Monday, August 05, 2024

Trump leans into religious extremism to energize rightwing evangelicals

 

Guardian:


Trump leans into religious extremism to energize rightwing evangelicals

Ex-president turning to Christian nationalists for support as Kamala Harris’s potential nomination poses hard challenge



Donald Trump, now facing a tougher challenge in the US election after Joe Biden stepped down in favor of Kamala Harris, is increasingly leaning into religious extremism aimed at energizing a key section of his support base: socially conservative Christians.

Fears that Trump would be an authoritarian leader if elected seemed to be realized last week, when he told a group of Christian supporters they “would not have to vote” in four years if he becomes president.

“My theory would be that since Harris has entered the race, Trump has recognized that he’s on shakier ground,” said Matthew D Taylor, author of The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.

“If you watched the RNC and saw the discourse there, [Republicans] really were quite confident that they were going to kind of have a cakewalk to victory in November.

“I think there’s, there’s more anxiety there now. I think Trump is dialing up religious dog whistles, and sometimes just straight up whistles to really galvanize and submit that religion’s religious support.”

Since 2016, Trump has become an unlikely hero for Christian nationalists – a loose grouping of evangelical Christians who believe the US was founded as a Christian nation, and want to see Christianity feature prominently in American life and politics.

After a stumbling start – during his first run for president the thrice-married Trump struggled to name a single Bible verse, referred to the Eucharist as a “little cracker”, and put money in the communion plate during a church visit – the relationship was cemented when Trump-installed supreme court justices overturned Roe v Wade.

The bond between Trump and Christian nationalists has now deepened to the extent that Trump is comfortable with comparing himself with their messiah, while some on the religious right have come to believe that the one-term president has been chosen, or anointed, by God himself, especially after a recent failed assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Over the past couple of weeks, as Harris has posed a threat that Republicans apparently didn’t see coming, and Trump has been questioned over appointing JD Vance as his running mate, he has looked for the support of these religious groups.

The speech at Turning Point’s Believers’ Summit, a gathering of Christians and Republicans that had the stated aim of “ultimately turning our nation towards the Lord”, was the furthest Trump has gone yet in appealing to this Christian base.

“Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” Trump said in his speech, where he also repeated a promise to form “a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias”, which would investigate “harassment and persecution against Christians in America”.

The crowd at the Believers’ Summit was a gathering of the more extreme type of American Christian, and came days after the Trump campaign launched a “Believers for Trump” coalition, backed by controversial religious figures who reinforced the sense that the base was being pandered to.


Those backers included Eric Metaxas, an anti-vaxxer and conservative radio host, who in the press release accompanying the event claimed that “American Christians are falling for the same religious lies” that German christians succumbed to as the Nazi party ascended in the 1930s”, and who recently retweeted a post on X which discussed “the way to wipe that smug, bitchy smirk off Kamala’s face”.

Taylor said there is a distinction between Christians who merely support Trump and those – like the people at the Believers’ Summit – who have a “religious attachment” to the former president. Those people, who include an array of religious leaders, see Trump in religious terms and have attached “spiritual narratives” to him: one example being the comparison of Trump to King Cyrus, who, according to the Bible, liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity, despite himself being a Persian ruler.

The real goal with Trump’s appeal to this crowd is about more than just winning individual votes, Taylor said.

“I think the more overt Christian appeals are maybe a little bit of desperation, but also it’s a tried and true method for them, of drumming up more and more support and the truth is the religious voters who have a religious attachment to Trump are not just voters – they’re force multipliers,” Taylor said.

“If somebody believes that it is God’s will for Donald Trump to be elected, and they believe that there are demonic and satanic forces pushing back against God’s will, and that they need to be active and pushing against [those things] to see Trump elected. That is a level of political fervor and ardency that is very, very valuable to a candidate, because those are people who are then talking to their friends, who are then mobilizing some of these groups.”

The assassination attempt, Taylor said, “added even more certainty for these folks that God wants Trump to be elected”.

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At the Republican national convention, held days after the shooting, speaker after speaker leaned into this idea that God had been at work.

Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, suggested that it was “the devil”; Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Arkansas governor, said “God almighty” had saved Trump; and Ben Carson claimed that God had “lowered a shield of protection over Donald Trump”. Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief who was killed in the shooting, was rarely mentioned.

Trump is appealing to a specific type of Christian, Rev Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement. Raushenbush said Trump is trying to reinforce his popularity with the religious right, who do not represent every person of faith.

