Sunday, December 29, 2019

Good Christian Men, Revolt!

"Good Christian men, revolt! 
With heart and soul and....
...
And....
....
And..." 

OK, I need a word that rhymes with revolt. 

During the last week of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, I was determined this blog would be full of Christmas spirit. Yeah, more god damn Christmas spirit than fucking Danny fucking Kaye! 

So when the House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump, I gave the event a cursory mentioned and said I would address this later.

Well, it's later.

So...? 

To be honest, so what.

Yes, there should be some weight of history bearing down on this moment, only the 3rd President in US history to ever be impeached.   

But really, so what? 

While the vote was coming down in favor of impeachment, Donald Trump was at another of those inane circle jerk rally fests designed to make him feel better. Trump remarked at one point that it doesn't feel like he's been impeached.

Damn, I hate to agree with the man but fuck. 

Look, the House vote was strictly along party lines. Despite a loads of evidence to show Trump's unethical lapses against the Constitution, the Republicans refuse to see it as such. The upshot is the vote of the House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump is successfully recast by Trump and his supporters as the vote of the House Democrats to impeach Donald Trump.

The next stage is a vote by the US Senate to vote on the articles of impeachment if Donald Trump should be removed from office. And it won't matter.

The fix is in.  Both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham have already declared their intent to vote against the articles of impeachment and both have professed an open disregard for any pretense at fairness. 

This has led Nancy Pelosi to play one more card in her deck by delaying sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate until she assured Donald Trump gets a fair trial.

Well, isn't that nice of her to look out for Li'l Donnie like that after all the mean things he has said about her. 

Of course Republicans are trying to turn Pelosi's strategy against her by claiming she is too scared to forward the articles of impeachment to the Senate because the whole impeachment thing is a hoax, a fraud and there ain't nothing there. 

So Donald Trump is impeached but it feels like nothing has changed. Trump's still goes on rants at rallies and on Twitter, spewing lies, hatred and fear mongering bile while his sniveling sycophantic supporters continue to buy into whatever falsehood or conspiracy theory to continue to their cultish support of Trump in the face all the facts to the contrary.

Ain't nothing gonna happen. 

We did get one wrinkle in the narrative lately. 

An editorial in Christianity Today, a long time and widely read magazine for evangelical Christians, founded by Billy Graham, voiced support for Donald Trump to be impeached and subsequently removed from office. 

Trump immediately attacked the magazine as a forum for left leaning liberal progressives and vowed never to read it again. (He referred to the magazine as "ET" instead of "CT".)   

What are the odds that Trump was even aware there was something called Christianity Today, never mind that he actually read it? Not that good.

It should be noted that the editorial is not any kind of statement in support of the Democrats or of their political positions. The editorial also notes the benefits the evangelical community has received as a result of the Trump presidency. 

What is called into the question is Trump's own behavior and his obvious and repeated lack of moral conduct.  What good are any of the benefits the evangelical community has received as a result of the Trump presidency if the man at the top so poorly reflects on the ideals and message of the Christian faith itself?  

The case made in the Christianity Today editorial is that for whatever good the evangelical community might be receiving from a Trump presidency, bad conduct is still bad conduct. As it was said in the editorial, "It's time to call a spade a spade." 

The Christianity Today editorial has revealed a schism in the evangelical Christian community. There are those who share the ET CT  viewpoint that Trump's behavior is antithetical to Christian faith. And then there are those like Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, who insist on maintaining their loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump. 

The fact there is a Christian schism of any kind in regards to Donald Trump does not bode well for the Christian faith. 

As long as alleged Christian Franklin Graham chooses to side with Trump over the values of his faith, well, you know the answer to that, don't you?  

Ain't nothing gonna happen. 


Well, not to Trump. To Christianity? Maybe a lot. 

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