Not for the first time, David of Theology Archaeology and I have a disagreement. This time it concerns the performance of Donald Trump and his Republican Party, and the upcoming US Election. This will also touch upon the Black Lives Matter subject.
Initially my dissection of David’s points relates to this post. As you’ll see, I’ve left some comments querying David’s position.
David is calling upon Americans to vote for Trump and the Republicans, as he believes the Democrats are sinful and do not respect the law, because many Democrats openly support BLM. David has framed BLM as being a bunch of violent rioters, which is unfair on the majority of peaceful protesters who often end up facing off against emboldened far-right thugs, who are emboldened because of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and the utter failure of Republicans to address the on-going problems of racism and police violence.
It’s interesting that David speaks of the election being compromised. Trump is openly moving to cripple the postal service, as he feels postal votes will likely go against him. This is a blatant case of stacking the deck in his favour.
Moving on to David’s second article, posted to display a factual argument for why Trump deserves a second term, I would firstly draw attention to these two paragraphs:
We have seen in different comment sections, different commentators who have placed annotated lists of Mr. Trump’s accomplishments. We have also seen far too many people hold his negative points over his and every Trump supporters’ head claiming those disqualify him from enjoying a second term in office.
That second part is neither fair nor honest. People are not perfect and it is not right to hold them to their failings depriving them of the opportunity to learn and grow from their mistakes.
What I find noteworthy is that we are supposed to give Trump the opportunity to learn and grow, but this is apparently not something being extended to Democrats?
When we look at Trump’s record, we need to balance the good against the bad. Trump’s failures are not to be white-washed, and it is important to hold him and the Republicans to account. That is in fact entirely honest, as opposed to looking at positive elements and using them to unreasonably dismiss any criticism.
There’s another interesting paragraph from David.
Holding people’s past sins over their heads continually is wrong and ignores the command to forgive and to help those who are not as strong as others when it comes to moral failings.
This is interesting because David goes on to take a dig at the sexual affairs of Democrat presidents, which is surely a matter of the past?
Moving on, David lists some of Trump’s achievements, and admonishes the notion of cherrypicking, but let’s take a balanced view…
From Politifact:
Trump issued a number of campaign promises back during the 2016 election campaign. He has kept 24% of them, broken 49% of them, and stalled on others. Despite leading a Republican government that at one stage controlled every branch of the US political machine, Trump’s major failures include not repealing Obamacare, not getting Mexico to pay for the unfinished and extremely expensive white elephant that is the border wall. His administration has presided over one of the worst responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, in no small part due to Trump’s dismissive attitude and his initial rejection of face masks.
Despite what David might think, pointing out these failures does not equate to hate. There would be many reasons to hate Trump, given his firebrand approach, his attitudes towards women, and his Twitter tantrums. However, in the end, his record as a president is what is under scrutiny, and the facts do not present a good picture. It is upon this that he is found wanting.
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Yep, another distortion.
Your repeated claims of distortions are in themselves distortions. I might also consider them a form of dishonesty.
I think David’s posts are a good example of how the religious right will persist in following Trump right over a cliff, no matter what he does.
It definitely appears that way. Despite his failures, as both a politician and a man, Trump is worshipped.
He’s a cult leader.
Absolutely, though normally cult leaders are, if nothing else, charismatic. Republicans clearly have a low bar for this sort of thing!
No, you are mistaken as the democrat supporters have already done that. Love thy neighbor does not mean break immigration laws, let same-sex people marry, or allow for children to alter their bodies to meet evil’s influence on their minds.
Trump is not worshipped, he is praised for doing a great job under extremely difficult circumstances. Anyone claiming to be a Christian cannot vote for democrats. Most likely those claims hide the fact they are not truly following the Bible and like progressive ideas over God’s.
David,
Every president is expected to do their job under difficult circumstances. Trump is ruining this country and I wish you could look past your anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ views and see that. I suspect if Obama had “run” the country as Trump has you’d have been calling for his head. You think he’s a man of faith? He’s not. He uses Christians like he uses everyone else. Joe Biden is a man of faith. That’s who you should be supporting even if you don’t agree with his entire platform.
The Democrats are representing America, which happens to include the LGBT community and non-Christians, and rightly so. Meanwhile you support a party that has routinely fanned the flames of racism, sexism and bigotry.
As usual Trump haters distort and exaggerate making sure people do not read the truth.
Your claims are as usual distortions in themselves. Trump’s failures are facts, as per the provided links.
Read my latest post at https://theologyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/a-lot-of-things-matter/