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If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Everybody saw this coming.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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Bark louder, little dog.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Late Sunday Night Open Thread: The GOP Goes Full Whited Sepulcher (Again)

Late Sunday Night Open Thread: The GOP Goes Full Whited Sepulcher (Again)

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… The magazine’s core indictment is that Trump “attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader” to “discredit” one of his “political opponents.” It adds that Trump “abused his authority for personal gain” in a “profoundly immoral” manner that damages the presidency, the country, and “the spirit and the future of our people.”…

Indeed, the transactional cast to Trump’s rage over this is particularly instructive, once you understand that Trump and his top advisers have consciously enlisted the nation’s evangelicals as an army of Trump defenders in the war against impeachment, which is widely depicted in the evangelical movement as a kind of epic persecution of Trump carried out by the godless and the damned.

As Sarah Posner details in a terrific piece, this effort is concerted, multifaceted and highly organized. Numerous high-profile evangelicals regularly depict impeachment as a disruption of God’s plan for America to be governed by Christians in accord with “biblical” values.

Impeachment is merely the weapon that the secular, satanic left is wielding to carry out its broader pro-abortion, anti-religious-liberty agenda, which requires the removal of Trump, the savior of Christian America, all to keep the persecution of Christians going at full throttle…

The editor of Christianity Today just ‘clarified’ that they are, indeed, merely haggling about the price of their vote, now:

… [T]his is neither a criticism of the evangelical Trump voter nor an endorsement of the Democrats. The 2016 election confronted evangelical voters with an impossible dilemma: Vote for a pro-choice candidate whose policies would advance so much of what we oppose, or vote for an extravagantly immoral candidate who could well damage the standing of the republic and the witness of the church. Countless men and women we hold in the highest regard voted for President Trump, some wholeheartedly and some reluctantly. Friends we love and respect have also counseled and worked within the Trump administration. We believe they are doing their best to serve wisely in a fallen world.

We nevertheless believe the evangelical alliance with this presidency has done damage to our witness here and abroad. The cost has been too high. American evangelicalism is not a Republican PAC…

Would you *please* stop saying the quiet parts out loud, Pastor Trump?…

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  3. 3.

    The Dangerman

    …or religion itself!

    OK, I understand that looking for coherency from a Trump tweet is a fools errand, but WTF does that even mean?

  5. 5.

    Duane

    Ralph Reed talking about irrelevance is so irrelevant.  That CT editorial really hit a nerve given the butthurt whining it’s caused. Sweet!

  7. 7.

    Mathguy

    One interesting bit from the Nichols thread was a Pew Research study finding that people identifying as Christian has dropped about 10% in the past 12 years. People identifying as Catholic dropped from 24% to 20%. As someone teaching at a Catholic university, I can assure you that our administration and admissions people are freaking out, combined with the demographic cliff-a serious drop in the number of 18 year olds–starting in 2026. You are going to see a huge shake out in higher education during the last 5 years of the next decade, if not before.

  8. 8.

    r€nato

    the President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. The man with his finger on the button. The stable genius.

    https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lashes-out-windmills-again-says-they-will-kill-many-bald-eagles-i-never-understood-wind-1478756

     

    I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?

    So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air.

    A windmill will kill many bald eagles. After a certain number, they make you turn the windmill off, that is true. By the way, they make you turn it off. And yet, if you killed one, they put you in jail. That is OK. But why is it OK for windmills to destroy the bird population?

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    @The Dangerman: It means pick between downing a beer (or 12), or slamming your head against a brick wall. :)

    I think the tweet is sarcastic, but Dump does see himself as the Devil’s gift to humanity.

  16. 16.

    Bill Arnold

    I actually enjoyed that new CT piece; it’s fairly brave, and could (if it doesn’t start a shift in the landscape) end in their downsizing or destruction.
    My shorter, it’s saying that the more political American evangelicals are indulging in a form of (unholy) religious syncretism that has been likened to combining manure and ice-cream: “Mixing religion and politics is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn’t do much to the manure but it sure does ruin the ice cream”

    This is on point:

    We nevertheless believe the evangelical alliance with this presidency has done damage to our witness here and abroad. The cost has been too high. American evangelicalism is not a Republican PAC. We are a diverse movement that should collaborate with political parties when prudent but always standing apart, at a prophetic distance, to be what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the conscience of the state.” That is what we believe. This is where we plant our flag. We know we are not alone.

  17. 17.

