Thank you Charles Blow, once again, for speaking the truth loud and clear. The emperor has no clothes. The so-called righteous who support him might be better named “Vichy Christians”
Jesus would be appalled.
34
Sometimes I switch to Fox just to hear the garbage emanating from state propaganda network and oh boy, they never disappoint with their piles of manure.
Real enemies of the people along with GOP!!!
26
"So, now I no longer know what to call these people."
Try this: Camels trying to get through the eye of a needle.
21
Its probably money that trumps morality. Many of these Trump people have no ethics,morality or empathy, except maybe for their very own family, even this is debatable. Their God is money. Their devils are black. This all goes way back to slavery. Slavery scarred them forever. It took their empathy and their awareness of the suffering of the blacks. Their humanity was lost when they treated other human beings like they were lower than animals. They tied all this to the church somehow and they betrayed the teachings of Jesus. What can you expect from people steeped with this history? Enlightenment?
10
Charles- I know what to call these people. I call them Hypochristians. They have no shame.
11
" . . .now I no longer know what to call these people."
I think of them as Xtians, Mr. Blow.
2
The scary thing is that there is an element of American society that is supporting Trump. These people are racists and Nazi's.
They may not believe they are racists, but in other words they are. "History does not repeat itself , but it does rhyme. "
America is sinking fast.
9
approval of evil and corrupt people gives permission for evil and corrupt acts to continue, but also removes masks of religion and morality
3
Thank you, Mr. Blow for your searing, needed to be said, and so brilliantly written opinion of these horrific truths. I miss President Barack Obama so very much.
32
The GOP is not and never has been the party of family values. Their hypocrisy is more obvious than ever now with tRump in the White House. They’ve shown over and over again that they don’t care about anything except making sure that the rich get richer and the rest of us fall further and further behind.
19
Simply put, the fast bond between Trump and his adoring public is because there are millions of folks in the US who are frankly deplorable no less than he is. Ignorance, crudity, xenophobia, bigotry, venality, and racism becomes the country.
7
The silence of the GOP. No one rose clear voice to say we are not a party of bigots; of trade wars; of profanity; of race baiters; misogynist; isoloatists; respite for dictators; exploding deficits; or a host of other deficits of character. Requiring a President to act like one belongs to the party and the Congressmen and women of the party. Holding your own man accountable is a duty. The President is a victim of his own lack of principle.
7
There must be a word for these Trump-supporting evangelicals. Hypocrite probably isn't strong enough, charlatan sounds too polite and old-fashioned. Phony, impostor, bigot? Perhaps con-artist suits them best as it puts them in the same class with Donald Trump.
8
Actually, it was the Democrats who held the loyalty of openly bigoted white supremacists until the early 1960's. The Republican Party was seen to be more welcoming to African Americans. Nixon had been seen as a friend to African Americans when he started to run for President in 1960. Kennedy after being elected was conflicted about how to react to the increasingly violent demonstrations for integration in the South by King and the NAACP, et al, because of the pro-segregationist Democrats in the South.
But by 1968, the shift of Southern Democrats to the Republicans was well underway and helped to defeat McGovern in 1972. By 1980, the Republicans were catering to racist whites. Trump really is a continuation of that trend.
5
I don't know which is worse, those who see nothing wrong and gladly give Mr. Trump their support or those who see the wrong, who know it is wrong but support him anyway. I'm thinking the latter, they know better but give themselves permission to excuse the inexcusable. None of them have any honor, they may be "nice" but they are not good. Goodness, truth, beauty, we are nothing without these . . .
8
I read this article and many of the comments. Trump supporters and Anti-Trumpists are talking past each other, neither hearing much less trying to hear what the other is saying. Yes, Trumps policies on an host of levels have been the best things for this country which career, intrenched politicians from both parties have simply ignored in a go-along to get- along style; and, yes, the way in which Trump talks, the fighting on all fronts —his strange inability to pick his battles and the response to absolutely every slight from whomever makes is, well, tedious and boring.
That said, the Democrats and the media re doing themselves no favor by advancing a so called impeachment inquiry via secret hearings with doled out information.....the fundamental unfairness of this inquisition type approach by Rep. Schiff is not lost on any independent or Trump supporter...it is an approach only the most zealot anti-Trumper can feel comfortable with because that person thinks and says fundamentally crazy things. Moreover, the Democrats will have the National turmoil of the never ending investigations (which is clearly not in the national interest) tattooed to their campaigns in 2020.
Schiff should open up the hearings and allow Republicans to be engaged in whatever investigation and debate occurs. If this Ukraine matter is the hoax it is alleged to be, the people are going to know it with or without the Schiff head fakes and secrecy. Democrats will massively fail in 2020 if he doesn’t.
2
@Truthbeknown
In your first sentence you describe the key problem with completely open hearings, Trump's lack of restraint. He reacts so impulsively that the facts end up buried under a pile of hurtful and astounding irrelevancies.
5
Evangelicals had very little credibility before trump, now they have none. Their support for him proves what I've always suspected, there are no real values behind any of their talk, just like everyone else, its all about money...
13
Richard Nixon played racism to its full benefit for his presidency. His Southern Strategy got him elected. His recently revealed conversation with Ronald Reagan just confirmed what we all knew. The republican party has been hiding this dirty secret behind their pink skin and baby blue eyes for eons. Unfortunately Trump turned over the rock to expose the ugliness that had been there forever.
9
Its not black and white. Nothing is.Trump is not ideal but at least he pays lip service. Not a single Democrat has embraced religion or God on the national platform while running for nomination in my lifetime. Ronald Reagan was sworn in the year that I started 1st grade in catholic school and they loved him and told us that it was a huge win for us. Seldom does a president embody the absolute values of any group completely. Christians have Trump. Remember the Crusades?
2
@Mark
"Christians have Trump".
News to me. I'm a Christian, and if I had Trump I'd throw him in jail.
". Not a single Democrat has embraced religion or God on the national platform while running for nomination in my lifetime."
Why should they? Church and state are separated.
21
@Mark /No, we Christians, Agnostics and Atheists want to forget the Crusades because it was 1000 years ago, at least...
5
Amen, Charles Blow!
12
I'm afraid evil is winning.
8
@Robert Blankenship /The arc of the moral universe bends to justice?
1
The character of the person who leads a company or country has a way of permeating throughout the organization, to its lowest levels. In the case of our President, that duty begins by selecting a cabinet and overseeing the quality of their decisions, efforts, and results in the pursuit of their promise to our Constitution.
Like every citizen, the President swore an oath to the Constitution. That oath is a commitment.
It isn't something you say just to get something you want, until after you have it.
[e.g. promising to share a tax return IF elected, and refusing to do so after being elected.]
We hold certain truths self-evident. One is that all "men" are created equal and possess certain inalienable rights. Another is that government is composed of many functions united in a single purpose to fulfil the promise of our Constitution.
Many people, serving in many buildings, carry out those functions. Foremost among them is the White House and its occupant which represent the character of our nation.
It isn't a place where virtue is for sale.
When G. Washington accepted command of the US Army after the Battle of Bunker HIll, he assumed a military responsibility above all others: to select and support the best officers he could find to serve our Army, and to ensure that the men they led had what they needed to win.
Those men had just shown they could fight and win when properly trained and well led.
In 1789, Washington assumed a larger responsibility through cabinet officers.
4
“Fish stinks from the head.”
4
Robertson seeing a mandate from heaven is the height of lunacy and the notion that some god, even if they exist, one supposedly omnipotent, didn't foresee what Trump would do, shows how illogical the whole business of religion is.
13
As the "White Citizen's Councils" were the soft public face of the "Ku Klux Klan" so the Republican Party has become the public face of this vulgar President.
His vulgarity simply exposes the underlying appeal of his message and the spinelessness of those Congressmen and women who support him.
I looked at the faces of those behind Trump in the crowd when he made that comment, and it sickened me.
13
The comments below tend to reflect a belief that Republicans
are all white racists. Undoubtedly, a significant number are- as are, indeed, some democrats and independents, as well.
But the past two decades seem to indicate that the bulk
of Republicans have let the more aggressive members
of the Party call the shots. Not just racists- nihilists, anti-government seditionists, and masters at exploiting differences and human frailty. The result is a Party in shambles- one likely
to be replaced by a new Party- a GN(ew)P, perhaps.
Most of my lifetime Ohio Republican friends have left the Party,
or sit on the sidelines in despair. We need a multi-party system.
A GN(ew)P, returning to the principles of Lincoln is a possibility-
and one many of us ex-GOPers would prefer.
4
excellent piece.
4
Trump is the perfect representation of America.
We previously just did a good job at hiding our many atrocities, especially abroad but also at home.
Trump pulled back the curtains, and the establishment of both parties are now in a desperate clamber to close them again.
Trump is a problem because he lacks finesse and he's too gratuitous.
However, let's not pretend the US was previously some kind of moral trailblazer internationally.
In the last 18 years in the Middle East alone, we are responsible for more than a million dead and more than 6 million displaced, dispossessed, and many more permanently damaged.
We overthrow governments, torture, spy on our own citizens, many of whom don’t even have clean drinking water.
All this pretending that things were just swell before the Trumpster came along is disingenuous, dishonest, and, frankly, ridiculous.
Clowns like Trump don’t materialize out of thin air.
They happen when you don’t hold the previous administrations accountable for their “vulgarities”, like war crimes, illegal regime-change coups, drone wars, domestic surveillance etc.
If the current trajectory is any indication, the next guy will be worse.
12
Where I am coming from: I am white, from a rural background, and registered as an "Independent" voter.
When Obama was elected, my American friends (white and black and every shade in between) rejoiced and friends from overseas sent congratulations on how our nation had turned a corner on racism. Because of my confidence in American pragmatism, I was sure that those who had not voted for Obama because of race would in the end recognize his deep commitment to the country, his intelligence, his high moral standards, and his devotion to his family. I was confident that recognition of the competence and essential goodness of our first Black president would be transformative.
My confidence in my fellow Americans has been shattered by the adulation that the tens of millions in Trump's base continue to give him despite his failure to keep his oath of office, as he leads the nation into deepening ruin.
What to do? Support the impeachment inquiry, stay informed and think critically about what you read or hear in the news, recognize and call out the lies we are told daily, and vote as if the fate of the republic and our representative democracy depends on it. It does.
18
Trump's profane speech reflects the emotional nature of his appeal to his voters, fear and loathing and distain for people who they see as unlike themselves. His behavior is all destructive and is subconsciously an expression of self loathing, he has no respect for himself.
Trump is racist but his focus is not promoting white supremacy, it's upon winning re-election by appealing to other people's prejudices. He has no more respect and love for white people than non-white, his only love is for himself and somewhat less for his family. Anyone else is only useful or not useful for him.
The Christians think that he's their man because he's appointing judges who the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation recommend because they are anti-enlightenment reactionaries. The Christians want God running things and the rules of man to conform with religious doctrines.
A lot of Christian right wingers come from the South and carry rationalizations for slavery and Jim Crow from their religious beliefs. Those beliefs basically blame God for slavery and the concept that Africans were made to be servile excuses their being exploited.
When slavery was abolished, the number of former slaves who quickly began to prosper, was astonishing to whites who had convinced themselves that Africans were less evolved than themselves and therefore should not be able to do well if treated equally. It belied their theories about the superiority or inferiority of people according race.
7
What to call these people? Call them what they are: Republicans who cherry pick passages in the Bible to support their personal beliefs and their party's political positions. Despite the wide choice of evangelical theologies, they gravitate towards the likes of Jeffress, Graham, and White. Calling them Evangelicals who support the Republican party is putting the carriage in front of the horse.
5
Every sentence in this column has long been painfully evident to most readers and to many Americans. Why keep going over the same old, same old recitation of the iniquities of Trump/GOP? They worsen by the day, by the hour.
Where is 1 column, or even 1/2 a column---or even 1/3--- on explaining to voters the positive policies we have lost and must restore? Argue against the naysayers with positive examples and evidence. That's the only way to repudiate and vanquish the Trump forces attacking our democracy---in every way, every day.
Easy to write columns of outrage. We need more.
Does Charles Blow think anyone on the fence politically will read this usual column and others like it and say, Gee, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I should realize just how bad Trump IS, and vote Dem in 2020! Thanks for setting me straight!
1
Be direct and concise in condemning not only his vulgarities and rude insults, but also the toxic content of his comments, his threats and incitement to violence. Condemn his hypocritical “prudish” enablers who watch when people are bullied & attacked but do nothing. Call it shameful!
4
"Mike Pence, a man who looks at Trump like he’s made of rainbows and cotton candy."
Charles you perfectly captured with words the Tartuffian depth of this villain.
15
@Eli
Pence thinks, he considers, he does not act according to impulses nor compulsions as does Trump. He knows exactly what kind of a man is Trump. He also knows that Trump is unbeatable because he's gotten into the hearts of people who support him. He will try to succeed Trump and his actions now will affect that desired outcome.
Pence is worse than Trump, because he's smarter than Trump and he is serious, Trump is just clowning around and attracting attention. The man who will lead our republic into the next Civil War, is Pence.
5
Once a cult of personality is established by a political leader,
the cult will tolerate and justify anything this leader does. And,
more scarily, will do whatever the leader tells them to do.
Only a massive shock to this relationship will change this.
Hence, the things people tolerated and participated in while being lead by Mao, Hitler Stalin, Pol Pot and others. And what needed to be done to end the cults.
7
Well, there's a whole bunch of habitual, worn-out Republican talking points that are now jokes. Like fiscal responsibility. Or the constitution, all of it not just select parts. Or the rule of law. Next time any of them bring any of those topics up, and tries to swing them as weapons, now we will know to simply laugh at their hypocricy.
7
Great piece. At 80 I think I have seen race relations improve and white supremacy activism decline for most of my life. When I was a child, for example, some nearby towns even in northern Iowa had sundown laws. But now I don't know. If a major fraction of us (some say 35% at least) approve of Trump's rhetoric and gruesome hatred of Obama, maybe I have been fooling myself. That makes me very sad.
18
This piece should be required reading. Thank you Mr. Blow. You have put the truth clearly such that the scales should fall from the eyes of any Republicans still supporting him. For everyone else, let us not be deceived by the evil that we face. And for any politicians who have been listening, a playbook to turn out these bums is implied here but I haven't seen the courage to call it out from up on those stages yet. Can we get there now?
7
When claims of racism popped up from defenders of Obama and/or his policies I thought it was an over reaction. But the George Wallace racist diatribe from our current president and worst, the cheer of his followers stunned me, a white southerner, who had assumed the blatant racism was past. I had forgotten each generation must do their due diligence. Progress doesn’t just happen. There’s always push back. I learned much from this essay.
16
I suppose the contradictions Blow describes in Christians supporting a vulgar, mean man like Trump is truly revelatory for fellow believers. For Atheists like myself the contradictions of the religious folk have always been present, consistent, and clear, so it's hardly remarkable.
16
As usual, Mr. Blow, you have said what I think every day. Yet you say it so much better than I. I know people who may still support this dreadful man. I have called out a few Facebook friends for posting propaganda. This irrational fear of the other can easily be assuaged by simply seeking out and greeting others. I honestly don't understand why adults can't be respectful of "others".
12
Biden and Pence? There is an enormous distinction between deep mutual respect and pathetically abject sycophancy.
17
@John LeBaron
"You say to-MAY-to and I say to-MAH-to."
I am sure lots of people in this country would ascribe "deep mutual respect" to the Pence-Trump relationship, and "pathetically abject sycophancy" to the Biden-Obama relationship. However, I suspect you & I will agree with the opposite characterization, e.g., that Pence is the sycophant to Trump.
1
I sometimes wonder if the country would be better off had Lincoln executed every man, woman and child who fought for the Confederacy for being a traitor. The right-wing today might be a little less eager to subvert American principles of freedom and democracy.
4
Brilliant, that’s the missing key where no other answer explains how the “religious” right can support this most despicable man.
4
Thanks to Mr. Blow for accurately describing the real problem. Donald Trump has been a lying, cheating, racist, proudly ignorant narcissistic sociopath and failed businessman for decades, but he had minimal effect on our nation's well-being. We now have an entire political party that embraces Trump's behavior as appropriate, even Presidential. This is a problem that will not go away when Donald Trump is dead and gone.
10
Palin’s accusation about Obama being friendly with terrorists was met with defensive mewling on the left. Why oh why can’t Democrat’s respond to lies with the truth? Republicans and the old reactionary Democrats supported murderous tyrants and insurgencies globally for over a century. To this day they lionize the perpetrators of mass atrocities such as Oliver North. Obama was excoriated for association with two people who mildly pushed back against the ruling order. Hannity never stopped calling Ayers blowing up a toilet a major terrorist attack. We did that in high school and got detention for it. Reverend Wright raged on the evil done in the nation’s name, just as preachers have done since Jesus. Both are to be commended for their dedication to Christian ideals. Instead, progressives shrank from them like they were lepers. Trump is the result of our lack of moral courage on the left as much as the moral blindness on the right.
8
Charles, 3 days from now I will start reading a book by your NY Times colleague, Thomas Chatterton Williams, that will be in my mailbox here in Sweden.
Title: Self-Portrait In Black and White - Unlearning Race
I will begin by carefully reading the section on "Unlearning Race". I hope you will also read that book ASAP and consider writing about what I believe must be done at the national level in my country of birth.
End the US Census Bureau system of assigning each of us to a "race", each such "race" the fatal invention of racists.
This has been recommended in books by former USCB Director Kenneth Prewitt and by Professor Dorothy Roberts.
Imagine the next president being able to state:
"We are one people, all members of the only race, the human. It pleases me to announce that we are ending use of the American racial-order system, a system embraced fully by our former president and his supporters. Ending this system will not end racism in America, but doing this will undercut the belief of American neo-Nazis and the President that there is something in their genomes that makes them better than all others.
Why don't you help her by providing your views on Unlearning Race in America.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
Charles Blow on the coding of the charge against Biden:
"The insult invokes a fear and disdain that white racists have had throughout American history: The subjugation of the white man to the black one."
As concerns coding, please note that the US Census Bureau practices a form of coding by "race" that has no place in a post-genome democracy.
Again from Blow:
"In the 1870 census, the first after the enslaved were emancipated, several Southern states were majority black..."
American neo Nazis praised the Census Bureau when it recently put out a trial balloon - all people classed as "white" who have roots in the Middle East or North Africa would be assigned to a new "race" MENA. Neo-Nazis praised this proposed purification of the American white "race". The Census Bureau tabled that idea.
We must take away from American neo-Nazis and from the President the Racial Order system used by the Census Bureau.
Charles Blow's colleague, Thomas Chatterton Williams, has a book out tomorrow that may help my fellow Americans understand the need for such action. Book title:
Self-Portrait In Black and White-Unlearning Race
a title to which I add "In America"
Ending that system will not end racism but it will say to all Americans, there is only one race, the human, skin color is simply a product of evolution and is in no way an indicator of the individual's humanity.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
@Larry Lundgren
Are you also willing to abandon all affirmative action laws, that are based on racial identification and quotas?
No more excuses for a lack of education, ability, or achievement.
2
Except perhaps socio-economic status. A greater percentage of African Americans live in poverty than the percentage of white (European) , though there are actually more European Americans living in poverty in actual numbers. Correcting for socio-economic status and or generational poverty might get some buy in from non-African Americans.
1
@Raz
"Excuses"? Do you not understand why the affirmative action laws came into being in the first place?
1
The unshaken base of Trump's voting population is one thing. The readily gleeful character of the buy-in by GOP leader- and follower-ship is quite something else. Today's Party is Trump, and vice versa.
The nature of this beast defines the reality of contemporary American politics. It indicates that Trumpism is merely a symptom of a far deeper syndrome. In the Republican Party, Trumpism predated Trump by decades.
9
It is unfortunate that Mr. Blow's fine, true statement is published as an opinion piece instead of an editorial with the full aegis of the New York Times solidly behind it.
Racism has always been a horrible blot on America's values of freedom and justice for all. We are now seeing the country torn apart by a venal, duplicitous man who-- it is clearer every day--is completely under the thumb of Vladimir Putin, a relentless, amoral dictator who wishes America nothing but ill.
I cannot believe Trump's supporters, if they are clearly faced with the facts, will put the supposed superiority of their race above the continued existence of our beloved republic. Mr. Blow's column puts the facts before them clearly and eloquently and deserves all the support NYT can possibly give it.
26
There is a precedent for this to be found in the 1968 presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. His "Southern Strategy" was built around the idea of appealing to white southern racism as a wedge to separate largely Democratic southern whites (whose Democratic loyalties were forged during Reconstruction and reinforced during the New Deal) from the party that had several years earlier, brought about the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act.
These voters, the ones for whom Nixon's blatantly racist appeal resonated and won him the White House, are still with us and have spawned another generation under the same influence. Perhaps bigotry is like heroin - the child of an addicted mother can be born with the same addition. Perhaps that explains Carson King.
What does Christianity have to do with it. Absolutely Nothing. These people have willingly (I think) allowed their faith to be twisted into a cruel caricature of what it once was. They will own their hypocrisy - today and, I suspect, for eternity.
10
"So, now I no longer know what to call these people." Followers of John the Baptist who cheer Herod.
1
Bloomberg is running. Change your narrative, Charles.
1
"As if he had a mandate from heaven."
This sentence need more italics and all caps:
As IF he *had* a *mandate* from HEAVEN!!!!
I know, I know, not NYT style guide.
I live in Robertson's back yard and I never thought I'd remotely see him stand up to Trump, as he sorta has recently... but Robertson is one of the FEW people who COULD.
And Robertson SHOULD.
That crazy, senile, evil, old Evangelical greed-monster SHOULD. Will he?
Nope.
9
Not sure when republicans began favoring draft dodgers, spoiled rich kids, federal deficits, ignorance, russian spies, incompetence and dishonor. All I know is that that is a losing combination over the long term.
19
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene . . . . . So, now I no longer know what to call these people"
Call their leaders charlatans.
The followers are petty, ignorant, racist sheep.
But Trump didn't create this, only amplified it.
17
Trumpism is no longer about politics. It has turned into a cult of personality for one of the vilest, most racist, corrupt, thieving, psychopathic characters every to inhabit the earth. He demands loyalty but gives none. He demands respect but offers none because people who are not Trump are not worthy of anything because they are not Donald Trump.
It's time for the cult members to weigh their heads to see if they have even an ounce of brains.
17
The Republicans have become the Demcratic party of the second half of the 19th century.
Those are the "great times" to which this wish to return.
3
During Obama years I would often hear Republicans talking about how they won't "compromise on their principles." Well, they certainly proved they can't compromise on something they never had to begin with. Which makes all their morality based laws, i.e heartbeat bills, etc., to be nothing more than wanting subjugate women, minorities and gays. Add in Trump's foreign policies of betraying short- and long term Allies, and America has been substantially weakened. All in the name of Republican GREED for more wealth and power for themselves.
16
"Conservatives scoured every facet of [Obama's] life looking for a scandal and found none. They picked at every imaginary faux pas — wearing a tan suit, putting his feet on the desk, putting mustard on his burger — and yet they not only defend Trump’s truly vulgar behaviors, they cheer them."
This is the cause of the mingled pity and revulsion I feel for Trump supporters. Not only do they support him in his vulgar tirades against "libs," they support him in the inept policies that (unless they are already wealthy) are wrecking their own lives. It's "What's the Matter with Kansas" writ large.
14
In the new New Testament, many of Jesus's words have to be redacted. For example Matthew 25:40, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
7
Charles, of course righteousness is transactional. Every religion is based onthe premise that if I do what the bible,koran etc says I will go to heaven. Since all these religious guide books are open to interpretation any action can be seen as justified and morally correct. The sad fact is that if a person is gullible enough to buy into evangelical mumbo jumbo it is hardly a stretch for them to believe that the Trump presidency is akin to the Second Coming.
6
Having grown up in northeast Missouri, a few miles from the Iowa border, I saw first-hand how precarious farm life could be. Whether a family, even with plenty of land, survived year to year depended on the weather. Too little or too much rain at the wrong time, ill-timed heat or cold, too much mud to get in the fields to plant or harvest, could bankrupt farmers indebted to the bank for necessary expenses. Sunday mornings preachers would lead prayers for rain or sun. Farm communities grasped at straws, seeing themselves as victims of circumstances over which no one had any control.
Now, Trump uses farmer's victim mentality in a zero sum trope of "you're losing cause they're winning," stoking white fears against a rising black presence. Such racism is emotional, irrational, persistent and destructive, but serves as an opportunity for collective leverage to rise above. Human morality has always been our choice between good and evil.
6
This is pure click-bate.
Charles Blow has made a career out of hating on Trump and talking about racial issues. It makes for easy NY Times opinion pieces and commentary on TV. Just get angry over what Trump said this time and maybe through an over-analysis of "whiteness" in while you are at it. I think this is racist. I think over obsessing about the same issue week after week is unhealthy and is a byproduct of social media. (Social media should be banned like public smoking.) This is bad for Blow and his readers and the country as a whole. That doesn't mean racism isn't real, but using the internet to support feedback loop on any topic is psychologically self-destructive.
I'm pretty sure what people think of Biden is he is mildly racist but wants to be elected because of Obama. See the SNL skits where Biden tells a racially insensitive story and "In conclusion: Barack". I think that's all Trump's tweet was getting at. I don't think anyone is concerned about Biden being "subjugated". But like I said, this is click-bate.
People like Trump being vulgar because between the professional class trying too hard to be "professional", Democrats obsessing over "image", and social media, everyone especially liberal seem incredibly fake and inauthentic. Trump is vulgar, but at least he says what he thinks. I hate Trump. But I do wish people would act more human.
