The chaos of the Trump Administration–not to mention the willingness of Trump’s GOP to abandon “dog whistles” in favor of straight-up bigotry–has led a few of the remaining old style Republicans to admit what they’d previously been loathe to see: Trump is the inevitable consequence of the path the party has pursued for the past fifty years.
New York Times contributor Thomas Edsell recently reviewed a book written by Stuart Stevens. Stevens is a Republican media consultant with what Edsell tells us is “an exceptionally high win-loss record,” who served as a lead strategist for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004; in the book’s mea culpa, he admits that a more accurate name for the GOP might be the “white grievance party.”
Stevens didn’t just work for Bush. The list of his clients is a list of Republican eminences: Mitt Romney, Roger Wicker, Roy Blunt, Chuck Grassley, Rob Portman, Thad Cochran, Dick Lugar, Jon Kyl, Mel Martinez and Dan Coats — along with a handful of current and former governors.
Nonetheless, Stevens’s forthcoming book, “It Was All A Lie,” makes the case that President Trump is the natural outcome of a long chain of events going back to the 1964 election when Barry Goldwater ran for president as an opponent of the Civil Right Act passed earlier that year.
“As much as I’d love to go to bed at night reassuring myself that Donald Trump was some freak product of the system — a ‘black swan,’” Stevens writes, “I can’t do it”:
I can’t keep lying to myself to ward off the depressing reality that I had been lying to myself for decades. There is nothing strange or unexpected about Donald Trump. He is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party became over the last fifty or so years, a natural product of the seeds of race, self-deception, and anger that became the essence of the Republican Party. Trump isn’t an aberration of the Republican Party; he is the Republican Party in a purified form.
“I have no one to blame but myself,” he declares on the first page. “What I missed was one simple reality: it was all a lie.”
The Republican Party promoted itself as defender of a core set of values: the importance of character and personal responsibility, opposition to Russia, fiscal responsibility and control of the national debt, recognition that immigration made America great, and the fiction that the GOP was a “big-tent party.”
The truth was that none of these principles mattered, then or now. The Republican Party is “just a white grievance party.”
Stevens asserts that a race-based strategy was the foundation of many of the Republican Party’s biggest victories, from Nixon to Trump.
With Trump, the Party has grown comfortable as a white grievance party. Is that racist? Yes, I think it is. Are 63 million plus people who supported Trump racist? No, absolutely not. But to support Trump is to make peace with white grievance and hate.
As the remainder of Edsell’s column demonstrates, definitions of racism vary widely. Some people equate it with genuine hatred, others with unthinking acceptance of social attitudes that attribute certain traits to specific groups. Still others would apply the word to social structures that continue to disadvantage historically marginalized groups.
Whatever your definition, it doesn’t take a genius (very stable or otherwise) to see that racial resentment is pretty much the only genuine “value” embraced by today’s GOP. Stevens says not all Republicans are racists, and I’m sure that’s true. But everyone who casts a vote for a Republican candidate is telling the world that she (or more often, he) doesn’t consider racism to be a disqualification for public office.Is that really so distant?
As one of the scholars quoted in the column put it,
We have focused attention on bigots and white nationalists and not held ordinary citizens accountable for beliefs that achieve the same ends.
And so here we are……
Apology not accepted.
I remember listening to the 1964 Republican Convention (I was in college) when the Goldwater Conservatives booed and shouted down Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. I’d never heard that in the few conventions I’d heard up to that time in my short life, and I thought that was pretty rude.
But, now I know what it really was.
“We have focused attention on bigots and white nationalists and not held ordinary citizens accountable for beliefs that achieve the same ends.”
Living among those “ordinary citizens” who planted “Trump For President” yard signs in 2016; those who did not follow suit became their personal focus as the enemy. Come spring, they will return to huddling in their little groups in front yards and turn away when we pass. Gone are the days when neighbors knew neighbors and knew when they might need help; like my one neighbor with the “Bernie For President” yard sign who check on me regularly via Facebook messenger. Race-based white-grievance is now based on a white-on-white foundation and at this time is a life-and-death situation.
