Man!!
I have to be someplace important inside an hour and I haven’t even shaved yet! Already two good posts have shown up while I was responding to a third good post.
I cannot respond for several hours, but I do appreciate the input and look forward to reading more and posting more later today. My thanks to all, these matters will be on my mind all day.
Good point – the substantial majority of Trump’s biggest fans are men, which as a group, are politically far more apt than women to consider their own personal advantage as the primary reason to vote a certain way (women are far more apt to consider community welfare and societal issues; I just read this study a couple days ago). For this group, the only real motivation to change their opinion of Trump would be something awful that happened to them, not their neighbors even, that was a deliberate and declared action of Trump’s. Oblique damage that can be lied about wouldn’t change them. No matter what they might profess in terms of Christian values, they are not very interested in what doesn’t happen to them.
Ideals are notions, thoughts. They exist, so to speak, “in the cloud”. And they can take whatever shape you give them.
A person OTOH you can see, hear, touch. And that person can tell you, HE is the one who will lead you to the Ideal, HE has figured it out. You no longer need to try and grasp something amorphous. And you can also see, hear, touch your fellow members of your identity group. And they can make you feel welcomed or ostracized, celebrated or shamed, here and now. In the end, this will have a lot more power over how you respond. Everyone wants to hear their family say they’re proud of them. So if you tell yourself that following your ideals should earn you the approval of your community, it’s easy to mirror that into that which earns you approval of the community is the ideal.
As we are discussing Evangelicals, bear in mind, what keeps appearing in the Bible, beginning to end? A specific patriarch, prophet, Annointed One, disciple, is brought forth as the instrument of God’s work even if at times in ways we would not find exactly ethical by our standards. Heck, eventually “The Word became flesh, and dwelled among us”.
(Also, American Evangelicalism, to many of us, has a distinctive veterotestamentarian look. It leans strongly in the direction of preferring the Old Testament’s ass-kicking wrathful God who smites those who tick Him off; and they see their identity as that of the Israelites surrounded by decadent, corrupt, immoral enemies. )
I don’t get this. How is Biden a person of bad character? You don’t have to agree with someone’s politics to view them as a person of character, as long as their beliefs are genuine and fall within certain generally accepted parameters. For example, I recently mentioned a conservative Republican friend of mine on this board who I think has admirable character. From reading his book and observing his actions during the Trump years, I believe Jeff Flake has good character. Hell, even (and I know I’ll take some flak for saying this) Mitt Romney appears to have a conscience at least some of the time.
The assumption that everyone who disagrees with your political views is automatically a bad person is one of the more disheartening aspects of our current political landscape, and Trump’s willingness to exploit and exacerbate those tendencies is, IMHO, a sign of his poor character.
This, much more than anything else, is why I despise Trump and why I’d honestly rather have had a genuine quasi-theocrat like Pence in charge. It really isn’t Trump’s “conservatism”, which I still believe is largely performative. His tendency towards authoritarianism is real and despicable, but it is largely ideologically blank (his preference for crony capitalism notwithstanding). No it’s not his ham-fisted, wildly vacillating, stupid and and frankly silly policy decisions that make me nauseous, it’s his populist rabble-rousing.
Polarization clearly predates him and in a broader sense is perhaps more a symptom of the information age and an increasing tendency towards zero-sum bias in politics. But Trump has whipped society into a stiffly-peaked lather of existential good vs. evil on both sides that is absolutely corrosive to society.
I decided not to post an answer the GD thread about how you break with folks on your own political spectrum for a few reasons, including just not wanting to bother writing out a huge stream-of-consciousness post. But one thing I have always disliked on both sides of the political divide (yes, this is a version of both-sidism, sue me) is hyper-partisan good vs. evil posturing. Unfortunately for me this is the new normal and unfortunately for our society it may even be necessary at some level now because the Trumpism and its enablers in the RP has descended in cloud-cuckoo crazy-land. But it is bad for the country in the long run and I blame Trump for jack-hammering wide open the already cracked Pandora’s Box and vastly escalating toxic discourse.
Another factor is that pride is an immensely difficult thing for any human to swallow. For Trump voters to defect means having to eat humble pie and admit that the liberals who have mocked them and called them idiots, fascists, bigots, nazis, hicks, rubes, Trumpanzees and racists for 4-5 years are…right. That’s a mighty tall order. It flies against all human nature.
One of the most enlightening books I’ve read on American Fundamentalism is “I Fired God” by Jocelyn Zichterman.
The author was raised in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church, a loose association of church’s that splintered from the more mainstream Billy Graham/Jerry Falwell evangelical religion.
This story is a personal memoir of growing up as the daughter of a preacher in one of these churches. It’s a horrific tale of physical and sexual abuse - some of the acts were condoned by the church, others willfully ignored. In general, these groups advocate for physical punishment -frequently severe- in order to “break the will” of children, starting from infancy. Yes, they advocate hitting crying babies.
But she also delves lightly into into the power structure of the group and its connection with right wing politics, and their ongoing war against secular humanism. There are other books that have much more information about the political structure of the movement, but this book is the one that helped me comprehend the evangelical mindset.
Critical thinking skills are considered an evil to be eradicated. This carries through to the less stringent churches on the evangelical spectrum, and it’s usually phrased in terms of “doubt”. Find God and he will eliminate your doubt. Doubt holds you back and hinders your accomplishments. I think this is in large part why so many conservatives can easily overlook glaring logical inconsistencies, what they call doubt is what I call critical thinking and reasoning.
