Fallen idols in the land of the free

The principle of mocking those who would falsely claim to speak for my God stands

The halls of the pro-Trump echo chambers now reverberate from the force of anguished howls! Their king has fallen! Fallen!

The words of their prophets have failed to materialize. Where is your god? MAGA louder! Maybe he is sleeping?

Could it be, that just as Scripture warns (Deuteronomy 18:20-22), there are those who speak prophecy of their own imaginations, and not from the true God?

NAH! Not in MAGA world, because the sole requirement is that the word given gives glory and promotion to Donald Trump! Then, it is to be believed, no matter what the realities of the world show you!

And if it doesn’t come to be?

Well, then you protest and threaten every treasonous manner of seditious intent, until you make it happen, for the glory of Trump. If it rips apart the republic, that’s of little concern to the true devotees. You have to ask yourself, WWTD? What would Trump do?

I think we know, and his disciples are following suit. Trump has a long history of only looking out for himself, and the past four years have done little to quell that image.

At this point, the electors have spoken. They’ve voted in accordance to the law and signed off on Joe Biden’s election victory. This is the system in place for our republic. There was a time when the Republican Party understood and supported that system, even if it didn’t go in their favor. Those days are gone. We are post-maturity, post-reason, and alarmingly post-democracy, at least to the Branch Trumpidian death cult.

In the thick of this disturbing new threat to our republic, where a large swath of indoctrinated, low-info voters are threatening to burn it all down in service to their mango messiah, I have to say there’s some satisfaction to be had. Several regulars with American Pravda, also known as Fox News, have voiced what the rest of the world knows. They’ve acknowledged Joe Biden as the incoming president. In their quest to become a news agency again, rather than the propaganda wing of the Trump administration, they’ve awaken the ire of the president. Like loyal flying monkeys, his followers have turned from the network to more Trumpian fare: OANN and Newsmax. Fox News is now “the enemy,” and it’s as if the last four years of loyalty to Trump never happened. 

I don’t feel sorry for them, in the least. They had a chance to stand for the good of the republic in 2015. They could have resisted the urge to promote the freak show, but they didn’t. They valued the ratings above the well-being of the nation. Over the last 4 years, they could have spoken the truth about what was happening under Trump’s watch, but they chose to make excuses and prop him up, even if by doing so, they propped up our geopolitical foes. They had so many chances to speak up, but they didn’t, and now the snake has turned on them. For the simple act of telling the truth, they were excommunicated.

Good.

The greater damage, however, is to the evangelical church in America. Some of you may have picked up my allusion to Elijah and the prophets of Baal, from 1 Kings 18.

Am I some small town, backwoods Elijah?

Not hardly, but I think the principle of mocking those who would falsely claim to speak for my God stands.

Of all the reasons I have opposed Donald Trump from the beginning, my Christian faith was always at the top of the list. I would not have my witness to the world attached to a man of such low and ghastly character.

Yes, Jesus associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, and some of the worst of the worst. What Trump’s evangelical supporters fail to mention, however, is that no one who had these interactions with Jesus remained the same. An encounter with the Son of Man changed hearts. He would tell them to go, and sin no more. Those who were his became disciples. Those who were not turned away.

Trump openly said that he has no need for God. He doesn’t bring God into things. He trusts his own efforts. He tries to do better on his own. He doesn’t like to ask for forgiveness.

These are Trump’s words. His deeds are even worse. He has given evangelicals every reason to reject him, and far too many did not.

I’ve heard pastors fiercely defend Trump from the pulpit. I’ve seen Christians make excuses for his adulteries and even his provable lies are truth in their eyes. They will not see him as anything other than “God’s man.”

Just before the election, I heard an elder of a particular church say, “If God has His way, Donald Trump will be reelected!”

Trump was not reelected. Does that mean God did not have His way? 

Just the suggestion is ludicrous. God’s will cannot be thwarted by the machinations of mortal men. Anyone who feels God wants Trump in office, but can’t figure out why he lost the election may need to rethink their notion of Who God is.

I have never made my feelings about Trump a secret. I’ve worked across various outlets and for the past 5 years to warn any willing to listen about who Donald Trump is, and the threat he poses for our nation. I would not allow party loyalty to keep me silent. When it became clear that the Republican Party only exists now to carry water for this unprincipled reprobate, I gave up and walked away.

What we’re seeing now, as we await the inauguration of Joe Biden next month, is a party willing to burn down our republic, in service to a corrupt master. The alleged party of “God, country, and family” are acting as the foot soldiers to bring about that end.

The recently pardoned Michael Flynn, former Trump national security adviser, has suggested martial law. He has put the idea out there that Trump could suspend our Constitution – temporarily, of course – in order to have the military carry out a new election.

You would expect that actual patriots would balk at such a suggestion.

They have not.

The “Stop the Steal” rallies are a grifters paradise, helping raise money that mostly goes into Trump’s pocket, but they also serve to further rile up a base that has convinced themselves that Donald Trump is owed the presidency. 

Oddly enough, these rallies and the insistence that the vote was rigged only happen in states where Trump lost. They don’t really feel the need to have multiple recounts in states he won. I mean, I could almost tolerate this mass hysteria, if there was consistency. Demand a total recount or nothing at all. 

The facts are, they don’t care if there was fraud that won a state for Trump. They only care about the states he lost. All of this, and you have to wonder how far these insurgents are willing to go, in order to overturn this election.

The next few weeks are going to be important to watch. Trump, ever the spoiled child, has reportedly suggested that he’ll refuse to leave the White House. While that would be great fun for those of us who are willing to pay good money to see him pulled out in cuffs by the Secret Service, it does pose a problem.

Trump only has to speak, and his cult reacts. His rants are only thinly veiled, at best, so what happens when a MAGA faithful interprets a call to violence? 

The gilded toad is so wrapped up in the emotional distress of losing this election, that he’s let everything else go by the wayside. He keeps telling himself he won. He keeps telling his flock that he’s won, and they believe him. 

It’s mania, and it is unhealthy. Never have I seen such a push to deny reality, to protect a politician. 

After January, a new, liberal administration will take over. Conservative thinkers will have much to talk about, and I’ve already began the warm-up to take on those atrocious Biden policies that we know are coming.

It occurs to me that we can overcome a bad administration. We’ve weathered that particular storm, before. 

We cannot overcome an authoritarian mob, intent on blowing up the republic, in order to install a despot. Even if they don’t get their way (They won’t), the damage they’re doing will have far-reaching effects. 

Is this alarmism, on my part?

I pray that’s all it is.

Photo by AMITABHA GUPTA - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65675965