The Occasional Newsletter
How Some Christians are Voting, Trump Town, Abortion, Demagoguery and Dixie Flags
How are you a Christian and support ____?"
This newsletter is devoted to reasons why a Christian may not follow the traditional conservative path of voting. My aim is not to convince or judge others, but let me be clear: there are some cycles that must be broken, on earth as it is in heaven, and that means ACTION without fear of others. My peace lies in my faith and knowledge of my Savior and my Judge, and it is to him I stand or fall.
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it. --G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Man8 Reasons Why Some of Us are Voting Differently
1. Because Trump has a cult following. Because of places like Trump Town. Because there is a mannequin of him on a horse with a US flag in a cornfield.
2. Because we have candidates this election season who pose a threat to our democracy. They consistently show up as Demagogues and Autocrats, namely Trump, Vance, Michele Morrow, and Mark Robinson.
A Demagogue is a political leader who gains power by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than using rational arguments.
An Autocrat seeks leadership via power and control. An autocrat retains power through undermining democracies.
Authoritarians are drawn to others with power, and will follow autocratic leaders– Putin, Elon Musk and dang it, even Hilter. Authoritarians will appeal to disciples of a brand of evangelicalism that is nationalistic, nativist, and obsessed with gaining followers, amassing wealth, controlling women and having access to their bodies and reproductive functions.
3. Because Michele Morrow shows us exactly who she is and what are her values and priorities:
Open borders are killing our children Michele Morrow | Open borders are killing our children and crushing North Carolina schools.
”Death to all traitors!” GOP Candidate Who Called for Obama’s Execution Proceeds to Double Down | The New Republic
Totally Ok with setting aside the US Constitution for an insurrection and military coup. GOP nominee to run North Carolina schools advocated pro-Trump military coup in January 6 video | CNN Politics
Totally comfy with using violence to describe and threaten her enemies. Just Google it.
4. Because nativists like T and MM slander and demonize our immigrant neighbors without a shred of humanity. They are a whole Proverb.
They are ruining our schools (Morrow)
They are killing our children (Morrow)
They are eating your pets (Vance and Trump)
They are raping and murdering our citizens (Trump)
They are coming after you (all Republican messaging)
5. Because to men like Trump, we are just food to be consumed.
Republicans in the 1990s: BILL CLINTON: BAD for sexually assaulting women and abusing his power and position for sexual gratification.
Republicans today: DONALD J. TRUMP: GOOD because he’s just a red-blooded swaggering American man. We don’t know his heart. Yes, he has sexually assaulted women and has abused his power and position for sexual gratification, because these are desperate times and Trump is a desperate measure.
Also, women are very very sad. In fact, according to some men, we are nasty miserable childless cat ladies popping antidepressants, binging Netflix and obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder in our heels and pencil skirts wondering what man will rescue us from ourselves?
Apparently, Tru*p thinks he’s the guy:
“You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. ... You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today,” Trump said. “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.” —Trump tells women he 'will be your protector' as GOP struggles with outreach to female voters.
He’s also this guy:
I moved on her…I did try and f*** her. She was married….And I moved on her very heavily in fact I took her furniture shopping…I moved on her like a bitc* , but I couldn’t get there, and she was married…And then all of a sudden I see her and she’s got the big phony t*ts….I just start kissing (beautiful women) …just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab them by the *ussy. You can do anything. —Trump On Tape
Never forget.
6. Because we are using a different set of metrics when it comes to abortion. For myself, I do not support or accept the Republican or Democrat “sides” on abortion. The silly argument about who is “really” pro-life is immaterial to me since the reality is that many women don’t want men legislating women’s health as a means to reduce abortions.
Facts:
Abortion is a medical procedure to end a pregnancy after, accompanied by resulting in or closely followed by death of an embryo or fetus.
Recent policy to criminalize abortion has kept necessary health care from women and children.
Suicide, executions, capital punishments, and acts of war are also deliberate terminations of human life.
Other considerations:
Women who make choices made for their survival, health, including the ability to become pregnant again.
Women who undergo abortion who are under duress, coercion, force, pressure from a husband, partner, secret lover, who experienced sexual abuse, child rape, family rape, sex trafficking, or threats of abandonment or exposure.
Is the goal to outlaw or reduce incidences of abortions?
The historic practice and generation trauma from “Mississippi Appendectomies,“ forced sterilizations, and systematic rape of Black women and girls by white oppressors.
The rampant misogyny and sexual assaults in the US .
The practice of reproductive coercion.
The unwillingness of legislators to seriously address the shocking disparities of maternal health of Black women and Black maternal mortality.
Legislators woefully uneducated about basic female health who also want to criminalize abortion.
And lastly, here are a few stories that have shaped me and the way I think and talk about abortion. (Warning: discussion of sexual abuse)
A woman sits across from me, visibly shaken and disoriented. An interpreter speaks. The woman tells of her forced labor and forced sex acts, how her boss controlled everything and had threatened to kill her. But that’s not what was on her mind. You see, she had become pregnant from the rapes she endured and her trafficker forced her to drink something that caused her body to abort the baby she was carrying. She was terrified she had sinned and was going to hell because of the abortion. She asked me through her interpreter: “Am I going to hell?”
Another woman told the story of her trafficker punching her in the abdomen until her body expelled the fetus.
Another woman told me of a time that her “sister” delivered a baby, then was forced to immediately go back out to turn tricks. My friend told me how the “sisters” took care of each other. My friend did double quota that night so she could rest.
A woman sits across the table from me, our bibles open. At the other end of the long table sat church ladies, leaders in women’s ministry, chattering, shaking their heads, and displaying disgust at women who choose to have abortions. My friend was someone who had to overcome a lot of obstacles just to get into the chair she was sitting in. She and I locked gazes, her eyes filled with pain and shame. She never returned to that gathering.
A 16 year old, working at an ice cream and burger place shared with her coworkers her fear that she might be pregnant. One co-worker, her supervisor, said she’d take her to (town) to get an abortion. The teenager was shocked and repulsed at the idea. She told them that she planned to run away and disappear forever because she would never bring that shame on her family, and put her parents through all that.
That 16 year old was me.
7. Because it’s time to put away the Dixie flags.
Confederate soldiers remain enshrined in front of courthouses, beckon memories of great deeds, speeches delivered, names engraved in plaques, likenesses memorialized in daguerreotype and streets named after them. The Lost Cause is the stuff of sentimentalism that perpetuates white power as right and patriotic.
Now, for those who feel the need to identify with, or honor, or display the Stars and Bars or the Dixie Battle flag, to advertise or promote their Very Important Feelings are small and misguided men. They appropriate a sentimental source of power and glory that has failed and long passed them by. They are to be pitied and prayed for.
8. Because all Politics Are Local. Mark Robinson yelled a lot in a local favorite BBQ restaurant in Graham, NC, standing alongside of Sheriff Terry Johnson. He abruptly left the building and was shouted down by a brave group of women who were not having it. This photo is worth ten thousand words.
Credit to The Hometown Holler.
Untwisted Scripture: Joshua 5: 13-14
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies? “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
Signing off with two powerful songs from two of my favorite artists.
