God’s hand is on him
… according to Sarah Posner, the author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump, Falwell’s influence has been overestimated.
“His fall does not change anything. Trump has built relationships with the evangelical base and the religious right leadership in Washington, and they see him as their saviour – God’s hand is on him, he has come to save America at this critical juncture,” she said.
But why? Why? Even if you accept the God thing and the hand thing and the saving thing, why would God put the hand on Trump? Of all people? As some kind of sadistic joke? Because that’s about the only way it makes any sense.
Why wouldn’t god put the hand on a good person?
What can possibly be the point of a god putting the hand on a monster of selfishness and cruelty and sheer vulgarity like Trump? I can certainly see a point to putting the hand on someone outwardly insignificant or even repellent, but I fail to see the point of doing it to someone who is evil and monstrous in every way and all the way down.
Also he’s filthy rich, also he’s filthy rich via corruption and theft and not paying workers, so…? What’s the lesson here?
I know, there’s some perverse prodigal son type formula according to which the worse he is the bigger the redemption or some such shit, but I spit on it. At that rate god’s hand must have been on Hitler and Stalin, so I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it.
.
Well, according to his own publicity, the Old Testament god is a bit of an egotistical dick, with his jealousy of other gods, the omnicide of The Flood, and all the other smiting; so there is that. Like attracts like. Maybe Yahweh shares Trump’s shitty judgement in whom he hires to work with him. Once Trump flames out, god can say “I never met the guy, I barely knew him.”
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1203767083487678467
The 7 deadly sins are Donnie Dipshit personified. It’s so absurd, and no, I don’t accept the God thing, hand thing, or the saving thing, despite my limited understanding of it. For someone possessing zero so-called ‘Christian Values’, it’s truly a wonder he has anyone fooled, except fools I suppose. Makes for good satire, where’s Monty Python when we need them?
Seeing a difference between evangelicals and trump is a mistake. They are cut from the same cloth. He pretends to legitimate and so do they. Neither are. There should be no question that these two should get along and function together. The idea of a god is merely used to foster the evangelical leaders’ wealth gathering and the idea of the presidency is used to foster the wealth gathering of trump, his family and the other republicans that shore him up.
@4 I agree, they are scammers, good comparison. They not only pretend to be legitimate, they pretend to be good people. They are not good people by any description of virtuous available.
What’s wrong with spinach :(
Holms @6: My thought exactly. I had spinach for lunch, and it was wonderful.
Steven @2, I do think Christians are about morality, but their definition of morality is skewed. Morality (at least in the Bible and much of the early Christian literature) is all about believing in Yahweh. Believe in the right god, and that makes you a good person. Of course, some people do believe works are part of it, but not everyone.
Christians are able to see child abuse as moral – not sparing the rod. Christians for a long time saw slavery as the moral choice. Christians for a long time (and many of them still) saw the moral choice as a woman belonging to a man and not having any say about things.
Why in the world would we expect any Christian to be a moral leader today?
Because evangelicals care more about your verbal obedience than your actual conduct. They don’t really mind if you engage in all sorts of “sinful” conduct, as long as you don’t try to justify it when you’re caught.
A man who has cheated on three wives and paid for multiple abortions may be a sinner. But in their eyes, he’s not nearly as bad as the man who has never cheated or been involved in an abortion, but who publicly says that abortion is morally fine and that sex between consenting adults is nobody else’s business. That man (or woman) is directly confronting their moral claims, and is a threat.
The hypocrisy doesn’t bother them much, because in their eyes, it’s just “the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”
Yes but do they not even care about everyday kindness? Do they really prefer people who constantly bully and insult everyone within reach? People who rejoice when the children of asylum seekers die miserably on the floors of holding pens?
Note that the “7 deadly sins” don’t even touch this. The deadly 7 aren’t the worst sins at all; they’re not even close. Cruelty and its cognates aren’t even on the list.
Oh and the spinach thing – I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it – it’s an old tag line from the 30s. From a New Yorker cartoon possibly?
Yes, the New Yorker.
Spinach identified broccoli? ;)
From what I can tell from reading things written by Evangelical Trump supporters, those who value kindness and ordinary civility believe Trump is normally both. He’s nice, and he’s honest — a little rough around the edges, of course, but with a good heart. That’s in private, and with family, friends, and people like them. In public, he’s tough when he needs to be — and fierce in defense of the Unborn, Christian values, and the United States.
They do what they always do: interpret the hell out of it, seeing what they want to see and mistaking what they’ve imagined for what really happened. The Bible, miracles, a loving God who created Hell — they’ve had practice. And Trump is “one of them.”
I think of these kinder Evangelical Trump supporters as being like the mother of a vicious, cruel criminal who’s been arrested for something heinous. “No … my Donny is a good boy. He didn’t do it. He didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident; he was pushed; he was trying to help someone; he’s got a bit of a temper and it would have blown over; he’s been hanging with a bad crowd, is what. He’s normally so sweet and polite. A mother knows her own son.”
And they also believe Trump is godly, when he so obviously isn’t. I know, being nasty doesn’t mean you’re an atheist, and being an atheist doesn’t mean you’re nasty. I’m not even sure Trump is a non-believer; I think he believes either that he is special to god, or is god. But he isn’t godly; he doesn’t know any more about religion than he does about…well, anything else…and I doubt he has seen the inside of a church for years. The Bible is a cipher to him, and he certainly doesn’t know the ‘sophisticated theology’ believers are so fond of throwing at us when we defeat their more everyday beliefs. He also doesn’t know anything about the everyday beliefs of ordinary people that they like to throw at us when we defeat their sophisticated theology! In short, he isn’t godly because he doesn’t “do God”. But they look past that, and see him as a man of god because…well, because the so-called nice evangelicals have some problems, too, especially where abortion and gay rights are concerned.
From what I see on Christian websites, it’s because he makes a show of being against abortion and he validates their self-image of being persecuted. So long as he keeps that up, they’ll forgive him anything and hand-wave away his defects.
It is of course possible that the amount of ‘Godliness’ bestowed on Trump by the evangelicals is in direct proportion to the amount of money he may donate (or promises to donate) to their churches.
I’m not saying that he does give them money, but let’s be honest here, those smart churches and pastors’ Cadillacs don’t buy themselves.
Trump is godly because he tells the godly what they want to hear. He’s on their side, so he must be godly too. It’s not that god is speaking through him, it’s that being a member of their particular god club is a large part of how they justifify having terrible beliefs and desires about how other people should be treated. They share these beliefs and desires and they know they’re all good and moral people because they are godly.
The actual god part is incidental, which is why so many Christians:
a) Know so little about the Bible and what it actually says, and
b) So often gleefully embrace behaviour that wouldn’t be seen as godly (or at least, Jesusy) by an outside observer.
So when Trump stokes their fears of (say) people with darker skin and then soothes them by (say) promising or implementing racist policies, the occasional unconvincing reference to god takes away the squeams.
I think there’s also an element of something we’ve spoken about here before. Just as all GC feminists are painted with the Nazi brush whenever Piers Morgan accidentally says something that isn’t stupid, Trump must himself be entirely godly if he has some of the same desires and motivations of mainstream Christians. There are no half measures any more.