The Donald Trump Effect, voters running from candidates endorsed by the deranged octogenarian whose administration is protecting the rapist of teenagers, starting wars, and causing rising inflation, is having a noticeable nationwide, and even international, effect. Voters in special elections all over the US are dumping MAGA candidates and electing Democrats. It's an absolute certainty at this point that, unless something dramatic happens, that the Republicans are going to lose badly at the midterms and retake the House. And now it appears they're likely to take the Senate. The Cook Political Report shifted four Senate races this past week to favor Democratic and pundits are now openly saying the Democrats will take the upper house.
Of course, Democrats have a way of shooting themselves in the foot. Nonetheless the momentum is clear. Trump has lost independents, who he needs in most places for the GOP to remain in office, and he's lost Hispanics. This past week his actions were such that if he has not lost non Hispanic Catholics, its only because those voters value Trump more than the Faith or are engaging in some really self delusional thinking, keeping in mind that you never actually have to vote Democratic and that in the primaries there is usually a Republican willing to run who isn't a slave to Trump.
California Republicans refused to endorse a Governor's candidate in a convention that was just held and snubbed Trump's endorsement of one. They see the handwriting on the wall.
But still you have this.
An entire group of Wyoming candidates acts like this adoring girl. Shoot, they'd like to be squeezed by Trump too.
If Wyomingites are going to wake up, and that's unlikely, there's be a point, if we are not already at it, where voting for the GOP candidates who associate with themselves with Trump would be a no go. And some of those candidates would already be no gos.
Chuck Gray, who barely won the Secretary of State's office and only did so by lies and screeds about an imaginary pack of left wingers always oppressing him is running on being perpetually pissed off at at the left and being in deep love with Donald Trump. Reid Rasner promises to be Trump's number one fan. Megan Degenfelder has "Endorsed by Donald Trump" on her campaign signs.
All three are Catholic. If they can still stomach Trump at this point, there's literally no value they hold that they actually hold. No Democrat is going to win, so lashing themselves to Trump is either cynical or self delusional. It's inexcusable.
Degenfelder's signs out to read "Endorsed by Blasphemer Donald Trump". Gray and Rasner, who are both young enough, ought to joint the Marines and put their bodies where their mouths are.
Another far right Catholic figure in Wyoming is Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who is now running for Secretary of State as Rachel Williams. She's never said anything about Trump of which I'm aware, but as a Freedom Caucuser she ought to fell uncomfortable with the company she's been keeping.
It'll also be interesting to see how columnists like Jonathan Lange, a Lutheran minister, approaches what is now too obvious to ignore. . . Trump doesn't care about religion at all and feels free to outright mock it. Granted, he's not Catholic, but for sincere Christians what was depicted is blasphemous irrespective of which branch of Christianity a person might be in.
And then we have this:
There's no excuse for what Gray did.
Even some Republican states are opposing giving voter data to the Federal Government, but Chuck was the first to comply.
We'll see how this plays out, but if he loses, given his position, he ought to get the maximum penalty.
Anyhow, we're in the thick of the election now, but every day, Donald Trump gets weirder and weirder. He's insane. Standing by the insanity is not excusable.
This may be showing that the bloom is actually off the Trump rose. Generally, Wyoming Republicans have been complete Trump toady's.
The five are Kevin Christensen, who called the post blasphemous, Matt McGinnis, and John Romero-Martinez. Romero-Martinez, who is a devout Catholic, added that it was not only blasphemous, but sacrilegious.
Kinney the Democratic candidate and Johnson the Libertarian also criticized the act, but less forcefully.
Johnson made the excellent point that this is one of a string of outrages.
Both Rasner and Gray are Catholic and if that's all they could muster up people who sit next to them at Mass on Sunday ought to ask them what's the matter with them.
Elsewhere this was an act that finally had a reaction. Like Johnson noted, you have to wonder where these people were all along. Trump fan Riley Gaines noted:
Seriously I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?
Gaines must have been asleep for the past decade to actually post a query on Trump's character. He's self centered and narcissistic, and she seems surprised.
This trend locally and nationally shows that the wheels are really coming off of MAGA. A Turning Point USA convention that was just held was grossly under attended. Locally Republicans for the first time feel able to criticize Trump. There's a significant movement in the state to boot out the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. A bipartisan movement in the House caused the removal of a Democratic and a Republican sex abuser, bypassing the pathetic Mike Johnson. It appears the Democrats are going to take the Senate and the House.
For the Republicans, the good thing is that they are finally out of the cave to a degree. The GOP has been wrecked by Donald Trump, but this may actually give them a chance to start to rebuild it, whereas waiting until after the November election will be utterly too late.
cont:
I recognize that a lot of young voters don't love the policy we have in the Middle East. Okay. I understand that. Don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved. That's how we ultimately take the country back.
J. D. Vance.
WTF?
Vance did oppose the war. We know that as he leaked like crazy. But getting involved would mean booting the GOP into the dustbin, maybe forever.
