Trump Frames Election as Battle Against ‘Wicked’ System Bent on Attacking Christians Speaking at a Christian media convention in Nashville, former President Donald J. Trump claimed that a “radical left, corrupt political class” was persecuting Christians. Former President Donald J. Trump at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville on Thursday.Credit...Taylor Baucom for The New York Times By Michael Gold Reporting from Nashville Feb. 23, 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/politics/trump-national-christian-broadcasters.html Former President Donald J. Trump often characterizes his presidential campaign as a battle for America’s future. But speaking at a Christian broadcast media convention in Nashville on Thursday, he wrapped that depiction within a stark good-versus-evil framework, portraying his political opponents as part of a “wicked” system. Mr. Trump also revived his claim that America’s “greatest threat is not from the outside of our country” but “from within,” language that drew alarm last year from experts who saw in it echoes of autocratic leaders. During Thursday’s speech at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Mr. Trump portrayed the threat as liberals — more specifically, a “radical left, corrupt political class” — whom he broadly cast as intrinsically bent on attacking Christianity. “Christians, they can’t afford to sit on the sidelines in this fight,” Mr. Trump said. He later added, without offering evidence, that liberals were persecuting Christians because “they know that our allegiance is not to them. Our allegiance is to our country, and our allegiance is to our creator.” (There are many Christians who are Democrats.) Before running for office, Mr. Trump made little show of being particularly religious, which he acknowledged early in his speech, and he does not often give faith-focused speeches on the trail. But evangelical voters in 2016 were drawn to his populist message and his pledges to appoint “pro-life” judges, and they have remained loyal to him. During his third run for office, Mr. Trump has often cast himself as a staunch defender of the Christian right. He also often boasts of his appointment of three justices to the Supreme Court who, in 2022, voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. On Thursday, he praised those justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — from the stage, calling them “great justices” and “great people.” (All three will be deciding on constitutional issues tied to Mr. Trump’s criminal cases and his election bid.) Mr. Trump has often appeared uncomfortable or unwilling to discuss abortion at length on the campaign trail. During his speech, he took credit for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, without using the word “abortion” or mentioning the case by name. “I was able to bring this issue for the first time in 54 years back to the states,” Mr. Trump said, before falsely declaring that “on both sides, everybody agrees that’s where it should be.” Many voters did not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, a fact that became more evident after abortion rights emerged as a campaign issue that lifted Democrats in elections across the country in 2022 and 2023. Mr. Trump has avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion in the wake of those elections, and his emphasis on states’ rights during Thursday’s speech is part of that pattern. He also did not address a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos in test tubes should be considered children, a decision that cited anti-abortion language. The Biden campaign has criticized Mr. Trump’s silence on the issue. Mr. Trump has previously said Republicans must find a way to talk about the issue that does not threaten them at the ballot box, and he previously criticized a six-week abortion ban signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican and a former political rival, as a “terrible mistake.” But Mr. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, The New York Times reported last week, citing two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations. On Thursday, he tied the issue to his legal troubles, criticizing the Justice Department for prosecuting six anti-abortion protesters who in 2021 obstructed a reproductive health clinic in Tennessee in violation of federal laws. They were convicted by a jury in the state last month, in a case that has been a flashpoint for conservative activists. He also repeated a vow to create a federal task force to focus on “anti-Christian” bias. Mr. Trump has tried to appeal to Christian voters by accusing the Biden administration of criminalizing Americans for their faith, though experts have said that many of his claims are baseless or misleading. But Mr. Trump — who faces 91 felony counts in four criminal cases, including one tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — uses those characterizations to support a larger theme of his campaign: that President Biden and Democrats are severe threats to democracy. Attendees in Nashville on Thursday. Evangelical voters have remained loyal to Mr. Trump.Credit...Taylor Baucom for The New York Times That tendency was on display on Thursday. Before Mr. Trump was introduced, loudspeakers sounded out “Justice for All,” a song featuring the J6 Prison Choir, which is composed of men who were imprisoned for their parts in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. That song — which features the men singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” while Mr. Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance — is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump and his supporters to reframe the effort to overturn the 2020 election as an act of patriotism. During his speech, Mr. Trump referred to the singers as “the J6 hostages,” a term he has repeatedly used to describe those serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
The system is composed of people taking bribes from China and vacationing on that special island. Ivy League powered, commie fungus infiltrating the tree of freedom.
