Danish Confirmation Classes over the decades.

Note the remarkable change in clothing styles over the years.

Konfirmand billeder fra Vrensted

Pioneer Myths, Imported Politicos. Public land sales, part 2. The historo-religious motivation for some (but certainly not all) of the backers.

Indians attacking a wagon train, Frederic Remington.

Recently we posted this, arguing that Mike Lee's background and religion informs his views on grabbing Federal lands in the West:

Lex Anteinternet: Pioneer Day. Pie & Beer Day. Public land sales, ...: Flag of the putative State of Deseret. Church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact - religion and politics should not be...

In that, we noted this:

One of the Salt Lake newspapers has started a series on this, noting basically what I just did (I actually started this tread prior to the paper).  This doesn't cover it all, however.  It'd explain none of what we see in Wyoming backers like Harriet Hageman.  We'll look at that next.

Now we're taking that look.  More specifically, we're looking at the question of how Harriet Hageman, John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis can look at the people who voted them in, and say, basically, "screw you and the horse you rode in on".

We'll note first that we don't think the answer is the same for all three of them.

Let's start with Hageman.

Hageman, unlike Mike Lee, is not a Mormon. For that matter, neither are Barrasso or Lummis (although we'll note that Barrasso's religious history should inform our views on him.  Indeed, it's difficult to learn much about Hageman's religious background at all.  Sometimes she's listed as a "Protestant", which she no doubt is, but that doesn't mean much in this context, as that category includes such things as Anglo Catholics and Missouri Synod Lutherans, to liberal Episcopalians.  It also includes the vast numbers of various small Protestant churches that often ignore vast tracts of American Christianity while being either very conservative or very liberal on things they pay attention to.  Hageman never really says what her Protestantism is allied to, or where she attends church, or if she even does.  One biography says she's a "non denominational" Christian, which fits in well with the far right she's part of.  A slight clue of her views is that she's married to a Cheyenne lawyer who is much older than she is with nearly twenty years on her age and who had a prior marriage.  They have no children.  Those last two items pretty much take her out of the Apostolic Christianity category, and out of those Protestant churches that are close to Apostolic Christianity.

If Hageman has no children, what she has is the weak tea of a career, the thing feminist sold on women as the fulfillment of their testimony and which, just as with men, turned out to be a fraud foisted upon them, and which continues to be each year at high school graduation.  I'm not saying having a career is bad, but the focus on it as life defining is pretty much living a lie.

What Hageman also has is a history.

Harriet Maxine Hageman was born on a ranch outside of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, in the Wyobraska region of Wyoming, a farming dominated portion of the state that lacks public lands and which is unique in many ways.  Her father was  James Hageman, who served as a longtime Republican member of the Wyoming House of Representatives until his death in 2006.  She is a fourth generation Wyomingite, descending from James Clay Shaw, who moved to Wyoming Territory from Texas in 1878.  Harriet is one of six siblings.  Her brothers are Jim Hageman, Dewey Hageman, and Hugh Hageman,   Her sisters are Rachel Hageman Rubino and Julie Hageman.  Rachel Rubio passed away in 2024, shortly after Harriet was elected to Congress.  One of her kids is a lawyer. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was read at her funeral.¹

When Harriet ran for Governor, all three of her brothers, but not her sisters, were included in a video talking about how much she loved people, and how family was central to her.  Maybe all that is true, but here's where the story, from our prospective, gets a bit interesting.  

Hageman went to Casper College on an ag scholarship.  Indeed, she was at CC at the same time I was.  From there, like me, she went on to US, and ultimately on to law school.

She didn't go on to the ranch, or a career in agriculture.

I guess I didn't either, but my story is the story of early death, which intervenes with our desires and which determines our path in life more than we care to admit.  I don't know what Harriet's story is, but I would note that as a rule, from her generation, daughters of ranchers weren't going back to the family ranch after high school graduation.  It wasn't that they would not, it was that they could not.  Those that retained a role in agriculture did so through the result of marriage, often knowing men who were farmers and ranchers.  Indeed, off hand, the few daughters of farmers or ranchers I know who ended up in agriculture ended up in it in just that fashion.

Hugh Hageman ended up in ranching.  Dewey Hageman seems to has well.  Jim Hageman seems to have as well, or at least he's still in the Ft. Laramie area.  In the video, all three really look like ranchers.

When I was growing up, as noted, women didn't end up in ranching except through marriage.  Usually no effort was made whatsoever to try to incorporate them into a ranching future.  Quite a few times, quite frankly, they were expected to marry into a ranching family, but even by the 1980s things had turned to where that was no longer the case, and many started to move into other careers.  Law has always been a really popular career for ranchers and farmers to send their children into, as basically farmers and ranchers don't believe that lawyers work.  Indeed, for the most part, they don't believe people in town actually work either.

Jim Hageman, the father of the family, himself came from a large ranching family in Converse County.  In the near hagiographies written about his daughter, it's noted how he built the ranch from nothing, but frankly, that's just not true.  He was born in an era in which the younger sons of ranchers could still secure ranch land, with help through loans and loan programs.  Now that's impossible.

But that puts Harriet straight into the Wyoming agricultural family myth.

I love ranching, as anyone here can tell.  But I'm a realist, and perhaps a cynic.  My own family has been in the region since at least 1879.  Hageman's, apparently, since 1873.  People who came out here didn't do so because, usually, they were wealthy, although some did, which is another story.  Rest assured the progenitor of the Hageman family in Wyoming, a Clay, wasn't.

What they were, however, were beneficiaries of one of the largest social welfare programs in American history, maybe the largest.  In 1873 the genocidal aspect of that program was still well under way.  Basically, the US used the Army to remove, at gunpoint, the native inhabitants and corral them into largescale concentration camps and then gave the land away to those willing to engage in agriculture.  Most of those who took up the opportunity were dirt poor.   The program was kept up and running until 1932, at which time the Taylor Grazing Act was thankfully passed and the land preserved.  

Homesteading was very hard and difficult work and the majority of homesteads failed.  But still, it wasn't as if homesteaders came into "virgin" lands and tamed it with their own two bare hands.  The government removed or killed the original inhabitants.  In many areas, the government built large-scale irrigation projects for the new ones, at government expensive.  Homesteaders were admirable in many ways, but they weren't without assistance.

James Hageman was born in 1930, which means when he was first starting his ranching life, land was still affordable, something that ceased to be the case in the 1980s but which would still have somewhat been the case when Harriet's brothers were entering their adult lives.  Most men from ranch families tried to stay in ranching, if they could.  Most still do.  When you meet somebody who talks about having grown up on a ranch, but isn't in ranching, it's because the "ranch" was a 20 acre plot outside of town (not a ranch) or because they were left with no alternative.

What those left with no alternative were given, so that their older brothers could carry on without trouble, was what English "Remission Men" were given in earlier eras. . . something else to do.  In a lot of cases, that something else was a career in law or medicine.

That's what Harriet got.

Well, what does that tell us?