Vance has remade himself repeatedly. A person now stating that this is how "we take the country back" is raising interesting questions about where he himself is headed. He's including himself in the "we" who are young and who oppose the policy in the Middle East.
Is Vance having a Humber Humphrey moment?
It'll be interesting to see if this is Vance's first cautious step into independence. He's not dumb, and he obviously sees and even acknowledges that the GOP is going into the dumpster. That statement would seem to be a declaration of independence from Trump.
April 17, 2026
Governor Gordon confirmed that he is not running for a third term.
While we're unlikely to mention this race again, Sheriff Harlan is running for reelection in Natrona County, Wyoming.
Rep. Harshman of Natrona County is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. He'd make a very good choice for this position, but it puts his house district in play. A far right wing candidate was challenging Harshman as well as a Democrat.
Albert Sommers is running for the seat he lost in the last election, House District 20. It fell to a WFC member.
April 19, 2026
Yesterday was the day of dueling mail flyers for the U.S. House race. Identically sized campaign flyers for Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner arrived in the mailboxes of Natrona County residents. Apparently the Gray ones went statewide.
They were really laughable. Gray's depicts the diminutive Californian standing next to Donald Trump, looking slightly above him. Trump is something like 6'2" tall where as Gray is absolutely tiny. I'm not a very large person, 5'6", and I look down on Gray, which says something. Gray has also taken up wearing western wool shirts in an effort to make him look like a Wyomingite, but which really point out that he isn't. His campaign is based on far right MAGA platforms and sticking next to, and apparently slightly above, the demented belle of the far right ball, Trump.
Rasner, who has no chance, attacked Gray in his, and frankly some of his attacks are landing. He may carve votes away from Gray.
Locally, small business owner Neil Jeske announced he was running to take on J. R. Riggins in House District 59, which includes part of Casper and all of Mills.
Riggins is probably in trouble as he only won in that race in the first place as he was the only one running. He missed the first legislature he was supposed to serve in entirely due to heart problems. I saw him at a political event before the last legislative session and he really appeared to be out to sea.
Unfortunately, Jeske is the candidate that Natrona County doesn't need. He already is on the reduce spending and reduce regulation platform. Wyoming already has so little regulation that the state government would have to go out and regulate something in order for their to be regulation to cut, and the legislature is so cheap that Wyoming has very large financial reserves that just sit there as the state won't distribute funds to local governments, their only real way of getting them. We probably need more regulation and less financial restraint.
Jeske is apparently a truck driver. I don't know what Riggins is. At any rate, truck driving in 2026 is sort of like being a teamster in 1916. It's a real job. . . and one that's about to disappear. Hopefully somebody else will step up and run.
April 21, 2026
Based upon his campaign propaganda, Jeske, mentioned above, is a worst pick than Riggins. He's another out of state implant and of far right wing views. He's going on the don't vote for list.
Riggins, on the other hand, based on his public lands voting, appears to have risen to his position.
April 22, 2026
In the move The Hunt For Red October the pursuing Soviet submarine commander orders the safeties taken off of his torpedoes so he can hit the Red October from close range. The U.S. submarine USS Dallas deflects the aim of the fired torpedo which circles back and hits the Soviet sub. As it happens, a Soviet submariner tells his captain, "You arrogant ass, you killed us".
That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing to the GOP.
More particularly, that's what he did by demanding that Texas redistrict out of cycle.
Worried that thing were turning against him, Trump demanded that compliant Texas Governor Abbot cause the GOP controlled Texas legislature to convene and specially redistrict. Abbot, to his everlasting shame, complied.
Trump is apparently so dim that he didn't realize the same strategy could be used against him. First California did it, and now Virginia did.
Even accepting the conventional math, there are now more Democratic districts that added to the map for the fall than there are Republican ones, although only barely so. Still, the results are remarkable. In Virginia, where it was done by the voters, it will mean that Virginia returns to being an overwhelmingly Democratic state in terms of is House or Representatives delegates. Trump actually completely flipped an entire state from Republican to Democrat prior to the election itself.
The GOP, in order to keep this game up, must now have Florida do the same thing. It's not assured, however, as Florida is starting to go to the Democratic Party a bit all on its own. Redistricting may simply assure that occurs.
And ironically, the Texas result may have added Democratic seats in Texas. Texas actually has more Democratic voters than Republicans. In recent years its only been a Republican state for the same reason the rest of the South is. But Texas also has heavily Hispanic districts. Trump took them in 2024, but now that's changing.
And this from a guy who claimed to master "the art of the deal".
A note here about one state that tried to redistrict and couldn't, that being Utah.
Most Western states have a much better system than the rest of the country and require fair and balanced redistricting. Much of the rest of the country which had Democratic administrations was moving that way. Republicans, who were rapidly becoming a minority party in the 1990s, resisted it. That's why in Californian and Virginia, redistricting is being democratically. It's also the reason why in one Midwestern state that's currently done this way the legislature refused to consider redistricting even though its Republican controlled. They knew the voters, in that instance, would take it out on them.