3
@James does more human for you include respecting science? Is his 'authenticity' in words as you see it soemthing that is more important than his disregard for the impact of humans on our world, or is that something you just don't care about..Who are you, to not care about the destruction of species by mans activities? I just don't get it - his 'authenticity' his verbiage, is more imprtant to you than right whales in shipping lanes, that Obama tried to spare, and Trump cares less a bout? His 'authenticity' that is, his words, are more improtant than protecting migrating birds, the treaty that Trump has eviscerated after a century of protection/ His 'authenticity ' which is mere words, is more important to you than one of our last old growth forests, the Tsongass - what kind of person are you?? I just can't see the world from your eyes.. At all..
10
@grace thorsen What does respecting science and environmentalism have to do with authenticity? Is it somehow impossible to have an environmentalist who is authentic and doesn't act like a robot? I'm not a Trump supporter. I don't deny science or global warming. I just don't like social media and lazy click-bate op eds. Your comment is the most random reply imaginable to my post.
@James authenticity is everything according to your post, and it comes down to just words for you..You seem to feel more strongly about authenticity in verbiage than you do authenticity in science. Trump cares nothing about real fact, real authenticity, and yet for some reason his mere seeming to talk the talk makes you think he is walking the walk!! So authenticity, in your post, demonstrates exactly h w strange it is that peopjle prefer the words that sound authentic, and care nothing about true authenticiy, like the science of climate change, which to my mind is trumps biggest crime, as we have four more years of ignoring science..Authenticity - the duality of the meaning, says it all - it is either trust in superficial words, or trust in science based decisions ('authentic' in the sense of real!!) problems..So, my question is again, do you value the verbiage of authenticity more than action on authentic problems? I think that is a real problem with a lot of Trump voters - he seems authentic to them, and yet he denies all authentic problems!! They just don't seem to see the contradiction!!
2
Trump is but one piece of this puzzle. He has reminded us of some negative aspects of the human dilemma. It is inaccurate to associate or even classify our history as racist though. There will always, repeat always be human struggle and everyone will always have 20-20 hindsight. What the liberal mind doesn't know and will n ot admit is that "it takes two to tango". No mention of Obama's atrocities, anti-conservative rhetoric galore, and vulgarities of the leftists legislators don't excuse Trump- but without them he might be a bit more calm. Add the daily political attacks and it actually builds a excuse for his antics and actions. He's not enough of a quality individual to take the first step toward civility and professionalism- bu neither is anyone on the left.
1
Still waiting for trump to issue a statement or tweet condemning the violent video shown at a campaign function held at one of trump’s properties. Have ‘t heard or read of a single republican condemning the video either. Despicable cowards with no integrity.
8
Let’s face it - Trump’s popularity is largely a backlash to our first black president, Barack Obama. Trump solicits and appeals to every white nationalist and racist in the country, all of whom were appalled and enraged at the idea of a black man being president.
14
Excellent article!!
4
In college circa 1980, I wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "The Moral Majority is Neither."
Nothing has changed.
14
Another superb editorial by the NY Times. Mr. Blow has got it right. When I heard the speech in Minnesota, I did not realize the racial implications in reference to Biden's relationship to President Obama. This editorial makes it crystal clear as to what Trump was up to. The man is racist to the bone. Thank you Charles Blow for enlightening me.
10
Trump has unleashed America's demons. Before, they were kept on the sidelines, or attributed to the lunatic fringe. Now, it's all out in the open. Removing Trump may make it worse. Someone will step in to replace him, you can count on that.
4
The city "too busy to hate" in the throes of Jim Crow (Atlanta) drove hate to the newly forming suburbs and gave us Newt Gingrich. There is no mystery, people.
6
Ask any serious and well-meaning parent or Evangelical of any faith if they would support Trumpworld antics if done by their children.
The honest answer would be, “never”. Will their family’s life be better if abortion is rolled back while a son or daughter shoots someone on 5th Avenue and expects to be “not guilty”? Or have “evolution” never mentioned at school but a child feels they can lie, exaggerate their self-importance, be corrupt, avoid taxes and never take responsibility for anything?
Please examine these points in a Sunday morning sermon honestly. Let us pray.
9
@Stewart Not only if done by children, but by a black man or woman or a white woman as well. Never. Only white guys can act this way.
2
Trump’s America has cocooned itself so deeply in its own mythologies that up can mean down, small can mean big, and evil mean good, interchangeably and on whim. We talk about cultishness in the abstract, but really, what in actual fact is a collective of people hermetically self-sealed from objective reality, absolute in the supremacy of its own dogma? The cult of ‘MAGA’; it is the unholy spawn of years of ignorance that became the lifeblood of the conservative project, of poisonous propaganda and usefully appropriated ills. America is now untethered from itself internally, and everyone outside the cult, de facto liberals, left to scratch heads and somehow pick up the pieces of the carnage of this ugly ignorance.
5
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene. It makes a mockery of their faith and their supposed philosophies."
I'm a minister and my response to this is, "Amen and amen!!" Keep preaching Rev. Blow!
14
Huzzah, Charles!
You're writing what most of America is now realizing - Trump and his despicable voters are racist to the core.
Warren in 2020!
14
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. A controversialist, humorous journalist, and pungent critic of American life. Many of his quotes from the 1930's and 1940's are as relevant today as they were then. Some find his views repugnant. Others think not. I for one offer some which give credence to Charles' column.
1. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron [seems accurate today].
2. When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money [still true today]
3. What men value in this world is not rights but privileges [I give you Trump & Giuliani as proof]
4. Most people want security in this world, not liberty [Trumpists].
5. Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar [cynical but more truth, than not].
You can love or hate Mencken, and not all of his quotes were patriotic, but cynicism has its place sometimes in history. Given the political realities today, I'm cynical that we will retain our democratic republic. How about you?
6
@Rcarr where are the Menckens of today?
1
Oh, for Heaven's sake.
'Last week, Trump went on more profanity-laced tirades. At a campaign rally in Minnesota, Trump said of Joe Biden: “He was only a good vice president because he understood how to kiss Barack Obama’s ass.”'
Who doesn't understand the difference between a profanity and an obscenity? Mr Blow? Or his sub-editor?
So regrettable to find "the newspaper of record" incapable of observing a simple distinction.
3
Focusing on that title does not diminish or change the reality of this President’s obscene statements and lack of knowledge.
6
@A S Knisely So regrettable to find any human who would point this out about an article whose dark, obscene message is the truth.
4
@Marsha Frederick -- No, of course not. When Mr Blow climbs onto his high horse to lead the charge, however, he might at least take care to face toward the bridle and not the crupper.
The word is "tittle". You're welcome.
1
Christians boast of being able to listen to God -- to hear Him.
What a shame that Trump's Christians are all deaf.
10
If government doesn't work for you, demolish it and build what's wanted. Then America will be Great Again! Trump is the demolition guy.
1
Morality never did have any meaning except for people who used it for their own selfish purposes.
2
Evangelicals are simply getting tired of waiting for the second coming. The second coming is not a time when Jesus is going to come and give mild sermons about blessed are the meek.
The opposite. End times theology -- which obsess evangelicals -- is all about vengeance, judgment, and final affirmation, of of the peace of Christ, but the power of a wrathful God.
They are tired of waiting. Trump lets them vent off a bit of that end-times steam.
More than Jesus, evangelicals love the idea of the violent end of the world. They are obsessed with it. And Trump gives them a taste of what they are so dearly praying will come soon.
Judgment, power, revenge against all who have ever not bowed before them.
It is not a pretty religion, and I really wish high-brow pundits would stop pretending it is.
8
I've come to the conclusion that humans are peculiar creatures. On the one hand, Trump is the antithesis of everything a Christian should stand for, and yet the most die-hard Christians feel compelled (by Heaven itself!) to stand by him. On the other hand, I once had an abusive and vulgar partner who unfailingly voted liberal and believed himself a champion of social integration and human rights.
I've given up trying to understand people.
5
When Obama was elected president I thought it was a sign of racial healing. There was still a scab, but I truly believed that things were finally getting better. How wrong I was. Trump has ripped that scab off racial healing and left a festering wound. He has shown himself to be a vulgar, racist and despicable human being. Sadly, he has shown this country that being racist has it's benefits, you can get elected by lying and turning people against each other. Now we know without any doubt what Trump represents, the majority need to stand up and thoroughly reject Trump and his mean, divisive, abusive and lying ways. We get to decide in the next election what kind of country we want to live in. Vote fort Trump and you vote for a breakdown of democracy and social order. Vote Democrat and you vote for hope of a better future. I miss President Obama, his general decency, calm and goodness. Trump keeps bad mouthing Obama, not just because of race, but because he is jealous and knows Obama is a better man. I want to be proud of America, not the shame and embarrassment I feel today. We need a multiracial ticket that can help us come together, not just white guys anymore.
10
One can but imagine what trumpf says of Pence. On second thought, I really can’t get that low.
4
Some very keen observations as always. Remember the good old days, when Republicans used to lecture us about the dignity and virtue Ronald Reagan brought to the White House? Remember how they would go on and on about how he always wore a suit into the Oval Office because he had such reverence for the sanctity of the presidency blah blah? This professed concern about the dignity of the presidency is as phony as their purported concern about deficits and spending.
9
We know what Trump is like, but what does their endorsement of him say about organized evangelicals?
6
@Cassandra
The trouble with Christianity, is the Christians!
-H.L. Mencken
4
Trump, his wealthy cronies and Evangelicals seem to follow the path that most dictators in the modern history have mastered.
(1) Keep your masses uneducated and uninformed.
(2) Hype the masses up about completely unfounded claims touching the issues that are up and close to their emotions (religion, freedom, taxes, welfare).
(3) Label anyone trying to help the minorities as an elitist liberal and accuse them of stealing American jobs.
(4) Pass regulations that favor the rich and open the doors to make poor people even poorer. Those with less education even more uneducated.
(5) Destroy the institutions that are baseline needs for a democratic society to flourish - such as free press, law and order systems, judicial systems.
Trump is white version of Mugabe, Amin, Kim, MBS and myriad of others. The only difference between them and Trump is that the American institutions are still standing between Trump and his quest for absolute power despite his constant barrage of attacks on them.
Only impeachment or overwhelming defeat in 2020 for Trump can save America.
8
The fundamental Christians and Evangelicals are connected to the whole Moral Majority which is a political arm of the Republican Party not a religious one . That says it all .
9
I have been a democrat my entire life. And then I started talking to conservatives last year about a range of issues. Gun control, big government, healthcare, the main stream media...and I came to see their perspective, and Ive come to see how much I agree with them and how deeply dishonest the main stream media. I also now see how destructive Democrat have been to our economy...the housing crisis (hey Barney Frank, the Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis...the Atlantic 2011), federally guaranteed student loans creating massive tuition inflation, and what the Democrats currently want to do. I would vote for Trump every day of the year over any Democrat in today's environment. These smug opinion writers can say whatever they want. I know how bad the Democratic party is today and I would never vote for them.
13
@RD
It's called radicalization and obviously it works. Case in point. There was an article about it just the other day.
Nothing and no one is perfect, including Democrats, who fail with good intent. I would rather fail with good intentions than succeed with bad intentions as exhibited by the Republicans.
The truth is easy to find and that is Democratic administrations have historically improved the economy while Republican ones have harmed it. Even Forbes admitted "By crucial metrics like GDP, job creation, business investment and avoiding recessions, the economy does a lot better with Democrats in the White House than with Republicans. Just one eye-opening example: Nine of the last 10 recessions have been under Republicans." https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/07/trump-is-right-about-one-thing-the-economy-does-better-under-the-democrats/#7c2dd0ad6786
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@RD and that is your right. Vote for him, and watch our democracy fade even more. Do you read? I suggest you open your mind to past history, especially the history of the Nazi party, you will see many parallels to what is happening RIGHT NOW in the USA. I feel your lack of true education. It is not your fault. American éducations system is among the worst in the world! Oh you didn’t know?
22
@Marie And that is the core of the issue. The good intentions of the past have been incredibly destructive to everyone Democrats have tried to help. Why is it, that in 1964, 24% of black children were born to single mothers, yet today its 74%? Because Democrats incentivise the wrong things. The Johnson administration had people going door to door in poor neighborhoods asking if there was a single mother in the household so they could offer her welfare benefits. What has resulted is two generations of black families with no fathers. Single mothers cannot compete with two income households for housing and good schools. And separated black fathers got to live outside of the home and get chased for child support to boot. Good intentions? I think not. What the Democrats want to do today would be just a complete catastrophe for everyone.
2
I am friends with a number of Trump supporters. Every single one of them is a better human being -- in every way. But Trump panders to their deepest fears, the reptilian part of the brain that defies logic.
Trump's playbook is that of a cult leader. With roughly a third of our electorate, it is still working. Hopefully, a hard dose of reality will eventually break his spell.
But the vein of bigotry and ignorance that Trump has intuitively mined has been part of our national ethos from the beginning.
7
One black president and Trump is the backlash? The only good thing about Trump is the mirror we now see ourselves in. Our racist history, the decimation and humiliation of our indigenous peoples. Our Christian hypocrisy. The betrayal of allies and failure to secure elections against fraud. Make America Great Again? Maybe make America conscious citizens who respect themselves again.
396
@Alison
Just want to highlight what you wrote that I have never been able to reconcile: "Our Christian hypocrisy."
14
@Alison
The United States always seemed to think that it represented an ideal kind of government which maximized the good in human life, even while slavery was legal and the citizens descended from European immigrants/invaders who had displaced the native peoples. But comparing the system and ideals it represented, it was a very good system, and still happens to be. We just are not perfect. We can be better.
3
Lately, I've been wondering what I find more repulsive Trump or the evangelicals who support him. Fact: Trump is one of the most despicable men alive but one of his most strident supporters are the evangelicals and they are supposed to be the right hand to God.
Either they believe in God and the bible and try to live by the Word or not. Let's examine this statement along to its logical end and make this whole Trump/God mix more bizarre. Not that it isn't bizarre enough without adding God to the mix.
Previously, although I didn't agree with the evangelicals, I did have a grudging respect for what appeared to be their healthy life style.
Now we come to the most perplexing part. If, as they say, they live by the word of God and yet they love Trump which nobody denies, does that mean that Trump loves God or that God loves Trump?
If it's the latter, how do they now interpret the Bible and all the lessons of the Bible? Are they going to reinterpret the Bible according to a Trumpian point of view? How do they now explain to their teenage children that Trump's swearing, grabbing women's crotches, bragging about doing anything to women because he is rich... ? If we are going to live in a Trumpian world, we can see it's going to be an even more nasty place than it is now.
6
Thank you for focusing on a belief that is in sad disuse today in our country--morality! The disgrace of a man with no morals, no ethic, no compassion for anyone other than himself is a disgrace to us all. Please stay on this theme. We need it now more than ever.
4
What a role reversal. Democrats now claim to abhor what they once overlooked and blithely forgave two decades ago. Looks like the GOP isn’t the only party that’s really good at double standards.
7
@Once From Rome, Your condemnation is really rich! Especially since Republicans have turned against everything they once claimed to believe. I am a Democrat but I stood, and still stand, for many of those verities also. Republicans once believed in free trade, they once staunchly supported the idea of character. I could go on and on but you get the idea. I hated Clinton's womanizing as did Republicans at the time. Now they defend Trump's womanizing and much more that would have caused apoplexy if a Democrat had done it. At least, in the case of Clinton, he was able to keep our government institutions and foreign policy intact, which is more than can be said of Trump.
68
@Once From Rome
There is a huge difference between what Mr Clinton did and then lied about with his wife standing behind him and the coarse nastiness of Mr Trump.
There is no real comparison between the two so that's a moot point.
Even now Mr Trump is showing who he is in his treatment of the Kurds is Syria. By extension why would anyone partner with the U.S.? Just to be abandoned to their deadly enemies when their use to America is lessened in importance of there is no longer a pressing need for their help? This in itself is beyond cruel short sighted and plain stupid and tells of an inability to understand others.
13
Barack Obama, unlike Trump, ran a scandal-free eight years in the White House, no matter what your heavily-coded comment says. Obama set an entirely new standard for presidents, one that Trump cannot, and will not, ever be able to reach. And either will any Republican as long as the GOP remains the Party of Trump.
20
It’s important to bear in mind that the Trump-worshiping evangelicals are NOT true Christians. They are what Jesus himself referred to as the “goats” (as opposed to the true sheep of his flock), those who at the last judgment would be told to “depart from me; I never knew you.” They loudly proclaim their supposed “faith,” but again Jesus: You will know a tree by its fruit. If the “fruit” of their alleged faith is their blind loyalty to a corrupt man lacking normal human compassion and empathy, then it speaks LOUDLY for itself. They are not Christians. They are fake “christians,” lowercase “c.”
3
I had a friend in the 1990's who would lead in to a sentence with, " The religious right, which is neither...." . This is as correct today as it was back then. The hypocrisy just screams louder now, than in the 1990's.
I listened last weekend to a public radio piece in how quickly the Germans changed their view of the brown shirted nazis from thugs, to embrace all they stood for in a period as little as 2 years; from Hitlers rise to the Chancellorship.
Current propaganda: the controversial video of Trump's head superimposed onto a stunt doubles movie head fighting and killing members of the fake media establishment, shown at a recent rally, further threatens facts and truth, which the mainstream media provide, with the exception of Fox. Of course not only is it fake in itself, it loses it's message to any thinking person in it's phoniness and hypocrisy, and risks inciting similar violence toward members of the media. It should be confiscated and the originators arrested for inciting violence. How is it any different than shouting "fire" in a crowded theater?
This needs confrontation head-on, lest we surrender our democracy, piece by piece.
6
Ta-Nehisi Coates said it best, when, after Obama's election he heard, See how far black people have advanced?
Coates said, Black people don't need to advance. White people need to advance.
10
The Bible does not reveal specifically who the Antichrist is, speaking instead of his corrupt teachings. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul prophesied of a “man of sin,” a liar and deceiver whose natural abilities Satan enhances by supernatural power in order to confuse people in the end time.
It appears to me this is the abomination that the evangelicals promoted to lead our nation. Actually, it makes sense because their main motivation is collecting money so they can build their christian theme parks and support their lavish life styles. Adding insult to injury most of these charlatans probably don't pay income tax.
4
Trump's rallies have an audience very similar to professional wrestling, and Trump is Gorgeous George. Back in the early '60s, when I was a teenager in Pittsburgh, the professional wrestlers acted out battles between Italians and Poles. Nobody ever went broke by overestimating the racism of America.
7
It's the slow march to fascism or worse.
8
And this grotesque, racist TV reality show of a "presidency" is brought to us by sponsors like Robert and Rebekkah Mercer, owners of Cambridge Analytica, who bankrolled the host's 2016 campaign to the tune of $30 million. No doubt they're doing the same to ensure a second season.
These amoral oligarchs continue to fly mostly under the media's radar. Charles, please devote one of your future columns to unmasking them.
5
Please stop conflating real conservatives with the reactionary and neo-fascist Far Right. Look at the conservative columnists in your own newspaper. Stop disowning natural allies in the defense of democracy.
1
"So, now I no longer know what to call these people." Try this one on for size Charles, areligious hypocrites. Their proclaimed religiousness is a convenient cover for who they really are and what they truly believe.
1
And as Hunter Biden publicly declares his departure from sitting on the board of a foreign business, the short fingered vulgarian and bigots own children CONTINUE to do their business as usual, sit in on national security meetings and make money using the office of president as a bribe for favours for their father.
While the republicans and the bigots supporters say nothing.
9
DEPLORABLES, DEPLORABLES, DEPLORABLES-- Hillary Clinton was right. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them.
I know we aren't suppose to label these snowflakes accurately, if they don't like it them stop being deplorable and stop supporting the king of deplorable people.
11
This was posted on FB from an evangelical college acquaintance (Lord help us all!):
“When I say I love my President, I do. He came when the world and America forgot us the people. When everyday was a journey can I feed my family can I make a way. No one heard.
Except this man... adorned yes... chosen yes.... misunderstood yes...ordained absolutely!
In God there was a place for him to lead us out from despair from poverty and hopelessness. He was and is from God.
Perfect no... Not by Man but Perfect of God. God chooses those that Man would never see. But only Man could understand or know. The Imperfect Man. Perfect for God! In God imperfection is perfection! He is each of us! He is Divine! Chosen by God!
He is my President!God Bless America!
God Bless Donald Trump .. my President!”
2
Are you posting this to make us aware of the brain washed in our nation?
@CitizenTM Just an example of the viewpoint of an extreme Trump supporter. I think it wise to be aware of what we’re up against.
1
Through impeachment or through voting, let's get Trump out !
November 2020
2
Odd that Robertson would use the term "mandate of heaven". The chinese said that when the emperor of china lost the mandate of heaven then there would be regime change and anew emperor and dynasty would emerge.
Soooooo....Pat....is it time for a new dynasty?
Vietnam Vet
5
I’m not much of a person of faith, but if I were, I’d like to think I would cast a skeptical eye on Donald Trump, that he is more likely an anti-Christ than a defender of Christians — a charismatic “deceiver” who seeks to lead the flock astray, to fall to their basest instincts of hatred and judgment: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. Is it not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.”
2
I've had a lot of time to consider Hillary's use of the word, "deplorables." As time has proven out, she nailed it. Google it.
14
All my life I've heard the holier than thou moral denunciations of evangelical "Christians." No need to pay attention any longer. Evangelicals wallow in the same racist, sexist, homophobic, corrupt, cruel, greedy, power mad moral pigsty as Trump, without reservation or hesitation. Why would anyone outside their cult pay any attention to their hypocritical judgements of the rest of us? They have all the credibility of Jim Jones.
13
The worst vulgarity thus far is his abandonment of the Kurds in Syria.
This caused a lot of unnecessary deaths that are incongruent with the US' place in the world.
This was an instinctive, impulive move that proves he's imcompetent as a president.
We need to impeach and remove.
2
I am appalled at trump's rally speeches, and I have emailed the White House to state such. The remarks about Joe Biden bothered me beyond the obscenities, and I didn't realize exactly why. The racism did not jump out at me. It disgusts me to see that parents bring their children to these rallies, and to see those children cheering behavior that would get them in trouble in school. What kind of citizens are these parents raising? Shameful!
11
@PK
Whattaya think they are raising? The next generation of deplorables and poorly educated, that's what.
1
As a practicing Christian myself, I have never been a fan of the Christian Right. To me, they have been filled with hypocrisy long before Trump came along. But their embrace of his obscene, moral bankruptcy--justified under the twisted logic that they can "love the message without loving the messenger"--frankly, makes me ill. Forgetting the messenger here, the message is one of hate, division, superiority and even violence. It is truly abhorrent and as immoral as anything Christ preached against. These are not Christians--they are using religion to mask their immorality.
2
As always, Mr. Blow, you are spot on with your analysis of this train wreck of a presidency. Kudos.
4
The question remains: what is wrong with our situation and system that allow this miscreant and his minions to maintain power?!
3
Although I’m an agnostic, I have to say, Mr. Blow—with respect to your Opinion Column of October 13—Amen, brother.
5
Trump voters, hear this. I am an immigrant (yes, legal), liberal, person of color, living in the East Coast. My feelings towards you are about the same as how I imagine you feel about people like me.
Here is the difference. I have an advanced degree from MIT, and am an expert in Robotic Process Automation. I am working furiously to automate every single of your jobs: waiter, cashier, truck driver, factory worker, and yes, even law enforcement. They will all be robots in the future. You and your kind will be permanently unemployed and unemployable. What will you do then? Turn off Fox News finally?
5
@MoneyRules,
Thank you for speaking out. I'm a native-born American citizen and a person of color (in my 60's). I remember when my people were told we had to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, so we did. I've lost all sympathy for Trump voters. They want everything handed to them. And they have no problem blaming others for their own failings. I don't have the educational level you do, but I have been an attorney for forty years. I understand exactly what you're saying, and again, thank you for speaking out.
2
Excellent. Except those blue collar Trumpists don’t read. Full stop.
2
Great column, thank you!!
3
"So, now I no longer know what to call these people.
Deplorable(s)
3
Confederates
2
it doesn’t - nothing more to say
1
Consciously or unconsciously, Trump's supporters have made a bargain with themselves to accept the anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-international agreement policies offered by their Leader and ignore his cruel, willfully ignorant, vulgar, mean-spirited, petty, narcissistic, mendacious, self-dealing behaviour. If Trump cages migrant children, shares classified information with Russian officials in the Oval office, pays off mistresses, invites the G7 to his Doral golf club, pressures Ukraine to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 Democratic opponent, his supporters avert their eyes and then claim they didn't see anything wrong. For his Christian evangelical supporters: "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
4
true liberals have always been the minority, always been 25 years or so ahead of the rest of the country in terms of civil rights, human rights, economic rights. If they weren't ahead of the country then there wouldn't have been a need for a civil rights movement, gay rights movement and so forth. similarly sons of the Confederacy, white racists, people eager to embrace McCarthyism, anti-semites, haters of the other have always been a much larger minority. the difference however is the form of our Republic. no one would even be thinking of the content of this article if popular vote had elected the president. instead we have representative government which gives more electoral muscle to places bypassed by the march of time.
232
@mike Preach, brother.
16
@mike You are very amusing, mike. True liberals, which no doubt includes you, are 25 years or so ahead of us poor
But there was this recent report issued jointly by UCLA and Penn State ranking New York City as the leading city in the country in racially segregated schools. This was reported in a New York Times article from last March entitled "Segregation Has Been the Story of New York City’s Schools for 50 Years"
Another important stat is what percentage of blacks enroll in four year colleges upon high school graduation? Here New York enrolls around 36 percent of black high school graduates. On closer look this number is seriously marred by the number of black women graduating with degrees, which stands at twice the number of black men.
Since you also mentioned the superiority of liberals in economic justice, more bad news. The Bowery mission just reported that New York City leads all others in homelessness.
"Every night in our city, nearly 4,000 people sleep on the street, in the subway system or in other public spaces. The vast majority of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness – over 63,000 homeless men, women and children – spend the night instead within the city’s shelter system"
Do you know the expression "Talk is Cheap?" Perhaps you superior liberals should try a little hands-on work eliminating these injustices in your back yard first, and then get on the Internet to libel people with charges of "Racist" and "White Supremacist.
