Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread 01/31/22
Fascism Rising

I listened briefly this morning to a tape of Trump in Texas Saturday night. Evil is rising. It’s contagious.

2/ As fascism spreads, evil enfolds first the surly outsiders who become the future tyrant’s goon squads, then the ignorant, then the envious, then the ordinary. It takes years. It suffers defeats and then regroups.

3/This was the pattern for Italy, Germany, Russia, Yugoslavia, China, Romania . . . What begins as folly ends in oceanic suffering. Already the GOP has become morally bankrupt, as its once-honorable membership accedes to Trump’s lies and threats.

4/It’s not just that Trump is a mobster - which he is. It’s that he is morphing into a monster, a monster beloved by most of the GOP.

5/Like all humans, Americans can be corrupted. “If we say we have no sin,” St. Paul trenchantly admonishes us, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

6/We white Americans have a history of enslaving Blacks and committing genocide against Native Americans. Now vast numbers of us are entranced by a fascist. With all her faults, America has been the steward of human freedom and equality for over 300 years.

7/ As a pastor for almost 50 years, I know how hidden from the self’s view sin can be, and I know that the Word of God calls us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

8/ I see Trumpism as a thinly disguised reassertion of America’s ancient, besetting sin: white superiority. I look at the vast seas of white faces at his rallies. To all my brothers and sisters who have been honorable citizens I say...

9/.. Leave the Republican Party. You are being manipulated by a cunning master of the unsaid. Should the upcoming elections reward the GOP with victories because of your vote, you will have driven a knife into the heart of our beloved democracy.

10/ Do not head towards your eternal destiny with such a burden on your conscience.

(Oops! 1 John 8)