Then, this email came in and did it for me:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NEW CHRISTIAN SONGWRITER TO MAKE AMERICA GREATER THAN EVER WITH DEBUT SINGLE
Hello Mark,
October 28, 2020
Simple Sam, the self-proclaimed Christian Conservative Bob Dylan, will release his debut single “American Heaven” on Friday, October 30th.Inspired by the current political and moral crisis, Simple Sam has set out to forever enshrine Donald J Trump, not only as a great American folk hero, but as a new saviour, whose conservative, patriotic values better align with American Christian society.
“[Donald] went to heaven just to expand the sales base; everybody’s getting a taste” sings Sam in the opening line of “American Heaven”, imagining the President’s benevolence going beyond the earthly.
After meeting President Trump outside of the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sam was emboldened to breathe life back into his dormant dreams as a singer-songwriter. He’s written what could be an anthem and a hymn for generations of Christian Conservatives to come.
Not for nothing have I called Trump a “dimestore antichrist”.
Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which the Greatest Catholics of All Time like to stand on while they harangue us about their superior orthodoxy, but seldom read:
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
Let’s be clear. I don’t think this is the End of Days. I don’t think Trump is The Antichrist. But I absolutely think Trump is an antichrist. Antichrists are a dime a dozen. There have been a zillion of them down through history. There was already a bumper crop of them when John wrote 2000 years ago, “as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 Jn 2:18).
Any fool who comes along promising you heaven on earth at the cost of ignoring Christ is an antichrist and Trump has predicated his entire play for Christian support on that. He led conservative Qhristians up an exceeding high mountain, showed them all the kingdoms of the earth, and said:
“Christianity will have power, without having to form. Because if I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power. You don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”
And MAGA Qhristians, by the millions, bowed down and worshipped him.
And they still do. They believe Eric Trump when he declares that Trump “literally saved Christianity“.
Why?
Because they do not believe Christianity has a Savior, so they had to create one. And the savior they created, as Simple Sam makes clear, is Donald Trump. If they lose him, they believe they are all alone in a godless universe that wants to destroy them. This is why they go for QANON nonsense too. They are godless, seeing only shadowy enemies everywhere, believing only in a demon-haunted world, but lacking the faith to believe in any savior bigger than the pathetic predator, Donald Trump. It is precisely this sort of thing Paul is warning about when he tells us to “no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles” (Eph 4:14). It is why he tells us to “no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph 4:17–18).
The tragedy I warned of four years ago is now at full tide in the American Church. Four years ago, white American conservatives, who fear the first, not the second death far too much, lied to themselves and the world that they were menaced by “persecution”, that Hillary was “Diocletian”, and Trump was the New Constantine.
They also lied to themselves that they would “hold Trump’s feet to the fire” and make sure he did good and not evil.
Then, they immediately undertook the process of whoring themselves out to defend every filthy lie, cruelty, and act of evil he committed, no matter how colossal or trivial. They have done that every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year since then. There nothing too petty, too sadistic, too transparently false, too treasonous, too stupid, too incompetent, too deadly, or too ridiculous, but that the MAGA Christians will not debase themselves to defend it. From sexual assault (“He’s just like King David!”) to spitting on troops living and dead as “losers” and “suckers” (“It’s Fake News!”) to the negligent homicide of 230K Americans (“LIBERATE MICHIGAN! FAUCI IS AN IDIOT! MASKS ARE OPPRESSION!”) there is nothing this deadly leader of the antichrist murder/suicide cult of death can say or do to dissuade the pride-filled worshippers of this false messiah that they are wrong.
Why?
Because abortion.
They lie to themselves with the blindness of the sin of pride that somehow backing this crook who raised Planned Parenthood funding to record heights that they are defending the unborn, when in reality they are only using the unborn as human shields to defend their real passion: building a moronic wall that they have now forgotten, kidnapping children into ICE rape camps, subjecting refugee women to mass sterilization, deporting children to countries they are not from to abandon them to being orphans forever, and abandoning the weak to a eugenics “herd immunity plan” that means letting millions get sick and die rather than the lazy moron interrupt his golf schedule. In short, their love is not life, but raw, nihilist, predatory power.
