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  • TopHatter
    replied
    Let’s Be Honest, Trump’s Running As a Fascist
    A comprehensive look at recent speeches and interviews underscores just how dark the rhetoric has gotten.


    Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, points to supporters as he arrives at a campaign rally on October 19, 2024, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. There are 17 days remaining until the U.S. presidential election, which will take place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.

    DONALD TRUMP IS RUNNING THE MOST openly fascist campaign ever undertaken by a major-party nominee for president of the United States.

    That’s not hype; it’s a textbook application of the term. In 2021, Trump used violence to try to overturn an election; in 2022, he called for terminating the Constitution. Now, on the brink of returning to power, Trump is reaffirming his intent to take America deeper into autocracy.

    Here are some of the threats and declarations he has issued in the past three months.

    1. He says he’s legally immune to all current charges against him.

    Four grand juries have indicted Trump on felony charges, and one jury has convicted him. But on August 15, Trump boasted that “the Supreme Court ruled recently on immunity, and I’m immune from all of the stuff that they charge me with.”

    2. He claims the right to do whatever he wants as president.

    On August 21, Trump asserted (falsely) that the criminal case against him for obstructing recovery of classified documents was invalid because “I had the Presidential Records Act. I had a right to do whatever I wanted to do.”

    3. He advocates “one really violent day” of police action.

    On September 29, Trump called for police violence against people who appear to be stealing from drug stores or department stores. He proposed an “extraordinarily rough” response: “One real rough, nasty day, with the drugstores as an example,” in which police would take on people who “start walking out with” merchandise. “If you had one really violent day,” said Trump, “one rough hour, and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.”

    4. He vows to indemnify police against “any prosecutions” for doing what he wants.

    On October 11, Trump pledged to “indemnify” police officers against any prosecutions” for actions undertaken as part of his planned mass deportations. The next day, he added that when officers confront people walking out of department stores with what appear to be stolen goods, “we’re going to indemnify them against any problems they have.”

    5. He threatens to use the military against “the enemy within.”

    Trump says the New York Times, the Washington Post, “the press” generally, and Democratic politicians such as Rep. Adam Schiff are part of the “enemy from within” America.

    On October 10, in a Fox News interview, Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether criminals or terrorists from abroad might pose a threat to the United States on Election Day. Trump told her that “the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” not foreigners. “We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics,” said Trump. “And it should be very easily handled by—if necessary—by National Guard. Or, if really necessary, by the military.”

    Later in the interview, Trump made it clear that the “lunatics” he was talking about included Democratic politicians. Bartiromo asked Trump how, as president, he would “guard against the bureaucrats undermining you.” Trump replied that “the enemy from within,” including “lunatics that we have inside like Adam Schiff,” was “more dangerous than China [or] Russia.”

    Last Wednesday, another Fox News host, Harris Faulkner, invited Trump to clarify his meaning. He responded by adding former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list. “It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous. They’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re sick,” said Trump. “The Pelosis, these people—they’re so sick, and they’re so evil.”

    6. He says some of his political opponents shouldn’t be allowed to run for office.

    On August 23, Trump said that Ruben Gallego, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, “shouldn’t be allowed to even run in this election.” On September 27, he added, “Anybody that wants to defund the police is not qualified and shouldn’t be allowed to even run for president.” On September 28, he declared that due to Kamala Harris’s border policies, “she shouldn’t even be allowed to run.”

    7. He says he could have jailed Hillary Clinton.

    On August 8, Trump boasted, “With Hillary Clinton, I could have done things to her that would have made your head spin.” On August 15, he said he could have jailed Clinton “very easily.” On August 21, he repeated, “I could have put her in jail.”

    In an interview that aired on September 3, podcaster Lex Fridman asked Trump about the temptations of the presidency. “If you become leader again, you'll have unprecedented power,” said Fridman. “What does that power do to you? Is there any threat of it corrupting how you see the world?”

    Trump responded by bragging that he could have jailed Clinton but had spared her. “I could have done a big number on Hillary Clinton,” he said. “She’s so lucky I didn’t do anything. She’s so lucky. . . . I could have done something very bad.”

