Sex, Politics, Religion, & Baseball

The Real Reason Trump Has Evangelical Support:
They're Just Not That 'Religious'

As long as I can remember, conservative commentator George Will has never impressed me with his political pieces, though oddly perhaps, I have often read his columns because he does know and love baseball and writes very well about the game and it's history as well as his experience as a long suffering Chicago Cubs fan. (At least there's something he can be pleased about this year).

    I would often cringe as I witnessed Mr. Will struggle to find ways to make arguments for George Bush's policies, particularly the choice to invade Iraq, since the rationale changed almost daily for doing so and none of it made any sense whatsoever to me at any point.
George Will is an avowed conservative, I am not. So it's not surprising that in political matters we seldom agree. But giving credit where I feel it is due, this last year George Will has been one of the earliest and most vocal critics of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
In an article for National Review, George Will writes:

"the tape revealed nothing about this arrested-development adolescent that today’s righteously recoiling Republicans either did not already know or had no excuse for not knowing. Before the tape reminded the pathologically forgetful of Trump’s feral appetites and deranged sense of entitlement, the staid Economist magazine, holding the subject of Trump at arm’s-length like a soiled sock, reminded readers of this: “When Mr. Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong.

His sexual loutishness is a sufficient reason for defeating him, but it is far down a long list of sufficient reasons. But if it — rather than, say, his enthusiasm for torture feven “if it doesn’t work,” or his ignorance of the nuclear triad — is required to prompt some Republicans to have second thoughts about him, so be it."

Trump's faux masculinity, or.rather cartoon version of masculinity;
is frankly an ironic gift to feminism. 

Another inexplicable truth pointed out by Mr. Will:
“Trump is a marvelously efficient acid bath,
stripping away his supporters’ surfaces, exposing their skeletal essences.”

One of the plethora of shams in the skeletal essences
is the counterfeit piety found among Donald Trump’s supporters.
As Yahoo News reported-

“Leaders of religious conservative groups largely stood behind Donald Trump on Saturday, the day after vulgar sexual comments he made about women surfaced online, but some expressed concern that the U.S. Republican presidential nominee’s remarks could depress evangelical turnout on Election Day."

Trump brags about groping women and trying to seduce a married woman. Vice presidential poodle Mike Pence said he could not defend Trump’s words. But he forgives him. (Fine, actually that is admirable...but I wonder if he also forgives his political foes...judging from the legislation he pushed for in his state allowing businesses to refuse service to gays or Muslims...anyone they don't like really if they claim it's against their religious belief; I'd say not.)
Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, said “I continue to support the Trump-Pence ticket.”What the above-quoted story doesn’t mention is that Gary Bauer is currently president of an organization that named itself American Values.
Considering all of the vile things that Donald Trump has said, one wonders of course,
just what values that Bauer considers to be American values.
And is the working FAMILY he claims to represent the Manson Family?

Jerry Falwell Jr. proudly continues to endorse him (though thankfully students at the Liberty University campus, which he is president of, generally do not.)
James Dobson of Family Talk radio condemned Trump’s comments but called Clinton’s support for abortion rights “criminal.”
Overall, politically active Christian conservative leaders across the country said they were worried that Trump’s comments could depress turnout, but have no problem apparently with the pernicious comments Trump has made throughout his campaign regarding women, "the Blacks", people of other faiths, Mexicans, admiration of dictatorships, flippant calls for violence ("I'd like to punch that guy's face in" "Anyone who beats that guy up, I'll pay your legal fees"), etc.
I have to think they must own completely different "bibles" than any I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Why would so-called “Evangelicals” be supporting Trump?
Rebecca Cusey explains in her commentary published by The Hill:

“Who knew obscure Biblical knowledge would be so handy in this election?
With Evangelicals remaining,
at least as far as we can tell in the rapidly changing environment,
a solid block for Trump,
those stories of old echo into today.

Evangelicals are a funny bunch, prone to tease points out of – to all others – irrelevant Biblical passages and apply them to current events.

To this point, an idea has been circulating in Evangelical circles
that paints Donald Trump as a modern day Cyrus
— the ancient king of Persia who sent Jews home to Israel from captivity
as told in the book of Ezra (among other passages).
By accounts in and out of the Bible, Cyrus was a generous and just ruler,
instituting (relatively) fair laws and religious freedom in his vast empire.

Cyrus was a pagan and yet God used him to restore the people of Israel, so the pro-Trump argument goes. Though Trump is not a Christian in the way Evangelicals would ever really accept, it continues, God is raising him up to fulfill God’s purposes.”

In short, Trump can act like a pagan,
but that doesn’t matter as long as he isn’t Hillary Clinton."

Others who stand by Trump are Ralph Reed,
a member of the campaign’s evangelical advisory board.
He's the former partner of the imprisoned lobbyist-racketeer Jack Abramoff,
and the founder of the Faith n' Freedom Coalition.

  Perennial feces huckster and televangelist Pat Robertson also stands fast with Trump.
The above-mentioned Trump supporters
preach that piety requires one to support Trump over Clinton. 
They are, as they always do; promoting counterfeit piety.

First off, these so-called “evangelical leaders”
are certainly not promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Instead, they are promoting a hybrid of religious legalism
somewhat like Sharia Law and their political philosophy
which favors corporatism and wealth concentration.

Oh yeah,  Dobson rails against abortion,
but the Bible never mentions abortion.

The Bible is silent about that subject.

The Bible is silent about all the things that Trump’s religious supporters rail about.

The faux piety within the GOP is troublesome.
  I have known plenty of devout practicing Christians who are Democrats
and who would never support Donald Trump.
  Are they somehow less pious than the Republican Christians?

And why do obvious hucksters like Pat Robertson or Ralph Reed
get to define what Christians should believe about the Bible?
And which parts they shouldn't?

The one very clear message I think we all can clearly see
in the New Testament,
Is Love One Another
As much as I try to see any sort of way to correlate that edict
to any policy of the GOP
or anything Trump has said
I can not find even an inkling of similarity

That's ok because...

the Christian faith is politically neutral.
We all should be abhorred by any attempt to mix Christianity with politics.
We all should reject false piety.