Trump Says “Biggest Pastors” Believe His Feud with Democrats, Media Is Fueling a Great Revival

“Friday, President Donald Trump told the nation he believes a revival is coming because of his struggle with the media and Democrats….Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas agrees with the President.” - Christian Headlines

Discussion

So “midwestern evangelical” “lily white” people support Trump because they are fascist nazi racists?

Not what he said, Mark. Note the word some. It matters… and does anyone seriously doubt there are “some” like that?

JoeB, all I can say about GARBC on that point is that I have never heard anything of the kind you have described.

The reelection of King is a sad commentary, but it obviously doesn’t follow that all white people in Iowa are racist. That would be another unfair stereotype… (“statism”?)

We should all avoid overgeneralizing.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

The GARBC doesn’t have “official” institutions any longer, so no man is “GARB trained.” If any man utters nonsense like what Joeb says, I guarantee you it’s a reflection of his culture and personal convictions, not his theological training.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Aaron, one thing that bothers me about your link is that those writing it assume that an investigation of the Bidens would be “meritless”. Um, you’ve got a guy kicked out of the Navy for failing drug tests (yet amazingly not prosecuted), and he gets two sweet new gigs with companies closely bound to the Ukrainian and Chinese governments for which he’s not qualified, and these guys don’t see anything worth investigating? Really? Even after Biden bragged about getting the prosecutor fired while that prosecutor was investigating the company which employed his son?

Now you might not have been able to prove anything there—the agreements were probably oral and limited to a few people who could be trusted not to talk until they were “squeezed” that way—but let’s not pretend an investigation of this kind of arrangement is “meritless.” It’s at the core of the question of whether our public servants ought to be able to peddle influence for money.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Aaron Blumer]

Not what he said, Mark. Note the word some. It matters… and does anyone seriously doubt there are “some” like that?

I think it is fair to say that by “some” joeb means “a whole lot” rather than “very few.” After all, if only a small amount are racist and supporting Trump, why does Trump have so much support? Joeb’s entire argument is irrelevant if the evangelical Trump support that is racist is small. Why bring it up then? If only a small amount of the evangelical Trump support is racist, then there must be another reason why they are supporting Trump. Joeb says the main reason is they are racist. Am I wrong?

….is that I grew up in a town that was about half people who had fled Gary when blacks started moving into that town. Now there were offenses on both sides—you had neighborhood breakers working with realtors to basically scare people off, and on the flip side Mayor Hatcher prohibited real estate “for sale” signs in the city (no kidding), but suffice it to say that the end result was not a particularly nuanced view of racial issues. And yes, African-Americans pick up on that.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Can someone explain why an article like Aaron links to is convincing? Given the evidence at hand, on what basis do they declare these things “baseless” or “meritless”?

Can someone explain why there is an almost total lack of curiosity about the Bidens and their Ukraine and China relationships? Why is there an objection to asking a foreign government to help with an investigation of American corruption? If the Executive Branch was corrupt, wouldn’t we want to know it? (Based on the least three years, the answer is yes, but apparently some only started caring three years ago.)

Can someone explain why Biden has had almost no questions on an explicit quid pro quo that he bragged about? (https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/why_isnt_the_senate_invest…)

Can someone explain why “That’s just whataboutism” is a “get out jail free” card that means no one has to answer questions? To be more precise, the real danger is not Trump. And the Democrats don’t care about the things Trump is allegedly doing. How do we know? Because they did it all and/or defended doing it all and/or overlooked it when it happened previously. What they care about is overturning the Trump presidency without benefit of the ballot box. And that is the real danger to our republic: A losing party who marshalls the forces of federal government against political opponents, both before and after elections. The “never Trumpers” seem to have bought into this idea of an overthrow of government. It makes us little better than a banana republic.

[Larry]

Can someone explain why an article like Aaron links to is convincing? Given the evidence at hand, on what basis do they declare these things “baseless” or “meritless”?

I can’t answer your (mostly rhetorical) questions, but as soon as I saw the initial use of “baseless” I pretty much suspected the rest of the article was going to be a hit piece, and it definitely made it much harder to read it with an open mind.