“The majority of religious people in this country are alarmed and threatened by Trump’s promise to hand Christian nationalists the keys to power. Their agenda hopes to repress diversity and difference and impose one extreme religious worldview on all of us,” he said.

“Trump’s shameless appeals to ‘my beautiful Christians’ are unsettling and infuriating to the many millions of American Christians who proudly believe in pluralistic democracy and healthy boundaries between religion and government.”

The leaning in has continued since Trump made his incendiary speech at the Believers’ Summit. Jake Schneider, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, sent an email out on Tuesday which falsely accused Harris of supporting “taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand without limits until birth”, which was designed to appeal to the Christian base.

On Truth Social, meanwhile, Trump has accused Harris of being “anti-Catholic” and made a direct appeal to Catholics as he tries to expand his religious support.

“I think he’s really trying to win votes and shore up his quote unquote religious base,” said Kristin Du Mez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University whose research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion and politics.

Du Mez said Trump “has been unsettled by what’s transpired in the last couple of weeks, that’s been very clear”. But she said it was impossible to say whether Trump had recalibrated his speech in response to Harris replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket.

“There’s no way that isn’t a part of this context. And yet, I don’t really envision that his speech to that particular crowd would have been that different, even if he was still kind of on top of the world as he was a couple of weeks ago,” she said.

The main takeaway from the speech, Du Mez said, was the lingering fear over what Trump has planned if he wins a second term.

“Those of us who study authoritarian movements saw huge red flags right there. That language is unprecedented for a US presidential candidate, and I think it’s important to say that, because Trump is always saying weird things, and it’s important to just put down that marker,” she said.

“This is not normal for a presidential candidate in this country to say anything remotely like that.”


10 comments:

  1. Look like a lot of players got caught in the yen carry yen unwind dragnet...mana mau pigi?

    https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1820493396189811198?t=mcTcinyoDciXaAEqQti8iw&s=19

    🚨OVER $1.2 BILLION OF CRYPTO LIQUIDATIONS IN 24 HOURS

    Nearly 300,000 traders were rekt in Black Monday’s crash.

    $941 million of longs were liquidated compared with almost $270 million worth of shorts.

    Source: coinglass

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting...

    ~~~~~

    https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1820491757756281009?t=v54DsTjIMzRv8WPQUV-LJg&s=19

    🚨🇺🇸BLACKROCK’S BITCOIN ETF HITS $1.55 BILLION TRADING VOLUME IN 1 HOUR

    The majority of the transactions were outflows from the fund as the market crash spooked traders.

    Sources: @WatcherGuru,

    ReplyDelete
  3. https://x.com/dotconnectinga/status/1820543899221237779?t=cGG4At3Rd_RZkLJFc1iOTw&s=19

    BREAKING: Google broke the law with its monopoly over online searches and related ads, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in the first victory for U.S. antitrust authorities who have filed a string of lawsuits to battle market domination by a handful of Big Tech companies.

    The decision is a significant win for the Justice Department, which had sued the search engine giant over its control of about 90% of the online search market, and 95% on smartphones. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.

    "The court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Mehta wrote.

    Mehta's ruling against Alphabet's major revenue driver paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, such as requiring the company to stop paying smartphone makers billions of dollars annually to set Google as the default search engine on new phones.
    reuters.com/legal/us-judge…

    Google has an illegal monopoly on search, US judge finds
    By David Shepardson and Mike Scarcella
    August 6, 20245:18 AM GMT+8Updated 24 min ago

    WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google broke the law with an illegal monopoly on online search, a federal judge ruled on Monday, the first big win for U.S. antitrust authorities who have filed several lawsuits challenging Big Tech's market dominance.

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. The refrain from this was, "Stolen election, has consequences", not just the US, but the entire world.

    Lots of people were hellbent on seeing Trump 'lost" and the last of him in politics and the apex of power, not just in America but throughout the world, Malaysia, many Malaysians and generally media tone, because he does not fit the supposed mould of a "professional politician", whatever that's supposed to mean.

    Can anyone even make the connection that he was part of an operation to dismantle an oppressive global system? I don't pretend to know, at the nut and bolt level, although can sense it at the gut level....

    Where all this will lead to, how much pain will we endure, I personally know because I also need to manage my own expectation in real life, as in enduring unplesantness and wishing all these pain, uncertaintiesness and socio-economic pressure will go away, but it is what it is, just like the time back in January 20, 2021 when Trump left Washington for Florida, covid and jab fear were prevalent and wondering how to go through that jab terror.