In Utah, a court turned the effort around. It was only one seat, but that shows something interesting. Utah has a Democratic Congressional seat. Utah's the same state that sent Mike Lee to Congress for some reason, but not every district fits that mold.
And in a state like Wyoming, which of course only has one Congressional seat, this couldn't happen as it would be against the state constitution.
cont:
Wyoming Public Radio reports that for the House race, Reid Rasner, who will go down in August like a kerosene doused biplane flying through a blast furnace, has raised $1.2 M in this campaign, the majority of which is a loan from himself. Chuck Gray has done the same and nearly approached $1M.
Committing that amount of money to a job that pays a fraction of that per year should flat out be illegal. We need to address that in our "don't vote for" list, which has been switched over to being a page on the website, rather than a thread.
The number of Catholics in the world: Over 1,422,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Catholics in the United States: Between 50,000,000 and 70,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Orthodox in the world 260,000,000
The number of Orthodox Christians in the United States: 2,600,000.
The number of Protestants in the world: 600,000,000 to 1,000,000,000.
The number of Protestants in the United States 140,000,000 to 150,000,000, of which 10 to 15% are mainline protestants, and of which the largest denomination is the American Baptist Conference, which includes 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 members.
The Catholic Church, all rites (the Roman Rite is the largest by far) is the largest single church in the world and the largest single church in the United States, in spite of the United States being a protestant nation.
The second largest church in the world are the Orthodox, meaning that the Apostolic Churches, those which go all the way back to the Apostles, far exceed the number of Protestants.
While all churches have their problems, the Catholic church is growing everywhere. Protestant churches are dying.
And then we get this:
Trump posted those back to back yesterday. There's been all sorts of rumors circulating that the administration has been upset with the Church.
No doubt it isn't a fan of the Church. The Church has God as its King. Maga has Donald as its.
Throughout Trump's presidency, the first legitimate one and the illegitimate second one, I've warned that support of Trump would likely kill off far right Evangelism in the US. I've also warned that those far right Evangelicals who support Trumpwould turn on Catholicism, which they don't understand and often don't even think to be a Christian religion, when in fact it's the original Christian religion. And I've failed to grasp how any thinking Catholic could really support Trump with any depth.
But some have. I know plenty.
Some are just shallow political thinkers, others not, and all are conservative. I'm conservative, but I've never supported Trump.
These people are opposed to abortion (so am I), and were horrified by transgenderism (so am I). That frankly is just about it. Some buy in to the other hardcore aspects of the far right as well, being opposed to immigration, for instance, which actually requires a more nuanced thought process than they are giving it. And the Democrats made it impossible for Catholics to really support them, becoming the party of death and weirdness.
None of which meant that anyone had to support a dim, narcissistic, serial polygamist.
For those of you who supported Trump on social issues, there were and are other parties. And how much do we know about Trump and any of the positions he supposedly supports. He own track record on moral issues is poor at least in so far as his treatment of women is concerned. And we're talking about adult women. This administration outright opposition to releasing the Epstein files certainly raises questions about it being willing to support child rapists, and there's enough smoke around Trump to at least raise questions about how far in the shallow end of the pool he may have been willing to go, although nothing's been proven. His family's financial dealings this term certainly raise questions of a moral nature. His launching of an illegal war and threatening mass civilian deaths is criminal.
We could go on. He's a horrible, demented, man. Christians who are supporting him need to rethink it immediately.
Catholics supporting him have helped bring us to this.
From here on out there's no excuse for a free pass by members of the Apostolic Faiths. None. And that includes the two members in the administration, Marco Rubio and J. D. Vance. Supporting Trump is supporting this mockery of the Faith and of all Christianity.
But for the voters too. In the midterms there are already candidates who note they are "endorsed by Donald Trump". One Catholic candidate here in the state hardcore embraces Trump and another runs, on all of her signs, "Endorsed by Donald Trump".
That needs to end right now.
The 25th Amendment needs to be applied, now. Catholics cozying up to Trump need to stop, now.
Cont:
Q: Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus?
Trump: I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor. And had to do with red cross as a red cross worker
Donald Trump.
If that's what he's thought, it's because he's demented.
That being what he thought is rather difficult to believe. What's more believable is that he's worried American Catholics are now waking up, if they were not already awake, to what a terrible person he is.
April 16, 2026
We'll probably close this one out and start a new one, but this story is still playing out.
Something that should be really obvious, but MAGA just won't accept, is that Donald Trump is insane. Of course, accepting that a leader who they loved is nuts would mean that some of what they're supporting is nuts. Nobody wants to acknowledge that, but it needs to occur now.
That's from The New Republic, which those with the real Trump Derangement Syndrome, the one that keeps a supporter from acknowledging that he's gone insane no matter what he does, will disregard. But these warnings aren't in isolation by any means.
