More and more, Trump resembles that man on the street corner holding up his apocalyptic sign. His "normies," as Jonah Goldberg calls his normal defenders, dismiss the vile rhetoric as "trash talk," saying they wish Trump would "stick with the issues" but that we shouldn't put too much stock in his vitriol. The question remains is this doomsday talk working for Trump? Can he really pull that many persons out of their bunkers and basements to vote for him on election day, which is now only 32 days away, with most states already engaged in early voting?
At this point, he needs them to offset all the Republicans who have openly expressed their support for Kamala. It's an ever growing list that now includes Jeff Flake, the former Republican Senator from Arizona, a crucial state. The Trump campaign dismisses these defectors as RINOs but surely they still have some pull in their states. Every vote counts, especially in a presumably close election.
The polls are all over the place. One day we see a poll that shows Harris up by 4 in Michigan. The next day we find one that has Trump up by 2 in the same state. 538 stirs them all into a big pot and comes up with an aggregate soup that currently has Harris at +1.6 percent. That's a very thin edge, especially considering the bias inherit in most of these polls. 538 no longer rates the polls. I suppose that is considered "fact checking," a bad word these days. Instead, it puts a little red or blue diamond beside them to indicate whether it is Republican or Democratic funded. No diamond and you assume it is independent. Why not just do an aggregate of independent polls? Even a stopped clock is right twice per day, and Trafalgar Group, a Republican-based poll, did predict 2016.
Similarly, the world as we know it will come to an end someday and the last man standing on a street corner with a sign in his hands will seem like a prophet. However, there is nothing to indicate that end will come any time soon. The economy looks good if not robust given all the uncertainty, particularly in the Middle East. We saw Iran rain ballistic missiles down on Israel but rather than venting their anger on Tehran, Netanyahu chose to lash out at Beirut one more time. I suppose he wants to save his long range missiles until his military intelligence has done a comprehensive survey of Iran's military targets.
For many devout Evangelicals the End Times will come when the Middle East blows up in a huge conflagration. They call themselves Dominionists. It was all the rage at one time with Michelle Bachmann, a former US representative from Minnesota, being one of their most outspoken promoters. It isn't like these people are pro-Israel. They just want the world to come to the end and be taken up into the heavens with the Rapture. She also wanted to save the incandescent light bulb while she was in office.
The way things are going in Israel that may very well happen. The conflagration anyway. I don't know about the Rapture. I don't think God plays favorites the way Evangelicals think. After all, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all stem from the same Books of Moses. We are all literally "God's children" if we believe in these texts.
However, many Evangelicals have gone out of their way to distance themselves from Islam, claiming its just coincidence that Abraham and Ibrahim or Moses and Musaa sound so much alike. They view Muslims as the other and refuse to share any religious texts with them. We have our heaven and they have their sama. Yet, Evangelicals have a presidential candidate courting Muslim voters in Hamtramck, Michigan, hoping it will be just enough votes to put him over the top in this battleground state. How can that be?
I suppose the ends justify the means, especially when you view the ends in such a literal sense. I think a lot of these Evangelicals support Trump for the same reason they support Israel in that he will bring the world to an end and they can all meet their departed loved ones in the clouds above. Yes, they are that delusional. Not all of them of course. Some have learned to profit from the others' delusions thanks to televangelism and megachurches.
But why would Muslims want to get into this strange mix? OK, you aren't happy with the way the Biden-Harris administration has handled the war in Gaza and now Lebanon, but is Trump really going to make life better for you? This is the same guy who wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country when he first came to office in 2017. It was the Federal courts that stopped him, not his conservative brethren in Congress.
Plus, Trump is spewing all this vile nonsense again, looking for anyone to blame his personal woes on. Faced with yet more federal charges regarding the January 6 insurrection, Trump lashed out at the Dept. of Justice, and even dragged embattled New York Mayor Adams into it by saying they were both "targeted" because of their comments on migrants. Adams seemed to welcome the support. Shared adversity makes for strange bedfellows.
Trump does have a knack for picking up the downfallen much like Evangelicals do. It is a branch of Christianity that preys on the downtrodden to bolster its ranks, and has long used doomsday theology to strengthen its base. In that sense, Trump's rhetoric is perfectly in sync with their religious doctrine. But not all Evangelicals think the same way.
Look at Jimmy Carter, a former Southern Baptist. He has long reached out his hand in love, not hate or the bitter idea of end times upon us. He just turned 100 and looks like he will get his wish to vote for Kamala, having survived brain cancer for the past eight years. While most living presidents paid tribute to Jimmy, the best Donald could say was that Carter was no longer the worst president, giving that honor to Biden. It wouldn't have hurt to just say "happy birthday."
Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention over women's rights back in 2000. He didn't embrace their "rigid" views. It seems quaint now given how much more rigid the Evangelical community has become over the last two decades. There no longer is any hint of "compassionate conservatism," which George Bush extolled at the time. Now we see these religious leaders playing "hardball" in promoting ever more strict abortion bans and denying IVF to women who desperately want a child. Talk about extreme!
For his part, Trump wants to have it both ways. No national abortion ban but states can do whatever they want. In his greatly addled mind this is the democratic solution. It doesn't matter that some women will have access to abortion and others will not, and that in some states that ban is as little as 6 weeks. He seems to think women can just hop over to another state if they want an abortion, forgetting that states want to ban this "right to travel" as well. It has become a legal minefield with some states considering tracking women's menstrual cycles. No more period tracking apps, thank you.
Fortunately, a Georgia state judge said no to the state's new 6 week abortion ban, which Governor Kemp had signed into law, ruling that until a fetus is viable outside the womb it is a woman's choice what she does with her body. He cited the Georgia state constitution on this one, not wanting the decision to get kicked up to the US Supreme Court. No doubt he will get replaced, as most states elect their judges.
It's kind of strange that Evangelicals worry so deeply about such matters when they so firmly believe the end times are upon us. Who cares if a woman gets an abortion or even "murders" her baby upon delivery, she will just stay on earth while they all get lifted up into the heavens. Isn't that how the Rapture is supposed to work?
Yet, for some odd reason these Evangelicals are so insistent on imposing their beliefs on the rest of us. I suppose they think they are saving us from a fate worse than death. But, it's been nearly 2000 years since Revelations was written. If there was ever going to be a Rapture, it would have come long before now. The whole premise was based on the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, which occurred in 70 AD. The Jews never got a chance to rebuild the Temple a third time.
This is why it is so hard to make any sense out of this election cycle. It is so contradictory! Trump relies heavily on Evangelical support but nearly everything about him flies in the face of their beliefs. The same goes for the "normies" that Goldberg described. Trump is the worst possible exemplar of either religious conservative or Republican values. His only motivation is his personal ego. In that sense, Trump is much closer to Aaron, who made the golden calf, than he is to Moses, who shattered the tablets when he saw what his elder brother had done. No such defining moment here. Evangelicals and moderate Republicans alike are taking part in the hedonistic orgy, Cecil B. DeMille style, hoping that they will regain the White House this Fall.
Well the end is near. The election anyway. We have two wildly different visions. One of Joy as put forward by Kamala Harris and one of Doom as put forward by Donald Trump. We will find out November 5 which one prevails. I hope for our sake it is Joy.
Spot on!
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