Just so you know, not everyone who worships God - who truly worships Him - is part of the Christian Nationalist movement. I am one who believes in God, but also believes that a true worshiper of God follows the teachings of Jesus. The Christian Nationalist movement does NOT follow the teachings of Jesus.
Any of us who remember the Moonies, EST, Jonestown or religious cults know that even educated fall prey to charlatans and "love bombing". That's where we are with a felon with drooling follower minions...who will gladly arm for him.
Thank you for your prediction Ruth! It gives me Hope! because I know you've been studying this for so long that your predictions have the best chance of actually happening!
This sounds so much like the Pharohs who were in power through the Will of God. That is how Kings have been in power too. Authoritarian leaders are people who cannot figure out how to claim being King or Emperor, so they act as if they were and then take on all the trappings.
And the people bowed and prayed… to the *“neon gods” they made. Jesus spoke out against those who ignore the pleas of the poor, the stranger, the immigrant, especially those leaders of the “church” the pharisees. (#neon gods, now? A-I? Silicon Valley Billionaires?)
Mellon did not become a prominent donor until Trump came into the political sphere, although his grandfather was former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.
As the shutdown rages on, the House has remained out of session for the entirety of the shutdown in an effort to add pressure on the Senate to pass the short-term funding resolution.
To your point Ruth, I had an Uber ride with a Christian man who immigrated from Pakistan. He spoke of the greater tolerance America has for minorities yet also described discrimination he faced. Nonetheless he felt far freer in the US than Pakistan.
He had voted for Trump because of his alignment with Christianity, but now he is appalled at ICE’s actions and understands the administration is not acting in accordance with Christian teachings.
It makes me sad to hear about people being discriminated against because of where they are from. Or their skin color. Last week I had a conversation with a Pakistani man who lives in Europe and works for AT&T - he very patiently helped me through a complicated online account setup process. His English was pretty easy to understand, despite his slight accent (I am hearing impaired) and I really appreciated who he was. Friday we had an encounter with a young Black man who works for AAA, and I found out that even in a city that shows very little racial prejudice, he still encounters that. That's very sad, because if people knew how to just read people rather than looking at their skin color, they would see that he is open and honest and pleasant, and knows what he's doing. I know I got a bit off track here, but I have very strong feelings about prejudice like that. Maybe it's because I have traveled the world a lot, but I've learned that you have to pay attention to who someone is, rather than what they look like or sound like, in order to judge their value. Your Pakistani Uber driver sounds like a good man, and like he may have learned something about what so-called Christianity is like in the US.
My take is that Trump is the end-game of a process that began with Reagan and was accompanied by what Dana Milbank calls "the 25-year crackup of the Republican Party." (The crackup has now been going on longer than that; Milbank dates it more or less to the rise of Newt Gingrich.) I'm not letting the congressional Democrats off the hook either: they were so shell-shocked by the advent of Trump II that I wonder how much attention they'd been paying.
Susanna, I agree with all you are saying here. I think that it would help if more Democrats read. All of them should have read the Project 2025 document by now. Each and every one of them and been preparing legislation that protects us from it even if they cannot get them enacted right now. They should be drafting legislation and getting it to the press so that people are informed on how things could and should be not just on the catastrophe that we are living with now.
Also, I wrote this last November and it still seems relevant. "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe."
Indeed! Hitler had a fascination with the monarchies of old. He sought that in the modern world, even though monarchies had become obsolete. tRump is similar, and both men had/have a grandiose self image, seeing themselves as a demigod.
YES! Once again, thank you, Ruth. I wish that when the media gives these kinds of talking points a platform, they would also continue to follow up and take this sort of thing more seriously. It feels like it gets dismissed as "Oh, there goes the MAGA fringe again." Bannon said there's a plan -- and I feel it would serve all who wish to protect democracy to believe him.
The day after Bannon said that, a very popular Never Trump podcaster laughed it off as Bannon just blustering, getting attention, don’t feed into it. Infuriating that even pro-democracy people with millions of listeners still lack the imagination to take these proclamations seriously! Or grasp the massive symbolism of destroying the East Wing.