For the reporter to call for the 25th Amendment to be invoked is pretty extraordinary, but again those with the real TDS will just say, well, that's because he insulted the Pope. Indeed, American Catholics in the political far right are already busy dissing Pope Leo XIV as some sort of flaming left winger, which is patently absurd.
Well, here's one from Jewish bonafide somewhat left winger Robert Reich:
The man is going insane. We're in some sort of a race now to see if his cabinet can screw up its courage or finally do something so patently nuts that it can't be denied. What that is, at this point, is almost too horrific to imagine.
What seems clear, for those who bother to observe, is that the U.S. is going to invade Cuba, unless the military puts a stop to it. Nobody in the Administration seems ready to stop it. We're basically starving the country to death, for no reason, right now, other than its a vengeful project supported by Cuban Americans. The chances that we revive Trump's lust for Greenland at some point, and committing forces to satiate it aren't beyond possibility. Maybe one of those two acts causes somebody to say "no".
Or maybe it'll be the war against Iran. We seem to have wondered into a war that has no way out and the stress it's causing Trump is rapidly wiping out what mental faculties he had left. The thought that Iran may win, and it may, is terrifying for him. It's also destroying the political chances of J. D. Vance, which Vance likely knows, and which gives Vance, who opposed the war, the chance to be Brutus to Trump's Caesar. Still, Trump launching an act of absolute barbarity to try to force Iran to surrender, which would fail, isn't beyond possibility either.
Or maybe it'll be something benign. He says something he can't retract about something abhorrent, or walks out in the paved rose garden sans clothes, or forgets who the first lady is.
Or maybe we wake up one day having deployed nuclear weapons with MAGA wondering, for the most part, how we got there, and with some supporting it as they must or must wakeup.
We're in dangerous territory.
I'd predicted when we started this series that Trump's second term would last 18 months, from January 2025 to June 2026. We're rolling right up on that. What is clear at this point is that in November the Democratic Party is going to resume control of the House and the Senate. At that point Trump's ability to reign like a dictator will end. Knowing that, if he is still in office, he'll do everything possible to disrupt the 2026 election and steal it.. People like Chuck Gray will help him in that attempt, and are already helping him. It probably won't work. If he goes too far, it'll result in mass violence.
The fact that he'll try it, and that it will become increasingly obvious that he's doing to try it as we move towards November, will mean that there will be a fair chance that if Trump is still in office after November, he'll face impeachment and be removed in 2027. Because of that, there's also an increased chance that if my original timeline was off, the 25th Amendment will be invoked then. An impeachment of Trump, at this point might very well be followed by an impeachment of Vance, who will not want to face that.
Hitler didn't resign rather than take Germany into defeat. Comparing Trump to Hitler is something even his opponents hate to have done, but he has a very similar mindset in certain ways. Hitler was democratically elected and co opted the state as well, and believed manically in himself. Trump is like that. Stress and drugs eroded Hitler's mind, as well as the burden of evil. Trump came into office in his first time an obviously mentally unstable person and it's grown worse. He's never been a person who is personally admirable.
The longer this goes on, the worse it will become.
The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified. There are other ways to resolve conflict between peoples. I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem, and his first words were ‘Peace be with you.’ As the Holy Father, in his Urbi et Orbi message on Easter reflected, the peace that ‘Jesus gives us is not a peace that merely silences the weapons, but one that touches and transforms the heart of each of us! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts!’
Pope Leo has invited everyone to join him in a prayer vigil for peace on Saturday, April 11. I make a special plea to my brother bishops, the priests, the laity, and all people yearning for true peace to join the Holy Father’s Vigil for Peace, whether virtually, or in parishes, chapels, or before the Lord present in the quiet of their hearts to join with our Holy Father as we pray for peace in our world.
Let us entrust to the Lord ‘all hearts that suffer and await the true peace that only he can give. Let us entrust ourselves to him and open our hearts to him! He is the only one who makes all things new (cf. Rev 21:5).
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
I saw a comment from a blog I've sort of followed where the poster fairly frequently remarks that he's a fallen away Catholic, although at the same time his world outlook is obviously Catholic. Today he chose to explain why he fell away.
What's struck me over the years is that an awful lot of people who take that path fall away as they're self centered. The post made that really clear. Supposedly he couldn't reconcile the message of the Church and the direction of society. That's not a reason to fall away, that's the very reason we need to be saved. Without Christ, we're just a bunch of self centered whiners out to destroy ourselves.
Religion is not magic, which some people seem to think it is. Christians discuss the problem of evil, but part of the reason that evil is in the world as we have free will and we like it. I saw a comment from a Monk once reflecting, and he meant it, that he asked the question "God, why do you law injustice in the world?" and actually got a reply, that being "Why do you?"
We know what's wrong and right and frequently just choose what's wrong. The big Mega Churches will be packed today with "Christians" who are on multiple divorces and remarriages, or just living in sin, even though we all know that's wrong. For that matter, Catholic churches will be packed today with those who only make it to Mass twice a year.
