White Christian conservatives have become so consumed with their own self-righteousness that they are opposing a confessed born-again Christian whose demeanor and comport more closely resonate with the personal example of Jesus Christ than any president we’ve ever had and are instead supporting a proven two-faced liar who embraces an antichrist theology crafted by a false prophet. This is how much these people hate Obama, that they'll make a liar of the cross just to achieve a political victory. Please write this down someplace: These People Are NOT Christians.
Yard
Work
I can think of no more divisive a device than a political lawn
sign. I’ve never actually seen one on my block, but I’ve seen
them around—BUSH CHENEY for the most part, McCAIN PALIN. I have
rarely seen Democratic Party yard signs around here. Putting a
big, ugly placard on your lawn is an act of violence. I’m sure
your neighbors probably won’t confront you about it, but whether
you realize it or not you’re causing an emotinal schism in the neighborhood
harmony. I don’t engage my neighbors about their politics. Some
of them follow me around online out of paranoia or simple
nosiness, so it’s possible they’re aware of my politics without
my having to hammer in a political sign. I think political yard
signs and bumper stickers are obnoxious. They provoke more
negative reactions than positive. They convince absolutely no
one of absolutely anything. They are, perhaps, useful for local
politics—publicizing people I’ve never heard of, HAMMERSTEIN FOR
SCHOOL BOARD. But for even modestly-known political candidates,
all they end up doing is fomenting discord among neighbors.
The
best medicine for a happy subdivision is to not actually discuss
anything that matters. The more important the topic is, the more
potentially divisive it becomes. My personal theory is the only
people earnest or eagerly supporting Mitt Romney are people who
simply want Barack Obama out of the White House so badly they do
not care who gets elected. This is psychotic thinking, most
especially when it comes to the highest office in the nation.
But this is the mindset sweeping the country and it is the best
evidence of how terribly racist this nation remains. When I see
a ROMNEY yard sign, my knee-jerk reaction is an assumption that
the people living in that house are racists. That they have no
rational reason for electing this political disingenuous lying
chameleon dilettante other than booting Obama out, and
that their motives for booting Obama out are so passionate and
so personal that they rise above basic logic (did they really
think we could pull out of the Bush nosedive in less than four
years?) or whatever slim virtues this
ideological empty suit Romney may have. A ROMNEY yard sign says,
to me, these people are, at minimum, too lazy to invest
themselves in any unbiased research about why the economic
recovery is taking so long. At worse, they are
in extreme denial of what their beef with the president actually
is. Thus I think it’s a pretty bad idea to reveal that much
about yourself to your friends and neighbors, most of whom may
have better sense than to even discuss this stuff with you.
Once again, Republicans have made the decision for me.
Should Barack Obama be re-elected as president of the United
States? The matter never rises to that level of debate. The GOP is,
once again, nominating someone who is, on the merits, completely
unacceptable to me as a candidate. I don’t really have the
luxury or even the impetus to consider the president’s case
for reelection. There’s only two guys running. One who has a
vision for this country and now a record of successes and
failures that speaks to that vision, and one who runs for
president as a hobby. This is precisely what Mitt Romney has
been doing for more than a decade. It’s his full-time job:
running for president. He is a proven, obvious, disingenuous
liar who has taken every available position on every issue. GOP Tea Party extremists, with their Statue of Liberty foam
rubber hats, now dominate the party to the point where perfectly
reasonable and substantial Republicans like Indiana Governor
Mitch Daniels, Southa Dakota Senator John Thune, and, of course,
former Florida Governor Jeb Bush are
considered too moderate. By his record, Ronald Reagan would not
pass the test of these extremists who have painted the
Republican party as a bunch of unreasonable, reactionary, racist
homophobic lunatics. I might actually be a closet Republican,
but if I am, I am a David Brooks Republican. NY Times
correspondent Brooks is a thoughtful, reasonable and reasonably
objective conservative voice with whom I tend to agree more than
not. But I am certain Brooks is considered liberal within the
cartoonish, shark-jumped GOP fringe.
It angers and insults me when people assume I am in the tank
for Obama because I am black. I am supporting the president,
first and foremost, because there is no viable alternative.
Mitt Romney is a rich dilettante with no soul. He has no core
convictions. He is the very model of an empty suit and the most
patently obvious phony politician I’ve ever seen. His support
among conservatives is entirely phony, most can’t stand him, most
do not trust him. Christian conservatives supporting Romney only
underscore what I’ve been saying here for twelve years: they are
liars and phonies. They are not Christians at all, just a bunch
of racists exploiting gullible white people desperate for the
Leave It To Beaver days. Mormonism is a cult. We’re all going
out of our way to not say that anymore, but Mormonism is steeped
in secrecy and inures to the pseudo-worship of one man, Joseph
Smith. For actual followers of Jesus Christ, supporting
Romney is not the same as supporting a Catholic or an
Episcopalian. Supporting Romney is supporting an antichrist
theology crafted by a false prophet. The mainstream
fundamentalist “Christians” backing Romney are only making
obvious their own hypocrisy. When we fail to call sin sin, when
we fail to call out false prophets, we crucify Christ afresh [Hebrews
6:6].
These powerful “Christian” leaders are doing so for no other
reason than their alleged conservative political beliefs. Gay
marriage and abortion—neither of which Jesus spoke anything
about. The more I see of Family Research Council's Tony Perkins on the talking head TV
shows, the more convinced I am that these huge, excuse me but
it’s true, white religious leaders are not Christians at all.
Would Jesus be on CNN defending Romney? Would Jesus be backing a
political candidate or movement at all? Look at how much money
these phonies are spending—tithes and offerings which
are, by biblical definition, intended to support the needy and
see to basic church operations, are being flooded first and
foremost into these “pastors”’s fat salaries and then into
political efforts to back a follower of an antichrist. These
guys whiplash themselves making excuses for their
choice, but at the end of the day we know it’s not about values,
not about gay marriage or abortion—which no politician, not
Ronald Reagan, not George Bush or Barack Obama, and certainly
not Mitt Romney will have much effect on. These
guys are wasting time and money struggling to transform the
kingdom of this world—which has been corrupt since The
Garden—into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is not the Christian’s
purpose or goal. This is not what Jesus commanded us to do. But
we have become so consumed with our own self-righteousness, that
here we are: gone astray and lost, opposing a confessed
born-again Christian whose demeanor and comport more closely
resonate with the personal example of Jesus Christ than any
president we’ve ever had. Why? Because of abortion? Because of
gay marriage?
These conservative whites, Christians included, hate Obama
because he’s black. This is explicitly what their dog whistle,
“Un-American,” means. When Representative Mike Coffman (R -
CO). stood up and said, “Barack
Obama is not an American,” he explicitly meant Americans are
white. The personal and extreme level of loathing this president
endures has but only one root source. I also believe white
conservatives of good conscience are haunted by that conscience:
they know their real beef against the president isn’t his
policies but his skin color. They condemn themselves for feeling
that way and they hate this president for making them feel that
way. So they snap into a kind of insane denial rather than admit
the largest measure of their discomfort with this president, and
what makes their loathing of him so personal, is his skin color.
The reason this nation can never become post-racial is White
America’s steadfast refusal to even begin to deal with that
reality.
In any case, I will be voting for the president in November. I’d
like to say because he’s never disappointed me or because I
agree with all of his policies or that I think he has great
hair.
As with 2008, it is actually none of the above. I will be
supporting the president because, so far as I’m concerned, he is
the only eligible candidate on the ballot. The Republicans have
made that decision for me.
Christopher J. Priest
20 May 2012
editor@praisenet.org
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