Granted I’m no expert whatsoever, that’s why we have Ruth guiding us with her immense wisdom! I just look at patterns and maybe it’s my cynical nature after a decade of DJT. He said we didn’t have to worry about voting again after 2024, the 2028 hats in WH photos, a GOP election director’s company buying Dominion voting machines, the frantic mid century redistricting, and the blasé attitude of the GOP Congress that they don’t have to answer to their constituents ever again (or appear the least bit concerned about re-election). The rapid destruction of the WH property to turn it into a personal palace he will live out his years in. I SOOO hope I’m wrong.
You are not wrong. Next he will paint the tip of the Washington monument orange, put a statue of himself seated in the Lincoln Memorial, and make all four busts on Mt Rushmore into his grotesque visage. Bannon will cheer that on, too.
Should take his blustering very seriously. It's their intention. Their plan. They are getting funding for it. They will petition the SCOMAGA for it. They mean business.
Everyone still linked to sanity and reality needs to watch the Steve Bannon interview with The Economist to understand where we are.
He explains it all: Trump is the "instrument" of "divine providence", so we all need to chill and let him do whatever he wants for the next x many years - you know, as God plans.
If there is a God who writes the script, not my belief, may that God please switch sides soon and help those of us who care about truth, justice and human rights.
PS: biblically, Trump and his operatives embody the main attributes of evil: hubris without repentance, dishonesty, cruelty, selfish corruption and greed, infidelity, cowardice…
Bannon and his “religious” allies like Mike Johnson and friends on the Supreme Court say God chooses “flawed” people - as if Trump’s intentional cruelty, delusional lying, narcissistic greed, and indifference to suffering are just cute idiosyncrasies.
Well said! It’s much easier to believe in the easy fix: “the golden calf”; the Pharoah/God who saves the Egyptian farmers from the drought; the Trump “wall” and ICE Brigade keeps out strangers. "If you’re appointed by god, they let you do just about anything!” How much money does the Christian Born-Again Network make for its preachers, politicians, judges, its “important messagers of God”.
Do you think Bannon believes any of that? I couldn't tell you exactly what Bannon believes, but I seriously doubt the divine has anything to do with it.
As Winston Churchill once noted about another such egomaniac, “There but for the grace of God, goes God”'
But I’d suggest that the concept goes a good bit further back than Mussolini. 'The Divine Right of KIngs’ goes back to the beginning of civilization when ‘the Kingship descended from Heaven’ in ancient Sumer. Indeed, the Unites States was founded in large part as an alternative to four millennia that ‘right’.
I am so glad to see you featuring the Vehicle of Divine Providence news. I came across it yesterday, choked, and then was astonished and depressed to see it nowwhere else on main news channels. I am so grateful for your work, and mind. Back in my day, the optmistic eighties, I reported on Jerry Fallwell and his ilk..., the Anti Equal Rights Amendment housewives, the anti reproductive freedom folks...the people whose deepest fear is of...women. Just at the moment, thinking of all that effort, I can't think of anything encouraging to say, except I am grateful for you and your colleagues...and fair warning.....my grand daughters are pretty scary!
Bannon is certainly no arbiter of divinity. . . 🤦♀️. I love ❤️ 🇺🇸 your rendition of the meaning of TINA. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. 🙏 Looking forward to Sunday 👀
Ruth, you are one of the farthest persons from a clown or idiot that I can think of! I’m going to hang onto your belief that there will be a reckoning because things are rapidly getting more and more frightening. Stay well, stay safe, and may the reckoning come soon. ❤️
Love the TINA expression. Fortunately I am one of the many who don't believe that. I really hope that the country rebels and overwhelmingly votes him down if he runs for a 3rd term.
