RESPONSES ON A THREAD

 By Ruth A. Sheets

I’m a regular commenter on a few threads on Substack.  The issue this weekend for Robert Reich was Trump’s bizarre speech about golfer Arnold Palmer, a legend who did not deserve Trump’s diatribe about his anatomy.  As usual, the thread took a variety of directions.  Here are a few of my comments with brief intros as to what I was actually responding to.  As you can see, we didn’t stay long with Trump’s “Penis Envy,” the title of the post.

A member talked about Trump and his shenanigans being like a placebo which never will work meaning Trump’s followers are fools, believing in placebos.  My response, Power, I am not sure you are right about placebos being BS.  The reason placebos work so well for some is that human beings have powerful brains, immune systems, and other mechanisms that enable us to change the way we think about a problem within ourselves and readjust our thinking and systems.  That is not a bad thing unless people use that as their sole means of treating a medical problem.  Faith in whatever one holds as more powerful than oneself  has been an important aspect of human survival.  What Trump is offering is not a placebo, it is just blather.  He has no positive ideas, no plans (not even concepts of plans), no understanding of how anything works, which is why he was such a lousy businessman and lousy everything else.  People want to believe in him because he is rich, loud, white, male, and a TV star they have been led to believe really functioned as he did in "The Apprentice."  The masterminds of the program have finally admitted it was an entire fraud, constantly covering up for Trump's stupidity, general ignorance, and inability to judge a person accurately.  Trumpers and Trumpettes want Trump to be that guy and to yell "you're fired" to everyone who has caused them trouble in their lives.  Those folks are afraid of life and everyone who does not think as they do.  They want them to go away, thinking life will be better if they are gone.  They have no idea of how the world works, just as Donald Trump doesn’t.  They may think Trump is a needed drug, but the truth is, he is the infection that is harming them.  He and his billionaire friends want those Trump supporters to be their permanent serfs and are grooming them for that role.  It's working for some because they show up at his rallies, listen to his BS, cheer and laugh on cue when he talks about penises, deporting their immigrant neighbors, putting everyone he doesn't like in jail, turning our military loose on Americans Trump doesn't like.  They know what he wants and they will give it to him whenever he snaps his fingers.  There is real medicine that could help them, voting for Democrats who actually care about them and don't intend to use them against their neighbors, but they prefer their fantasy.  

The thread turned to Christianity and Trump’s efforts to portray himself as Christian when one would rarely find him in a church or doing anything that would be identified as Christian.  I said this. 

Daniel, it seems that the "love" part of the message of Jesus is lost to a majority of those who claim to be Christian but have substituted Trump for Jesus in their lives. The "love" part is just too hard when resentment, anger, fear, and hatred are stronger emotions and can let someone believe it is they who are being crucified by the horrible people who just can't see how badly they have been treated and how wonderful Trump is and just how much he has done for them. They can't name a single thing except maybe "well, the economy" or "I could get groceries when Trump was in office" or "it's the border."  Of course, none of these is honest if they are even asked a follow-up question like, "so what kinds of groceries did you buy 4 years ago that you could afford during the pandemic that you can't now? Are you buying the same brands and quantities?" Then they could be asked "so, tell me how what is going on at the border has impacted you directly? Have you been eating fruits and veggies lately? Who do you think picks those for you? If the immigrants are gone, would you go to work in the fields?" When our media do not follow-up, they are taking the blather that comes from conservatives' mouths as gospel (pun intended) and are playing the Trump game for him. The media have been doing really well at it for the past 9+ years, even presenting Trump and Friends' demand for Obama's birth certificate as legitimate, "well, why not just show it!" Funny that they can't demand an honest medical report for Trump. That would be fair, but it isn't about fair it is about Trump winning no matter the cost.  A bunch of pseudo-christians are clinging to Trump's coattails hoping they'll get maybe a tiny bit of his passed gas that they will call "perfume.".

Then, somehow, we transitioned to Trump supporters believing the Bible as truth from beginning to end, commenting  that people who believe those stories are not too with it.  This was my response. 

