The 2020 RNC: Obscene, Fictitious and Dangerous (Part 1)

The Democratic National Convention was also obscene and fictitious in its narratives and ideas but the GOP convention had a distinct Christian air about it and it was making an explicit Evangelical appeal – and that's why I'm compelled to be more interested in what was happening there. 

In fact on the final night there were some one hundred Evangelical leaders in attendance at Trump's speech and while Christian media made much of the crowds shouting at them upon their exit, the same Christian media has chosen to largely ignore the Trump-inspired teenage gunman in Kenosha, Wisconsin who after gunning unarmed people down in cold blood walked through the police line – even while voices cried out that he had just shot people. The police stood by and let him pass and return to his home in Illinois. 

He was arrested the next day and has been rightly charged with First Degree Murder. Amazingly (or perhaps not) I have since heard and read of people defending him, calling his actions understandable and a case of self-defense. Some of these voices are Evangelical.

This is also relevant as the RNC was little more than a paean to militarism and law enforcement – the same law enforcement that has been heavily infiltrated by Right-wing and even White Supremacist groups. There's a kind of cross-fermentation at work that bodes ill for society and yet the Evangelical sphere largely resonates with this vigorous pro-law enforcement narrative. And growing numbers are coming to embrace the militia mentality and have (through their conflation of the Second Amendment with Christianity) also embraced and sanctified the gun culture. These people taut the Bible but it's clear that they either don't read it or don't have eyes to see when they do. Because they have woefully misread it and misunderstood its message.

As Christians we understand the state as an embodiment of coercion and violence and yet it is a necessary evil in this present evil age. In the capacity of restraining evil it can even be called a good. It's not righteous or intrinsically good but good in the sense of restraining the chaos-evil that would exist if it not for its restraining power.

But though it serves as one of Providence's tools of vengeance we are not to exercise retribution but to be Kingdom people of mercy and martyrdom. The police are needed and they provide a 'good' in the restraint of chaos but we must also remember that they're not 'good' in a godly sense or with reference to righteousness. There is a great deal of confusion in Christian circles when it comes to this issue.

If the police clamp down on the protests – then I certainly understand and it's to be expected. People who challenge the state face death and in some cases judgment. Those who live by the sword will die by it. As Christians our best path is to avoid these conflicts and scenarios. We neither take to the streets nor condone the actions of the police.

But at the same time I see a state that is corrupt and in many cases has moved beyond the pale in its exercise of violence and in the way the system exploits others. I also expect people to protest. I'm not going to join them as that's not my Christian task. I'm neither with those seeking Social Justice nor with the Reactionary activists who increasingly turn toward state power and violence in order to defend their piles of gold and their cherished goods.

In every way the Evangelical movement has erred and its alliance with the Republican Party. It is not only a mistake – it's a lie. They have lied about the Kingdom and about the state of the world and the nature of the system they defend. And they have turned the Church into a lie and whether we like it or not we're forced to deal with the fallout of their actions and the evil heritage of politicised Christianity.

It has also been amazing to watch the co-opting, appropriation and revisionist history at work in these circles. In the 1970's and 1980's the Christian Right (and the Right in general) opposed Feminism and this was most clearly expressed in their opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. The fact that Carter supported it angered them and it became one of the rallying points for the Moral Majority's embrace of Reagan. How times of changed.

Listening to Christian radio and watching the RNC we are bombarded with speeches in praise of Suffragettes and the once reviled figures of Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They are presented as Christians fighting for the righteous cause in many of these circles when even a cursory examination of their beliefs reveals them to be theologically liberal at best and blatantly anti-Christian at worst.

But feminism has been embraced. It's largely a form of lipstick feminism which is particularly laughable as we heard repeated voices praise Trump's respect for women – a lie so blatant one is amazed at the chutzpah of these speakers or rather the assumed ignorance of their heavily manipulated and grossly ignorant audiences. Yes, Trump does like to be surrounded by 'attractive' dolled-up and silicon-enhanced women that dress immodestly. There's no doubt about that. Of course in Christian terms these are not attractive women but mere hussies and strumpets and in the case of someone like Karen Pence (who I'm sure avoids Trump) – sellouts.

This is revisionist history, the very thing Right-wing pundits scream about when it comes to 'Leftist' university curricula and professors. The dirty secret is that for several decades now – they've been playing the same game, rewriting history to fit their narratives.

