2y ago

Trump just promised an authoritarian ‘task force’ to impose Christian ideology

www.msnbc.com /opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-2024-christian-right-truth-social-rcna132082

The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex

In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian-right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden administration is persecuting Christians, aren’t just Trump’s typically dubious claims. Much like Trump’s lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom.

In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged, “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.” Speaking just after the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot, Trump tied this “war” to his own legal woes. “Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before,” he added. “I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.”

Trump has promoted the theme of Christian persecution in the past, but is elevating it again as these legal issues mount. His clear purpose is to deflect attention from his own criminal liabilities by insinuating that the same Biden administration he falsely claims is unfairly targeting him for prosecution is similarly persecuting religious Americans.

36 comments

Do you know what "War on Christmas" really means? It means "everyone who isn't a Christian should either conform to us or get the fuck out of this country because it's a Christian country." Which is one of the reasons that all of us who were born here, maybe had ancestors here going back generations, whose only "crime" was not being Christian are regularly made to feel like we're foreigners in our own homeland. I didn't celebrate Christmas growing up in religious Indiana. I was treated like shit for it. There's no war on Christmas. There's a war against people who don't celebrate Christmas or even just dare to say they aren't big fans of Christmas. Enjoy our holiday our way. Or else. That's the war. And they're the ones waging it.
We should be allowed, in "the land of the free" to not want to take part in Christmas for any reason be it another religion, psychological issues, it's too commercial, you think Santa looks stupid, whatever, and not be given shit for it by these MAGA assholes trying to force their theocratic will on all of us.
- What's even better is that Christmas isn't even a religious holiday (not in the way they think it is). The current version of Santa was created by Coca-Cola in the 30s iirc and Jesus' birthday would have actually been sometime in the summer or early fall. Basically, Xmas as we know it here is less than century old and originally had nothing to do with Jesus or any other religious nonsense.
  Xmas, Easter and more have been preempted by the catholic church. They were originally pagan holidays based around the seasons, the sun, etc
  
  You're mixing things up a little. Santa wears red and white because of Coca Cola advertising. He used to wear all kinds of crazy colors. Jesus's "birthday" is celebrated in December to coincide with winter solstice celebrations that already existed in Roman times. It's hard to tell when it "should have been", but there wouldn't be shepards outside with their flock at night in December. Maybe Spring.
- Christmas isn't just for christians. It is also important to the state religion: capitalism.
- you think Santa looks stupid
  As someone who's not a fan of Christmas but IS a jolly fat man with a big beard (dark brown with gray in it, though, not white), that's not my FAVORITE reason...
I’m sixty. I hope I live long enough to piss on his grave
- That's illegal. However you can take a massive fucking shit on it.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
- Doesn't say anything about the President. Ha! Checkmate! /s
  