    Bill Arnold

    @r€nato:
    From the previous thread,
    This directly addresses DJT’s false claims:
    Wind Turbines Are Not Killing Fields for Birds (Sep 3, 2019)

    Wind turbines have not been found to diminish home values of nearby properties or cause cancer. According to numbers aggregated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, cats are a bigger scrooge to the overall bird community than wind turbines. The most recent estimate places the number of bird deaths at the paws of cats at 2.4 billion. Collisions from wind turbines on land killed a small fraction of birds in comparison to the damage that cats and glass buildings cause to the general bird population. Land wind turbines were responsible for over 200,000 bird deaths while collisions from building glass are estimated to be responsible for nearly 600 million bird deaths. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not provide estimates for deaths resulting from offshore wind turbines.

    An enterprising journalist might estimate the number of birds killed by D.J. Trump’s buildings, or the Wall if it were to be built, and ask him about it in a press conference.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    Said Trump: “I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?”

    He went on: “So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air.”

    He has said a lot—a lot—of unbelievably dumb shit. This may be the absolute dumbest. Like, I read this, and my mouth literally dropped open.

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    Note the date; this was a rushed and shoddy propaganda job. (This sort of thing has been circulating in wingnut lists.)
    Remember that ‘Christianity Today’ is Backed by George Soros (December 20, 2019)
    (Hint: the article provides no evidence backing the title, at least not when i drilled down a bit into the links.)

    Another piece gives their game away, bold mine:
    “Christianity Today” Must Be Replaced with Alternative Christian Media (News Division, December 20, 2019)

    It is time that the evangelical establishment’s flagship publication, Christianity Today, be replaced with alternative Christian media. We have the power, the numbers, and the readership to topple the liberal rag magazine and replace it with something that represents real evangelicals (the type who actually go to church, believe the Bible, and vote Republican).

    Where the “alternative Christian media” is religious wingnut publications like pulpitandpen.

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    @Mathguy: I hate-read Rod Dreher sometimes, and he and his commenters are similarly lamenting the decline in religiosity. When they’re feeling braver, they debate with one another about why people are leaving. Usually, it’s blah blah blah, the same schtick  about terrible culture and “Big Trans” (no lie, he calls it that) and cities and college educations. But every once in a while, someone brings up that Trump and some other high-profile hypocrites are not doing their cause any good. I keep waiting for them to take the next step and realize that countless people have stopped associating themselves with Christianity because they find many Christians—INCLUDING YOU, ROD—to be the antithesis of Christ. But that would require honesty, and they don’t have much of that.

  23. 23.

    James E Powell

    American evangelicalism is not a Republican PAC…

    American evangelicalism is very much a Republican PAC and it is a whole lot more. Evangelicals are the major source of campaign volunteers. The organizations and their leaders are major components of the Republican propaganda network.  They are the foot soldiers of the White Supremacist movement.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    @r€nato:

    You know we have a world, right?

    I have nothing humorous, or insightful, or even scathing to offer in response. This is just so fucking dumb that I’m completely shocked.

  26. 26.

    Suzanne

    @Amir Khalid: If I was legit sitting around trying to come up with extreme examples of dumb Trumpy shit to say, I could not come up with anything this fucking stupid.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:

    We just don’t have Trump’s genius at producing spectacularly dumb shit. That’s why he is the master and we are all mere peasants.

  29. 29.

    Bill Arnold

    @Amir Khalid:
    He mixes in a few raisins of sanity-preserving obviously true statements, like “the world is tiny compared to the universe”. Probably by accident, though maybe even that is malicious, to get people to trust the rest of it.
    It you listen to the video, the audience eats it all up.

  30. 30.

    r€nato

    But why is it OK for windmills to destroy the bird population?

    Oh, so NOW he cares about the environment. So you’ll be restoring all those environmental regs that you gutted, yes?

    I thought not. Just more owning the libs.

  32. 32.

    r€nato

    @Mathguy:

    a serious drop in the number of 18 year olds–starting in 2026.

     

    Who can afford to have them any longer? Heckuva job, late-stage capitalism!

  34. 34.

    Mike G

    The @CTmagazine editorial calling for Trump’s removal as president is an insult to the intelligence & good judgment of the faith community. — Ralph Reed

    You can’t insult something that doesn’t exist.

  35. 35.

    patrick II

    @r€nato:

    This is twice in a week I thought something here was so ridiculous that it had to be a joke. Last week it was the photoshopped cover of Time, and now this. I would like to return to a place where reality was a little easier to discern.

  36. 36.

    noncarborundum

    @r€nato:

    He cares deeply about all the “fumes and gases” that wind turbine manufacture purportedly spews into the air in China and Germany.  The air in the U.S., on the other hand, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    @Bill Arnold

    “Although the Sun is bigger than the Earth, it is much farther away.”

    :)

    (And if anyone else can identify the source of that quote, you get octuple brownie points and a slow motion digital salaam.)