We are living in the Covid-10 Pandemic; what will the Trump supporters do now that their “White Grievance Party” Senators and Vice Presiden’s staff have been diagnosed positive with coronavirus? Have they watched as their president and their Senators are refusing to pass a stimulus bill to help Americans across the nation and are holding out to save only major corporations? Have they seen Trump wants to offer our tax dollars to luxury cruise ship lines who are not American and do not pay taxes; did they see him offer help to North Korea and state his deep concerns for those in Iran?
And where was Dr. Fauci during yesterday evening’s coronavirus update which quickly became a bed of lies and misdirection?
Oops, that should read “Covid-19” not Covid-10. It’s early and I have been watching CNN and MSNBC since 3:00 a.m.
It’s not just the Republican Party, it’s also the “Black Swan” religious movement that accompanied it. Ronald Regan won with the Moral Majority led by Jerry Falwell. Let’s not forget that or we won’t get anywhere.
Time is running out to establish a FLOOR before ALL is lost.
Yes. Hate & Fear of the “other” has been their battle cry for my entire adult life. Fear: Willie Horton, the gays, the mexicans, the Feminazis, it never ends. That is all they know. And sadly it has worked very well for them. I also do not think they will stop any time soon.
patmcc,
“I also do not think they will stop any time soon.”
They will only stop when they can see that their NECK is going to be on the LINE. Forget lectures on DEMOCRACY.
“What I missed was one simple reality: it was all a lie.” What I would like to ask is, “How did one of the guys responsible for packaging this pile of BS not know that it was all a lie?” It was one simple reality he chose not to face until 45 happened. Now he tells us how appalled he is by all of this racism? File this under be careful what you wish for.
“I skate to where the puck is gonna be, not where it has been.”
~Wayne Gretzky, National Hockey League great
We keep playing from behind. That’s for LOSERS. That’s why we’re about to lose: BIGTIME.
@Terry Franzman – If we beat people up for coming to their senses there’s no incentive for them to do so. The important thing is to see what happens next. To evaluate the sincerity of an apology, see how they atone for the mistake, and how much effort they put into rectifying the damage they’ve done.
There have been a number of republicans who have had the scales fall from their eyes, unfortunately none of them have been in a position to mitigate the damage they’ve done. I refer most pointedly to former elected officials who didn’t try to change course while in office, when it might have done some good.
patmcc,
“Fear: WILLIE HORTON……”
Bush knew all along where this was going to lead. According to the BBC, his father was among the group who planned a FASCIST TAKEOVER in 1935.
All you can do at this late point in time is to PROVE they can’t win. If you can’t do that, forget about it and try to move, quickly, to another country that will STILL allow Americans to immigrate.
For one, a “republican strategist” is an oxymoron.
Have you ever watched a late-night host sending folks to cover a Trump rally?
They are mocked in-person but don’t have the intelligence to know they are being made fun of on national TV. They could probably do the same thing at Joe Biden campaign rallies, or with Joe himself if the producers of the show allowed it. They’d get booed and lose consumers — I mean viewers.
It doesn’t take a genius to manipulate the republican base. On Facebook, they share memes because pictures say more than words to them. They don’t realize that memes are symbols, just like words. It’s Darwinism in live-action.
Paulo Freire would call it oppression, but I see it as manipulation. Who is being manipulated and to what end?
The democrats are taking it on the chin today because they voted down the “stimulus package” which bails out Boeing in the tens of billions for making faulty products and killing innocent people. Lobbyists converged on the capitol to make sure they got free money from the government while the people are suffering from a forced shut down of segments of our economy.
The telecommunications industry wants free money so they can expand WiFi capabilities to rural America. Why?
Because it wasn’t profitable to do so before the pandemic, didn’t Trump himself in a SOTU claim, “Our country will never accept socialism.” to where 95% of both republicans and democrats stood and applauded.
Yet, here we are later in the year abandoning our rugged individuality of free-market capitalism in favor of socialism.
What they are essentially saying is the free markets do not work well for the people — the masses of working-class people. Meanwhile, the Fed is pumping trillions into the banking system to prop up the markets from collapsing entirely.