Trump is a discredit to his race, and I am very happy that he isn't black or brown. Trump detests Obama because he dared to ascend to the presidency; how dare he! Like many whites, Trump is most comfortably when engaging black entertainers (Kanye), athletes (Tyson), and comedians (Harvey)whom he views as harmless and whose careers whites control and benefit from. BUT a black person of real power, hence, socio-political is almost always viewed as a threat to white domination. And, truth be told, this perspective isn't endemic among white conservatives as there are many white liberals who also prefer to interact with black people in subordinate roles.
6
"So, now I no longer know what to call these people."
Hillary had it right: deplorables. And so is the Republican party.
8
In a word Republicans/Religious Right ignoring Trump's racism, mistreatment of women, increasing vulgarity, incitement of violence, etc., etc..... "hypocrisy".
2
You nailed it.
5
Perfect!
1
Aside from their racism, Trump’s supporters also relate to his hate because they inhale violent and dysfunctional TV shows. The more outlandish, rude, violent, ignorant the better for these people. The TV producers are complicit in promoting chaos.
3
I don't care what Evangelical so-called "Christians" claim. Trump never had any mandate from heaven to do anything at all. The Bible says that the man "Approved by God" must be a person of absolute integrity.
Integrity, according to the Bible, means purity of heart, moral soundness, blamelessness, honesty, singleness of outlook or intent (not being a double-crosser or double-dealer), being free from hypocrisy. (Matthew 5:8; Matthew 6:1-6; Luke 11:34-36; Matthew 5:28). The Bible says that integrity must be a way of life for true Christians.
For example, Romans 2:21-22 says,
". . .you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?"
Proverbs 19:1 says, "It is better to be poor and honest than to be a liar and a fool."
And Psalms 15:1-5 says " Lord, who can live in your Holy Tent? Who can live on your holy mountain?
Only those who live pure lives, do what is right,
and speak the truth from their hearts.
Such people don’t say bad things about others.
They don’t do things to hurt their neighbors.
They don’t tell shameful things about those close to them.
. . .If they make a promise to their neighbor,
they do what they promised. . . And they refuse to testify against an innocent person. . ."
Trump is an iniquitous person of unspeakably bad behavior who is not a man of integrity.
5
The Republicans committed decades of fraud upon me and my kind, constantly charging Liberals critical of this or that aspect of our country's foreign or domestic policies; those horrified by gross inequalities in health care, education and wealth; and those disgusted by bumbling, hugely expensive wars that benefited none but the arms and violence purveyors (how are you doing, evil Vice Dick? Still enjoying those Halliburton millions?} were unpatriotic haters of the Republic, and probably secret Communists, only too willing to pervert the Constitution in furtherance of our fell, progressive schemes.
I am furious that these moral poseurs, these loud apostles of Democracy and Christianity have proved to be the most craven flatterers of Power, men only too willing to sacrifice the Republic and its peoples and, as we see in Syria, any sense of Decency, in return for riches and position.
They have proved to be men willing to support a man bereft of any true patriotism, sympathy, or Love in his heart; a man obsessed with his crippled image of masculine Power and Success. A man who is both completely Ignorant and completely Certain, and completely Sociopathic in his thoughts and impulses. And worst of all, they willingly seek to destroy their own and their followers' abilities to even perceive the difference between Right and Wrong.
The Republican Party will nott survive the fall of the Mouth. Never again will we give countenance to these Phony Patriots and Statesman.
7
Those who say he doesn’t speak for us are in denial that as President that is PRECISELY what he does. And we are all smeared with his filthy spew and infected with his hateful demeanor and callous recklessness. He and his enablers have debased our nation in the eyes of the world and equally tragic, turned us against each other.
3
White Nationalism is just part of Donald Trump's philosophy. What Charles M. Blow does not state in this perceptive column, is that the GOP has also embraced fascism, which is the core of Donald Trump's philosophy.
3
Mandate of Heaven? He's a Zhou king, a Chinese emperor? That ended in 1911. Why is the USA stuck with that in 2019? Dynastic change in 2020!
3
Thank-you, Charles Blow. My sentiments exactly.
3
Charles, you no longer know what to call these people? I do - devil worshippers. Because Trump is one.
2
This is all to sad, but we’ve seen this before. Those after the Civil War who encouraged the KKK and Jim Crow, after WWI with the Germans who followed Hitler, those in Italy who followed Mussolini, etc.
Given a set of extreme change which will lead to either displaced or left behind groups of folks, add in a vast majority of folks unable to reason critically from lack of education and then childhood racism and sexism and you’re here.
Trump is who he’s always been. What I’m constantly surprised by are the numbers who feel he is one just...like...them.
2
Republicans are only worried and noisy about a politician's values and conduct when the politician is a Democrat. Hypocrites as well as racists.
4
Trump is the true face of the Republican Party unmasked. I realized decades ago, based on the dissonance between their words and their deeds, that Republicans’ so-called values were just a smoke screen. Unfortunately, given their apparently innate dishonesty, Republicans will neither bow their heads in shame, nor cease lying about their true values and goals now that they have been exposed. Sadly, shame is the province only of those with morals, and personal change in the direction of good is only for those who care about what is right.
362
@Renee Margolin
It truly doesn't matter what a horrible and criminal trump is, republicans are living in the fox news disinformation bubble and will never ever vote for a democrat even if their life depended on it.
Can we accept that trump country will never live in reality and break away from their self destruction before the rest of us are brought down with them?
18
@Citizen
Yeah, those voters scare me more than Trump. He'll be out of office one way or another soon enough, but I don't know how we're going to get everyone back on the same page at least agreeing on the same facts, if not the same policies. Fortunately we don't need Trump supporters to vote for a democrat to win though, we just need some of them to stay home and more democrats and independents to vote. If everyone who had voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary voted for Hillary in the general election we wouldn't be in this mess. No matter who the democrat nominee is we all need to band behind them and knock on doors.
27
There is another point to be made with respect to Trump's latest racist rant with Vice President Biden as the object. I have noted that when he calls out a purported fault in another, he is invariably projecting a fault of his own.
Examine Trump's relationship to Putin!
5
It is quite unfortunate so many Americans followed this vulgar person but he talks the same way most of his voters do while telling them what they want to hear. What a good mix, isnt'it ?
You wanted him, well you got him. Trump knows his temper tantrums are coming to its end and will speed up the turmoils across the board, inside and outside USA before he goes.
1
Talk about "righetousness" is not situational. Why do Americans and media turn elsewhere to what is morally wrong while giving less than a darn about American citizens who find themselves in situations that is no fault of their own. Calling attention that a red line should be drawn about immigrants' situation; well, Flint still has contaminated water.
Democracy, diversity, openness, freedom is messy. Symbols (flag,anthem, car magnets/bumper stickers) are “clean”. The former requires a developed ability to tolerate, if not embrace, the messiness of pluralism, difference and challenge. The latter is a comforting clarity. a conformity fantasy without investment or sacrifice...other than freedom.
The revolt against messy “modernity” is, perhaps, the last gasping denial of reality from the drowning old time religion...be they in America, Europe or Asia.
Is it any surprise that the extreme level of desperation to hold onto clean, comforting, maladaptive (in 2019) fantasies has resulted in the blind embrace of kakistocracy, “alternative facts” and conspiracy scenarios?
1
Calvinism is alive and well in the Republican Party. That religious orientation posits that if you become rich in life, then that alone is a sign that God has chosen that person as a "saint." They believe in predestination -- if God truly knows all and determines all, then being rich was determined by God. In this view, then, Trump of course has a mandate because he is rich. New England started with Calvinism and that religious thread has continued to today.
3
@Trent Batson
On the subject of predestination, I recommend a reading of “Holy Wullie’s Prayer” by the immortal Robert Burns.
And let's not forget that the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, once stood for Emancipation and fought the Civil War, in part, to achieve it.
Thanks. While I and probably most readers agree, I can’t help but think this op-ed is preaching to the choir, so to speak. Nevertheless, it should be stated often and repeated regularly. To paraphrase Dylan: “Piety is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.”
1
Is Trump really rich?
We don't know and he's afraid to show whether it's true
-- or whether his wealth comes from deficit spending.
He builds castles in the air and actually lives in them.
But when bills come due, someone else pays for them (but Mexico wouldn't). Of course, to get loans require collateral, visible or hidden. What other collateral might he have to sustain support?
Is it our nation itself?
The early '80s was the era of greed -- and "greenmail".
Borrow enough short-term money to get controlling shares, then force the company to buy them back -- or lose control.
It's a gamble, like the lottery, with the stakes are higher.
The ultimate is to greenmail a nation -- where there is no option to buy back our country, its freedoms, and its history.
Jobs were sold overseas, generations cheated with false promises (e.g. Trump U), mountaintops were removed (for Appalachian coal), Caribean fisheries poisoned by irresponsible oil, lives destroyed.
Rivers and streams poisoned (Flint), our inventiveness sold.
Freedoms once enjoyed by many increasingly available to the few.
What happened to America the Beautiful? from Sea to Shining Sea, with Purple Mountains Majesty, across a fruited plain?
Who would be so bold as to devise a way to greenmail such a birthright?
Who are the villianous puppeteers pulling the invisible threads of threat and riches who would destroy it all using an ignorant, uncouth, yet completely pliable puppet?
3
The sort of people who cheer Trump’s vulgarities at rallies and on talk radio probably make up a relatively small part of his support. For many more of his supporters he’s an embarrassment, but they will cover for him so long as he stands as a bulwark against progressivism. Charles Murray calls Trump “a malignant narcissist,” but says he’ll probably wind up voting for him anyway. Trump may have rejected traditional conservative values, but for the most part he’s championed all the GOP’s pet causes – lower taxes, deregulation, gun rights, right to life, originalist judges – so what’s not to like? Trump’s genteel enablers have made cynical common cause with those who find his indecency personally validating. They may live to regret it.
212
@Fidelio
"... he’s championed all the GOP’s pet causes – lower taxes, deregulation, gun rights, right to life, originalist judges …"
Can we please use correct labeling here?
1) lower taxes
I'll accept "upward wealth distribution" or "deferred taxation" (we will have to pay off the heavy borrowing).
2) deregulation
"environment poisoning"
3) right to life
" coerced pregnancy". Let's face it, all the rest of anything even remotely related to life is utterly irrelevant.
4) originalist judges
"activist judges"
Where are they? Scalia rewrote the first amendment to anoint corporations to humans, money to speech. Scalia rewrote the second amendment to edit out "well regulated militia"
62
@Fidelio You got that right, Trump is promoting the conservative agenda, after spending 2 weeks on a Viking River Cruise in Europe where age group was 70 +, all good people as far as I could tell, one guy told my wife that he wouldn’t have a beer with Trump but he thought Trump was doing what he said he would do and that was why he still supported him, although he also said he would have a beer with Obama, lots of older conservatives out there that are set in their ways and all this progressive change is a bit too much them (my opinion).
13
@Robert Clark
"... age group was 70 +, […] he thought Trump was doing what he said he would do ..."
Trump promised healthcare better than ACA, and an infrastructure program. But this does not matter to a 70+ year olds floating-down-a-river in Europe demographic as they are all retired on Medicare.
Trump however did promise and fulfilled the promise to destroy the environment for future generations. Again, this does not matter to a 70+ year olds floating-down-a-river in Europe demographic as they will all be dead by the time the already rolling multitude of variegated environmental disasters really kicks into high gear.
Does this demographic not have children and grandchildren?
52
This article should be required reading. Well done, Charles.
4
“mandate of heaven”
Truly repulsive that anyone espousing Christianity could twist themselves into pretzels to exalt the bigoted, divisive, decidedly unChristian and unconstitutional behavior of Donald Trump. Sometimes hate likes to band itself together, calling itself religious, but it's simply a way to hate or discriminate en masse.
3
The evangelicals justify their support for Trump by screaming, "But the babies!" By which they mean, embryos and fetuses. They are obviously not concerned about "real" babies/children once they have exited the birth canal.
3
Thanks Charles for telling it like it is.
2
Thank you Mr Blow.
You make a number of accurate points in this well written article. But let me add that while racism is most definitely a factor in the hate for Obama and subsequent embrace of trump, when I look at the crowds at these rallies, what I see most of all is ignorance. I see the absolute dumbest people in America. These are armchair quarterbacks who truly cant comprehend the complexities of todays world. They seem to think that someone who eschews science, expertise, education, evidence, statistics, knowledge, et al .. can do a better job than someone who is educated, studied and disciplined (like Obama). They seems to cheer on people who have little or no knowledge of what they are in charge, as though that is a better solution; that these complicated issues can be solved by a slogan that in itself completely ignores any depth of understanding.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United ·States, and there has always been. ... nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Issac Asimov
5
There are many "Christians" who vote solely on abortion. They sincerely believe they are stopping murders of babies (right up until the moment someone they love needs an abortion).
Ask them this variation on the Trolley problem: if you had to send the fire dept. either East or West, would you send them East to rescue 1,000 frozen embryos, or West to rescue 1 two-year old?
1
@Oh Please there are many American Jews rich poor who only vote for The party that seems to be most favoring Israel, at the moment! Go figure
1
Great editorial....Thanks
Sometimes truth is not pretty. It's a hard pill to swallow.
When you look across the crowd at a Trump rally on TV or run into a Trump supporter somewhere (even in your own family), they seem to embody the worst that American society has to offer.
They are usually ignorant and willfully so about everything that matters; they are open in their loathing of foreigners, people of color and gays; they are petty and small minded; they are frequently religious zealots; they don't trust science or journalism or universities.
Are all of them this way? Of course not. But these low information voters are not the kind of people that are open to truth. They act on base emotions. They prefer demagogues who protect their Party to democrats (small "d") who protect the Constitution or country.
Trump is pathological, but most of his supporters are simply pathetic. When historians and future generations look at the horror story that is the Trump administration and GOP today, they should hold the fools who enable it fully responsible.
Let's stop making excuses for Trump cult. They are shameless.
3
Someone ought to take a black Sharpie and write the Sermon on the Mount on Trump's forehead. Trump will see it every time he looks in the mirror----which seems to be often. His evangelical stooges will see it every time the Pretender in Chief takes the stage in their names. Maybe these folks will actually read what Jesus said if it adorns Trump.
3
Just when I think I can't be anymore stunned by the all consuming obscenity of trump, it smacks me in the head - again.
I never, ever would have made the connection - Biden's allegiance to Obama as racial insult to white people.
And once again, I'm speechless except to ask of the air around me, how much longer? how much more of this sick man can I/we take?
3
The issue has always been "racism" and white nationalism all along. From the "birther" conspiracy to Charlottesville to attacks on African-American professional football players kneeling during the national anthem exercising their 1st amendment right to protest white police brutality to the Trump hate speech inspired gun massacres in a Pittsburgh synagogue and an El Paso Walmart to separating immigrant children from their families and putting them into inhuman conditions in "concentration camp" like cages to undoing or trying as with Obamacare to undo everything Barack Obama accomplished, Donald trump has embraced "American carnage" with all of it toxic evil. It's also not surprising the heart of Trump's base is in the Old Confederacy where racism still flourishes and the vestiges of Jim Crow still thrive in suppression of the black vote through Voter ID laws, purging of the voter rolls, gerrymandering and limiting access to polling stations. This is the "civil war" that Trump threatened and we can only hope that, as with the first Civil War, that the Union and its Constitution will triumph over the dark forces of racism, hate, white male supremacy, misogyny, domestic terrorism, and renewed attempts to rig the election. The battle has been joined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and those defending the Constitution, but the outcome is still in doubt despite the blatant criminality that has already been revealed.
2
Surely Mr. Blow could have found a "red line" dating to earlier than separation of immigrant children from their parents. Maybe the threats to lock up Hillary, or virtually any of Trump's pre-election rally behaviors? The filth and criminality of his behavior toward, disdain for women, the multiple divorces, any number of things only a cretin would do? Let's stop kidding ourselves that fundamentalist Christians are any more moral than any other group - including the religiously secular.
But let's also face facts. Trump's life -aside from his inherited millions- is not so different from any a number of Americans. His relations with women are conducted at the locker room level. He likes junk food in quantity. He could care less how he looks in front of a mirror-or for his wife. Third wife? Big whoops, there are plenty of men out there on wife number three-and plenty of women to marry them. And yes, a big healthy schmear of racism to cap it all off. There's enough commonality there to make him attractive -and even if Republicans may not share all of these habits- publicly at any rate - if they can punish the poor, reward big corporations, enrich themselves, what's not to like? So what if large groups get hurt along the way? Too bad, they're getting what they want- and they'll even use some of Trump's rhetoric to justify it, if it benefits them.
I'm sick to death of cretins. And people - Dems in particular - if you're not calling them out, you're part of the problem.
3
Trump has exposed the massive number of shameless Americans. So many articles have been written with the theme of shaming Republicans for their hypocrisy. These may be written with no avail. Republicans seem to be shameless over this characteristic. As a political tool, Democrats see hypocrisy from a moral standpoint, while Republicans see it tactically. Hypocrisy is what Republicans use to unite their base, so why expect them to be ashamed of it. Democrats say, "Shame on you. You advocate fiscal conservation. Then, you blow up the deficit. Shame on you. You advocate family values. Then, you become disciples of men who separate families at the border and abuse women. Shame on you. You advocate law and order. Then, you allow assault rifles against the wishes of law enforcement officials, attack judges, and obstruct legal proceedings. Shame on you. You advocate democracy while embracing dictators. Shame on you." To all of that and much more, Republicans say, "So what?" Considering the size of the Trump base, we are learning that the number of shameless Americans is significant. However, the bright side is that we are at a turning point. We are beginning to see a change. Some are beginning to realize what shameless hypocrisy is costing us dearly in foreign policy and in the importance of our position in the world.
Trump is a sociopath but one with an amazing perhaps unsurpassed talent: Trump can lie with no compunction whatsoever. No matter how much evidence piles up against his claims, he never bats an eye, his voice never tremors, and he never tires of lying. This weird talent seems to transfix his base to such an extent that they become literally incapable of discerning truth from falsehoods. I suppose they love being told that this “great man” has everything under control, and they feel that if they are with him, they too are “winners.” I have read numerous accounts of Trump supporters who swear that they have read the Ukraine telephone transcript and see nothing at all wrong there. But if Obama had made that call, these same people would be lined up outside the Capital Building the next day, demanding his immediate impeachment.
Put simply, and without exaggeration, Trump seems literally to have hypnotized millions of Americans. This spell could perhaps be broken if enough highly respected conservatives, like Mitt Romney and General Mattis, would come together and denounce Trump as a traitor to America, forcefully and repeatedly, together with extensive evidence of his crimes. Conservatives, if you are reading, the future of the American Republic really might be in your hands. Please come off the fence; you are needed now as never before.
3
@loosefish
No , the “ spell “ that Trump supporters are under will never be broken , not by any decent Republicans speaking out because anyone who is stupid enough or weak enough to fall under a “spell “ means that they can’t think for themselves .
That’s how dictators are born .
To help understand this weird evangelical dichotomy, it is necessary to know a little relevant history. Cyrus the Great, Emperor of Persia, was a decent enough ruler as conquerors go. He respected the people and religions of the regions he conquered. In the Hebrew scriptures (Isaiah 45:1) he was referred to as "Moshiach" because he was "annointed of God" to rebuild the temple after the Babylonian exile. He was the only gentile in the Hebrew scriptures to have this title. He was "outside the fold", so not expected to observe Torah law. Yet he brought the people back to their land and rebuilt the temple. He gave them what they needed and they welcomed him is spite of his alien ways. In contrast, Conqueror/Roman Emperor Caligula, a little later in history, had no use for the local people or their religions. As he amassed more and more power for himself, power became his sole focus, and everything he did was to obtain more. He was said to be despotic, sadistic and cruel, and engaging in all kinds of immoral behavior. Evangelicals see Cyrus in Trump. He is "outside their fold" therefore not expected to share their values, as long as he gives them what they want, such as stacked courts etc., they will ignore his boorish behavior. Even world destabilization is ok with them, as it will just help bring about the second coming of Jesus. Where those without that worldview see Caligula, evangelicals see only Cyrus, and they will likely remain loyal to the end.
1
"Mandate from Heaven", a title that corresponds with that bizarre scene when 45 said he was "The Chosen One". Though, now, he says, it was a joke. If this is truly meant to be a joke, for his daughter and son-in-law, this is blasphemy and another sign of his deplorable insensitivity. Heaven for Christians of all denominations and sects inspires believers to conform their behaviors to their hopes. The common prayer Christians offer asks the Divine to come and express the same will on earth as it is in heaven. So, if the "Mandate from Heaven" and "The Chosen One" are taken seriously, then 45's actions as POTUS are truly sacrilegious. Consider the prophecy of Isaiah who envisioned bringing heaven to earth. "On him the spirit of the LORD will rest, … but with justice he will defend the poor and defend the humble in the land with equity." (cf. Isaiah 11.1-10) How 45 and his actions do not reflect the Biblical mandate for the Chosen One. Cutbacks in food assistance and healthcare for the poor and separating and migrant children from their parents, putting them in cages, and denying them basic hygiene, this not defending the poor and humble with justice and equity.
1
Evangelical leaders are trained as hypocrites. They live as hypocrites. So when the time comes to act as hypocrites it is as easy for them as stealing nickels from the donation basket.
Charles, re: your last sentence in your next-to-last paragraph:
You call these people mean hypocrites.
My atheism is validated every time I see a bible-thumping evangelical kneel to this vulgar man.
5
Jesus taught that the devil is a liar and the father of lies. The so-called Christian right revealed themselves as shameless hypocrites when they decided to support Trump knowing that he ran to the front of the lying birther parade.
They are not Christian, they are Trumpians. God always knew these people were not true. Now, we all know.
2
Let the church say, Amen!
1
Trump doesn't have a mandate from heaven, but Jews and Christians do. Isaiah 29:15 'Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, who sees us and who knows? You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Can the pot say of the potter, he knows nothing?" Then, Romans 1:18, 'The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness, men who suppress the truth of who God is by their wickedness, since what is known about God is plain to them, ...For though they knew God, their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." Yep, I'd say that there is a clear mandate from heaven for those who proclaim faith in God Almighty, but there is also a clear picture of what will happen when they don't live by that mandate. How much darker can things get for those who support this president and his corrupt and wicked practices and policies, before they yield to God versus man (or a man DJT)? Justice will be served. The day of reckoning will come. Do what is right and good, as God gives you the grace to do so. "To much is given, much is required" God is on His throne. He shall NOT be mocked, especially for political expediency.
2
As a white male, the racial codespeak Blow notes in Trump's claim Biden subjugated himself to a black man did not jump out at me until Blow mentioned it. Several NYT columnists in general and Blow especially have risen to the occasion regarding the debasement of the GOP.
4
To understand Trump and his Republicans I look back to 1930s Germany and the startling similarities to Hitler and his Nazis.
It’s not a stretch of the imagination.
In fact it is a stretch of the imagination to not see the direct parallels.
4
Trump is not a conservative. He is a fascist.
8
I wouldn't characterize anything he does as bold. I think the increasing vulgarities are more a sign Trump is losing control and losing it.
2
Such old stuff. How many times will we be told trump is unfit to be president ?
I wish so much the chief deficiencies of our nation, the low wages of the working class, the disproportionate wealth, the lack of health care for so many, the abomination that a $7.50 an hour minimum wage represents, were emphasized more.
1
I’m a big fan of yours. And this is probably my favorite piece I’ve ever read
1
The opinion writers on the NYT are really good. They point out some of the worst points in our political system, but they're all plagued with the total acceptance of a dysfunctional political premise: The two party system.
This system encourages the stereotyping of fellow citizens by fellow citizens according to qualities that are almost never correct.
The bounds of acceptance in each party are determined by the most extreme wedge issues.
We can either adapt and change, or we can perish as a nation.
It is time to eliminate the two party system from all US elections.
Then perhaps the great opinion columns will have a reasonable set of preconditions to start from.
As it stands now, our political system is based upon GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Your points are important. There is no need to homogenize and stereotype re Republicans. THEY represent a diverse population of people, in a divided nation,
which continues to empower a toxic, infectious WE-THEY culture in in which violating, by words and deeds, is anchored in traditions, legacies and hidden histories.
Available and accessible generalizable research studies have documented the relevant processes:
• The Chabris and Simone Harvard’s UNSEEN gorilla in the room study-when a person focuses on one thing they are not likely to focus, attend to, another.
Willful or not.
•The Asch conformity study- people can and do reify the group; suspending temporarily, or more permanently, their own Identity and its complexities.
• Milgrim’s Yale University study exploring
blind obedience to an authority figure whom one does not actually know. Willfully?
• The Zimbardo Stamford Prison experiment, which explored, with students, the many negative behavioral outcomes associated with perceived power.
The recent White House study on institutionalized betrayal has yet to be adequately examined and published.
Ordinary folk listen to, and even give, orders whose negative consequences are not considered.
Ordinary folk can, do, choose to neither look nor see.
Ordinary folk can, do, choose to be indifferent, when WE have an opportunity to choose to make a difference that can make a sustainable, difference for the equitable wellbeing of ALL of US.
Ordinary folk can choose ignorance.
1
Charles Blow states that he no longer knows what to call the people who violate their once exalted principles. They do so out of fear of loss and accept lesser values which become infinitely more costly. They are hypocrites and deniers who rationalize their behavior out of fear. They seek false comfort by denying moral objectivity and resisting unavoidable change and the opportunity to meet the challenges head on. They face the future with trepidation and reactionary impulse while avoiding truths and reality. There can be no peace to be found where there is no justice. Where nothing is sacred, everything becomes profane.
Unfortunately, I think we need to face the reality that the screaming fans at Trump rallies, and the “Christians” who support his most heinous and amoral acts, are a part of the American population. When Trump is gone, they will still be the racist right, hiding behind religious “liberty” to attack those who do not “believe.” As Pogo once said, “I have met the enemy, and he is us.”
