Several features of Trump’s attacks and his surrogates’ attacks on Obama are curious or downright hilarious. Obama not understanding America? Have you ever heard of any supposedly educated person as ignorant of American history, values, and, most of all, government, as Trump is?
What about Obama’s foreignness? Plop Trump down in the middle of any middle-American city, any town filled with the silent majority, any rural or even semi-rural area; he would stick out like a sore thumb. What perturbed Trump supporters about Obama was that he is Black. Despite his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, Obama looks, sounds, dresses, and addresses people like any American born and bred here – oh, re dress, we have to say with the exception of that beige suit which set the world on fire. We Americans care about the really key issues, don’t we?
Then there is Trump’s loving application of epithets like losers and suckers to anyone serving in our Armed Forces. While Obama did not serve, he was a community organizer, a kind of Peace Corps volunteer on the domestic front. In fact, when Sarah Palin disparaged community organizations and community organizers, I said at that moment that the GOP was lost forever. Trump was the nail in the coffin.
The deep religious faith displayed by Trump on a daily basis makes us miss Bush with his head bowed in prayer even though some of us churlishly doubted his sincerity. Anything would be better than the upside-down Bible Two Corinthians Sunday school boy who pressed U.S. personnel into the task of attacking peaceful, lawful protesters to clear the way for what he thought was a triumphal march. What he did shows just how shallow is not only his own sense of religion (I said a prayer once and god didn’t answer it so screw him) but his understanding of other people’s religious feelings. I heard that between Trump’s pious parade and Falwell’s threesomes (that’s not the Holy Trinity), the GOP has lost seven voters. A few more cried out against a media that had no video of Falwell’s threesomes – yes, the actually wanted to see his zipper all the way down. Pitiful.
Now to Obama’s faith. I was doubtful at first. Obama had no background in a particular faith. A friend of mine grew up in a culture torn by religious conflict and he said Obama had to be a Muslim because the father he saw once for a day or so was Muslim. That’s the way it is in countries and cultures where religion dominates people’s world view. (this same friend also said that Jews run the NRA so don’t give him a lot of credence).
To be honest, I thought highly of Rev. Wright. I watched his barnstorming three speeches at the height of the controversy. Several things turned off a lot of White people at least: his evangelical spirit and talk of ‘shouting in the sanctuary’ by which he meant, they thought, yelling when he was referring to being filled with the Holy Ghost; then his grounding in Black liberation theology. People’s objections to that are based on the old practice during slavery of not allowing missionaries access to the slaves; the idea of Blacks having their own theology is deeply offensive to White Christians who believe they own the religion. And finally, Wright was very outspoken in his denunciation of institutions that oppress Black people and those are usually run by White people; they feel their hold on Blacks slipping when Blacks do not kowtow to White authority.
Nevertheless, I don’t know how anyone could hear and watch Obama break into Amazing Grace. While he does have some gifts – his brief Al Green bit was very good – he is not a singer and to do that at such a solemn, gut-wrenching moment took not only courage but a faith so deep he could not BUT do that. It had to come out and everyone in that church knew what was happening, he was touched by grace.
So much for Trump and Obama on the road to Damascus.
I’ll come up with more twisted comparisons.