They have been primed to follow the anti christ their whole lives.
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
667 points (97.3% liked)
politics
19273 readers
1910 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The worst thing about being an atheist (or a theist with a good religious education) is not being able to tell yourself these people are going to burn in Hell.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Ohh, Trump is the antichrist. End times confirmed?
Growing up Bible-literalist religious and reading Revelations, I always had trouble with the idea that so many people would follow the antichrist, but that part seems so much more believable now.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Every now and again they're completely blatant about mocking that portion of their base.
Idk, I don't see peace in the middle east happening any time soon.
Although I guess Trump glassing the whole region would technically be peace.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
use what you have to to drop the orange asshole down a deep dark well far far away from the reins of power
It's really not surprising. To be an evangelical you have to consistently deny reality, so a man who embodies everything opposite of purported christian values becoming the messiah figure isn't unusual for the ethos. I don't understand how they all live with cognitive dissonance every day but apparently they make it work.
Makes sense to me. Just like the most moral army in the world has a hall pass to brazenly commit genocide, bulldoze American activists, and murder journalists, so too do the evangelicals have the right to abandon all of their espoused beliefs to support a fraudster, rapey racist. All for the pursuit of christo fascism and “pro life” beliefs that only became a part of their identity in the 70s/80s
Bullshit.
Trump is not Satan.
Satan wouldn't have anything to do with that evil fucker.
He is the most hateful person.
They worship money and power, the corruption is almost complete. Basically they are the empire, and we are the rebels. May the Jedi, rise again.
Personally, I don't find Evangelical support of Trump all that surprising.
When you get down to brass tacks, this is an election between two candidates. Almost no one is going to look at those two candidates and find a perfect fit. It's quite possible that people won't even find a good fit. But, they have three choices, either one of the candidates or not voting at all. The latter of those choices is pointless, if one has policy preferences that they want to achieve. That only leaves picking the closest fit among the two candidates.
In may corners of Lemmy, and in this community specifically, there has been a very strong push towards the sort of "vote Blue, no matter who" message, which has been around for several cycles. And this message is not wrong. Harris's position on the war in Gaza has a lot of detractors. But, the choice is not between Harris and someone with a better position. The race is between Harris and Trump, whose position on Gaza is likely worse for those detractors. If those detractors don't want things to get worse, they pretty much have to accept the situation as is, vote Harris and push for changes. And I suspect a lot of folks will support Harris, some enthusiastically, in spite of that policy difference. Because they will find other policy positions that they strongly support are also supported or championed by Harris. Better a flawed candidate that one which is diametrically opposed to the policy positions which one holds most dear.
The thing which seems to be forgotten by folks who wonder "how can Evangelicals support Trump?", is that this same problem cuts both ways. The people who hold GOP aligned policy preferences hold those beliefs just as strongly as Liberal/Progressive folks hold their own. That they would fall into a "vote Red, no matter who" mindset should not be surprising at all. And for Evangelicals, I'd argue that this mindset may be even stronger. These are folks who believe that, not only does this life hinge on their actions, they also truly believe that the here-after does as well. As much fun as we might make of people for believing in an invisible sky-wizard, they really, really believe all that stuff. And their entire self-identity will be built on the version of that belief system. And let me stress that it's specifically "their version of that belief system". The various versions of the Christian Bible have a lot of ambiguous and contradictory stuff in them. It's easy enough to dig out justifications for nearly any positions one wants to take. And Trump's messaging has been pretty well aligned with the mainstream Evangelical version of policy positions on all the major topics. Harris's positions, on the other hand, are in direct oppositions to those positions.
Why does that matter so much? One of the deeply important policy positions to Evangelicals, for several decades now, has been overturning Roe v. Wade. And for all the shit one might say about Trump, he actually got that done. Nixon, Regan, Bush, and Bush all failed in that one, paramount goal. Trump, did it. Stop and imagine for a moment, a politician whose personal life you find distasteful, yet they managed to accomplish the one single policy goal you hold above all others, would you go vote against them? Especially when their opposition is loudly campaigning to undo that major policy win for you? Oh, and that opposition is also campaigning against just about every other social policy position you hold. Anyone saying "yes" to that question is bullshitting themselves.
Now, is Trump going to get anything else done for the Evangelicals? Who knows. But, Harris certainly isn't and she's actively hostile to their worldview. And Trump already got "goal number one" done. It seems like a reasonable bet that someone who already won the top line fight might win a few of the other ones as well. And all that "fascism, threat to democracy stuff"? Ya, that's just liberals whining because they are losing. It's Godwin's Law in action. The lawsuits and criminal convictions, that's just liberals weaponizing the DoJ to stop Trump, since they can't stop him legitimately. And Trump's past as a horrible person? A personal turnaround story of a "lost soul coming to Jesus" is damned near a foundational myth of Evangelicalism.
No, Evangelicals supporting Trump is neither surprising, nor unexpected. And you can bet they will latch right onto the next GOP candidate to come along. And it's not all that hard to understand. If you have ever bought into any version of "vote Blue, no matter who", then you are intimately familiar with the same logic. From their perspective, the US is in the grips of an existential crisis which is being perpetrated by Democrats. The very foundations of their self are "under attack" as society moves further and further away from their central truths. And, from my own perspective, I don't see that there is really any way to convince those folks otherwise. Trump isn't the Devil in the desert tempting Jesus. To them, he's the flawed man who is going to save their version of the US the only way he can. He's a vigilante, bending or breaking the rules, because the rules are stacked against "the righteous". That's the mindset you are up against.