Do you see the corporate media picking up on this? The same “left-leaning” media sources who trashed Bernie Sanders for being a “socialist.”
By the way, replace the word “strategist” with propagandist. That would be more accurate.
Todd,
“By the way, replace the word “strategist” with propagandist. That would be more accurate.”
That’s for sure.
You have to speak VERY STRONG TRUTH to power. A good example would be my investigative report at http://www.TheAlarmReport.info filed with and argued before the Dallas City Council, almost 30 years ago, in 199l. I would strongly suggest, it cost George Bush his re-election.
You have to say it the way it REALLY is to get favorable results with a bunch of FASCISTS.
Marv,
“They will only stop when they can see that their NECK is going to be on the LINE. Forget lectures on DEMOCRACY.”
They should see it every time they pass by a light post, but they are blinded by an overwhelming internal vision of a libtard/other hanging there.
Larry,
Ditto.
conversations with above type so called republican,,,they outright show bigotry now to me,because i look like them..im in working class garb,hell im at work 24/7 and carry gloves with me and do my part..but,this overall view,is because the working class is the pit of bigotry they fell into, just being working class. hense,thier focused now,to vote as they see it,not how it should be,or in a moral need.working in heavy manufacturing, small buisness,doesnt matter..the cheap rhetoric,and outright talk today, fueled by media soaked in whiteness, continues to saw the trees down..bosses who are under mandate to hire minorities found trump and his ongoing mob,ignoring required hiring standards,as the supreme court can and will ignore cases..but,that also leads to buisness ethics,ignoring more vital needs,safety,and rule of law..many whiteys i deal with all say hey,we have plenty of jobs here..now i’m from somewhere else,ive witnessed that line time again..and i can play this card..cool, where? right here… mmmm everyones white,as far a s i can see, any minority who walks thru the bosses door,better be ready for some down home bigotry..many minorities never been beyond their own world,and what the see of it,scares them..many jobs today where minorities have gotton work, is because as a group, led by someone made a effort to find work, and made the connections,and as a group,moved and made the jump.all planned and led by someone who, knows the system,i recently spoke with a few emplorees,of a industrial buisness,and talked with them how it worked out,no one had to pay anyone,and they as a group,became the majority in the shop. well run,and a promise of a future,not held over their heads,the work ethic,spoke for itself… and im finding this move to secure jobs for minorities a better route,but this is rare..recent conversation, as to the above theres plenty of jobs here whitey,..cool, the minority probably doesn have a few bucks,,(i went to seattle,as a employed person,driving a dump truck,at 26 bucks a hour,with some OT,it would cast me, near $5K to rent a apt,and move in,Bezos..) to deal with this world to get started. and if you never been outside the hood,any bump in the road,maybe the last..i phones dont cover the bills betty..ongoing bigotry is a major reason why,minorities never leave their hoods,(lifestyle,or socioeconomic home) whitey offers the job,then watches you stumble and fall while waching you gain traction,rather than offering a hand up..might as well sent them to a klan meeting,,,silver spoon in mouth hanging out his bigot ass..few if any one helps with getting minorities to a new life,or start.. there was a new packing plant a few decades ago in aberdeen s.d. , new plan,buck the system,to go private over being a corp satalite plant..they had the needed money to build,they did,they had the needed funds to buy the cattle,mainly froma co op idea,of local ranchers.cool, they needed a workforce..mmmm, seems the local workforce didnt pan out,,too short a line…so the company, bought ads in st. joe mo,and nashville tn and provided a free bus ride and get started package.. (i followed this, as i was in those job ads,looking for work in those areas)it all failed the first month into buisness,and the out of state workforce,well they were locked out,and had to find a way home..no one offered them a thing.and now deeper in thier own issues…like a throwaway can, the minorities who find work, find a pressure cooker in todays America. gains earned,and fought for for decades now,kicked to the curb by a side of the isle who has no buisness making decisions in our government . .elected on the ticket of bigotry now,not of a conservitive party,that was once respected as a whole,and given its place to decide.has become the klan of the whitey in office.. the signatures have dried, and theres a list,unless we shorten that list in november,we might as well get use to the view, because it wont change..unless mcconnel is literally ejected,from his post,the party will not change,and i wouldnt expect a so called republican to change because his job is on the line either,thats just bullshit,, he spent his life getting to that office,like getting a spot on a major league team,rare. he met with whoever got him where hes at today,sold his soul,and his moral person,(if he ever had one) for this position.orgs like ALEC and heritage foundation are pervayors in this field,and its bigotry that makes it shine..yea right anyone can join, just like the klan.eh?
