"We have God on our side."
Donald Trump, in Miami's King Jesus International Ministry
Equality isn't neutral.
It is displacement and a demotion from the place of honor and centrality.
Jesus was King.
Donald Trump spoke in Miami to 7000 evangelical worshipers, assuring them there were "sides" in a worldly battle for the role of Christian religion in American life. Eight out of ten white evangelicals tell pollsters they support Trump. Most white evangelicals have worked out Trump's role; he does not represent their faith; he represents a leader fighting the battles of their faith and for their faith.
White, Christian, native-born males are being displaced from king of the mountain role they played in the 1950s. Public institutions used to be theirs by presumption and default. In 1962 and 1963 the courts said it was a diverse country, a reality that public institutions needed to honor.
Later in the 1960s, in response to court decisions mandating racial integration of public schools, white southerners established religious academies and pulled white children from the public schools. Courts disallowed public funding for those academies. Then, in 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision made first and second trimester abortions legal and widely accessible. Amid all this, women's liberation, Ms. Magazine, Title IX, and decisions that required women to be equal.
And then homosexual equality and decisions forcing Trump to respect certain rights of immigrants. The courts--plus the media and the general tide of progress--were re-setting the rules on the perennial issue facing American politics: the identity and nature of the real American.
The deluge.
Later in the 1960s, in response to court decisions mandating racial integration of public schools, white southerners established religious academies and pulled white children from the public schools. Courts disallowed public funding for those academies. Then, in 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision made first and second trimester abortions legal and widely accessible. Amid all this, women's liberation, Ms. Magazine, Title IX, and decisions that required women to be equal.
And then homosexual equality and decisions forcing Trump to respect certain rights of immigrants. The courts--plus the media and the general tide of progress--were re-setting the rules on the perennial issue facing American politics: the identity and nature of the real American.
The deluge.
 |
| Trump, in Miami |
Sharing power does not allow a king of the mountain. Sharing is displacement.
Trump understood the resentment this caused. The two Bush presidents, then Jeb!, underestimated it. George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 called Islam a religion of peace. It was the "right" thing to say, but it wasn't what a lot of peole felt. Trump got the resentment right. He said Mexico wasn't sending its best, that it was sending criminals, drug dealers, and rapists--and moreover, that Obama was a Kenyan Muslim interloper. That is what motivated the crowds.
The wrong people were claiming American identity.
I saw how a New Hampshire crowd reacted when a man shouted out a question to Trump about Obama being a Muslim. It didn't react. The question sounded OK to them. Obama might be president but he wasn't a real American.
Trump also understood better than did Hillary the sense of displacement involving job and economic issues for the non-college traditionally Democratic voters, nationwide, and crucially in the formerly "blue wall" states of the Upper Midwest. (George Wallace also did very well in Michigan, both in 1968 and 1972.) Whether displaced from centrality by the courts, by newcomers with darker skin and strange surnames, or by automation, it feels like an insult and demotion. It makes people want to take sides.
Trump isn't Christian. But he is on the side of Christians, the side of people who are being pushed out of the middle, people becoming one of many, and not really middle class.
Trump isn't Christian. But he is on the side of Christians, the side of people who are being pushed out of the middle, people becoming one of many, and not really middle class.
They want their country back, back to when they were king of the mountain.
2 comments:
The evangelical movement is the modern equivalent to the revival tents of the 19th century, with television giving the hucksters a boost in credibility.
"Anywhere from 6 percent to 35 percent of the population is evangelical, depending on definition. The Pew Research Center 2014 survey in the United States identified the evangelical percentage of the population at 25.4 percent while Roman Catholics are 20.8 percent and mainline Protestants make up 14.7 percent." (Wikipedia)
Secularists can be spiritual, but once one crosses the line into fanaticism I have found that the intellectual doubt that thoughtful consideration of religion fosters vanishes, replaced with mythology and delusion. Perfect fodder for the unscrupulous. If you want an exercise in frustration try to shake the convictions of such a person, but if you pander to them they will open their hearts, and wallets, in a hallelujah heartbeat.
Like any cult, the cult of Jesus (or Allah or Donald or Adolph) provides members with a simple explanation of a complex world that relieves them from the burden of responsibility for critical thought, including personal responsibility for their circumstances, but more dangerously sets them against those not in the cult.
It's hard for me to imagine Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil. Rights Act while thinking it meant that white Christian Americans would be pushed out of the middle class. Martin Luther King's dream was that black Americans would be pulled UP into equal rights, equal opportunities, equal governmental treatment, and equal status to white Americans.
Today's social justice warrior rhetoric is all about stripping white Americans of their privilege, pulling white Americans down to the level of black and brown Americans. It sometimes can sound like they want us all to be treated equally badly, like black sharecroppers in the 1920's South. Of course the oligarchs needs overseers, which is fine just as long as they are ethnically diverse.
That's why Bernie's message is so revolutionary. He wants us to transcend the tired culture war arguments of who should be pushed down, and wants us ALL to work together to pull everyone UP. Because ordinary Americans need to be pulled up, to get a bigger share of the pie from the oligarchs, and he's gonna fight for it.
Post a Comment