{"id":97358,"date":"2016-09-24T11:14:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T18:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=97358"},"modified":"2016-09-24T11:14:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T18:14:58","slug":"ted-cruz-and-his-conscience-amicably-part-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/09\/ted-cruz-and-his-conscience-amicably-part-ways.html","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz and his conscience amicably part ways"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Please respect their privacy during this difficult time.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHis conscience threaded its arm through his. \u201cDon\u2019t you feel wonderful?\u201d it pursued. \u201cEven John McCain has endorsed Donald Trump \u2014 a man you said was \u2018a narcissist at a level I don\u2019t think this country has ever seen.\u2019 Only you, Ted Cruz, stands firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Cruz said. His foot was tapping nervously under the table. With an effort, he stilled it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Trump, who declared that he wouldn\u2019t accept his endorsement if he gave it, gladly accepted his endorsement.<\/p>\n

Because language, reality, and principles mean absolutely nothing in the nihiistic Orwellian lie that is the Trump Right.<\/p>\n

Reader Dan Conway does the autopsy on what Trump has achieved, not only in wrecking the GOP, but in completing the demolition of the Christian Right the Tea Party began:<\/p>\n

The despicable Calvinist Tea Party destroyed the GOP. Not Trump. These people who don\u2019t have the temperament to govern a Boy Scout troop committee have ruined the US for 6 years. They destroyed the GOP.<\/p>\n

The veneration of Trump by Cruz once again demonstrates the point I am making: Trump is the architect of The New Right.<\/p>\n

While in 2000, Bush could quip at the Al Smith dinner that he looked around the room and saw the \u201chaves and the have-mores\u201d or as he termed it \u201chis base,\u201d he was really mistaken. A small group of wealthy folk weren\u2019t his base, but a frustrated group of racists trained to resent \u201cthe other\u201d we\u2019re his base.<\/p>\n

This mob, catechetized by Limbaugh, Hannity, and provided intellectual cover by Douthat, Reno, and now Dreher, are the base. Trump is motivating these folks to express hatred and to will violence on their enemies (who happen to be other Americans).<\/p>\n

Conservative Christians have created the fantasy platform that is hateful in the name of Trump. Called \u201cChristian,\u201d this platform escaped critique by otherwise orthodox writers fretting over women in vestments claiming ordination.<\/p>\n

This platform and Trump actually represent what Xtnity is to the \u201cnones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not Kaine. Not Clinton. The cacophony claiming these two are demons is too loud.<\/p>\n

Trump has remade the Right, and this includes shaping the religious right, into his image.<\/p>\n

American Christianity is now a brand of Trumpism. Anti-factual, hate-mongering xenophobic. This is the face of Christianity to the nation and the world.<\/p>\n

Right wing pro-lifism is also reformed into Trumpism. Anti-factual, it promotes hate, demonization of its opponents, and despises the liberal pro-life movement, which it spends considerable resources battling.<\/p>\n

The New Right is Trumpism. American Christianity, formed in its self-professing orthodoxy by conservatism over three decades, is entirely subsumed by the techniques of Trumpism and is the religious form of this brand.<\/p>\n

Pro-lifers, in their xenophobic, anti-factual lust for this authoritarian have given their movement to him.<\/p>\n

The architect of the New Right and all its institutions, movements, and religious groups is Trump.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Future generations will asking how, in the Age of Pope Francis, American Catholics could, in large numbers, back a racist demagogue like Trump. \u00a0Future Catholic apologists will have to explain (as they have to explain about those pictures of Catholics seig heiling Hitler) that Catholic supporters of Trump were, in fact, a minority in the Church, albeit a serious threat among white conservative Catholics. \u00a0They will have to point out that globally, Catholics looked on the rise of Trump with surprise and horror and bafflement, wondering how American Catholics\u2013and especially those who boasted of their superior fidelity to the Faith and commitment to human life could possibly have fallen for such a transparent fraud.<\/p>\n

And, very possibly, they will have to deal with some future left wing specialist in anti-Catholic agitprop who will write something called \u201cTrump\u2019s Pope\u201d in which Francis, about as nakedly hostile to Trump\u2019s demagoguery as any pope could be, will somehow be transmogrified into his most ardent supporter. \u00a0I wonder how long it will take after his death for that lie to circle the world before truth can get its pants on?<\/p>\n

What a tangled web the post-modern, post-Christian Right has woven for itself in its prostitution to this sociopathic con man for the racist alt right.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please respect their privacy during this difficult time. \u201cHis conscience threaded its arm through his. \u201cDon\u2019t you feel wonderful?\u201d it pursued. \u201cEven John McCain has endorsed Donald Trump \u2014 a man you said was \u2018a narcissist at a level I don\u2019t think this country has ever seen.\u2019 Only you, Ted Cruz, stands firm.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d Cruz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[775],"class_list":["post-97358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-never-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTed Cruz and his conscience amicably part ways<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Please respect their privacy during this difficult time. 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