Well, quite a lot.  A girl from a ranching family who had nowhere to go, she had to marry into agriculture or pursue a career.  While I knew her when she was young, a bit, I don't know if there was every a ranching suitor.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if there had been, as the tobacco chewing young Hageman was quite cute and very ranchy.

Well, whatever the case was then, she ended up with what lawyers call a boutique firm and made it the focus of her life, seemingly.  She ultimately married a lawyer twenty years her senior, more or less, and they didn't have a family for whatever reason.  Frankly, it's sad.

She was also left with a heritage that focused on the frontier pioneer myth.

Lots of ranch families have that, and in their heart of hearts believe they should have been given their public lands they were leasing by right, even though they couldn't afford it then, and they couldn't now.  They often don't believe that other people really work, as they falsely believe that their own work is exceptionally hard.  Many believe, at least in the back of their minds, that they are the population of the state, and those who aren't in agriculture are only able to get by as agriculture supports them.

It's a false, but deeply held, narrative.

And hence Hageman's, in my view, desire to transfer public lands from the Federal Government.  In her  mind, I suspect, those lands somehow, magically, go write to farmers and ranchers who, in her view, probably, rightfully deserve them.

That's not, of course, what would happen.  It'd actually destroy ranching.  But being from the  Wyobraska wheat belt, where most agriculture is farming, and the land is already publicly held, she doesn't realize it.

And she hasn't been on the farm, really, since sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s, at least in the sense we're talking about.

The whole thing is really sad, quite frankly.  But personal grief shouldn't make for bad public policy.

What's the deal with Lummis and Barrasso.

Let's take Barrasso up first.

Barrasso isn't a Wyomingite and its an open question to what extent he identifies with the state or its people at all. He's from Reading Pennsylvania, and the son of an Italian American cement finisher who had left school after 9th grade and an Italian American mother.  He was born in 1952, putting him solidly in the Baby Boomer generation. The beneficiary of a Catholic education, he came here as a surgeon.  

He's nearly the archetypical Baby Boomer, and in more ways than meets the eye. But to start off with, he was the child of hardworking blue collar Italians from the Catholic Ghetto who were probably bound and determined not to see him suffer they way they had, so they aimed for the blue collar mid Century minority's dream. . . send your kids into a profession and they'd really be something.  Hence why there were so many Irish American, Italian American and Jewish American lawyers and doctors.

But a lot of that dream really went awry.

Dr. Barrasso and his first wife Linda had two children.  His ex wife has had a local public life, but remains pretty quiet about their marriage.  She remarried to a local lawyer.  

Barrasso remarried too to a widely loved local woman who had been to law school, but who was not barred. She's since tragically died of brain cancer.  I knew her before their marriage.

None of this is facially surprising or atypical, but in context, its' revealing.  Barrasso's early connection with Wyoming was professional.  That's why he came here.  And his early life has the appearance of being very Catholic. That is significant.

It's significant in that when Barrasso was growing up, Catholics did not divorce easily and bore the brunt of having done so for the rest of their lives.  In my family, back before World War One, or around it, one of my mother's uncles divorced and remarried and the relationship with the family was completely severed.  Apparently it was later somewhat repaired, but only somewhat.  Leaving a spouse and leaving the faith was a betrayal.  It's still not taken lightly by serious Catholics.

But seriousness was not what the Baby Boomer generation was about.  It was about "me".   The couple divorced, for some reason, and he remarried.  The whys of the topic were never raised in his political career as post 1970s, that isn't done.

It probably should be.

Barrasso has pursued his political career the way it seems he pursued his life.  He compromised.  He compromised on his faith (he's now a Presbyterian) and he's compromised in his political views.  He was a moderate, but now is Trump's lap dog.  His views change when they need to change.  Apparently here, he thought it better to side with Lee and stay as quite as possible.

What about Lummis?

I know very little about Cynthia Lummis, which frankly is fairly typical of Wyomingites.  He website says she was born on a Laramie County ranch, but Wikipedia just states Cheyenne.  Her father was active in Republican politics and she, a lawyer, was elected state treasurer at one point.  Like Hageman, she has an agricultural degree.  She's a Missouri Synod Lutheran, which puts her in a very conservative branch of the Lutheran faith, but that appears to have no bearing on this matter.

She tends to stay out of public view for the most part.

On the public lands matter, her connection with a southeast Wyoming ranch may indicate something. As noted here, there's very little public land in the eastern part of Wyoming.  But overall, we just don't know very much about her.  She's basically a legacy of an earlier era in Wyoming when we didn't feel it was important to really know too much about a person.

Maybe we should.

Footnotes:

1.  Blessings on the hand of women!

Angels guard its strength and grace,

In the palace, cottage, hovel,

Oh, no matter where the place;

Would that never storms assailed it,

Rainbows ever gently curled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,

Power may with beauty flow,

Mother's first to guide the streamlets,

From them souls unresting grow—

Grow on for the good or evil,

Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission

Here upon our natal sod!

Keep, oh, keep the young heart open

Always to the breath of God!

All true trophies of the ages

Are from mother-love impearled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!

Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,

And the sacred song is mingled

With the worship in the sky—

Mingles where no tempest darkens,

Rainbows evermore are hurled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.

Related threads:

Pioneer Day. Pie & Beer Day. Public land sales, part 1. The historo-religious motivation for some (but certainly not all) of the backers.

Labels: 1838 Mormon War, 1840s, 1847, 1890s, 1896, Fr. Hugh Barbour, Harriet Hageman, Mormon, Pioneer Day, polygamy, religion, Second Great Awakening, State of Deseret, Third Great Awakening, Utah War, WASP

Blog Mirror: “In the Cause of American Liberty:” Catholic Contributions to Independence

 

“In the Cause of American Liberty:” Catholic Contributions to Independence

Wednesday, June 10, 1925. Creation of the United Church of Canada.

Canada's largest protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, was created by the merger of the Methodist Church, Canada and the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec, as well as most of the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Association of Local Union Churches.  The union is surprising in that the base churches had real theological differences.

The Catholic Church is the largest church in Canada overall.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 7, 1925. The Death of St. Max Talbot.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Alcohol, Blog Mirror, Dominion of Newfoundland, Health, Ireland, It was because of World War One, Mental Health, Newfoundland, Personalities, Second Battle of the Somme

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition, Additional Label Appendix.

Friday, March 30, 1945. Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie gassed at Ravensbruck. Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose killed in action.

Algerian born Élise Rivet, whose father was a French Naval officer and whose mother was Alsatian, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie was gassed at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp after volunteering to take the place of a mother who was slated for that fate.  She had been arrested in 1944 for harboring refugees fleeing the Germans and for allowing her convent to be used to store weapons for the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance at the request of Albert Chambonnet.

She was 55 years of age.

Commander of the 3d Armored Division, Maj Gen. Maurice Rose was killed in action near Paderborn, Westphalia, where many of many ancestors immigrated from in the 19th Century.

Rose was cut off in a forested area near the city and his part attempted to escape in their Jeeps, which one Jeep managed to do.  Stopped by a tank, a Waffen SS tank commander emerged from the hatch with a submachinegun and Rose's hand went for his sidearm.  He was machinegunned and left.  The remainder of his party hid in the woods overnight, and recovered his body, which contained operational orders that had not been disturbed, that night.

He was the highest ranking U.S. Army officer to be killed in direct action by enemy forces during World War Two.

Rose was Jewish by descent and grew up in a Jewish household in Denver.  His father was a businessman who later became a rabbi.  Rose himself could speak Yiddish and read Hebrew.  He joined the Colorado National Guard before he was legally old enough to do so, hoping for a military career early on, and hoping to serve in the Punitive Expedition, but was discharged six weeks later when his age was discovered.  He enlisted again during World War One at age 17 with his parents permission, and went to OCS, which says something about how different things were in regard to educational requirements at the time.  He was briefly out of the service in 1919, but returned to the Army as an officer in 1920.

Rose was married for about ten years, from 1920 to 1931, to Venice Hanson of Salt Lake City.  although the marriage ended in divorce.  Their son served as a career Marine Corps officer and also served in World War Two, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  He later married Virginia Barringer in 1934.

While born and raised Jewish, Maurice identified as an Episcopalian as an adult, which has lead to speculation on whether his conversion was real or political, it being difficult at the time to advance in American society, and the Army more particularly, while being outwardly Jewish.  Not that much is known, however, about his personal religious convictions.

He was 45 years of age.

"he rabbi of the Jewish Inf. Brigade visits the aid station and distributes newspapers. 30 March, 1945. Photographer: Levine, 196th Signal Photo Co."

The Battle of Lijevče Field began near Banja Luka between Croatian and Chetnik forces in what would soon be incorporated into communist Yugoslavia.

The Red Army took Danzig.  The Danzig Corridor, of course, had been one of the things the Germans claimed they required that lead to World War Two.

Anyone else make a connection to Greenland today.. . . ?

Eric Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey to 16 year old Patricia Molly Clapton and 25 year old Canadian soldier Edward Walter Fryer.  He was raised by his grandparents, whom he thought to be his parents until he was nine years old.  He thought, at that time, his mother was his older sister.  She'd marry another Canadian soldier later on and his grandparents would continue to raise him.

He was performing the blue professionally by age 17.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 29, 1945. The first Public Passover Sedar in Germany since 1938.

Labels: Battle of the Heiligenbell Pocket, Germany, Judaism, Passover, Red Army, religion

Friday, March 13, 1925. Tennessee prevents evolution in schools.

In a uniquely American struggle, due to the strong influence of Evangelical Protestantism in the country, the Tennessee General Assembly approved the Butler Act, which prohibited public schools from teaching evolution.

CHAPTER NO. 27

House Bill No. 185

(By Mr. Butler)

AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

Passed March 13, 1925

W. F. Barry,

Speaker of the House of Representatives

L. D. Hill,

Speaker of the Senate

Approved March 21, 1925.

Austin Peay,

Governor.

Calvin Coolidge held a press conference.

The Hay-Quesada Treaty between Cuba and the United States was ratified by the U.S. Senate, recognizing that the Isla de Pinos was the territory of Cuba.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 12, 1925. Passing of Sun Yat-sen. British rejection of the Geneva Protocol.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, China, Crime, Ireland, Isolationism, League of Nations, Nazi Party, Populism, Sex, Sun Yat-sen, The relationship between men and women, United Kingdom

"Do not be led astray: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.' Trump, Putin and American Evangelicals.

Note:  This was originally drafted in February, 2024 and not posted.  In looking for something else, I can back across it.

It'll be timely for another post I'm working on. 

St. King Abgar V, an Arab, and the first Christian King.  He died approximatley in 50 A.D.  He adopted Christianity at a time it was a minorit religion and not exactly popular.  Putin and Trump are not like him.

Do not be led astray:

“Bad company corrupts good morals.”

St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15.

Back in the AnteCovid days which now seem like a lost world, I'd sometimes run into neo monarchist on Reddit, usually due to participating on the Distributist Sub Reddit.  I quit participating there prior to the epidemic, as the discussions were really not worth participating in. Distributism is a modern economic system in its own right, but the sub tended to be populated by people who romanticized the Middle Ages, or who were Socialist trying to view everything as Socialism. An awful lot of the discussion looked like it was being conducted by 15-year-olds hiding in their parent's basements.

Emperor Charles I of Austria, who has been beatified.

Among the real goofball discussions were those by monarchist.  I didn't realize up until then that there are people today who long for a return of monarchy, but there are. Their typical logic was that monarchs are needed as they set the moral tone for the nation.

St. Stephen of Hungary, a Hungarian king from 1000 to 1038.  He outlived all of his children and died at about age 62.  His wife Gisela has been beatified, and one of his children is also canonized.

Hah.

Apparently these people know nothing of real monarchs, as plenty failed to live a moral life.  There are very notable exceptions, some of which appear here, but they are indeed the exception that proves the rule.  There's the entire problem of attacking your neighbor as you want his lands, of course, but beyond that monarchs tended to be pretty icky. It's hard to find an example of kings who didn't have mistresses, or worse. One early English king seems to have had a habit of basically sacking convents and raping nuns, which is really weird.  A joke about a later one is that when he went to Monaco on vacation, the children ran out and yelled "papa" as he was just that.  A Norman Christian king in Sicily kept Muslim women as concubines, to the extent that he was known as The Christian Sultan.  One French king was so randy as a teenage prince that concubines were acquired to satisfy his pre marital urges.

King Henry VIII who definitely was not a saint.

And of course there's King Henry VIII

Even really admired ones often were problematic this way.  King Charles the Great was accorded the title "blessed" for valid reasons, but Charles had at least fourteen mistresses during his lifetime and was rebuked by a noted churchman for still having an eye for the ladies well into old age.  He died, I'd note, at age 72.  King Cnut set his first wife aside to marry another when he became king, which was perhaps justified at the time by the fact that his first wife, a very able administrator, was a pagan and he was a Christian.  Harold Godwinson, whom some in the Orthodox faith regard as a saint, put aside his first wife, Edith the Fair, in favor of Edith of Mercia, for political reasons, although legend has it that Edith the Fair was present at Hastings and identified his body.  Czar Nicholas II who has been canonized in the Russian Orthodox Church for being a martyr shared, in his early years, the same mistress that his brother had.

The imperial household of Czar Nicholas II.

On the latter, I'm not meaning to cast stones at these people's virtues.  Czar Nicholas, for example, seems to have grown more devout after his marriage.  Charles the Great spent his last months fasting and contemplating King Harold Godwinson's first marriage was complicated by the means of its contracting, and his second may have been merely political.  I only note all of this as the silly devotion on Reddit to monarchy, with some of the silliness being extended to some academics, is just that, romantic silliness.

And then we have the bizarre ongoing devotion, in some Christian circles, to viewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as saviors of Christian society.

What on earth?