Dave Barnhart

mostly rhetorical

I would only disagree with calling them rhetorical. They are not at all rhetorical. I want to know the thinking behind it.

I can’t think of any politician more dishonest, corrupt and ineffective actually.

This is truly difficult to imagine unless you are leaning on “more” while acknowledging that there are others just as corrupt as. I can think of many politicians who are at least as dishonest as Trump, probably more corrupt (has there been any corruption actually proven? I don’t recall), and less effective.

Yet they excuse or at least rationalize away Trump’s character and all that he represents. It is the young (liberal) crowd that is offended by his behavior.

Perhaps they don’t rationalize it away or excuse it. It might instead be that the wisdom of years and the lack of living in a world of idealism has brought a more sober analysis of the situation. Many of the older crowd have seen the alternative ending to this movie. The younger crowd tends to live in a dreamland, economically, socially, politically, etc. It is why promises of free health care and free tuition and shutting down religious expression ring loudly with younger folks. They haven’t seen the end of the movie yet. I am pretty sure we don’t want to consign our future to the young people of today. So claiming that it is the young crowd that is offended is hardly a plus.

I continue to believe that most evangelicals tolerate Trump because of his positions and reject his character. Remember, it is clear that most voted against Trump when they had the opportunity. There’s a reason for that: They didn’t want him until the alternative was judged to be worse. When there was another alternative, they preferred one of the other alternatives. Unfortunately, they all preferred different ones.

I realize you won’t get off this horse, Greg, but it might be worth stepping back and giving a little grace to those who see it differently than you do.

[Larry]

Can someone explain why there is an almost total lack of curiosity about the Bidens and their Ukraine and China relationships?

Because up until this point, the only people that are advancing these conspiracy theories are the likes of Trump, Giuliani, and Hannity. In other words, people that you know are lying by the fact that their mouths are moving. Speaking for myself, if the FBI or other credible agencies uncover a problem, I would take it seriously.

[Larry]

Why is there an objection to asking a foreign government to help with an investigation of American corruption?

Because how Trump did it is clearly illegal as numerous experts have stated. What I don’t understand is why that question is even being asked.

Greg, the FBI and State Department request information and more from foreign governments every day. There is nothing illegal about that.

If we change the question to “is it illegal to solicit information or assistance from foreign countries in order to hamstring the campaign of a political opponent?”, I don’t even know if that is illegal. If it is, a lot of Democrats ought to be very nervous, because precisely that was the pretext for the two year investigation of President Trump via the Steele Report and the Mueller investigation.

Reality is that every President I can think of for the past 40 years has interacted with foreign countries to not only learn the ropes of diplomacy, but also to make it more difficult to lose re-election. If this is criminalized, watch out for our country.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Bert Perry]

Greg, the FBI and State Department request information and more from foreign governments every day. There is nothing illegal about that.

If we change the question to “is it illegal to solicit information or assistance from foreign countries in order to hamstring the campaign of a political opponent?”, I don’t even know if that is illegal. If it is, a lot of Democrats ought to be very nervous, because precisely that was the pretext for the two year investigation of President Trump via the Steele Report and the Mueller investigation.

Reality is that every President I can think of for the past 40 years has interacted with foreign countries to not only learn the ropes of diplomacy, but also to make it more difficult to lose re-election. If this is criminalized, watch out for our country.

I went back and revised what I said. I don’t think any rational person would wonder what I meant but should have remembered that it would be nitpicked to try to score some cheap points. What Trump is doing to try to sink his political opponent is illegal and disgraceful and there are numerous true experts (not partisan nuts like the FNC hosts) that have said so. I repeat—it is astounding that this is even being debated.

Greg, not trying to score cheap points. I’m just wondering how we decide that how Trump did it is illegal, but how Biden did it (with a much clearer quid pro quo that benefited his son’s employer and his son), and how the FBI did it with regards to the Steele Dossier, is somehow not problematic. Or for that matter, Teddy Kennedy soliciting Yuri Andropov’s help to win an election.

Or, put differently, which laws have those “numerous true experts” referred to? I just looked at CNN and am not finding anything.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.