Much like Sarah Palin, Trump’s worst crime will end up being getting the GOP to adjust its standards to make it possible to defend him. There are two examples of this in the news today. One comes from Tony Perkins, the notorious president of the evangelical Family Research Council:
Perkins knows about Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who claimed, in a 2011 interview, that in 2006 she had sex with Trump four months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. He knows of the reports that Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) was paid off to keep the affair quiet in the waning weeks of the 2016 election. He knows about the cursing, the lewdness and the litany of questionable behavior over the past year of Trump’s life or the 70 that came before it.
“We kind of gave him—‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,’” Perkins told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast.
I think we’re all familiar with evangelical forgiveness of egregious sins, but this is always accompanied by some at least seemingly genuine admission of guilt and repentance. Trump simply denies he’s done anything wrong. Perkins explained the new standard by saying that evangelical Christians are “tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.” He added that “Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.”
I won’t dispute that many evangelicals can do with less sanctimony, but abandoning all their moral standards is an overcorrection. And I’m really talking here only about the evangelicals who are so politicized that they’re really synonymous with Republicans. They no longer care about adultery or even the most basic family values, like not cheating on your wife while she’s nursing. They clearly don’t care about business ethics, basic competency, civility, honesty, or even the possibility that the president is compromised by a foreign power. And it’s because he’s on the right team and punching the right people.
The other example in the news today is the revelation that Trump asked his acting Attorney General who he voted for and then criticized him because his wife ran for office as a Democrat and accepted political help from a Clinton-connected political action committee.
Shortly after President Trump fired his FBI director in May, he summoned to the Oval Office the bureau’s acting director for a get-to-know-you meeting.
The two men exchanged pleasantries, but before long, Trump, according to several current and former U.S. officials, asked Andrew McCabe a pointed question: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election?
McCabe said he didn’t vote, according to the officials, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive matter.
Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations that his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton.
That kind of behavior would be appropriate with Tammany Hall, but it’s totally inconsistent with how we’ve tried to run our government since the time of Chester Arthur. But the Republicans are in the midst a full-throated and coordinated campaign to purge the FBI of anyone who might be unsympathetic to the Republican Party or unwilling to overlook possible crimes by the chief executive and his campaign crew. Once again, it appears that their efforts are being supported by Russian trolls and bots on social media. So, the idea that civil servants should be hired and fired without regard to their professed political leanings goes out the window in an effort to protect a fatally flawed Republican president.
As we saw with Sarah Palin, once the Republicans lower their standards to defend the indefensible, the standards never get reapplied except selectively and disingenuously for naked political gain. Actual, genuine standards are not just eroded in this way but actually destroyed. And this is why there has been a breakdown in norms that prevents the two parties from working in any kind of collaborative fashion.
You might think it can’t get worse than a party backing a child molester for Senate because at least he’ll go on the playground and punch the liberals, but it can. And it will.
IOKIYAR
They will change their tune as soon as it’s a Democrat.
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Hillary is evil incarnate!
Unfortunately, I don’t think this is lowering a bar, but it is removing a mask that has been allowed in the public square for far too long.
In addition to Mr. Perkins needing to provide evidence of how President Obama “bullied” him, I need some evidence that he and his tax-free Republican Political Action voter horde…er sorry evangelical Christians…EVER fucking cared about any of what you list?
I’d argue this form of political evangelical Christianity has it’s roots in the American slave trade where whites had to repeatedly violate the basic tenants of Christianity and civil society social norms to make the system work.
As was pointed out be social reformers at the time, it led to a moral structure that let a white man do ANYTHING from Monday morning through Saturday night as long as his ass was in the pew Sunday morning.
Today, Perkin’s brand of Christianity is largely where white supremacists ran and hid in the 1970’s. Trump is and always forgiven because the only true “sin” he can commit is NOT being a racist.
Just to level set, the klan considered itself a “Christian” organization.
And as unobtrusive and relatively benign Obama was, as politicians and presidents go, what made him a “bully” and the devil incarnate in the eyes of Perkins and his ilk was his blackness, truth be told.
Perkins hypocrisy is par for the course, but he and his are no more Christian in any Biblical sense than the klan wad.
“…the klan considered itself a “Christian” organization…”
Yes, those crosses were meant to communicate something. Those communications strayed from Christ’s words and actions, though.
“You might think it can’t get worse than a party backing a child molester for Senate because at least he’ll go on the playground and punch the liberals, but it can. And it will.”
Arguably it already has. The campaign to undermine the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies to cover up conspiracy with a foreign adversary to steal the election is you know, treason. (Don’t get all legalistic with me, I’m using the term in the vernacular.)
It is Treason, and I wish dems would stop pussy footing around and call it what it is.
The republicans have no problem calling dems murderers, but remain “polite” in refraining to call the GOP what it is.
There is no bottom.
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It is Treason, and I wish dems would stop pussy footing around and call it what it is.