washdapaws, and best wishes, keep the work here relevant…thanks Sheila
Todd,
that line about telecommuntcations,, your right,we lack, mainly on the Native American areas.we in NoDak ignore needs to educate the ones we attacked and shoved a reservation up thier,,,..i found in rural nebraska,along hwy 61 wifi available from one end to the other,look at the distance between towns,30/30/64 miles and only,a handfull for ranches..the telecommunications in this country,only suports expanded coverages in third world nations,and we the consummer,get ripped,financing them,,. do the math,consume numbers +over a $40-100 bill everymonth. in NoDak we have private towers,looking to be leased,by whoever..ooppps wrong scam, seems the state expects ya to bribe someone to get a lease on that area,(local politician),er,now the state decides who,you will lease with,(local or corp), hense,our republican majority,(were blood red here) could care less if we can get decent service after 20 years of this type of communication,as lomg as they have a game to play,er pay,er….in this world, you have to have this need fulfilled,otherwise the people loose valuble information,and like gasoline,its needed..
In all my 5 non-fiction books, beginning with “The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation”, I continually cited Naomi Klein and Rebecca Costa for their work in defining human behavior, instinctual stupidity and the true evil of un-regulated capitalism….now run amok.
Republicans began distancing themselves from their original founding’s plank against slavery. When the capitalists and corporatists realized what was happening to “their” party, they shifted gears…coincidentally, after Lincoln was shot. Remember, Lincoln’s assassination was predicated on racism and the economic “benefits” of states rights.
Yes, Trump is the culmination of this evil and disgusting process of Republican Party-ism. Marx saw this coming too. “Das Kapital” summarizes his vision that we are now seeing played out by today’s Republican party.
Well done, America. We let this happen. It’s how great societies fail. Running to another country won’t solve anything. Those countries aren’t big enough to absorb all of our thinking people. Besides, the greed merchants will just close our exit ramps.
No one willingly gives up power. Martin Luther King knew this. Unfortunately many elected officials don’t have a sense of leadership as former mayor Pete did. It is my belief that people lust for and hoard power because they fear being vulnerable.
What COVID 19 makes apparent is that even the powerful can become vulnerable to disease. To neglect the public health infrastructure and access to health care to your citizens regardless of their race, creed, sexual orientation, gender, or faith tradition is to endanger one’s self.
This is one of your best posts.
I, FWIW, agree that Mr. Stevens hasn’t been totally forthcoming in his “apology.” Remember Nixon’s so-called “Southern Strategy?” Here’s the famous quote from Lee Atwater, the preeminent Republican “strategist” of the Nixon era:
“Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
So what part of that couldn’t Mr. Stevens know and understand? At best it amounts to being willfully blind.
On the other hand, I also agree with the thought expressed above that it’s better late then never for Mr. Stevens and any other “Republican” who finally opens his/her eyes and understands what they have wrought. For that, at least, they should, if not applauded, be appreciated and welcomed.
This is directed at all the lawyers and historians, hopefully for acquiring their comment, correction and illumination.
*********************************
I submit that much of the USA problem of the last two centuries is the struggle to understand the meaning of CORPORATION. Yes, it is the world’s problem, too.
In my research for TROPHY STATE, my upcoming novel in which an international corporation resorts to war in its attempt to become a sovereign nation, I have found some information that shocks me. For instance, one source told me that my book’s premise was wrong–no corporation would try to become a state, because legally corporations are already states, i.e. little nations, and nations are already corporations. WOW!
