October 10, 2019--"Render Unto God and Trump"

Yesterday I wrote about Trump's Messianic impulses. Not just that he panders to and uses Evangelicals for his own political purposes, but also that he appears to believe he may be The One.

Encouraging him in this delusion are preachers such as Jerry Falwell and cynical professional Christians such as Ralph Reed, who is the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

According to POLITICO, Reed argues in a book due out before the 2020 general election that American Evangelicals “have a moral obligation to enthusiastically back” the president.

According to the book's description, the original title was Render to God and Trump, a reference to the biblical verse, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The message from Jesus in Matthew 22 has been used to justify obedience to government--or in the case of Reed’s book, to Trump.

Regnery Publishing confirmed the book’s existence but said the title is For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump. The publisher declined to comment on the reason for the title change.

Reed, who once said Trump’s comments about women in the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape were low on his “hierarchy of concerns,” belongs to an informal group of evangelical leaders--including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress and Paula White--who support and advise Trump. 

They have claimed that his entry into politics was divinely inspired and have equated him to biblical figures such as Queen Esther; and frequently cite Scripture to justify his most controversial policies and behavior--actions that other religious scholars and leaders have found cringeworthy.

About that, sadly true.

May 17, 2017--The Evangelicals

Until reading Frances Fitzgerald's definitive book about the Evangelical tradition in the United States, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, I grossly underestimated the influence the religious right has had on our electoral process. Their influence puts to shame whatever the Russians did or didn't do to affect our most recent presidential election.

The book is over-detailed and far from a page turner, but anyone interested in the religious and political history of our country, very much including how they are entwined, needs to work one's way through it.

The "story" really picks up in about 1988 when Pat Robertson and his protege, 27-year-old Ralph Reed enter the picture. Up to then, socially active Christians had largely devoted themselves to cultural issues such as abortion (totally against it), homosexual issues (totally against expanding gay people's rights), prayer in school (totally for it), and pornography (totally opposed to it), but they didn't in any substantial way organize themselves politically, believing on some level that church and state should remain more-or-less separate.

With Reed in mind to lead the effort to win the culture wars through direct engagement in the political and legislative process, that agenda changed and to that end Robertson created the Christian Coalition and tasked it under Reed's leadership to select and support candidates who shared his values to run for office at all levels from school boards to the presidency.

Here are the key paragraphs from The Evangelicals that lay out this radical new plan--

The Christian Coalition worked with lay evangelicals of different traditions and made alliances with other Christian Right groups at the local level. Its core mission was "to mobilize and train Christians for effective political action." In Robertson's vision the Coalition would recruit five or more activists in each of the nation's 175,000 precincts (my italics); it would start with elections for school boards, county commissioners, and other local races, where a small percentage of registered voters could make the difference. It would work up from there to congressional races and the White House. Ralph Reed, who ran the operation and served as the public face of the Coalition, had what was often called "choir boy looks," but he was a political engineer. . . . 

Reed sometimes described his voter mobilization program as a covert military operation. "I want to be invisible," he told the Virginia Pilot in November 1991. "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."

What is interesting and upsetting is how off the case the liberals and the media were. The Christian Coalition's strategic plans and victories were barely noticed or commented upon. And in the absence of that, progressive voters did little more than show up at the polls every two or four years. While politically active conservative Christians were mobilized in every election district in the country, liberals remained relatively dormant.

As Reed said, we wouldn't know what was going on until election night. Especially this past November 7th. We woke up and discovered that evangelicals had elected Donald Trump and both houses were to be solidly in Republican hands.

We had grown self-satisfied and lazy.

Fair warning.

Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson

June 20, 2013--Bromances

I don't know about this Chris Christie.

First, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, he trailed around after Barack Obama with romance in his eyes. Some in the GOP will never forgive Christie for commending the president and walking hand-in-hand with him a few weeks before last November's election and then again this Memorial Day weekend when they frolicked together on the Jersey Shore.

Republicans claim Romney would have won if it wasn't for Chris. I say Mitt was cooked after that 47 percent tape surfaced. But those dead-enders will cling to anything it takes not to have to face reality--that Obama somehow managed to be the only Democrat since FDR to win back-to-back elections by absolute majorities.

And then last week, when Jack Abramoff's former best friend, Ralph Reed, convened a meeting of his new organization, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and invited to its annual meeting the high-flying contenders for the 2016 nomination--Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, and Jeb Bush (what was he doing there?), Christie opted out so he could participate in a very public sit-down conversation with Bill Clinton at the Chicago convocation of the Clinton Global Initiative, broadened now and renamed the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Global Initiative.

Bad timing, Christie claimed with a straight face--too little time, too many fun things to do.

Chris and Bill literally cooed at each other, recognizing in their doppelgänger one of the two best natural politicians of their generations. This after Hillary, the all-but-annointed 2016 Democratic nominee, gave a wonky speech that was so boring that Bill was seen catching a few winks.

Round one of Clinton-versus-Christie goes to Chris with Bill serving perversely as his trainer and biggest booster.

I can only imagine what Hillary must be thinking.

First, in 2008, Bill torpedoed her candidacy by getting down and dirty (and racist) with Barack. Then, after Obama was nominated, he ran around with him as if he was his newest best friend, even saving his 2012 renomination convention from terminal boredom. The former Commander in Chief emerged as the Explainer in Chief; and, though he undoubtedly envied Clinton's ability to connect, Obama romped back to the White House. In exchange, to demonstrate to Obama there is no free lunch, Bill got together with John McCain last week to trash Obama's Syria policy.

And you of course heard that Christie, realizing he would never get elected weighing 500 pounds (his vice president would on day-one be advised to begin to order new drapes for the Oval Office), because of this he had lap band surgery and is already down to being just grossly obese.

If he loses much more and starts looking like just another Weight Watchers alum, joining Terry Bradshaw, Don Shula, and Kirstie Alley, he will lose his superhero look and maybe half his followers. Being massive and yet light on his feet is a large part of his charisma and power. If he winds up weighing 180, it will be Hillary in a walk since during fearful times we can sure use a superhero or two to take care of us, and by then Hillary will be fitted out as Wonder Woman.