Sunday, August 6, 2023

"IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

 "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

These are the words of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, this week on his social media site which he calls Truth Social. I find it humorous that a man who told 32,000 documented lies in four years' time calls his website Truth Social. Mr. Trump's words this week should haunt anyone of good conscience. I have maintained for seven years now that someone cannot support him and make any credible claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ at the same time. I renew my objection and will explain why later in this piece. But at this point I want to say I do not think anyone can be morally justified in supporting him. January 6, 2021 should have made it clear to the world, but this post makes it doubly clear.

Mr. Trump and those who are working for him are already working on plans to dismantle civil service in government as we know it and make all workers in the executive branch make a promise of loyalty to him personally and to his goals. That means the person at your local Social Security Office, or the Department of Agriculture, or any other agency of the Federal government will have to in essence pledge allegiance to the president in order to keep their jobs. In the past, only top leadership at these agencies has been political, and the lower level employees have been civil servants, who did their job with no reference to their own political preferences. They have had the protection of unionization and collective bargaining, which Trump intends to remove, making them at-will employees instead of civil servants. The plans for this are already being laid and can be Googled at:

PROJECT 2025

What this means is that Mr. Trump will transform every person in the executive branch from a professional who serves the public to a pawn who serves the President. This is disturbing enough.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that his indictments are politically motivated (they are not) and that he is innocent (he is not) and that President Biden is pursuing political prosecutions like happens in a Banana Republic. It is not true. Mr. Biden has not played any part in any of these indictments and has not even commented on them. I think past history would give credence to the idea that Mr. Trump follows the old line of Hermann Göring, namely to accuse the other guy of what you are doing. I believe a big part of PROJECT 2025 will be politically based prosecutions and the settling of personal scores. In Mr. Trump's case, however, he has not (as of yet) committed any crimes against Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump's crimes are crimes against the American People. PROJECT 2025 will bring more such crimes, I believe, if they are given a chance.

I said above I think it is impossible to follow Jesus Christ and support Donald Trump at the same time. I do think that. I believe Mr. Trump has an antichrist spirit. His fruit is the exact opposite of that of a follower of Jesus. I will get to that, but first, I want to suggest that not even a person who makes no profession of faith at all should support Mr. Trump. The reason is simple. Anyone who says

 "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"

has completely disqualified herself or himself from being the leader of a civil society. We know both from the January 6 committee, and from the most recent indictment of Mr. Trump, he already has shown a willingness and a desire to use the US Department of Justice--which belongs to US--as his personal law firm, to be his personal fixers, to pull the levers of the justice system solely for his own ends. Again, like Göring, when he has called it the Injustice Department, Mr. Trump is giving us a tell as to what he will make it. By saying,  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!", he is promising a second Trump administration will be one based on political vindictiveness. He promised "retribution." I am saying here and now no moral person can support that.

But his words,  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!" also reinforce what I have said about how no Christ-follower can support Mr. Trump.

I have used this analogy to explain why no Jesus-follower can support Mr. Trump. We have family in the Kansas City area. To go visit them, from Columbus, Indiana, we drive about 45 minutes north to Indianapolis and take Interstate 70 to Kansas City. St. Louis is about half way. The closer we get to Kansas City, the farther we are from Indianapolis. The closer we are to Indianapolis, the farther we are from Kansas City. Jesus and Mr. Trump are like that. It is inevitable that, the closer one is to one, the farther one is from the other. The values of Jesus and the values of Trump are so totally contradictory to one another that one cannot be pursuing both at the same time. The closer one is to Trump, the farther one is from Jesus, and the closer one is to Jesus, the farther one is from Trump. I think this is true of more than their personal behavior and morals. I think this was true, even in the last administration. I cannot think of a single Trump policy which can be reconciled with the teaching and example of Jesus. It is simply not logically possible.

But nowhere is that more clear than when one contrasts the non-violent message of Jesus with  "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I AM COMING AFTER YOU!"



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