How can anyone in their right mind want to have someone who thinks posting something like this is appropriate as their President?
I initially thought that post was a hoax. Silly me. It is now clearer than clear that this chaotic man is capable of saying or posting anything. He has no filters, he has no shame, the ethics alarms were never installed, and his narcissism knows no bounds. Even knowing all this well, I was still stunned to see Trump take his messianic and martyr complexes to this extreme.
Actually, I can answer, sort of, my opening question with this social media post in response to Trump’s…
Maybe this poster is in his right mind, but his right mind has an IQ of 46.
You can almost hear the more intellectually capable of conservatives desperately spinning. Here’s the reaction, for instance, of Joel Abbott of “Not the Bee”:
The name of Jesus Christ has been sanitized from our halls of power. You can’t get supposed Christian politicians to even whisper his name. They talk about “God” and providence and the divine – with a little “Amen and Awoman” on the side these days – but they won’t dare talk about Jesus. So sure, you can rant about how Trump clearly needs a savior, and how some of the Trump crowd clearly needs to tone down the messiah worship comparing him to Christ…But as for me, I am glad that such a man would share silly boomer memes of himself hanging with Jesus in the courtroom, because the name of Jesus is being magnified one way or the other. Meanwhile, the wisdom of the world – the so-called experts with their high-browed decorum – are being clowned by the foolishness of God, who would use a man like Trump in spite of Trump.
Just in case you are bothered by the Left making excuses and being in denial regarding Jamaal Bowman and the fire alarm, that’s what the Right is capable of.
Further observations:
- The real genius of the political prosecution of Trump in advance of the 2024 election may be the opportunity it presents for the former President to make an ass of himself to a heretofore unprecedented degree.
- As virtually every day’s developments show, it is essential that the Democrats in their current totalitarian form be removed from power to the greatest degree possible. It is also increasingly obvious that supporting Trump to regain the White House with his thirst for vengeance and his belief in his own invulnerability in full bloom is like choosing to play Russian roulette with one bullet in the chamber instead of two. It’s the better option, but it is still nearly suicidal.
- Will nothing convince a majority of Republicans that they have an obligation to nominate someone else?
- Question 1: Would any previous President even consider posting that drawing? Answer: No. None of them. Not the most egotistical, narcissistic, audacious members of this elite egotistical, narcissistic, and audacious group in their most fevered, drunken, confused state. Not King Andy, not Teddy, not Wilson (whose father was a minister), not FDR or Nixon. No way. Question 2: Why? Answer: Because before The Great Stupid and related culture-wrecking catastrophes, nobody so unfit and ridiculous ever would have gotten far enough in a political career to have a realistic shot of the Presidency. Our system has, up to now, been superb at selecting out talented, unusual and often strange individuals to serve as the nation’s leader without ever allowing one who is manifestly absurd to slip through the cracks. I just reviewed some of the scarier or Bible-thumping Presidential aspirants and candidates of the past 200 years or so who might have been elected if things had broken a bit differently. None of them were so far gone that they wouldn’t have fired an aide who proposed a “My pal, Jesus” promotion. Not Aaron Burr, not General McClellan, not William Jennings Bryan, not Huey Long, not Eugene V. Debs, not Barry Goldwater or George Wallace. Just Donald Trump. What does that tell you?
- Biden’s administration has been such a throbbing disaster and he is so obviously heading to full senility at a breakneck pace that such diverse pundits as Bill Maher and Ann Althouse are convinced he would lose to Trump. This kind of thing makes those predictions premature. I believe any number of non-Trump-like Republican would defeat Biden. That post should be the clarion call to the party to find one of them. Quick.
Ethics Alarms 
I have to admit, Jack, that the more Democrats seek means to tear down Trump, the more it raises Trump up on my Cognitive Dissonance Scale. The more we learn about the totalitarian methods, the power-grabbing, the silencing of opponents, the destruction of the very fabric of our nation, the lower down the scale they go. And when they turn their opprobrium on Trump, it lifts him up. The things Trump says and does reveals him to be an unethical, unmitigated ass, and I will not vote for him in the primaries. But in the general election, with Trump vs any with a D next to their name? I’d have to vote for Trump.
The scary thing is, I think Republicans look at Trump’s thirst for vengeance and his belief in his own invulnerability and see that as reasons to elect Trump. I think we’ve seen even in comments here at Ethics Alarms that the anger the Left is reaching a boiling point, and I think many Republicans also thirst for vengeance. Again, I don’t see the Republican party as have any moral compass, as I don’t see them taking the high road when given the opportunity. So there is very little restraining the beast of revenge. Trump’s election would give them that. I think the Left really wants to destroy Trump right now because they know he will do to them what they have done to him, and that the Republicans will be cheering Trump on the whole while.
This whole thing could have been avoided with the Dem leadership in 2017 flatly rejecting Hiullary Clinton’s “Trump Colluded with the Russians®™ to Steal the 2016 Election” fairy tale.
I am old enough to remember the 1990s Democratic leadership.
They would have subtly goaded Trump to pick fights with the Republican congressional leadership.
What changed about the Democratic leadership since then?