1
I've taken to calling people who purport to be Christian and use the symbolism but hold by the diametrically opposed ethos of profit, veneration of the wealthy and hatred for the stranger as "Christianists".
It's incendiary to even say it, but by their religious doctrine they could arguably be called "anti-Christians" as what they follow seems to be on par with their anti-Christ. They live much more in fear and hate, not the love I am fairly sure one Jesus of Nazareth pushed for.
I might be wrong, I know--I'm Jewish.
But so was Jesus of Nazareth.
2
There is a parallel between racist exceptionalism and religious exceptionalism that may explain the strange affinity the Christian Right has with the racists and Trump, the sense that their group is better than the rest and the cultivated disdain for and fear of (often hatred of) those who are not members.
Fear and hatred are the drugs that addle the minds of Trump’s cadre, making them unable to reason or face facts, while their unshakeable belief in their own superiority makes it unnecessary for them to do so.
1
King James Bible
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Satire?
2
How can the so called "religious" right support an abhorrent and vulgar man like Trump? Easy - because first and foremost it has ALWAYS been about politics and not religion. They have used the cloak of religion to mask an authoritarian political agenda. They care more about the Second Amendment and not the First Commandment. Their goal is to make America a theocracy instead of a democracy.
3
Similar vulgarities and bullying have been the standard operating procedure of most leaders of the Republican so-called "evangelicals" since the Reagan Era. Nothing new. They use the cross as both weapon and shield, and as a con on the rest of the American people.
2
I'm not that politically correct and I know exactly what to call them. The idea that we should ALWAYS take the high road with these people is laughable and laughing is exactly what Trump and his supporters do when they see those who cringe at his actions. Try and ignore their behavior but do so at your own peril.
2
A very good read, Mr. Blow. It is fascinating and frightening that the holier than thou right can back a man of such dubious morals. This president should be repugnant in every manner to those that “cling to their bibles”. He’s fractured every Commandment and done so directly in the faces of those that should deplore such behavior. Is this behavior condoned only because of his stance on abortion rights which surely more than one of his concubines has availed herself throughout his life or is it something deeper? As a devoted Catholic I find his every breath to be an abomination to the teachings of our Savior yet the deep red Bible Belt states have been seemingly inoculated against his moral turpitude. Maybe the alt-right religious zealots need to re-examine whether their blind love of this man is rooted in something far more loathsome than grasping at overturning Roe or subjugating immigrants; their racism lurking below the pious surface. We all said that “all things are possible with God”, but now the norm is nothing is sacred and “all things are possible” under this president.
2
Talk radio also seems to have played a role in coarsening public life. My radio life is in a polite bubble of NPR, BBC, Bloomberg.
Though racism cannot be discounted, even the deep seated racism those of an older generation thought was normal, I have a hard time believing that is where Republican venality begins. I know many Trump supporters who find it extremely objectionable to be thought of as racist and, in fact, believe strongly in "reverse racism" of the Obama years. That, in effect, any legitimate beef was classified and condemned as racist so Obama got away with the same crimes that Trump is being crucified for.
It is the complete weaving of a conservative narrative that permits all manner of abuse and celebrates repugnant behavior that was once shunned. These people, no matter how intelligent or pious, are all in with Trump and the story that they have been fed for decades. They are incapable of seeing truth as they are operating solely on faith. No matter what repulsive action is taken, the Democrats have done worse. No matter how obvious the crime, it is just the way things are done. It is impossible for them to concede anything because once you step down that path it is "a slippery slope" which exposes their complicity. I have always hated the "slippery slope" argument which is so quick to the lips of Conservatives, because it is the purely fearful retort they have been sold which they, in turn, have placed such faith in it.
It is the Republican narrative that has defined the past half century which even this piece uses as its basis. It's time to be aware and move beyond.
2
White fear translates into white anger, and displaces true Christianity. Perhaps as tragic is that acting on that fear/anger/insecurity just deepens resentment of white power. It tightens the spiral of violence, making police so jumpy that they shoot into private homes, much as Philando Castile's careful disclosure that he had an obviously legal firearm triggered homicidal panic. And then white people, even us well intentioned, woke white people, will have something to fear.
The black anger at the Guyger-forgiveness is just the beginning. May God have mercy on all of us, because we need it even if we don't believe in it.
2
Thank you for this writing. You are a gifted thinker and writer. I especially learned from your writing about the history , development and use of racism in our nation. I wonder how our sickness- my daily sick feelings about 't' will subside. I think in time your writings will help us.
As a clinician in prisons I need to know DSM 5 and previous editions . When ‘t’ won I read more about antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. What I and others do not know was why he was sent away to military academy. For APD diagnosis he must meet a diagnostic criteria: Conduct disorder must be present by history before age 15.
Understanding these descriptions gives me relief . My anger, gut aches, feelings of sadness have lowered. For my Relief I think> “t” is DISORDERED. He has developed a way to use these disorders. He will eventually fail. The democrats must win the election. He came at the worst time in our politics to get elected by a very narrow margin.
He is starting to make more mistakes. His puppet helpers are gradually leaving him. His disorder is gradually disordering him. We will see his collapse. His crimes and his helpers in crime may well bring impeachment and jail. I await the day when this nightmare is over. His audiences of some supremacists will create terror if he is not re-elected. They will be dealt with as needed. Thank you for your writing, understanding the environment and especially your courage and morality.
1
And while conservatives will cheer and support any vile offensive word or deed that issues from Trump, the slightest whiff of inappropriate behavior from a progressive or Democrat will still throw them into fits. It is OK if they do it but it is entirely out of bounds for anyone they do not like. They have refined hypocrisy and double-standard to a high art.
We keep hearing how these are all good people, they just have said some things that aren’t so nice. No, Trump has shown us that this is exactly who they are to the core. Remember “he’s just saying what we’re all thinking?” Remember being against the “PC” of Liberals? That PC was being able to use the no-word, and they were all thinking it. They are thinking it. They are in a frenzy because their white America is fading quickly. No these aren’t good people who went astray. These are people unmasked. Their vulgarity is who they are.
2
RE: "The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene."
It's called expediency. Interpreting to their needs. It's the same expediency at work when the so-called originalists interpret the constitution tot their needs and call it adhering to the original intent.
People have been cherry picking, selectively quoting, bending, redefining, ignoring, finding meaning in texts to support what they want for as long as such texts existed.
1
It is very sad that racism has had a resurgence with trump. Didn't believe that "post racial" had arrived with the election of Obama but it was a very hopeful sign that racism was being set aside to allow a new day in leadership. Sadly it didn't last long. His opponents made it very clear that they would not allow his agenda and that they would fight him at very turn. There was no let up in racism, really. It reared its ugly head when the Affordable Health Act was introduced and passed. People spat at Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis when they walked the bill to the white house. Now with trump a terrible racial tsunami is at work. A black woman was recently shot in her home by a white police officer who fired before she even had a chance to say anything. All of this made possible by trump and his appeal of whites who feel that they are left behind by social and economic change. This is terrible for all Americans. We must fight all forms of repression and backsliding.
In Brazil, I have seen the same sort of people gather around Bolsonaro who claims to be an evangelical but who is on a par with Trump in questions of morality, civility and cruelty. Just as in the USA, I couldn't imagine a man as despicable as Bolsonaro to be Brazil's leader. The same "evangelicals" (they don't deserve uppercase letters) flock around him and fawn over him even though he flaunts his vulgar vocabulary as though he were sticking his tongue out at people who are educated. He talks about the Native Brazilians as though they were animals and standing in the way of industrializing the Amazon which, he says, is Brazil's natural right.
Some how I see that in all countries there are many selfish "little" people who refuse to see themselves as part of humankind and who want, as the Germans say, an "Extrawurst" (one sausage more than everybody else gets).
1
The nexus of radical individualism, predatory capitalism, racism, and extremist Christianity seems to have created a monstrous version of neo-fascism. My worry is that the next wannabe tyrant will be educated, smart, good looking, and personable. We have seen now how little restraint we have on the power of the Executive.
1
@Abigail49: As crazy as it sounds, many evangelicals have bought into the "miracle" of Trump, the sinner chosen by God to save the USA a la King David. I'd guess the more he sins, the bigger the miracle.
Such an angry man. Not surprising anything and everything you don’t like evolves around race. I supposed everyone has to find a way to make a living but you’d think as a father you would want to set a example on how to channel one’s anger, aka TDS. Wishing good luck in your life journey to find some level of peace.
Before I read this, I thought his insult of Biden was merely a way for him to let Pence et al know that he despises them just like he does everyone else.
1
Religion demands "blind faith" and once you are hooked it is only the clever maneuverings of the hooker to lead you in whichever direction he/she wants. The hooked will just follow like zombies. No questions asked, everything is "faith" and trusting that "faith" will lead you to eternal bliss. That is why these folk follow charlatans and crooks who in turn are raking in money and wealth at disproportionate levels! This has happened thru the ages and will continue to happen so long as there are people who don't think for themselves.
Let me remind you that on Obama’s election that Mitch McConnell stated that the chief goal of the Republicans was to make sure Obama did not get re-elected. The party line was drawn and the Republicans tried to block every piece of legislation that was supported by Obama whether it was good for the citizenry or not.
I agree with Mr Blow. The tactics then had the underpinnings of racism. Now it is out in the open.
7
Underpinnings?? Mitch McConnell’s racism is on display for anyone who wants to see it.
2
The frustration of dealing with an amoral party led by an immoral man is discouraging.
I laugh when I read of news outlets decrying the corruption of Trump asking foreign governments to interfere in our elections. That is nothing.
The corruption of Trump is in his every breath, every thought. He lies, cheats, defames with every thought, every utterance. Trump is evil personified. A day may or may not come when his 37% finally look in the mirror and see the disgusting orange hue that has absorbed into their images. Then again, maybe the 37% were always orange and just needed a catalyst to show their true colors.
3
The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene. It makes a mockery of their faith and their supposed philosophies.
So well said.
I wondered growing up post-war how an entire country of “civilized” people could morph into a heinous inhuman breed. Looks as though I’m about to find out.
Some days I only wish the circus would just leave town.
The man has never governed, only continued to campaign, dividing the country instead of uniting it, dog whistling his way into hearts and minds. He sends congratulatory tweets to autocratic communist leaders, then spends his Sunday mornings on the golf course while church leaders praise him from pulpits for saving us from godless socialism.
Give me back 2009, recession and all.
3
Every day we think Trump and his followers can go no lower. Then this gruesome video comes out showing a fake Trump slaughtering reporters and critics in horrendous manners while walking through a church. Trump's minions are pretending they didn't know it existed even though it was shown at a pro-Trump convention held at Trump's Doral resort.
Is there no bottom to this sewer Trump and his supporting cast will fall to?
11
I grew up feasting on American exceptionalism. We were the "good guys". We did the right thing. We told the truth. We cared for other people from all lands. We were the peacemakers. We were the Good Samaritans. We were moral. Even those who were not Christian in our nation shared Christian values. We did not shoot first. We would never torture.
And we were able to compartmentalize Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, that saved American lives. JIm Crow laws had gone away. And we could pride ourselves on offering prayer and pity for the "q's" (LGBT) and be polite enough to pretend they did not exist.
Then came assassinations, Viet Nam, Watergate and inner-city riots. And the ultimate shock to the system 9-11 and the new dynamic of having to do whatever was necessary to whomever was our enemy to get information we needed to prevent it again.
Move forward through Bush and Obama where things are more complex and do not have yes/no answers.
Along comes an individual who claims he can be the Alexander to cut the Gordian knot and sweep us back to a Golden Age of Exceptionalism and Isolationism with the force of his will alone.
His supporters hang on his every word like addicted gamblers knowing the next roll of the dice is going to usher in the "MAGA" age sweeping us back to 1955.
And they will accept anything just to keep the dice rolling.
Where along the way did we lose honor? The hard question is to ask if we had it and if not how do we find it now.
3
Call “these people” “hypocrites”, for that is what they are.
It is doubtful that Trump bothered to think through the symbolism of his insult. Or that he is intellectually capable of doing so if he even cared to try.
However, office-holding sycophants like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell are, I suspect, at least subconscious racists who delight in the promise of “making America great again” as it was in the glorious, bygone days of the Jim Crow era. And their support legitimizes those “very fine” white supremacists and Internet fomenters of hatred. And therefore they, more than even the vulgar narcissist who presently (and, God willing, temporarily) occupies the White House, present the clearest present danger to our country.
4
Under Trumps abysmal, crooked, inept, and self serving leadership (if you could even call it that) and the spineless, sycophantic, fawning, joke of a Republican Party the nation (and the Constitution) has been given two black eyes, a crushed nose and several broken ribs.
Sadly his impeachment and a removal will not restore the damage that has been done to the “shining beacon on the hill” their former God, Ronald Reagan, once called it.
Thanks to Republican and evangelist abandoning of their supposed values and morals our nation today is weaker and far from great.
And will remain so for decades to come.
The American era is officially over.
And we have President Trump and his Republican Party to thank for it.
4
Charles gives a great reminder that today's conservatism has a foundation made of concrete-solid white supremacy. The "religious right" gave conservatism a god-approved sheen by throwing in misogyny and endless whining about perpetual victimhood, and Ronald Reagan put a smiley face on it.
5
Mr. Blow is on target. Trump is unhinged and dangerous. He has hijacked the Republican party and holding its elected officials hostage. John McCain would be calling for Trump's impeachment if he was alive. Are there any Republican patriots out there ?
4
I think we call support for this coarse, vulgar, racist behavior exactly what it is: deplorable.
And with no apologies for the word this time.
2
63 million mainly white Americans saw and voted for these vulgarities. Trump is the result of these votes, the problem is these 63 m Americans, many of whom think its OK to shoot immigrants at the border.
On the flip side, majority whites did not vote for Obama. The roots of these vulgarities lie in the original sin of America. One often talked about but not much done about it.
5
Princess, the majority of HRC’s voters were white, so what’s your point. You loss, you’re going to lose again almost entirely b/c of the missteps of your white leaders, ie Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler. Again, what is your point
You might as well name the other evangelical: Ralph Reed. These people professed to be values-driven voters. They are an abhorrence to the deity they claim to revere.
Mr. Blow, your essay is totally on the mark. You can add a postscript about this deep fake film of Trump doing a massacre in a "church" of the media. How sick are his followers to assemble such a thing? As an earlier made up video snippet of Trump body slamming CNN, that network reputedly is stabbed in this new one. Makes me want to support CNN to the hilt.
5
Vulgarity is the peculiarity of this presidency.
There is no way to separate Trump from vulgarity because it’s his way of life, it’s the essence of his soul.
1
Obama's and Biden's relationship is being exploited by Trump to evoke the worst fears of racists. However, it's impossible to reconcile what's written here with your many pieces attacking Biden, most dramatically "Joe Biden Is Problematic. No amount of growth or good intentions will change this fact". In that piece you were unwilling to forgive Biden for anything he ever said or did in his entire life, and refused to forgive him no matter what he did now.
It was a specific type of ageism in which an older white man is never acceptable even if overwhelming number of blacks choose him.
In response to that piece I wrote the following:
"Joe Biden, who after losing to a Barack Obama, a black man, in the presidential primary, reacted in exactly the opposite way that any bigot (let alone a racist) acts, and in stark contrast to Trump's racism. Biden wanted nothing more than to work for the black man he'd lost to, and thought the world of him, proving he possesses the very opposite of the white resentment and ego defining all white bigots and racists."
It is what you argue here. However, you weaken the argument by being so unforgiving of Biden and anyone like him. Everything you write about the venality and racism of Trump and the Republicans is true, yet you help, not hinder them in constantly attacking Biden as you have.
Language does matter. In a world where everyone is a racist, no one is a racist, and that's the greatest gift you can give to an actual racist like Trump.
7
This editorial is a perfect example how to twist fact into fiction.
Accusing Trump of cruelty without giving an example of cruelty, other than Illegal children’s separation from their parents just like Obama did years ago.
Making Trumps criticism on Biden a racist act.
Creating a Religious Right issue about Trump foreign policy.
An other undeserved hit job on Trump.
As Democrats get more desperate to impeach Trump, they are moving from logical argument to pure hatred of Republicans. This is worse than a crime, it's a mistake. Who is going to be convinced by this sort of insult?
2
"It is only kinky the first time."
Is an old T-shirt from the 70's if I remember correctly.
It speaks to the fact of how degradation works once one embarks on the path. Most recovery people have some sort of story that generally points to how the quality of the people you hang with goes down as you get worse off so that you have people near you that you can still legitimately look down upon so your dissociative; I'm not "that" bad excuse making keeps working for you.
Anyway this is how far down the republicans have come (bringing us along with them like every addict does to their family) since making the choice to embark on this path back in the 60's.
Will they be one of the few who hit a low point that is the bottom they refuse to go lower than? or will they be like the majority who keep going unto death?
3
President or no president, in the old country we took folks who spoke like Trump to the barn and washed out their mouths with home made soap.
They always minded their manors in public after that.
1
Looking at the crowd standing aside Donald Trump when he was displaying his crude and classless soul, yes, was as disgusting if not more, than Trump himself.
Who cheers a man like this? And why?
Whether racism or hatred as his mantra, Donald Trump exemplifies the opposite of what America should ever stand for. His crowd signifies the cruelty slithering along their way to bring us all down to his level.
2
What Republicans stood for was always a scam and a sham. What they actually stand for is advancing the agenda of their paymasters by dividing the everyday person and pitting one against the other. There are enablers of this process and they do it in order to line their pockets. We need an educated and well-informed society or else we are doomed.
1
Wow....just, wow. I saw clips of that MN speech and was disgusted, as one might imagine. But I never analysed it as anything more than another vulgarity out of the mouth of this disgusting president. I sincerely hope that Trump is not clever enough to have thought this scenario up as Charles has so eloquently explained it......if so, we may be in more trouble than I feared. Like many have commented, I was hopeful that the election of Obama was a step forward in our views towards acceptance of everyone. Certainly there was to be some rebound to it, but I would never have dreamed
it would result in this level of vitriol. Good column, Charles, thank you.
4
Thank you Charles for the column.
Hypocrisy reigns supreme with trump and his lackeys. I am ashamed to call myself an American. I have never felt that in my 70
years.
2
Popular culture has embraced profanity with both hands and salts through every form of discourse. One isn't even allowed to be offended by it. It's a continuation of a coarsening trend. Even the New York Times is now printing it. That's a bad sign. (When did it change its stylebook?) So someone as fundamentally crude and abrasive as trxmp using profanity is no surprise. But profanity is now a laugh line, so he won't be the last. If you want the president to stop, push back against the whole trend.
2
Incredible piece. Even touching on the subtle racisms that most of us (whites) cannot even see: “The subjugation of the white man to the black one.” When Obama was elected many of us probably thought that maybe racism in this country was very limited. Racism was on its path to extinction. It is time we stop pretending the economy or the “forgotten” rural America elected this president (www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.amp.html). Racism was by far the leading cause. And racism may re-elect this individual. Pieces like these need to be written and discussed every single day in as many as possible news media outlets.
1
Can we all finally agree to what we've known, and feared for a long time?
The President of the United States of America is a racist.
For many of us, that's nothing new, since Donald Trump's long-simmering racist attitudes have been legend for some time.
Still one has to admit, he's done little to veil them or rein them in since entering the White House, and thee are far too many examples of his behavior to list here -- but that recent rally in Minneapolis really topped the charts when it comes to showing just how vehemently rabid he is when it comes to people of color in general, and his predecessor in particular.
And it makes anything else he says about his real or imagined political enemies a footnote to just how venal he really is.
That Trump can call himself a Christian and appeal to them while hammering out a barrage of inhumane comments, tweets and actions both here and abroad is simply mind-boggling.
But nowhere near as mind-boggling as those who choose to listen to him and follow.
And if there is a merciful God, we can only hope that he's watching over us all now.
2
My only argument with you, if any, is your characterization of conservatism somehow changing. It hasn’t, any more than “true Christian” philosophy has changed. Because a true conservative would not become a Trump sycophant, and a true Christian would not waver from Christ’s teachings, embodying tolerance, humility, and selflessness. These hypocrites are neither. They are, instead, transactional creatures without spines.
2
Religion in America is in a free fall during the Trump “presidency”. The bizarre and irreligious alliance between the Religious Right and Trump is definitely a good part of the reason. It’s hard to preach values on Sunday and see them flouted the other six days of the week by Trump, and applauded by his Religious Right cultists and then think religion is a good thing.
Young people aren’t stupid. They see what is happening.
2
Post-Trump, it will be fascinating, but revolting, to witness how these Republicans twist themselves into multifaceted, ponderous rationalizations in their pathetic attempts to explain why and how they came to support the most soulless, corrupt, and amoral national politician this nation has ever experienced. Such false and insincere circumlocutions will, of course, only serve to drive these political outliers still lower on the public’s reprehensible index. Every dog will have its day.
The only things Evangelicals care about are overturning Roe v. Wade and ensuring that religious freedom laws allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. As long as Trump can deliver judges who can make these things happen, the Evangelicals will overlook all of his racist, sexist, and xenophobic words and deeds...
1
Why? The white man's last and best hope to change the direction of society? I have no understanding of the dynamics of the current political climate. Where does it end? Wake me when it's over.
I am glad to see this article and know that I am not the only person “disgusted” by the rhetoric of this man and his followers and enablers. I find it hard to understand how so many people defend Trumps foul mouth and never-ending lies.
There just does not seem to be a bottom to the gutter that Trump’s mind dwells in nor an end to the hypocrisy of those who follow him. I was chastised after the election for calling people who voted for Trump “stupid”, but as it turns out, I cannot help but believe that I was correct.
Charles Blow is correct. The so-called president is a racist. His "success" as a political figure is based on pandering to a racist strain and encouraging it in this nation. He senses some truths about the American psyche and has found that he can mint popularity and votes by catering to deep, dark prejudices. That's why his metaphorical bed sheet and cone hat are on public display;
We must crush him, if not by impeachment, then through the next election, and we must outlive him and his corrupt, racist legacy. Our identity as a viable nation depends on how we rebuild and strengthen what he has been working to tear down.
1
The hypocrisy, opportunism, righteousness and holier than thou attributes of so called conservatives has always been an insidious, vile lie. But it's gotten a lot worse now. Why do they call themselves'conservative' ?
The ugliness, obscenity and corruption that is the base nature of Donald Trump, reflects the Republican Party in the same way the picture of Dorian Gray reflected its model's abominable character. If Trump is impeached and removed, the Republican Party will try to wash their hands of him; however, their picture will still be as ugly, obscene and corrupt.
We see in Trump's narcissism a personal microcosm of accumulated white nationalism and racism, of those enraged Americans willing to cross any line: he is immoral enough to cage children of another race, self-centered enough to concoct any lie to feel powerful, deceitful enough to deceive even his own "believers."
Trump and his followers have destroyed not only our government and our infrastructure based on law and truth -- but any over-arching ethical moral codes that held our people together.
Trump is the zealot evangelicals perfect prop. Chaos and confusion sets the table for religious recruitment. I was lost and then I was found or something like that. Call the media fake news, everything is a hoax, deflect blame, make false accusations, blame others, denigrate other religions, and promote whiteness. It all makes for a toxic stew that bonds the faithful and beckons those lost to enter the tent. Combine that with an Attorney General preaching against secularism; just what the religious right wants to hear. God help us.
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.
Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” - Joseph Heller, Catch 22
After people who claimed to be God fearing Christians supported, and even even used their religious doctrines to justify, chattel slavery, how on earth can we be even remotely shocked that they can still claim to be Christians while supporting the likes of Donald Trump? Situational morality is simply not morality, it is self serving power politics cloaking itself in fake righteousness. It allows charlatans to fool the “lower educated” into supporting policies that buttress the few at the expense of the many. It is the opposite of genuine Christianity. Charles Blow is one of the few columnists with the courage to consistently and forcefully call it out.
Try as hard as you might, you cannot say enough terrible things about Donald Trump. It's impossible.
1
To paraphrase the old blues song, “If it wasn't for bad faith, they wouldn't have no faith at all.”
The United States has the largest concentration of evangelicals in the world. American evangelicals are a quarter of the nation's population and its single largest religious group. Wikipedia.
At each of their baptisms they vowed, through their godparents, to renounce satan and all his works and pomps and to live according to Christ’s teachings. Time for these post-Christian heretics to be reborn into the Christian faith and renew their vows to renounce satan and all his works and to live according to Christ’s teachings.
1
As a 61 year old white male, I have to say I have never thought about it that way. But after reading this op ed from Charles I have to say he probably has hit the nail on the head!
1
Don't forget that these are the same people who used the Bible to justify slavery.
The same people, who after church on Sundays, would distribute pamphlets, telling parishioners, of that days location, and time, of the next lynching.
1
Evangelical Christians think that God is on their side. The real question they should be concerned about is "are we on God's side?"
@USNA73 god is not such a narrow minded selective entity. It is omnipresent and self aware. It will never favor one child overboard another, everyone belongs to it.
1
You nailed it with this column, Mr. Blow. Hate and fear combined with willful ignorance are powerful forces and no one uses them as well Trump and his gang of miscreants. There is no decency, Christianity or intelligence left in any Trump supporter.
When Obama was running for President, it's not that I didn't notice that he was mixed-race. Of course he was, but it was no big deal. What I mostly noticed was that he was a fellow Yuppie. Latte-drinking, educated, intelligent, decent, polite, liberal-ish, funny, civilized, married, nice wife, nice kids, and if I had to guess, he probably drove a Prius. What a nice change from the barely articulate, not-that-bright and rather uncouth wannabe country-bumpkin that was Bush II. Obama was a member of my tribe of city nerds.
I think, when it comes to the anti-Obama sentiment, that was part of the problem, maybe even more than his being mixed-race. People who are (how to put this delicately) not latte-drinking, educated, intelligent, decent, liberal-ish, funny, polite, civilized city nerds tend to be intimidated by those who of us who are, whether we are black or white, male or female, Asian or European, Jewish, Muslim or Christian, gay or straight. It basically boils down to "Jocks versus Nerds," and Obama was a nerd.
