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The Bad Cede: Will Dems Ever Get Religion? [1]

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Date: 2023-02-10  

Decades ago, on my first day in a first-year religion class at a Canadian university (where, later, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi reportedly would major not in politics, but in religion), the professor observed, “Religion is what people live by and for. It may center on a deity- or not. For instance, some are known to devote heart-and-soul to car racing. Football. Or cricket.”

My hand shot up. “What about bullfighting?”

While some students chortled, he briefly grinned. Then, his eyes widened. “Oh, absolutely! In fact, I’d call that a prime example. Clearly, it’s a passion that floats some people’s boats- from Spain to Shangri-La, if you will- while revolting and horrifying others.

“So, here’s the rub. One tends to universalize one’s viewpoint- that is, in effect, to wail ‘Why can’t everyone see things as I do?’ Especially in politics, people may strive to impose their zeal on others- spurring conflict, sometimes to the point of warfare.”

Now as then (roughly 3 weeks after a Quaker named Richard Nixon quit his post), peaceful co-existence among persons, tribes, or nations with disparate beliefs remains vital. Especially if one wants to avoid autocracy.

And yet the GOP effectively paints itself God’s Own Party. Doing so, it ever-more-brazenly evokes ‘God on our side’- and hence ‘my way or the highway to hell.’

As if in purgatory (or worse) for over 40 years, Dems have agreed with most voters on just about all major issues- and yet, at all levels, have lost a majority of elections. Meanwhile, not by sheer chance, they’ve all but shrugged off a basic credo of the political arena: CEDE THE RELIGION, LOSE THE ELECTION.

Since 2000, American theocracy has sped from creeping to sweeping. According to a resolutely (if not righteously) ignored small-town newspaper, on the stump in ‘04 George ‘WMD’ Bush honked “I trust God speaks through me.” If so, He used one heck of a forked tongue: according to journalist/activist/author Charles Lewis, to paint Iraq as a threat to our homeland, the self-styled “Decider” and his top aides told some “935 Lies.”

Not quite the Gospel truth (on Bush’s part). And yet few donkeys or newsies called him out. (Sad.)

And wouldn’t you know? As if to bode ‘CEDE THE RELIGION, LOSE THE NATION,’ on 1/6/21 the sky (that is, replete with heaven’s clouds) fell. Near a gallows (draped with a noose), amid the noisome strains of “HANG MIKE PENCE!” stood a life-size, rough-hewn cross. Christian flags flapped. As if to claim a vote for Donald Trump was a vote for God’s own, a large banner read “JESUS 2020.”

Let it be stressed. The once-proud “Party of Lincoln” officially normalizes J6 as “legitimate political discourse.” That directly implies impunity. Omnipotence. Tyranny. And clout that can well be called ‘all-mighty.’

Back in the day, along with bullfighters, I wish I’d broached “Mammon” (viz. Matthew 6:24: “No man can serve….both God and Mammon”). God and football, well….

Even (or especially) with the Super Bowl at hand, let’s end seriously. At a starkly Mussolini-like rally in 2020, Donald Trump called the blasting of Velshi with a rubber slug (at a peaceful, on the part of reporters and demonstrators, protest) “the most beautiful thing.” While Dems and scribes barely said boo, Trump’s glee eerily presaged the J6 siege.

Don’t look now, but that barely failed coup portends worse, still. And yes, that is the truth- so help us, God.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/10/2152307/-The-Bad-Cede-Will-Dems-Ever-Get-Religion

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