Rob, all cultures have stories and probably most believe those stories to be true, at least up to a point.  There are people who believe in Adam and Eve and Noah and the Ark, but most, even evangelical Christians don't.  Science has crept even into their minds because they hold cell phones in their hands, live in heated, air conditioned houses, shop at stores for their needs, and can travel pretty much wherever they want and it is due to science.  They want the Bible stories to be true because they think it explains why life is so hard for them, and makes them somehow special in the world.  There is something idyllic about imagining a garden and two naked people romping around until a snake tells them something they already knew, that the "tree of knowledge" is what will make them truly human.  No one really wants to romp in such a garden forever, or live on an ark for 40 days with a bunch of animals.  They don't want most of the rest of it either, but think they want something different from what they have now because they are told the only reason they don't have it is that others have taken it from them or deny it to them.  Our billionaire class, our gilded "heroes" have promoted all of this to keep people despising each other, distracted  while the rich get richer.  No one asks them the purpose of this acquisition, except that it gives them pleasure to see others suffer if they even notice at all.  We could do better here if we were to vote out of office, those who care nothing for the people.  That is hard because so many of the people have been lied to, deceived, and ignored by those they want to keep in power.  It is almost as though they like their problems so they don't have to push themselves to try anything else.  The stories help provide comfort and a kind of history while the people really do depend on science and probably want to hate it but know they don't want life without it.

OBVIOUS DETERIORATION – DOES IT MATTER?

By Ruth A. Sheets

The polls keep going up and down, but tell us Trump is leading or tied with Harris.  I am sorry so many Americans have decided they would choose a fumbling, deteriorating, old, fascist, bad businessman to be their presidential candidate and a whiny inexperienced white boy Vance for VP.  What are those people missing in their lives?  Is it they like having a man like Trump giving them targets for their frustration, even hatred?  Is it that Trump’s supporters are furious they don't have everything they could possibly want, while others have a little, but not what they think they deserve? 

Donald Trump and crew now spew racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homo/transphobia  with no apologies because they know they don’t need any.  Their "Jim Crow" style of name-calling, blaming, intimidating, threatening, terrorizing, is designed to do as much arm as possible while hardly getting their hands dirty. And they are getting help.  Over 150 years after Black men and 100 years after women got the right to vote, in so many states of the former confederacy and among confederate wannabees, those votes are regularly challenged, even suppressed by Republican legislatures and governors, on behalf of a man and political party that are falling apart, incapable of governing themselves, let alone this nation. 

White Americans are reminded over and over of their superiority which works well for a lot of frightened white folks and their families and friends.  Encouraging people to believe they have some kind of innate superiority should be unacceptable to everyone, but alas, in 2016, more than half of white women voted for a misogynistic man who was sure he had the right to grab women “wherever.”  I heard some women, white of course, say they would let Trump grab them wherever he wanted.  Why? 

Trump gives Whitedom targets:  women, people of color, and immigrants to malign, blame, fear, even hate.  Such rhetoric should be seen as despicable by everyone, but alas, many cleave to it, and their child-man Donnie Trump is loving the attention.  I bet Trump now has little sense of what he is saying in general, but loves that the crowds (small though they be) are cheering for his offering of the usual mix of lies, whining, and sidetracks.

I continue to wonder if Trump is wearing an earpiece at rallies and interviews, being prompted with the usual targets, the expected vocabulary, taunts, and insults.  I suspect Steve Miller and a pit crew of expert liars who manage Trump’s rallies.  They transmit the necessary/expected lies and misinformation on Trump’s rants.  The “handlers” know well how easy it is to get Trump to spout what they need spouted plus whatever comes into Trump’s mind at any moment.  The recent anti-FEMA rants of late come to mind.  Trump had no clue what he was talking about, but spewed it anyway and the crowds loved it despite that at least some of them may have had homes or property in the storm zones. 

Trump supporters just can't see that that rambling whining toddler-man cares nothing for them or anyone else and it is not he that is running the show.  It is people like Steve Miller, the other Steves, and a bunch of power-hungry privileged mostly white men who have only their own interests and vengeance as guides, as well as their desire to do harm to those who don't bow to them or do it quickly enough. 