  But congress makes laws not the president.
  'You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one.'
  Oh, right.
I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.
How can anyone take him seriously. He's talking like he got crucified or something. Let's all cry for a baby Trump who lost an election, then a coup attempt, and is still in the top 1% with all his loyal sponsors he syphons money from. How many lawyers he changed over just the last year? How an average american can even find this spoiled kid relateable?
- Not to mention the audacity to claim to be a Christian compared to Catholic ass Joe Biden and his dumbass followers believe him.
- Grandiose Victimization. A sign of NPD.
- How can what now? I think we all collectively really need to stop questioning how anyone follows this man. Instead, we need to begin accepting reality completely and work towards making sure that whatever following he has, they do not gain more authority.
“I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.”
Sounds fair to me, Al Capone was just a gangster, this fuckhead is trying to start the fourth reich
Ramping up his authoritarian rhetoric, Trump pledged in the lowa speech to institutionalize an authoritarian crackdown of the same sort he falsely accuses the Biden administration of implementing. “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that's fair and equitable," he promised. «Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America."
This is the quote from the article about the task force.
- I don't think people understand what's going to happen if he gets elected again. He's talking about re-purposing the Department of Justice into some McCarthy-esque nightmare that will be targeting schools (including universities). If it is not clear what the GOP's intention is here, you have not been paying attention. Read about Project 2025. This shit is terrifying.
  I hope everyone likes what's going on with public education in Florida, because it's going to become a nationwide thing.
  Everybody needs to vote. We know it's not your first choice, but this election is about keeping our Republic from falling apart. Vote for Biden, and then we can focus on finding a young progressive candidate for next time.
- I’m currently reading ‘The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism’ and it’s about exactly this.
  The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism https://a.co/d/bBZ3hkA
It is incredibly frustrating that Christians see this man as a good person, basically the antithesis of everything they supposedly believe. Three wives? Cheating on your pregnant wife with a prostitute? Doesn't go to church.
I hope the Lincoln Project or whatever it was saved some good stuff for this election.
- Don't forget that he publicly told an interviewer that he had never sinned, nor asked for forgiveness because he "didn't need it",
So a morality police? Like they have in say, Iran..? I can't wait to see the mental gymnastics the Christofascist fundamentalists do to diferenciate themsleves from the Islamofascist fundamentalists.. 🙄🤦‍♀️
- It'll be exactly the same as when they were convinced that "Sharia Law" was coming to destroy the country, while also fighting to impose Christian Law and destroy the country themselves. It's always ok when they're doing it, because they're "right".
So basically he wants an American version of the Iranian "Morality Police" torturing and killing people for not adhering to their archaic dogma.
And they thought "Y'all Quaeda" was a joke..
NGL, there's a sick part of me that wants to know how this future history goes.
- You know already bc there are already a million versions from Hollywood and book publishers before that. Only difference is we don't get to turn this off.
Ok... There's a whole lot of fuckedupedness in Trump's statement, and in this comment section...
The "war" he's suggesting does in fact exist, it's a real thing, but the intended targets are Christian by happenstance... The persecution involved isn't persecution of a group being identified as Christian, it's persecution of a group identified as what is probably best described as "trumps circle".
He's projecting persecution of himself, and his close associates, to a religion that isn't the actual target at all...
It's a complete head fake... A sham... And everyone's addressing it as though they already accept that it's an actual fucking thing, on both sides... Y'all are commenting on this as though Christianity is actually relevant... It's not... The blue team isn't persecuting Christianity, they're persecuting trumps crew, who just happen to be Christians...
C'mon guys... Don't buy this fat fucks bullshit... There's enough people that'll do that on purpose already ;)
- Christians have been crying about their persecution fetish for centuries, he didn't just make it up out of the blue. He's conflating that with the "" ""injustice"" "" that has been inflicted on himself personally in order to rile up the fundamentalist Christian base, who are an overwhelming percentage of his supporters.
- As someone born and raised in the church, lemme tell you there's a LOT of Christians who will absolutely see this, nod and say "yes of course Trump is saving us from the evil war on Christianity". There's a frightening amount of churches out there who do preach that Christianity is persecuted worldwide and we're constantly under attack, but our time to strike back is JUST around the corner. He might be projecting, but between this and his weird messiah-complex video from last week, his campaign knows exactly who their target is, and the worst part is that there's more of them than you'd think or want to believe.
In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged, “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.”
LMAO imagine saying this shit.
- He's going to defeat Satan!!! YAY!!!
  /s
  
  The Starbucks cups will never be woke again!!
No fucking way that’ll happen.
- Hope so Scrotus made up bullshit to end roe vs wade.
- It doesn't matter whether it will happen or not. The messaging is the point. "I'm going to hurt the people you want to hurt."
I am watching All in the family and Archie Bunker's Place and I am seeing the same stories. They are from the 70s and you see that we got years backward.
I'm not too keen on this headline.
Creating a task force to combat non-existent "anti-christian bias" is not the same thing as imposing christian ideology.

36 comments