The republicans have no problem calling dems murderers, but remain “polite” in refraining to call the GOP what it is.
Remember back when Trump was campaigning and there were many Republicans who couldn’t say enough terrible things about him? Lindsey Graham said Trump should go to hell. So there are still some Republicans, one assumes, who might crack if Trump starts to seriously tank and they could revert back to their original positions against him.
Trump got them what they wanted in tax reform and in weakening the health care laws. The more evidence that comes out in the Mueller investigation and the parade of prostitutes, the more pressure there will be on the Republican Party of Hypocrisy to decry the Liar in Chief. But will they do it?
I hope the Republicans continue to wallow in the pigslop they dumped onto their party and ours. I hope more of them get swallowed up by it. We don’t have to sink down to their level. We can operate with a sense of decency and still come out ahead.
Let me know the first time that happens.
There is certainly a breaking point. But I think it will only happen in the midst of a massive national upheaval as the entire edifice of our democracy collapses. Their base will NEVER walk away from Trump, and that alone will keep 99% of the GOP in lockstep right up until the point that The Great American Experiment implodes. If the Mueller investigation is allowed to continue, then it is inevitable that most of Trump’s inner circle, and likley Trump himself, gets swept up in results of the criminality. But I doubt even that will matter.
I used to think that somewhere in there was a bridge too far for the GOP. But with all the infrastructure that exists to prop up their world of alternate reality, it could well continue to roll along in perpetuity. There is simply no going back for most all of the GOP. That ship has sailed, and they eagerly boarded it and are enthusiastically pulling on its oars every day. I don’t expect that anything will change that for them.
Every time I thought Trump or McConnell had reached a tipping point where they would lose favor, I was wrong. I thought Trump was done when he called Mexicans rapists and thieves during his campaign, or when he mocked a disabled man. Nothing. Then came the tape of his infamous pussy-grabbing talk, and I wasn’t alone believing he was done. But nothing.
I agree that there is no bridge too far for the Republicans. The Christian Right is giving him a pass on adultery and the Senators will follow him down to hell with immigration. They got their corporate tax bonus bill passed and they will continue to blast health care. His base is ecstatic and the rest of the Republicans are going to get their wishes on everything they want.
I hope something happens to blow them all up. Mueller may be a roadblock. I hope there’s a turnaround somehow.
I don’t stop believing that Pence would be worse. I also don’t lose sight of the fact that most of what is happening right now would be happening under any GOP administration. It would just be more craftily handled.
Some part of me thinks you’re right
But another part of me expects the calendar to reach 9 Thermidor… someday
The reality in FailedNation, Inc. is that the Repub party can no longer be reformed or redeemed. None of its constituent elements will permit it, from evangelicals to plutocrats. And their manifest corruption has rotted the timbers of the ship of state.
The Repub party has been in its present state of intellectual and institutional corruption since the Bushco/Cheney era–although professing devotion and protection to the Stable Genius is obviously a couple of notches lower on the failure/intellectual corruption scale, so the bottom has not yet been reached.
It did not have this level of complete corruption in the Golden Age of 1960-1980, so there has been a clear decline. The St Reagan era appears to have been the transition period. With Bushco, their rhetoric became solely focused on the protection of the party’s prez and defending the indefensible, from torture to Pinhead Palin. The bottom fell out, and this was apparent for anyone with eyes to see.
Unfortunately the 46% are now legally blind, and they will sink us–we are shackled to a corpse. There is no longer any principle higher than political victory to them, and the professed adherence by some of the 46% to some vision of “Christianity” as their real motivating force is simply comic.
—we are shackled to a corpse–
That sums it up.
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Trump’s worst crime will end up being getting the GOP to adjust its standards to make it possible to defend him
We have to agree to disagree. Quite honestly, I see precious little difference between the Republican Party before Trump and the GOP after Trump.
Calling what’s going on now “Trumpism,” is IMO a big fat lie (not saying you said that). “Trumpism” doesn’t exist. But Republicanism does.
All Trump did is permit the inside voices to be shouted out loud. Frankly I don’t see one whit of difference in that Before and After picture.
As for Tony Perkins? Again, no surprises. The American Talibangelicans – at least the White Supremacist wing (I understand that AA evangelicals are very different) – have been this way for decades. They are amoral, corrupt, creepy charlatans with absolutely no real “religious” standing IMO. They exist simply to promote White Supremacy with all of it’s attendant hate crimes of sexism, homophobia, racism, etc. The whole shebang is “run” by a pack of super unscruplous immoral greedy sleazy creeps like Perkins and Franklin Graham, whose only goal is to rip off as much money as possible from ignorant racists who want to believe that their sh*tholes don’t stink.
IMO, nothing changed in November 2016. NOTHING. It’s just another GOP Administration continuing the rapine and plunder of our third world country.