In “CORPORATE SOVEREIGNTY”, Joshua Barkan purports that “the Anglo-American corporation and modern political sovereignty are founded in and bound together through a principle of legally sanctioned immunity from law.” Thus, (paraphrasing) he concludes, MODERN NATIONS ARE CORPORATIONS, substituting social profits of one sort or another (a more perfect Union, justice, etc.) for the monetary profit motive, and almost all national charters are written like a corporate charter, some even using the term “corporation”.
Interestingly, Barkan suggests that early business corporations were modeled after national charters, which had been used for ages previous to legally incorporate political entities like cities, fiefdoms, providences, states, and countries. But early legal scholars believed naively that corporate nations and corporate businesses were two species of the same genus, one motivated by monetary profit, the other by social profit, and that the two, as is true of many separate species, would never cross-infect.
In TROPHY STATE, the profit motive takes on the character of a mutated virus and jumps species from business corporation to corporate nation.
A novel is a great teacher and most especially instructive to the author, and, yes, I have learned some things. Top among them is:
The only way to prevent the profit virus from jumping species to the corporate nation is by using regulations to limit the virus’s ability to mutate. When corporations acquire their own armies, it’s too late; they have already mutated.
I find all of the deep thinking here refreshing because it’s become so unusual among humans today. It seems to be based on what went wrong here, however I don’t see it as limited in any way to the US. Consider Britain. Last night on 60 minutes there was a set on Hungary and the right wing terrorists there trading scary campfire stories about the decline of white supremacy for votes.
Some day we’ll thank Covid 19 for creating the depression that will call all of the assumptions people live on into question. Then what will really matter is what gets built on the rubble of all that we’ve known. In prewar Germany depression built Facism. In our time too long a stretch of good times built it. We don’t know what twists and turns are coming so all the philosophy here is speculating about possibilities rather than predictions of reality.
We can do our part in the one point of control left to us and that is to vote blue no matter who in November. That combined with the economic wreckage that will surround us by then will change the conversation.
It’s very little but it’s all that we have.
Marv – Speaking of Gretzky and losers, he also observed that “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” and I here observe that if you take no shots you are destined to be a loser. The idea that one as a political being must only “take a shot” when scoring is assured is not the way to go. FDR with his acronym agencies during the Depression was constantly beaten down by a right wing Supreme Court but he was up and running with a new one shortly thereafter and, as we all know, was frustrated to a point to where he wanted to “pack the court,” a no=no among Republicans to this date even as McConnell is “packing the (make that plural) courts from district through supreme seats.
The political world is the world of both the theoretical and the doable, with the emphasis on the latter. Greed and racism are not unexpected in a mixed society as scapegoats are necessary to bulwark the majority’s status. What to do? Keep hammering away on all the isms of gender, color, sexual orientation etc. Distract the goalie. Shoot the puck!
I think if I were any of the democratic candidates for president, I would be tempted to drop out of the contest. Publicly, I’d cite an illness in the family. But privately, I’d say, “Trump and the deplorables broke it, corrupted it, and infected it; now they have bought the rubble and must put it all back together themselves. Then I’d move to some country whose communal brain has not blown apart, yet.
I have thought, discussed and posted for years about the distillation of the GOP since Goldwater, into white grievance party and the party of fear. The Civil Rights and Vietnam anti-war movements were a big threat to the status quo. The Democratic Party of that era tried to ride that wave. Nixon’s Law and Order and Southern Strategy tried install breakwaters against the waves. The Jim Crow Southern Democrats found a home in the GOP of Nixon and later Reagan.
The party of fear welcomed in the bible thumping evangelicals.
These bible thumping evangelicals are and were inhabited by fearful people. They were frightened of nearly every type of social and cultural change, such as Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Vietnam anti-war protestors, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights and of course godless hippies.
Reagan, Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger could put up the polite front of civility, even as they threw the door open for the take over by the Reactionary Bible Thumper’s.
One favorite part of the government for the GOP was the Defense Department. You will not find a more Macho branch of government than the Defense Department.
All the GOP needed was the Male-Authoritarian Macho Man to take over the helm, in this respect McCain and Romney were lacking. McCain and Romney still had civility.