@sylver_dragon @MicroWave I think your conclusions are accurate, particularly in the evangelical view of Trump as a “flawed vessel” that will still carry their religious water. But what always pisses me off is the absolute refusal of those same evangelicals to even begin to entertain the notion that Barack Obama, or now Kamala Harris could also be imperfect in their eyes, but still be the best choice to lead the country. Their minds are closed and locked.
…and that has to do with echo chambers.
Not only do they have pastors in church reading specially selected passages of scripture (often out of context) and preaching the message of the GOP instead of the message of Jesus, but the TV and radio stations they watch and listen to, and the social media groups they’re in all are focused the same way. And all these places share the same “I have the answers; listen to me and everything will be OK for your soul” approach to life, which is easier than continually having to apply your own critical thought to the barrage of information we’re otherwise exposed to in modern society.
Also worth pointing out where you say “their minds are closed and locked” — in biblical language, the cultures of the time thought that people thought with their hearts. So all those “their hearts were hardened” scattered throughout the Bible? They’re talking about the exact same thing you are… and it’s never a good thing.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I recommend reading One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse. It’s a deep dive into the history of US capitalists intentionally corrupting evangelicals to serve capitalist political ideologies.
Doesn't their own book actually warn against someone like this? But I guess it's not like they ever read the whole thing...
Trump fits the Christian mythology of the antichrist to a t.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Trump is a truly vile person. The recent Epstein tapes detail how he'd arrange extra-marital affairs for his "friends" so he could tell their wives about it and get them to cheat with him in revenge. Apparently one of his kinks was banging his "friend's" wives.
Even Epstein the pedo thinks Trump is a notably horrible person.
That's who Evangelical Christians are supporting, who they claim was saved by God to lead America. It boggles the mind.
It boggles the mind.
It's really simple. He institutionalizes hate, and they love him for it. That, and the racism.
This argument hinges on the premise that churches aren't evil to begin with.
People who have fallen for one grift are prone to falling for others.
Raised within a grift. Never having been encouraged to think outside the grift. Essentially, they are part of the Borg. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't so completely dangerous to anything that isn't them.
Tax the church. That’s the only way forward
Because Abrahamic faiths are a plague on society
Trump is a Christian charlatan, anyone can see that.
In the face of overwhelming evidence against the fables in their book, even a charlatan offers comfort that they're still special, still virtuous and righteous.
It's a sad state of affairs for people who are willfully ignorant, terrified they might not be as special as they think.
These are his followers.
Not so fun fact about this study:
He ran tabletop workshops, basically like Risk, and every time the Authoritarians had control of the world, they nuked it wiping everyone out.
#VOTE!
☹️
They were never about being Christian. They stood against Martin Luther King when he was alive and were all for bombing Vietnam back to the stone age. Sixty years later they are still the same.
load more comments
(2 replies)
A group of people who believe in sky daddy are suseptible to manipulation...weird.
It isn’t even believing in sky daddy, rather it’s believing that one of his sky children has been specially appointed to interpret sky daddy and that you should give that representative all your money, time, and choices.
If our only problem was that people pray to sky daddy and look inward for answers, we wouldn’t have a problem. It’s the religious authority figures who seem to do most of the radicalizing.
No, it's just as basic as the OP let on... Going to church every Sunday indoctrinates the, "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. The very premise that the religion itself is the source of truth in the world is the trap that leads people down the road of falling for charlatans and other scam artists.
All it takes is for their priest or pastor to endorse (directly or indirectly) any political view, candidate, or person/product and "the flock" will adhere. To not adhere is to deny the authority and thus, the religion itself. That often also means expulsion from their community and very real other social and sometimes worse consequences.
The only "escape" is to simply not participate which actually resolves into two scenarios:
- An honest one where the former adherent admits that they no longer believe (the authority; not necessarily the entire religion).
- A dishonest one where conformance and piety is claimed and faked as a sort of performance art. After all, who can deny piety exists in an individual? It's all in their head. This method can be quite profitable if you have no scruples! (For example, a Jesus fish in an official company logo/slogan... That's basically the modern day version of the money changers in the parable of the money changers!)
At an even more basic level, going to church and claiming publicly that you adhere to a religion like evangelical Christianity opens you up to be scammed. Since there's no official tests or regulations regarding what counts as "Christian" literally any scammer/scummy company can claim to be Christian and thus, "on the team".
Christ's teachings are pretty clear that everyone is on the same team and not to favor one group over another based on ethnicity (and by extension, religion) as given by the parable of washing the prostitute's feet. However, that's not really taught much in evangelical churches these days! In fact, if your pastor isn't bringing that up right now--as Trump promises to intern immigrants, forcing them away from their families/communities--with regularity they're probably in that second camp I talked about: Faking piety for profit.
load more comments
(2 replies)
He found the most disgusting and vile christians to pull the rest down is all he and foreign governments did.
load more comments
(1 replies)
If on the other side of this we cannot quell christofascism/religious nationalism by telling the story of how this evil pos lead religion to follow him like a wolf in sheep's clothing, then I fear the world will just keep spinning in the same circles it always does.
It’s not like this is a new story; we’ve seen it many times before, usually resulting in a lot of pain and suffering for humanity to recover from afterwards.