Trump's Rhetoric is Getting People Killed

Given the two recent mass shootings on August 3^rd in El Paso and August 4^th in Dayton (although Trump didn’t pay attention when he was told about it so he said it happened in Toledo), Trump was asked by a reporter outside the White House if in light of these attacks he thought his rhetoric was divisive. Trump immediately claimed “No” that his rhetoric brings people together.

In a way, his rhetoric does bring elements together - El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius wrote in his online posting that he viewed Hispanics in El Paso as invaders because that’s what Trump and his supporting far-right mouthpieces have been calling immigrants for the last four years. So Trump helped him bring together his intended targets, his loaded automatic weapon, his disgust with Latinos, and the motivation to kill. In the case of Dayton shooter Connor Betts, he was motivated by extreme misogyny. He had a pathological hatred of women, even making out a rape list while he was in high school and later a kill list. On August 4^th, he felt he no longer needed to restrain himself. Why should he when we have a president who said of women that he could do whatever he wanted, grab ‘em by the pussy…? When the president, now married to a third wife yet was also having an affair with an adult film star and a Playboy model at the same time, shows no more regard for women than that, Connor Betts decided he didn’t need to show them any regard either. Betts was mad at the world - and the misogynistic man who admitted on tape to acting on his impulses, well, he got elected president – so Betts acted on his.

But Trump is 100% right in that his rhetoric brings people together - the people who think just like Trump. The dishonest, scheming, racist, narrow-minded bigots who think only white people should have rights of any kind in this country. Trump’s verbal attacks on non-whites and/or non-christians bring out the worst in people who think like him. They now feel emboldened to say and do things like Trump suggests. If some of that leads to killing those that Trump railed about as invading our country, well that’s the price we pay for the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Second Amendments. Trump supporters just wish the media would stop reporting it. That, to them, is the problem. There’s too much attention paid to the negative things Trump says and does. Why can’t the media just ignore all that? They approve of the torturing and deaths of little children by ICE agents, by Border Patrol, and DHS. It doesn’t trouble them any more than it troubles Trump so talking about how cruel and un-American it is is a waste of time. Their attitude is “I don't care” because they know Trump doesn't care.

This is what we are up against. The people who defend Donald Trump may not have his wealth and power but they damn sure share his ideas. That includes the evangelicals who defend whatever Trump does by claiming he was anointed by God so who are we to judge. There are even profits...er, prophets…who claim the God of the bible told them Donald Trump was going to be president and you can read about it by buying their book which has been mass-marketed at evangelical churches since 2015. Those evangelicals are required by God to do all they can to protect Trump as president, even when he repeatedly says and does un-godly things. They have sold their souls to defend Donald Trump but deflect attention from it by claiming it is the forces of darkness (Satan, demons, the Deep State, the Never-Trumpers, the Democrats, liberals…) who are trying to usurp God’s chosen one by unconstitutionally taking the presidency away from Trump. It doesn’t matter if he colluded with the Russians, or that he obstructed justice, or that he treats women badly, they want everyone to acknowledge that Trump was hand-picked by God…their God…the God of the Protestant (preferable King James) Bible. If the Russians helped get Trump elected, it’s because God wanted it that way.

It has come down to the people who carry a bible also carry a torch for Trump. They make up about 30% of the population. There is another 5% that claim they are ambivalent about Trump.

The other 65% of us are the people who oppose what Trump is doing to our country and to the image of the United States around the world. When Trump’s actions and language encourage a shooting gallery type atmosphere, travel to this country from anywhere will dry up. When he encourages the use of torture by terrorizing little kids in order to stop their parents from seeking amnesty, looking for safety or work in this country, no one will want to come here anymore. Is that what Trump thinks is best for the United States, complete ostracization from the world? At the rate people are being gunned down from sea to shining sea, most countries prudently list the U.S. as a rather dangerous place in which to travel and the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board reported that from 2018 to 2019 there had been a 17% drop in people seeking to vacation in the U.S. Get ready for that number to plunge dramtically this year.

And it’s Trump’s rhetoric that is accelerating people getting murdered. His words have definitely brought people together: the most violent white people imaginable doing the most violent things imaginable in the most violent way imaginable, and it nurtures an atmosphere of hatred where those violent people cause battlefield-type casualties because the president uses battlefield-type language to describe people he just doesn’t like. Yet Cabinet members are still too afraid to confront Trump, even though his rhetoric and inflammatory language are being quoted by mass murderers because those cabinet members have deluded themselves into thinking Trump hasn’t really done enough to warrant removal from office. So more Americans must needlessly die thanks to cowards in high places.