Re Christian Nationalism: Do not be fooled by what appears to be a TINA for all denominations in the USA. Many, many, many of the mostly mainline churches are actively and quietly stepping away and rejecting Christian Nationalism. In my own Church ( Episcopal ) we are teaching, preaching and meeting to disseminate information against( and rejecting) the central premises of a group whose primary theology is none other then based in ‘hate thy neighbor’. This rejection has been going on for a while now. Because we are quiet about what we do, you may think nothing is happening. Not so!
A similar experience in the Church called Muscular Christianity born post WW1, developed in America. It was rejected by the US but was picked up by the authoritarian leaders and used to promulgate WWII.
Fortunately it was rejected post WWII. There IS an alternative!
Thank you for giving a positive picture that I think we all need to see. IMO, a theology based on "hate thy neighbor" is not Christianity. I no longer go to church because of a lot of bad experiences, but that does not undermine my belief in Jesus' teachings or practicing them.
Dear God.
Please protect me from those who worship you.
Amen to that! :D
Just so you know, not everyone who worships God - who truly worships Him - is part of the Christian Nationalist movement. I am one who believes in God, but also believes that a true worshiper of God follows the teachings of Jesus. The Christian Nationalist movement does NOT follow the teachings of Jesus.
Susan my point exactly! See my post
Susan, reminds me of what my priest mentor said years ago: “…too much time spent in the church building is not enough time spent building the church!”
Thank you for your reply.
You are welcome, Revd Dr. Liz
Any of us who remember the Moonies, EST, Jonestown or religious cults know that even educated fall prey to charlatans and "love bombing". That's where we are with a felon with drooling follower minions...who will gladly arm for him.
They suffer from anomie :-)
Many of his followers will kill for him. It's a sickness.
Lamentably...as they will also die either for or because of him.
Yes. Cult process.
Thank you for your prediction Ruth! It gives me Hope! because I know you've been studying this for so long that your predictions have the best chance of actually happening!
TRUMP IS NOT THE ANSWER, HE IS THE PROBLEM!
This sounds so much like the Pharohs who were in power through the Will of God. That is how Kings have been in power too. Authoritarian leaders are people who cannot figure out how to claim being King or Emperor, so they act as if they were and then take on all the trappings.
And the people bowed and prayed… to the *“neon gods” they made. Jesus spoke out against those who ignore the pleas of the poor, the stranger, the immigrant, especially those leaders of the “church” the pharisees. (#neon gods, now? A-I? Silicon Valley Billionaires?)
I would think that there are many other billionaires who qualify as "neon gods".
Mellon did not become a prominent donor until Trump came into the political sphere, although his grandfather was former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.
Other names have been floated when it comes to guessing which mega-donor gave the funds. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/10/25/heres-who-could-have-donated-130-million-to-fund-the-troops-during-shutdown/ listed billionaires Stephen Feinberg, Isaac Perlmutter, and Vincent Viola among possible donors.
As the shutdown rages on, the House has remained out of session for the entirety of the shutdown in an effort to add pressure on the Senate to pass the short-term funding resolution.
To your point Ruth, I had an Uber ride with a Christian man who immigrated from Pakistan. He spoke of the greater tolerance America has for minorities yet also described discrimination he faced. Nonetheless he felt far freer in the US than Pakistan.
He had voted for Trump because of his alignment with Christianity, but now he is appalled at ICE’s actions and understands the administration is not acting in accordance with Christian teachings.
It makes me sad to hear about people being discriminated against because of where they are from. Or their skin color. Last week I had a conversation with a Pakistani man who lives in Europe and works for AT&T - he very patiently helped me through a complicated online account setup process. His English was pretty easy to understand, despite his slight accent (I am hearing impaired) and I really appreciated who he was. Friday we had an encounter with a young Black man who works for AAA, and I found out that even in a city that shows very little racial prejudice, he still encounters that. That's very sad, because if people knew how to just read people rather than looking at their skin color, they would see that he is open and honest and pleasant, and knows what he's doing. I know I got a bit off track here, but I have very strong feelings about prejudice like that. Maybe it's because I have traveled the world a lot, but I've learned that you have to pay attention to who someone is, rather than what they look like or sound like, in order to judge their value. Your Pakistani Uber driver sounds like a good man, and like he may have learned something about what so-called Christianity is like in the US.
