So the Former US President and Current GOP Candidate for the Presidency Calls for a Coup and the End of US Democracy — And?

President Donald J. Trump 2 March 2019, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, MD; official White House photo by Tia Dufour, at Wikimedia Commons

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letters from an American: December 3, 2002":

The leader of the Republican Party has just called for the overthrow of our fundamental law and the installation of a dictator. 

Lawrence O'Donnell on Kanye West: "Vile, Deep, Relentless Hatred of Jewish People and Public Praise of Adolph Hitler — Who Donald Trump Was Having Dinner with Last Week"

 

Lawrence O'Donnell states,

This is the day when every apologist for Kanye West, everyone who blames his medication, everyone who blames Kanye West's claimed mental health issues which have never actually been medically documented — this is the day those people are out of apologies for Kanye West. No more pleas for sympathy for mental health issues that have never been medically documented publicly by anyone. No medical records, no physicians, no one who has treated him has ever spoken publicly about these conditions. If you believe he has mental health conditions, you believe Kanye West. That's who has told you that he has mental health conditions, and these mental health conditions that he claims under no circumstances cause antisemitism.

Trump, Fuentes, West, White Nationalists and Anti-Semites: "Don't Normalize This"

Merriam-Webster dictionary

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letter from an American, December 1, 2022": 

Today, Ye, also known as Kanye West, appeared with right-wing white supremacist Nick Fuentes on Alex Jones’s show InfoWars, and was so vile even Jones began to push back. Eventually, Ye praised Nazis and Adolf Hitler. Then, and only then, did the Twitter account of the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee delete its tweet of October 6, 2022, that read: “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”

As a former U.S. president and now candidate for re-election dines with a white supremacist anti-Semite Holocaust denier: commentary

Right Wing Watch, 25 November 2022

As a former president and now candidate for re-election dines with a white supremacist anti-Semite Holocaust denier, enlightening commentary:

Continuing Concern with Rising Antisemitism — Among Republicans

Hannah Knowles, Colby Itkowitz, and Isaac Arnsdorf report on growing concern among US Jewish leaders with increasing expressions of antisemitism by Republican leaders:

In News: "Till" Film Released; True History and Actual True History; Rising Antisemitism; Twitter Takeover Consequences

Photo of stack of newspapers by Daniel R. Blume, Wikimedia Commons

This weekend, Chinonye Chukwu’s film "Till" has been released nationally after limited-viewing showings on 14 October. Join the Movement Toward Racial Justice summarizes why this film telling the story of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till Jr. remains critically important for Americans to hear today:

Reports About Twitter after Musk Acquisition

Microphone photo by Taoheedah, Wikimedia Commons

 

1. Heather Cox Richardson reports about what's happening at Twitter after Musk acquired it: 

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the Sordid History of German Church's Response to Hitler: We Forget at Our Peril

I've just finished reading Charles Marsh's Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (NY: Knopf, 2014), and would like to share some passages with you. These all have to do with the ease with which the Lutheran church in Germany capitulated to Hitler and his propagandists' claim that he was reviving a manly-man Christianity that would rehabilitate Germany's tarnished reputation. Marsh focuses on the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran) (and Confessing) church and not the Catholic church because Bonhoeffer was situated within the Lutheran world. 

Linda Gordon's Second Coming of the KKK: "Klan's Mobilization of Evangelical Ministers Foreshadowed — and Probably Helped Generate — the Entry of Christian Right Preachers into Conservative Politics"

I've just finished reading Linda Gordon's The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition (NY: Liveright, 2017). It's an excellent historical study of the reincarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Linda Gordon is a history professor at New York University.  

As Neo-Nazis Celebrate Murder of Gay Jewish College Student, Where Are the Churches? (When They're Not Firing Queer Employees and Supporting Anti-Queer Discrimination, That Is)

Members of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division have been linked to five murders—most recently the stabbing death of a gay Jewish college student in January. They also have a secret chatroom.

Here's our story: https://t.co/nZPTHUvNGP pic.twitter.com/cOUTqIZzNK

— ProPublica (@ProPublica) February 24, 2018

In an article entitled "Inside Atomwaffen As It Celebrates a Member for Allegedly Killing a Gay Jewish College Student," A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston, and Jake Hanrahan report on behalf of ProPublica:

In the News: "In Many Ways, Donald Trump Is 'White Jesus'" — And "Remarkable Upsurge of Hate-Based Killings of LGBTQ People," Etc.

I say anti-Semitic things, and then Jews criticize me. What is this conspiracy??? Anyway here’s a list of Jews pic.twitter.com/nOcZ8XoWpR

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) January 30, 2018

Another offering of articles, tweets, etc., that I've read in the past several days, which strike me as worth sharing with all of you:

Fire and Fury in Charlottesville, Virginia, As Neo-Nazis and KKK March: Reports/Commentary from Twitter

Passover 2017: Reflections on Passover as More Than a Holiday — "It's a Call to Arms"

Why was Trump's passover night different from Obama's passover night? POTUS wasn't there. https://t.co/btwRBIcXnu

— Alana HorowitzSatlin (@achorowitz) April 11, 2017

Mark Silk on the seder that POTUS hosted (but did not attend) at the White House:

Religion and Politics in the News: "It Is No Surprise to Me That Online Debate Has Become the International Sport of Cis White Men"

An assortment of items I've read in the past few days on religion, politics, culture — and their intersection — in American public discourse right now; these range from commentary on women's rights and misogyny to white supremacy to homophobia to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia:

Is the Term "Shyster" Anti-Semitic? A Footnote to Yesterday's Posting

I'm grateful to Cleveland Girl for a comment yesterday when I used the term "shyster" in a posting. She tells me that the term has anti-Semitic overtones. 

Authoritarian Shysters Do Not Want Us Making Connections; Making Connections Is the Essence of Being An Adult Moral Thinker with a Developed Conscience

Charles Pierce then adds,

Trump's Clear Signal That Some Count and Others Don't: Another Wave of Bomb Threats at Jewish Centers Today, Another Cemetery Vandalized Yesterday

NBC News confirms there has been another wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and schools across the country pic.twitter.com/TqBNbOGOnl

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017

This morning: 

Jewish community centers in at least 11 states received bomb threats on Monday, echoing similar waves of threats on Jan. 9 and Jan. 18.

Articles About Human Rights and Assaults on Minority Groups in Era of Trump: "ICE Has Been Targeting Those Weakest, According to Reports"

Articles about matters of human rights and assaults on minority groups in the era of Trump that I've read this week and want to pass on to you: 

When No One Was Gay: We Must Not Deceive Ourselves; It Can Happen Again. In a Heartbeat.

New York Times, 2 July 1937, p. 1, col. 6-7

It's the late 1980s or possibly early 1990s. I'm at my first full-time teaching job in the theology department of Xavier University in New Orleans.

When my colleague comes to work one morning, eyes blackened, face bruised all over, limping, we rush to him to ask what has happened, how we might help. 

Alan McCornick and "Boomerang Back to Conservative Causes" of Gay Catholic Theologian David Berger: Why the Boomerang?

A day or so ago, I mentioned that I'd have a few words to say about an important posting Alan McCornick made at his Hepzibah blog recently. This is a rich and wide-ranging report-cum-meditation on issues as diverse as the role of religion in global politics today, the perceived battle between Christianity and Islam, the rise of ethnocentric nationalism in Europe and North America, and the place of LGBT people and questions about LGBT rights as all of this takes place.