The Late Billy Graham - Seller of a Slicker Brand of Snake Oil

I waited to post this out of a sense of holding any invective until he was boxed up before leveling a broadside at the late Billy Graham.

Last Wednesday the gush gate was thrown wide open…gushing tears over the death of 99 year old purveyor of religious snake oil Billy Graham…and gushing sparkling accolades and tributes to his being what idolizers call the 20^th century’s greatest evangelist. I prefer huckster, but what the heck, evangelist, huckster...same thing.

Fox News immediately crowed “It’s a great day in Heaven.” Yes, a great day in Heaven….They actually spend part of their broadcast claiming it was A.GREAT.DAY.IN.HEAVEN!!!

How do they know? By what method can they know this? They do not have any faculties that the rest of us do not have, so please Fox, share with us how you know that it’s a great day in heaven. Flipping through a bible cannot and could not tell you that. You have indicated no apparatus that extends into the supernatural world so you could tap into the “great day festivities.” How are they even sure of Graham’s arrival there? Many Pentecostal preachers and church members will assure you in NO uncertain terms that Graham did not reach the Pearly Gates on Wednesday February 21st, or will he at any time in the future. The same sentiment would also be expressed by the Westboro Baptist Church.

Billy Graham was not a man any of us should revere or embrace. He built his career on being a bamboozler, or what in the old west was called a snake-oil salesman. He made countless open-ended promises that he never had to deliver on, promises built on heresies…scriptural heresies as interpreted from the Roman Catholic and Jewish points of view. Can you imagine what Torquemada of the Inquisition would have done with someone who preached scripture as Graham did?

But more to the point; who gets to determine which bible interpretation is correct? Is it the Presbyterian version? Methodist? Freewill Baptist? Shakers? Holy Rollers? Disciples of Christ? Mormon? Roman Catholic? Eastern Orthodox? Coptic Christian?

Billy Graham grew up in a Presbyterian home but eventually joined the more unruly evangelical Southern Baptist denomination, a group of regressives who objected to and refused to ordain women as ministers, although Graham eventually revised his thinking and said he could accept women’s ordination even though that appears to be in direct contradiction to 1 Timothy 2:11-12. He even initially opposed his own daughter Anne Graham Lotz from teaching a bible class…but later said she was the family’s best preacher. If his god existed, how would he view that statement given it is quite clear in the bible women are not to teach, assume authority over men, and to “learn in quietness”. If preaching is not teaching, what is it?

Fawning revisionist history blathers on about what a good man Billy Graham was when he actually was on the wrong side of history repeatedly. From his theological outlook that included racism, xenophobia, and homophobia, his passing will not wipe away the hate he helped foment that damaged so many lives. In 1993, he suggested that AIDS was punishment from God. “Is AIDS a judgment of God” he said while preaching in Columbus, Ohio. “l cannot be sure, but I think so.”

Graham was notorious for his anti-Semitic opinions. When the Nixon tapes were released, Graham is heard to reiterate an old conspiracy theory that claimed Jewish-Americans had a “stranglehold” on the media that “has got to be broken.” He also condemned gay marriage and targeted transgender people on his website.

.         Graham missed the boat on racial injustice, too, refusing to walk in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington. Why? Because Graham did not subscribe to racial equality, stating on several occasions that little white boys and girls would only walk hand in hand with little black boys and girls “when Christ returned.” There was no sense in working for it until Jesus’ second coming… so equality be damned. It underlines the fact that Graham was a Civil Rights coward.

Graham became known for his revivals but those revivals basically amounted to Christian buzzwords, mild threats of hellfire and damnation, promises of a better world after this one, condemnation of communism…and a request for money. Love of God and country went hand in hand for him as he preached against the Soviets and Chinese, advocated an American way of life that never existed, and reminded people god expected them to give 10% of their income. In short, the perfect Republican. No wonder Richard Nixon and George W. Bush liked him.

Would those same people at Fox who find Graham’s death a cause for celebrating in heaven have accepted it as truth if, say, Al-Jazeera claimed it was a great day in paradise when 19 new martyrs arrived there on the morning of September 11, 2001 after killing hundreds aboard four aircraft and thousands in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon? What’s the difference other than the religion?

I just consulted my Magic 8 Ball and asked if there really was a celebration going on in heaven due to Graham’s arrival. Its answer was “Outlook Not So Good.” And you can believe my Magic 8 Ball because it is as reliable as that information about it being a great day in heaven. The difference is my Magic 8 Ball actually exists.