The whole shebang is “run” by a pack of super unscrupulous, immoral, greedy, sleazy creeps like Perkins and Franklin Graham, whose only goal is to rip off as much money as possible from ignorant racists who want to believe that their sh*tholes don’t stink.
It’s like people don’t remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart, among others.
. . . “civil servants” when prosaic but accurate labels like “the civil service” or “the bureaucracy” aren’t scary enough for your (nefarious) purposes.
Oh, and have you heard (the latest lunacy from the fever swamp)? Not only is The Deep State in the midst of a coup against our duly elected president, they also (we just somehow suddenly noticed) suckered dubya into the War Crime of invading Iraq by manufacturing fake evidence of Saddam’s WMDs!
Wow. Just. Wow. I wonder how many of these folks could get suckered into eating TidePODS.
yep presented by Rush Limbauch
https:/www.redstate.com/arbogast/2018/01/24/rush-limbaugh-sounds-like-an-unhinged-conspiracy-theori
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Protestantism in the USA, and especially the rise of political evangelicalism over the past 50 years, are very complex subjects. Most of the comments I see on this thread paint “evangelicals” with a broad brush. For simplicity, I’ll use that word, though it would be better to differentiate between Pentacostalism, reformed theology, charismatics, etc.
I grew up around many self-described evangelicals or “born again” Christians. Many years later, I became an adult convert to Christianity, and I’m active in a denomination that would be considered “mainline” or “liberal” by most evangelicals. We rub elbows with our evangelical brothers and sisters every day through various interfaith activities, both formal and informal.
For the evangelicals over 40, the principal subject of debate is whether or not I can even call myself a Christian. Like many in my denomination, I support gay marriage, gender equality, and social justice work around the world. I reject literal interpretations of our holy scriptures. In the eyes of older evangelicals, these are grave sins that make me, at best, a worshipper of false idols, and at worst, an unbeliever sent to sabotage their community. I’m about as welcome as Typhoid Mary.
However, for many evangelicals under 40, I’m seen as a wacky, crazy uncle who has some weird theology, but I’m still a welcomed part of the family. Our debates are good-natured, and there is much more common ground.
Many younger evangelicals believe their elders have been corrupted by politics, and they struggle to find coherence between the messages they hear on Sunday, and the love and respect they feel for a gay coworker or relative. They struggle with Church elders who disdain immigrants and the poor, which conflicts with everything they’ve read in their bibles about welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. Above all, personal character holds pride of place above any political agenda. Many younger folks find it laughable that their leaders wail about gay marriage while their standard-bearer is a serial adulterer who brags about grabbing women.
Some become more strident as they get older. Some leave organized religion entirely. More than a few have moved over to “mainline” churches, and they are bringing a new energy to our denominations, even as, overall, we continue to decline in numbers.
Many younger evangelicals are disgusted by Trump, and even more disgusted by the “old guard” that embraces him. I don’t have any data, but all of my anecdotal evidence indicates that this sort of hypocrisy by old-guard evangelicals is accelerating some of the generational splits in the community.
The Democratic Party can’t turn the clock back to 1976, when a majority of evangelicals cast their vote for Jimmy Carter. The Republicans have done a brilliant job of “weaponizing” abortion and gay marriage. However, there are places along the divide where bridges may be built.
Young evangelicals talk a great deal about the sin of consumerism, of the need to be “good stewards” of the environment, and the need for compassion in dealing with poverty and drug abuse. They are receptive to suspicions about monopolistic and anti-worker practices by large corporations.
Young Catholics, despite strong views on abortion, support Democratic candidates by a substantial maargin. Can Democrats get there with young evangelicals? It’s a tough sell, but not impossible. The first step is to expand the dialogue.
Ironically, the Democrats’ best advocates, right now, are Messrs. Perkins and Graham. When I reported their comments to a very devout, evangelical co-worker (who is a former Baptist missionary) she, literally, pounded her head on her desk. “Do they want anyone under 50 in their pews on Sunday?” she asked. She was not joking.
Thanks for this thoughtful, informative contribution, AngryTeacher.
The mistake is “thinking” that these Republicans are different than their GOP/Republican leadership!
They are NOT!
They are one and the same!
Willful ignorance is not BLISSful …just plain stupid!
These very same people opposed and encourage the obstruction of the US government under TWICE elected African-American POTUS.
These WERE the Birthers and “I want my country back!” shouters!
Also THIS is not a new phenomenon… who do you think the John Birchers were?
Was Chester A. Arthur particularly corrupt? Are you referring to the inauguration of the meritocratic civil service?
Well Arthur was active in the corrupt Republican Roscoe Conkling machine and was neck deep in the “spoils” system. He was a added as a compromise to the presidential ticket. However when the Presidency was thrust upon him with Garfield’s assassination he performed admirably and without too much taint of his previous life.
“No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired … more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe.” – Journalist Alexander McClure.
So while Booman is correct about the time period, Arthur at least had a measure of redemption and actually because of that – was not re-elected.