    Well, here we are, at another holding the line, of faith in something better to come despite all the craziness of war, uncertaintiness in the socio-economics, chaos, violence, and people fighting between sanity and insanity. An example for MY, the insanity of Islamic ideologues at PearThin not wearing "Islamic clothing" while playing badminton at the Olympic and then providing a spark for national pride and unity. Hence, for MY, this tension in our realities. How to live in this reality as MY?

    Jjst trying.

    Be mindful of MBS' Saudi Arabia...

    Anyway....
    ~~~~~

    https://t.me/WeTheMedia/104982

    Trump is always right

    ReplyDelete
  5. Haven't finished watching, despite this video not too long. A recently posted video on Saudi MBS. Fair or an attack of him from the globalist camp? A kind of narrative warfare against MBS? Or a valid critical look against him? Let's see what'll happen in the grand scheme since his position is at that level.

    Will there be gnashing of teeth amongst the Muslim world particularly the MY part, with those seeing "Islam" as an Ikwan thing?

    https://youtu.be/CEYMTuE0yVg?si=T1lWTtq1GEtfU0_z

    Btw, post this in part of Murray Hunter recent article of a somewhat Salafist trend amongst the Malay hinterland worldview or was it those in the border region with Thailand?

    ReplyDelete
  6. From time to time, listen to him...

    https://youtu.be/nnF2o_1Vv1k?si=m6PXeeNVhc27fIQv

    After awhile, I listen to overall droning sound of his monologue and rhetoric. In this instance, the affinity towards everything Arab and Arabic is clearly apparent, in the choice of adjectives used. Also, is his logic true, in term of history? From a Muslim perpective, it is definitely is....

    For others, with different worldview, definitely express and react with somewhat disdain and retort or with great self control to hold a respect for differing opinion

    Likewise, will see what will happen. MBS in particular.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is a question that came by, only. It seems to be so...

    https://youtu.be/fRiElScvDfo?si=ZNPC-PssPVAQyvRh

    Is Solar Maximum triggering economic and societal collapse?


    A reminder to the Christians...
    From the Gospel according to St Matthew 24: 9~14

    Jesus answered them, “Take care that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Do not be alarmed, for those things are bound to happen, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are only the beginning of the labor pains.

    “Then you will be handed over to be tortured and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. At that time, many will fall away from the faith; they will betray and hate one another. Many false prophets will appear and lead many astray, and with the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But whoever endures to the end will be saved. And the good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the entire world as a testimony offered to all the nations. And then the end will come.

    ...

    Again, will see what'll happen. A reminder to self, "live for today, do thy share of work of the day and let affairs greater than thee take care of itself. What good is there for thee to worry of matters that thee have no control over?"

    Thanks for the platform to blow steam.

    Regards.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You got answer?

    But a lot of Azov crazies are definitely in valhalla now, with their valkeries...

    ~~~~~

    https://x.com/RichardGrenell/status/1820487716808868335?t=bvvf3zCOMrbNXgACUzngCg&s=19

    Joe Biden and Kamala Harris told the world that Russia was about to invade Ukraine for 30 days before it happened.

    They didn’t take action to stop it.

    Now, Blinken has announced that Iran is going to attack Israel soon.

    Why don’t we try and stop wars that we know are coming?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Funny - OUR XMP and all those HAMAS-HEZBOLLAH RALLY FACIST SUPREMACIST RELIGIOUS OF TERROR LOVER NOT CALL EXTREMIST....FYI HOW MANY DAYS SINCE YOU HEARD OF NEWS OF ROCKET COMING FROM GAZA TO ISREAL OF LATE.....THE FACTS ARE JUST THROWN AWAY AND RUBBISH PUBLISHED....IT IS TE SIGN OF TIMES AND GET READY!!....THAT 12% JAPAN NIKKIE DROP IS JUST BEGINNING....WHERE ELSE....BANGLADESH PM RAN AWAY ALREADY?? WHAT IS SH*T HOLE FACIST SUPREMACIT NATION BECOME MORE SH*T.....ITS CALLED CHAOS....SAME ELECTION STOLEN IN VENUEZELLA.....LIKE IN MALUSIAL, SUDDEN POWER OFF, LOST BALLOT, STOLEN BALLOT.....THE FACIST RACE AND RELIGION TECHNOLOGY!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Trump is religious the way Maddona is a virgin.
    It's just a show to get the MAGA mob to worship the False Prophet.
    The Access Hollywood scandal is the Real Pussy Grabbing Donald Trump

    ReplyDelete