Make No Mistake. Today’s GOP Is Racist.

Given Trump’s unrestrained spending, the GOP can no longer claim to be the party of financial responsibility. Given Trump’s boorish behavior, his history of extramarital affairs and sexual assaults, his administration’s forced separation of refugee families and its torturous incarceration of young children, the party can no longer claim to be the party of family values. Given Trump’s lack of a foreign policy, his embrace of murderous dictators and his acceptance of Russian interference, it can no longer claim to be strong on defense.

Given Trump’s disdain for the FBI and his obstruction of justice, it cannot claim to be the party of law and order. Given his tariffs, it cannot claim to be the party of free trade. Given the party’s efforts to suppress voting, to gerrymander, to bury opponents in an avalanche of dirty money, and to steal elections, it most certainly cannot claim that it cares about democracy. Given the party’s determination to cut Social Security, Medicare and other safety net programs such as Meals on Wheels, it cannot claim to care about seniors. And, given its cuts to veteran’s benefits, it cannot claim that it cares for veterans.

What the today’s GOP can reasonably claim to be is a party of xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists, racists and fascists.

Once the party of emancipators and proponents of conservative fiscal policies, the GOP began its evolution following Brown v Board of Education – the Supreme Court ruling that forced the desegregation of public schools. In the wake of that decision, James M. Buchanan formulated a plan to allow the white elite to retain its power over the majority. His ideas were embraced by libertarians, in particular the billionaire Charles Koch, and southern conservatives. Then, following the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, which were signed into law by a Democratic president (Lyndon B. Johnson), the GOP committed to Lee Atwater’s Southern strategy by reaching out to southern Democrats (the so-called Dixiecrats). Within a few years, the Old South was bright red.

Then, under the guidance of Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell and others, the party began the culture wars by embracing Christian fundamentalist anti-abortion and anti-gay views. It pandered to evangelicals, most especially those in the southern Baptist church.

The transformation from the party of Lincoln was complete.

In many ways, Trump is a symptom of nearly seventy years of change. His demagoguery merely gave the movement a celebrity and gave members permission to unleash their true feelings. He and his followers railed against our nation’s first black president questioning his citizenship. He fomented hate against refugees and immigrants from so-called shithole (non-white) countries. And he decried political correctness (aka politeness) which allowed the majority of Republicans to pull off their masks to reveal their true colors…er…color…white.

Trump and his advisors, Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, even pandered to neo-Nazis and white supremacists (those “very nice people” on the other side of civil rights protestors) encouraging them to crawl out of their hidey holes and light their torches. All the while, Trump and his followers have feigned outrage over being called racists. After all, according to them, they all have a black friend or they work with people of color.

While the GOP rank and file are focused on putting African-Americans, Latinos, the LGBTQ community and “libtards” in their place, the real swamp monsters in the administration are freeing multinational corporations to pollute our environment and fleece consumers. They have given them billions in tax breaks and packed the courts with corporatists, racists and religious fanatics to protect their interests for a generation. Meanwhile the crime-boss-in-chief and his family are filling their very large pockets with taxpayer money, destroying international alliances, threatening our neighbors, the free press and our most valued institutions.

Trump’s supporters voted for him as a way of figuratively throwing a live grenade into Washington. He has done that. He is undoing the very fabric and principles that have held our nation together. And, though his supporters may not yet realize it, he is also eliminating most of the regulations that protect them from predatory financial institutions, health insurance companies, big pharma, corporate polluters and a variety of other greedy scoundrels.

Once his job is complete, and he has finished carrying out the wishes of his billionaire sponsors and friends, not even his followers’ Bibles and guns will be able to protect them.

The Difference Between Muslim Extremists And Many Christian Evangelicals.

Spoiler alert: There is almost none!

Muslim extremists in the mold of ISIL and al-Qaeda are willing to martyr themselves to kill non-believers based on the bizarre notion that they will be greeted in the land of milk and honey by 72 virgins. On the other hand, extreme Christian evangelicals are willing to incite war in the Middle East by financing settlements in the West Bank based on their belief that establishing Israeli control of the “promised land” will lead to the return of their “Messiah.” As the story goes, that will prompt God to destroy the Earth while lifting true believers into heaven with the promise of everlasting life. For the same reason, many evangelical Christians deny that humans are contributing to climate change despite all of the scientific evidence that their inaction will lead to the extinction of more than a million species, the death of virtually all ocean life and rising sea levels that will displace or kill much of the Earth’s human population.

To these evangelicals, how the Earth is destroyed is of little concern. They are convinced the destruction will lead to their “rapture” one way or another.

Both types of extremists yearn to live under a theocracy based on the laws of their faiths. Both are contemptuous of other faiths. Both believe in the subservience of women. While Muslim extremists believe that women should cover themselves in public, many evangelical Christians view women as mere conveyances for children. Indeed, they are willing to impose the death penalty on any woman who dares to have an abortion for any reason, even in the case of rape or incest or threat to the life of the woman. They also believe that contraception is in defiance of God’s will.

