In Today’s Politics, Lies Go Unquestioned, Unchallenged
I understand that Republicans are convinced that if they stand up to trump, they will lose their base and even trumpier trumpers will be elected. Where does it end? Lie about the election, why not lie about everything else so, no, sorry , Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, the ends do not justify the means.
The liars are despicable, common cowards, fearful of losing their cash cow jobs. Those ethical Republicans who have called out the liars are few and far between and all have either quickly become pariahs, been emotionally and physically attacked, been emasculated or called Judas and many have chosen not to run again and have evaporated into the fog.
The first liar was Satan so I understand that lying is rather hard-wired into us but I really do think things are worse than ever. Anyone can lie now about anything. Kids can say they have stomach aches and their parents will have to believe them out of fear that other kids will similarly rebel or taunt on Twitter. Teachers will have to accept that the student’s dog did, in fact, eat their homework or face a rebellion in class and have nobody to watch their backs.
They are all complicit, politicians, law enforcement but the worst are the so-called clergy who hide behind some false narrative that they are acting through concerns about a greater good. But first let’s consider the politicians and how far they they will go to keep power. Sometimes it’s painful and the bile rises to consider the depths of depravity where politicians will go.
The focus on Sunday was a Republican primary debate between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his challenger, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, one of trump’s biggest bootlickers.
After the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Kemp was a focus of trump’s anger because Kemp would not decertify the election results in favor of trump. Meanwhile, after 2020 election, Perdue called for the resignation of Georgia’s top elections official and claimed that there were unspecified “failures” in the election. He later supported a lawsuit by trump allies seeking to overturn the election results and falsely claimed during his 2022 gubernatorial election campaign that his 2020 Senate election was “stolen.”
Purdue, who has a net worth of $15.8 million, won trump’s endorsement; Kemp did not.
At last Sunday’s debate, Purdue ranted how “The election in 2020 was rigged and stolen. All the madness we see today … all that started right here in Georgia when our governor caved and allowed out radical Democrats to steal our elections.”
Perdue is counting on the support of right wing Republican trump loyalists who cling to the big lie that Democrats fraudulently won the 2020 presidential election and the 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia. There is no proof, none, zilch, nada, not an iota that there was any widespread voter fraud so Perdue is just a big, fat liar.
And there’s our favorite wingnut, traitor and liar, Rep. Margaret Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who texted trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote. And will someone please tell Greene how to spell martial as in martial law and not marshall as in Marshal Wyatt Earp.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall (sic) law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!” Greene texted.
Then there’s people like Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who will let nothing as trifling as the truth stand in the way of his quest to remain in trump’s good graces and welcome at Mar-a-Lago. McCarthy was caught in another of those pesky texts, uncovered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks. The congressman has insisted he never suggested that trump resign because of the insurrection but a text and audio tape shows him clearly suggesting that trump jump ship and get out of town.
Remember McCarthy wasn’t talking to us, he was counting on the undying, unflinching support of other trumpian followers, like Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and funnily, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee under the 116th U.S. Congress which convened on Jan. 3, 2019, and ended on Jan. 3, 2021, three days before the Capitol riot. I assume protecting the Capitol from insurrections falls under the House Homeland Security Committee.
“I think Kevin is in very good shape. In fact, [Trump] came out saying that this is not going to endanger his relationship with Kevin, that he’s strongly supportive,” said McCaul. “I can tell you, the support in the conference is very strong for him, and this is a little Beltway bubble blip, if you will. I don’t think it’s going to have any long-term consequences.”
McCaul, 60, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, was elected to a ninth term in 2020. He supported construction of trump’s border wall along the Mexico–United States border, to be paid for by trump. Ha ha. McCaul voted against both articles of impeachment against trump.
McCaul is married to Linda Mays McCaul, the daughter of Clear Channel Communications founder and former chairman Lowry Mays and sister of its former CEO Mark Mays. As of 2011, McCaul’s net worth was $294 million, making him one of the richest lawmakers in Washington.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., also reiterated her support for McCarthy and said the kerfuffle about his lies about what he told trump after the rebellion are “Water under the bridge. This is kind of a story I don’t think that’s going anywhere, but I support him wholeheartedly.”
Mace, the first Republican woman to be elected to Congress from South Carolina, worked for trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in South Carolina. Mace was so concerned by the hostile atmosphere trump was generating that she sent her children home to South Carolina before the congressional vote to accept the Electoral College votes in favor of Joe Biden, the day of the Capitol insurrection.
In discussing hypocrites, liars, sinners and fools, I leave the worst for last and that would be the Evangelicals and their so-called houses of worship who see trump as a gift from God.
William J. Federer, an evangelical commentator and one-time Republican congressional candidate, gave an hourlong presentation on Sunday to the congregation at Church for All Nations, a large nondenominational evangelical church in Colorado City, Color.
“I believe God is pushing the world to a decision-making moment,” Federer said. “We used to have national politicians that held back the floodgates of hell. The umbrella’s been ripped after Jan. 6, and now it’s raining down upon every one of us. We had politicians that were supposed to certify that — and instead they just accepted it. And, lo and behold, an anti-Christian spirit’s been released across the country and the world.”
For evangelicals like Federer, trump’s false claims that he was robbed in the 2020 election are another indicator of the false GOP narrative that the Democrats are trying o drag the country down the ethical and religious crapper.
“What’s going on in our country right now with this recent election and the fraudulent nature of that?” Cowart said in a sermon last year. “What is going on?”
The results of a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute may come as no surprise. The institute is a non-partisan, non-profit organization founded by Robert P. Jones, the author of “The End of White Christian America” (2016) and of the 2020 book “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” in which he reveals that his distant relative who died in 1818 owned three slaves. The poll found that 60 percent of white evangelical respondents continued to believe that the election was stolen.
Shortly after the 2020 presidential election, Paula White, a Florida televangelist who served as the White House faith adviser during trump’s presidency, led a prayer service in which she and others called upon God to overturn the election. White, who is on her third marriage, is a proponent of prosperity theology which preaches that donating to religious causes is the will of God, and that it helps a person to become wealthier in other ways. It has apparently worked for White, whose net worth was reported at $6 million.
White was a senior senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, in Apopka, Fla., a non-denominational, multicultural megachurch. She was formerly the co-pastor of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla., a church she co-founded with pastor and then-husband Randy White in 1991.
Trump first met White in 2002, when he called her after watching her television show. Four years later, White was credited by James Dobson for having converted trump to Christianity.
Others also have embraced trump’s claims or argued for the preservation of his rule in spite of his loss.
Greg Locke, a preacher who leads the Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., spoke at the “Rally for Revival” demonstration in Washington, D.C., on the night before the Capitol attack. Locke, who claims a social media audience in the millions, is one of more than a dozen pastors who have appeared onstage at the “ReAwaken America Tour,” a traveling circus that has featured far-right Republican politicians, anti-vaccine activists, election conspiracists and trumpworld personalities, including Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a central figure in the effort to overturn the election in late 2020. The event has drawn thousands of Trump supporters in nine states in the past year. All but one of the tour’s stops have been hosted by megachurches, and the tour is sponsored by a charismatic Christian media company.
For these and other so-called Christians, I think you ought to consider the 101 references to lying in the New Testament, according to openbible.info., for instance:
Proverbs 6:16–19 “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
Proverbs 12:22 “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”
Proverbs 19:9 “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.”
Psalm 101:7 “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.”