    8. He has called for jailing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

    On August 17, Trump said Schumer “should have been put in jail, or certainly spoken to very strongly,” for warning Supreme Court justices that if they overturned Roe v. Wade, “You won’t know what hit you.” On September 23, Trump repeated his jail threat, this time skipping the alternative of a verbal rebuke. “These people should be put in jail, the way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote,” said Trump.

    9. He has accused Harris of murder.

    On October 1, Trump told a crowd in Wisconsin that because Harris was vice president when two American women died—ostensibly at the hands of illegal immigrants—“She murdered them. In my opinion, Kamala murdered them . . . just like she had a gun in her hand.”

    10. He vows to prosecute anyone who, in his view, has “cheated” in an election.

    Trump insists, falsely, that his opponents stole the 2020 election. He defines cheating broadly, to include almost anything that tilted an election against him. On September 23, he implied that he would target Democrats, technology companies, and former U.S. intelligence officials for having warned in 2020 that the Hunter Biden laptop story might be a foreign disinformation operation:
    .
    You see all the stuff that Google and Facebook and all, what they got caught cheating on the last election, the bad things they did, the 51 [intelligence] agents. . . . We’re going to go after anybody that gets caught cheating on the election. We’re going to go after them harder than anyone’s ever been sought before, because these people are really a threat. They are a threat to democracy. The Democrats are a threat to democracy.


    On September 28, Trump went further: “If we win and when we win, we’re going to prosecute people that cheat on this election. And if we can, we’ll go back to the last [election] too, if we’re allowed. But we’re going to prosecute people.”

    11. He threatens to strip TV networks of their broadcast licenses for offending him.

    On September 11, Trump claimed that ABC had treated him unfairly in his debate with Harris, and therefore the government “ought to take away their license.” On October 10, he denounced ABC again and added that “CBS should lose their license” for the way 60 Minutes had edited an interview with Harris. He said the editing by CBS was “probably a criminal act.” The next day, Trump repeated that government officials “have to take their license away.” He has continued to issue this demand in posts on his social media site, Truth Social.

    12. He said Fox News “shouldn’t be allowed” to broadcast a speech by Harris.

    On September 28, Trump raged against Fox News for airing a Harris speech about border security in Arizona. “They shouldn’t be allowed to put it on,” he fumed.

    13. He advocates mandatory imprisonment for flag burning, and he rejects court rulings that such a law would be unconstitutional.

    On July 27, August 23, and August 26, Trump called for a mandatory one-year jail term for anyone who burns an American flag. He repeatedly dismissed legal analysts who noted that the Supreme Court had struck down such laws as violations of free speech. On August 30, he scoffed: “They said it’s unconstitutional to stop it. Like hell it is, okay? Like hell it is. It’s not unconstitutional.”

    14. He advocates one-day trials and executions of people who are charged with selling drugs.

    Trump routinely praises China for subjecting accused drug dealers to a “quick trial” (specifically, in “one day”) and an “immediate” death penalty. “If you did that meaningfully, you will in one week stop the drug problem,” Trump proposed on August 30. “Nobody’s going to be selling drugs.” On September 17, he added, “If you don’t have the death penalty for drug dealers, you’re just wasting your time.”

    “They even send the bullet to the family, and they make them pay for the bullet,” he marveled on October 10, speaking of China’s system in a tone of brutal admiration. “It’s vicious, but they have no drug problem.”

    15. He advocates the death penalty for persistent illegal immigration.

    A week ago, Trump pledged to expel migrant criminals—he didn’t explain how he would identify them—from the United States. “If they come back into our country, it’s an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility of parole,” he said. “And if that doesn’t work, it’ll be 20 years. And if that doesn’t work, I guess it’s going to be the death penalty, right? The death penalty.”

    16. He openly abuses antiquated draconian laws.

    On August 26, Trump bragged that he had found an old law that he could use to impose long jail terms on protesters who deface monuments. “I found there was a bill from the early 1900s,” he said. “We don’t do bills like that anymore. [It] said if you touch government property—statues, monuments of any kind—you will serve 10 years with no probation, no early getting out.” Trump said the bill “was dusty. Nobody used it, because we wouldn’t do that, because we’ve become very soft.”

    Trump understood that by digging up this old law, he could avoid the need to consult Congress. “You couldn’t get a thing like that passed today,” he lamented on September 19.