The Trumpet was the perfect choice: brash, crass, cruel, and stomping on anyone who got in his way – The perfect Male-Authoritarian Macho Man. The Trumpet’s opposition in the 2016 GOP primary found out just how far out of sync they were the GOP Base.
The GOP contenders in 2016 against The Trumpet sat behind their “Maginot Wall” of phony respectability. The French Army of 1940 sat behind the real Maginot Wall, waiting for the Germans to break their teeth on it by attacking it. Instead the Germans attacked through the Benlux countries and out flanked the Maginot Wall. Not only that the Germans had the Blitzkrieg warfare concept. The result was a rout by the Germans.
The Trumpet in a figurative sense brought his own brand of Blitzkrieg to bear on the other contenders within the GOP in the primaries in 2016. A lesson was learned by the elected leadership of the GOP oppose The Trumpet and find yourself under attack. Even McCain a much revered person within the GOP establishment was vilified by The Trumpet.
Gerald,
“…Speaking of Gretzky and losers, he also observed that “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” and I here observe that if you take no shots you are destined to be a loser. The idea that one as a political being must only “take a shot” when scoring is assured is not the way to go.”
Which is the fault I assign to Hillary Clinton in the campaign of 2016: she and her flock of upper-end deplorables were clearly advocating government by only those policies from which no one EVER gets hurt. Many people sensed that Clinton felt paralyzed by her need to be perfect. Don’t pass a bill unless it’s excellent for everybody. First do no harm. It appeared to many that Hillary thought of governing as an act of walking on eggshells. As it turned out, too many people thought otherwise. People were ready and problems were ripe for government to enact solutions that were imperfect and then make the necessary modifications.
The problem with what we got in 2016 is that Trump, rather than modify policy to repair those individuals and institutions damaged, prefers to revel in the pain and mayhem his policies cause.
Biden may be the needed in-between choice.
Gerald,
“Marv – Speaking of Gretzky and losers, he also observed that “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” and I here observe that if you take no shots you are destined to be a loser. The idea that one as a political being must only “take a shot” when scoring is assured is not the way to go.”
What I was trying to point out was that it doesn’t do any good to take a shot that is impossible to make. You have to stay ahead of the game, not doing that is why we are in such a precarious situation. I’m about hitting the target. I’m not sure about you. Remember when I predicted that Trump would win? And your reply?
This isn’t like doing battle in the appellate court system. I’m not about that. You win that one.
Gerald,
You operate on flawed intelligence. I don’t. That’s the big difference between us. I’ve always said
you were the better attorney. I’m just a political epidemiologist who has been monitoring the political environment on a daily basis since 1970.
Todd,
“…a “republican strategist” is an oxymoron.”
I like that line! At their very best, republican semi-analytic types operate in tactical mode and might be more finely described as “republican reactionaries” or “republican hystericals”.
Gerald, Marv,
“Shots”
In basketball, much is made of “shot selection”, and rightly so; almost always shot selection is the determining factor. However, there is always the mitigating factor of offensive rebounds, which, in some instances, end up being better than a pass. I’ve known some basketball coaches who, taking the talent of their players into account, utilize a strategy of “just put it up on the rim and go get it until we slam it home”.
When national problems are tame and few, I advocate government use a strict shot selection; but when problems are fierce and many, I advocate getting solutions up on the goddamn rim and then rebound.
Larry,
What I’m suggesting is that you have to hit “something” preferably the target. You can’t keep missing, even the rim. I was an R.O.T.C. officer trained as an artillery FORWARD OBSERVER. There was no war when I was on active duty. Nevertheless, I know what I’m talking about.
The pro-democracy lines of communication have been compromised so that our “shots” don’t even hit the rim. I’ve been saying that ever since I started participating on this blog, over five years ago, during which time our FUTURE has continued to unravel. Again, why is that?
A perfect example of the white man’s grievances is Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” of course, this is just a later example, because white men have been claiming their burdenus grievances for a millennia or more!
Eugenics started because of white grievance!
Manifest Destiny was another byproduct of white man’s grievance!
American Romanticism was another byproduct of white man’s grievance!
