Jerry Jr. likes The Donald and thinks Trump is like Jerry Falwell. Falwell said Liberty wasn’t endorsing a candidate but the introduction certainly sounded like an endorsement.
Rev. Falwell, I think America is still great. We don’t need Donald Trump to make it great again. It is great now.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/E32ZPa4LGkM[/youtube]
John Fea on Donald Trump’s Two Corinthians.
Trump says he is going to protect Christianity. How about protecting all religions? Instead, he wants our country to get together around Christianity. Big fun if you’re a Christian.
Trump wants to knock the hell out of ISIS. He wants a big military to scare everyone. Actually, his simplistic, off the cuff policy statements are pretty scary.
Really? “When I’m president, you’re gonna see Merry Christmas at department stores, believe me.” What, he’s going to use executive orders for holiday greetings?
Trumps big policy planks – knock the hell out of ISIS, tough negotiations with terrorists, make department stores say Merry Christmas, build a Great Wall of China on our borders, keep companies from relocating overseas, stop common core, don’t restrict guns, get rid of Super PACs, and get rid of Obamacare.
I will vote for Trump for Crazy Uncle in Chief. Oy.
Open forum…
Category: politics
Ted Cruz's Liabilities in the General Election
What plays well in IA might not work nationally. This concern is the subject of a Houston Chronicle article out over the weekend. Cruz’s endorsers, including Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, have appeal to the far right side of the GOP but have taken controversial positions which will likely alienate independents and moderates. Recently, stridently anti-gay voices Matt Barber and Linda Harvey have endorsed Cruz. Phil Robertson has had his own problems with controversial statements about gays and blacks under Jim Crow laws.
Along with David Barton (quoted in this article), Cruz seems to be persuaded by a notion that there are millions of far right, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, socially conservative dominionist voters who will lift him to victory, if only they can be mobilized to vote. Such a wish might be true in Iowa and perhaps South Carolina. However, I can’t help but believe there is a ceiling for this appeal much lower than needed for a Cruz win against anybody in the general election.
With all of these endorsements, including people on his campaign staff (see the Houston Chronicle for more on that), Cruz will likely be on the defensive. Given his South Carolina staff, he may have to answer about his views on the Confederate flag. He will either agree with his staff’s support for the flag or be forced to explain why he didn’t fire them over their support for the flag. He will have to address questions of criminalizing homosexuals, the Bible’s status versus the Constitution and whether or not America should favor Christianity in legislation and public policy.
If he backs away from his controversial endorsers or waffles on the positions they care about, he risks losing them. If he sticks to those guns, he risks a big loss in November.
Will the GOP back away from Cruz (and equally as problematic option Trump)? I still think it is likely, although I think we may have to go longer into the primary season to see which of those now in the back of the pack catch on.
Glenn Beck v. Donald Trump – Evidence for the Multiverse Hypothesis
Late yesterday on his Facebook page, Glenn Beck went off on Donald Trump somewhat in defense of his pal David Barton’s candidate Ted Cruz.
I can’t make much sense of the whole thing except that Beck hopes to defuse the win Trump had in answering Ted Cruz’s ill-advised attack on “New York values” during Thursday’s GOP debate. Beck brings the non sequitur like no one else.
On thing is sure, Beck is sure it is all about him:
He tried to cozy up to me. The blaze reporter that covered him as part of their beat can recall several conversations where he claimed I was “a genius” etc.
We laughed between ourselves at the time because I know that I am no genius and we suspected he was saying those things because we knew he was going to run.
But I must ask: Donald, Were you Lying then or now?
Just like you admitted with Cruz last week during the debate to justify your flip flop: “He is doing well in the polls now”, were you saying kind things about me then in hopes to ‘befriend and ‘purchase’ my silence?’
Or are you only trying to destroy me now because I will not be bullied away from the facts of who you are politically?
Make no mistake, I do not dislike you as an entertainer, or even a politician. To me you are irrelevant but I believe progressivism is a cancer to the constitution and you sir are the definition of a big government progressive.
You are more Phillip Drew or Father Couglin than a simple builder of Golf Courses.
To all those who truly claim to be constitutional conservatives who have also said “without question Cruz is the conservative in the race” and my personal favorite “Donald Trump is by no means or measurement a conservative”, what is it you are you getting out of remaining silent on the corruption of your principles? What is it you hope to gain? Access? A seat at the table? A round of golf with the president?
We know what Hillary, Anthony wiener, Charley Rangle and Harry Reid got: money.