Once again it was striking to see how any minority that is willing to toe the GOP-Trumpite line is guaranteed promotion and success. The Republicans so desperately want to steal the race narrative. They've engaged in revisionist history with regard to the Civil Rights era and played fast and loose with the history.

Was it Southern Democrats who supported segregation and filled the ranks of the KKK? Yes, it was but those same folks and their descendants are today in the Republican Party. They began their exodus in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nixon's Southern Strategy (which GOP apologists have attempted to flush down the Memory Hole) targeted these people and helped him win in 1968. Over the course of the 1970's these people migrated into the GOP and the Right's unification in the Republican Party also afforded the nascent Christian Right an opportunity to centralise its political activity.

For those who reject this narrative I would simply appeal to figures like Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and even Ronald Reagan. They were all Democrats who switched to the Republican Party in the 1960's and 1970's. The same thing is true when one looks at groups like the Southern Baptist Convention.

Figures like Jerry Falwell railed against Martin Luther King but during the RNC we see lame stunts by ignorant young ideologues who speak of MLK's 'dream' and that somehow it will find its fulfillment in the Trumpite Republican Party. This is akin to the nonsense coming out of places like North Korea. It beggars belief but demagogues like Glenn Beck have been pushing it for well over a decade now and the scary part is – they've got people believing it. Older people have abandoned memory and younger people don't know the difference. The true history is in the process of being erased.

In addition to Stanton and Anthony being hated in the 1970's and 1980's, Martin Luther King was despised and there was great bitterness with regard to the institution of his holiday in 1983. At the time it was but one of many of Reagan's now whitewashed betrayals of the Christian Right. Now made into a myth and legend, the fact that many on the Right were actually disappointed by Reagan has been also erased from memory.

The whole Christian school movement which rose up in the 1970's – something I remember all too well as I lived it – was (in part) reaction to Integration and part of the White Flight that characterised the era.

But now the GOP promotes every minority it can find in order to counter the Identity Politics narrative of the DNC – which is itself a pseudo-Left wing cover for their otherwise pro-Wall Street and pro-Pentagon policies. Far from being socialists or communists, the DNC is in fact a Centrist Party dominated by its Right-wing element. It is only the rekindling of Bircherite ideology and its fantastical worldview within the GOP that the Democratic Party can be painted as socialist. These were after all the same folks that even called Eisenhower a communist. The movement which was reborn during the Obama era has shifted so far to the Right that some of the original Tea Partiers of a decade ago (figures like Paul Ryan) are now deemed as being functional Leftists. The same phenomenon and dynamic is at work in Evangelical circles and it is cancerous and destructive.

But in the meantime, it is both comical and ironic to find football players and others promoted, not for their knowledge or credentials but because they are black or members of a minority group. It reminds one of Bush's appointment of Clarence Thomas in 1991. Thurgood Marshall was retiring and everyone knew he would have to be replaced by another black justice. Given that in 1991 there were very few Right-wing judges, they came up with Thomas who had actually spent his public career opposing affirmative action and yet it was essentially on that basis that he was appointed to the court. His qualifications were actually dubious – he had only been a federal judge for sixteen months – but he was black and Right-wing so he got the job.

In addition to the militarism and endless praise of the police, along with the absurd re-writing of history and the narrative of GOP mythology, what struck me were many invocations of Christ and God. These are both part of the theological delusion that reigns in these circles as well as calculated use of language in order to appeal to the Evangelical and growing Catholic base.

Many are moved by such declarations but one firmly grounded in New Testament doctrine is certain to find them sacrilegious and deeply offensive.

For a serial and professional liar like Kayleigh McEnany to stand up and (in bizarre fashion) invoke Christ (and Trump) as inspirations for her fear-inspired unnecessary self-mutilation was just grotesque. It was part of an endless chain of weird and almost messianic language with regard to Trump – a religious-like praise of his character and constant reference to how inspiring he is. Anyone who finds Trump inspiring probably belongs in strait jacket because they've lost contact with reality. They've certainly lost their conscience and discernment – which in Scripture is a sign of reprobation.

The veterans who spoke (via a video montage) are nothing more than cultists. They have drunk some sort of Kool-Aid and continue to worship a man that has really done nothing for them and in fact despises them. He has taken credit for policies implemented under Obama (something he's also done with some factory and industrial projects) and has in fact worked to undermine the VA through various privatisation schemes.

Continue reading Part 2