That is part of Trump's "Jock Appeal." He may not follow football, but he is the BMOC. He talks like them, he walks like them, he stands like them, he thinks like them, and he doesn't make them feel stupid. On the contrary, if Bush II was proof that even a C student could become President, Trump is proof that even an F student (he hides his grades for a reason) can become President.
People are upset that President Trump lets slip a profanity now and then. I do not speak this way myself but I wonder how many of the NYTimes readers use this language? Many Americans do and I hear it each and every day as I am out and about in Manhattan. This is so typical of our American culture today. Do I like it? Absolutely not.
I do wish our president did not use this language but other presidents have spoken this way too. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon to name a few used profanity in private. I think I heard that even President Obama had on occasion used profanity. Joe Biden was caught on an open mike using the f word for all to hear. I think this kind of language which I do not like one bit should be used behind closed doors if it has to used at all.
That being said I still like what President Trump has done for our country. He has appointed conservative judges and Supreme Court justices and has supported conservative causes that are important to many Americans. He has made life better for many Americans and kept many of his promises he made during his campaign. How surprising for a president to actually deliver on campaign promises.
Every person has flaws and faults but I forgive President Trump for this shortcoming because he is looking out for America. The job market is strong, employment is up for all especially blacks and Hispanics and people are optimistic again. He is making America great to use the slogan.
1
I'm so glad, Mr. Blow, that you have put your finger on the pulse of the president's animus against former vice-president Joe Biden. He was subordinate to the black president; that was his great sin. It's what Donald Trump wants to make as his major campaign issue of 2020: Joe Biden committed the atrocity of treason to the white race for having the unmitigated gall to serve under a black man.
All one has to do is return to 2011 when Donald Trump, as a private citizen, told America in his most shrill wise, "You wouldn't believe what they (his "investigators") are finding out there" in Honolulu. It was, of course, the big lie, but he began the movement that took root in the Republican Party to discredit Barack Obama's legitimacy and right as the duly-elected 44th president of the United States. And, as if on cue, no Republican of stature--and that includes former Presidents H.W. and W--stood up and called out the lie.
And this current president of theirs (Republicans) is taken a box cutter to all the norms and decencies and privileges of the office of the presidency with his vulgarities in both word and in deed. The Republican-laden Senate, of course, hems and haws and makes infinite excuses for their president. They know, deep down, that he is the poison that threatens to incapacitate the body politic but they just cannot bring themselves to abandon their president.
No president is a saint but there are (or were) minimum standards of behavior for a president.
Not anymore.
2
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene."
I would like to make a correction to the above sentence:
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene and is the antithesis of everything Jesus stood for."
For most of its history, the US was a "Herrenvolk democracy," i.e. a system in which (equal) rights were contingent upon membership in the "master race." The religion of Trump supporters is a "Herrenvolk Christianity" - mercy, salvation and all that is reserved for decent, i.e. white people.
I keep struggling with the term 'white supremasist'. As if being born with a skin that does not tolerate the sun makes one superior, or supreme, to people who's skin does protect them from the sun. I, as a white person, understand the motives of racists because unlike the current occupier of the White House I have studied and have read many books. I absolutely despise those motives of those so-called supremasist racists. Specialy when those supremasist racists start dragging religion into there reasoning. If people want to believe in some god, OK. But please keep that god out of your argumentation of why you think it is OK to suppress other people whatever the skin colour, religion, sexual orientation and so on.
A "mandate from heaven".... do these people still long for a medieval theocracy?
1
You ask what to call these people who are so morally flexible they easily support a man who locks children in cages, so I will tell you:
You call them 'Christians'.
There is not one element of their behavior that conflicts with the history of that religion's 2000 years, save maybe a false belief that its self-promotion of kindly virtues in the past 50 years in America is indicative of its nature.
Charles,
You have so clearly seen and articulated what I could not perceive - the deep, deep racial animosity driving our puppet POTUS and his drive for power. He articulates hate and truly brings out our own dark, hidden motives which are so difficult to own and acknowledge. Thank you so, so much.
Mr Blow, thank you for your unique perspective.
I would like to add that most racists and neofacists nowdays use coded language because in most democratic countries their "terminology" has been made unlawfull. Hence far right using for eg. coded numbers refering to Hitler's birthday etc.
However, what I do not understand is this: when in the US journalists and political commentators speak/write about Trump's base, who exactly are they referring to? White nationalists, racists, white evangelicals, "a basket of deplorables"? Whoever they are, they seem to be a very powerfull group of people and they should be called out and named for who they are. Otherwise it's again coded language being used, but here clearly to Trump's advantage.
Maybe there should be an article on the front page (NYT?) with results of a survey and details of who these Trump voters or groups compiling his "base" exactly are. I wonder if they would like it.
People have been dancing around Trump's abject racism for years; it's about time someone called it for what it is. Thank you Mr. Blow! Trump has such deep hatred for people of color, for any ethnic group that can't trace its roots to Northern Europe, and anyone who doesn't have a net worth of seven figures or above. (Trump would be shocked to learn that all humans trace their origins to the African continent.) He is to the United States of America what cancer is to the human body; gone unchecked he will spread his hatred far and wide until it ultimately strangles the life out of its body. In our case the body is America itself. Trump needs to be stopped before his malignant evil is allowed to spread any further.
Trump has allowed us to see the true nature of the Republican Party in general and of the nation's evangelicals in particular. Both of them are working to maintain (restore?) a white, Christian supremacy to the country and are only to happy to overlook Trump's many faults and failures in pursuit of that goal. For Pat Robertson to say that this ignorant, misogynistic, crude, racist, draft dodging, unfit vulgarian is in danger of 'losing the mandate of heaven' is about the most hypocritical statement I've heard in my 70 years. How any mature, sane person could identify with either of these groups is beyond me.
Two points on this Indigenous Peoples Day:
1. Fundamentalists are only a subset of Evangelical Christians. Not all of the latter condone the vulgarity, hate, and shameless ignorance of this administration and its minions and gutless party. As for leaders of the former cabal, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, and the like have abdicated any moral or theological authority. They need to reread the narrative of Jacob and Esau.
2. The current administration is figuratively writhing like a wounded animal with yet the reflexive impulse to destroy those launching the arrows. We can thus expect nothing less than venomous tweets in the next year.
Thank you, Mr. Blow. The president's supporters' hypocrisy is only superseded by their racism.
Yes, but the people you are talking about, and to, do not read the New York Times. And if they did, they most certainly do not read op-ed pieces. Which is gravely unfortunate for them. And even if they did, they would no doubt find some amazingly convoluted 'reasoning' as to why you are wrong and they are right.
Mrs. Obama encouraged us to go “high”. Trump’s mantra is “how low can you go”. There is no end to his baseness yet Mike Pence and his wife smile broadly at the vulgarity of Trump at his rallies.
2
Republicans have a long and proud history of hypocrisy.
After reading this commentary, I am left with one question: Is Trump the Anti-Christ?
1
Evangelicals liken Trump to the Persian King Cyrus:
The evangelical author and speaker, Lance Wallnau has said, “I believe the 45th president is meant to be an Isaiah 45 Cyrus,” who will “restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse.”
"Cyrus... was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful."
See the whole New York Times article from which I quote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html
"Let’s ignore for the moment that one could not find a more obsequious vice president than Mike Pence, a man who looks at Trump like he’s made of rainbows and cotton candy."
Please, someone, make a meme of this!!!!!
7
THe Republicans along with “Christian” evangelicals are a doing nothing, undo everything cult and Moscow Mandarin McConnell is the self-appointed leader of Let’s Destroy America.
And it only took three years, but of course, evil people were in the wings for many years.
2
Hypocrites Charles. Morality for them is whatever is good for the moment, whatever the Robertsons of the world tell them it should be. Deeply conflicted christian chameleons following charlatans doing the devils work.
6
This article changed my mind about an important point. I used to think that Trump hated Obama because Obama made a fool of him at the correspondent's dinner several years back. Now I think Trump hates Obama because he is a black man who is much more competent than Trump. That's makes more sense and is much worse. Trump's repugnance is without bounds.
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@Clark Landrum
Trump hates Obama because he is loved.
Nobody loves Trump.
2
Perfect encapsulation of the state of disunion.
2
The acceptance of president Trump's foulmouthed vulgarities is the high-water mark of America's G.O.P. conservative ethos. Witness Doug Mills's photo of Trump in full spitting rage in MN, illustrating your column, Charles Blow. Is there nothing Donald Trump can do as he kills democracy that will rouse his blindly loyal base and Republican voters against him? Apparently not.
Unimaginable profanity from Trump's mouth to his followers' ears is the new reality of America. The disdain of white racists against the American people (more of color than white) these days is sickening to witness. What will happen when the forever backward Southern States will soon be dominated by human beings of every color but white?
Who will emancipate America from the vomitrocious behaviour and ignorant foreign and domestic policies of our unfit 45th president? Looks unlikely that Donald Trump will lose the 2020 election to any of the present Democratic candidates. Will a Deus ex machina descend on the stage to pull him off his Religious Right "mandate of heaven" (as Pat Robertson -- America's biblical mouthpiece at 89 years of age -- pronounced last week).
The monstrous Trumpian scale of corruption is our frightening reality today. Compassion and righteousness and patriotism have gone with the wind, Obscenity is king under Trump.
4
Blow today is on to it. Yes the conflict is raw. But wherein lies the rawness? Racism looms large. Hard for the polite right to admit how this roils trumpland. The PR ignores the dog whistles and gives us the veil of good folks in rust belts looking for a champion.
3
It never crossed my mind that anyone saw in the Obama-Biden ticket and administration the subjugation a white man to a black man.
That Is a new low level of the sickness of white supremacists,
3
Trump is sickening, because he is not a phony. This is real, folks. Don’t ignore it.
4
Mr. Blow,
Your analysis is spot on.
Trump's red baseball hats for the next election should read:
Make America Hate Again
It would be the first truthful thing he has said.
7
Bravo, Charles Blow. A civilized and balanced opinion writer if ever I read one. At a very depressing juncture in American political history (alas one of many), you give me emotional support.
2
Including turning a blind eye/ear to bragging about getting away with murder and strongly hinting at father/daughter incest (“My daughter is hot! But I can’t marry her.”) when declaring for president back in 2015. So much for “family values.
4
Evangelicals and conservative Catholics say they love God but Jesus Christ said, How can you love the God you do not see when you do not love the brother you do see? And by Jesus' standard any Christian who cheers Trump's hate-filled rhetoric is a hypocrit.
3
Pres. Trump's supporters are truly like the lemons that run in a pack off the cliff to the death. They fear the black movement so much and absolutely hate white northern liberals, that try to live our lives with compassion and sympathy for those who have less. We know that Pres. Trump is a narcissist, he kind of reminds me of Mussolini. Wouldn't it be grand if Trump ended up like Mussolini in the end; hung upside down by his own followers. Trumps followers are giving him the green light to do anything he wants, but we all know a mob can be fickled.
4
@John Metz Clark Save the lemons!
1
Thank you.
1
Thank you, thank you Mr. Blow. If we ever get out of this mess we have the free press and probably only the Free Press to thank. I can only imagine how hard everyone is working in this stressful time. NYT, PRICELESS!
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The racism and greed of the GOP poisons every political decision made in this country. Every. Single. One. From heath care to the abandonment of the Kurds to tax policy. Many would not agree but I would encourage anyone who's truly thoughtful about where we are as a nation to consider an issue and trace it back as far as possible to its genesis. The results will always be the same and not pretty.
God bless America.
2
Many years ago a female African American colleague said that to have real power in America, a person needs to be white, male, Christian, and heterosexual. With each missing quality, power is exponentially lost. We’re experiencing this now more than ever before.
4
The Vietnam War draft dodger and the emasculated Republican Party fully embrace and gladly accept the recognized, accepted fact that interlacing vulgarities in the context of political campaigning assures political survival. Their mutual contempt for the erudite, clear, and polite means of expression serves to incite and embolden the disproportionate percentage of base supporters with less than college education, blue collar workers, and patently ignorant of mutli cultural diversity. In other words, coarse profanity, extreme anti immigrant maligning, and racially destructive venomous invective guarantees blind allegiance and perpetual genuflection of Make America White Again conscripts. This is the crude base language they understand only too well. These folks learned these rudimentary terms at home, at the dinner table, watching television, and listening to the corrosive tales of racial demagoguery from elder relatives. Stories told the younger impressionable minions of sordid experiences condemning racial and ethnic diversity in the context of battles involving integration and segregation are as fresh as returning to those thrilling days of yesteryear in the 1950s Jim Crow America. The purpose of using constant vulgarity and xenophobic obscenities is reinforcing the belief that the draft dodger and the GOP are committed to protecting their supporters, they alone understand their apprehensions albeit exaggerated. The "us" versus "them" strategy works. Curse on. Race matters.
3
Mr.Blow's shtick of seeing absolutely everything through a racial lens is getting rather tiresome.
"The disdain for and distrust of Obama is still strong and abiding."
It's not only conservatives that disapprove of Obama and his legacy.
His legacy is a right-wing Heritage Foundation health care"plan, 5 more new wars, more domestic spying, more drone strikes, no torture prosecutions, no bankster prosecutions instead kicking out homeowners, Bush tax cuts permanent, the largest transfer of wealth in history to the rich, an increased "defense" budget, nuclear armament escalation to the tune of a trillion plus, an attempt to kill SS and Medicare in a "grand bargain", whistleblowers prosecuted, fracking galore, drilling in the Arctic, a stolen Supreme Court seat, a broke DNC, and a loss of 1000 legislative seats.
In many ways he was worse than Bush.
Bush, Obama, and all their enablers, that made it possible for them to commit atrocities like aggressive wars of choice and torture, both war crimes, should be dragged to The Hague for a Nuremberg-style trial.
"Righteousness simply can’t be this transactional and situational. What is the point of your books of rules if you will gladly oblige a man who flouts them? Either morality has meaning or it doesn’t."
I completely agree, but unless you demonstrate as much indignation over the criminal acts of the previous administrations and call for the prosecution of those heinous crimes (war crimes!), your lament over the Con Don ring hallow
2
@Chris Obama issued a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along the Arctic and areas of the Atlantic in 2016. There was no attempt to kill SS or Medicare; proposals to recalculate cost of living adjustments were considered and abandoned. 5 more new wars? Really, name them. So McConnell refusing to proceed with a Supreme Court nomination is Obama's fault? Should he have appointed Garland and somehow circumvented the process? If you want to criticize Obama, be my guest, there's plenty to criticize. But at least have real facts in context, not hysterical charges.
@MD
New wars: Yemen, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Somalia
Garland: recess appointment would have been perfectly legal.
attempt to kill SS or Medicare:
The Grand Bargain was an attempted political compromise between the Democratic and Republican Parties in the United States during the 2011 budget debates, in which the Democrats would have agreed to historic cuts in the federal government and the social safety net, in exchange for an increase in federal taxes. (Wikipedia)
Arctic drilling:
https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/11/politics/obama-approves-arctic-drilling/index.html
If you want to apologize for Obama, be my guest.
But at least have real facts in context, not hysterical charges.
Thank you.
1
Mr. Blow is spot on about the coded racism that Trump compels his audience to participate in. But I do disagree with the broad strokes characterization of "The American Christian." What Pat Robertson and similar Christian pundits discuss is simply sensationalized, anti-Christian media which flies under the nomenclature of religion. I think everybody here knows that the things they say simply are not reflected in Christian teachings.
It is worth mentioning that there are still plenty of us out there, particularly in the under-30 demographic, who are rallying against this "old guard" of false teaching and racism. This is the face of young evangelical Christianity: liberal and walking the walk.
4
Just wait---especially if a women is the democratic nominee---and Trump in the middle of impeachment---get ready for some one-liners that will disparage his opponents physical appearance ---The good news, is that such language, laced with sexual connotations, will drive independent women, who are already turned off by this man running to the voting booth.
4
Amen.
You seldom hear "the party of Lincoln" anymore. At this point, I would not be surprised if his statue simply stood up and walked out of his memorial.
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Thank you Mr Blow. A truly excellent piece. The misuse of the words and meanings of the Bible are simply unsupportable. Trump has denigrated the office, America has never ever been in such a low and hopeless place. His adult children laugh in the face of established rules, they are the swamp personified. He is a disgusting example of the long well- known UGLY AMERICAN - stupid, ignorant, coarse, foul, clueless, dangerous, shameful, vile. Glad my Military Officer Father is dead and doesn’t see the crime against our brothers and sisters fighting against Turkey. Having cheated the draft, having never ever served his country, Trump knows no honor. People who support him now- after so many years of his hideous behavior- must surely ask themselves- what does it MEAN to be an American? They cannot really still believe that Trump stands for the best we represent. We must rise up, protest against him ( see Hong Kong, see ECUADOR) save our country before it is too late. Look at history, look at Nazi Germany, things can change very quickly unless we all take it upon ourselves to speak out, stand up, fight back, refuse to accept what is happening.
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"Pat Robertson, upset last week over Trump’s unconscionable abandoning of the Kurds in northern Syria, said: “The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.”"
"Losing the Mandate of Heaven" is a term in Confucian philosophy, meaning that the Chinese Emperor has failed and can be lawfully deposed. It is meaningless in a democratic society or for a "evangelical Christian" leader to use.
5
There was never a conservative philosophy or ideology - only shabby motives. The greed and cruelty at the heart of contemporary conservatism is now expressed openly. It was *never* forbidden. It was nurtured in secret and carried forward by lies. What's changed is the restraint of civil society, which the worst among us could not wait to shed. No wonder they bellow in ecstasy at their leader's rallies. Free at last, free at last, god help us, they are free at last.
7
Excellent analysis.
14
Apparently, evangelicals are ok with mistreating migrants and their children because "they broke the law" while Trump's lawless behavior is excused
13
This is exactly right. Trumpism began with hate and graduated to evil. Anyone who is a child or relation of someone who still supports Trump must acknowledge this. And make a choice.
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@Raz Most Montanans are decent people who care about our democracy. Many have migrated from urban areas and carry the values that may shape a more inclusive state over time. They know better than to throw out baseless opinions. Your comments could just as well come from a Russian troll. To your points: Those receiving assistance need it and must qualify to get it. Immigrants are often escaping terrifying circumstances, and history documents the value of their contributions. Secure borders are everyone's challenge, and the current adm has made the situation so much worse. The lopsided approach to trade is driving once-allies away, driving prices up for consumers and crippling agriculture despite the bandaid subsidies. Those who truly want to preserve democracy, the American dream, believe all men were created equal, no one is above the law, separation of church and state and checks and balances. Also that children dying in cages deserve and are not getting equal support from so-called Christians and anti-abortion activists.
7
Oh, they still abhor it...in Democrats. It's right in front of our faces. Mitch McConnell denied a hearing for a sitting president's SC nominee...and then later said, with a Cheshire Cat grin, that he would hold hearings for a Trump nominee in Trump's final year of a term as president; Trump and his base recently condemned Rashida Tlaib over foul language...but we saw his base cheer as he spit out foul language at his last rally; We saw a seven year fishing expedition by Republicans ending with impeachment over a fib about an irrelevant, consensual affair told in a Republican funded meritless civil suit...but Republicans not only now gripe about 2.5 years of investigations stemming from actual behavior, not a witch hunt, but suddenly have no problem with obstruction of justice, chronic lying, extorting foreign countries and using tax payer money to get foreign countries to help Trump win re-election; see massive corruption by Hunter Biden using his father's last name to get a job...but can't for the life of themselves see any corruption in Trump, despite his having to pay $25 million for defrauding people, having his foundation closed due to its massive "illegalities", his history of sleaze, his overt abuses of power...Republicans are shameless with their rank hypocrisy. Critics love to say they're setting precedent. No, they're not.
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This took deep root during the terms of the “great communicator.” Dismantling of the New Deal, union busting, labeling Democrats as socialists, ‘welfare moms,” ad nauseum. So, maybe not language crude, but crude nevertheless.
4
“The moment that Trump insisted on separating immigrant children from their families, locking those children in cages and arguing in court against having to provide soap and toothbrushes to those children, or against turning off the lights so that they could sleep, should have been the red line to any true Christian — or for any human being with a shred of compassion, regardless of faith. But it wasn’t. So, now I no longer know what to call these people.”
Try Fasco-Christianists.
I keep waiting for the rabid fever to break among the white evangelicals, but I fear it’s their baseline that they previously felt they had to hide. Trump gives them permission to be openly vulgar. They get off on it.
4
Mr. Blow's observations are chilling, powerful and searing, but not surprising. He merely encapsulated the cauldron of hatred stirred by Trump and his evil cohort. This opinion piece is a must-read for any high school or college student, as well as any person in America who wants to understand the genesis of our current hateful conundrum. As has been observed, Trump is not the cause of our current hate-filled landscape — he is just a symptom. Yet sometimes it is the symptom that leads to one's demise. This looks like a very real possibility for the United States. Trump, with the complicity of Evangelicals, right-wing extremists, racists and haters of all stripes, is hellbent on installing a fascist autocracy where White Supremacy is the rule, and anyone else is relegated to the back of the bus. If there is a Higher Power, and the potential for a Second Coming, this would be an opportune time for it to occur. Mere mortals are incapable of quelling this intense juggernaut of hatred, or vanquishing the hellish misery wrought by Donald Trump.
2
Mr. Blow's insightful comments should be required reading for all voters. Trump's racism and unabashed support for white supremacy is a cancer on our country. Weather Trump is removed through impeachment or the ballot box. He must be removed. The survival of our republic depends on it. Thank you, Mr. Blow for giving us this article.
6
Sadly, there are voters who just can't bring themselves to vote D no matter how repulsive, corrupt and despicable the republican party has become.
My devout Catholic friend is pro same sex marriage, environmental protections, buys organic food whenever available and holds many other progressive views yet her pro life stance and allegiance to the Catholic church will not allow her to vote Democrat, no matter how heinous the candidate. When the damage they're doing to our environment, our economy, our society is weighed against their faux pro-life stand that has her a true believer she will vote republican. No argument, no evidence, nothing will change her vote.
Others are just ignorant. I have a friend who complained about Obama because he now has to pay sales tax when he has his hair cut. He is a college graduate who majored in accounting but fails to understand that state tax policy is set by the state government and has nothing to do with the federal government. Another is adamantly opposed to same sex marriage so he will not vote for any Democrat. Others are FOX disciples who believe the opinion they're hearing is actually news. That's their source. They're sticking to it. No fact will convince them otherwise.
How do we fight this willful obstinance, convince people that the republican party is destroying our environment, our rule of law, our children's future, the middle class, the poor, the elderly, the infirm? How do you force people to see what they refuse to see?
8
@sharon - "How do we fight this willful obstinance"
We used to call it education but Republicans have been fighting, discrediting, and not funding education beyond what it took to have work in their mills forever to this day. (except for their own in religious schools of course).
But the real answer is that you can't because the values of hurting people and the other thing you mention is what they want. And they have their party/person who will do it. Trying to inform them is interpreted as trying to make them feel guilty for the harm caused to others. And they don't like that.
@sharon - "friend adamantly opposed to same sex marriage so he will not vote for any Democrat."
Is he aware that the SCOTUS made a decision on this?
@Marie
What will education do for those who are long past out of school? I'm 60. My friends are 60 or older. We've been out of school for many, many years. It's not fair to blame this on education or lack there of. All these friends with the exception of one are college graduates. I and my husband and most of our children have only high school educations but we are all very politically aware and informed. It takes effort to be informed, not education. How do you force people to get their news from reputable sources? How do you convince a person that marriage equality is a done deal and the battle is over? They are ignorant of how government works. He is also a college grad, 63 years old so lack of education is not his problem. How do you instill a curiosity in a person to seek out the truth, not to blindly follow? Nothing will change these voters' minds. And they don't like us trying to inform them. In my opinion it's a waste of time. They will never switch sides. One friend who has a disabled son reluctantly supported trump in spite of the fact that his cruel mockery of the disabled reporter could just as easily be directed at her son. She stubbornly and finitely argued Hillary would be worse. No proof needed, no facts needed, no explanation necessary. Just belief. Hillary would be worse. Her inarguable belief left no room for truth, evidence or convincing. Like religion she believed, with no actual proof, that Hilalry would be worse. How do you educate those who refuse?
There is nothing new here, it’s just gotten worse over years in this country to a remarkable degree, with Trump in the lead. Did it take Trump to realize this? Well, maybe for some apparently it did. In a very odd and disgusting way, he may be doing us an unwelcome service for sake of the nation’s future ... if it wants one, anyway. The hatred and vile behavior Trump and his followers (of whom there are many for some reason, which needs to be understood and ministered to) surely shows most of us what is really wrong and how real-wrong ... not to be confused with error or difference of thoughtful view ... is virtual death or path to it. Unless bottom is hit and realized, it won’t get better because it can’t. Trump is a horrible moral problem for certain, but one that exposes a deeper and ignored one of similar kind this nation has progressively lived for years. As for the criterion of morality? I’d say, charitable love in every situation ... even now in addressing the Trump problem.
2
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene. It makes a mockery of their faith and their supposed philosophies." They will end up winning the battle and losing the war. The hypocrisy necessary for conservative evangelicals to get a few judges they want is turning off everyone that doesn't believe as they do. It will be hard to recruit new members when no one respects them anymore.
4
Trump's behavior shows a pattern of intentional behavior. The pattern is horrifying. The behavior is sadistic. Trump's vile
and increasingly more vile behavior is the work of a sadistic megalomaniac. With each act his results are more horrific. And with each act of bellowing forth a new edict, he observes the scurrying of his underlings, and gloats over their obedience. He enjoys the pain his human instruments are inflicting on the world.
1
trump is a reflection of the base side of American culture: fast, lose, without a sense of right and wrong , self-absorbed and immune to the travesty of violence and hate.