Yes, I pointed that out. I told him the distorted American version is nowhere in Jesus's teachings and he himself probably would fail ICE's cut.
My take is that Trump is the end-game of a process that began with Reagan and was accompanied by what Dana Milbank calls "the 25-year crackup of the Republican Party." (The crackup has now been going on longer than that; Milbank dates it more or less to the rise of Newt Gingrich.) I'm not letting the congressional Democrats off the hook either: they were so shell-shocked by the advent of Trump II that I wonder how much attention they'd been paying.
Susanna, I agree with all you are saying here. I think that it would help if more Democrats read. All of them should have read the Project 2025 document by now. Each and every one of them and been preparing legislation that protects us from it even if they cannot get them enacted right now. They should be drafting legislation and getting it to the press so that people are informed on how things could and should be not just on the catastrophe that we are living with now.
Also, I wrote this last November and it still seems relevant. "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe."
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
Any time in the past 100 years that we have seen the rise of sociopaths in power like Newt Gingrich or tRump we have seen advances in fascism.
Indeed! Hitler had a fascination with the monarchies of old. He sought that in the modern world, even though monarchies had become obsolete. tRump is similar, and both men had/have a grandiose self image, seeing themselves as a demigod.
YES! Once again, thank you, Ruth. I wish that when the media gives these kinds of talking points a platform, they would also continue to follow up and take this sort of thing more seriously. It feels like it gets dismissed as "Oh, there goes the MAGA fringe again." Bannon said there's a plan -- and I feel it would serve all who wish to protect democracy to believe him.
The day after Bannon said that, a very popular Never Trump podcaster laughed it off as Bannon just blustering, getting attention, don’t feed into it. Infuriating that even pro-democracy people with millions of listeners still lack the imagination to take these proclamations seriously! Or grasp the massive symbolism of destroying the East Wing.
What is that?
How seriously do you think we should take Bannon's speechifying?
Granted I’m no expert whatsoever, that’s why we have Ruth guiding us with her immense wisdom! I just look at patterns and maybe it’s my cynical nature after a decade of DJT. He said we didn’t have to worry about voting again after 2024, the 2028 hats in WH photos, a GOP election director’s company buying Dominion voting machines, the frantic mid century redistricting, and the blasé attitude of the GOP Congress that they don’t have to answer to their constituents ever again (or appear the least bit concerned about re-election). The rapid destruction of the WH property to turn it into a personal palace he will live out his years in. I SOOO hope I’m wrong.
You are not wrong. Next he will paint the tip of the Washington monument orange, put a statue of himself seated in the Lincoln Memorial, and make all four busts on Mt Rushmore into his grotesque visage. Bannon will cheer that on, too.
Agree! Sociopaths/psychopaths with a God-like self image will try to do exactly what you describe.
Bannon's hero is Mussolini, so that has to tell us something about him and his mental state.
Should take his blustering very seriously. It's their intention. Their plan. They are getting funding for it. They will petition the SCOMAGA for it. They mean business.
Everyone still linked to sanity and reality needs to watch the Steve Bannon interview with The Economist to understand where we are.
He explains it all: Trump is the "instrument" of "divine providence", so we all need to chill and let him do whatever he wants for the next x many years - you know, as God plans.
If there is a God who writes the script, not my belief, may that God please switch sides soon and help those of us who care about truth, justice and human rights.
PS: biblically, Trump and his operatives embody the main attributes of evil: hubris without repentance, dishonesty, cruelty, selfish corruption and greed, infidelity, cowardice…
Bannon and his “religious” allies like Mike Johnson and friends on the Supreme Court say God chooses “flawed” people - as if Trump’s intentional cruelty, delusional lying, narcissistic greed, and indifference to suffering are just cute idiosyncrasies.
