Monday, July 31, 2017

Religious right groups, figures debasing themselves to ignore Trump's many disasters


With the latest White House firing - "potty-mouth" Scarmucci lasted only 10 days - and very low approval numbers, as well as a long list of missteps and policy failures in a short length of time, we should admit that Donald Trump is a disaster.

Seriously, he's the worst thing to come to D.C. since the British during the War of 1812. At least Nixon got some things done and his administration was simply crooked. Trump's Administration is crooked and incompetent. It's as if Americans were so high on drugs on Election Day that they chose to elect the Three Stooges reborn into one braggadocious, hideously coiffed body.

However, Trump still has his fans. Eager to keep the access his administration has given them (OMG, they have us on speed dial!!!), evangelical conservative groups, i.e. the religious right, have  been recasting the Orange Disaster to their supporters as the Second Coming of the Biblical king David (minus the Bathsheba incident), Davy Crockett (portrayed by Fess Parker), and every character John Wayne played in one of his movies (who wasn't killed at or before the conclusion of the movie).

 It's just downright embarrassing that in midst of so many ugly moments (Scarmuccci's insane New Yorker interview, Trump's ridiculous attempt to ban transgender men and women from serving in the military, the sacking of Reince Preibus and Scarmucci, Trump's constant public humiliation of his own attorney general, Trump's failure to repeal Obamacare,Trump advocating police brutality . . ), groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, and other "religious" groups and leaders think no one is noticing them debase themselves.


In fact, the Family Research Council recently casted positive aspirations on the bad way Trump attempted to ban transgender soldiers from the military:

If the Left is surprised by these cultural course corrections, they haven't been paying attention. "The president has expressed concerns since this Obama policy came into effect [in 2016], but he's also voiced that this is a very expensive and disruptive policy," said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "And based on consultation that he's had with his national security team, came to the conclusion that it erodes military readiness and unit cohesion, and made the decision based on that." Trump showed the same boldness on Obama's social agenda in the first few weeks of office, rolling back a hugely unpopular school bathroom mandate. 
Like the military policy, it too had the broad disapproval of the American people -- including a number of leaders inside the administration. Former Texas Governor-turned-Secretary of Energy Rick Perry sees the wisdom of Trump's ways. "I totally support the president in his decision," he told reporters. "The idea that the American people need to be paying for these types of operations to change your sex is not very wise from a standpoint of economics... Or military culture, says White House security aid Sebastian Gorka. "The military is not a microcosm of civilian society," he said on BBC Radio. "They are not there to reflect America. They are there to kill people and blow stuff up. They are not there to be socially engineered." The military has never been -- and should never be -- used as a vehicle to advance civil rights, political correctness, or workplace fairness. It does not exist, the editors of the Washington Examiner point out, "for personal enrichment, leisure, community, the pursuit of happiness, or for its own sake, as civilian institutions do. The military's sole purpose is to smash and destroy enemies." Fortunately, our nation has a commander-in-chief who recognizes this. If November was any indication, America also has an electorate who will reward him for it.

That's the same Sebastian Gorka who got into trouble after he was linked to Nazi groups.  FRC conveniently omitted that in the same manner it omitted Scaramucci's potty mouth.

However, the American Family Association via its fake news site, One News Now, attempted to one-up FRC in an interview with long-time conservative "activist" Gary Bauer. Bauer, once head of the FRC and earlier worked in the Reagan Administration where he played in integral part in keeping Reagan in the dark about the AIDS crisis, had nothing but praise for Trump's ban:

"He was deeply concerned about damage that could be caused to unit cohesion, morale, and so forth," Bauer submits. "When you have men and women living in close quarters and under the Obama rules being asked to share showers and bathrooms, that is a very difficult situation to get people used to."  
 . . . Because the president went back to a policy that existed just 13 months ago, we're seeing the same avalanche of accusations of bigotry ... discrimination, and all the rest of it," Bauer laments. "He did the right thing. Values voters should be happy, and hopefully this will hold up under the inevitable counter-attack that we're seeing right now."

Apparently Bauer seems to think that "values voters" need not concern themselves with issues such as keeping their healthcare. Bauer probably thinks these voters have a hotline to Jesus and, with a snap of their fingers, can get Him to cure any health issue they may have.

And what about Reverend Big Mouth or as he is commonly known, Franklin Graham? Other than supporting Trump's ban, he has been very silent. I would have at least expected Graham to talk about the Scaramucci interview. This is the same guy who raised holy hell over the live action version of 'Beauty and the Beast' containing a gay character but now he refrains from commenting about the homoerotic imagery of Scaramucci accusing another Trump advisor, albeit figuratively, of engaging in autofellatio?

Perhaps Graham is saving his outrage for a more vital cause, such as the newest television commercial featuring a gay couple.

But the one who takes the cake isn't even a religious leader, but a person who professes to be a seriously devout Christian. Six days ago, former Congressional Rep Michele Bachmann went a bit bizarre during a radio interview over how she felt Trump was supposedly doing the 'Will of God.'

Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said President Donald J. Trump "understands who the God of the Bible is" and wants to lift up God in America because Jesus Christ is the "underpinning not only of the United States but of Western civilization itself." Bachmann added that Trump's regular White House prayer meetings honor God and make Christ's presence a "regular part of life," a part of "the America we used to know."

  . . He’s not predictable, other than he is committed to the United States. And he is unashamed in standing up for increasing an awareness of God in the United States. He recognizes how important that is and that that is a basis of Western civilization." “I am so happily surprised by what I’ve seen in the Trump administration," she said. "I’m so glad for this opportunity today because I’m not here as a Trump cheerleader – that’s not what I’m about. But what I’m here to say -- as a believer in Jesus Christ -- I could not be more happy with what I am seeing coming out of the Trump White House. This is beyond my wildest expectations.”

That's not normal praise, y'all. Bachmann's harangue ranks up there with that character from the movie "Priscilla Queen of the Desert' bragging about the time he picked a "leaving" out of the toilet left there by one of his favorite singers.

One would think that these so-called devout upholders of Christianity would be more inclined to act as some sort of moral voice in Trump's ear rather than the hysterical teenyboppers at a Justin Bieber concert, but here we are. And in supporting Trump to the point of downright delusion, whether intentional or unintentional, these groups and figures are writing the epitaphs of their own statuses.

The way it is looking now, sooner or later, Trump may go down in a huge funky cloud of scandal. The evangelical right will possibly be caught up in that cloud of funk. They've made it impossible for themselves to step away unscathed.

No comments: