Just ahead of his headline spot at the CPAC convention in Virginia and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump delivered a speech to right-wing broadcasters Thursday night in which the former president vowed to hand power over to the Christian nationalist movement on an unprecedented scale.
Trump said during his speech at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennesse that he would defend “pro-God context and content” on the nation’s AM radio stations as he told the audience that religion is “the biggest thing missing” in the United States and warned, without evidence, that Christian broadcasters were “under siege” by the left and a “fascist” Biden administration.
“We have to bring back our religion,” Trump declared. “We have to bring back Christianity.”
Striking a Christ-like pose at one point with his arms outstretched as if on a cross, Trump mentioned his legal struggles, including multiple criminal indictments and civil judgements, and said, “I take all these arrows for you and I’m so proud to take them. I’m being indicted for you.”
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this week, right-wing Christian Nationalists operating in Trump’s inner circle are quietly preparing for the prospect of his possible reelection.
In his speech Thursday, during which he also promised to close the Department of Education so that Christian fundamentalists could take over school policy at the state level, Trump said, “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.”
It’s shocking that people haven’t gotten to the conclusion yet. We cannot coexist with conservatives, they will never work in favor of a healthy society. Start backing the solution or prostrate yourself for the orange god.
I agree with everything you say except the word “conservatives”.
Conservatives need to have a voice in society in order to be receiving positive AND negative feedbacks at all times.
Trump isn’t conservative, and neither are his supporters; they don’t want to conserve anything, they want to live in an imaginary world where everything means what they want it to mean, regardless of reality.
They’re not fiscally conservative, they’re not legally conservative, they’re not politically conservative, they’re not even religiously conservative.
They want to create something new where they have absolute power and logic and reason can be ignored.
You’re referring to an older definition of that word. It’s been co-opted by gun loving, immigrant hating, misogynists. I miss the days of debates being about the issues you mention. I would love it if I could discuss exactly those topics with someone that has a different viewpoint. Instead the topics are so broad and extreme that we end up talking about whether or not it should be legal to tell kids that slavery existed and affected how people were legally considered until very recently. Segregation was deemed illegal within the lifetime of the majority of senators.
See also: “True” Christians
Christianity has a lovely core message that is no longer focused on. Instead individual references take center stage to help justify the restriction of rights of those who are other. The fact that we’ve rolled back Roe V Wade is insane.
Nah fuck that, conservatism has always been about maintaining oppressive bullshit. It can die along with its followers. We’d all be better off.
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Abrahamists won’t stop until everyone they hate are dead.
Are they pretending that Christians are a victimized class in America again? They need that persecution fetish to fuel their bizarre revenge fantasies, but in reality no one gives a shit about them. Maybe that’s why they are so mad.
Yyyyup. Evidently our Catholic president is attacking Christianity, according to them.
The public and politicians needs to understand that “Christian” in the context of MAGA is just shorthand for “marginalized white non-catholic Americans who mostly lives away from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts” who got screwed by a severe deterioration of living standards as globalization only harmed their livelihoods (although allows them to buy cheap stuff that, in the end, does not make it for the lack of long term life prospects for them and their communities).
America has a way of not caring for communities and livelihoods in the midst of economic changes and the electoral influence of MAGA is the ultimate symptoms of this culturally-ingrained and supported lack of care. And Dems also have no plans or policies for them, so it is a one way ticket to political extremism.
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And the only anxiety they have is anxiety that they won’t have the power to terrorize and oppress all those others with impunity anymore
See, but that dividing line is the issue - that minority figured out how to use the political process for their needs. We can debate whether they got external help or not, but they face no visible opposition and the many different varieties of opposition have no coherent plan to counter that, as each of the opposition have their own particular and absolutist view of how it should be done and can’t agree on a way forward, either.
Basically we are living that Austin Powers gag of the guy who was squashed by the steamroller until November comes
globalization
You dropped these:
((( )))
You’re simplifying the problem. I agree with part of your description of “Christians” as being marginalized by globalism. But you are downplaying the problem by making them seem out of touch with the times. The Industry I work in is very right leaning and MAGA. It is dominated by small and mid sized businesses. Of that I’d say 40% or more of owners actively call themselves Christian, the others generally keep to themselves on their religious beliefs.
The owners who identify and wear their Christianity on their sleeve are typically the sleeziest people you will ever do business with. They are all over the country, they are wealthy and they donate to Republicans in large numbers. They believe they have the right to dictate how they should do business and by extension how their employees live. They resent interference of the government in how they do business or how they treat their employees.
I imagine it is the same in other industries that have strong small business models. These people are not marginalized or weak.
They want to dominate and dictate their own local fiefdoms just like any of the billionaire oligarchs that you read about in the news.
So where are we in the timeline at the moment?
Early 1933 I’m guessing, certainly not up to mid 1934 and the Night of the Long Knives yet.
Hmm, so do you think the brown shirts are being played by the GOP or the Christian nationalists, or some other group under the MAGA umbrella? I could certainly see an argument either way there although I kind of lean towards it being the Christian nationalists. Trump has never really cared in any meaningful way about Christians, he just finds them to be an incredibly gullible group that are easy to manipulate and freely donate to those that know how to push their buttons. On the other hand the GOP are actually political rivals that could pose a longer term threat to him, but they’re also connected to powerful people that Trump would want to get on board, or at least keep from interfering. Other than keeping the public pacified I don’t see a longer term benefit to Trump from the Christian nationalists once he’s in power.
I dunno pandering to an already somewhat insular group is pretty much hitting the jackpot when it comes to establishing the basis of in groups and out groups.
I suppose the other side of this would be realizing Trump is a complete moron and just about everyone in this thread has probably put more thought into this than he ever would. Based on that, Trump will likely do what he has always done and decide who to attack based on who most recently kissed his ass and who insulted him/made him look bad/failed to accomplish what he wanted/disagreed with him/makes a convenient scapegoat. Based on that metric the Christian nationalists are probably safe, but most of the GOP is definitely in the line of fire.
He has to be elected first and that ain’t gonna happen.
We can certainly hope. Things will be very bad if he does get in though. He knows this is his last real shot and if he fails this time best case scenario is he goes bankrupt, worst case he rots in prison. He’s going to be desperate in a way he wasn’t last time.
The desperation might be what sinks him, or so we can hope
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Why any actual God fearing Christian would think that Trump is a pious man is beyond me.
It’s more of an identity than an actual belief system for most people.
He resembles what they see in Christianity perfectly, and if we’re being honest, what Christianity has always been.
There’s a milquetoast version of Christianity that’s quite benevolent and popular by numbers, but because they almost never do crazy shit, it doesn’t get shown a lot. Like for instance Church of England or scandinavian protestant churches.
The USA has free market Jesus, something most other countries never had for as long as America. Since religion was decoupled from the state, religion could be whatever put butts in seats.
Yeah, there’s a reason my very religious state preferred Ted Cruz and even Kasich to Trump in 2016…
He didn’t win my state in the general because he’s pious, he won my state because he’s Republican, she unfortunately that’s all that matters here.
Frightening
That’s what they want. I am not afraid of cheese turd the rapist and his proud boys.
Full on fascism. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.”
The Rantichrist
He also said to drink bleach, soooo…
religion sucks ass
The only point of power is to abuse it.
After saying this he proceeded to chuck Sam Jackson out a window.
Defend religious content on AM? The only fucking thing on AM is religious content
I’m a 30s millennial, and I don’t think I have EVER in my life, intentionally listened to AM radio lmao. I haven’t even listened to FM in like 13+ years lolol
There were always religious nutters (Xians naturally) on AM, as long as I can remember, but they used to be a minority. AM was mostly pop music and C&W and talk shows. One thing I now look back on nostalgically was Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM show that aired really late at night. I used to listen to it on my long drive home from work and he’d have all kinds of crazy conspiracy theorists (UFOs, aliens, Area51 activities) and paranormal “researchers” &etc &etc on the show. Great fun, and despite the conspiracy stuff, largely non-political. Everyone understood it was “entertainment”. You can probably find recorded episodes online. Satan knows what kind of horrible garbage is on AM these days, but I’m not about to go find out either.
Yep. AB and later George Noory are fond memories of my late-night driving.
As a 30s millennial, I’ve listened to a ton of AM and still do occasionally. It’s great for sports and advisories (e.g. when traveling through a sketchy pass), I just avoid the evangelical stations because they’re nonsense. I used to like Dave Ramsey for the callers (dislike his advice though), and I still sometimes listen to KLove periodically on FM for generic pop without the sexually charged lyrics.
Likewise, I listen to FM pretty much every day. I generally prefer classic rock (before my time), and there’s some decent stations for it in my area. I’ll alternate between that and audiobooks for my commute most days.
Different strokes I guess.
If they mean power to erase themselves from existence, I’m all for it!
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And thus setting in stone that there will be a Christian jihad by what is the American Al-Qaeda in this country.
Prepare yourselves for the inevitable, folks. None of us are safe from these lunatics. If you have a friend or family member that is LGBTQ+ start thinking of ways to hide them.
We’re entering the state backed terrorism part of this exercise.