1
Wouldn’t it be interesting to posit to self-professed “moral” family values conservatives the following: Here are two candidates for president. One is a once-married, scandal free husband and father, who had raised two level-headed modest and kind children, and who, were he to become president, would endeavor to select the best people for government positions, people of great skill and high integrity. The other is a thrice-married vulgar philanderer, a self-described sexual harasser (and proud of it), whose sons are his spitting image, and who, were he to become president, would surround himself with sycophantic, craven and corrupt people, whose only purpose who be to do his bidding and to praise and defend his every false utterance. Wonder who these”God- fearing” folks would choose?
3
"That which was once forbidden is now embraced."
If you mean conservatives that stand and do not accept some a false premise, then, you are correct. It went on far too long.
"The moment that Trump insisted on separating immigrant children from their families, locking those children in cages..."
The Bushes, McCains, the Ryans, those fair minded folks that did not mind a second place and all it entailed. Second place for America in the world. A second place economy. A non-existent immigration policy. No borders for unskilled immigration. Annual increases in H1b visas.
Conservatives were afraid to stand up and make a case for their beliefs and unable to contrast their's with the liberal philosophy.
When Trump enforces the law, he is a racist. Used to be a racist. Now, Trump is a White supremacist. When Trump refuses to co-operate with the Mueller probe, he is obstructing justice.
So, is the Mueller Report going to see the light of da
How true it is that you don’t really appreciate a good, strong, honest, intelligent leader until he’s gone. In this case, President Obama was replaced by the horror that is Trump. I’m ashamed of the ignorance in my country that made Trump possible, and Trump is using the support of the ignorant to increase his own personal wealth and power by enabling our country’s most deadly advisaries. The religious right easily believe in Jesus Christ but can’t even recognize the Antichrist when he’s among them.
2
I wonder how In the future, Republicans and especially evangelicals, will be able to criticize a Democratic President, whomever, whenever.
I think then you will be able to denounce their new, even greater level of hypocrisy.
This column has been profoundly moving for me. Thank you Charles. The undertow of white supremacy in the general public and in the Congress is repulsive. It’s like a poisonous gas and Trump has his hand on the valve which he manipulates. What is terrifying for me is that Trump’s unhinged mind is further deteriorating into a potential, I believe, for violence. Suggesting putting snakes into the waters, shooting migrants in the legs, caging children, etc. are thoughts from a very sick mind. His increasing use of vulgarities like that one you cite are signs of brainsick rage. I fear either he may act violently himself, as he once boasted he’d do, or he will call on his hate-filled followers to carry out mayhem in his name. Most likely the latter since he all know how he gets others to do his dirty work for him. I fear things will get worse.
4
One assumes that Mssrs.Pence,Pompeo, Barr and MConnell go to church with their respective families and pray. What do they pray for? More money? A white America? How do they listen to readings from the New Testament that extol compassion and love for the poor and displaced?What do they say to their grandchildren when they ask about climate change? Impossible to fathom...
4
@Berniem all roads lead to Steve bannon, that’s who is master puppeteer.
"The moment that Trump insisted on separating immigrant children from their families, locking those children in cages and arguing in court against having to provide soap and toothbrushes to those children, or against turning off the lights so that they could sleep, should have been the red line to any true Christian — or for any human being with a shred of compassion, regardless of faith. But it wasn’t. So, now I no longer know what to call these people."
What to call them is what they have shown themselves to be: ideological sadists.
1
Southern Evangelicals have been showing us who they are for a very long time. Anyone remember 1980? When they dumped one of their own -- the most authentically Christian man ever to serve as president -- for a Hollywood libertine?
7
Evangelicals have departed the Christian faith and scriptures in favor a different religion under Donald Trump. The Evangelical Mammonists have finally shown their true color and it's all white.
3
The Vietnam War draft dodger and the castrated Republican Party conjoined at the hip and in lock step advancing and promoting racial internecine and xenophobic fearmongering. The bottom line is their mutual loathing of racial and ethnic electoral participation and their extreme efforts to suppress and dissuade multi racial, diverse cultural awareness in America. Persistently invoking racial stereotypic beliefs, anti immigrant sentiments, including anti Semitic tropes, as Republican minority leader McCarthy resorted via Twitter on the very eve of the November 2018 elections by denigrating George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Mike Bloomberg, as 'buying' the election for Democrats, is the GOP ticket to preserve and maintain electoral survival. Expressing a steady stream of vile and profane characteristically denigrating statements is the key for GOP successful. After all, they know their audience: less than college, disproportionately less than high school diploma, educated, patently absent of racial, immigrant, cultural, and LGBTQ+ diversity awareness, who do not, and will not, care. So be it. This is the party of Lincoln that once championed the literate and erudite leaders of Governors Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, William Scranton, and Mark Hatfield, as well as Senators Jacob Javits, Everett Dirksen, Charles Goodell, Leverett Salstonstall, Edward Brooke, and Dan Evans. After Barry Goldwater's 1964 coup d'état of the party, the seeds of reaction were sewn. Tragic. Race matters.
2
Re “Trumpism’s Infinite Vulgarities“
Morality loses its meaning along with truth.
Post truth politics denature meaning, truth, virtue and worse, the rule of law that is based on those very principles.
1
For the Christian right, morality IS transactional. As long as trump remains hostile to abortion (like he originally was not), he can do no wrong. As long as he remains hostile to "those people" (of color), he can do no wrong. Those who hate, love it when their leader shows them how to be more effective at hating. The hater-in-chief offers up the best public demonstration of being hateful and benefitting from that show of hatred. Morality in this case is immorality. But for these true believers it doesn't matter. What matters is power, the power to subjugate those you hate.
Anyone who was sanguine about the Christian Right over the last two generations was simply naive. This has always been a corrupt movement that leveraged political support for political power and vast wealth. Using their purchased power they have ruined countless lives under the boot of hypocrites and liars. Having once practiced Christianity and feel certain, in my soul and mind, that Jesus would abhor these people. And Trump, ha,ha, if this guy has an ounce of Christian faith the earth should shake and the oceans overpower our shores.
2
Let's look at the 10 commandments, a measure of morality that most Christians can agree with, in terms of what we see in this president.
1) No idolatry. (Worship no graven images.)
Worships himself constantly.
2) No disrespect to God. (Taking the name of the Lord in vain.)
Thinks he IS God.
3) Keep the Sabbath holy.
If twittering and golf are sacred acts, then the president has no problem with this.
4) Honor parents.
Doesn't know where his father was born and treats immigrants (like his mother) with disdain, fear, and anger.
5) No adultery.
He's proven to be a high achiever at that one.
6) No murder.
Directly, no. But his actions have resulted in many deaths.
7) No theft.
He is the crookedest businessperson in the universe and has done more contractors and vendors out of their money than anyone in the world.
8) No lying about other people.
He wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the arm.
9) No desiring other people's partners.
He slobbers all over every attractive wife he sees.
10) No desiring other people's material possessions.
If somebody has a fancy anything, Trump wants that one or one even better.
2
The American presidency has been tarnished in stature, occupied by an undisciplined and unscrupulous scofflaw whose sole campaign appeal is hurling insults and put-downs at political opponents. If American voters wanted a change, they got it alright, and with horrible consequences.
American politics had its problems and imperfections but the system worked for more than 200 years but asking an immoral and corrupt adolescent to fix what wasn’t broken is what’s wrong with the country today.
The ugliness, incivility and vulgarity of this president has besmirched the country more than we realize. He’s made America worse than it ever was. He’s America’s Idi Amin.
2
Years from now there will be thousands of books written, Psychology Today type articles published, and documentaries made on the Trump phenomenon. As they were once written trying to understand the common person's acceptance of the Nazi socialist movement, so to, will they analyze the acceptance of Trump's government movement today. It used to be that people could share a difference in politics but always shared the same standards for a sitting president in terms of manners, values, and behavior. How is it that these people sit back and let this man rant, curse, and make cruel and uneducated decisions that are now reverberating across the world?
4
Remember the What Would Jesus Do bracelets? They were worn by people who now support jailing children and abandoning our allies to airstrikes.
2
Somewhere in the Bible it says you shall know them by their deeds. Those Of all faiths, of no faith, that go out to our homeless on the streets, to feed them, help them- offer a blanket, a pair of shoes- they live their beliefs, religious or moral.
The supporters of hatred, division, those who would force their own interpretations on others, raise lots of money, build mega-churches, applaud at Trump rallies, and now, evidently will turn a blind eye to the latest outrage; a fake video showing a president killing his enemies in a church (news media, Democrats, even John McCain)- shown at a fund raiser in Florida.
‘I didn’t see the video’, ‘I didn’t know anything about it’..... say the president’s son, well-known attendees.
I didn’t know. 1945. Didn’t they?
The Christian right has never been about Christianity. Why are we pounding our foreheads in surprise at their support Trump? I don't get it.
3
Trump's outlandish, outre, offensive and obscene behavior and verbiage do not offend Christians in his base base. He makes a mockery of standards for all in general in terms of how we are socialized to behave and specifically to his opponents in politics at home. There are no policies issued from his office and around the globe havoc reigns. At home, a tax cut that stiffed all of us who are not wealthy, trade wars that damage even farmers who are not corporate, and women are not faring well in the cultural abyss where we've been tossed.
2
Others have been genteel enough not to ask whether Trump swallows more coming out of Vladimir Putin than the words he insists Trump employs in talking about their communications. Nothing about the little devil is hard to swallow, huh Donald?
1
The required twisting of religious principles, traditional values, moral standards and common sense that allows a fundamentalist Christian to steadfastly support Donald Trump is a wonder to behold. It involves a kind of mutating verbal and philosophical contortionism.
A Republican stalwart stopped at my home to borrow a power tool. During a brief conversation, he made what I thought a remarkable declaration.
“There are only two sources of truth left in this country — The Holy Bible and Fox News. Everything else is fake news. Everything else is lies.”
When I asked if he was joking, his tone changed, not in a positive way.
A minute later I emerged from my house with the operator’s manual for the tool and a calculus text book.
“I was going to give you this manual, but why would you want it? It’s all lies...”
I folded the manual and put it in my pocket.
“And this 1500 page textbook, a four-semester course in Calculus. Find a single lie in it and I’ll give you $100.”
The borrower was sputtering, as he tried to alter his initial sweeping statement.
Twenty minutes later, after one of the most remarkably convoluted conversations imaginable, he left without the tool, manual or textbook, and hasn’t spoken to me since.
I think what put him off was a statement from me.
“In mathematics we don’t first decide what the answer to a problem will be and then write a series of equations that produces that answer. We use real equations to find the CORRECT answer.”
I think that somehow irked him.
5
Sacrificing allies to Russian obeisance is ominous, not vulgar.
The only thing I can figure out is that in the evangelical mind, the ends (illegal abortion, conservative justices, etc) justify the means (Trumps racism, flaunting of laws, etc). in other words, the evangelicals are in fact making a deal with the devil. I know a few Christians personally who abhor Trump, while others embrace him. To me, you have thinking Christians, and you have sheep. let's face it, some people prefer to be told what to think...it is just more convenient for them.
2
The Right has fooled me my entire Boomer life, and your column does a great job of exposing this hypocrisy. I share your disgust at their faithless core.
Your column brings to mind Plato's Republic and its lessons about Trumpworld and our distress:
"When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence."
If the news does not stop covering this President's every racist and monstrous word, all the time, we are doomed. Trump/Putin, all the time television, is on every channel, not just FOX. Everyone, liberal and conservative, does his network bidding. If we cannot stop this, we cannot stop him. Democrats, with ten or twelve immobile candidates, think these are normal times. These are deadly times, and our United States Military is a chicken hawk. When the United States Military abandons Kurd comrades in arms, "leaving them on the field to die" and does nothing, we are all next. Trump and Putin could ask Mitch and the United States Military to drop bombs on Washington D.C.; California or New York, and every general would say yes. Putting children in cages or beheading stalwart friends is American morality now; barbaric, monstrous, and without end.
2
Absolutely, the hypocrisy of 45's supporters is mind boggling. True followers of Jesus, as evangelicals claim, support values of "love thy neighbor, feed the hungry, visit the sick, etc." There is no hate allowed, as Jew and Gentile were healed. Our society is becoming more angry and violent the longer 45 remains in office.
1
Trump is vulgar a terrible role model for kids.We need a president who combines the decency of Carter or Bush Senior with policies that help us, that are supported by most people.Some example : respect for law enforcers,ICE agents, border patrol,lower drug prices, stop being the world's policemen, strong military, secure borders, fair trade deals, fair sharing of NATO's expenses, limiting stifling government regulations.Basically Trump without the vulgarity.
Charles you should focus on attacking Trump's policies instead of the man.By the way Biden's are part of the swamp.
A great column marred by yet another lapse by the Times copydesk. Trump is a man who *flouts* the rules of civilized behavior, not one who "flaunts" them.
That said, Mr. Blow's righteous indignation is fully justified and excellently written.
1
It boils down to eschatology. Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and appointed a fifth anti-choice justice to the Supreme Court. As a result, evangelicals (who took over the Republican party years ago) see him as a modern-day David--flawed but chosen by God. If Trump were to breed a pure-red cow, they would lobby to make him King of the USA (and Greenland).
1
"Either morality has meaning or it doesn’t."
This just in: it has lost its meaning along with "Peace", "Slavery" and "Strength"
Charles Blow has waged a magnificent war of words against this would be Emperor, so much so that future English majors would possibly be assigned to parse his columns in order to discover the greatest variety of adjectives and verbs ever assembled to describe a malignant narcissist.
But now impeachment has begun, and this means a certain victory is achieved. Commenting on Trump's character adds nothing new at this point. Reading this column is like viewing another Botero masterpiece of obese people (Fernando Botero is a Colombian master who has made a career of this). I think Blow should shift to the revelations of the impeachment process.
lying and hypocrisy have been GOP policy
for decades. Now it has finally caught up to them
Boo hoo
Jesus is surely turning in his grave at the way in which the Religious Right has perverted his teachings and abused his name ...
A trump supporter who claims to be a Christian is a fraud. The two are polar opposites and mutually exclusive. Trumps skill as a co-man is his claim to fame. A selfish, evil "businessman" nothing more. Not a real successful businessman mind you. We will be well rid of him but he has done us the favor of proving what many knew and others like my self suspected but were slow to realize: the GOP is shallow, hypocritical, selfish and self serving and interested only in making money, to heck with anything else.
2
Those who put this man in the WH either knew what and who he was and supported him anyway, or they were and are dense and will never see what they have done to the country. That does not bode well for us as a nation.
Boorish gets boring (yes, boredom is a form of anger).
1
I guess one silver lining is that Trump has also put a bright light on the hypocrisy of Evangelicals, who are willing to throw everything Jesus ever taught in the garbage to support a casino owning, p-grabbing, dictator wanna-be who spreads his (and now their) doctrine of hate.
7
@DaDa George W Bush too is a born again. He lied in broad daylight, covered up his lies and attacked an innocent country that had nothing to do with 9-11.
2
The hypocrisy of evangelicals is absolutely breathtaking! Gives credence to the saying that there is a lie inside every beLIEf.
4
"Righteousness simply can’t be this transactional and situational. What is the point of your books of rules if you will gladly oblige a man who flouts them?"
If you say you have values, but you don't follow them (or only follow them when convenient, you are inauthentic). And being inauthentic is not living a life worth living. But, that's me.
Obviously for Trump supporters, their true values don't lie in God or the bible as they might profess, their values are quite the opposite. Watch any Trump rally and the one value that is most evident is hate: they hate liberals, women, LGBTQ people, and basically anyone "not like them." There is no other explanation for their tolerating such a horrible man.
4
Please don’t connect Trump with Minneapolis. We’re still fumigating from his visit last week.
4
The non white birth rate has fallen behind that of all the
people of color, to include non christian folks as well.
The coming demographic catastrophic change coming
at around 2035 is what terrifies the republican party, and
trumps white base as well.
They are fighting tooth and nail to protect their privilege
and place in this country, that is moving rapidly away from
them.
To paraphrase commenter Socrates, or was it Gemli;
Vote D for forward, not R for reverse
Vote blue 2020
3
@Anthony As a recent New York Times opinion piece noted, "white" is an expandable category. That piece was about southern Italians. Irish were once feared as inferior. Benjamin Franklin famously didn't care for Pennsylvania's German residents. In today's Florida, Cubans and Puerto Ricans tend to be quite "white." The San Antonio where I spent a bit of time as a kid in the 1950s was a place where diligent elementary school kids were rewarded with Spanish lessons. Me? Slovak.
What I recall about republican values is this:
1. Gingrich worked on Clinton’s impeachment for lying about sexual misconduct. At the same time, Gingrich was cheating on his second wife while she was having cancer treatments.
2. Republicans have always been against LGBT rights. Meanwhile Idaho’s republican senator Larry Craig was soliciting gay sex in an airport. His defense was that he had an “unusually wide stance.”
3. Republican Strom Thurmond had a mixed race child when he was 22. The mother was a 16 year old African-American maid in his father’s house. How’s that for #metoo.
That’s just 3, feel free to add to this list as the day goes by.
12
Hastert, he of the Rule, was mentioned in the essay. So, where did a teacher and public servant get a fortune - possibly millions - to pay off former wrestlers he abused as high school boys?
My wife and I were out for a walk today and stopped to talk with a neighbor. It was a beautiful day and we talked about pleasant things, including our shared hope that the impeachment investigations might actually signal the coming end of the long nightmare of Trump. After all, the facts and even Trump’s own admissions were damning. Our neighbor reminded us that facts don’t matter to some people. She cited her son’s in-laws in North Carolina, who tell him that he’s living in a liberal bubble in Massachusetts and just can’t see the real truth about the president. My fear is that, even if Trump goes down, we won't be able to mend our our polarized society.
10
@Joe D If its any consolation truth always wins cuz there’s only truth, everything else is non truth.
1
Good article. Trump's cultists not only accept his crude vulgarities, they love them. They love them because they are disgusting people who harbor disgusting opinions. You might even call them deplorable.
BTW some of their children will die in the future because Trump stabbed the Kurds in the back and still they cheer for their disgusting hero.
5
I have for awhile now have come to understand that Trump and many Republicans will never believe that their cruel amoral actions are not normal.
It is happening here and people need to wake up, they need to care and they must vote, get rid of these rats forever.
5
Sometime in the early 1950s, in a fundamentalist church in Southern California. It's "Missionary Sunday" so a missionary back from foreign lands is talking to the assembled Sunday school children about why the heathen must be converted. He shows a slide of a Philippine cemetery with crucifixes made with the body of Christ carved from a dark tropical wood. "And you see, children, in the Philippines they worship a black Jesus!" That's when I left the church, and I've never regretted it.
4
@CA
For me it was the open threat of violence if I did not worship. That is the basis of all religions.
It should be illegal on pain of death to proselytize to children and for anyone under the age of 21 to attend any kind of religious service.
There continues to be a perverse sense of curiosity about the man in the White House. He continues to baffle and amaze. It does not matter how many times he shocks and disgusts us, it does not matter that he is the vulgarian and crass specimen of humanity that he is, we all continue to watch, and react to his profanity du jour. His racist remarks, his cruelty, his ignorance of history, his lack of curiosity, and his breaking of all rules of civility. We all share some part in our continuing to indulge him, and lavish on him the attention he so hungers.
He is beneath contempt. I think I once heard him say that he
will win the next election simply because everyone is making money from all it is that he continues to provide fodder for all of us who continue to find it all so morbidly fascinating.
A great piece by Charles Blow.
6
How about this, refer to all GOP congressmen and senators not as Republicans, but as they are, the Oathbreakers.
5
On a lighter yet insaner note: why would Republicans consider mustard on a burger an outrage? I’ve never heard of such an issue until it was mentioned in this opinion. Has no one had a burger at that most iconically American of places, McDonalds? My first burger as an American-born child was in the late ‘60s at McDonald’s and it was the first time I tasted mustard. I liked it and have been putting mustard on burgers ever since. So have even Republicans I’ve known.
How did Republicans twist mustard against Obama? Is there literally no end to the unmitigated cray-cray they’ll go to find fault with the Black Man?
3
Obama asked for a spicy mustard, Dijon I think. His craven attackers dutifully labeled him an elitist.
When will the mainstreamers start labeled the “religious right”, the “religious wrong”?
2
When ignorance and greed meet evil.....
7
Considering how they have supported the domestic and international upheaval, crudeness and crimes committed by Trump, Republicans and their donors it may be as simple as their eagerness for the Rapture to unfold in order for them to ascend to heaven in their lifetimes. You know people like that who predict disasters and wallow in them when they occur to prove the rest of the world was wrong.
1
This new dying Republican Party embodies and emboldens the sad dumbmocracy that got a president like 45 elected by the uninformed minority. But no worries, the constitution has a plan for that.
2
What saddens me is that now that these disgusting behaviors have been accepted and found to be so effective for controlling the media and claiming the spotlight, we will never go back to anything approaching civil discourse again. To reach the base, you must be base.
4
This is not new. IOKIYAR was coined under Bush. Republicans have had this "It's different when we do it" thing going on for a while now.
2
Well, every Conservative who professed to abhor gay marriage, yet was divorced or had affairs; who didn’t serve in the military but acted hawkishly; who protested big government but stoked deficits; who encouraged Americans to invest in the stock market long term, but has acted at every moment for the short-term gain; and/or who claimed to be for the common man, but provided tax breaks to the rich while cutting help to the aforementioned common man … told us years ago what we need to know about Republicans.
One doesn’t need to support Democrats to think the Republicans are self-centered power hungry hypocritical liars.
6
Charles Blow is certainly on to something. So many of these politicians and public figures who have aligned themselves with a man so totally lacking in the traditional virtues of public service must be responding to some subconscious pull or fear of losing out to people of color.
It makes no sense except on the primative level, or horror at the old world slipping away. But that it would be this man--of all men--with his obvious cruelty and delight in tormenting others, is simply mind-blowing.
He's stripped his followers and public supporters of their common decency--and that's no mean feat.
7
Mr. Blow, excellent piece. I am 63, white, and the race angle Trump uses has become more subtle, so it was necessary and important to read the reminder you've written. I haven't grown up being black, it's good to know how blacks view the optics of the GOP.
I knew demographics were changing and the time would come when whites are not in the majority. I am appalled that some whites are overreacting in such a racist way. Can't we all get along, really? Why not? Is it in anyone's best interest to react in such an Apartheid-gestalt way? How does the future look if we do?
The "religious right" have so lost their way, it's impossible to understand. Like the GOP sycophants (love the Pence description) people bend over backwards and sideways to excuse insane and profane behavior from their guy. It is a disgusting illustration of situational ethics from the right.
Trump has always been a Greek tragedy. You can see where it's heading with him, the same as you could have in 1985. His hubris and greed are bringing him down. There is absolutely no subtlety in him or the way it will go. It will not end well. For him or us? We'll see.
The question is, when will those that support him and GOP finally admit their mistake, and come back to being Americans again?
4
I am a NY Black Republican. I have been Republican since the 80's when I graduated College. I am conservative on some issues and progressive in others...what we used to call a Rockefeller Republicanism: Pragmatic and Forward Looking.
Back then, the watch-word wasn't 'Morality'...It was Ethics. It was Sensible Pragmatism. It was Workable Policies that did not endanger future prospects but moved the Polity forward with Cautious steps
Religion was just the Church you went to.
That Republican Party I used to know...is dead.
Every time Trump opens his mouth and utters sheer gutterisms... I tell people: "Stop bemoaning about whether the other Republicans 'Will Find their Moral Compass and act.'
We are seeing the tail end of a long, tawdry process. Trump is the Final outward symptom of a disease that has been rotting the party for over a generation since Nixon.
No-one 'Loses' a Moral Compass. It was willfully Thrown aside. It was a active Personal and collective choice made by every Senator and every Representative, whether they vocally defend the indefensible... or remain silent in the hopes that no-one looks at them for explanation.
The Hot Iron Gates of Perdition has already recorded the passage of the GOP as they willfully followed Trump on his downward path. Underneath their feet you have already heard the snapping of a myriad broken pieces of broken and trampled 'Moral Compasses' that they told themselves: We don't Need Those anymore.
Too late... Too Late...
4
Political morality has always been an oxymoron since all politicians occasionally bend rules and twist the truth. The difference is in degree.
Virtually every time trump opens his mouth, a lie emerges; Saturday Night Live has become tedious attempting to parody a parody; irony is dead in trump’s wake.
The world is truly upside down when the perpetrator threatens to indict and sue the judge and half the country sees no problem with this.
1
Mr Blow, I can't help but think that the lying, hypocrisy, racism, misogyny, anti-democratic instincts and vile behavior on display by trump and trumpism is nothing more than a true measure of a part of the American soul.
Sure, we can take some comfort in knowing that America is more than trumpism, but it certainly includes it. And its deeply part of who we are. This is now and always has been much deeper than politics.
Trump being Trump IS who the man is. It’s not an act. And expecting his supporters to open their eyes is wasted time. Their eyes are wide open right now. Just ask them, as many have. Evangelicals are not going to have a come to Jesus moment. They already think Jesus has come to them. Anyone in the opposition or so-called Resistance needs to understand and deal with this fundamental reality. Stop trying to convert the unconvertable. They’re not going away and need to be soundly defeated. And that requires a level of passion that is hard to find in any of the current Dem candidates. We need a white-hot call to decency at the barricades, a call to brutal vote-to-vote combat. I’m voting against Trump and Trumpism. Not for promises of free stuff, 17,000 point “plans,” and manufactured dreams spun over the rainbow. If there are any angels of America’s better selves, they all better saddle up, donate the bucks, get out the vote and ride charging at full speed to rescue our democracy. Our country depends on it.
1
“As if he had a mandate from heaven.”