Both groups believe they are persecuted. In fact, that is one of their primary tools for recruitment. Both refuse to accept that some of their accepted beliefs are the result of faulty translations of the scriptures. Both ignore the many contradictions in their gospels as well as the historical context in which they were written. And both groups are immune to conflicting information. They offer no room for discussion, debate or compromise. Indeed, they believe that doing so would be a betrayal of their faith.

Additionally, the extremists in both groups are masters of hypocrisy. We learned that some of the Muslim terrorists watched porn and visited strip clubs before committing their terrorist acts. Members of ISIL and Boko Haram have used rape as a weapon of war and have taken young women as slaves to bear their children. Meanwhile, many evangelicals live and preach “prosperity gospel” in complete contrast to the teachings of the man they claim to follow. Their leaders live in lavish mansions, are transported about in private jets, and some have been found to have engaged in embezzlement and other forms of financial fraud. And all of them enjoy the tax-free status of their religions.

Some of the evangelicals who are most outspoken against gays have been found to have gay lovers. Others have engaged in extramarital affairs. Some have even been found to have paid their mistresses to have abortions. And, recently, we learned that Jerry Falwell, Jr’s endorsement of Donald Trump came only after Trump’s “fixer” helped extort someone from releasing Falwell’s “embarrassing” photos.

Of course, there are extremists within virtually every religion. Yet, somehow, only one group of extremists is almost universally condemned by the majority population of the US. One really must ask why.

Healing Our Political Divide Must Begin With The Church.

On a local level, the traditional neighborhood church can be quite useful in helping individuals and families cope with crises in their lives. But, on a national and international level, the church has too often engaged in self-serving politics as a means of increasing its power and diminishing or demeaning people of other faiths. Indeed, unscrupulous pastors – most especially greedy televangelists – have used their positions of authority to help elect those candidates who will be most supportive of their beliefs. This has never been more clear than in today’s political environment.

If you study polling data as I have, you will find that we are not as divided as you might expect – at least not with regard to issues. If you remove the political labels, there is substantial agreement on many issues such as wealth inequality, climate change, common sense gun safety, immigration, health care, safety nets and government spending.

To a great degree, the chasm between us is the result of the church having been co-opted for personal gain and political purposes.

It began in the 1970s when, following President Nixon’s fall from grace, Paul Weyrich saw an opportunity to rebuild the Republican Party by pandering to evangelical fundamentalist Christians. He reached out to them by partnering with Jerry Falwell to found the so-called “Moral Majority.” Their message, which was quickly embraced by other fundamentalist Christian pastors such as Pat Robertson and James Dobson, was that all of the terrible events which plague our nation – mass shootings, drug abuse, even hurricanes and natural disasters – could all be traced to our supposed abandonment of Christian beliefs. The events were God’s punishment for our acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. The result of moral decay enabled by the secularist political elite.

Only by following conservative Christian doctrine, they said, could we return America to its former glory which had been ordained by God.

At Weyrich’s urging, Republican candidates began to embrace fundamentalist Christian issues labeling themselves “family values” candidates. At the same time, they began fomenting fear of the “other” – gays, immigrants, transgenders, and non-Christians. As a result, the Republican Party, which had long been the party of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, turned its focus to various forms of discrimination. At the same time, the party pushed for states’ rights which would enable it to circumvent the restrictions of federal government. The party became staunchly anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-evolution, anti-science, anti-transgender, and anti-socialist. The more extreme party members began supporting dominionism (the belief that the nation should be governed only by Christians according to biblical law).

As a result of Weyrich’s efforts, many of our churches today are more political than spiritual. Instead of preaching love and compassion, many pastors subtly foment discrimination and hate against those who don’t believe as they do. Some tell their followers that they will go to hell if they vote for a pro-choice candidate. They use selected passages from the Bible to portray their political enemies and people of other faiths as evil. They use the Bible to justify racism and misogyny. They label as baby-killers those women who have made the heart-wrenching decision to end a pregnancy (usually for health reasons).

Today’s evangelicals and many of the “family values” Republicans have become the ultimate hypocrites – the ends-justify-the-means crowd – willing to overlook the adultery, corruption and predatory behavior of Donald Trump as long as he appoints conservative judges who will rule against legal access to abortion and base their decisions on biblical law. They are obsessed with forcing others to accept their beliefs and practices. They claim piety. But, in reality, their actions are less about religion than control.

That should surprise no one. For millennia, religions competing for control over the minds of people have engaged in wars and destroyed nations to further their interests. We must now acknowledge that that could happen here. As long as one of our two major political parties continues to blend a specific brand of religion with politics; as long as its elected officials continue to view issues through the lens of an unwavering religious belief; as long as they assume their political opponents are evil; there will never be room for compromise. (Would God compromise with Satan?) And the political chasm between us will continue to grow.

If we truly want to heal our nation – to remove the vitriol from politics – we must first acknowledge that the Constitution calls for separation of church and state. And we must be willing to focus on issues that will benefit the nation as a whole. Not any particular belief system.