The Crusades by the Anglo church was a basic personification of white man’s grievance and perceived superiority!
The Holocaust was an example of white man’s grievance and perceived superiority!
The Demonization of nonwhites by the Anglo church was another white man’s grievance!
The burning of some whites who pointed out the hypocrisy and fought against it, burning them as heretics at the stake, cruel and unusual punishment that was reserved for witches and warlocks who mostly were those not in the mainstream, as the Romani and such!
The Anglo churches permission, i.e. the permissiveness of the white slavers greenlighted by the church was another example of white man’s grievance and a precursor to Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” hundreds of years later!
The Anglo church demonized nonwhites as being cursed, because of what Ham’s son Canaan did to his grandfather Noah! They claim the black race came from Canaan, which is false, actually it was the white race that came from Canaan, the black race were descendents from the brother Kush and the other brother Put! Cush is very evidently a principal progenitor (perhaps along with Put) of the dark-complexioned branch of the human family (Jeremiah 13:23), as is indicated by the areas of settlement of certain of his descendants. This disproves the theory advanced by those who incorrectly endeavor to apply to the Negro peoples the curse pronounced on Canaan, for Canaan, the brother of Cush, did not produce any Negro descendants but, rather, was the forefather of the various Canaanite tribes of Palestine. (Genesis 9:24, 25; 10:6) There is, therefore, no Scriptural connection whatsoever between the dark complexion of certain descendants of Cush and the curse pronounced on Canaan.
So it has not been the recent inclusion of evangelicals into the ranks of the GOP and such, also there is a much smaller presence in the Democratic side. That being said, evangelicals picked up on this permissive falsehood that allowed their conscience to treat their fellow humans as herd animals and less than human.
And then of course we have the 3/5 law and the United States which only allows those who are white to be counted as a whole person, Blacks were considered 3/5 human! Much easier to buy and sell a 3/5 human than a 100% human, because it eases the conscience somewhat! I could go on and on and on, we have Jim Crow, we have lynchings, serial rapes, so much, so so much, it makes me sick! It has led me to conclude, a goodly portion of the white race is actually evil, not all, but enough to make life miserable for everyone!
John,
Don’t worry about Jim Crow anymore. We now have the Trump version of Fascism. The majority of the population will PROBABLY be under the GUN at least in the beginning, however, possibly, not at the end of the NIGHTMARE that is only a few weeks away.
I’m trying to stay optimistic. I don’t see a RAPTURE, but you never know around here.
Marv, LOL, rapture, not a chance!
You know, as many times as I had read the Bible, old and New Testament, the interlinear’s, the Dyaglots, the Polyglot’s, strong’s, and myriads of others, I never saw any mention of a rapture! I never saw any justification for a burning torturous hell, I never saw any evidence of everyone going to heaven, i.e. rapture or any other method, LOL! Scripture does mention a few chosen ones that would rule with Christ as princes, but that is hardly everyone.
We are supposed to obey the secular authorities except when it conflicts with scriptural law, this was the rule for the Israelites and also Christians. And before the Israelites, Abraham and the covenant with him. Just because someone is a believer, it doesn’t make that person invincible. That being said, with Christ raising Lazarus, it gave everyone the hope of life renewed. If mankind was not meant to live on earth for an eternity, why was there even and earth in the grand scheme of things? Evangelicals can answer that question, because they choose not to learn. I know why, because I love to get into the intricacies of whatever I am looking into in an historical and observable textual timeline.
I trust, I have faith, but we also must verify! Will we be under the gun? I have no doubt that there will be governmental authorities coming after religion! That die has already been cast. Vladimir Putin proposed the idea of the original 5 meeting concerning religion and how to control it. Russia, China, the UK, the French, and the United States! These 5 are supposed to meet in the United States to converse about religious issues, to make religion responsible for their words and deeds!
This could be a very touchy issue because it’s part of the American First Amendment, so if you start restricting First Amendment, freedom to meet, freedom to address grievances to the government, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, which ones do you not touch and which ones do you erase or reconsider? Once the First Amendment is out of the way, the 2nd amendment becomes the preeminent doctrine, live by the gun and die by the gun!