    Then, on October 11, Trump announced that he would use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite a roundup and deportation of migrant criminals. Two days later, he noted that, as with the law about defacing monuments, “you couldn’t pass something like that today.” And a day after that, he crowed that the act “gives the president tremendous power to do what has to be done to secure our country.”

    17. He speaks approvingly of violence against his detractors.

    A week ago, after a protester tried to interrupt a Trump rally in California, Trump assured the crowd that the protester would go “back home to Mommy.” He described with pleasure the punishment that might ensue: “She gets the hell knocked out of her. Her mother’s a big fan of ours. You know that, right? Her father, her mother.”

    18. He calls the January 6th insurrectionists “hostages” and says he’ll pardon many of them.

    Trump routinely claims that people who were detained, convicted, or sentenced to jail for their roles in the January 6th insurrection are “hostages” of a corrupt government. On September 25, he complained that the FBI had opened the apps of “the J6 hostages” but had failed to do the same to his would-be assassins. On September 7, he denounced the House January 6th Committee and vowed: “The moment we win, we will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime. And I will sign their pardons on Day One.”

    THE AGENDA TRUMP IS PRESENTING in these interviews and rallies—political violence, suspension of the Constitution, suspension of civil liberties, unchecked presidential power, censorship of the media, imprisonment of opposition leaders, execution of people for nonviolent crimes, and legal immunity for the president and his thugs—isn’t just close to fascism. It is fascism. It’s what fascists have advocated and practiced in other countries.

    We like to think that fascism can’t happen in America. But it’s happening right now. A president who tried to impose elements of fascism in his first term—and who then deployed mob violence in an attempt to stay in power—is seeking a mandate to go much further. And half of the electorate is on the brink of giving him that mandate.
    ___________

    Probably about time for yet another bullshit semantical argument about what a fascist is or isn't.

    Leave a comment:


  • TopHatter
    replied
    Trump is deteriorating rapidly. What he says and does at his rallies don't even qualify as rambling anymore. He's cancelling interviews left and right. His minions probably think he has more to lose and little to gain with more exposure in the final few weeks. We could be looking at a President Vance in a few months.

    Leave a comment:


  • Monash
    replied
    Originally posted by statquo View Post
    Stretch drive here. I don’t know what to believe. I find it unbelievable that it’s split down the middle everywhere that it matters. Not that it should lean either way, but at least some separation… somewhere?? Trump supporters are saying he’s up huge because they don’t know anyone personally voting for Harris so that’s enough proof that the media is lying about the polls. Dems are saying they’ve been under polled the last 3 election cycles for congress, so that’s proof that their numbers should be higher. 538 has Harris and Trump with even odds.

    Anyone have any idea what’s going to happen??
    Only if Trump loses by a narrow margin like last time. If that happens? Have a wild guess at what he's going to say.

    Leave a comment:


  • statquo
    replied
    Stretch drive here. I don’t know what to believe. I find it unbelievable that it’s split down the middle everywhere that it matters. Not that it should lean either way, but at least some separation… somewhere?? Trump supporters are saying he’s up huge because they don’t know anyone personally voting for Harris so that’s enough proof that the media is lying about the polls. Dems are saying they’ve been under polled the last 3 election cycles for congress, so that’s proof that their numbers should be higher. 538 has Harris and Trump with even odds.

    Anyone have any idea what’s going to happen??

    Leave a comment:


  • Monash
    replied
    Originally posted by DOR View Post
    Beware the Third Party Candidate(s)

    In the 10 presidential elections held since 1984, the margin of victory in seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) was 20% of the number of votes cast for a candidate who was not nominated by the Democratic or Republican party.

    Five times as many people voted for a no-hope candidate, as compared to the margin between the two major party nominees.
    Mandatory preferential voting where there are more than two candidates on the ballot paper anyone? Works OK over here.

    Leave a comment:


  • DOR
    replied
    Beware the Third Party Candidate(s)

    In the 10 presidential elections held since 1984, the margin of victory in seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) was 20% of the number of votes cast for a candidate who was not nominated by the Democratic or Republican party.

    Five times as many people voted for a no-hope candidate, as compared to the margin between the two major party nominees.