MAGA Qhristians have, for the idolatrous love of this evil false god, made themselves into the persecutors and committed themselves to a deadly selfishness in the image and likeness of Trump that will, by this time next year, have killed more Americans than the bloodiest war in our history. They have become the monsters they accused their enemies of being, and reaped nothing but the whirlwind. Screwtape prophesies of them when he tells Wormwood: “To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return–that is what really gladdens our Father’s heart.”
The greatest fear I had four years ago was not what Trump would do to America, but what he would do to the American Church. And for millions, he has done just what I feared: catalyzed like an enzyme the darkest fleshly impulses of their hearts. He has seduced them.
Jesus warns the Church, not against persecution, but against seduction. To the threat of gruesome persecution–real persecution, I mean, not butthurt whining about having to wear a mask or hear a clerk say “Happy Holidays”–Jesus takes an attitude something like insouciance:
You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death; you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. (Lk 21:16–18).
On the contrary, the real warning is against seduction and corruption:
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt 10:28).
The one who can destroy body and soul in hell is you. Others can help, of course–by seducing us. But at the end of the day, it’s up to us. You can listen to the voice of the tempter and make his lies your own or you can “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will from you” (James 4:7).
The tragedy of MAGA Qhristianity is simply this: that when the voice of the seducer sounded in its ears, it barely put up a fight and then swooned into his arms. Like a porn star seeking a sugar daddy, it glommed on to this con man with a will and remains at this hour, his most committed cult members.
And as long as he and his evil machine of mammon and nihilist power continue to feed that monstrous cult with the evil sacraments of money, glitz, acclamation, and right wing lie machine BS, that cult will continue to be a growing cancer in the Body of Christ, at war with the Holy Father, at war with the Magisterium, at war with the little ones of Christ, at war with the least of these, and at war with the Holy Spirit.
So I pray that its power suffers a shattering blow tomorrow, not only in the White House, but in Congress as well. And I pray we elect, not a hero, and still less a “savior” but a decent man: a human being who is a sinner, and a ordinary Catholic whose suffering and empathy and competence are the common clay from which God makes the human race.
For of course, Dems are not saviors and political power cannot save the world. But part of the lay mission is to fix the structure of sin in this world that make it hard to be good and create structures of solidarity that make it easier. That, not the Millennium, is what I hope for in tomorrow’s election.
Father, hear our prayer through Christ our Lord and not through any prince of men.
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54 Responses
So you are not afraid of a Harris presidency making the American church more comfortable with abortion, euthanasia and gender contortions, as well as decreased religious liberty? (Because you’re voting for Harris, not Biden. Biden will have to resign within a year for health reasons, obviously.) Have at it.
Not in the slightest. You are not a victim. Stop pretending you are. And stop swallowing QANON conspiracy garbage whole. It just make you dumber.
QAnon is about abortion, euthanasia and the equality act? Really? Do you have citations on that? What are you talking about? Does Biden strike you as a man who is going to be an energetic leader for the next four years? Really? Okay…..he can barely speak, Mark.
QANON is about your whack theory that Evil Brown Libs will take out Biden. And if you think Biden can “barely speak” it is clear that you drink QANON Koolaid. You are not a victim. Stop fantasizing and live in reality. As to euthanasia, it is your evil cult leader and your cult that advocate eugenics “herd immunity” to abandon millions to illness and death because you are too stupid to listen to competent doctors and get all your info from anti-vax whacks and hacks. You are accomplices to the mass murder of 230K Americans. May God defeat you and drive you from power through Christ our Lord.
Not persecuted _yet_. “Vote for Erich Hoenecker and the DKP to keep out Hitler and the NSDAP” is a rational strategy, but don’t pretend that Hoenecker and crew will be marvellous once in power: they’re just better than Hitler. “Not as bad as Trump” is a low bar.