There is also the prevailing underlying idea that your life is not your own, it belongs to God. And God has a plan for you. Traits that are nurtured in secular society, such as confidence and self-esteem, are seen as the work of the devil. This leads to a particular strain of toxic positivity … if you don’t accept your lot in life, if you feel hate and resentment over being controlled and oppressed - that’s going against God’s will.
Zichterman’s greatest challenge in leaving her abusive church was family and church members who kept insisting on meeting with her in the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness, despite the fact that those meetings broke down and lead to her being retraumatized.
This same religiously shaded gaslighting comes into play in the conversations in the national political space. “The left” is composed of angry “haters” who hang on to the memories of injustice and refuse to forgive and move forward. That’s the danger of all the false equivalences swirling around - it’s like thinking an abusive relationship can be mediated. It can’t.
Two days ago, a family relative of mine (who was diehard anti-Trump and voted for Hillary four years ago) told me that she had become a reluctant Trump voter, surprising me. She said, “If Biden wins, you can forget about being allowed to go to church again.”
You can’t underestimate the fear factor among evangelicals that is driving them.
I cannot even express how sad this post makes me, it kind of breaks my heart a little bit.
I was so happy the Democratic nominee turned out to be Biden because he is the least liberal, most middle of the road guy they have. Someone who can build a quite big tent.and appeal to moderates AND the right – or so I thought.
The kind of misinformation your family member is stating is exactly why I started this thread, and exactly why I want people like this to see who the men at the top of the tickets REALLY are for themselves.
I am quite certain at least most of my family would see the truth and be swayed – and I assume other believers would also. What I never considered, and what I failed to remember about my own experience, is that the next day they would wake up with the same outlook and assumptions, and preconceptions and distorted views and attitudes toward the candidates and society that they held before they saw for themselves that Biden is not hell bent on ending religious freedoms and that Trump is insincere and evil to the core.
And I never ever for even a second thought a conservative Evangelical existed who would vote for Hillary Clinton - but not for Joe Biden. Please pardon me- I need to drive out to farm country to see if pigs have sprouted wings and started flying, if grass is still green, and if gravity still affects the tides. I better sit down first – I am feeling light headed after hearing this news.
Biden is Catholic. How does that assertion make any sense?
Velocity referred to the Cyrus argument that evangelical conservatives use to justify supporting Trump. They’re aware that he personally does not uphold their values. But they feel he is a useful tool for advancing those values in society. So they’re willing to overlook his personal sins for what they see as the greater good.
I think the better argument is that the values of evangelical conservatives are not in accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ. But that’s probably not an argument that’s going to go very far in changing the minds of evangelical conservatives.
It doesn’t, except for the fact that Trump says it, so it’s so:
And, remember that, in a number of states (mostly those with Democratic governors), COVID restrictions have included preventing large gatherings, which include churches. This has been portrayed as being all part of a plot by the godless socialist Democrats to make it so you can never go to church again.
It’s amazing what the gullible will believe.
In the view of these groups , it is a flat-out default given truth self-evident that no right-thinking person would even consider NOT exempting religious gatherings. It absolutely HAS to be an agenda against religion.
(And it’s not even just the Evangelicals. See how some Orthodox Jewish communities in NY have rected to Cuomo and DeBlasio’s social distancing rules.)
To some Trump voters, this would be like telling a liberal, “Amy Barrett is a woman; why do you fear she would take away women’s rights?”
Not that the fear of my relative was well-founded - as I pointed out, it’s absurd. But Biden being Catholic doesn’t assuage such fears in the least. Hillary was Methodist, too.
I believe it’s fundamentalist religions of all flavors, I even saw photos of an Amish Trump buggy parade. I think it comes down dogmatism and a disdain for critical thinking.
Exactly. Conservative Catholics are another example. They are now basically the non-Protestant branch of conservative Christians. Had 9/11 not happened, it’s likely conservative Muslims would be a part of the coalition by now as well. They would have joined up the same way that Catholics eventually did.
In this scenario do we have to watch him shower and go to the restroom or do we just watch him have meetings with his campaign advisors and do public rallies?
Well first of all, presumably he does some amount of governing at some point (although pretty slim evidence of this lately). That, as well as how he runs his campaign is what I have in mind. No disgusting personal hygiene events are meant to be included - - unless of course that is how he runs his meetings for some reason.
This whole thread is based upon the fact that MANY registered Republicans of my acquaintance seem to have very unrealistic views of both candidates. Suddenly the Democratic candidates are more extremely left than Bernie Sanders while Mr. Trump is a saintly man of faith who has deeply held religious convictions. (And not all of them, some believe he doesn’t personally believe but is still an instrument of God The FatherAlmighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And Jesus Christ, His only Son - our LORD, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried – The third day he rose again from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father… you know this guy – you are a clever Marshwiggle.)
One of them (my circle of Evangelical friends and family) routinely tells me how evil Biden is and how righteous Trump is. I so want her to witness for herself how these men comport themselves. Either she is very, very wrong or I am – I want to know the truth and seek as much information as possible. She “hears things on End Times websites”; I suspect I am better informed. I want her and all of my friends and family to know more truth. By extension I would prefer if all could see the men as they truly are. Speaking for myself, I NEVER want to see a golden toilet, occupied or not!
I forgot the portion about descending into hell while ‘dead’.
(Because he had to rescue those who died before knowing of Him and did not perfectly live by the Law in all instances. In other words everyone there.)