Contrast: Two opposite kinds of human… or president... and today's "spiritual leaders."

- As I write this, Donald Trump finished a super-secret couple of hours hurrying in-and-out of Ain Assad Air Base in Iraq, safely in the middle of nowhere. Snubbing Iraq’s leaders, who deserved a meeting in their own country, which all of DT’s predecessors had the courtesy – and courage – to include. And certainly no visit to men and women actually in the field, which Bush, Clinton and Obama all did. Well well, now he’s able to say “See? I visited troops!”

Today, Mr. Trump is not our central topic, but an illustrative example of how far down a rabbit-hole of hypocrisy and rationalization have plunged those who claim to be America’s spiritual guides. That plunge is demarked with clarity by comparing Trump to one of his predecessors.

== We were all better at 39 ==

Probably the most devastating indictment of the monstrous men who have taken over most American Christian pulpits and seminaries comes by comparing their adulation of Donald Trump – a salacious pervert-bully who avoids church like getting a cavity filled – vs. Jimmy Carter, a modest, generous, faithful man who taught Sunday school for all the 72 years he was married to the same woman, except while serving his country in creaky submarines that saved the world.

Case in point: this modest recollection of how, as a young naval officer, he (heroically) dashed into a melted Canadian reactor as part of a team to disassemble the core. Faith, humility, skill, courage…

…and yet the party line among fundies – especially Baptists – is that men were designed to be aggressive louts and flawed sinners. And hence those who sin a lot, and then repent, are the highest order of being. Of course they say that, with literally hundreds of pastors now accused of sexual perversions on a par with their beloved “saved-sinner” president. (Though notice that the church-going, once-married Bill Clinton is not allowed to repent.)

Despite the absolutely damning and verified salacious dastardy of the “pussy-grabbing” tape, and countless stories from a life of philandering, about 80 percent of white evangelical voters backed Trump in 2016, and exit polls from this year's mid-term election showed little or no erosion of that support, even after porn star Stormy Daniels, and Playmate-of-the-Year, Karen McDougal, offered detailed accounts of sex with him while he was married. Nor is the hypocrisy just about Trump. An eight-month investigation by reporters at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram uncovered hundreds of sex abuse allegations at independent fundamentalist Baptist churches around the country. 

This article notes 412 allegations of abuse across nearly 200 churches just among unaffiliated Baptist institutions, without tabulating complaints within the Southern Baptist Convention or other denominations.

That only scratches the surface. A “conservative” movement that once frowned on divorce now has twice the rate of Democrats. Preaching “abstinence,” red states have far higher rates of teen sex/pregnancy, STDs and domestic abuse. Gambling used to be sin and “cleanliness was next to godliness.” Now the GOP is owned by casino moguls, oil-sheiks, pederasts, pimps, polluters, mafia dons and raised-communist Kremlin agents. Setting aside the anomaly of Utah, name a metric of either decent living or following the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount in which red states aren't worse than blue… including fiscal integrity and balanced budgets.

Yeah, sure. Male humans inherit a bunch of obsolete impulses from either evolution or a God who designed them in. (Ironically, belief in evolution lets God off the hook for a grotesquely culpable crime.)

So, how do these folks feel about a man like Jimmy Carter, who spent his life controlling those base instincts and setting an example as a real man? Well, funny thing about it. According to fundies, that’s a lesser kind of person than a repentant hyper-sinner. Go ahead, do everything opposite to the bearded-beaded, sandal-wearing, tolerance-preaching, asylum-seeking refugee rabbi from Galilee. All is washed away once you sob on TV, declare yourself forgiven, and then cash the checks that come pouring in.

(Theological note: that trick – to sin knowing you’ll repent for absolution later – was declared by church leaders centuries ago to be the one that's unforgivable! And hence, these thumpers on TV are, by process of elimination, almost certainly cynical atheists.)

But let's revisit the 94-year old Jimmy Carter, our generation's Harry Truman.

== A rough-tough presidency ==

Yes, President 39 inherited a shitstorm. The wild, Vietnam-fueled economic mismanagement of LBJ, Nixon and Ford came to roost just as Arab nations (inevitably) seized power over our gas prices. Any other president would have arm-twisted the Fed to keep employment up, but Carter appointed Paul Volcker and said “fix this.” Whereupon Volcker imposed short term pain that ended hyper-inflation, and Ronald Reagan basked in the credit. (Today’s right adulates Volcker, but not the man who appointed him.)

