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Notes -
I want to talk about the AI video that Trump reposted, where he is flying a plane with 'King Trump' on the side, wearing a crown, dumping a payload of feces on a crowd of No Kings protestors in NYC.
Frankly, I keep thinking I can't be surprised anymore by the depths which Trump (or more realistically, his social media team0 will stoop too, and yet here we are...
Ultimately as a Christian, I find this sort of blatant hatred and mockery of the outgroup quite disturbing. I understand that staid, boring, conservatism has lost majorly over the last few decades. I understand that the right needs some vitalism, some dynamism, some sort of way to act in an agentic way that isn't just mindlessly opposing whatever progressives are doing at the moment, and then slowly backing off and letting progressives have what they want over the course of a few years.
However, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. At this point, while Trump definitely is effective at rallying the base, I simply find his aesthetics to be revolting. It's hard to countenance not just the outright hatred of the outgroup, but the sheer crassness that is presented here.
Not just that, but why would he egg on this idea that he wants to be king? It makes zero strategic sense from my perspective, all it does is fan the flames. I suppose if he wants to fan the flames of the culture war, fine, but that's also not something I'm behind.
Anyway, the current coalition of the right, where Christian or even just classical conservatives are sort of holding their nose and voting for Trump, seems increasingly unstable to me. I suppose we'll see how things end up.
Christ also mocked his outgroup. He called them stupid, the children of vipers, blind, ravenous wolves, criminals. The funniest insult in the Bible is when Paul tells advocates of circumcision that they should go one step further and castrate themselves. If Christ wasn’t polite than neither should you be polite. What do you gain by politeness? Christian perfection is brotherly love, and brothers who love each other insult and fight each other. They just don’t take it too seriously.
And as an American you should especially love insulting people. The patriots would kidnap loyalists, pour hot tar on them, and then throw hundreds of feathers to them so they would look like a chicken. Hilarious.
Yeah I have to admit this is an interesting argument, and does give me pause. I'll have to think about it more.
I suppose my immediate rejoinder is that Trump is nowhere near as wise or loving as Christ, and doesn't even pretend to be. If Trump went around healing others and dispensing incredible spiritual wisdom while also insulting his enemies, I'd be a helluva lot more willing to accept his behavior.
This is said tongue-in-cheek, but: Trump's Congress passed Right to Try, over the objections of Democrats and 'bioethicists', which he trumpets on the campaign trail, and his close aide Natalie Harp follows him because she believes Right to Try saved her life. His administration, both in the moment of crisis and with the ground prepared by long-term Trump appointees, also pushed through regulatory barriers to approve the vaccine which ended a global plague.
As for spiritual wisdom:
The bar for Constantine is lower than the bar for Christ, and as far as Christian rulers go Trump is at least above the bar of, say, having his son poisoned and his wife boiled alive.
Oh, so that's why the Brits say "God save the King".
Not sure exactly what you mean, but yeah, it would be silly to say "God Save St. George" - he's already saved, he's a saint! - but kings do need saving, in both senses.
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