That's not to be lamented. It's a sign of hope. We know what's wrong. We're often just to lazy and accommodating to do what's right.
Today is a good day to start doing what's right, including comporting our actual conduct to God and the the nature God created.
Straying from this a bit, I'd note how overarching this really is. While I can't get into details very much, recently I've been dealing with a massive inter personal fight between two people I've known for a long time. Both are flat out wrong.
One of them is now upset with somebody that he once deeply loved as that person harshly criticized him. Frankly, the nature of the criticism was brutal. I've been criticized by the same person brutally myself, but I haven't lived a particularly sheltered life so I learned to just disregard it and the person eventually wondered on. This person, however, hero worshipped the person who turned on him.
Additionally, there's an element of financial stress going on in there somewhere and while the person in question regards themselves as a very devout Christian, it's really clear that their concept of Christianity involves a deep love of the Church and its sacraments, but not so much some of its lessons, including the one that holds love of money is the root of all sin.
It's a classic failing.
The other person is an archetypical Baby Boomer. For some reason a lot of Boomers just can't let go. Handed everything early on, they really became the "Me" generation of the 70s. This person really only has their work left, as his marriage fell apart and for the classic reasons, and, well, I won't go into it. At some point if you were the center of all of your major life choices, however, all you have left, is you, and that isn't much.
Our current President, and indeed our last, both epitomized that Boomer view in some ways. Trump has lived the Playboy lifestyle and his soul is imperiled. He's also endangering us all, and all because to him, it's all about him.
Christ came to save humanity, but we're supposed to participate in that. The road is fairly clear. We're to try to take the narrow one. Americans seemingly think that doesn't apply to them, and wonder why they're miserable.
As Jesus walks the Way of the Cross, we place ourselves behind him, following in his footsteps. As we walk with him, we contemplate his passion for the sake of humanity, his broken heart, and his life as a gift of love.
We turn our gaze to Jesus, who reveals himself as King of Peace, even as war looms around him. He remains steadfast in meekness, while others are stirring up violence. He offers himself to embrace humanity, even as others raise swords and clubs. He is the light of the world, though darkness is about to engulf the earth. He came to bring life, even as plans unfold to condemn him to death.
King of Peace. Jesus’ desire is to bring the world into the Father’s arms, tearing down every barrier that separates us from God and from our neighbor, for “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14).
King of Peace. Jesus enters into Jerusalem not upon a horse, but upon a donkey, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that calls for rejoicing at the arrival of the Messiah: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9–10).
King of Peace. When one of his disciples drew his sword to defend him and struck the high priest’s servant, Jesus immediately stopped him, saying: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).
King of Peace. While he was burdened with our sufferings and pierced for our sins, Jesus “did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (Is 53:7). He did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.
Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15).
our gaze upon him who was crucified for us, we can see a crucified humanity. In his wounds, we see the hurts of so many women and men today. In his last cry to the Father, we hear the weeping of those who are crushed, who have no hope, who are sick and who are alone. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war.
Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!
In the words of the Servant of God, Bishop Tonino Bello, I would like to entrust this cry to Mary Most Holy, who stands beneath the cross of her Son and weeps also at the feet of those who are crucified today:
“Holy Mary, woman of the third day, grant us the certainty that, in spite of all, death will no longer hold sway over us; that the injustices of peoples are numbered; that the flashes of war are fading into the twilight; that the sufferings of the poor are breathing their last. And grant, finally, that the tears of all the victims of violence and pain will soon be dried up like frost beneath the spring sun” (Maria, donna dei nostri giorni).
Pope Leo XIV, Palm Sunday homily.
Christians need to hear this. More than that, those who claim to be Christian, like Pete Hegseth, but belong to some diluted form of Christianity, need to hear it. Hegseth has tattooed himself with the symbols of a Faith that would have found him to be abhorrent at the time of their origin, which which recoil from them now.
Wars change everything.
Maybe one thing it will change in the human heart in people who listen to the likes of Franklin Graham and Paula White, when they should be listening to the full deposit of the Faith
A man who has conquered others, should conquer himself
Pope Leo the Great to Atilla the Hun. He never did. He died following drinking too much on his wedding night.
Some evangelical Christians excuse Trump's lack of Christian adherence by casting him as Cyrus the Vance, the Persian Emperor who was not Jewish, but who regarded himself as appointed by God and whom advanced the cause of the the Jews. In their minds, the non believer Trump is advancing the cause of (Protestant) Christianity.
More of his Christian loyalists, however, come from a certain Christian worldview that's very strong in the US, but only in the US, the comforting, but completely false, "once saved, always saved" view of Christianity.
It's expressed here in the misunderstood posting of one Franklin Graham.
Graham is the son of the late Billy Graham, the famous Evangelical pastor beloved by many American Protestants. I never grasped his popularity, and perhaps things like this are why. What Graham posts here, and what has been widely misunderstood by those shocked by the comments, is in fact absurd. Graham espouses the minority Protestant view that you can never lose your salvation. Believe in Christ as your savior once, and you are good to go thereafter no matter what.