Even on this blog we’ve seen “pro-choicers” like Ben (whatever happened to him?), eyes shining with glee, anticipating how they’re going to use the power of the state real soon to deal with those anti-choice doctors and nurses who refuse to perform abortions. Sorry, Mark,but they – not Sargent Shriver or Bob Casey Sr – represent the main energy now among the Democrats and/or the Left.
Like I said, supporting Biden/ Harris a sensible tactical move in the current circumstances but keep your eyes open about what you’re voting for. You were suckered in by the Christian Right a decade ago – lots of us were – but don’t fall off your horse the opposite side when you try to get back in the saddle.
Anybody who seriously thinks Biden is a tyrant has lost all right to be taken seriously. And given that Schriver and Casey are just as hated and feared by the MAGA Qatholic Freak Show that has lost all touch with reality, it is doubly hard to take any of this seriously. As I say, I don’t think of the Dems as messianic saviors. I never thought of the GOP that way either. This is a contest between Normals who know we are electing a decent mortal and a fanatical messianic freak show that thinks they are anointing a savior.
Twenty years ago:
“The GOP is dangerous. Reagan and Bush senior are prodding at racial resentments to get the white vote.”
Me (at the time):
“Oh, don’t be silly. Reagan and Bush senior seem like decent people. There’s no way a party they lead will stoke racial resentments. They’re just raising legitimate questions about welfare fraud and crime.”
Yet here we are.
Moral: things can shift quickly. Do you want to bet Joe Biden will be the one running things in 2028? Nothing to do with QAnon. He’ll be 86, even if he wins a second term. He’ll be the American Paul von Hindenburg.
But by all means, purge Trump, and soon. But be mindful that, while cancer is lethal, chemotherapy to flush it out has its own side-effects.
To reiterate, Mark, I agree with you that the prudent course – now, today in November 2020 – is for the centre to ally with the left, even the far left, to defeat the (increasingly far) right. But make sure the liaison you send to alliance strategy meetings is a Harry Truman or a Henry Jackson, not a Henry Wallace or an Edvard Beneš. Aim for a Berlin Airlift, not a Yalta. Because these people have an agenda that will sooner or later clash head-on with Catholic social teaching, albeit from a different direction than Trumpism right now.
Your church adjusts its level of comfort regarding certain issues, depending to the party affiliation of the president? crikey.
@ Tom R.
If it’s any consolation, I myself wouldn’t mind cheering for the GOP under new leadership. Perhaps. I am entirely flexible in such matters.
As for Hoenecker and Hitler: I prefer Bismarck and Adenauer.
@ Tom R.
PS: Ben the tyrannical gaytheist is still writing, just below my post.
@arte
Wow! tyrannical! I had no idea! Surely, you can list all of the tyrannical things i have recommended be done to Christians!
I am pretty sure that the worst I have ever suggested is that maybe you should keep your purely theological doctrines out of the civil law that governs all of us, focus on your own dam family and marriage and stay the hell out of mine, treat others as you would prefer to be treated as your lord commanded YOU, and stop thinking that your religious beliefs should “trump” mine.
total tyranny? Or just projection.
@TomR
Honey….
Please. Your caricature of me is as bad as my tyranny. And as made up.
you’re happy to tell gay people who want a cake, flowers, or a venue, “go find someone else who serves your kind.” Just as your good christians are happy to tell gay people “go work someplace else. We don’t want your kind here.”
And yet, you really hate it when someone says to an anti abortion doctor or pharmacist who refuses to do their jobs- why don’t you work someplace or at something more compatible with your religious beliefs. Which is all I EVER said, and all I ever WOULD say.
As Mark always says, accusation is projectipn.
@ Ben
Oh yeah, that was it. The generous, well-meaning instruction that an entire range of opinions should a priori be excluded from ever influencing public law. I almost forgot. Nothing tyrannical about this at all, folks.
On the other hand, it’s almost brilliant in its simplicity. I think it should be the new standard.
