Saturday Morning Tabs
- Via The Hill: Liz Cheney rips McConnell over Trump meeting: ‘History will remember the shame’. Indeed.
- Via the Daily Beast: Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’.
- Via ABC News: Liberal Judge Susan Crawford enters race for Wisconsin Supreme Court with majority at stake.
- David French in the NYT: The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day.
- Via HuffPo: ‘Unfit For Office’: Paul Ryan Torches Trump In Scathing Fox News Interview. He correctly notes:
“I think it really is just character at the end of the day, and the fact that if you’re willing to put yourself above the Constitution ― an oath you swear when you take federal office, whether as president or a member of Congress, you swear an oath to the Constitution ― and you’re willing to suborn it to yourself, I think that makes you unfit for office.”
And yet,
Ryan said he will write in a “conservative Republican” in November but added that he hasn’t selected that person yet.
On the one hand, this is predictable partisan behavior. On the other, if one guy is “unfit for office” who puts himself “above the Constitution” and the other is just from the other party, maybe rank-order preferences should be a bit different.
- In case you missed it:
In case you need the reference point:
I’m sad for David French and his experience with the PCA, but it’s been what he experienced since before Reagan and the Moral Majority. We feel kinship for co religionists, until we don’t. It’s an old story. I hope he found a better spiritual home.
Shorter David French: I joined a church denomination that was explicitly created when its parent denomination became abolitionist and I was shocked to discovery my pro-slavery church is racist!
@just nutha:
Toward the end of the article, French says he and his family “found a wonderful multi-ethnic church in Nashville.”
The content of the Biden ad that Trump objects to has been confirmed by countless more reliable sources than Trump, including John Kelly:
http://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html
I found it odd that French’s editorial did not contain even a hint of “what would Jesus say?” in it. He states that he is “conservative, both theologically and politically” but never mentions theology again — all of his disdain for Trump and for Christian Nationalism is apparently based on aesthetic and secular grounds, compounded by direct abuse of his family.
@DrDaveT:
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, what’s wrong with objecting to Trump and Christian Nationalism on secular grounds? Or aesthetic ones, for that matter? They’re both repulsive.
@CSK: I get the disconnect that DrDaveT is feeling, but I don’t sense it the same because I don’t see French’s commentary as intersecting with his proclaimed faith to any great degree, as I suspect you also do not. Given that French promotes his writing specifically as the musings of a Christian though, the lack of intersection with his faith, the “what would Jesus say” feature of you will, can be disappointing to people hoping for what was “advertised.”
But evangelicals have been good at separation of politics from doctrine/supposed faith for decades now, so I’ve lowered my expectations.
@CSK:
There’s nothing wrong with it — but it’s very odd (to me at least) that an article about why you left your church doesn’t invoke theological grounds. It’s like it didn’t even occur to him that the repulsive behaviors that drove him out are specifically un-Christian.
@DrDaveT:
Interesting. Unusually, I think, for one of my generation (mid-Boomer), I wasn’t raised even nominally in any religion. My parents never attended church except for weddings and funerals, and none of us kids did either. So I suppose I don’t notice theological differences much.
Queen Elizabeth I called religious differences “a dispute about trifles.”
@CSK:
The mistake is in thinking the issue is actually as theological as it is economic.
“With. without
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about.”
Our fate was sealed the moment a group of monkeys figured out that if they band together they can have their pick of the fruit trees. Ever since then it’s about banding together enough monkeys to control the wealth. Just about any banner will do. Some imagine eliminating religion would end wars, but when that was done in Europe nationalism stepped right in its place, and people fought every bit as hard for that.
Trump’s knack for asking awkward questions that nobody else ever thought of (thanks to his connections with MIT) is what made him such an excitingly different president. Can hurricanes be knocked out with H-bombs? Would a very powerful light kill the Covid virus? How can windmills replace fossil fuels when your TV will stop working every time the wind drops?
Still, I continue to prefer Joe Biden, who probably asked “What kind of idiot puts to sea in a boat with a battery that will make it sink? We’re not all Boaters for Trump!”