This sort of view explains why so many people who attend mega churches live in such flagrant disregard for the basic tenants of Christianity, particularly the sexual tenants. And the belief, taken from and misinterpreted from one single line in the New Testament, is completely condemned by the whole of the Gospel. St. Paul, who specifically spoke of people losing their salvation after their conversions, would be appalled.
But for somebody as lazy intellectually as Trump, it's no doubt comforting, assuming he worried about the afterlife at all. He's lived a life of moral dissipation but, hey, he's okay.
The belief on Trump's part is no doubt not only comforting to him, but it probably emboldens him as well. Compared to Cyrus, backed up by the intellectually think "once saved" theology and pastors who repeatedly assure him he's on a Devine mission, and with people like Pete Hegseth in his cabinet, what could go wrong?
Well, everything, in fact. And indeed, everything is going wrong.
And therefore, we might legitimately raise this question. What if Trump's place in Salvation History is not that of Cyrus the Great, but rather Atilla the Hun?
It sounds absurd, but frankly its not less absurd that he being a Cyrus the Great, and certainly no less absurd than the claims he's a "Godly man" that some of his supporters make.
Attila the Hung, during his lifetime, was called the Flagellum Dei, the Scourge of God. The thought was that Rome having became so sinful was being served by being whipped by Atilla by license of God.
The modern US is certainly no less sinful that Rome was from 434 to 453, the reign of Atilla. The country still practices infanticide, something that only became legal anywhere in the US in 1970 (Hawaii). The country has the reputation of being deeply religious but the Playboy Culture that came in starting in 1953 has lead to rampant sexual immorality and indeed sexual confusion. The materialistic culture that started to come in during the 1950s has converted a class dominated culturally and economically by the middle class to one controlled by and for the extremely rich elite, the pinnacle of which was on display on Epstein Island. Closeted homosexuals in office pretend they hold family virtues. Office holders who maintain their deep love of family espouse divorce and contracept to avoid having one. Money is everything. We are willing to fight and die for oil rather than address the damage that it causes. We go so far as to excuse our lifestyles and occupations, no matter what they are, surely endorsed by God, effectively mocking him.
All along, we pretend we are a devout people.
Vice President Vance, who is a National Conservative, lectures the Europeans about their losing their culture while the American Civil Religion is such a washed out version of Christianity that it must shock the listeners. He has a point, to be sure, the West in general had engaged in massive moral decline with a life made easy after the recovery from World War Two. But it's hard the case that the United States can look ti itself as a champion of Western values.
Which leads back to this.
The Protestant Reformation brought in the modern world. It's dying before our eyes. The United States is a Protestant country, and the United States as a great power is over. It started to take blows when fallen away Methodist Hugh Hefner started to prostitute the image of young women in a particularly harmful way. As the culture became steeped in immorality, the mainline Protestant churches adopted it rather than offend. And off in the corners some Evangelical Churches took a more radical view, with those views now expressed in the MAGA movement.
Closely related, although not appreciated to be, a culture that fell into lust naturally fell into greed. No decent society, let alone a Christian one, would allow the wealthy the leeway they have in our society, nor would it seek to allow their unabated accumulation of wealth. Greed and lust are, in fact, the two primary attributes of American culture. The fact that we don't seem to realize that is because a third deadly sin has become manifestly American as well,. pride. To state that Trump is a prideful man, and that MAGA is prideful movement, is to state the blatantly obvious.
And while we are at it, we might note that envy has now uniquely entered the picture We evny what Denmark has in Greenland, and what Venezuela has it itself.
And look at Trump, and consider sloth. , ,
And finally, listen to Trump, on anything, and consider wrath.
These would be bad enough in one man, but when that man is elevated to the leader of a nation, that nation has endorsed it. We, as a nation, have adopted all seven of the deadly sins as our primary national virtues.
So why wouldn't we invite a scourging, if only by our own conduct.
Nobody knows whether Donald Trump is going to Hell after his death. That is not for us to know. Franklin Graham doesn't know. What we do know is that the Presbyterian raised Trump has lead a strongly immoral life in multiple ways even without examining the worst accusations against him, which in fact now deserve to be examined. But the same is true of many supposedly "devout" Christians. Indeed, the number of Christians attempting to be Christian, of all branches of the faith, is likely a tiny percentage of Christians in the U.S. overall.
What Trump is serving to do is to bring forward the hypocrisy of the American civil religion, the easy Christianity where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.
Sincere devout Protestant Christians have been deeply distressed by Trump. They should be. But there's another emotion in some quarters as well, a sort of principled schadenfreude. I.e., knowing that everything is collapsing and taking a sort of delight in it.