    Leave a comment:


  • InExile
    replied
    I think it comes down to turnout on the day, Trump has the ability to turn out people who infrequently vote, the Democrats have the better ground game. I was looking at the stats of the swing states between 2016 and 2020, there was a huge increase in turnout...almost 5%, a little would be increase in population, most I am sure are infrequent voters. Will these people turn out again?

    I think Swing voters, those who switch their vote (maybe 2 - 3%), will be less important, mostly a wash.

    Lastly there might be some Americans, who simply will not vote for a Black woman. Most of these people probably already switched to the Republican side, but it might make a small difference.

    Leave a comment:


  • Monash
    replied
    Every pundit I've seen, read or listened to seems to be saying the same thing i.e. that the race is still too close to call.
    Last edited by Monash; 16 Oct 24,, 02:02.

    Leave a comment:


  • JRT
    replied
    Originally posted by Frank_Lutz
    Thursday, 10 October 2024
    Frank Luntz and Allan Lichtman talk swing-state polls and predictions
    (06 min, 10 sec)

    Donald Trump is still in the 2024 race despite his terrible debate performance because Kamala Harris has been unable to close the deal with undecided voters.

    I joined Chris Cumo on NewsNation alongside the legendary Allan Lichtman to talk more.
    Originally posted by Frank_Lutz
    Monday, 14 October 2024
    Frank Luntz explains why Kamala Harris is losing ground to Donald Trump.
    (09 min, 09 sec)

    I joined Jessica Dean on ‪@CNN‬ this afternoon to talk about why Kamala Harris is losing ground to Donald Trump.

    As seen in my focus group of young Black men who are voting for him, Trump’s plainspoken language seems extreme to Beltway media – but it appeals to non-traditional voters who have come around to support him or oppose the Democrats.
    ...





    Leave a comment:


  • TopHatter
    replied
    Republicans’ Closing Message: We Lie to You
    Fear wasn’t enough, so they are campaigning on falsehoods.



    FROM SPRINGFIELD, OHIO TO THE FLOODED mountain towns of western North Carolina, Republicans are ending the 2024 campaign with a torrent of lies, misrepresentations, and falsehoods.

    Donald Trump, as always, engages in demonstrably false lies he is easily caught in, but this time around he has a running mate who does so, too. A few of their fellow Republicans have called out Trump and JD Vance for some of their recent lies—about Haitians supposedly killing and eating pets in Ohio last month and about Democrats supposedly holding out on relief for Republicans in storm-ravaged areas. But many other Republicans are parroting the lies.

    It didn’t have to be this way: Republicans hold an edge on the issues most important to voters, the economy and immigration, and could talk about what is real and offer solutions. Instead they are frightening voters with lies. In a particularly provocative smear, Trump’s son Eric even said Saturday at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “They tried to kill him, and it’s because the Democratic party, they can’t do anything right.”

    Last week Trump claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp couldn’t reach President Joe Biden in the midst of the Hurricane Helene emergency. He claimed that “the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor” of North Carolina were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” He claimed that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are “universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they are handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina.” He claimed that Harris and Biden “stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.” He claimed—while air traffic increased 300 percent with private and public rescue and relief flights over western North Carolina—that “Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco, and all of the people in North Carolina no helicopters, no rescue—it’s just—what’s happened there is very bad.”

    None of this is true. Governors from all the states affected by Hurricane Helene have vouched for the response from the federal government.

    Yet backing up Trump and Vance are GOP members of the House and Senate who are fueling distrust about the federal storm relief efforts—trying to convince voters the funds meant to help them are going instead to immigrants.

    Sen. Ted Budd spread some of this B.S. Rep. Richard McCormick did, too. Sen. Tom Cotton said the suggestion FEMA was spending on immigrants instead of storm survivors was “not” misinformation and that the Biden administration now “can’t find” the funds to help storm victims in the South.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson called the Helene response “a massive failure.” And while he acknowledged there are “different” accounts managing storm relief and managing the housing of immigrants, he suggested that the administration is “using any pool of funding from any account for resettling illegal aliens who have come across the border,” and said the American people are “disgusted.”

    The lies were so egregious—and potentially so dangerous, if they mislead people desperate for help—that even some Republicans, like Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina, felt forced to debunk the distortions, conspiracy theories, and “outrageous rumors” for the sake of their constituents’ safety.