My Facebook friend, Stephen Michael Stirling, wrote, “More sincerity, which is the enemy of sound tactical thought.”
I read Abbott’s article on Not the Bee. I did feel he was stretching a bit there. While it’s true that God will sometimes allow people to be put in charge, that’s not necessarily a ringing endorsement. The Bible is pretty clear that people often get the leaders they deserve. Sometimes, God allows bad leaders to get into office to teach people a lesson.
There are some Trump fans among conservative Christians who believe he really is a Christian. They will point to how we aren’t supposed to judge others, but the Bible says we absolutely should judge other believers who aren’t walking the walk…just be careful to use the same standard we use for ourselves.
As for Paul’s admonition that Christ preached from selfish or unselfish motives being a good thing, Trump isn’t preaching Christ. He’s appropriating Christ for his campaign and fooling gullible people into believing he is a serious follower.
I’d rather have no candidate using the name of Jesus than have one act like He’s thrown an endorsement out there.
I see any divine endorsement of Trump in the same vein as God’s endorsement of Nebuchadnezzar. Instrument of divine wrath, not so pleasant for God’s chosen people, and certainly a stinging indictment of God’s chosen people.
Now let’s analyze “Catholic” Biden. I’d give his parallel as… Ahab? Or Manasseh? Or do we give him Zedekiah, who had his eyes put out when Nebuchadnezzar slaughtered his sons before him, so that their deaths was the last thing he would see?
Why just Trump and Biden? If we hold to the belief that we get the leaders we deserve, what does that say about the last 25 years or so of increasingly inept and fractious leadership, as well as the appallingly-useless Congress we have right now? Are we being punished?
Too many voters are invincibly ignorant.
It is tempted to require that voters must pass an annual civics exam to be allowed to vote, with failure disqualifying them from voting for two years. But we cna not trust such a law to be enforced in an even-handed manner.
How about a voter’s vote is weighted in proportion to the approval level of the politicians they’ve elected?
Elect poor candidates, and your vote weakens. Elect strong performers and your vote power increases.
Objective… at least as far as a rating it would rely upon.
Are we being punished?
Absolutely, with the consequences of our own actions/inactions.
As for the past 25 years (or longer) of terrible leadership, I’d place that in the Biblical context of all the Judean kings after Solomon (and starting with Solomon’s excesses): a long, downward slide with mostly rotten leaders, interspersed with some good leaders that nevertheless never managed to do anything but slow the decline.
The things that is vitally important for all civilizations, and is heavily punctuated in the Bible, is if the faith/culture/stories/etc are not passed on to the next generation, they lose where they came from, and fall into idolatry. The United States has seen a great deal of its cultural story suborned, ignored, maligned, and distorted so that the current generations don’t really know the United States, what it stands for, what holds it together, what its very ontological imperative is. Since they don’t know, they fall into error, and everything goes down the tubes.
Are we being punished?
I’d go even farther…to Romans 1. Specifically, the section beginning at verse 18.
America is not headed toward the judgement of God. The judgement is here. It has already begun and if that passage is correct, we are in the final phase, the “insanity” phase. We can talk politics and party and potential Presidents as possible fixes, but it’s really too late for any of that.
Sad but very possibly true.
If you had to vote for either Trump or Biden in the next election, who would you vote for?
Very difficult question, Jordan. I’ll reveal that when I have an answer.
I like to think I’m open-minded enough to entertain the thought that a vote for one or the other is essential. Right now, I don’t think so. Given those two as the major party candidates, I say neither. I see them both as unfit.
My view is, suppress the vote. Let the vote total for the major party candidates be so low that neither can claim any kind of mandate, so low that even Biden or Trump could understand he is not wanted.
But, it’s more than a year until the election. In my ideal world, we’d be discussing this three months before the election, not thirteen.
Pretty much where I am at this moment, HJ.
But, I’m thinking, next November we pull the lever for one or the other and dislike ourself for doing that.
I assumed that was a caricature of Jack Smith standing next to Trump.
If you want Messianic, Jack’s your man.
I do have to wonder how many people would persevere given the slings and arrows hurled at him. I don’t think Christ is actually holding him up as he faces the unlimited power of the state to crucify him, but such a statement is little different than others claiming that Jesus helped them get through very difficult periods. I myself don’t believe even half the people who claim to have had Jesus get them through something. Maybe it is so and maybe it is not. I cannot say with 100% certainty regarding such statements.
Taking the statement alone, neither it, nor the sketch suggests that Trump is an equivalent messiah. I have seen similar images of people walking with a silhouette of Jesus walking beside the living person on sympathy cards. In this case, such imagery does not suggest that Jesus thinks he is innocent as it is no different than Jesus giving salvation to the other condemned man during his own crucifixion.
Still, it is as moronic as Mike Pence saying he would never have dinner with another female without his wife to show how pious he was.
Trump should let others do his talking he just makes things easy for his detractors to ridicule him. He is as much an enemy to himself as the press and the controlling interests within the Federal government.
Just now observing that the direction of Trump’s gaze and shorter height compared to the presumed Jesus being taller and obviously fixedly staring at the judge trolls his opposition with an assertion of supreme humility that only a true servant could endure.