This seems to have all started with the devotion that developed to Viktor Orbán in the same circles.  Orbán is the champion of illiberal democracy and is blunt in his concept that Hungary is a Hungarian nationality, Christian, nation.  Hungary has not collapsed into an authoritarian state as is sometimes claimed, but it's become one run by a far right nation under a party that espouses Christian Nationalism and Illiberal Democracy.  Orbán is a serious Christian, although interestingly he's a Hungarian Calvinist.  His wife is Catholic, as are most Hungarians, and their children were raised Catholic.  

Orbán is an authoritarian by nature, although democracy is still functioning in Hungary, and he's an admirer of Putin.  I think that's where the American Evangelical fascination with Putin came from.

Putin is effectively a murderer, which is widely known.  His murders come through the state, of course.  Before he rose up in post Communist Russia, he was an employee of the KGB.  His marriage to his only wife, Lyudmila Putin, ended in divorce in 2014.  His been carrying on an affair with retired Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva since prior to the divorce date, by all indications, and seems to have borne two children through the union.

Putin is at least nominally Russian Orthodox, but its hard to see it being much more than that.  The Russian Orthodox Church as revived as a major Russian institution since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Putin has been careful to seem to be close to Metropolitan Kirill, its head.  The Metropolitan has his own checkered history, as he is rumored to have had a relationship with the KGB in the Soviet Union era.  Metropolitan Kirill is extremely conservative, which is not inappropriate for the head of an Apostolic Church, and Putin has been on at least some social issues as well.  This may simply be Putin's own views, or in part it may be an effort to keep the good graces of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Russia has been, for example, very restrictive in regard to homosexuality.

All of this leads some American Christians to believe that Putin is acting as the bulwark against the corruption of the decline of Western values, but if so, he's doing it in a very corrupt way which inclined killing people.  And Putin seems to have adopted the monarch's view that he can do no wrong, to include invading the territory of Russia's neighbors, assassinations, and sleeping with a woman who much junior than his former wife.

And for American Evangelicals, it might be noted that the Russian government is actually pretty repressive towards non-Orthodox religions, particularly those that depart significantly from the main line of their branches. This has included Evangelical Protestants and the Jehovah Witnesses.  This makes this one of those interesting areas in which some American Evangelicals have adopted as hero a culture which really doesn't have any sympathy for their views.

And then there's Donald Trump.

A large group of American Evangelicals have taken on the view that Donald Trump is their man, with some going much further than that.  Ironically, evidence of him every actually practicing his faith, Presbyterianism, is pretty hard to find.

Trump is a serial polygamist, for one thing.  In spite of American Protestantism and the American Civil Religion having come to fully accept divorce and remarriage, Christianity doesn't, and people who pretend otherwise are adopting something that's fully contrary to Christian tenants.  As the Stormy Daniel affair reveals, Trump isn't beyond some really base sexual conduct.  We won't even get into the allegations of other conduct. By Christian beliefs, bare minimum, Trump lives in a state of outward moral sin, which might be reduced by the doctrine of "invincible ignorance".

Trump is also a liar, cast aspersions against other people, and calls them degrading names.  Lying, at least in classic Christian theology, can rise to the level of a mortal sin.  

For years and years, the dominant Christian faith in the American South as been the Baptist. 

Why is that?

The American Civil War had a lot to do with it.

Prior to the Civil War, in much of the South, the dominant church was the Episcopal Church.  Its roots reached back to the Colonist and back to England.  Most Colonist, as colonization really got rolling, were members of the Anglican Church, although other Protestant denominations were included, most notably the Presbyterian Church, the Church of Scotland, which was the dominant faith for Scots immigrants.

Leonidas Polk, Confederate General and Episcopal Bishop.  He was killed by Union artillery in 1864 at age 58.

Going into the Civil War, the Episcopal Churchmen of the South largely backed the Confederacy.  One Confederate General was an Episcopal Bishop.

The South had always had a fair number of itinerant preachers who were not Episcopal Priest.  While the Episcopal Church seemed to be backing the Southern cause during the war, the itinerant preachers were warning of doom and God's judgment.  The result of the war seemed to prove them right.

The point is, the Southern cause was corrupt and disgusting from a moral prospective from the onset.  Backing corruption, in the end, corrupts.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

This will have a bad end for Evangelicals, and for those of other faiths following the same path.  But particularly for Evangelicals.  For one thing, they are the only religions denomination that's so heavily invested in Trump.  Not other religion, Christian or otherwise, is.

Secondly, the "mainline" Protestant denominations are not only not invested in Trump, they've already sustained their demographic blows by compromising with the leftward drift of culture.  That's split them in many instances, and where it has not, people have voted with their feet. The Episcopal Church, for example, once the Church of the economic elite, is in severe trouble.

The Catholic Church, by comparison, has actually remained stable in numbers in the US, but it should be growing.  The scandals of the earliest 21st Century served the accidental purpose, however, if making its younger adherants, including clerics, more orthodox and conservative, and more "other".  Younger clerics speak as if they're at a last stand, which they really are not, or as if they're the first missionairies into pagan culture.  Nobody is looks upon any current political leader as a Catholic standard bearor, most particularly Catholics.

No, it is some of the Evangelical and Culturally Christian Americans who have adopted Trump with zeal, seemingly thinking of him as a sort of Protectant Knights Templar out to do battle.

When he fails, and he will, as this time he will be unrestrained, they will share the failure, and the consequences of it.

What's wrong with the United States? The Protestant Work Ethic.

Professor Galloway "on follow your passion".

His advice?

Don't.

More particularly, his advice is dedicated yourself relentlessly to something you are good at, and it will become your passion, in no small part as you'll make money at it.

There's plenty of evidence that's right. . . and just as much that it's wrong.

Professor Galloway is a Calvinist.  He comes by it naturally as his father is from Scotland.  

Oh, sure, you'll note that Galloway states he's an atheist. Well, like a lot of people who are something on an existential level, he doesn't know what he actual is. And what that is, is a Calvinist.  Perhaps a cultural Calvinist, but a Calvinist.

And it was Calvin, not the Church of England, or the Lutherans, who gave us the Protestant Work Ethic.

Well, that's great, right?

Not so much.

John Calvin was as French radical Protestant reformer who was grim in his outlook and basically an asshole.  One of his central core beliefs was double predestination, which held that from the moment of conception almost everyone was going to Hell.  

Calvin taught that all men must work, even the wealthy, because to work was the will of God. Irrespective of their ultimate fate, which they could in no way impact, it was the unyielding duty of men (and I do men men) to toil here on Earth as part of God's plan to continue the creation of the Earth.  Men were not, in his view, to become wealthy, I'd note, but were to reinvest the fruits of their labor over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time.

Calvin held that using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor.

The Puritans were Calvinists, and so were the Presbyterians, the latter of which has generally slacked up on Calvinist theology a great deal.  None the less, the impact of Calvinism on the US has been huge.  It founded the thesis that you should work and work, well past the point where accumulation of wealth made any sense.  When you look at people like Elon Must or Donald Trump who have vast sums of wealth but keep accumulating, you are seeing the Protestant work ethic at work.

