Behold a pale horse

I had genuinely hoped that I could wrap up the year in blogging with this post: a plea for moderation and communication. That if we could all just agree that hiring a failed real-estate agent/reality TV star/serial woman abuser to be President was a bad idea, then we could go back to the business of comparing notes on differing opinions and trying to ride the swinging pendulum of politics forward together. I continue to hope that, once Trump is gone, our disagreements — although important — could once again take a back seat to neighborly love, and community.

My sister disagrees with me — she thinks now is not the time for moderate views. She might be right. 2020 is winding to a close, and there’s a glimmer of hope in this pandemic, but the crazy continues to ramp up. Not one, but three loving Christians, reached out to send me a link to Giuliani’s unhinged and bizarre press event as evidence that all the conspiracy theories about a stolen election were true. These followed the now-annual holiday rant from my favorite irate uncle, declaring Trump to be the end of Christianity as we know it. The crazy uncle might be closer to the truth.

Folks, Giuliani’s press event came on the heals of the Trump campaign’s most recent loss in the court of law. Every suit alleging electoral fraud that has been brought before different judges in different States has been dismissed because the Trump legal team could present no evidence. Faced with an oath to the truth, and the threat of perjury, not even Trump’s lawyers will stand behind his claims in court. A press event, though, has no oath — and no consequence for lying. When they failed to prove their case in the legal system, they decided to take it to YouTube. An aunt who I love dearly sent me that YouTube video, and when I sent back 8 links to 8 different analysis and news sources spanning the political spectrum, all fact checking the event as largely false, she blocked me on Facebook. Good Christians don’t want to hear the truth, they just want their man Trump to be right… they just want their political candidate to win.

If that’s not you, if you actually care about truth and character and the Biblical qualifications for leadership, turn off YouTube and read the details of 11/11 court case:

The court: I understand. I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?
Mr. Goldstein: To my knowledge, at present, no.
The court: Are you claiming that there is any undue or improper influence up on the elector with respect to these 592 ballots?
Mr. Goldstein: To my knowledge, at present, no.

And if you’d like to accuse me of cherry picking, here’s the full transcript:

Also in PA, you can see the revised allegations here.
You’ll see that they started by claiming fraud, but when challenged by the judge for evidence, they revised the suit until there was no case at all.

When Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ most vile conservative mouthpiece, asked Sidney Powell to come on the show and present the evidence of the claims they made in their press event, her only response was to tell him to stop bothering her.
Update: Turns out her allegations were too crazy even for the Trump campaign.

In fact, the entire event crumbles under a conservative, Christian fact check.

Is it possible that there was some manipulation of votes in some counties? Sure.
Is it possible that more than 470 counties, in strategic areas, coordinated a complex plan without communicating with each other, that somehow involved Venezuelan technology, to steal an election by more than 6 million individual votes and 74 electoral college votes?
Or is it more likely that those counties were hardest hit by Trump’s complete failure to manage a pandemic, and they all decided its time to hire someone who knows what he’s doing?

Let me try my plea a different way. You can be conservative — at least 50% of us should be! You can believe in Jesus — His message is hope and love, and everyone should have a chance to meet Him. But if you equate Trump with Jesus, and Trump’s lies with conservative, Christian values, Ephesians 2:2 is for you: you are walking in the ways of this world and the spirit who is now at work in you is disobedient. You are condemned by your acceptance of lies, and you condemn your fellow believers when you endorse or expound on conspiracy theories.

I’m looking forward to going back to sporadically blogging about the kids or an old computer I fixed. I’m tired of trying to be a voice in the middle pointing out crazy on both sides of the aisle. I’m even more tired that all the crazy seems to be coming from the side that claims Jesus — and not just tired, I am ashamed. I am heart broken. Trump lost — not by much, but by enough to make clear that he is not a leader, he is not a spokesperson for the church, he is not a fit president or even a fit business person. He is an adulterer, a cheat, a liar, a selfish thief. The best thing to happen in 2020 is when he lost the election. Get over it, and start acting like Jesus told us to again.

3 thoughts on “Behold a pale horse

  1. Hi Jon…So good to hear a sane voice of reason in the Ultra Conservative din of those standing up for this useless man. I thought I was just getting old as I shake my head each day listening to all the conspiracy theories being spouted and wondering how on earth intelligent people can actually believe any of the lies being presented. This man is no more a Christian than Satan is! And as a side note, I sit here and am speculating who your favourite irate and crazy Uncle might be…and if I am related to him?!! LOL!!

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