Not sure who the "evangelicals" really are

Should this be a MAGA stronghold?

We are inching toward Easter, a holiday that on the surface encourages joy. Joy of the resurrection? So we might have eternal life? We can feel joy if in fact all of this is true. But Christians in America have been so distracted and deluded by politics over the last few years. 

Think how long ago this all began: it was in 2016 when we had an election coming up. The media talked about the "evangelical Christians." 

I am a pretty aware person - I am college-educated and follow the news - and I cannot share with you a definition of "evangelical Christianity." Given the stripes of these people, they appear totally the opposite of the "Evangelical Lutheran Church in America." Well, the ELCA has "evangelical" right in its name. But these people are not "evangelical Christians?"

Evangelical Christians are supposed to almost unanimously support Donald Trump. They gave us Trump as our national leader in 2016. Without the evangelicals, the Democrat would have been elected. 

How could all the evangelicals be so convinced that Trump was in line with their interests? I mean their true spiritual interests? The media gave us an explanation for that. We were told that Trump offered evangelicals a base of power. So it was all about power, which would then be exercised for what purpose? To remedy something? 

Was there something wrong with how the nation's Christians were being allowed to worship? Any impediment? Any impediment at all? I attended church pretty often in the eight years of Obama/Biden. I never sensed that my freedom to worship was impeded in any way. But the nation's evangelicals in 2016 issued a plea for how Trump and the Republicans were so essential. 

 

A different mold

Ronald Reagan was never like this. I faulted Reagan because he pushed the belief that deficits could be used to give tax cuts to billionaires. And now we see hand-wringing about deficits. And so Trump just the other day said we'd have to start looking at cuts to entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. But were his statements at all revelatory? Revelatory about Republican thinking? If you think so, you must be an ignoramus who pays no heed to the news. 

Some Republicans like Mike Lee sure sound like they'd like to get rid of Social Security completely. For the benefit of whom? Well the very rich of course. I am happy for all their success. Being "rich" is no sin. But we all need to take care of each other. What a wonderful nation this would be if we could all just follow the credo "treat others as you would want to be treated." 

There is the famous quote: "I am my brother's keeper." It originated in the Bible, Book of Genesis.

 

All in this together

We can study and appreciate the words of Jesus Christ from his Sermon on the Mount. But so many Americans are deluded these days. The so-called evangelical Christians, whatever they are and whoever they are, would have us think there should be no collective concerns at all. But we see inflation rampaging forward. We hear that in the nation's big cities, enforcement of shoplifting is becoming almost futile. And who pushes so relentlessly for these lower interest rates that ignite inflation? The very richest are at the top of the list. 

We were told for years that rock-bottom interest rates were what kept the stock market advancing upward, like magic. It isn't magic. Economics is a science. It tells us that low interest rates are good for the stock market. It also tells us that low interest rates are catastrophic for setting the stage for inflation. 

I don't know if all you 401K people are so happy about the stock market that you want to see continued risk for inflationary waves. It's just my view that inflation could pose an existential threat, i.e. the threat that this nation could begin to implode. And has this already started? The biggest evidence that might be cited is the continued strength of Donald Trump. You laugh at me. Good for you. So many of us are still rooting for this rapist who has had admiring words about Hitler. More about the latter is coming out now.

 

John Kelly, chief of staff to Trump (PBS)

John Kelly says 

A chief of staff to Trump tried counseling Trump: 1) Don't ever say anything good about Hitler, and 2) You are wrong if you think Hitler's generals set an example with their loyalty to him. John Kelly told the Orange Man that the generals actually tried killing Hitler several times. Rommel was complicit. He paid with his life.

I personally have been aware for a long time that Hitler had many of his own generals killed. So I knew that. Trump needed a primer. 

I again remember the movie "All the President's Men," the scene where "Deep Throat" tells the reporter "forget this mystique about the White House." The point was that many of the president's people weren't bright at all. With Trump the problem was Trump himself. He appeared to not know much about the Nazis basically, that in fact many of Hitler's generals wanted him dead, and their attempts at making this happen resulted in their own execution.

I knew all about that. Who am I? An anonymous resident of Flyoverland. Who was Trump? President of the U.S., that's all. And he was not aware of it. 

 

In awe? No

Forget the mystique of the U.S. Supreme Court, I personally would add. Go a few blocks from the Supreme Court building, find a fast-food restaurant and select a random employee, maybe a non-Anglo person, and I'll bet that person has a better sense of right and wrong than Clarence Thomas. No exaggeration. 

So what is happening to our country? Thomas recognizes one weather vane only, the vane of what his super-rich benefactors are pointing to. Oh, maybe another vane too, his wife and her absolutely impassioned support of Trump, her emotional support. Thomas would vote in Trump's interests to the exclusion of any other interests. Whereas our random fast food employee would surely have a sense of caring and justice. It's just the way to be. And in a previous time, it was "the American way." 

I really believe that one more blast of inflation will cause cracks to start forming across America. Leading to what? "Mad Max?" 

And yet the voices screaming for more "quantitative easing" with interest rates are so loud and powerful. We recently saw a spate of headlines about how six interest rate cuts were surely on the way this year. Oh, and then the projections grew to seven! The mainstream media trumpeted these voices much to the delight of the wealthiest class of Americans. 

"Money's honey, my dear sonny, and a rich man's joke is always funny." 

So ironic: the rich capitalists are always the first to say "there's no free lunch." But. . . These same people sure do like "free money," thanks to "the Fed." 

I see no difference between expecting a free lunch and expecting free money. It's just that with the latter, the richest folks can pull off highway robbery. At the expense of all of the rest of us. 

Go ahead and select a rapist president. It's your funeral. But you'll just tune in Mark Levin on the radio again. Don't you realize how cynical he is? He plays you all like a piano.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com