Billionaires who use their money, connections and microphone don’t frighten me.
George Soros tried to silence me with smears, lies and intimidation.
It didn’t stop me then.
Donald Trump won’t stop me or the truth now.
His policies of progressivism and the tactics of Saul Alinsky are the same.
But, Mr Trump I know ‘spooky dude’ and you sir, are no spooky dude.
These guys are playing in some other universe. Spooky.
Ted Cruz and Christian Astroturf
World‘s J.C. Derrick has an interesting article out today on the reaction of some evangelicals to the growing media narrative that Ted Cruz has the evangelical vote locked up. Not so, says Sam Rodriguez, Rick Warren and Jim Daly.
What really caught my eye was Derrick’s citation of a National Review article which detailed how a group of evangelical leaders met behind closed doors and voted until over 75% voted for the same GOP candidate. Ted Cruz eventually won out over Marco Rubio. The group, led by Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, gave some thought to how to roll out the consensus. According to NR,
Cruz this week surged to the top of several polls in conservative-friendly Iowa, and a string of soon-to-come endorsements should only help to cement that standing. A decision was made before the vote that members would roll out their endorsements individually rather than issuing a collective statement. This approach, they decided, would help create a perception that the conservative movement was uniting behind a candidate organically while dispelling images of political horse-trading occurring inside smoke-filled rooms.
While there probably wasn’t smoke, there was political maneuvering behind closed doors. If this NR piece is accurate, the good Christians in the room decided to make up a reality so it wouldn’t look like what it was. The insiders decided to roll out the endorsements gradually as if they came via some natural and spontaneous groundswell of support and good will for Cruz. Sounds like astroturf to me.
Now, finally, other evangelicals are coming forward to say those endorsers don’t speak for all of us. This is good.
I am looking for a candidate who has ideas I can get behind about how to keep us safe, keep our economy healthy, protect our rights and work with Congress. We are going to elect a president not a pastor.
Dear Fred Clark: Thanks But I Think John Fea and I Are in Good Shape
Fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark (Slacktivist) is worried for Messiah College prof John Fea and me. He says:
But I’m worried for both of them. Specifically, I’m worried because this is an election year and that means that the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers may well shift between now and November. Depending on the outcome of the upcoming Republican presidential primary races, the bounds of theological acceptability could shift in such a way that both of these fine professors may end up on the outside looking in.
I like Fred and appreciate his blog so his post deserves attention and I encourage you to read it. I appreciate his kind words and positive assessment of my work here.
He’s worried because Ted Cruz is doing well in the polls. Cruz is supported in no small way by David Barton. Barton appears to be Cruz’s evangelical endorsement broker and runs one of Cruz’s Super PACs. Both John and I have written in honest terms about Barton’s revisions of American history as well as his problems with more current events (e.g., Barton’s claim that Obama’s administration has not prosecuted child porn).
Fred thinks we may be in some jeopardy since we both teach at conservative Christian schools. I sincerely appreciate his concern. In a day when Wheaton College is moving against a tenured professor for her religious beliefs, I guess it looks like anything can happen.
Fea thinks he is ok, and I suspect he is right. I feel pretty confident that I am in good shape as well. I am not a stranger to efforts to silence me by pressuring my employer, it has happened on more than one occasion before, coming from both the far right and the left. Grove City College’s leadership has leaned on academic freedom as a value and I keep on writing. While I take nothing for granted, I have appreciated GCC’s stance on these matters through the years.
Leaving aside our employers, I think Clark sees something real when he discusses “the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers.” A Cruz win would shift the party dramatically toward the Christian dominionist view of the world. Although I consider myself generally conservative, many in the far right consider me to be a moderate. I honestly think Ronald Reagan would be considered a moderate in today’s GOP.
Having said that, I think John and I are fine. I have already gone on record as saying Cruz isn’t a good choice for the GOP. I will say that even if he turns out to be the GOP’s choice.
And besides, if something does happen and I have to start another life, Clark says I have potential to make a switch:
Throckmorton can be a tenacious pitbull when he sniffs out a story. Check out his ongoing series examining financial irregularities at the mission agency Gospel for Asia — it’s an impressive, dogged pursuit of answers to important questions. In another life, Throckmorton would have made a fearsome investigative journalist.
I could start by investigating why Ted Cruz appeared at an event coordinated by his Super PAC, especially when the event seemed designed to collect and schedule candidate endorsements.