You are also seeing it when you lay people off in droves. They're lessors, and their economic plight is existentially foreordained.  If they were among the Elect, this wouldn't be happening to them.

Work is what it's all about.

You see that well expressed in Galloway's comments.  Galloway is an opponent of Musk, but they have essentially the same view on work.  Galloway presents in the grim Calvinist style.  You must find productive and useful work and love it, as that's the ticket to everything.

It isn't.

Contrary to what Galloway things, for one things, there are plenty of people who have done well in their carers and know a lot about what they do and hate it.  The legal profession is a poster child for this, but I've found it to be the case for medicine as well.  

And women have become particularly the victim of this in recent years, diving hard into careers as, John Calvin has told them, this would affirm that they were part of the Elect, in the modified American social view, only to find that they are miserable.

And all this because Calvin was flat out wrong.  His theology was wrong, and his understanding of human beings appallingly wrong.

The Catholic view has been much more nuanced than the Protestant one.  Catholicism itself holds to a degree that we work, because we have to, work being one of the results of the Fall.  It also hold, however, that we toil as part of a community and are never to put that aside.  The accumulative nature of the Protestant Work Ethic is basically antithetical to Apostolic Christianity, although there are certainly Catholics, such as Bill Gates, who have become extremely wealthy.  Largescale wealth, however, comes in Catholic theology with a heavy burden to everyone else.  Unlike Calvinist, you can't really morally justify investing over and over while those less well off suffer in your presence.  Indeed, that would be one of the four sins God hates.

Okay, so why is this a problem?

It's a massive problem in that deep in American culture is an anti human dedication to acquisition and toil, that's why.  People are expected to work themselves to death and tolerate those among us who acquire vast wealth.  Ultimately, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, who often have simply benefitted from the circumstances of their birth takes from everyone else, makes millions miserable, and actually makes the economy less and less productive.

Society doesn't exist to generate wealth for those who can accumulate.  Society exists for society.  That means, at the end of the day, that some must be protected, for the good of us all, from their appetites, weather that appetite be for drugs, dissolute living, or avarice.  

The fact that we have forgotten this is literally destroying the country.

Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Attacking actual Christian beliefs and practices. The White House Faith Office and Paula Michelle White-Cain. We warned you.

We warned on this site that Catholics who were supporting Donald Trump as the more Christian of supposedly two options were being short sighted, particularly as there were other options that any Catholic could square with.  Part of the reason that we warned of this is that we were convinced that the "Christianity" of Donald Trump was the fringe of Evangelicalism that doesn't square with Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal and Lutheran faiths. . . i.e. almost all of Christianity, at all.

We also warned that because of that, the entire set of events would turn on us.

Well, we were right.  We just didn't anticipate how right we'd be, and how fast it would occur.  

It started off with Trump's deportation efforts, which brought out the Catholic Bishops who really should have been out before.  Be that as it may, as soon as that occurred the Trump Interregnum hauled out Catholic convert, and adherent to a sort of Rod Dreher type of Catholicism (yes, Dreher is Orthodox) to attack the Bishops.  Vance had already morally compromised himself during the election by taking views that the Catholic Church condemns, so he was on the well trod, and ironically liberal, Catholic politician path of taking an off ramp to Hell in order to keep their political career alive.

"But for Wales?"

Anyhow, plenty of right wing Catholics who had a hefty glass of Trump Prune Juice already downed pulled up for another one and backed Vance's statements, just as plenty of English parliamentarians schismed when King Henry VIII was having dating troubles.  

Somewhat ironically, it was the church that King Henry caused to come about that next received the ire of Trump, that being the Episcopal Church when their bishop in D.C. had the guts to address Trump from the pulpit.  I don't know that Trump even noticed at the time, but plenty of Trump backers did, and Trump jointed in.  Her "liberal", or perhaps "progressive", or perhaps "woke" offense was noting the same things that Christ had in his addresses to the masses.

We all know what happened to Christ.

Well, I guess we don't all know, but more on that in a moment.

The Lutherans, being that body of Catholics originally whom German, and later Scandinavian, princes dragged out of the Catholic Church to follow Martin Luther, who originally only hoped for some reforms himself but then got carried away with himself, found themselves rejoined with Catholics in a way when Trump went after both groups for aiding immigrants without regard to their nationality.  Big branches of hit Lutheran faith have become almost more Catholic than the Catholics in some places and now have real difficulty in explaining what they believe that's different, norther than they know that they don't follow the Bishop of Rome.

Anyhow, what's going on here should be obvious.

Over half the Christians in the world are Catholic, the oldest and original branch of Christianity.  About 12%, supposedly, are Orthodox, but I'd guess that its higher than that, maybe 15% or even 20%.  The balance are Protestants.

Protestantism is dying worldwide and particularly in the west, but the "Evangelical" branch has rising enormously in the US and also around the world.  It's easy to believe in.  It doesn't ask you to confess your sins, it doesn't really grasp the concept of mortal sins, it rejects nearly everything the Church Fathers said except that Christ was divine.

It's perfectly comfortable with sexual sins, at least as the plumbing is correct.  And it really doesn't care too much if you "go to church" on Sunday, or at all for that matter.

And in the US, the real fringe of it, believes that the US is a divinely charged nation with a mission to become, basically, a new, and Evangelical Israel.

So this gives you a figure like Paula Michelle White-Cain.

Married three times, she's a proponent of the "prosperity gospel" which is the antithesis of real Christianity.  Christ promised his followers that they'd be persecuted, despised and even killed for following him.

The health and wealth people promise that believing their brand of Christianity will make you rich.

Not one of the original twelve Bishops of the Church, the Apostles, got rich.  Indeed, they were universally treated horribly.  We don't completely know all of their fates, but from tradition and what we do know, this is what occurred:

James (the Greater), the son of Zebedee, was martyred by King Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3).

St. Peter was martyred around twenty years later in Rome, along with St. Paul.

St. James (the Lesser) was who martyred by stoning in Jerusalem in the A.D. 60s.

St. Thomas was martyred in India.

St. Bartholomew was martyred by beheading or being flayed alive.

St. Philip may have been martyred in Hierapolis, we're not sure on that one.

St. Matthew was martyred, although the manner of his death is disputed.

St. Simon (the Zealot)was martyred, with St. Jude (Thaddeus).

White, in contrast, is very much alive and apparently quite well off financially.  She's been married three times, which Apostolic Christianity would condemn, but which the American Civil Religion is okay with.  Her third husband is a member of the band Journey.

White is a practitioner of the yell reaffirming things at the congregation school of preaching.  Her followers aren't going to be hearing the "Four Things God Hates" sermon and be shifting in their seats.  Nor are they going to hear that when Christ said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needles, our Savior was not being metaphorical.  

Indeed, they're going to hear that God is going to make them rich.  If they listen to White-Cain, who is living a lifestyle that might make be presenting her with needles to pass through at the end of her life, and which at least facially has her living in adultery according to Apostolic faiths, they hearing that serial polygamist and apparently wealthy man Donald Trump is "Godly".