A common refuge for the power hungry scoundrel is the claim that he speaks for the big guy upstairs. I would like to believe that the good Lord will have a special inquisition for all those who claimed to speak for Him. For many the judgment is likely to be that they were not meek, but proud. They were not wise, but fools. They were not holy, but frauds. They were not kind, but vicious. But we need not wait for Judgment Day. We can judge the tree now by its fruit.
Trump has more scandals in a day than President Obama had in his entire two terms.
Need I say more ?
1
Thank you Mr. Blow. This column sums it up truthfully and succinctly.
When will this president be stopped? Kurdish blood is now on his hands, and ISIS prisoners have escaped.
Republicans-we the people are watching, reading and aware of “what’s going on”.
What shocks me is how many people still revere Trump given who he is. Makes me very sad for the human race.
1
No. They embrace and promote what they once abhorred.
It took a long time for the government to recognize that all men are created equal wasn’t limited to caucasians. trump wants to walk that back now and it’s another example of his bigotry.
Don’t kid yourself - statements like that aren’t made by accident. Whether it came from trump himself or one of his henchmen, his character is more fully revealed by his having said it.
Every true American should deplore the inference. trump doesn’t deserve the respect of any fair minded person. Anybody who thinks of him as a friend will ultimately find that to be false. He’s only for himself. The constitution and the oath of office are meaningless in his own feeble mind.
The two main driving forces of politics in this country have always been racism and greed. If the greedy ones at the top of the food chain are able to use racism to manipulate the masses to do their bidding... well that play book is quite old, refined, and well written. Hannah Arendt wrote about it quite a while ago. She laid out all their plays in black and white. Problem is those that sit at the top have studied the playbook. Just like Edward Bernays read his Uncle Sigmund’s book and used it for evil purposes. The folks at the Trump rallies I doubt have ever even read Dr. Seuss. If they had they’d certainly not be Trumpers. Yes, every single Trump supporter is a racist or someone who supports white patriarchy. He has no other consistent policy on which he stands. None. The women who support him as well believe in their own subjugation. I don’t know why but it’s a common religious thing. It also may be some type of a sexual thing for these women that they enjoy their own subjugation. They may not even be able to recognize it as such. Whatever the reason, the oligarchs at the top use it to their full advantage. Quality public education, affordable college tuition, and a true secular govt. separation of church and state are not to the advantage of those sitting at the top of the pile. A facist theocracy would suit the oligarchs in our country just fine. Apparently it would also suit the Trumpers at the rallies as well. We’re doomed I’m afraid. Ours is a failed experiment.
4
How sadden I am to read how racism is so deeply intrenched in the American right -eousness. Does the American white middle-class associate with anyone beyond their own white middle-class neighbours? Religion , sexual preferences and race demand an effort of tolerance but it's with pride that I have a great mix in my family with all the colours and beliefs in God's rainbow.
The truly terrifying thing about Trump's base, whether white nationalist, so-called Christian evangelical, or otherwise is their complete lack of reason or decency. There is literally nothing he could do to make them not support him.
Hillary Clinton was absolutely right: a basket of deplorables.
But we've reached a point where facts and being right simply don't matter anymore, at least at this point in time. Irrational fear and hatred reign, literally.
1
I know many rural white trump supporters, that is where I live, and most are decent, family and community minded people. Who believe trump is doing a good job.
I don’t get it. Nothing I see in trump is good. Absolutely nothing, in what he does, what he says, who he chooses, how he pushes, how he lives, how he treats others. Nothing is good or admirable. Nothing shows maturity, dignity or integrity. Nothing shows compassion or wisdom. Daily he flaunts and kicks his derision of ‘treat others as you wish to be treated.’ He is the fleshly noisy embodiment of nothing good, rotten to the core. .
I don’t get it. My neighbors are not bad people. They help others, serve on the fire department, cook chicken at benefit fundraisers, take care of neighbors kids, pay taxes, work hard. They treat the black and Hispanic people in town kindly, as neighbors. They are not immoral bad people.
Do they just not see what I see, or am I missing something?
4
Trump is a moral vacuum, he has degraded the office of POTUS in a way I never thought possible. He has degraded his great nation, he has degraded his supporters and virtually destroyed the reputation of the USA in the eyes of the free world.
As an Australian I weep for your country. I take some comfort in knowing that Trump cannot remain in office indefinitely but I believe that it will take several decades for America to recover from the damage that he has caused.
1
Charles Blow's short essay is true and honest. I am only saddened by the reality that a black man had to write this. A dozen white men and women columnists should have written this months ago. We have so far to go. Thank you Charles Blow.
2
@Nan Lee manny of these white men and women are Jewish yet they don’t understand trump’s blatant racism; sooner or later jews like Stephen Miller Will realize white Christians don’t necessary include white Jews when it comes to choosing.
1
Republicans gave up any moral and ethical claims when they embraced Nixon, he of the "Southern Strategy," which was understood to be designed to pit fearful white people against any and all on-whites. Almost every Republican presidential candidate since then has used the same tactics. Reagan's "welfare Cadillac queen," GHW Bush's Willie Horton ads. Then by the time Geo Bush came around it was all about kicking Arabs. Then came Trump, who has assaulted and insulted virtually every person on earth who isn't part of his rich, white, male tribe.
I agree: racism persists, and it perverts.
But, all the progress, big steps and little steps, over the past 70-odd years are not erased by the bigotry and baseless of one small man, and his appeals to the worst instincts of our society:
The civil rights movement of the 60’s and 70’s brought about changes that are positive and permanent, and were in response to the open racism of that era; they are now a part of our basic institutions. Now, exposing the not-so-subtle ‘dog-whistle’ for what it is, and condemning it and shaming it, and spotlighting that cowardly ugliness, and voting it out, overwhelmingly, is the answer.
The future is coming, whether the vile trump and his ilk like it or not.
Knowing how corrupt Trump is and knowing that the GOP is willing do almost anything to maintain their minority rule, I fear the next election will be rigged. I know that we have a complex system but there probably are choke points that are vulnerable to committed hackers and corrupt Republican leaders. The lack of diligence on the part of Senate Republicans to pass early and meaningful oversight and security is a red flag. I fear the fix is being planned as we speak. Somewhere Putin is smugly chuckling.
It’s worst than it looks. Yes, his predilection for vulgar language is beyond offensive. But, more criminal is his disdain for the Kurds by arbitrarily giving Turkey’s Erdogan the green light to invade Syrian Kurdistan. Now, over 100,000 Kurds have been displaced, jailed ISIS fighters and their followers have escaped and scores of civilians killed. The assumption is that the Trump Administration won’t be extending refugee status to any displaced Kurds.
1
Since when has conventional organized religion ever been anything but a cover up for greed, power, social control and subjugation of the "other"?
5
It is simply unfair to children to be raised in an atmosphere of vulgarity and violence, especially when the president fosters them. Young Americans who want to have a family should consider emigrating.
2
@Robert Dole our kids have decided they don’t want any kids not on this polluted planet.
1
" The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene. It makes a mockery of their faith and their supposed philosophies."
The leaders of the so called religious right are lairs, con men, and philosophical contortionists, especially including Pat Robertson. I say this not in anger but in sadness and sorrow because they have shown their religion to have little or nothing to do with god and high principles but rather a constipated cultural movement intent on providing, first, comfort to those disturbed by the modern world and, second, leadership in pursuing further regression. It is all about money and power, they want it and they know how to get it by stroking the fears of their followers.
Like ancient popes who decided their proper role was to rule the world, they seek power over everything else by the outrageous presumption that they speak for god when their voices are horse from crying out for money. If Trump were to turn out to be an actual, flesh and blood fascist, they would still lick his boots and "pray" for him.
We need good, strong and generally honest political parties to contend over ideas and our future course but we can never get them so long as these false prophets bark commandments at sheep like followers and seek to use religion not for righteousness but as a tool for their own ends.
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This shouldn’t be surprising. Fundamentalists are past masters at interpreting the Bible to support preconceived conclusions.
1
This is what happens when a political party keeps moving toward the right. They knew what was out three on the right margins but could never believe the party could shift that far. Somehow it would come to a halt and the Republican establishment would continue to prevail. Well now we know that if that was what they were thinking they deluded themselves. The Republican Party had been taken over by those previously out in the right margins, mainly the white supremacist nationals and the religious right. Those are the two most important components of the party. It is Trump who was finally able to overthrow the establishment so no matter what Trump does they are going to support him. He this their ticket to white nationalism and Christian theocracy. In their view this would make America great again and finally put an end to liberalism.
The hypocrisy manifest by Republicans is breathtaking. It takes our breath away, leaving us gasping for air. It is suffocating. Its name should be changed to the Chimera Party, with its emblematic elephant replaced by a fire-breathing lizard.
Led by Donald Trump, the GOP has abandoned its ostensible and pretended commitment to principles long espoused, ranging from morality pledges to fiscal responsibility, to name only two. Republicans have accepted Trump's immorality, vulgarities and endless stream of lies with a blind eye and deaf ear. It insults our intelligence and causes us to question their grasp of reality.
Trump is a master of projection, routinely accusing others of manifesting traits and behaviors in which he, himself, is engaged. Suggesting that Joe Biden kissed Barack Obama's backside is rich indeed, particularly when one recalls an entire Trump cabinet meeting where his appointees took turns, one after another, laboriously planting their lips on his whatever.
It's not that Republicans have no convictions. It's that the only ones that are genuine are their biases in favor of the wealthy and powerful, coupled with their commitment to retaining their own sinecures.
The pregnant question is whether, added to that, will be literal convictions in courts of laws, now stacked with Republican judicial appointees, and whether a sufficient number of voters will be motivated in 2020 to put an end to the GOP charade and its betrayal of the American people.
1
I'm a native Minnesotan that lived there until 7 years ago. I moved just across the border to Iowa, which I've deemed to be the "Mississippi of the Midwest". A totally red state legislature, farmers sticking by trump as they struggle and go under, and of course my representative in Congress is none other than Steve King. I've vowed to move back to Minnesota after I retire, and hope that display in Minneapolis last week was an aberration, and not an omen of a "new" Minnesota. We have truly lost our way if the progressive-minded state I grew up in can cheer the vulgarity of this loathsome man.
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It is long past time to end the tax exemption for religion.
4
I agree with Mr. Blow but would take his argument to its logical conclusion.
In this regard I would argue that by embracing 45, these self-identifying "Christians" have demonstrated first, that they truly believe that he is the "second coming" of Jesus Christ [even though 45 possesses none of Christ's attributes and every trait of Beelzebub; second that they now bow to, and worship 45, and finally that they have revealed to the world that the teachings of Christianity mean absolutely nothing to them. Amen!
1
Republicans only care about their money and power. Everything else is negotiable.
1
They merely “accept”?
“Embrace” is more like it.
Charles Blow has written a brilliant column that strikes deep at the truth in Trump's rhetoric regarding Biden. Trump is yet again issuing another racist, white supremacist dog whistle--vote for Biden, and you are endorsing the rule of "those people."
Here in Minneapolis the crowd was lily white. They cheered as Trump trashed the Somali community, trashed Somali-American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, trashed immigrants, and suggested that he would authorize segregation once again. Outside of the Twin Cities there are indeed people who believe that executive orders from on high could possibly prohibit immigrants from settling in their towns. These are the folks who heard the racist dog whistles that caused the white crowd to cheer.
But the remark implying that Biden had subjugated himself in a demeaning manner to our only African-American president got the biggest cheers of the evening. This was a stomach-churning moment. If Trump gets elected on the back of these vile, foetic remarks, America deserves the maelstrom that will follow.
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Those of us with a functioning cerebral hemisphere or two knew long ago that the so-called “Moral Majority” was neither.
The fact that the decidedly non-angelic “evangelical Christians” have embraced this lawless, morally unhinged criminal as their spiritual guide reveals these people to be mere poseurs.
I hope that some day soon we can begin to dismantle the theocracy infecting our government. Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment must have equal billing with the Free Exercise Clause.
To all Christians reading this comment, I hope you take Jesus’ words to heart when he reminded us that His kingdom was NOT of this earth. Not.
I don’t deny that racism is part of Trump’s antipathy toward Barack Obama. But I think the author misses an additional, and crucial, factor at work in this relationship. A few years ago, in the midst of Trump’s "birther" nonsense, Trump attended a White House Correspondents Association dinner at which Obama spoke. Obama, undoubtedly in response to Trump’s phony claims, spent much of his time ridiculing Trump to his face. Trump could only sit in the audience and stew while others laughed at him. As we know, Trump has serious, almost crippling self-esteem issues, and Obama’s needling got under his tissue paper-thin skin. I think much of what Trump says and does today, including his mindless effort to roll back every Obama initiative, results from that humiliating experience. Perhaps Obama’s race exacerbated the situation for Trump. But in my opinion, the main motivator for Trump’s reaction was his manifest personality disorders, and he would have reacted in much the same way if his antagonist were white.
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@Alan all obama did was use humor to sportingly deal with trump’s lies and birther conspiracy theories. It was the most gentlemanly thing to do. Nonviolent response.
1
Earlier tonight I was talking with a friend and the most obvious thing occurred to me.
Both Trump and Giuliani ran racist campaigns and both needed to racially malign their predecessors in office. Giuliani with Dinkins and Trump with Obama.
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Missing in the Mr Blow piece and the attached commentary is the clear surrender of many conservative Christians to DJT's daily mantra of "I am the victim, no one can match how unfairly I am treated; not the immigrant child, not the Iowa farmer; no one else only me".
From some of my neighbors, not just the national media, I've come to realize there is a whole alternate universe out there. One in which Biden, Obama, the Clintons, even Al Gore, are demon figures over whom they obsess. They've forgotten entirely that Bush&Cheney were president for 8 years. They believe in conspiracies and coups. And as Charles Blow indicates, their claims about Christianity, the Constitution, morality, and the national debt, all prove to be hollow, to be fake news. I don't see how their world can ever be harmonized with the real world.
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Written with perfect clarity, and historical insight.
It pays to revisit what got him elected: In the beginning NBC gave him a platform. Vote denial/ suppression/ gerrymandering. The millions who didn’t vote. The crackpot, ripoff, white evangelical church; gun worshippers; the “sovereign citizen” libertarians; white supremacists; ill educated/illiterate/ignorant whites, male and female; nativists one generation away from immigration themselves; ‘conservatives’ who are radically destructive; ‘family values’ proponents whose politics are an expression of their cruelty, especially toward children. Add grift, sleaze, hypocrisy and corruption and you have the GOP, representing all that is weak and regressive about America, offering useful fools by the million to whom government is nothing more than reality TV hosted by a buffoon floundering from crisis to crisis, propelled by the vacuum of an empty mind, low rodent cunning and a foul mouth.
He represents money without national affiliation or loyalty. The Russians found him offshore in their laundry.
This didn’t just happen; the GOP is a project but whose? For the answer, look at what they do: government as a funnel to channel America's wealth offshore. Putin meanwhile plays his hand with a laser focus on the GOP because its America’s weakness, the comic realization of McCarthy’s vision, a body infested with dupes and agents. Hello Manafort, and Page. Hello Nunes, and Conway. It’s time to break the Republican Party with the weight of a clear majority. It can be done.
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Our president has compassion for the very rich. He gave them a huge tax break as soon as he entered his oval office. He has compassion for the Saudis so he is willing to help them in their horrible war in Yemen. He has compassion for the Nazis in our country...."there were good people on both sides of their march". He has compassion for Vladimir Putin and defends him from vulgar people who accuse him of hacking Trump's election to the White House. So, don't let anyone say that Donald Trump doesn't know the meaning of that word.
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It can only be sustained thru daily fox-feedings.
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You don't know what to call them? Here's a hint: #FakeChristians
Can't believe it's taken this long for an op-ed to state what has been obvious since 2016- that its been obvious to me at least, that the trump 'phenomenon' amongst the right has been for one reason Only- to pay back liberal america for having forced upon them 8 years of living under a black president. Trump no matter how bad he is, is payback for the black president thing and they don't care how bad he is, (A) because the black guy was a worse pain to endure for white evangelical racist americans, and (B) because they care more about that then they do about anything else in the USA; proving once and for all they are racist and unpatriotic and like trump all deserve to be removed from this country.
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Margaret Atwood the Canadian author has written two fictionalized accounts The Handmaiden and The Testaments of the Conservative/Evangelical world view. Mr Blow has provided a nonfictional rendering.
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Mr. Blow, you don’t what to call these people? The word, hypocrites, comes to mind.
How does the so-called "Religious Right" reconcile that "their President" has bragged how he sexually assaults woman, mocks the facial appearance of a female Republican presidential candidate, physically mocks and exaggerates the speech and movements of a neurologically disabled critic and falsely asserts that the first African-American President of the United States, was not born in our country? The list goes on and on. Does their "ends" justify their acceptance of his "means"? I suggest they read their scripture again.
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Treacherous Trump, the current possessor of the 'mandate of heaven', was elected because or inspite of his vast array of pathological traits. Everybody knew what was to be expected. Now Trump's innate coarseness, cruelty, hatred, corruption, insecurity, and stupidity are on display and in action. And, by the way, does it make sense to enhance the visibility of single instances of crude vulgarities by discussing them?
I used to think of Pence as Uriah Heep, but after the presidents comments about Biden's role I now realize that Pence is really the Groom of the Stool.
Pat Robetson said, “The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.”...over abandoning our allies the Kurds.
It's impossible to find anyone FURTHER from a 'mandate from heaven' than Trump. Trump is vicious in his words against any criticism. He hates brown people and has no problem with putting children in cages. He abhors anyone who thinks he isn't the greatest thing to have happen to the United States since the inception of this nation.
Trump is increasingly showing that he is mentally disturbed. This nation needs to impeach Trump and let the rest of history understand that he is NOT the chosen one who is above the law.
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The Trump presidency can be summed up as the confluence of cruelty, crudeness and corruption. No person, elected to this office, has ever treated it with such abject disdain and disrespect. It is unfathomable that the Republican party does not speak up and rid themselves of this pestilential and grotesquely abominable person. History will not be kind...
". . .So, now I no longer know what to call these people.. . ."
Of course Blow knows what to call them. They are a "vainglorious" community that has created a world view that justifies, excuses and elevates its considerable flaws and life failures. It is any antonym of the word "altruistic." Any time a community of millions expects life on earth to end at any moment, this community has a far different set of goals than sane people who plan for continuity in the Universe.
The Second Coming is upon us!
@Publicus
As it has been for two thousand years........
Remember that every time you think they’ve hit bottom, there is no bottom. Don’t believe me? Ask the Kurds
"He will deceive even the Elect."
Their Bible has some tips for them...
Thank you, Mr. Blow, for providing this lens on our current president/ government that brings clarity for all who can see.
The phrase "the subjugation of the white man to the black one" is, as my British mates would say, a load of rubbish. I have lived my life convinced the only real difference between black and white is skin color and nothing else. Geneticists know colour stems from a dark brown to black pigment (melanin) occurring in the hair, skin, and iris of the eye in people. It is responsible for tanning of skin exposed to sunlight. The term race is utilised by whites to give leverage to their belief in their own superiority, nothing more. It has been used for centuries to subjugate non-whites. White is a minority, colored is the global norm.
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"That is why Obama stays on the tip of Trump’s tongue. "
I thought it was a sign that Trump was developing Alzheimers. Fixation on the past rather than present circumstances is a symptom of the disease.
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I grew to adulthood and began my career in public education in rural Kansas. Forty years ago life took me to Austin, Texas. When I visit loved ones in Kansas I see small towns slowly deteriorating as corporate and large farmers expand, destroying small operations, and demand for the services that support hundreds of farmers disappears. People in small dying rural communities are economically disadvantaged, angry, scared and hopeless. They overwhelmingly support their local churches and D. Trump whose angry rhetoric projects their own anger and fear, and whose scapegoats, POC and immigrants, are small minorities in rural states. Frightened hopeless people look to demagogues for hope and to allay their fear. As a result, Republican leaders in rural conservative areas stoke the fear and double down on the demagoguery to buttress their control. Corporate profiteers, corrupt politicians, and churches align to exploit angry, frightened people in ways that Sheldon Wolin describes as inverted totalitarianism. Keep telling truth to power, Mr. Blow
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America used to be a great country. Very sorry for you. Used to be a beacon of hope.
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Thanks for this great essay, Mr. Blow. That you "no longer know what to call" these so-called Christians shows that you're a gentleman. I, however, am not a gentlemen or much of a lady, so I'll just call them anti-Christs. Everything they say and do is anti-Christ, the opposite of what Jesus would do. Jesus said "Suffer the little children to come unto me" rather than "take them from their parents and put them in cages."
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Charles' read on racism in the Trump comment about Biden and Obama is on the money, and I am not always on board with Charles's assertions.
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Charles what you describe is also true of men subjugating women, for centuries. Worse so, if you are a woman of color.
1
"So now, I no longer know what to call these people..."
How about immoral, selfish hypocrites?
That would be a good start.
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The Right consistently dehumanizes the "other". They use words like the Nazis did, e. g., "illegal alien" instead of undocumented person, "chain migration" instead of family based migration, etc. Dehumanization allows hateful people to hate without feeling that they are losing their morality. It's one of the oldest stories around.
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@pkbormes Insightful words that help us understand the seemingly un-understandable. Thank you, pkbormes.
"Dehumanization allows hateful people to hate without feeling that they are losing their morality. It's one of the oldest stories around."
1
I think it is more than just racial hatred and fear of immigrants.
Trump's devotees bought his promise of better things, citing his own so-called achievements. If he could do it, so could they was phrased in their language.
Suddenly, a lot of people who were brought up to believe that if it was good enough for daddy, it was good enough for them realized as factories closed that wouldn't fly anymore, that they were stuck in a mold and Trump would raise them out of it. But without education that isn't happening and I think they cling to Trump hoping he would make things wonderful out of thin air.
Stoop labor is for immigrants, not for those born here but the jobs are so menial, so low paying that the natives scorn them. And of course trump has no idea, or desire, to change that.
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"no amount of cruelty or crudeness he can display that Republicans won’t cheer and defend. His corruption has become theirs"
I find it extraordinarily hard to understand how the so called 'evangelical' "Christians' are OK with a master serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist friend of Jefferey Epstein who hypocritically claims to be a pillar for conservative values while by every measure is a mobster and agent of Putin?
Just how effective is the Machiavellian propaganda and the corruption of the evangelical church leadership?
Looking at it from the outside; I'd say it s just about absolute. How did that happen and what if any path is open to begin to use well told truth to reverse the impact of the constant barrage of only so-so told lies?
The one thing that the Democrats and progressive thinkers have that the Republicans and their fascists propagandists don't have is the great talent of the likes of Spielberg and the extreme talent and creativity of the best of Hollywood's directors, writers, and story tellers.
On the otherhand it seems like Facebook's Zuckerberg is now all in on support lying as "potlical discourse," which to me is the height of evil.
I plan to boycott any product I see on Facebook and furthermore to write every single major advertiser on Facebook to let them know I'm making it my mission to get the work out on that intent. It's a good idea to stop advertising on Facebook.
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& Trumpism's infinite corruption. A dangerously disturbed Trump & his grifters are are exporting their corruption around the globe.
Time for the public to stand up & demand accountability for in your face obstruction & criminality.
Time for the House to censure immediately, investigate thoroughly, & impeach repeatedly.
Bring on the Blue Wave!
2
When I first stumbled on Jerry Falwell on TV in 1978 I couldn't believe such a hateful and hate-filled fascist could claim to be Christian, or that anyone would believe he was Christian...And I'm not a Christian, but, like most Jews who don't live in enclaves, grew up among them, most Catholics. I knew many fine ones, and many awful ones, but no one like Falwell, Robertson, Bakker, or any of the other self-serving phonies.
I don't disrespect the teachings of Jesus. After all he was preaching a humane and humanist interpretation of Jewish Law and who could be against that? Surprising, these evangelical "Christians". And Trump plays off their base racism, greed, sense of maligned superiority and they LOVE it!
Gandhi was supposed to have said "I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians." I know just what he meant.
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Have you looked into the eyes of the MAGA crowd standing behind Trump at his rallies? It is the same fiendish elation you will see in the eyes of white men and women in a black & white photo from the Jim Crow Era in the South, white men and women attending the lynching of a black man. This... this fiendish elation... this is who they are.
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Better vulgar toughness toward China and an actual immigration policy than genteel hope.
Excellent column, but real depressing
5
There is abortion, and therefore the changes to the Supreme Court; there is the coming end-of-days, and so the support for Israel so that Jews may return before the great war in the Middle East; and there is the belief that God's blessing to the virtuous is seen in their wealth, and so inequality is his reward.
You make a mistake when you confuse their Christianity with Christ and the gospels.
4
Trump gives voice to the vulgarity at the heart of the Republican Party.
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The ONLY good thing that is going to come out of the Trump Administration is the utter destruction of evangelical credibility. The Christian rights opinion is going to be fodder for mockery for a hundred years. A byword for for utter hypocrisy.
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@Dan Minor For us true Christians, they already are fodder for mockery. Worse yet is the fact that they will be adversely judged by God for the slander they have brought on his Name by their bad behavior.
1
Those faithless Republicans and their evangelical supporters have been unmasked as charlatans, and worse. But the craven excesses that Trump indulges in reached a new height with the bloody video of Trump butchering media and his critics, including Obama, and both Clintons, as well as Adam Schiff, which was played at a Trump campaign event at his own Miami resort. And lame disclaimers by the Trump team ("we have no idea how it got there!"...."we don't support violence of any kind..." ) are truly farcical.
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@PT Just proves even more that Trump, his minions, followers, and worshippers are as far from being people approved of God as East is from West.
Showing or watching anything that depicts violent murder of anyone else, even digitally is completely reprehensible to God and Christ. Jesus said that murder begins as an intention of the heart and that we must not even contemplate such a thing. Christians also must root out hatred. (Matthew 5:21-22) The Bible's words are plain and true:
"Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 1John 3:15
"If anyone says, I love God, and hates (detests, abominates) his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20
Most importantly Christians don't want to be hated by Almighty God--
". . .He hates anyone who loves violence." Ps 11:5
Proverbs 3:31 and Proverbs 6:16-17)
Trump is a person who is literally steeped in the lowest forms of iniquity. His characteristics are demonic and perverse. He and his backers are spiritually sick and I feel very sorry for them.
