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| Trump's photo op |
It was blasphemy? So what?
It was outrageous? All the better.
Trump is taunting politically correct liberals. Trump is king of the mountain, and he's not afraid of a fight.
Hold up a Bible? Hell, yeah. Take that, you snowflake weenies!
Trump is doing body language.
This blog post will assert an unintuitive idea and I expect disagreement. This image of Trump helps him politically. I think the fact that most readers smirk at the image, or are offended by it, or think it laughable, or obscene, or deeply offensive, is evidence not that I am wrong, but that I am right. It is in-your-face politics. You are supposed to be offended and then write your op-eds.
All the predictable people criticized Trump, and it is continuing today. The "good government" types complained that he sprayed tear gas to disperse totally lawful, peaceful protesters to do a photo op, an offense to his claim to support lawful peaceable assembly. The mainstream media commentariat complains that it is hypocritical for Trump--of all people-- to stride to a church to hold up a Bible to use as a political weapon. A large segment of clergy, including the Bishop for the church Trump visited, noted publicly that this was sacrilege, waving a Bible in a political stunt. Young people with time on their hands and photo editing on their laptops mocked the image by inserting different books onto the image.
No question about it, a lot of people thought the photo op offensive. It is so tacky. It is such an over the top a show-off act, brazenly using religion for political purpose, showing off the Bible like a war trophy.
Trump's base got the message. He is the leader planting a marker. The war is on-going, but in an early counterattack, Trump re-took ground, Lafayette Park, pushing others aside to stand where he chose. He doesn't need permission. He doesn't need to say, "excuse me" or defer to others who are there lawfully, or ask a minister where he should stand.
Of course it disturbs the other team. He is demonstrating power, not piety or religious practice. He is demonstrating whose side is is on: regular Americans and especially Christians, who feel picked on.
Trump is changing and re-defining what this moment is about. It isn't about police brutality and most certainly not an opportunity for reflection on persistent racism. Heck with that. We are not going to waste time worrying about endemic anything, most certainly not racism or white guilt. Trump doesn't feel one bit guilty for anything, and he shows it. Guilt is for liberals snowflakes. His team feels just fine and doesn't like being shamed for feeling fine. They love that Trump feels guiltless, too.
Trump is demonstrating this this moment is about the two tribes, between the people who have traditionally had the power--"normal Americans," vs. the people who feel aggrieved and and their allies of troublemakers and criminals and liberals and guilt-mongers. And in that war, we are winning. We have the power of law, police, and military, and we are using it--like we just did, see?-- so we can keep that power.
Trump's team doesn't want to feel guilty for being white. They want to feel powerful for being white.
Trump's team doesn't want to feel guilty for being white. They want to feel powerful for being white.
Evangelical Christians have no illusion that Trump is one of them, but theologically, there is a workaround to make Trump part of their tribe. Sometimes God uses un-Godly men for His purposes. That would be Trump, God's hired gun. Trump is showing that even if he wears the school colors incorrectly, waves a Bible when the religious nitpickers say he should have said a prayer or something instead, by gosh he is going to wear those colors.
Criticism has huge value to a politician. It proves ones bone fides. We believe in a person's sincerity and authenticity when they pay a price.
The enemies of Jesus mocked and humiliated him. He was the real thing. Now his enemies mock Trump, so he must be real, too.
4 comments:
Again Trump changed the optics and focus back onto him. We’re no longer talking about the issues raised by Black Lives Matter (which made us uncomfortable) but rather whether Trump exceed his authority. The image is clear - Law, Order, Faith. Mission Acomplished!
You import that the stunt was offensive. You're right, I disagree.
Defensive. Does it matter?
This administration has been on the defensive from the start and they have not been able to change that.
One of the goals of protesting; marches, signs, and chants, is to put those in power on notice that their power is not absolute. It's working. Will they be regime changing? No. We won't be entertained by a Nixon-style helicopter departure. The protests will ebb, but the balance will have moved a bit further. A few more minds will have been opened.
What's more notable about the current situation is the Republican response. Silence.
Pathetic answers to questions ("I don't judge other's actions" - Mitch McConnell). I have perhaps naively clung to the notion that at some point Republicans would start the inevitable distancing as public opinion and their own re-election prospects dim.
I continue to wonder what, if anything, it would take for Republicans to abandon this path, which only leads off a cliff. Now it's clear that it will take more than the televised murder of an innocent man and the subsequent abuse of those who are peacefully protesting it.
Who are these people?
I see a lot of white unprivilege in Jackson County. I also went sideways nine ways to Sunday over the police murder a year and a half ago of an unarmed man in a Burger King bathroom in Eagle Point. Everyone remember his name? Where were the thousand people a night or two ago in library park then?
Perhaps like many who know Washington as a lovely city, it was tragic to hear the church had been burned; fortunately, not badly damaged at all.
That said, Trump was obviously crafting about as clumsy a branding message as possible, wanting to show that he was not bunkered down in the White House basement; and that HE knew how to "dominate the streets" to reclaim them in the name of law and order; and that these soulless demonstrators who would burn down a church would not conquer our powerful Christian leader, wielding his hefty Bible with which to smote them down.
The entire display was too comic to have any branding effect but to shame this pathetic little man who is now utterly overwhelmed by a storm that he has wrought.
It is true that Nixon won 1968 by presenting himself as the "law and order" candidate, but don't forget Nixon was the challenger and Humphrey the poor schmuck tarred with the shame of the wartime presidency that had lost control of the war and the streets. This is Trump's administration that has lost all control, including control of the narrative.
Also amazing? Trump had nothing to say in front of the church but to mumble "our country will be great again." That is, he had nothing to say....
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