Carter kept making “maturity mistakes,” assuming that doing the right thing would always pay off… the diametric opposite to Trump, whose “deal” errors always arise from the nastiest instincts. Hence, in the biggest mistake of Carter’s presidency, when Iranian revolutionaries took over a hundred US hostages, he “set an example” by taking the equivalent Iranian diplomats in the US and putting them on planes for Tehran, stunning the ayatollahs, who had expected an exchange of threats followed by a formal trade.  Carter should have ensconced the Iranian “counter-hostages” in a beachfront, comfy hotel and let the difference in treatment get photographed daily, highlighting the radicals' barbarity till the mullahs did a swap.

That, alone, might not have ensured re-election. But throw in no-betrayal by Ted Kennedy… and liberals smart enough not to insist on their worst, most-insane error... forced school bussing … and things might have gone differently.  The Roosevelt coalition of the Greatest Generation might have held together enough to stymie wave after wave of Supply Side (voodoo) rapes of the middle class. Might have. Might have.

Oh, forget ‘might have.’ What stands out now is a Christmas contrast. That supposed Christians sneer at the ex-president who most clearly follows the teachings of Jesus, while singing hosannahs to one who is diametrically opposite to admirable in every conceivable way… and his VP who daily prays for the world to end. 

Read this essay – or at least read captions till the important last few pages.

And now, contrast all that kind of man to one who speaks and acts from “the gut.”

== The micro-biota speaks ==

"I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me." 

Yes, ol' Two Scoops really made it that explicit.  

Of course this is insane. But it would be one thing if his gut had led him to good policies in either business or statecraft. 

In fairness, there were times when his "gut" did serve him! Like betting on New York City when it hit tock bottom in the 70s. And playing Merv Griffin for a billion dollar scam. But that only means his failed casinos etc. were even worse losses, because it's been documented he would be richer today if his inheritance had simply gone into a stock market index fund. Some gut.

(Watch as the whole "collusion" thing becomes a sideshow to Money Laundering -- billions from Russian oligarchs channeled through Deutsche Bank.)

The killer about this "gut" thing is not Trump's open war against science and all other fact-users, including the intel/military/law professionals. The entire GOP-confederacy shares that. 

No, it's the number of "great guys" he appoints, whom he later denounces for betraying him. More than all of the last ten presidents combined. 

That can't be arm-waved away with magical incantations. (This same article expresses his rage at Fed chairman Jerome Powell, his own appointee.) Trump Began His Presidency With 30 Senior White House Staffers. Only 10 Are Left. A similar ratio holds for cabinet rank officers, as Trump clears out any who might betray him via the 25th Amendment.

A clear majority of his "great guys" later betray him in one way or another. Who do you know who has a worse "gut" than that?

And all of the above was written before the firestorm over Defense Secretary James Mattis's spectacularly repudiating resignation. Another "great guy" who later "betrays."

The gut has the same IQ as the rest. And we need to understand that the real civil war is by an idiocracy against smart people. Period.

From FB commenters:

“Special Counsel Mueller should hire a gastroenterologist on the team. Interviews will tell nothing. A colonoscopy is required here.” And…

“In Kurt Vonnegut's MOTHER NIGHT, the narrator gives a eulogy for a Neo-Nazi by saying to his mourners/supporters, "There will be more like him as long as there are more men who think with their guts instead of with their heads."

DT, after meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore this past June: "Our conversation was ...very productive. We produced something...beautiful." But after five months of canceled meetings and dissatisfaction, there is no sign of progress toward "denuclearization" of the North. Nada. Um, accomplishments, anyone?

Oh... but "We fell in love" says ol' Two Scoops. Word has it he even let Kim have a rare second scoop of ice cream... and got us what?

== And finally... ==

I'm not the only one worried about how many of the world's mafias and despots want a US+Israel vs Iran mini-war. 
It will help distract attention from domestic woes for Trump, the Saudis, Netanyahu and the Iranian mullahs themselves. 
It will send oil prices skyrocketing, benefiting guess who. 
And the mastermind Don-of-all-world-mafias, Vlad, gets to rake in all the chips at the end.