Christian TV evangelicals fire up Trump support with messianic message By Helen Coster March 22, 2024 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/go...gelicals-preach-messianic-message-2024-03-22/ REFER TO WEB LINK FOR THE PICS.... Item 1 of 7 Faith leaders place their hands on the shoulders of U.S. President Donald Trump as he takes part in a prayer for those affected by Hurricane Harvey in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque [1/7]Faith leaders place their hands on the shoulders of U.S. President Donald Trump as he takes part in a prayer for those affected by Hurricane Harvey in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - "This is really a battle between good and evil," evangelical TV preacher Hank Kunneman says of the slew of criminal charges facing Donald Trump. "There's something on President Trump that the enemy fears: It's called the anointing." The Nebraska pastor, who was speaking on cable news show "FlashPoint" last summer, is among several voices in Christian media pressing a message of Biblical proportions: The 2024 presidential race is a fight for America's soul, and a persecuted Trump has God's protection. "They're just trying to bankrupt him. They're trying to take everything he's got. They're trying to put him in prison," author, media personality and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau said in October on "The Jim Bakker Show", an hour-long daily broadcast that focuses on news and revelations about the end times that it says we are living in. "The hand of God is on him and he cannot be stopped." In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, evangelical voters staunchly supported Trump despite claims of adultery and sexual misconduct, which he denied. With Trump now facing dozens of criminal charges as he pursues a second term, some Christian media are bolstering his support by portraying him as an instrument of God's will who faces persecution by his foes. While the people making these claims are largely outside the mainstream in Christian media, they have amassed significant online followings and their messages reverberate across radio shows, cable TV and streaming platforms that reach millions of Americans every day. The claims that Trump benefits from divine help present a jarring counterpoint to the views voiced by his critics, who denounce him as an immoral grifter set on dismantling democracy and point to his inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants in the country illegally and opponents he has threatened to prosecute. The former president's myriad legal woes include allegations of sexual abuse and financial chicanery. In May, a jury decided Trump must pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing a magazine writer in the 1990s and then branding her a liar. He is also facing a criminal trial on charges he covered up hush-money payments to a porn star. He has denied wrongdoing in both cases. The barrage of legal actions have broadly served to rev up Trump's support among Republicans rather than diminish it, according to a July Reuters/Ipsos poll. The roughly 80 million Americans who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants - about a quarter of the population - have provided the bedrock for his meteoric rise, and their turnout levels this November could prove critical in a tight contest against Democratic rival Joe Biden. Reuters interviews with 10 experts in faith-based political outreach, political science, media and religion outlined the contours of a Christian media space broadly supportive of Trump and his policies, though offering differing views about any religious mission he might have, and highlighting a shift in the messaging at the fringes in the run-up to this election. Many conservative Christians have long relied on Christian media to champion political causes tied to their faith, like anti-communism and anti-abortion. But what's new about this election cycle is the unabashed support for Trump and the frequency he is depicted as "God's chosen" leader, said Brian Calfano, a political science and journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati who has researched the proliferation of media-savvy ministers who support Trump. "Before Trump, there was some hero worship of favored politicians, but the larger philosophical or ideological causes received greater attention." Language that casts Trump in messianic terms helps to energize his base, said Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University who specializes in religion and politics. Wallnau and Kunneman did not respond to Reuters requests for comment for this article, while representatives for FlashPoint host Gene Bailey and Bakker declined to comment. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. SELF-PROCLAIMED PROPHETS Christian media includes thousands of religious podcasts, radio shows, cable TV and streaming platforms, with a combined monthly audience of more than 140 million Americans, according to the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) association. Shows like FlashPoint and Bakker's show are comparatively niche. FlashPoint for instance pulls in an average monthly cable TV audience of roughly 11,000 households, according to Comscore data, while the Victory Channel it appears on has more than a million followers on YouTube and Facebook combined. Trump participated in six interviews with FlashPoint between 2021 and 2023. Many preachers ply their own trade and command significant online audiences. For example, Wallnau has his own podcast and more than 1.3 million followers on social media. Kunneman, another self-styled prophet, has close to 250,000. Many Christian voters credit Trump with a series of policy victories, including the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in 2022 to overturn the constitutional right to abortion after he appointed three conservative justices to the court, plus the moving of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. "There's a lot of evangelical conservative Christian voters that have some challenges with some aspects of his personality, but when they look at his policies, what he did, juxtaposed to what we have, and what's proposed by those on the other side, it's a no-brainer," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council evangelical advocacy group. His "Washington Watch with Tony Perkins" airs every week day on about 100 Christian TV stations, various streaming channels and 800 radio stations and draws an average monthly cable TV audience of roughly 5,000 households, according to Comscore. While Perkins, a more mainstream voice in Christian media, steers clear of any messianic messaging, the former Louisiana lawmaker said on his show in December that efforts to kick Trump off the Republican primary ballot were part of a "battle between good and evil". "You will hear the fact that we do believe that God calls people to different walks of life, including into the political realm," Perkins told Reuters in an interview. Much of the Trump content on Christian media looks at the former president through the lens of the Bible, he added, for example drawing a parallel between him and Cyrus the Great, the pagan ruler of the 6th century BC who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity and enshrined religious freedom. On Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian outlet that reaches more than 100 million U.S. households, former Arkansas governor, TV host and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee says Trump should be judged by his deeds. "He proved to be the most pro-life president in American history, by not just by what he said, but by what he did," Huckabee said in December. Huckabee and Trinity Broadcasting Network did not respond to requests for comment. 