    Meanwhile it’s hard to see how preying on terrified and displaced people who have lost everything could be a path to victory in North Carolina, a purple state that gave Trump his smallest winning margin in 2020 of 74,500 votes and where the current GOP gubernatorial candidate, a porn addict who calls himself “a black Nazi,” is down by double digits to his Democratic opponent.

    A very rare joint editorial by the state’s two largest newspapers, titled “Shame on Trump for worsening NC’s Helene tragedy with political lies,” was published last week by both the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer.

    But political lies are the campaign now. Republicans no longer use lies as a defensive tool to escape political jams. Spewing falsehoods is now an offensive tactic they all learned from Trump, what Steve Bannon calls “flood[ing] the zone with shit.”

    Trump isn’t likely to stop, and neither is Vance.

    After Vance copped to lying about the Haitian residents in Springfield—“If I have to create stories . . . then that’s what I’m going to do”—he kept spreading lies about them, including about their legal status. Even following all the harassment, intimidation, bomb threats, evacuations, and school cancellations that resulted from the first lies about pet-eating, Vance dug in more—calling the Haitians “illegal aliens” even though they are living and working in the United States legally on a temporary basis.

    Vance chose to lie about policies he doesn’t like. He disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision to grant Temporary Protected Status to those refugees until February 2026, so he said, “that does not magically make them legal because Kamala Harris waved the amnesty wand. That makes her border policy a disgrace, and I’m still going to call people ‘illegal aliens.’”

    Last week he smiled his way through laughable lies in the vice presidential debate—did anyone know that Trump saved Obamacare and transferred power “peacefully” after the 2020 election? Vance lied with ease but sneered at the moderator when he got caught: “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check,” he said to Margaret Brennan.

    When asked directly by Tim Walz at the end of their debate whether Biden had won in 2020, Vance tried pivoting to the future while accusing Harris of censoring Americans “from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation.” It wasn’t a deft evasion, it was ludicrous. But that was the point. Flood the zone.

    Within days of the debate, however, Vance wasn’t avoiding the question—like Cotton and Johnson tried to do, painfully. When asked by a political comedian whether Trump won in 2020, Vance said Trump won. It seems his “damning non-answer” wasn’t suitable for Trump, so Vance was forced to say what his boss wants, that he beat Joe Biden and won.

    Gratuitous lies Republicans tell in 2024 are rooted in the Big Lie. Once you are party to a lie that consequential, smaller ones get easier to tell. The Big Lie has changed this country forever. It is why we had January 6th and why the lives of any Republicans who tell the truth are threatened and the lives of election workers are threatened and why we could have violence in the days and weeks following this election and why radicalized Republicans at the local level are planning to delay certification of the election and why Trump was able to be nominated again and be positioned to possibly win a second term and replace our democracy with an autocracy.

    Prepare yourself for this ugly reality: Every Republican in elected office will be expected to go out and lie again if Trump loses on November 5. And they will do it, even if it causes violence. We know that because they are lying now about things that could endanger their fellow Americans who are grieving, desperate, and despairing. They looked the other way while Trump lied about COVID and untold thousands died as a result, and they went silent after just days of condemning a deadly insurrection. Honesty isn’t an option.

    The Republicans’ new rule of politics is that they can’t be fact-checked. Let’s hope they can’t get elected.
    ________

    Leave a comment:


  • DOR
    replied

    Dr Brad DeLong, UC Berkeley economics professor:

    Sam Williamson has revised his data piece on relative American economic performance as measured by real income growth during the different 20th and 21st century presidencies:
    The best performances came under Roosevelt, Johnson, Truman, and Kennedy/Johnson. You can argue that good Johnson performance came at the price of creating inflationary problems for his successor, and that Roosevelt should not receive any substantial credit because his terms started at the nadir of the Great Depression and ended in the forced boom of World War II. Those are points, but I have always seen them as greatly overstressed in most of the literature:

    Change in real GDP per capita
    FDR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +8.17%
    LBJ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +4.00%
    HST _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +3.23%
    JFK/LBJ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _+3.14%
    Harding/Collidge _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.93%
    WJC _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.66%
    JRB _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.52% (3-1/2 years)
    RWR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.51%
    Taft _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.16%
    JEC _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.13%
    DJT _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +2.02% (first three years)
    RMN _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +1.80%
    Nixon/Ford _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _+1.56%
    Coolidge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _+1.33%
    GWB _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +1.24%
    DDE _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +1.19%
    GHWB _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +1.03%
    BHO _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +0.85%
    DJT _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ +0.84%
    T Roosevelt _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -0.11%
    FDR / HST _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _-3.97%
    Hoover _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -6.62%

    Full post on substack (paywall)

    Comment: a couple of data points off trend over 25 years might be something, but not this obvious result.