  40. 40.

    patrick II

    The original Protestant revolution against the Catholic Church was based on the assertion that each man, through the study of the bible, should come to his own personal relationship with God and not have it determined by the Pope. But few Catholics are as slavish in their devotion the Pope as evangelicals are to the Falwells, Grahams, and Robertsons.

  45. 45.

    Mr. Kite

    So Lev Parnas of Fraud Guarantee fame, had another company called Loan Crime Inv. Group. This is ridiculous.

    – Hey Igor?

    – Yes Lev?

    – I like name Fraud Guarantee you came up with. When we do fraud, is good fraud, we guarantee it. I need another name. This thing we do now, what is it in English?

    – I think in English is loan crime

    – Hm. I make it loan crime investment group so is less visible crime.

    – crafty.

    – You have working credit card? Need five dollars to register this LLC.

  50. 50.

    Steeplejack

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Satan can be your friend.

    Moving on . . . I got an Echo Show 5 and a couple of TP-Link smart plugs as a proof-of-concept project. What do you recommend as a system going forward (if  I do)? Thinking Philips Hue. My needs are not elaborate—mostly light regulation, stream music, etc. No thermostat or complicated gadgets.

  51. 51.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Steeplejack: Unless you can find a deal(I did), Hue can be a bit pricey.  I use Smartthings, but I have the thermostat and smart locks.  One thing I would suggest as a useful command center on the PC is a windows app called Home Remote, even if you have disparate stuff from various manufactures, it will integrate them in one place.

  52. 52.

    Calouste

    @Bill Arnold: I attended a memorial service recently, and one of the speakers was an evangelical pastor who was about as coherent as the imPOTUS. Apparently this kind of gobbledygook is what evangelicals  hear every week, and they think it’s insightful or something.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    This looks a lot like dementia. Early mid stage. If the anger that has been reported is true, that can show up as dementia takes a stronger hold. But the stranger and less truthful/realistic the stories weaved, the stronger the case is made for some form of dementia.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @Calouste:

    They don’t understand it but the delivery sounds, well pompous. And it doesn’t actually have to make sense, that detracts from the message, which is that the deliverer is smart and the receiver is not.

    This was WF Buckley’s stick as well, use big pompous words that most people didn’t know and it all sounds like he must know something that the listener doesn’t. It’s propaganda at the very least. Keep up the stream, lessen any interference and you’ve got yourself a captive audience. The better your education, especially in language and the less it works.

  63. 63.

    Jay C

    BTW, though we have to consider the source (a piece at Daily Kos – sorry, can’t link), apparently Christianity Today claims to have seen a big jump in subscription since publishing their anti-Trump editorial. Some cancellations, of course, but they say it’s been an overall plus for them ( a credible claim, given that “no false witness” thing and all).

  65. 65.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Can someone please check on the staff at The Onion? I think they just lost their last reason to live.

  66. 66.

    Joey Maloney

    I remember in the late ’70s Ralph Reed looked like a little boy who you’d find wishing people into the cornfield. I can’t describe what he looks like now. It’s like he hasn’t aged, just…corrupted.

  67. 67.

    sab

    Late to the thread. I just read in the local newspaper that our local Jesuit high school is now accepting state school vouchers for tuition. So the public school portion of my local real estate taxes are being siphoned off by the state of Ohio to finance Catholic schools.

    My husband is aghast, and he went all K thru 12 to parochial schools.

    This used to be unconstitutional. Now in Ohio it’s just the new normal.

  71. 71.

    VOR

    @sab: This is exactly why Republicans push so hard for vouchers. There is a pot of money going to public schools and they want to siphon some of it off to private organizations. Tuition at some of these private K-12 schools is higher than a state college.

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: No, it was definitely the nonsense about asking people if they knew that we live in a world. Like….what?

    This is mindblowingly dumb shit.

  74. 74.

    Miss Bianca

    Yeah, because a candidate’s stand on abortion is the only thing that matters. Why is Christianity Today so upset about what *else* happens when that becomes the only thing that matters? What’s the matter with them, anyway?

  75. 75.

    Neldob

    I have wondered what would happen to Republicans (and their Christian PAC) if abortion were in fact made completely illegal. I also wonder if they would compromise. Something along the lines of serious sex ed starting in middle school, free, available birth control for all including free condoms in middle and high schools, free and available pre-natal care and first x years of life free medical care, housing and parent education and child care. That sort of thing. This would at least lower the abortion rate. Would they go for it?

  76. 76.

    brantl

    @Neldob: No, they would not. They fought Head Start programs for 25 years, and only stopped when all of their own supporters would no longer listen to them, never minding the fact that every dollars spent on Head Start saved 5 dollars on prisons.

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