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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