. Many of these people were broadly conservative anyways. Later, the religious aspects and toxicity of what started with Newt manifested to what we see now.
I don't know if an evangelical Democrat would fly now. It's a really bad situation with very entrenched beliefs.
God made herpes, and I don't want that, either.
Well God is an asshole then
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In 2016, Mr Trump picked up just 22% of this group on the way to a second-place finish behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who like previous Iowa Republican winners made faith a major part of his campaign.
But since that time, when many were still sceptical of the blunt-talking New York businessman trailed by sex scandals, Mr Trump has made born-again Christians a key part of his voter base.
Self-described conservative evangelical David Pautsch is a huge fan of Mr Trump, and the former president is part of the reason he's decided to run for Congress in Iowa's 1st district, challenging a Republican incumbent from the right.
Mr Pautsch lives here in Davenport, a city of around 100,000 people in eastern Iowa, and was collecting signatures to back his campaign from hundreds of locals who braved frigid weather to visit a gun show at an exhibition centre.
Kedron Bardwell, a political science professor at Simpson College in Indianola, just outside Des Moines, said that Mr Trump had a key advantage over his rivals - a track record that aligned with evangelical priorities.
His appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court - and the overturning of Roe v Wade, which for decades had held that there is a constitutional right to abortion - is a key part of that record, as is his decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
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Tell me you don't understand what either of those things are...
We must defeat these goddamnedfascists