Donald Trump may well have simply given up on this election. One can only hope. But he asked a question today during a speech that reveals much about his mindset and worldview–and where he sees himself in relation to other people.
I don’t think anything else that I’ve seen lately better encapsulates the problem with this election cycle. Even if/when Hillary Clinton wins, as does indeed look more and more like an inevitability, America has a very big problem on its hands.
The whole reason that Trump came to power was that he tapped into the roaring, blazing rage of the Religious Right, and now the whole reason he is falling is that the Religious Right simply doesn’t hold the power that it once claimed. But the kind of people who still support him are also the kind of people who take a little longer to see the writing on the wall when there’s been a massive sea change in circumstances. Weirdly enough, the same attempted justification is being used by both his supporters and the defectors from his banner. It backfires both times.
Fundagelicals and Republicans alike went into full damage-control mode the second this tape surfaced. They rightly sensed what a complete, unmitigated disaster it represented for their standard-bearer–and their own image. And as they panicked, so did Billy Bush. Remember, though he comes from a very religious family, he’s not terribly fervent. But Donald Trump’s supporters sure are. So both his and their responses are going to look very familiar.
Michele Bachmann, a former US Representative from Minnesota and infamous religious fanatic and right-wing-nutjob, has decided that obviously all this negative publicity emerging about her party’s nominee is happening only because of a Democratic conspiracy. Yes. She is claiming that Democrats released the tapes and orchestrated the entire drama.
Certainly, we shouldn’t be surprised that Christians, having finally figured out just how bad the situation is for them, are finally swinging around to trying to fix things. But a funny thing happens when very criticism-averse people try to solve big, sweeping, systemic problems with their group: they start coming up with reasons for those problems that bear no resemblance to reality.
Thom Rainer’s blog post “Seven Areas Where Pastors Have Failed at Reading Minds” is worth the read just to get a feel for how frustrated pastors in fundagelical churches are these days. It’s largely their own fault, sure, but still, that is a lot of frustration to see boiling up from the page.
The ironic thing is that out of all the made-up, manufactured terrors that Christians burden themselves with, this one actually is a problem. Today I’ll show you why Christian leaders put so much emphasis on never being unequally yoked–and why they should fear it.
They’re doing everything they know how to do as best they can, and yet they are not being rewarded by Jesus with their free boyfriend or girlfriend.
Christian leaders themselves can spin-doctor the latest bad news as much as they like (and oh, they have been!), but reality is unfolding in their ranks whether they like it or not. Their flocks don’t have the luxury of denial. They’ve had to come up with strategies for dealing with the new reality of Christianity’s demographic shift, most of it in direct defiance of their leaders’ demands.