Well...yeah, Republicans are blatant and unapologetic hypocrites. Ever talk to a Republican about anything political? It's like being the only human in a cartoon. They simply have no basis for their arguments other than it's what they feel at that one particular instant in time. What it all boils down to as a Republican, is self then Party - never country. It doesn't help that Republicans have outsourced their thinking abilities to conservative news venues spouting ignorance like, "Santa Claus is white" to an audience of supposed adults tuning in supposedly to be informed of worldly affairs.
5
I wonder if the FBI will investigate the coarse and violent video shown at the Trump property to his followers. Truly a sick situation- the hatred of the press, the hatred of fellow Americans needs to be looked at.
6
I'm a fiscal conservative and social liberal. There was a time when I'd seriously consider both candidates and have in my 73 years voted for candidates representing both parties. At one time both presented candidates who held the moral high ground. This is until McCain selected Palin. How could a good man select someone like that? She started the skid down hill for the Republican party and now it seems like a bottomless pit. Trump is acting like a tin pot dictator and only a few Republicans half way stand up against him. While the division he's created in America is about as big as in the late 1960s, I think, like that division, this one will eventually be healed. We're a nation of good people being led by the strangest person I've ever seen. He's the real Joker!
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The Republicans, like Rupert Murdoch/Fox news, Bill Barr, Dick Cheney, Koch Bro’s., White evangelicals and GWBush never got over Watergate and losing control and are directly responsible for Trump and the dangerous times we find ourselves in. Trump just came along and said all the disgusting things Republicans believe in, out loud. The racism, sexism and bigotry, said out loud in Vulgar terms woke up the worst of US humanity and brought out the extra white republican voters that don’t usually vote.
2
The Republican Party and trump’s yuuuge fan club are moving forward as if trump will be their leader forever. Wake up...he’s an old guy that has an unhealthy weight, eats way too many hamberders, and must be under continual massive stress. Guess what.. one day you will wake up and the show will be over. Then what? What does the Republican Party of the future have left to offer or bind it’s unlikely coalition of white rural folks, gun owners, evangelicals, racists and folks who want to limit spending and taxes.
3
When I look at the photo at the top of your column I know I'm seeing an American, but in my head I'm hearing German.
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...You can call that faction of white evangelicals Post Modern Pharisees. Those "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." 2 Timothy 3:5. Those made in the image of GOD, but their actions in defending such a wicked man, is a abject rejection of the very GOD that claim to serve. They are liars and hypocrites. And by their fruit is how we know them...
6
I can't begin to understand why anyone who calls themselves a Christian can support Trump. I mean, just take the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the peacemakers, the merciful, the meek; love your enemies. And on and on...
What is clear is that Trump is SCARED. That's why he's surpassing his own levels of raging, insulting and cursing. He's got a lot of skeletons rattling around in his closet. Follow the money!
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No surprise here...these Republicans owe their seats to voters who winked as Trailerpark Donnie mocked veterans and war heroes. Don't hold your breath waiting for ToxicTrump's fans to suddenly develop a moral compass.
In their hearts, they admire and take hope in the vision that such an impotent coward has gotten so wealthy - even if it was mostly Putin's oligarchs and Daddy's money.
He's the guy they all wished they could be....grabbing women by the crouch, hiding behind a Twitter account to fire people and to run his business. Cowards and traitors admire others. It gives them hope that they might get somewhere.
8
Yeah, but mustard on hamburgers... That's really beyond the pale, isn't it?
6
When I saw snippets of Trump's "daddy needs love rally" (quote courtesy of Bill Maher) I would have loved to ask Trump "Do you eat with that mouth too?"
3
"Hypocrite, noun - a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives."
While I can identify evangelical Christians who supports our current president as hypocrites, I cannot discern which is the central tenet of their true belief.
Are they believing Christians who profess support for racism and xenophobia and patriarchy or are they racists and xenophobes and patriarchs who profess Christianity?
This quantum conundrum is insoluble. Perhaps we see them in the pews on Sunday as Christians and as bigots with #MAGA hats on the rally midweek.
Moral shape-shifting is the conservative's playground. And there's the pity. Their craven adherence to no fixed position only makes those who stand like Horatius at the bridge stand taller.
We need more like Sally Yates or Marie Yovanovich or Joseph Welch and less like Lindsay Graham or Rudy Giuliani or Mike Pence.
Are you with the sheep or the goats?
3
@Doug McNeill Not insoluble at all if one is a student of the Bible. Easy to discern. Every good tree produces good fruit--every rotten tree produces rotten fruit. Hatred is the fruit of a rotten tree.
If they CLAIM to be believing Christians who profess support for racism and xenophobia and toxic patriarchy, then they are not true Christians at all, but imposters.
If they ARE they racists and xenophobes and believers in fascist patriarchy who profess Christianity their profession is worthless. They "have a form of Godly Devotion but prove false to its power." Just look at what their actions have caused. (Matthew 7:17)
"For the time is coming when people will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching for something pleasing and gratifying, they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, And will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions."
(2 Timothy 4:3-4)
See also 1 Timothy 3:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:11; 1 Timothy 4:1
It's as clear as a bell to me.
When finally all this is over and (hopefully) we return to being true Americans again, we will look back and see this Trumpian stupidity for what it really is: an aberration of our real goal of decency and equality for all. Did we really deserve a dose of Trump after Obama's presidency? I think it was too big a dose and will have too long lasting an effect but it will eventually take a well deserved low seat in history. The sooner we engage ourselves in correcting the terrible wrongdoing of the present administration the better.
5
Religious fundamentalists believe that their messenger can be an "imperfect vessel." What an incredible way to excuse every vulgarity, every cruelty, every corrupt act--so that Trump can deliver on their crusade against gays, abortion, immigrants, people of color, and social liberals of every ilk.
3
"The way that the Religious Right has bent and distorted biblical doctrine to support this vulgar man is absolutely obscene." Amen.
5
It's official. With the abandonment of the Kurds (as well as the children who have died at our southern boarder) Trump can now be verified as an ALL Ten Commandment violator. And the headshaking curiosity of it is how these evangelicals are willfully blind to it. Deplorable.
5
@metaphorical
This is the beauty of religion as a political tool.
belief in magic will train the mind to see what it is told to see or what it wants to see.
The Astronomer and writer Carl Sagan had this to say on the topic of following liars;
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Trump supporters who fear or hate immigrants, people of color, Jews, LGBTQ people, will follow him anywhere, even off a cliff. All they care about is that he Make America White Again!
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The reason Trump is special to the Republican base is he is the vision of politics pushed by the right wing media (Hannity, Limbaugh, et.al) for the last few decades. All the vulgar over-the-top rhetoric, filled with hatred for fellow Americans who disagree politically, logically leads to a guy like Trump.
There are an endless number of other potential candidates like Trump. The next Republican nominee will probably be Rush Limbaugh. If the Republican establishment doesn't like crude boors, they are going to need to do something about the quality of RW media.
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The christian right has repealed hypocrisy, so all is now permitted if it serves the purpose of their goals, but what are those exactly? Like Trump, I think these "christians" are bathed in hate and desire for revenge, against the forces of "liberalism" and multiculturalism, which would remove the "power" of their only asset, which is their skin color. Deplorable was and is a very apt label for these folks.
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The evidence is overwhelming that, if a supernatural force was instrumental in making Donald Trump president, it was Satan, not God. Satan has two goals: to inflict chaos, discord, suffering, hatred and evil on Earth, and to destroy God and good. What could be a more spectacularly and deliciously diabolical plot than this: simultaneously accomplishing both aims by persuading a segment of people who mean to be followers of Christ to see Donald Trump as an agent of God and be gleefully responsible for Trump's election, thereby sowing the chaos, discord, suffering, hatred and evil, while discrediting Christianity. "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Matthew 7:20 KJV. The more one learns about how Donald Trump treats others, including in business, the more one must, however reluctantly, conclude that in addition to all his other profound flaws, he delights in hurting people, and therefore is evil.
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Trump’s skill is his his understanding that everyone has a price. He has bought the religious right with Supreme Court Justices, dispossessed white males with attacks on women and minorities, farmers with fake concern for their issues, and tax cuts to buy the already rich. The Republican Party went for Trump because he could deliver devoted 30% supporters. Any bargain with the devil cost a person’s soul, but it takes a while and some reflection to feel the cost.
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@DO5
Just ask one Mr Faust.
I have always thought that standard Christian fundamentalist images of the devil as an overtly monstrous being were silly. Evil, I maintained, cannot present itself as evil or few would be tempted by it. Rather, what is bad—in people, actions, thoughts—has to superficially appear as good, as attractive, as alluring. That is the only way it could have the power to corrupt.
So I thought until Trump came along. But Trump’s evil is undisguised. Every action, every utterance, every fact about his history screams destructiveness, greed, unkindness, untrustworthiness. He is surrounded by a group of cartoon villains—people whose awfulness is fully visible. And yet...the Republican Party embraces him. Right-wing Americans, especially Christians, idolize him. They are unshakeable in their allegiance precisely because they are not taken in by a misleading appearance. No, they clearly see overt cruelty—and they like it. They see darkness and hatred and call it good, patriotic, moral. Condemning the evil of Trump and Trumpism is a fruitless exercise because in their ears this condemnation has the sound of praise.
And yet I still cannot believe that this actually represents the truth of who these people are and what they want. Is there nothing we can do to shake our fellow citizens out of this horrible trance into which they have fallen—to call them back to their better selves?
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Brilliant....This article gives voice to a feeling that arises in my gut every time I hear a GOP rep talking up one of their policies by always, always first tearing down the Obama-era policy that it is meant to upend. I had chalked it up previously to simply the GOP's need for chest thumping, but now I see it for the racism that it is. They don't really have any original thoughts in terms of governing, rather, it is like they opened a file drawer of the past administration's work and are systematically ripping up the contents, page by page. My distaste for the likes of McConnell, Pompeo, Mnuchin, et. al. now knows no bounds.
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A note, Mr. Blow, on White Right Theology:
you write 'Pat Robertson, upset last week over Trump’s unconscionable abandoning of the Kurds in northern Syria, said: “The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.”
As if he had a mandate from heaven.'
Robertson was, I think, referring not to a mandate Trump has, but that America has from Heaven. Just as their paintings show the Constitution being given to the Founders by Jesus, so it is the belief of many that from the Mayflower Compact 400 years ago to today that America is the Chosen Country, the City on the Hill, Blessed among Nations.
Robertson's warning is thus deeper than just Trump. He is warning that America is losing The Path, and by implication reminding us that The Lord punishes wicked nations.
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@Speakin4Myself Thank you for explaining that. If that's what Mr. Robertson meant, good for him. (Never thought I'd be saying that about him!)
It’s called blatant hypocrisy. And right-wing Republican evangelicals have always engaged in it. In other words, do as I say, not as I do.
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Charles is of course, on the money. Does anyone out there remember before the Clinton impeachment, certain body parts, by Republican influence, were not allowed on the then fairly new internet? Until, of course, the Monica Lewinski scandal broke and it was all fair game. Children wouldn't be reading those reports, after all. Sure.
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“Either morality has meaning or it doesn’t.” It does. But I’ve never expected the Christian Right to have it. The hypocrisy has been there for a long time. To say that Trump has a mandate from heaven and Obama was the Anti-Christ says it all.
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trump is chaos. He revels in the chaos he creates as it make him the center of attention. Evangelicals revel in the chaos he creates as it (in their diminished worldview) hastens the end times prophesied in their little book of stories. They will forgive trump everything to see this prophecy come true.
We are being held hostage by a minority of extremists (abetted by the complicit GOP) who seek nothing more that the destruction of the current world order. This is the equivalent of Islamist extremists who have had similar goals. Some said 9/11 was an inside job but that may have been debunked, this IS an inside job and we are watching it unfold in slow motion every day.
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There will never be domestic tranquility in the USA.
Racism has affected the vital organs of the body politic.
It is in the three branches of the national government and in state legislatures. We are totally and thoroughly atrophies.
Mr.Melania is only the most egregious exhibit.
There are legion of Americans who imbibe the same racist Kool-Aid. And they will use violence to defend the racial status quo, and they are stockpiled with guns.
Violence has never inhibited.
It is healthier to imagine the worse case scenario than wistfully hope otherwise. The latter is lethal thinking.
"The best lack all conviction while the worst are fall of passionate intensity."
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Conservatives don’t want things to change, they want to conserve things as they are. This is their one true rule. They like being in charge of the patriarchy or being controlled by it. Rules are to keep things the way they are- White men in charge. If a white man breaks the rules, the rules need to be changed. If anyone else breaks the rules, they need to be enforced to their strictest interpretation and a punishment needs to be severe.
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To me, we have a litmus test based on courage. The politicians who had the courage to speak up against Trump, like Romney and Flake, are attacked or pushed out of office for standing up. Voters support Trump for various reasons such as white nationalism, abortion, etc. So, in the end, self-interest > courage, righteousness, morality, etc.
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Honesty is the basis of morality in my book. Republicans read a different book.
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This is no longer about any decency or humanity which are pillars of a true Christian. This is all about money ahead of people's best interest, which the largest threat to the capitalist system nowadays. It brings me back to a video by Jamila Lyiscott about the year 2053, when her grandchildren are asking her about that time period (these days) they learned in the history class, where we were the Divided States of America.
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It depends on your definition of vulgar, but history has visited the likes of "Trump" many times.
We all know the names of these vulgar tyrants and who supported them. From the most religious to the least religious, how were the groups of people, who backed those historical tyrants, different from the groups of people who now back Trump?
Everything old is new again. The problem is we always forget.
Eventually, the solution will also be renewed.
Virtually all Republicans along with Trump-supporting, "Christian Evangelicals" will own this for the foreseeable future and deservedly so.
At some point, we have to realize collectively that the elders among us are not The Greatest Generation (by and large, they WWII vets are gone) and what’s left are cranky old men and the women who enable them and are often dependent upon them. The gizzards hate change. They hate the changing of the guard. They think it ridiculous that women should have a voice and bodily autonomy, that young people should have a voice, that land and seas don’t exist for them to conquer. They’re bitter - they feel the lack of respect and they want to lash back.Trump embodies their bitterness and vitriol.
Simply put, older voters supported Trump in a landslide 58 to 39 percent.
When will they be held accountable?
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@ Mary McCue Blanket Denunciations of a whole generation or age cohort don’t help. I’m in that demographic and not only do I denounce the current squatter in the White House, I’ve been militating against the hypocrisy of conservatism for decades. And I’m not the only one.
Unfortunately, diatribes like yours are very unproductive. Note that I could likewise condemn younger generations for not voting since the imbalance is not so much a matter of actual numbers but of proportional voting: The older generations, arguably, vote while the young tend to be more cavalier about it.
Rather than condemning some spurious group or another, better advocate for education, historical consciousness, and civic morality so that people aren’t derailed by demagoguery and propaganda and prevent the election of a most undeserving, corrupt, ignorant individual to the highest political position in the nation.
And note that this isn’t an isolated instance but systemic: As others here note, our current mo,ent is just an acute example of long-standing ideological and structural ills ingrained in the nation’s history.
Nope, not surprising at all to some of us but an outcome to be expected as US society persists in subsisting with the blissful blinders of exceptionalism firmly attached and skewing it’s vision
Of course everything expressed here about the inherent hypocrisy and immorality of the right is completely correct, but we now know this, so I wish all of us who want our country and world to be better would focus on how to win it back. Step down to Trump's level, beat him at his level, and return to a higher level. Sometimes you've got to fight dirty or all will be lost. The world's at stake here. Otherwise, we will find there is never a true rock bottom with Trump, Republicans, and those who keep them in power.
Trump sure knows how to accomplish his goals. The visual he creates with his latest comment is disturbing, as you say to the white nationalist. The cheering at the rally was torrential over it. It will leave a lasting impression on the constituents and create true hate towards Biden and Obama. Trump's slow and deliberate delivery shows he knows what he is doing. A good example of Trump's 10 punches to 1.
It appears that Trump and the Republicans are trying to win by - when most Americans try to be truthful/"go higher", Trump "goes lower", and the Republicans are either in dumb silence or are in deep adoration of the the one who is taking them down.
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Trump is is a cult that attracts people with a tendency to violence borne of the fear and loathing that comes from the frustration of entitlement. The cult leader embodies and expresses all of this at a deeply unconscious level that binds he to they and they to him. Trump is their ‘programmer’.
But not all Republicans are cult members, and even in the Senate we may yet discover how few will stand up for Trump when the day of judgement comes.
The question du jour is: how does one de-programme a cult that feeds on violence?
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A few things are going on in Trump's base. Joy in open white supremacy and trolling the libs are two. But even more pernicious is the deep respect and trust that too many Americans accord rich people. Trump doesn't get away with flouting the rule of law simply because he's white, but because he's (supposedly) massively rich AND white.
That's likely why he's so defensive about his tax returns. It's probably also the reason he's so deferential to Putin and probably why he betrayed the Kurds. Trump owes Putin and his cronies not only his election, but hard, hard cash and he knows how mobsters treat guys who don't pay their debts. As for Ergdogan, Trump himself said he had a conflict of Interest regarding Turkey because of his tower in Istanbul.
Want to destroy Trump in the eyes of his base? Show them the LACK of money.
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Another excellent column. Mr. Blow probes below the surface of Trump's vulgarity and his sensational transgression of all norms of conduct for a political leader. Why had I not seen the racial dimension of Trump's awful depiction of the Obama - Biden partnership? It's not enough to be offended, disgusted, unable to listen long to that voice. There is some demonic energy at work, and invocation of "the mandate of heaven" won't provide cover forever.
When will "too much!" be enough? At some point the crowd of those who have gone along to get ahead will have to realize they are in it up to their waists.
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If the Democrats don't quickly impeach this dangerous man, and if they don't put forth their case with a lot of noise, publicity and PR, things will just get worse very quickly. The Senate will let him go, of course, and he will easily win in 2020. The leading Democrat, Biden, is quiet. He seeks to "make friends" with his old GOP buddies. No, Joe, that won't go. Withdraw.
The Democrats are campaigning against FOX, SINCLAIR, Limbaugh and Murdoch. They are campaigning against Koch, Mercer, DeVos, Adelson, and their ilk. They are campaigning against 65 million Twitter followers of DJT. They just don't get it. Too many candidates water down the power of the party.
I seriously doubt they will win which is the most depressing thing I think I have ever written here in any comment.
Thank you, sir, as always, for your honesty and power. I live for your column.
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"It makes a mockery of their faith and their supposed philosophies."
Really? I was thinking it just exposes them for what they really are, leaches on society feeding at the trough of protections for fun and profit, tax free. It's a great con if one is predisposed to that sort of thing. I take great pleasure in con on con diatribes.
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And yet . . .
The Republicans in 2016 had the advantage of one news network that gave Trump fulsome coverage to boost their ratings, and another devoted entirely to GOP messaging. They had a computer algorithm that allowed them to microtarget likely supporters. They had the unacknowledged support of a Russian disinformation bureau. They even had the own-goal support of a Democratic campaign of tragicomic ineptitude, supporting a candidate with thirty years of baggage and more than a whiff of entitlement.
And yet . . . .they lost the popular vote by millions.
They haven't plumbed the present depths because they want to. They'd much happier with someone like Romney or Kasich. But Trump is all they have, and when Trump is gone, they'll be looking at an afterlife of opposition, powerlessness and futility. They'll have the judges, trying to pit a brake upon the future, but after that generation passes, they're the Whigs.
So now they're cashing in as fast as they can, and looking for boltholes in New Zealand.
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Divide and Conquer! That is what Bannon taught Trump, and that is why we Americans need to remember that we are the UNITED States. Only UNITED can we depend upon democracy and its benefits. So, The Great Divider must be defeated at the polls in 2020, if America is to be saved.
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What disappoints me is that trump is so popular and proves that this country is still basically racist and segregationist to the core. It is as if the last 50+ years since Dr. King and the civil rights movement and laws never existed. Will this country ever live up to its creed that all men are created equal?
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The Pat Robertson's and others started this religious right crusade with Trump 4 years ago, and they cannot find a way to escape. I'm convinced they know it's wrong to support him but refuse to admit it for fear of losing their followers.
So their solution is, let the Democrats impeach Trump, and hope to high heaven that enough Republican Senators will agree with the Democrats. Then they get Pence, Mr. hypocritical Christian.
If that doesn't work, just ride out the storm. They will not walk away from Trump.
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Hypocrisy has swamped the Republican party. Does anyone actually believe that if Obama engaged a foreign nation to dig up dirt on Romney in 2012, the congressional Republicans would not be calling for impeachment and removal? But because Trump is their party leader, the most critical thing they say is he is "unconventional" which is the euphemism of all euphemisms. They should heed the advice of Jeff Flake. Don't trade your integrity and soul for another term in office.
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Almost no one realizes this, but humans are ruled, always and everywhere, by base instinct; the intellect simply enables and justifies by providing an ex post narrative. Why are we surprised then when the narrative shifts - or is simply abandoned as is the case with the GOP? With Trump, they perceive their ascendancy. They feel they have “won.” No more need for the silly window dressing.
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Thank you, and I agree. Might I add that the facade of values, morality, vulgarity, frugality, patriotism, and all other characteristics we see in lacking in the behavior of the man in the white house, was always that, a conservative facade.
Underneath the conservative facade was rife with the racism, sexism, vulgarity and all the other vile behaviors we see.
In the past, conservatives just knew how to keep them under cover in public and only let the beast out in private. The facade has been stripped away.
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I’d forgotten about the conservative chant about small government. They now have the smallest government possible – one man.
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"Humility comes before honor." Ancient Hebrew Proverb
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Charles, I've been scratching my head (more like pulling my hair out to be honest) trying to answer that question and why so many Americans apparently don't seem to mind that Trump has so quickly and completed debased the American presidency and I think it has a lot to do with the lack of education. I've heard many people say 'all of them are crooks' or 'Obama and Clinton were worse' without them actually having an understanding of the sociological and political development of the institutions of government in the United States, so when this person throws all of it aside no one realises just how much Trump has ruined the unwritten glue that holds the paper-defined institutions together.
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Recently I was sitting outside of the public library in my town waiting for it to open. There was guy sitting on a bench across from where I was sitting. A friend of his approached and as he sat down the first word he uttered was; "Obama." They proceeded to converse in a racist conversation that I tuned out.
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I am of a mixed mind about Mr. Blow's observations here. I did not vote for Mr. Trump and I have never voted Republican in my life, and likely will never do so.
Having said that, as someone who has lived in and, prior to recently retiring, had worked in Washington DC for nearly 45 years, I find Mr. Trump a breath of rhetorical fresh air, the antidote to what I regard as the suffocating political correctness that has dominated public debate in this country and crippled our foreign and defense policies and our relations with overseas allies.
Sure, Mr. Trump is crass, even repugnant, with a personality disorder so obvious as to be uninteresting. He is the antithesis of Mr. Obama, the most dignified president in recent history.
But I applaud the change Mr. Trump has brought about in out political discourse. We need brutal honest, not sugar coated platitudes. I find many faults in Mr. Trump's policies and in his demeanor, but I give him a standing ovation to changing the nature of political discourse in the USA. His plain-spoken manner is precisely what appeals to the great majority of Americans.
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with Trump there is no political discourse. it is his way or the highway. his consigliere do his bidding. there are no rules in Trump world. he is above the law but he uses the courts to cover his illegal behavior by attacking his accusers. if you think he is a breath of fresh air you must have lost your sense of smell.
@David H I think one can be plain spoken without being vulgar, one can be plain spoken without being racist, one can be plain spoken without being untruthful, one can be plain spoken without being misogynistic, and on and on. The "plain spoken" language that this president uses does not increase the standing of the United States in the world nor does it bring us together as a country. He has done nothing but alienate us from our allies and divide us as a nation. There is nothing to be applauded in any of this.
It's all that you say and more. The abandonment and murder of the Kurds goes beyond vulgarity, immorality, racism. An opinion piece on Politicus suggests that "Trump Needs to be Brought to U.N. on Charges of Genocide." And even that doesn't say it. Words fail when it comes to describing Trump taking the actions of a brutal dictator rather than just talking like one. The Republicans and his base may have lost their souls without noticing or caring but there's even more to lose in our now unprotected nation. Why does the military have to obey his questionable orders? Is this the folly of the electoral college multiplied many times over? It's not just infinite vulgarity or the infinite power of petty men to do infinite harm or even what the diagnosis of malignant narcissism looks like in the light of day. A whole other language would be necessary to describe what is happening now.
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Maybe it is Trump who leads the base, but when I see the gleeful crowds at his rallies urging him on to more colorful profanity and outrageous accusations Trump looks more like a trained animal doing whatever earns his dinner.
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Thank you for pointing out the parallels between the Biden-Obama relationship and the traditional racist trope that a white man can never work for a black man, can never show any deference. As difficult as it is to understand the viewpoint of those who put racial hatred above all other values, you have done so in a way that will change how I listen to Trump's rhetoric about the Democratic party, as it has a number of non-white people in prominent and valued positions.
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"Righteousness simply can’t be this transactional and situational. "
No it cannot be so. Nor can hypocrisy appear out of nowhere. Rather, it masquerades as righteousness until the slippery slope of arrogance lays bare the naked truth of self-righteousness.
Thank the wisdom of the founding fathers insisting on the separation of church and state, but we should fear those who seek to impose Christianity on our Democracy as those who would impose Sharia.
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Right on Mr. Blow!
Every word confirms what I see! Thank you for all your well thought out articles with which I can agree and which I understand. We are as a nation in decline! After the rankings of Barr today it’s really getting scary! There is more to lament, but I watched your comments on the lady shot in her own house and I am truly afraid for the soul of this nation! Bless you!
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