This week, President Trump characterized dozens of countries on the African continent, as well as Haiti, "shit hole countries" and wondered aloud why we take immigrants from those countries. Then he expressed a preference for immigrants from Norway. These comments were reported by at least two people who were present and heard the President say them.
A picture of Trump's German father, wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, shimmered before my mind's eye when I read about this. (There is some evidence that Trump Sr. was arrested during a KKK rally in the U.S., but facts are sparse and mysterious. We do not know for sure that he was a member of the KKK or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in a large arrest of KKK members. Being from Germany during a time of extreme bigotry, it appears suspicious.)
When the understandable public outcry erupted, Trump denied having made these comments, another lie in a long, disgusting stream of lies that have issued from his lips since taking office.
When I was growing up, we all laughed at Archie Bunker. It was safe to laugh at the ill-informed, racist, misogynistic father of a New York family in a popular and ground breaking television comedy. He was a clownish character who was harmless, because he wasn't an actual person, and he represented a type of person that was on the way out, a dinosaur, or so we thought.
Put Archie Bunker in an expensive suit, and sit him in front of a television set in the White House, with a cheese burger in his hand, and you have Donald Trump. Unlike Archie Bunker, who remained married to the mother of his children, twice divorced Trump's third wife is young enough to be his daughter. He is not the family man Archie Bunker was.
There is a veneer of glamour laid over Trump and his spawn which, if it was not present, would leave us with an image of a stereotypical crime family.
In no way does Trump personify even a moderately virtuous Christian man. Vulgar, misogynistic, racist and corrupt, his every utterance, in the form of a continual stream of tweets, is an assault on our cherished values. The fact that a portion of our population adores him and holds him up as a savior for the Christian right, is a sad comment on a virulent strain of hate that passes for Christianity among a portion of the American people. These are the racist, bigoted minority that have remained underground, muttering racial slurs about non-whites to one another since the days of integration in the 1960's. They've waited for someone like Trump, whose dog whistles have made them perk up their ears.
The erroneous belief that Trump will somehow make abortion vanish from our landscape has blinded another block of people who do not appreciate how Trump's association with their pro-life cause, though tenuous and thin, is a damaging one. Outsiders look at him and are so appalled that any cause associated with him is dirtied. Evangelization under these conditions is impossible.
Unlike Archie Bunker, Trump is not harmless. He has already damaged our reputation around the world for many years to come. Whatever benefit derived from the installation of Trump's jurists in the Supreme Court pales in comparison with the damage he is doing. Electing him, in spite of his history of sexual assaults, lies, shady business dealings, and racism, has proven to be a huge mistake for our country.
I can only hope and pray that Trump's show, unlike Archie's, has a very short run.
God save us all.
Silver Rose Parnell
Copyright (c) 2018
All rights reserved.
P.S. It has taken hours to write this on this ridiculous little kindle. Please donate through my PayPal button on this page, so I can get my computer fixed. I need a new hard drive, installation, and transfer of data. The whole thing will cost between $200 and $400 - that's my guess.
A picture of Trump's German father, wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, shimmered before my mind's eye when I read about this. (There is some evidence that Trump Sr. was arrested during a KKK rally in the U.S., but facts are sparse and mysterious. We do not know for sure that he was a member of the KKK or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in a large arrest of KKK members. Being from Germany during a time of extreme bigotry, it appears suspicious.)
When the understandable public outcry erupted, Trump denied having made these comments, another lie in a long, disgusting stream of lies that have issued from his lips since taking office.
When I was growing up, we all laughed at Archie Bunker. It was safe to laugh at the ill-informed, racist, misogynistic father of a New York family in a popular and ground breaking television comedy. He was a clownish character who was harmless, because he wasn't an actual person, and he represented a type of person that was on the way out, a dinosaur, or so we thought.
Put Archie Bunker in an expensive suit, and sit him in front of a television set in the White House, with a cheese burger in his hand, and you have Donald Trump. Unlike Archie Bunker, who remained married to the mother of his children, twice divorced Trump's third wife is young enough to be his daughter. He is not the family man Archie Bunker was.
There is a veneer of glamour laid over Trump and his spawn which, if it was not present, would leave us with an image of a stereotypical crime family.
In no way does Trump personify even a moderately virtuous Christian man. Vulgar, misogynistic, racist and corrupt, his every utterance, in the form of a continual stream of tweets, is an assault on our cherished values. The fact that a portion of our population adores him and holds him up as a savior for the Christian right, is a sad comment on a virulent strain of hate that passes for Christianity among a portion of the American people. These are the racist, bigoted minority that have remained underground, muttering racial slurs about non-whites to one another since the days of integration in the 1960's. They've waited for someone like Trump, whose dog whistles have made them perk up their ears.
The erroneous belief that Trump will somehow make abortion vanish from our landscape has blinded another block of people who do not appreciate how Trump's association with their pro-life cause, though tenuous and thin, is a damaging one. Outsiders look at him and are so appalled that any cause associated with him is dirtied. Evangelization under these conditions is impossible.
Unlike Archie Bunker, Trump is not harmless. He has already damaged our reputation around the world for many years to come. Whatever benefit derived from the installation of Trump's jurists in the Supreme Court pales in comparison with the damage he is doing. Electing him, in spite of his history of sexual assaults, lies, shady business dealings, and racism, has proven to be a huge mistake for our country.
I can only hope and pray that Trump's show, unlike Archie's, has a very short run.
God save us all.
Silver Rose Parnell
Copyright (c) 2018
All rights reserved.
P.S. It has taken hours to write this on this ridiculous little kindle. Please donate through my PayPal button on this page, so I can get my computer fixed. I need a new hard drive, installation, and transfer of data. The whole thing will cost between $200 and $400 - that's my guess.
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