PEOTUS Trump - Dear God, are we being punished?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Watching President-elect Donald Trump’s falsehood-filled news conference this week, thinking back over his foul, nasty campaign, an election stained with slurs, serial insults, black voter suppression and an outcome influenced by Russia, and looking ahead with dread to his swearing-in Friday as president of the United States of America, a small, quiet voice within asks: “Dear God, are we being punished?”

It has certainly happened before. We know what you did to the wicked and sinful in Sodom and Gomorrah. And they had it coming.

Who can forget the punishment you handed out to Ananias and Sapphira for their deception, so aptly described in the Acts of the Apostles? Your wrath against wrongdoing and injustice is amply documented throughout the Scriptures.

But what have we done that is so unwholesome, so egregious, as to deserve punishment in the form of Trump?

Is it our backsliding? To be sure, we certainly have had relapses into bad ways from time to time. We have looked past each other. Turned a blind eye to the hungry and the homeless. Ignored injustices. But do we merit this coming calamity?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dear-god-are-we-being-punished/2017/01/13/74f320fa-d910-11e6-9f9f-5cdb4b7f8dd7_story.html?utm_term=.45ee88cf177e&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

[Rex]

1. Yes.

We let 2000 slide and are now paying for that anomaly with a bigger anomaly.

[Fast Walker 52]

2. we let a lot of things slide and fucking evil never rests

[Rex]

3. As long as good does nothing, evil grows and flourishes.

And now we have someone that was not vetted, could be in the pocket of the mafia or a foreign agency and has a fondness for Hitler.

We fucked.

[Fast Walker 52]

8. "could be in the pocket"? I think it's pretty clear he's in deep in those pockets.

We are fucked unless Dems in DC grow a spine and get super organized.

[Dave Starsky]

9. We've been on a slow boat to China since 1980.

And I mean that literally.

This was the natural endgame of nearly 40 years of Ronald Reagan Republican bullshit. The chickens have finally come home to roost.

[Fast Walker 52]

15. aye, true

[vlyons]

4. Yes we are being punished by

the fruits of the seeds that we have sown. We keep electing criminals over and over and over. We have valued the greedy acquisition of money and power over compassionately helping ALL our people to have happier lives. Nothing will change until we rectify our own broken moral compass and start electing representatives at all levels of government, who want to serve all the people, and not just their wallets.

There is a terrible karma that we have visited on ourselves, but not nearly as terrible as the coming irreversible climate change that we are headed for. Nothing changes until there is a critical mass of voters who demand and elect ethically moral people.

[Calculating]

7. Makes sense to punish us

We stand by idly and let evil, greed, corruption and defilement flourish in our society.

[vlyons]

14. well we have to stop being complacent about it

Start by demanding a high level of morality from ourselves, of family, our friends, our acquaintances

[Fast Walker 52]

16. that's hard enoug in perosnal life and impossible in politics

all we can really do is control our own actions

[TheBlackAdder]

5. God does not exist in the eyes of Ayn Rand followers, just people pretending to be religious.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. There's a meme going around that quotes Jesus on one side and Ayn Rand's atheism on the other

The sub text is "Republicans pick one or the other. You can't have them both."

[chimpymustgo]

12. I don't know if God exists, but it does feel as though pure evil has taken over this country.

What can we do? How do we fight their total dominance? His evil cabinet will be confirmed. They will rape and pillage and plunder the earth. We will never get back into power - they lie, they cheat, they steal elections. They won't go quietly.

[J_William_Ryan]

10. We have fallen prey to the fear, ignorance, hate, and reactionaryism

of those who incorrectly perceive the positive change and progress made during the last 25 years as a ‘threat.’

This Nation has been misappropriated by those frightened of change, diversity, and expressions of individual liberty, authoritarians who seek to compel conformity and punish dissent.

In post-truth America, where far too many of its citizens have nothing but contempt for facts and objective evidence, and harbor paranoid delusions that government is ‘up to no good,’ the likes of Trump and his ilk can’t help but flourish.

Needless to say, Trump is no ‘agent of change,’ and his clueless followers will be disappointed accordingly.

[chimpymustgo]

13. Propaganda. Fox News. Rush Limbaugh. "The dark, creepy quality of all this."

Here's the top comment to the op-ed. I have bolded some points, and created paragraphs for easier reading - but she nails it.

sarah004
1/13/2017 7:57 PM EST

Amen. However, there is an element that your elegant theory of punishment is not taking into account: The effect of propaganda day after day. Why did Rupert Murdoch come to our country and fill people's minds with hate and falsehood? Why don't we have ANY broadcasting standards? Why so many trolls, spewing insanity?.

Once upon a time, high school students learned about the dangers of propaganda and falsehood and manipulation--seemingly no more.

I don't know how else to understand what has happened except to consider the daily barrage of hatred and smear that comes out of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, etc. And their methods link up perfectly with Trump's. He and Nigel Farage have followed a Kremlin playbook of lying and manipulating.

I must say I was thinking today about the almost Satanic, dark, creepy quality of all this. The nasty, devilish atmosphere of a Steve Bannon. The temptations of neofascism.

Now Trump's spokesman is already talking about his "wins" in foreign policy. The only "win" for America should be to uphold human rights and democratic principle. I will say one thing: Whether Trump has been visited on us as a punishment from God is as may be. But if all people of good conscience do not stand up and say NO, NO, NO right now, we will decidedly experience punishment. So maybe it is more warning than punishment.

Bless John Lewis for his courageous and unmistakably principled talk today. Let everyone try to imitate that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dear-god-are-we-being-punished/2017/01/13/74f320fa-d910-11e6-9f9f-5cdb4b7f8dd7_story.html?utm_term=.6f1878438c4e&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1#comments

[Jim Beard]

11. Maybe, Maybe and Maybe we can win the Senate and house back!