Coming soon in terms of thoughts that should never be allowed to influence civil law:
”purely gender ideology thoughts”
”purely atheist thoughts”
”purely coastal elite thoughts”
”purely other people’s thoughts”
@artevelde
Again, not what I am saying. The question is, why should your truly theological concerns, which basically boils down to “I believe that God said it. I believe it. And you better believe it too and that settles it.“ Have precedence over anybody else’s purely theological concerns?
I have an example: my marriage neither affects you nor your church in any demonstrable way other than to offend you, much as interracial marriages did until loving versus Virginia. as a tax paying, law-abiding, contributing member of society, my family, marriage, love, children, faith, freedom, and assets are every bit as important as yours. There are ministers, churches, and entire denominations that support my marriage for both theological and humane reasons, and they want to see their gay parishioners legally and religiously married. Why should your particular and peculiar beliefs about God’s message to the world, let alone gods meaning about marriage, have precedence over theirs or mine? That is not religious freedom, that is religious tyranny. As Mark says, accusation of confession.
But let’s pick another example, a little closer to home. There is an American fundamentalist family known as LaHaye. 40 years ago they were quite well known for claiming that the Catholic Church was “the red whore of Babylon”. It is not a viewpoint I have ever endorsed, nor would I. But they certainly did. So let us it’s supposed they wish to use the civil law that governs all of us as a means of oppressing Catholics, seeing as it was clear that the Catholic Church had sold its soul to the devil. The entire history of Europe between 1517 and roughly 1750 is writ large in the blood of that conflict. Both the Protestant and Catholic sides used the power of the state to cause much harm to the other as they possibly could. Purely theological concerns: does God want him number 666 sung in Latin or French question
What would be the difference? Well that one’s obvious — it’s your ox that’s getting gored.
This discussion we are having is absolutely no different. If you want your religious beliefs to be respected, then start respecting the religious beliefs of other people. Neither your church nor anyone else has a lock on what God thinks.
Beyond that, I don’t really care about your religious beliefs. But our current conflict in the United States, as well as a great deal with the conflict we have experienced in the last 160 years, can be directly correlated to the desire of some religionists to control the choices of everyone else. You would think that with your history in Europe,You would understand the danger of that. I certainly do
A. “Sorry, I don’t make cakes for gay weddings. There’s another one three doors down.”
“TYRANNY! HANDMAID”S TALE! I’m being oppressed!”
B. “Sorry, but you can no longer keep working as a doctor or a nurse if you won;t do abortions. Find another job. I hear digging ditches has vacancies. Too bad about those student loans for years of medical school.”
“Suck it up, theocrats! Performing abortions comes with working in medical school”
Yep, that’s why I really take Ben seriously as a constitutional thinker. He’s definitely got his priorities clearly sorted and holds a really coherent theory of equal liberty under law.
(One minor detail: I don’t actually support the cakes exemption. As mentioned several times, I hold the same position Mark does – no discrimination among customers in provision of services; freedom of speech in communication of messages – and the only full-on religious/ conscientious objection I support is for anything that involves shedding blood. So, yeah, I actually agree with “Bake that cake”, if not with “stick those scissors into the baby’s head” – I just find it very odd that “These ghastly fundoes would like to see me dead… they’d happily hang people like me from Boston yard if they could… they don’t think our lives matter… but still, I want to eat a wedding cake baked by these neo-Nazis” is a thing with Ben and the many people he, curiously, seems to represent).
“work someplace or at something more compatible with your religious beliefs.”
Okay. Who wants to take a bet that once she’s President, Kamala Harris will support abortion, infanticide and euthanasia exemptions for Catholic and other religious hospitals? Even if they don’t receive any public funds? Seriously. Step up, people, money on the table. Let’s see how long this “work someplace or at something more compatible with your religious beliefs” gambit lasts before it gets thrown aside as no longer tactically useful. My estimate is, about as long as “Don’t like abortions? Don’t have one” or “Free, safe, legal and rare”: https://www.vice.com/en/article/43k5db/tulsi-gabbards-stance-on-abortion-is-stuck-in-the-90s
@Gaudiatrix
Ben has a faith as strong as any Puritan. I have come to realize that he actually is convinced that his way is better for everyone. Such people, once they have thoroughly mixed their own wishes with what they think of as justice, find it remarkably easy to support tyranny.
