You were right to call bullshit on the media when they spent months trying to imply that every Donald Trump rally was a hornet’s nest of violence. They weren’t.
This propaganda by leftist reporters didn’t match the experience of the thousands of rally attendees across the country, including mine. It diminished further their limited credibility. That is a big roadblock in the moment we are now having. By exaggerating the little things so often, the big things aren’t a big deal to Americans.
Now we are faced when a moment where Trump is truly raising the temperature towards violence in an effort to look like the tough guy.
Violence galvanizes the opposition and decreases the likelihood of ending rioting. As looters and rioters destroy property, your anger grows. As police commit brutal acts to quell the violence, their anger grows. Those on the fence leave it and join a side. As the sides clash, resentment grows. It’s a cycle we’ve been experiencing since the 1970’s and I truly think it’s brought us to the brink of Civil War within our lifetimes.
So Trump is gambling that his rhetoric will stay that way and no Governor actually asks him to send in troops. He gets to pretend he’s willing to restore law and order without the outrage of actual bloodshed.
He wrongly assumes looting was down last night due to his threats. The National Guard was finally activated and in place in most of these cities. The Guard cannot be mobilized instantaneously.
Riots burn themselves out within days for a few reasons. First, the additional bodies on the streets. Second is community involvement. Third is the fear of consequences as local agencies get better at catching the bad guys.
So Donald Trump had no effect in decreasing violence last night but he will take advantage of your ignorance for personal gain.
He does it in other ways.
If you’re a small business owner, his over the top rhetoric puts your business more at risk by increasing the participation of the other side. He’s not protecting you. He’s using you as a pawn to win an election.
He says he loves the second amendment. The purpose of the second amendment is to ward off tyranny and to protect life and property. He is not encouraging community-based solutions to aid the police in their efforts. He’s proposing to expand the power of the centralized state to include No Quarter invasions on American cities. That means assuming guilt and killing on site. No judge or jury or due process. When the next conservative movement like the Tea Party emerges, do you want a Geworge Soros-backed Democratic President to have this power? Maybe he didn’t mean it… but why would he say it if he felt it was inappropriate?
He’s standing outside of a church that was used by past Presidents for worship holding a Bible upside down. This location and object are meaningless to the man. He’s cynically exploiting them for campaign ads.
He’s the head of the CDC that issued the guidelines that closed down your churches. He has pretended it was terrible, but I got a postcard from him taking credit for the shutdowns in March. Once his base shifted, so did he.
To my fellow Christians: we are called to be peaceful witnesses in the world of brokenness and violence. We are to live apart from this world by loving the Word to such a depth that it changes our hearts. They’ll know us by our acts.
To retreat into our entrenched identities of race, color, socioeconomic group, or career means loving the world more than loving our values. Embracing the man has brought the credibility of most major Evangelical figures to ruin. In a Postmodern society, credibility and trust are the key to changing hearts and minds.
Why do Republicans support him?
Because Donald Trump feels right. Political language is incredibly powerful and he’s a master at it. He reinforces only a few ideas repeatedly and in short phrases. He uses humor to punish the people you hate to get you to love him.
Growing up as a baby Republican, I heard more times than I can count that “blacks should abandon the Democratic Party. They don’t have their best interest at heart, but the victimhood keeps them paralyzed by fear.”
Trump has now created a white, “conservative,” identity group. He galvanized this movement by hating the right people. You want to see them suffer because you feel victimized by their dismissive attitude and smugness.
The press. Democrats. Higher education. ANTIFA.
His all out assault on liberal culture feels so good after being put down for so many years.
To support his right-leaning culture of victimhood, he’s even created his own universe of “race pimps.” Sean Hannity is your Al Sharpton. Sebastian Gorka is your version of Jesse Jackson. OAN is a hive of opportunists willing to sell you their book full of half truths in an effort to launch into full time grifting.
Now connect that to economic insecurity felt these past three months. Connect that to the mocking of protestors and being dismissed by 80% of the country last month. That really sucked.
That’s how black men and women have felt every day of their life. They’re not you’re enemy. They’re asking you to partner with them in changing it.
Black voters stay with Democrats as a form of self-protection. Their alternative is a party that refuses to even HEAR about systemic issues. Instead we have found every opportunity to escape the conversation by lumping everyone into one group.
Black Lives Matter are seperate from a violent anarchist that’s watched The Joker one too many times and wants to hit people with bike chains. They’re different that the organized out of state looters that rob stores to make a killing on Facebook Marketplace.
The President doesn’t want you to see a difference. If you don’t then you’re easier to control.
The President wants to bamboozle you into believing he cares about you by pretending he’s one of us, and you’re letting him get away with it and looking like fools in the process.
Many of you are saying, “but all Presidents do this.” You’re right. The magic wand of whataboutism is not an out. You can’t change what a Democratic President does but you have the power to change your party. Your fellow Republicans are your responsibility.
Many of you may not understand the constant hate of Trump. It exists because most of your fellow Americans can’t believe that so many of you are living and voting so counter to what you say you believe. It is like watching your friend date a person that you know is wrong for them, and maybe even dangerous, and you don’t know how to help them see it.
Just as with Barack Obama, the cult of the Presidency is growing at an alarming rate. The members of the now-dead Tea Party are making that possible.
What’s the solution? Stop supporting the growth of government in any way. Don’t support any policy that grows the greater threat to liberty in an effort to diminish the power of lesser threats.