Well said! It’s much easier to believe in the easy fix: “the golden calf”; the Pharoah/God who saves the Egyptian farmers from the drought; the Trump “wall” and ICE Brigade keeps out strangers. "If you’re appointed by god, they let you do just about anything!” How much money does the Christian Born-Again Network make for its preachers, politicians, judges, its “important messagers of God”.
Do you think Bannon believes any of that? I couldn't tell you exactly what Bannon believes, but I seriously doubt the divine has anything to do with it.
Fascists like Bannon will say whatever they need to, to get the mission accomplished. It's Machiavellianism.
Bannon's end goal is the destruction of all the nations of Earth.
As Winston Churchill once noted about another such egomaniac, “There but for the grace of God, goes God”'
But I’d suggest that the concept goes a good bit further back than Mussolini. 'The Divine Right of KIngs’ goes back to the beginning of civilization when ‘the Kingship descended from Heaven’ in ancient Sumer. Indeed, the Unites States was founded in large part as an alternative to four millennia that ‘right’.
I am so glad to see you featuring the Vehicle of Divine Providence news. I came across it yesterday, choked, and then was astonished and depressed to see it nowwhere else on main news channels. I am so grateful for your work, and mind. Back in my day, the optmistic eighties, I reported on Jerry Fallwell and his ilk..., the Anti Equal Rights Amendment housewives, the anti reproductive freedom folks...the people whose deepest fear is of...women. Just at the moment, thinking of all that effort, I can't think of anything encouraging to say, except I am grateful for you and your colleagues...and fair warning.....my grand daughters are pretty scary!
Bannon is certainly no arbiter of divinity. . . 🤦♀️. I love ❤️ 🇺🇸 your rendition of the meaning of TINA. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. 🙏 Looking forward to Sunday 👀
Thank you Ruth, always.
Ruth, you are one of the farthest persons from a clown or idiot that I can think of! I’m going to hang onto your belief that there will be a reckoning because things are rapidly getting more and more frightening. Stay well, stay safe, and may the reckoning come soon. ❤️
Ring the bells
That still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack
A crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
From the song Anthem, by Leonard Cohen
Yes! Looking for the cracks.
Maybe we have to create some cracks, open them up...
I like that, yes!
Speaking of BS holiness and eternal grift:
Orange Jesus: Ten Commandments MAGA edition
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/04/22/trump-attend-pope-francis-funeral-orange-jesus-ten-commandments-maga-edition/
Follow Trump’s grift in White House demolition and pardoning a convicted Bitcoin billionaire
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/10/24/follow-trumps-grift-in-white-house-demolition-and-pardoning-a-convicted-bitcoin-billionaire/
Follow the grift behind Trump’s attack on Venezuela
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/10/18/follow-the-grift-behind-trumps-attack-on-venezuela/
Trump announces then withdraws China tariffs: Who made millions with perfectly timed Bitcoin trades?
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/10/13/trump-announces-then-withdraws-china-tariffs-who-made-millions-with-perfectly-timed-bitcoin-trades/
It means a lot hearing those words from you.
Love the TINA expression. Fortunately I am one of the many who don't believe that. I really hope that the country rebels and overwhelmingly votes him down if he runs for a 3rd term.
Re Christian Nationalism: Do not be fooled by what appears to be a TINA for all denominations in the USA. Many, many, many of the mostly mainline churches are actively and quietly stepping away and rejecting Christian Nationalism. In my own Church ( Episcopal ) we are teaching, preaching and meeting to disseminate information against( and rejecting) the central premises of a group whose primary theology is none other then based in ‘hate thy neighbor’. This rejection has been going on for a while now. Because we are quiet about what we do, you may think nothing is happening. Not so!
A similar experience in the Church called Muscular Christianity born post WW1, developed in America. It was rejected by the US but was picked up by the authoritarian leaders and used to promulgate WWII.
Fortunately it was rejected post WWII. There IS an alternative!
Thank you for giving a positive picture that I think we all need to see. IMO, a theology based on "hate thy neighbor" is not Christianity. I no longer go to church because of a lot of bad experiences, but that does not undermine my belief in Jesus' teachings or practicing them.