I second your posts. Let it not be said that Biden-supporting Eurocommies are unreasonable.
@ arte and gaudi
Sorry, you’re both putting words in my mouth. This is my belief, yet again, as clearly as I can state it.
You have absolute freedom to live your religious life and believe whatever you want to believe, however you wish to do it. If someone were trying to prevent your real religious freedom, as opposed to the fake religious freedom that so many people seem to be marketing these days, this Puritan atheist communist socialist tyrant would be standing right by your side protest to the government that the government has no right to interfere in your religious beliefs.
Just keep it out of my life.
I have said nothing about Catholic hospitals. The rest of your rants are also nothing i have said or do say.
@ Ben
The problem is not that I do not understand you opinion, or that you are nor clear enough. I reject it.
@TomR
Like this maybe? I mean, with Mitch McConnell (Republicans too) ruling Kentucky for decades, the pro-life culture is well-entrenched there..
“Kentucky State Police quoted Hitler and encouraged cadets to be ‘ruthless’ in a training program” ( till 2013, all the current cop leaders in Kentucky were brought up on this)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/02/kentucky-state-police-hitler-slideshow/
“The training materials also include a quote from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee”
Pro- life GOP thuggery is the greatest. No wonder they are projecting their evil onto Democrats.
Lee’s quote is not out of place. There are many examples of speeches by military leaders that speak in the same vein, like Col. Tim collins in Iraq, or General Trull’s speech to the 14th Panzer Grenadier, Bundeswehr, both of which can be viewed on Youtube.
Two remarks though:
1. Military and police have different tasks, and should be taught differently.
2. The Hitlerian exchange of pity and mercy for ruthlessness should have no place in the heart of any Christian, whether soldier, police officer or civilian.
Hi Hector, I am sure it will be the work of a few seconds for you to trawl through comments on Mark’s blog to find something – anything – that I have said in support of Trump or the US Republican Party.
Go ahead, I’ll be here.
I must have missed the part where Kamala Harris threatened to flush Felicity’s religious liberties down the crapper before contorting her gender and euthanizing her to the Notre Dame Folk Choir’s rendition of “We are Called.” Doubtless Felicity can pony up the evidence of Harris’s nefarious intentions. I await while Biden’s share of the vote in the squeaker states ticks up up up.
Georgia tick tick tick … this is fun
“ Because do not believe Christianity has a Savior, so they had to create one. ”
You left out a word— they: Because THEY do not believe. I’m going to stay away from the comment I might write, because THAT is not a conversation I want to get into.
But leaving out that one word is germane to my point, and so I have to disagree. They created their savior long before Trumpdemort came on the scene. They see him every day in the mirror. They hear him every time they listen to some self proclaimed yawhew claim that he speaks for god, that god agrees with said yawhew, and if you don’t do what said yawhew says, the yawhew will hurt you, and badly.
It’s why they only like the parts of the bible they agree with, why god’s opinions match theirs. As i said to Taco the other day, it’s all there in the Book of Job. “The Trads care way more about sniffing out evil than finding good outside of their ivory towers. They are always looking for evil. It’s their favorite topic. They wonder why they see it everywhere.” I have a Lot of thoughts about that. There’s plenty of evil in the world. It’s not necessary to go looking for it. That they are always looking for it tells you a great deal about them. For myself, I think it’s all about religious megalomania: being just like God, being gods best friend, being powerful.
They see it everywhere precisely because it is their favorite topic— and because the mirror is all they see.
Don’t get too excited. It was a typo. I fixed it.
@ mark
I knew it was a typo. 😉😉😉
It
If at all I can think of anyone who embodies Catholicism today, it will be Dr Fauci. Not one of the Burkes, Dolans, or Little Sisters of the Poor, not any one wearing the cloth, comes anywhere close to this lay man in serving the truth.