    Leave a comment:


  • JRT
    replied
    Originally posted by AP_News
    Wednesday, 03 October 2024

    Influential prophesizing pastors believe reelecting Trump is a win in the war of angels and demons

    COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Thousands sang, cheered and prayed as multiple preachers declared Donald Trump to be God’s favored candidate to defeat what one called the “forces of darkness.”

    Headliners denounced Democrat Kamala Harris — Trump’s campaign rival — as influenced by demons and the spirit of the wicked biblical queen Jezebel.

    Attendees stood and recited in unison a “Watchman Decree,” invoking a government that honors God and has “righteous” laws and “biblical” judicial rulings. They pledged to “take back and permanently control” positions of leadership in sectors such as government, business and culture.

    “We break every curse against Donald Trump — we break every satanic incantation against his presidency,” declared the host preacher, Hank Kunneman, at the annual Opening the Heavens conference, held in mid-September at the Mid-America Center arena in Council Bluffs.

    The conference is one of several of its type around the country this election year, featuring exuberant worship and speeches by influential preachers. It represents a highly politicized wing of charismatic Christianity, a larger movement that emphasizes spiritual gifts such as healings, prophecy and speaking in tongues.

    As a sign of this movement’s influence, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance appeared recently at a similar conference, called the Courage Tour, in Pennsylvania.

    Goals for the conference included getting out the vote for Trump and his allies, and mobilizing believers to pray and take part in what’s proclaimed to be a literal spiritual war surrounding the election.

    “Get your butt out there and vote. Get your voice and raise it!” declared Kunneman, who pastors Lord of Hosts Church in nearby Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife, Brenda. “Let every devil fall. ... We push back any attempt to steal the executive office.”

    The conference emerges from a movement that emphasizes authoritative direction from leaders considered to be modern-day apostles and prophets. It also incorporated Christian nationalism, a fusion of American and Christian identity.

    Critics view the movement with alarm, seeing it as anti-democratic and supporting a candidate with authoritarian ambitions and incendiary rhetoric. Many of its leaders rallied behind Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

    “The attitude coming into 2024 is, ‘The demons are probably going to try to steal this election again, and so we need to do spiritual warfare in advance to prevent that,’” said Matthew Taylor, author of the new book on the movement, “The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.”

    “It’s very hard to have a pluralistic democracy,” Taylor said, when many distrust the electoral system.

    Several leaders in this movement were present at rallies in Washington protesting Biden’s presidential victory before and on Jan. 6, 2021, said Taylor.

    Leaders weren’t among the Capitol rioters, but some issued decrees and prayers that the certification of Biden’s win be blocked and Trump returned for a second term.

    Such ideology “is one of those golden threads” in the social media feeds of many participants of the Jan. 6 rallies, said Taylor, Protestant scholar at the Baltimore-based Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies.

    Headliners at the Council Bluffs conference repeatedly spoke of being in a true spiritual war, merging decrees of political victory and Christian revival.

    The “favor of the Lord” is on Trump, said one preacher, Dutch Sheets. “America is going to be saved, and I believe this election is a part of it.”

    His brother and fellow preacher, Tim Sheets, recounted seeing a vision of a warrior angel firing an arrow that landed in front of the White House, claiming the territory for God.

    “We must move into battle for the Lord,” he said. “The drums of spiritual war are beating.”

    Preachers repeatedly denounced abortion — one described it as an outpouring of blood craved by demons — and the “mutilation” of children, as they depicted gender-affirming treatment for transgender youths.

    The arena appeared a little more than half full, with thousands of attendees from multiple states. Many wore T-shirts with slogans like, “Defender of Territory” and “We the People Trust Jesus,” while several bundled up with American flag-themed fleece blankets amid chilly air conditioning.

    Participants at the Council Bluffs conference, mostly but not exclusively white, aligned with the larger evangelical Christian support of Trump.