'SO GOD GAVE US TRUMP' It's difficult to get an exact count of how much of the Christian media is explicitly pro-Trump, because like other aspects of the fragmented media industry, it has ballooned in recent years over TV, radio, podcasts and social media. NRB President Troy Miller said Christian media was becoming more politically focused, although political programming still represented less than 3% of overall content. Nevertheless, he added, it is filling a vacuum for conservative evangelicals who feel mainstream media coverage doesn't reflect their values or fairly cover a candidate who in their eyes understands them and the issues they care about. "You're programming for your audience, so Trump's going to be a major part of that," he said in an interview. Miller said the view that Trump has been anointed by God reflects the fringe of Christian media but that the notion of spiritual warfare playing out in the U.S. is more mainstream. Trump himself has leaned into the battle. In a speech to an NRB conference last month Trump vowed to defend Christianity and urged Christians to vote for him in the Nov. 5 election, a contest he depicted in religious terms and likened to the great battles of World War Two. "I know that to achieve victory in this fight, just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord, and the grace of Almighty God," he told the gathering to applause. The former president has started some rallies with a messianic video made by social media influencers which opens with the line: "On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: I need a caretaker, so God gave us Trump." He has also shared on the Truth Social media app a sketch of himself in court, sitting next to what appears to be a rendering of Jesus Christ. Written above the drawing: "Nobody could have made it this far alone."
The world has either gone mad, or it was always this way insane. But me thinks scamming is on the increase.
%% LOL; dont forget the Don John Trump [DJT]Bibles for $60, good buy .Good by; for now LOL I saw a pic of him in military schools/ looked like he was waring a ''cup with handle '' hat LOL. Mr Fred + Mary Trump was also in pic; his loving mom/gave him a Bible when young
False Prophet False Messiah Cult History teaches that messianic hopes lead to poor outcomes for the societies that embrace them. Yet, they continue to surface — even today, with the elevation of Donald Trump by some to messiah-like status... Christian messianism has an equally long track record of failed apocalyptic predictions and false prophecies, appearing already in the New Testament: the Gospel of Mark 9:1 and Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 7:29-31 both anticipate that Jesus will return within their lifetimes to establish the kingdom of God. The failure of this event and efforts to justify and explain it ultimately led to the founding of a new religion: Christianity. Trump the saviour Most recently, messianic expectations have attached to the figure of Trump, whom a large proportion of white evangelicals herald as a political saviour. Many of them draw a link between Isaiah 45, which describes the Persian king Cyrus the Great as God’s anointed, and the fact that Trump is the 45th president of the United States; this numerical coincidence is viewed as evidence for divine providence. Even Trump’s moral failings have been assimilated to his messianic identity: Jerry Falwell Jr. compares Trump to King David, who committed adultery, hired a hitman and repented to God following the death of his son who was conceived through this illicit sexual union. If evangelicals regard Trump as their saviour and the one who will rectify the moral and political imbalance they perceive is afflicting American society, the QAnon movement has taken this doctrine of salvation to the next level: Exploiting human emotion and concern for children, the movement posits a global child sex-trafficking ring run by high level Democrats and the Hollywood elite. https://theconversation.com/from-biblical-times-to-trump-false-messiahs-have-doomed-societies-150933 I watched a history (Smithsonian) of Germany and the people's devotion to Hitler...too many scary similarities between Evangelism and Trump especially the religious connection that soon led to the genocide of Jews, the mentally ill, homosexuals, violence & propaganda against political opponents, German Americans leaving Germany before the shit hit the fan et cetera. By the way, the emigration of Americans leaving the United States had dramatically spiked to incredible levels during Trump's Presidency in comparison to any other U.S. President...Americans leaving before shit hits the fan. The 7 most popular countries for Americans moving abroad Portugal. Spain. United Kingdom. United Arab Emirates. Canada. Germany. France. wrbtrader
I'm not an evangelical, but the people who actually run this country do seem to relish in humiliating Christians. Example: declaring transgender day on Good Friday. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...mation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility-2024/
I'll post the two charts with the source of the "emigration from the United States" when I find it again. Until then, I can describe it involving Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. The chart showed reasons for the emigration peaks too. Trump was the worst, Biden next, Bush and Obama the least of these U.S. Presidents. The peaks in Biden involved the Supreme Court decisions on Abortion issues. Obama had very little (not noticeable peaks). Trump's emigration peaks involved his political decisions that impacted Americans. The other chart compared U.S. Presidents back to WWII without mentioning any reasons for the emigration peaks. Trump, again, outpaced other U.S. Presidents too. Note: Lots of data from other countries immigrated to the United States. In contrast, hard to find data on emigration from the United States to other countries. wrbtrader