That may sound deeply odd, but perhaps it isn't as much as it might seem. The moral draft that's been going on has been going on for decades, and its been an obvious problem. The sort of worship of money that divests the middle class and which exalts economic activity above everything, including the happiness of average people and the environment, has been going on for decades as well. The profligate use of American armed force is not new. The hypocrisy of our ruling class, now at an all time high, has been developing for quite some time. Some times it takes a crisis for people to wake up. If they don't, they just perish and somebody less dense takes over.
Will Americans wake up?
I think they might, but when they wake up it's not going to be morning in America. That country has died. It was already ill, and had been very ill since the 2010s, but Trump came in like the batshit crazy anti vaxers that are part of his overall movement and administered a lethal does of ignorance and stupidity. The country they wake up to may, in fact, be more like an old one, hopefully. One less powerful on the international stage, and less willing to throw its weight around without the cooperation of others.
In other ways, it's going to be something entirely new. Far right Evangelical Protestantism will not survive Donald Trump. People like Franklin Graham and Paula White are going to be regarded as ignorant fools. The big box mega churches will be exposed for what they are, worship service centers think on the hard lessons of Christianity.
Faith won't die, and it hasn't anywhere. The Ancient Faith has started to revive in France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. The Apostolic Faiths in North America are growing as the young turn their back on the American Civil Religion and Americanism in general, seeking the real. The Protestant Reformation was already dying, but now that death will accelerate, even if the Protestant faiths, particular those of the early Reformation, will live on, particularly in their most conservative, and frankly Catholic, forms.
Holy Week started yesterday. We live in interesting times.
Gun camera footage from a P-51 strafing Japanese civilian fishermen during World War Two, a gravely immoral act. We've conveniently forgotten how much of this sort of thing happened during World War Two, but a lot did. Allied fighters routinely strafed German farmers during the war, and I have heard of one account of an Italian farmer being killed by being strafed. This isn't warfare, it's flat out murder.*
III. SAFEGUARDING PEACE
Avoiding war
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Section 2309, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
The American war against Iran is not a just war. It's not a legal one, either.
Iran is a world sponsor of terrorism that has sponsored terroristic acts for decades. Most of those acts of terror were against other sovereign states, not the US, but some can logically be argued to be directed at the us. That's almost certainly not what the war is about.
Much more likely, Trump is a pathetic doddering senile fool who has spent a life of utter pointlessness. His wealth is inherited and founded originally on a grandfather who engaged in providing prostitutes to Alaska miners, a gravely evil act. His father did nothing like that, but the family wealth was used to build more wealth, and Trump in his adult years, after not serving his country (a family tradition to some extent) went on to make and lose fortunes doing that.
Real estate development is, from an agrarian and distributism prospective like that I maintain, a fairly dubious occupation in and of itself. Not clearly immoral, but frankly I have real trouble with some of it. Be that as it may, I particularly have trouble with the sort of behavior that Trump exhibited in that questionable occupation. I wouldn't admire the Wharton graduate for that reason alone. But the way he has spent his wealth is abominable. He's a serial polygamist and its getting very difficult to say "there's no evidence" that he didn't sexually fish in the shallow end of the pond.
There's more credible evidence that he's a kiddy diddler, which I'm not affirmatively saying there is, than that he's a Christian. There's not one single outwardly Christian act that I can think of that he's committed. What he is, is a shallow opportunist, and he's used desperate Christians to advance his career.
Knowing that the grave is looming up on him, and with his mind slipping away from him at a rapid rate, Trump has spent much of his second, illegitimate, occupation of the White House trying to build monuments to himself. He wants a ball room as he's a rich product of the 60s and 70s when things like that mattered to somebody. They don't anymore, and it'll either never be built, or ripped down. He wants a triumphal arch, which is simply absurd.
And he wants to be remembered as a great hero, adding to the US landmass, or at least defeating a supposed major enemy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a scary man in his own right, but not a demented fool, saw that he could play the demented fool in the White House. Netanyahu, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, sees the Trump dotage as a time to "address all family business". Seeing a dolt he could play, like Putin has, he's coaxed Trump into a war for Israel's own purposes. This is, the way Netanyahu sees it, Israel's last best hope to destroy the radical Islamist regime in Tehran. Israel can't do it on its own, and no future US administration will support doing it. Israel is not held in that high of regard in much of the world for a variety of reasons, and never has been. Nobody else is going to play the willing muscled fool for Netanyahu. If Netanyahu is Corleone, Trump is Luca Brasi, a brutish dolt who is willing to act as an enforcer.
Trump entered this war thinking it would be a two or three day exercise. He'd bomb Iran and the Iranian people would give up. Or, maybe, Iranians theocrats would act like American property owners and cut him a deal. Well, say what you like about Shiite theocrats, but they're a lot less shallow than American businessmen. They hold to an existential, and unlike Trump it's not all about money and women.
Oh oh.
So they didn't give up and they aren't going to give up. They've fought back by striking economic targets and U.S. military installations around the Middle East (and now as far away as Diego Garcia). And they've closed the Straits of Hormuz.