    About 8 in 10 white evangelicals supported Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast. Pew Research Center’s validated voter survey found similar support levels in 2016.

    This year, about 7 in 10 white evangelical Protestants view the Republican nominee favorably, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found.

    Behind that supermajority is a diverse evangelicalism. The charismatic exuberance and focus on the supernatural contrast in tone with the relatively restrained approach of groups such as Southern Baptists, though they have allied in their political conservatism and opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

    And the charismatic movement has its own diversity. This heavily politicized branch teaches that in the present day, God has re-established the ancient biblical roles of apostle — an authoritative leader — and prophet, someone issuing divine proclamations.

    The movement isn’t a denomination. Churches and ministries largely operate independently, even as its leaders speak at each others’ conferences, endorse each others’ books and appear on each others’ broadcasts.

    As one example of the overlap: The Opening the Heavens conference in Council Bluffs featured one segment called FlashPoint Live — an in-person version of a television show that mixes charismatic Christianity and conservative politics. It’s one of several such FlashPoint Live conferences this year, hosted by pastor Gene Bailey — whose recent interview with Trump demonstrated the close ties between the movement and the former president.

    The ReAwaken America tour, started by Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, has similarly blended the political with revival-like rallies and featured members of Trump’s family.

    While a range of evangelicals served as Trump’s faith-based advisors during his administration, charismatic leaders were especially prominent.

    The apostles-and-prophets movement overlaps with two related, popular ideas: dominionism, which says Christians are to be in charge of society, and the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which specifies seven areas where Christians are to lead — politics, religion, media, business, family, education and the arts and entertainment.

    Bailey led in the reciting of the Watchman Decree at Council Bluffs, which included a pledge to “permanently control positions of influence and leadership in each of the seven mountains.”

    Bailey and Kunneman declined interview requests through a media representative.

    Taylor said that according to this strand of charismatic theology, Holy Spirit-filled Christians have the power not just to ask God for results but to speak them into being.

    “It’s not just spouting off or praying prayers,” he said. “They believe that they are changing reality with these Watchman Decrees.”

    He added: “It looks wild when you encounter it, but it is very popular, and it’s very dangerous.”

    Separate from the Council Bluffs conference organizers, but with an overlapping cast of speakers, is the Courage Tour. It’s led by Lance Wallnau, who popularized the Seven Mountain concept and was an early booster of Trump’s 2016 candidacy.

    The tour has been held in crucial battleground states, mixing worship, prayers for miraculous healings and overt politics — including a call for Christians to become election workers or poll watchers to “fight the fraud” in swing states.

    Taylor said this appears to lay groundwork for a campaign to delegitimize the 2024 election results if Harris wins.

    While movement leaders speak of spiritual warfare — that is, angel vs. demon rather than human vs. human — Taylor said such rhetoric can stoke some people into taking matters into their own hands.

    He said it’s no surprise that some rioters at the Capitol in 2021 were loudly praying and displaying Christian symbols.

    “I really do worry that we could see a lot more political violence,” he said.
    ...

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  • Amled
    replied
    Trump, For Some Reason, Thinks Rising Sea Levels Will Create More Oceanfront Land
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump...b00667298b7ded

    With a death total of over 200, and still rising, due in part to flooding that in part is caused by climate change, Mr. Trump still found it worth a “humoristic” quip.
    It’s doubtful whether even his most fervent supporters in the afflicted states will see the humor,
    Guess he never heard of the saying:
    There’s no such thing as a free lunch”!

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  • TopHatter
    replied
    Originally posted by JRT View Post
    ...
    There's commentary floating around that his heart isn't in it this time. Biden leaving the race took the wind out of his sails.

    He seems to be spending more time golfing and hawking new branded bullshit to his gullible cult.

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  • JRT
    replied
    Originally posted by MSNBC
    Tuesday, 30 July 2024
    Maddow points out frightening truth about Trump's lack of concern about votes
    (06 min, 39 sec)

    Rachel Maddow rounds up instances in which Donald Trump not only assures his supporters that if he is elected they won't have to vote in the future, but also says that he does not need votes for this 2024 election. Maddow posits that the reason Trump doesn't care about votes is that he intends to win by manipulating the administration of the voting tabulation.
    ...

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