Saturday, December 14, 2019

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP? - II

Claims that Donald Trump is the Second Coming of Christ have died down lately, but it doesn't take away from what has been going on.  Last October 13th, I published a piece with the same title "What Is It About Donald Trump?" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-it-about-donald-trump.html).  In particular and an interview between Frank Graham and Eric Metaxas has gotten a lot of coverage.

There are several things to say in response to the [Frank] Graham-[Eric] Metaxas conversation, starting with the theologically distorted and confused charges that were leveled by Graham and amplified by Metaxas. They didn’t make the case that Trump critics are sincere but wrong, or even that they are insincere and unpatriotic. Instead, they felt compelled to portray those with whom they disagree politically as under demonic influences, which for a Christian is about as serious an accusation as there is. It means their opponents are the embodiment of evil, the “enemy,” anti-God, a kind of anti-Christ.*

[Frank] Graham and  [Eric] Metaxas appear to believe that they, along with Donald Trump, are part of a holy crusade to rid the world of evil, wickedness, and demonic powers. What they are saying in their interview is that you either stand with them, or you stand with the forces of Satan.**

The two went on to agree that it’s a “fact, not our opinion” that “literally three years ago our economy was dead in the water” but is now “just screaming forward.” In actual fact, the economy grew at 1.9 percent in the third quarter of 2019 vs. 2.2 percent three years ago.

But if politics is a spiritual battle between God and demons from hell, who cares what statistics from the Commerce Department say — or what any of the impeachment witnesses say?***

But Graham and Metaxis are not all.
On Fox News on Sunday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry reported that he told Trump he was God’s choice: “I said, 'Mr. President, I know there are people that say you said you were the chosen one and I said, 'You were.’”***

Some facts about the economy.
It’s true that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in half a century, and the stock market is at a record high. That’s all to the good. At the same time, economic growth under Trump has been so-so. GDP growth—which, under Trump will not reach even 3 percent during his first three years in office—is decelerating. The deficit has exploded. The manufacturing industry is in recession. And job growth during the last 33 months of the Obama presidency was higher than job growth during the first 33 months of the Trump presidency. *

* https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/graham-claps-back-biden/story?id=67298788
**https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/to-trumps-evangelicals-everyone-else-is-a-sinner/602569/
*** https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/25/who-demon-could-impeach-gods-chosen-one/

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