White has drawn the ire of Protestant Christian pastor rapper Shai Linne in a song called "Fal$e Teacher$", whose lyrics are as follows:

Let me begin, while there is still ink left in my pen

I am set to contend for Truth you can bet will offend

Deception within the church man, who's letting them in?

We talked about this years ago, let's address it again (Yeh)

And I ain't really trying to start beef

But some who claim to be part of His sheep got some sharp teeth (they're wolves)

You cast at me when you criticize them

But Jesus told us: Matthew 7:16, we can recognize them!

And God forbid that for the love of some fans

I keep quiet and watch them die with their blood on my hands!

So, there's nothing left for me to do except to speak to you

In the spirit of Jude 3 and 2nd Peter 2

And I know that some would label me a Pharisee

Because today the only heresy is saying that there's heresy:

"How dare they be specific and drop some clarity

On the popularity of the gospel of Prosperity"

Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated

The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme

Visualize Heretics Christianizing the American dream

It's foul and deceitful, they're lying to people

Teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!

Ungodly and wicked, ask yourself how can they not be convicted

Treating Jesus like a lottery ticket

And you're thinking they're not the dangerous type

Because some of their statements are right

That only proves that Satan comes as an angel of light

This teaching can't be believed without a cost

The lie is you can achieve a crown without a cross

And I hear it all the time when they speak on the block

Even unbelievers are shocked how they're fleecing the flock

It should be obvious then, yet I'll explain why it's in

Peep the Bible, it's in 1 Timothy 6:9-10

It talks about how the desire for riches

Has left many souls on fire and stitches, mired in ditches

Tell me, who would teach you to pursue as a goal

The very thing that the Bible said will ruin your soul, huh?

Yet they're encouraging the love of money

To make it worse, they've exported this garbage into other countries!

My heart breaks even now as I'm rhyming

You wanna know what all false teachers have in common? (what?)

It's called selfism the fastest growing religion

They just dress it up and call it "Christian"

Don't be deceived by this funny biz

If you come to Jesus for money, then He's not your God, money is!

Jesus is not a means to an end

The Gospel is He came to redeem us from sin

And that is the message forever I yell

If you're living your best life now you're headed for hell!

Pretty much nails it.

So, those of you who are actually Christian, this is going to get much worse.

Trump went to the National Prayer Breakfast.

I'm going to note off the top that I'm a sort of cynical person about events like the National Prayer Breakfast.  Frankly, I tend to be a bit uneasy by prayers at big events as it is, as this is a Protestant country and I'm, by nature, a very reserved and shy man.  Indeed, one of my resolutions this Lent is going to be to try to shed that in regards to public displays of religion.

That may be an odd way to start this off, but for example, almost every Catholic crosses themselves before prayer. . . unless you are here in the United States and at a the annual gathering of the Community Moose and Improvement Society in which case you might not, as you'll stand out.

You probably should.

Anyhow, the association of Donald Trump with religion in general is laughable.  He doesn't appear to have observed any notable tenant of real Christianity, in so far as I can tell, at all.  And yet here he is at the National Prayer Breakfast.  It's like having W C Fields address the Temperance Union. 

Anyhow, here's what he said.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP

AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

February 6, 2025

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Communications

______________________________________________________________

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  This is very beautiful, I must say.  This is a beautiful place.  And our country is starting to do very well again.  It’s happening fast — a little faster than people thought. 

Thank you especially to Senator Marshall for the beautiful introduction.  Appreciate it very much.  Thank you.  Great senator you are. 

I also want to thank a friend and a man of profound faith and tremendous patriotism who’s also become a great friend.  You become much friendlier when you have a majority of two or three or four.  Could even be five pretty soon.  (Laughter.)  But for a little while, it was one.  That’s Mike Johnson, speaker.  Thank you very much, Mike — very much.  (Applause.)

And thanks, as well to somebody who’s doing a fantastic job: Senator Thune.  Thank you very much, Senator.  (Applause.)  It’s not easy.  It’s not easy.  It’s really great. 

And Leader Scalise — Steve, wherever you may be.  I think you’re here someplace.  There he is.  A brave guy, too.  A brave guy.  I always say it. 

And Senator Chuck Schumer.  Chuck, thank you very much.  Thank you.

Senator Hassan, thank you very much.  Thank you.  Very nice to see you. 

Congressman Jeffries, thank you.

And many other very distinguished leaders in the room.  Great, great group of people.  If we could ever come together, it would be unbelievable.  It may not happen, but it should and maybe it will. 

From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation. 

We have to bring religion back.  We have to bring it back much stronger.  It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time.  We have to bring it back.

Thomas Jefferson himself once attended Sunday services held in the old House Chamber on the very ground where I stand today, so there could be nothing more beautiful than for us to gather in this majistic place — it is majestic — and reaffirm that America is and will always be “one nation under God.” 

At every stage of the American story, our country has drawn hope and courage and inspiration from our trust in the Almighty.  Deep in the soul of every patriot is the knowledge that God has a special plan and a glorious mission for America.  And that plan is going to happen.  It’s going to happen.  I hope it happens sooner rather than later.  It’s going to happen. 

And it’s His hand that guides us every single step of the way.  And all of you and the things we have to do is to see the defining role that faith and prayer have played in the life of our nation.  And you just have to look at this building, and you can look at each other.  You can really look at each other.  It’s defined almost everyone in this room.  I think faith has been very strong with the people in this room. 

Just steps away from here, in the Hall of Columns, is the statue of John Winthrop, who famously proclaimed that America would stand as “a city upon a hill, a light to all nations with the eyes of all people upon us.”

Today, almost 400 years after that famous sermon, we see that with the Lord’s help, the city stands taller and shines brighter than ever before — or at least it soon will. 

In that same hall, we also find the statue of the great Roger Williams, who founded the state of Rhode Island, named its capital city Providence, and built the First Baptist Church in America. 

It’s Williams that we have to thank for making religious liberty part of the bedrock of American life.  And today we must protect the fundamental freedom with absolute devotion.  We must stand strong, just like generations of Americans have done on the battlefields all around the world. 

Feet away from the magnificent rotunda, another statue watches over visitors to the Capitol.  George Washington, the founder of our country, often called for Americans to join together in prayer — very often.  And more than two centuries later, this morning, we heed President Washington’s wisdom and follow in his mighty footsteps.  He was a strong man and of great religious strength. 

The stories of legends like Washington, Winthrop, and Williams remind us that without faith in God, there would be no American story.  Every citizen should be proud of this exceptional heritage.  We have an unbelievable heritage, and we have to use that and make life better for everyone. 

That’s why, as we approach the 25th-times-10 anniversary — think of that, 250; 250 years we’ll be celebrating next year — of our country’s founding, I have signed an executive order to resume the process of creating a new national park full of statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived. 

We’re going to be honoring our heroes, honoring the greatest people from our country.  We’re not going to be tearing down.  We’re going to be building up. 

