More On Trumps Cynicism and Exploitation of Veterans and Christians from The Young Turks

Okay, I realise that I’ve already posted three blogs in a row about Trump, and this is a further piece to the one I’ve already written about his cynical and exploitative attitude to veterans. But this stuff just keeps coming, and Trump’s still out there.

Trump organised a special event on the 28th January, a few days ago, for US veterans, and has been very loudly proclaiming that he’s raising funds for them. But when it comes to paying out, the reality seems to be somewhat different. A year or so ago, a charity for homeless ex-soldiers, Veterans in Command, wrote to The Donald asking for a donation. They finally got their reply last week. It was a bumper sticker, come through the post, with a handwritten note saying that he wasn’t going to make a donation.

The piece’s anchors, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, point out that this isn’t the first time Trump’s done something like this. In 1991 and 2004 he tried to get the food stand run by veterans cleared off the street in Fifth Avenue. The stands had been there for over a century, and had been expressly set up to give former soldiers jobs. But Trump wanted them to go, as they gave the area ‘the wrong image’.

Of the five million or so Trump’s fund for veterans has actually spent, only 73,000 came from Trump’s own pocket. So, he’s not exactly generous with his own money when it actually comes to supporting America’s wounded and poverty-stricken ex-warriors.

He’s also trying the same trick with the Christians in Iowa. There’s no evidence that Trump’s religious or has ever been a Christian, or gone to church. Someone wrote to the evangelical churches in NYC, and none of them had record of Trump attending. But he’s trying to pass himself off as a devout believer. He attended church in Iowa. When the communion plate was being passed around for the bread and wine of Holy Communion, Trump thought it was the collection plate and placed a wad of notes there. Uygur himself states he’s not a Christian, and wasn’t raised a Christian. He’s an atheist, who was raised a Muslim, and so he jokes that he doesn’t know what goes on in church services. But he does know that Trump is precisely the kind of person Christ threw out of the Temple. Exactly. Christ in the Gospels attacks the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, and the way they made much of their own piety and lavish donations to the synagogue, while all the while having absolute contempt for the genuinely pious, but not socially respectable poor. Again, this reflects the social situation of the time. The Pharisees did indeed look down on the poorer classes, particularly in Galilee, as the ‘amma ha-aretz, or People of the Land. One of them even declared, ‘Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah’. And the Prophet Amos centuries earlier in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, attacked the rich, who gave lavishly to the temple, provided rich sacrifices, but who did not really observe the spirit of the Law of Moses, and who had nothing but contempt for the poor. There’s even a special sin – simony – named after Simon Magus in the Acts of the Apostles – for people who try to buy positions in the church, almost like Trump has tried to buy Christian support.

Uygur states that it’s a problem why Evangelical Christians, who claim religion is at the centre of their lives, support Trump, considering he’s not a Christian and just seems to be posing as such to get their support. He believes it’s just simple racism. They share his hatred of Mexicans and Muslims, and are voting for him because of this. I think it’s a fair point, although I would not care to say that this was true of all American Evangelicals. A book written a few years ago, The Truth about Evangelicals, actually said that about half of all theologically conservative Christians were political left-wing, and some even more so than American Roman Catholics. But it is very true of the type that listen to Pat Robertson and the rest of the televangelists that suddenly appeared during the Reagan era. It’s these people Trump’s trying to impress.

Well, Trump and the Republicans actually don’t give two hoots about the real problems faced by working class people in America, including Christians. There’s an entire chapter in the book on Neo-Conservatism, Confronting the New Conservatism, on how the Republicans and Neo-Cons cynically exploit these people’s religious fears, while giving them nothing in return. They make a lot of noise about sex and violence on TV and the cinema, the teaching of evolution, gay rights and so on, but this is generally just verbiage to describe their true agenda: cutting welfare programmes, and giving the rich massive tax cuts. Both believing Christians and old soldiers – who in many cases are no doubt one and the same, pilgrims – could do worse than face, front, stand square, and show this fraud the door.

Tags: 'Acts of the Apostles', 'Confronting the New Conservatism', 'The Truth About Evangelical Christians', 'Veterans in Command', Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur, Christianity, Churches, Donald Trump, Evangelical Christians, Evangelicals, Fifth Avenue, Food Stands, Homelessness, Iowa, Jesus, Mexicans, Muslims, Neo-Conservatives, New York, Pat Robertson, Prophet Amos, racism, Roman Catholics, Ronald Reagan, Soldiers, Televangelists, the Gospels, Veterans