And it’s not because the high and mighty did not have the chance to serve the truth. They chose to sell their soul for Wales.
There is no clearer example of Nietzsche’s will-to-power ethics than the USCCB today. The documented records of their Nov 2019 meeting, for updating the voting guidance for Catholics, is evidence enough. They killed their God and kissed up to Nietzsche there.
The greatest support to truth Catholics can do today is to help to destroy the power of USCCB in politics for ever.
jj
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZgV_NBErkA
lol
@taco
Everyone knows that slovenian models hate public displays of affectation.
I seriously felt sorry for her until she wore that jacket to the internment camps.
As for Slovenians, I haven’t known many, but there is a Slovenian on this planet (whose name I can’t remember!!!! ) –who is simply the greatest–a Jesus walking on this earth.
Our priest was away when my baby boy (in utero) was diagnosed with anencephaly-a death sentence. A Slovenian I’d never met was on duty. I trusted him because in his sermons, he talked about his time in Africa as a missionary. This was *after* raising his unwed sister’s son. The guy wasn’t even that old.
I went to him and cried my eyes out. He broke the rules and gave the baby the anointing of the sick through my bare belly. Later, he came to visit us in the hospital when the baby was being delivered. He broke down and wept. I didn’t. This strange state of being came over me.
I love him for his tears. I think he is the first priest who ever cried in front of me. Priests like that make up for all the career guys (and gals).
@taco
I wish I had an uplifting story like that to tell.
I used to feel sorry for her too. Imagine marrying for money, and finding our that you are married to THAT as well.
But then I realized, she didn’t marry him in a vacuum. More importantly, she didn’t STAY married to him in a vacuum. He married her in 2005. She must have known his previous history. Stormy Daniels occurred when she was carrying his youngest son. She must have met his offspring. And yet, she stayed.
30 years ago, I knew the name of Donald Trump, but I knew nothing about him. Then one day, I was watching TV and this guy was on. His voice alone was like a finger nail on a chalkboard, but there was just something about him that made me say “ick“. I don’t have that kind of reaction usually. I like just about everyone.
It was clear for the two minutes i could listen to him that there was something wrong with that guy. You’ll never guess who it turned out to be.
True story: I went to New York with my partner for the first time in 1991. We wandered by Trump Tower, and I thought it might be interesting to go inside the lobby. It was a huge atrium, all marble and glass and water features, with a balcony around a central basement that you could look down into. What was there in this tremendously opulent setting? A Cafeteria using paper plates and plastic utensils. It said everything to me about this man. I’ve seen nothing in the intervening 30 years to change my opinion.
Oldfashioned conservative wisdom nr. 1: Do not desire the affection of the woman for whose services you have paid.
I have my bottle of Burgundy ready for tuesday night. I should be an entertaining spectacle. As for my conservative friends, those who saw it fit to throw to the swine that what I still consider to be pearls, I wish you what Cromwell once wished upon the Long Parliament.
”Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors”.
Like like like
Your Cornwell quote goes so well with what I read by T. Friedman in the NYT where he compared the GOP to a political brothel, whose red light is always on.
I think this is what Friedman said:
“The Republican Party under Trump has become a giant political brothel that basically rents itself out by the night to whoever will energize its base,” he replied. “Whether it was Sarah Palin or the Tea Party or Trump. And unfortunately for the last few years the red light has always been on”.
These accusations may be harsh, but they are well warranted.
The main problem for the GOP is having whored itself out to a man like Trump. The main problem for the Dem’s is that they will – if the polls are remotely correct – struggle to win massively against even the likes of such a man, which doesn’t bode well for their future.
Hello there! How was the wine?
The ghost of Cromwell should get on twitter with that wicked shade.
Good to see you again! How have you been?
The wine was excellent, and the night was pretty exciting. I probaly should have opened a second bottle to cure my wounded pride, because I was completely blindsided by the dynamics of early voting.