It will be called the National Garden of American Heroes.  Some of you will be on that soon-to-be hallowed ground — some of you.  Let’s see.  I can pick a few of you right now by looking — (laughter) — because there’s a couple of you right now, I can see.  Let’s see.  (Laughter.)  It’s the president’s sole opinion.  (Laughter.)  And I’ve given myself a 25-year period — (laughter) — and then somebody else.  By that time, it will be very, very built up.  (Laughter.)

No, it will be something very special, and I hope that Congress will fully fund this wonderfully unifying project at the first possible opportunity — it’s not going to be a lot of money; going to be very important, however — so that more of our people can be inspired by the faith and courage of patriots like those who we honor in these halls.  One of the incredible Americans whose memory my order will celebrate is also recognized with a statue in the Capitol, representing the great state of North Carolina, and that’s a man known — who everybody loved: Reverend Billy Graham. He was something.  My father used to take me to watch the “Crusades.”  He would take me to Yankee Stadium.  I remember it so well.  I remember it more than I remember any Yankee game, and I’ve seen a lot of Yankee games.  (Laughter.)  Can you believe it?  And Billy didn’t have a bat, so, you know, he’s pretty good.  It was amazing.  You’d have 60- or 70,000 people, and they loved him.  They loved him.    I saw him with Franklin.  I don’t know if Franklin is here.  I just don’t know, but I’ve gotten to know Franklin.  He’s done a great job with helping on tragedies, on problems like in North Carolina, California.  He’s always the first one there.  The work he does is — his father is very proud of him, I can tell you that.  But Billy Graham was very special.     One floor below us, Reverend Graham’s statue stands with an open Bible, the page turned to a letter from the apostle Paul, which reads, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.”  Never give up.  Never ever give up.  You can’t.     How about me?  If I would have given up, I would not be here right now.  Who the hell knows where I’d be?  (Laughter.)  It might not be a good place.  If it was up to the Democrats, it would not be a good place at all.  (Laughter.)      Never ever give up.  There could be no better message for the leaders gathered here — and you are real leaders — that we must never give up, and we must never grow tired.  We must never grow weary, and we always must practice good.     As you know, last week, only a few miles from here, our nation witnessed a terrible tragedy when 67 people were killed in a horrible accident near Reagan Airport.  As one nation, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey that night did not end in the icy waters of the Potomac, but in the warm embrace of a very loving God.  None of us knows exactly when our time on Earth will be over.  You never know.   A truth I confronted a few short months ago when there was an incident that wasn’t — it was not fun.  It was not a good thing.  But God was watching me.  The chances of me being here — my sons are shooters.  They’re really good shooters, Don and Eric.  And they said the chances of missing from that range with that gun are — but Don equated it to a one-foot putt.  That’s pretty bad.  Two feet I can see missing.  (Laughter.)  But one foot you can’t miss.  It was the equivalent of a one-foot putt, is what he told me.    He said — in fact, he gained some religion.  He gained — he went up 25 percent.  (Laughter.)  And if you know him, that’s a lot.  (Laughter.)  But he said, “There had to be somebody that saved you, and I think I know who it is.”  And he looked up.  And I said, “Whoa, Don, that’s come — you’ve come a long way.”  (Laughter.)  He’s a good guy.     But they my two sons just really couldn’t believe it.  Had I not turned that right turn just at that time — and the audience — 55,000 people standing this way.  There were just a few people in the back on the bleachers.  There was nobody over there, except for my all-time favorite chart in history, a chart on immigration.  Immigration saved my life.  See?  So, we’re going to be good for immigration, okay? 

But had I not made that turn — boom — and quickly.  It was almost as though a deer bolted.  You know, they say the only way you miss when you’re a good shot is if it bolts?  I bolted.  I turned to the right to look at the chart, and I said, “Wow, what was that?  What was that?” So, you never know, but God did that.  I mean, it had to be.  The chances of turning, because there’s no reason to turn to the right.  You know, the chart is rarely brought down.  I brought it down maybe 20 percent and — 20 percent of the time.  And it’s never on my right.  It’s always on my left.  And it’s always at the end of the speech, never the beginning of the speech. 

And if I was a little more than that 90-degree angle, it would be no good.  And if I was a little less, it would be no good.  It had to be perfect.  The thing went “shhh” right along the edge.  It didn’t affect my hair.  Can you believe that?    (Laughter.)  It might’ve touched it.  Might have touched it, but not where it counts, not — (laughter) — not the skin part. But it changed something in me, I feel.  I feel even stronger.  I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it.  Something happened.  And so — (applause) — thank you.  Thank you. But that event, like the tragedy last week, should remind us all that we have to make the most out of every single day that we have.  Who would think that you’re in space and two things collide?  The odds of that happening are so small, even without proper control. 

We should have had the proper control.  We should have had better equipment.  We don’t.  We have obsolete equipment.  They were understaffed, for whatever reason.  I guess the helicopter was high, and we’ll find out exactly what happened.  But the odds, even if you had nothing — if you had nobody, the odds of that happening are extremely small. 

     It’s like, did you ever see — you go to a driving range in golf and you’re hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours.  I never see a ball hit another ball.  Balls going up all over the place.  You never see them hit. 

 It was amazing that that could happen.  There was a lot of mistakes made, and it should have never happened.  But regardless of that, it’s amazing that it happened. 

 And I think that’s going to be used for good.  I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers, brand-new — not pieced together, obsolete, like it is — land-based — trying to hook up a land-based system to a satellite system. 

And the first thing that some experts told me when this happened is you can’t hook up land to satellites, and you can’t hook up satellites to land.  It doesn’t work.  And we spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying, “Cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system.”  Done by two or three companies — very s- — good companies, specialists.  That’s all it is. They used 39 companies.  That means that 39 different hookups have to happen.  And I don’t know how many people of you are good in terms of all of the kind of things necessary for that — and it’s very complex stuff — but when you have 39 different companies working on hooking up different cities and different people — you need one company with one set of equipment. 

And there are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems, and they would have — bells would have gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height, because it traveled a long distance before it hit.  It was just like — just wouldn’t stop — you follow the line.  But bells and whistles would have gone off.  They have them where it actually could virtually turn the thing around.  It would have just never happened if we had the right equipment. 

And one of the things that’s going to be — I’m going to be speaking to John and to Mike and to Chuck and to everybody.  We have to get together and just — as a single bill, just pass where we get the — the best control system.

When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country, because my captain tells me — I’m landing in New York, and I’m using — I won’t tell you what country, but I use a system from another country, because the captain says, “This thing is so bad.  It’s so obsolete.”  And we can’t have that. 

So, we’re going to have the best system and it’s a lot of money, but it’s not that much money.  And it’ll happen fast, and it’ll be done by total professionals.  And when it’s done, you’re not going to have accidents.  It’s just not — they’re not — they’re virtually not possible to have. 

Each of us is blessed with a precious chance to help lead America to renew our pledges of faith and everything else and bring us to new heights and create a future of promise for our people and for ourselves. 