By closing the Straits, they've also demonstrated that the US is, in fact, not as powerful as it pretends it is. We can't open them and we've been begging for help. Nobody else is willing to get into an endless war for Israel, and therefore that help isn't coming. In order to open them we will have to engage in a ground invasion.
Trump is trying desperately to avoid that, for a variety of reasons. One thing is that he's probably been told it will be a bloody mess. Body bags will be coming home to "Red" cities all around the country. People already don't support the war and they definitely will not when Johnny or Mary come home to be buried in Riverton Wyoming, or Billings Montana, having died for Bibi Netanyahu.
And then there's this:
There's not going to be a draft, but the satiric suggestions that he serve are not wholly ingenuine. Right now, the US is getting into one war after another. Franklin Roosevelt's children served, so did TR's. Why not Trump's?
Because Trumps don't serve the country, they take from it. That's why.
In his desperation to end the war, Trump is now threatening to bomb Iranian power facilities if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz. He broadcast this on social media, which is idiotic It also won't work. The Allied bombing campaigns against Germany did not work in World War Two. They didn't work, save for the Atomic bomb, against Japan, either. Nor did they work against North Vietnam. They won't work here. Instead, civilians will be killed and whatever support for a new regime replacing this one in Iran exists, will evaporate.
What Trump is doing is criminal. The US is killing people for. . . what?
The whole war is criminal from the first place, from a US prospective. We're using military force to kill people with no declaration of war. And now we propose to engage in a tit for tat campaign of economic retribution against them as we can't beat them. We haven't been able to articulate a single reason for the war, other than Iran cannot be allowed to have the same thing that Israel, the United States, France, Russia, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Indian, Pakistan, and South Africa have. . . an atomic bomb.
There is some logic to that, of course. An Iran with an atomic bomb would be scary, just like North Korea with an atomic bomb is scary. But given our ill thought out military adventure here, we are actually making this situation worse. North Korea, it might be noted, is improving missile capabilities, and why wouldn't they. If North Korea has not determined an absolute need to be able to hit the continental United States due to Donald Trump, it'd be amazing. And if Iran, which has its nuclear material yet, has not concluded that it has an absolute need to complete a nuclear project, that would be amazing.
But it's clear that Trump never thought this out. He went, we're told, with his gut, which is nearly always wrong.
So, here we are in this long winded thread.
And here's to the point. Supporting immorality, is immoral. Everyone engages in "remote cooperation with evil", which you can not do much about. Using illegal drugs is illegal, but paying the pizza guy when you know he's going to use some of that cash for illegal drugs isn't.
Here, we now have an interesting situation.
We are in an illegal war and doing immoral acts. The Republicans in Washington are mostly sitting around on their ass doing nothing about it. They're afraid. They're not paid nor elected to be afriad.
And all over the country the MAGA element of the GOP just lies down like the 13 year old girls at Epstein Island and gives into whatever Trump wants.
It's immoral.
For years and years Christians, particularly those of my faith, voted for Republicans in spite of reluctance because we opposed abortion and the Democratic Party supported it. Even as late as the last election I heard Catholics with severe doubts about Trump say they were voting for him for that reason.
Abortion is a grave moral evil. Engaging in an illegal war and targeting civilian targets is a grave moral evil.
I'm not saying vote for the Democrats without thinking, but I am saying that supporting this Administration and the Republican Party at this point is supporting moral evil. When John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman come around backing the war, they're backing a moral evil. When Chuck Gray declares his undying love for Trump and promises to be the most loyal of his political concubines, he's expressing a love of a moral evil.
Most Germans during the Nazi era did nothing. Most Republicans aren't going to either. In future years, they'll be looked at with utter disgust.
Christians believe that they'll have to account for their sins in the next world. I very much doubt that bothers Donald Trump as he's stupid and ignorant, which is sort of a defense, and I very much question if he has any belief in God at all. For that matter, while I have only the incidents to raise the question, I doubt the beliefs of many in Congress who claim they have one. For those of us who do believe, and frankly a person who doesn't has simply blinded themselves to reality, it's all too easy to believe that our self interest must be moral. Protestant churches have, for instance, by and large completely given up on being concerned about sexual morality for the most part.
God will not be mocked. Christians who declare Trump to be a "Godly Man" are willfully blinding themselves or outright lying. None of us are around here all that long. The "why did you support the murder of my children" question is coming up, and the "well, I supported Trump", or "well, the Iranians were baddies", or "well, the Iranians were Muslims" line is not likely to be a sufficient excuse for being complicit in murder.
Footnotes
*This may seem like a strange point to start in this thread, but wars routinely devolve, even when they fit the just war criteria, into flat out murder and the US has not been exempt from this. Arguably the cleanest war the US ever fought was World War One, with the Korean War being relatively clean. World War Two may be recalled as a uniformly just war, but the bombing campaigns against urban Japan and the use of nuclear weapons was outright not. And the tolerance of what is depicted above, which was very widespread, was not.