Mostly used CNN and Nate Silver to get informed, though I switched to ABC later and I tend to prefer them now. Even watched a fair dose of Fox, which is decent, as long as you manage to filter out the crap. That Greg Gutfeld is really an odious specimen.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a good post on his blog today. Fortunately for me, I live in a state where I can write in the candidate’s name (Brian Carroll) for the American Solidarity Party. Joe Biden is NOT a good candidate. I am acquainted with enough misguided MAGA people to know that many of them also carry their rosaries in their pockets and are generally “nice” and “decent” like Joe. Is there any evidence that Joe Biden knows anything about Catholicism, beyond a little bit of the social teaching? A Biden administration will be even worse than what we have now Anyway, Mr, Shea, if you happen to read this, I want to thank you for offering a different perspective. I wish you well.
I strongly encourage you to spend your vote on Carroll rather than do active evil by voting for Trump. However, I also urge you to vote for Biden if you can and tell you why here: https://markpshea.com/tag/voting-with-the-mind-of-christ/
@ria
If the photo that I saw this morning of Mr. Biden entering the church doesn’t convince you, and another numerous articles about his being a Catholic don’t convince you, and his own statements don’t convince you, then I suspect you don’t want to be convinced by anything other than Trump holding a Bible and telling you that he’s got two Corinthians in his pocket
@ria
You cannot be anti-mask and claim to be “pro-life.”
Pregnant women with coronavirus at higher risk of severe illness, death, CDC finds https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/health/Covid-pregnancy-health-risks.html
Trump is anti-mask. Mr. Biden is pRo-mask.
to “bensnewlogin”: If you read my comments carefully, you would have noticed that I am not a Trump supporter. Also, I was wondering where you got the idea that I was anti-mask.
@ ria
You missed my point.
@Ben-
Exactly. Nails on a chalkboard. From day one –from the first time I ever heard him open his mouth to brag, which is all he ever does.
I’ve known plenty of narcissists, but not one as boorish as Trump. It’s like Atlantic city, Las Vegas and the Playboy channel got together and had a baby.
Did I ever tell you why I vowed never to go back to Las Vegas? After walking the strip and the casinos put me in a completely dark mood. I gave up. We stopped to buy a bottle of wine for the hotel room. I waited in the car next to a big sign that said “Strip Club” with a rifle in the place of the “I”. A twofer: shooting and ogling! ‘Murica!
And why do these yokels think they can co-opt the American flag to promote Trumpism? (They come into town here from over the hill flying the flag from their trucks.) Our founding fathers would have some choice things to say about their manners and culture.
I’d love to hear the jokes Putin tells in private. Even he seems tired of the joke.
@taco
I know what you mean about Las Vegas. I’ve been there a number of times, because the husband likes it as a stopping place for the hiking that we like to do. I used to have to go for a photography conventions. But there is something just wrong with the place. I can handle it for a few days, and then I’ve had enough.
Trumpdemort is boorish because he is also a bully, not just a narcissist. I don’t think he has ever had to be responsible for anything in his life. One need only look at his children, and how they have turned out. A few days ago, one of the Trumpenspawn announced that COVID was over. 230,000 dead Americans is simply not enough. That boy was not raised right.
Is this how you would characterize Al Kresta?
I have not listened to Al Kresta. But since you seem eager to play, “Let’s you and him fight” let me ask *you*, “Why are you so eager to accuse Al Kresta of fitting shoes I never said he wore?” Do you always go around trying to accuse total strangers like this? Why don’t you ask Al yourself if he fits this description?”
Wow….you have become so…. bitter.
No. I just see the game you are playing and throw light on it. You, for your part, scurry away rather than answer my questions. So hwo about it? Answer my questions.
@ naomi
Why is it when people stand up to god-as-politics-and-ideology, they are accused by the ideologues as being bitter, or disappointed at god, or hurt, or some other nonsense?
How about the simpler explanation? They are angry ashell, and not going to take it any more.