It was only yesterday morning when I observed that the running theme at one of Trump's many support groups — amusingly called "think tanks" by some — is it's "Christ or chaos" for America. I might have held the piece had I known he'd be speaking later at a Christian broadcast media convention in Nashville. For there he urged his Christian soldiers to, what else, soldier on.
His message, as is the running theme at the pious Center for Renewing America, was to strip Christianity of Christ and wholly reorient the nation's major religion to his brand of far-right politics. I haven't a transcript, but based on The Times' reporting, Trump hadn't one word to say on what he regards as disposable matters, such as universal love, brotherhood, succoring the poor or any other ecclesiastical care. Those, as was my Thursday post, are so yesterday.
He did manage to work "wicked" into his speech, which I suppose one could say was some real fire-and-brimstone rhetoric. But from that he detracted by characterizing all his political foes as fans of wickedness. This would include Joe Biden, among millions of other Trump foes, although when it comes to Christianity, he's all for the genuine thing. (He even attends church, unlike Trump.)
Trump further separated wickedness from any religious connotation by labeling even the supremely moderate Joe Bidens of the "political class" as part of the wicked "radical left," which of course is also "corrupt," sayeth Trump. And you can sayeth what you will about that, but President Biden isn't facing 91 criminal charges.
Reinforcing his altogether political remake of religion in America, Trump bellowed, "Christians, they can’t afford to sit on the sidelines in this fight. They know that our allegiance" — our allegiance, that from a man who knows not the Old from the New Testament — "is not to them. Our allegiance is to our country, and our allegiance is to our creator." That too from a narcissistic who must spend three-hours a day loyally arranging his orange pompadour.
And what would a far-right speech to far-right Christians be without reassuring them that, like their most ancient ancestors, they're being persecuted. Though neither Trump nor any of his fellow rabble-rousers can point to any such persecution, it's there all right, according to them, and it's undermining America "from within"; the "greatest threat is not from the outside of our country," said Donald Trump.
This is where he pirouetted from mere demagoguery to the farthest of far-right speech. Like you-know-who, he has pounded podiums before while thunderously belching that the nation's "vermin" must be "rooted out." There's no question of who the vermin are, but as a reminder, see: paragraph three.
Said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU professor and specialist in that ugliest of isms: "[These] are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise. The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do." Hitler's strategic efforts proved shockingly and rapidly successful at dehumanizing Jews among one of Europe's more civilized populations. (Too little noted by scholars is that, in addition, his efforts dehumanized his followers as well.)
Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel disagreed with Ben-Ghiat, saying "it’s too simplistic to reference him as a neofascist or autocrat or whatever. Trump is Trump, and he has no particular philosophy that I’ve seen." While it's true that political "philosophy" is way over Trump's head, he needn't harbor philosophical justifications to act as a neofascist.
At any rate, Hagel did agree that Trump's rhetoric is "damn dangerous," adding that "he continues to push people into corners and give voice to this polarization in our country." Yet Hagel then doubled back on himself, observing "there must be compromise in a democracy because there’s only one alternative — that’s an authoritarian government." But Trump will continue to push people into corners, and he would renounce compromise as president-redux, thus we'd arrive at the alternative — authoritarian government.
Thus spoke Trump at a Christian broadcast media convention, from which his nonChristian politics will radiate to millions of his fellow nonChristians. They fret and sweat about persecution, when what should concern them is self-destruction.
Trump is destroying the GOP and Evangelical "Christianity" -- I call that a win-win.
Posted by: DSH | February 23, 2024 at 02:58 PM