You know, we have the most important people in the country, in a true sense, here, because you’re the ones that are going to make the decision.  You’re the ones that are leading us into so many different things, whether it’s the right air control system or the right size military or what to do and what not to do — most important people.

And many of you are very religious.  I know so many of you are very religious.  And I just think that our country has been so badly hurt.  We’re very hurt by what COVID did to religion.  It really hurt it badly.  People couldn’t go to church for a long period of time.  Even going outside, they were given a hard time.  And I’m not blaming anybody for that, but — but it was very hard to gather. 

So, they start using computers, if that.  And when they come back, it’s just, you know, a whole new experience they have to get used to.  But it is starting to come back. 

We had a fantastic thing happen yesterday.  The Army had the best recruitment numbers that they’ve had in more than 15 years.  They think it could be 25 years, actually — they’re going to probably put that out — but more than 15 years just now.  (Applause.)

And we were worried about it.  We were talking about it numerous times that, you know, we don’t have people joining our military services.  We don’t have people joining our police force.  We have to cherish our police. 

It’s so dangerous.  You open a car and somebody starts shooting.  They have blackened windows.  You don’t even have any idea who’s in the car.  Oftentimes, they have the dark windows — which they’re not, in theory, supposed to have, but they have them.  The door opens and a gun is pointed at your face, and you can’t do a thing about it.  It’s just nothing you’re going to do about it.  Your friends will take them out, and it’s happened so many times, but you just — it’s so — such a dangerous thing.  We have to cherish these people. 

So, today, we join our hearts and prayers in recommitting to putting our country first.  We have to put our country first, making America stronger and greater and more exceptional than ever before.

And we have to make religion a much more important factor now.  We have to make it an important factor.  And if we do that, it’s going to be — our job is just going to be much easier.  It unifies people.  It brings people together.  Democrats are going to be able to have lunch again and dinner with Republicans. 

And I remember, just as — growing up, I’d see — you know, I revered senators and congressmen as something very special, but they were out to dinner all the time.  We had an old congressman, maybe some of — Sey Halpern from Queens, and he was a friend of my father.  But he’d have dinner with — he was a Democrat, but he would have dinner with Republicans, and he’d be at it.  It wouldn’t even make a difference.

Today, it’s like shocking.  And it shouldn’t be.  You have to get together.  We really have to get together. 

We all know what’s right and what’s wrong, and there’s going to be compromise on both sides, but we have to just do the right thing, and we have to get together.  

You did it with Marco Rubio.  He got everybody who was — 99 votes.  And the only vote was our VP, who — who maybe we should have been there just to make it a hundred, but I think I would have been angered if it was a hundred.  That might be a step too far, right?  (Laughter.)  But, no, it was great to see a vote. 

Pam Bondi had support from Democrats, and some of the others had some pretty good support.  So, you know, it’s doable.

We had a recent bill having to do with a very beautiful young lady who was killed from Georgia, and that bill was very bipartisan.  It was a very beautiful thing to watch, actually.  And so, I think we just have to — if possible, we have to unify.

There’s big division.  I mean, some people want an open border and some people want a closed border.  We want it closed, and they want it open.  Now, that’s a big difference.  How do you solve that problem?  It’s a big difference. 

Some people want men in women’s sports and some people don’t.  And I was with somebody yesterday who was so upset that the bill was signed, where men cannot participate in women’s sports.  And I said — he’s a very smart guy --went to a great school, was a great student.  And he actually feels, you know, that that should happen: Men should be able to play — meaning transition into women sports.

And you talk to him, and it’s just — you know, I don’t understand it. I think it — I don’t understand how the problem ever got started in the first place.  It just seems so simple.

But he’s a good person and just believes it.  He just believes it.  Not going to be easy to convince him otherwise. 

So, where is a middle ground?  It’s just hard to have a middle ground if there’s two ways.  I mean, you can either do it or you can’t. 

But I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  You know, a lot of people might be surprised to hear me say that, of all people, but I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  Because our country has got some big headaches, but we have tremendous spirit right now. 

The spirit is as high as it’s been.  It was up 49 points this morning — 49 points.  That’s the biggest increase in the history of whatever the poll was. 

So, the spirit is there.  That’s a big factor.  That’s probably the hardest thing to get back, to be honest.  The rest is easy.  The rest is easy. 

So, I want to just thank you all.  I want to congratulate a lot of the new members.  I see so many of you that ran great races.  David, that was a great race.  But so many that ran great races.  And on both sides, you ran some incredible races.  So, it’s good to be with you. 

And God bless everybody.  We want to come together.  And the happiest — the person, the element, the everything that’s going to be happy.  People of religion are going to be happy again. 

And I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief.  I really believe it.  I just don’t see how you can be.  (Applause.)

So, let’s bring religion back.  Let’s bring God back into our lives. 

Thank you all very much.  Thank you very much.  Great honor.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

Some Catholic traditionalist have been warning for years now that we (Catholics) are on the verge of being persecuted in ways we have not been for a couple of centuries.  A couple of centuries seems like a long time to most people, but it really isn't.  Anyhow, they warned, we are going to find ourselves being in the same position as Catholics in Protestant England were, or perhaps like Catholics in early Rome.

It all seemed rather extreme.

Well, prosecution is coming.  And not from secular "woke" America like they/we feared, but rather from the hardcore Protestant Evangelical right that never believed we were Christians anyway, because they're ignorant of history in general and the history of Christianity in particular.  

This time, somewhat ironically, we're going to be joined by those branches of Christianity from which we're barely separated.  Anglicans and Lutherans have mostly gotten over their beef with us, even if they have not reunited with us, and now they're going to share the hatred that we've received pretty much from day one.

But the branch of Christianity that is going to suffer the most, long term, are the Evangelicals.  No whopping set of absurdities can be maintained forever, and fairly soon the Protestant going to church once or twice per year and otherwise watch football while shacked up Christians are going to turn on them, when things turn bad on them.  Actual devout Evangelicals of other branches are going to get hit as well.  We're going to see a drop off in Evangelical community at a huge rate.

One of the answers to the mystery of evil is that God never permits an evil that he can't bring a good out of.  I can't see the future, nor can you, but we can often discern patterns and make predictions, many of which, indeed most of which, will be wrong (although I was right here).  One thing that seems clear is that the Reformation has been passing away in front of us.  It's too hard for people to accept it anymore if they know anything.  It made more sense, in the US, when a backwoods preacher lived in the backwoods with backwoods people.  A lot of Evangelical Protestantism is still that way in the US, localized either in communities or demographics.  But the knowledge isn't.  The bulwark of the Christian defense against false modern beliefs has been the Catholic Church, which is joined with the Orthodox and conservative Anglicans and Lutherans in that.  But it's also the bulwark against the American Civil Religion.  The European Protestant Reformation is already dead.  This may be the last stage of the end of the Reformation playing out in front of us.

But it won't be fun to watch at all or enjoyable to suffer in.

Having said that, Catholicism has always done well as an oppressed faith.  We might finally be waking up from the slumber that John F. Kennedy induced us into.