Then, there's our mainstream media whom we should be able to depend on for integrity and non-partisan coverage.  We have not seen that non-partisanship in our media for decades.  For some reason, they have cleaved to Trump and his cronies and can't let go even though Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have more productive plans for this nation as Hillary Clinton had in 2016.  We need to find a way to spotlight the corporate-driven assault on our democracy in our media and beyond.  We could start by demanding our media call out the corporations trying to buy our candidates and elections, make it clear that our Supreme Court is responsible for allowing, even encouraging unlimited money in elections (Citizens United 2010), and vote and encourage everyone we know to vote for Harris-Walz and all Democrats on the ballot.  They are the ones who actually do care about us all and stand against the hate, fear, and assault on our democracy.  We have less than 3 weeks.  We could make this election an event for the whole American family to participate in and a chance to really make this nation a better place to live for all of us.  We could!

STEALING/SUPPRESSING VOTES, A LONG, “PROUD” TRADITION

by Ruth A. Sheets

Last evening I watched a documentary, “Vigilante, Inc,” a film by Greg Palast. It was a story of the racism, fearmongering, and unamerican behavior of people, mostly Republicans  in Georgia whose efforts are designed to stop people of color from voting.  The mostly white legislature passed bills to let any citizen challenge any voters on the rolls, as many as they wish, without even a legitimate reason, and Governor Kemp signed it into law.  Kemp is a major proponent of this voter suppression project. 

In addition to purging the voter rolls, the voter suppression team uses fear and intimidation to silence anyone who questions this clearly unconstitutional project.  The ultimate goal seems to be to get county election boards to refuse to certify elections if the candidate who won was not the person the governor and his buddies want to win, including for President of the United States.  This is just the modern version of the well-practiced KKK voter-suppression of yore. 

Gov. Kemp has been using his various positions to reinstate the old Jim Crow laws, referred to by Black leaders as “Jim Crow 2.0.”  Kemp regularly does and says things that are pure racism and has no shame in doing it.  He does claim this voter purge is for the good of the state but his explanation is lacking. 

in the film, I learned that Brian Kemp’s family was one of the largest landowners in Georgia.  He uses their land for his own personal gain no matter how it harms the state or its communities.  His family’s wealth was built on the labor of enslaved persons.  At first, slavery was illegal in Georgia, but one of Kemp’s ancestors forced slavery into Georgia and it shaped the Georgia economy for generations.  A descendant of the first enslaved people in Georgia commented, “if you suppress the history, you suppress the vote,” and suppressing history of everyone but white men is on the chopping block in Georgia and numerous other states and so is voter suppression. 

Through this disturbing but important film, one can see that white supremacists have decided that attacking, intimidating, threatening, even  killing Black people and other people of color, young folks, and their allies are mostly successful tactics they can use to maintain their power and to keep certain people from voting.  Purging the voting rolls and arresting people who help citizens vote are also powerful suppressors. 

“True the Vote” is a master mind for the Vigilante movement.  They originate in Texas but have whipped up MAGAs all over the country, getting them to believe they had the right to attack voters as non-citizens, criminals, or with no stated excuse at all.  The group has signed up 40,000 vigilante volunteers monitoring potential voters of color and young people, getting names and addresses to challenge their right to vote.  Once Vigilantiism gets started, there are scared white people desperate for attention who will jump in to do their party’s bidding.  They choose names that sound Black or Hispanic or Asian, and claim those people are “illegal aliens” or some other such nonsense since lying is acceptable in this project.  They get a thrill and get away with it because they are white, mostly women.  Those women seem especially vulnerable to the Republican Lying and blaming.  In some districts, law enforcement is being used to intimidate voter registration programs, confiscating equipment, arresting the workers, etc., all of which are unconstitutional unless one believes “free speech” is only for Republicans. 

For me, there is no excuse for challenging voters and denying them the right to vote.  Voter registration should be automatic from the moment a citizen turns 18 and the registration should be till death.  Only change of address or political party should affect voter registration.  Our Constitution says everyone has the right to vote.  If our courts actually had decent people serving, people who understand the requirement of our Constitution, little to none of this bad behavior on the part of Republicans would be permitted, but even our Supreme Court Republican majority won’t stand with our Constitution.  That is truly scary.  It would help if all of us who are not brainwashed into the Trump/Kemp cult would stand up and call out the efforts of the purgers, those anti-American actors who would deny their fellow citizens the sacred right to vote in our democracy.

NAR AND OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT. I DIDN’T!

By Ruth A. Sheets

Yesterday, I attended an online workshop about a religious entity I had no knowledge of.  One would think a Christian minister would be acquainted with most of the religious movements in this country and many of those in other countries.  I have knowledge of many, but not this one, and it’s functioning right in our neighborhoods and growing. 

NAR stands for New Apostolic Reformation.  If you think that sounds radical, you are right.  If you think that sounds like a name someone would give to a group of Christian Nationalists, you are also right.  NAR is a collective of mostly white Evangelicals who believe this nation must be Christian and that their brand of Christianity is the one to take over all aspects of our lives.  Some of their principles include: 

• Only Christians get to vote
• Women are inferior to men in all things and should not vote
• Public schools must be eliminated because children must be educated in the NAR’s weird pseudo-christian principles instead.
• Violence for their version of god is acceptable and even encouraged.  They will identify the targets and what should be done about them.
• Their goal is to take over our government at all levels from school boards and town councils to the presidency and our courts.
  

For a branch of this collective, Pennsylvania is where they believe the center of the Christian world is, and they should be in charge.  One of the big proponents of that is a woman.  I guess like the Phyllis Schlafly movement of the Republican anti-abortion actions, this woman thinks she will somehow be the one woman who does not have to be as submissive as all the other women, perhaps even in charge of getting those other women under control.  She would be  the specially anointed one, well, until her usefulness wanes.

This “movement” has been active in some form since the 1950s but has blown up in the past 2 decades, including members of the Tea Party and other right-wing radical groups.  It is clear that Donald Trump is one of their boys, but even if Trump should lose in November, their movement will continue, grabbing power where they can.

One of their proud acolytes is Doug Mastriano.  You might remember him as the Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2022.  He seems to be one of those true believers.

One potential member is J.D. Vance who spoke at a recent Pennsylvania NAR event.  Mike Johnson, our House Speaker says he is inspired by them.  It seems that for both, the power the NAR and its affiliates plan to wield is more than tempting, as it is for other Republican legislators.  Powermongers that they are, they are moving toward full participation since they already hold most of the NAR’s ideas of "governing.”

The group’s precepts come nearly exclusively from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than the Christian gospels and letters.  It seems the leaders are creating a religion that encompasses the things they like and the punishments and controls their brains imagine them doing to others, in the name of god, of course, just like Medieval times and the Inquisition.  In my reading and listening I heard nothing in their message that involves love, being a neighbor, caring for poor and other disadvantaged persons.  Jesus is hardly mentioned, but people on the “left” are being proclaimed as demons and for the NAR cult, it is not a metaphor.

The NAR’s racism is sometimes covered up by their attempts to recruit members and leaders of color.  None of the basic beliefs are impacted in any way by having token others.  Women as mentioned previously are essentially handmaids who bear children for years, raise them, and bow to every male whim.  Yes, it has the hallmarks of a cult, but on a large scale.  Maybe it’s a collection of cults with a similar purpose, which seems to be, “take over government and do whatever you want to those people, while claiming it is for god and naturally, somehow they have god’s ear, a god who is OK with a fascist rule, all white men in charge of course.

Ah, white men are truly terrified of everyone, just as their ancestors were, so want to control everything.  It appears they want to remain toddlers and do as much harm to others as they can while not being harmed at all or held accountable.  Those few women in leadership will take care of every little need for those toddler-men while enduring the disrespect of those toddlers.  Other religious groups have tried this and some made it last for centuries, but the world has changed.

This is just an introduction.  I still don’t know how to effectively address this, but I plan to learn.