In this post I will be looking at the following two North American right-wing Christian figures who have been ingested into Trump political culture and are significant instruments of Trumpism....
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| 1) Ken Ham, supremo of the fundamentalist Answers in Genesis Young Earth theme park |
Ken and Micheal have been coy about openly encouraging votes for Trump in their rather disingenuous attempt to appear non-political, but as the US election day approaches it is now clear where their political allegiances lie....
In a previous post I concluded that a fundamentalist figure like Ken Ham would very likely be voting for D J Trump; not only that he has given his implicit support to the QAnon movement. Further, recent evidence that Ken is a not-so-covert Trump supporter comes from this post of his:
https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2024/08/25/what-christians-must-know-about-kamala-harris/
Add to this the fact that Ken has never, as far as I'm aware, posted an article with a heading like What Christians must know about Donald Trump warning us about Trump's very obvious amorality, then I think we can put 2 and 2 together. The nearest Ken comes to criticizing Trump is on Trump wanting to allow abortion up to 15 weeks (See above post by Ken). But even with this (and I myself disapprove of abortion) Ken won't tell us about the elephant in the room: D J Trump is about policy only if it suits his purpose of getting into power. Trump is therefore ambivalent about abortion because he's primarily looking for votes. With Trump, policy is second to his ulterior policy; namely, Trump-power. To this end he will lie, lie and lie again. Even worse is that Trump is but a frontman and showman to those even more dangerous operators than Trump (such as Putin supporter Steve Bannon) who are waiting in the wings for Trump to get into power, destroy the America democratic constitution thus giving them a stake in an unholy scramble to the top of an unaccountable power pyramid absent of democratic checks and balances. Why isn't Ken telling us all about this? Because his organization depends on Trump & QAnon supporters.
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Now, Micheal Brown, unlike Ken Ham, has always come over to me as a nice reasonable person and I've always liked his tone. Moreover, he seems to have his eyes open about Trump-evil. But he too, like Ken, has been pulled into the orbit of Trump influence and power; Michael's ministry support base is, like Ken's, very dependent on the MAGA cult. Micheal therefore has a vested interest in not alienating the MAGA movement. So, after months if not years of equivocating on Trump-power he has at last come out in favour of voting for Trump (as I expected). The evidence of this open declaration of Trump support is clear from the quotes below which I have taken from this post of his:
In the following quotes the emphases are mine....
We cannot possibly vote for Kamala Harris for a host of reasons. But can we, in good conscience, vote for Donald Trump?
In short, the battle we are fighting is an existential one, with our most fundamental liberties under attack. And, many of us reason, Donald Trump, with all his shortcomings, is the best man for the job.
As Tucker Carlson [Another corrupt party - Ed] said in December 2019,
“If you're wondering why so many Christians have been willing to support this president despite his personal life, this is why: It's because whatever his flaws, he's made it clear that he's not the enemy of Christians.”
Many a Trump supporter would say, “Precisely so!”
But can we really look to Trump to fight for the things that are important for us? On Friday, August 23, he posted on Truth Social that if he is reelected, his “administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” What?! Here is an allegedly pro-life candidate using the misleading rhetoric of the pro-abortion camp (speaking of “reproductive rights” rather than the so-called right to abortion) and promising this “right” to women.
Talk about a deep betrayal of our values, also reflected in the GOP’s gutted 2024 platform, where the pro-life plank is virtually gone and all opposition to same-sex “marriage” has completely disappeared.
How, then, can Christian conservatives justify their vote for Trump?
Many would still argue that, despite his caving in on some of the issues most important to us and despite his many glaring character weaknesses, he will still do a better job on the economy, on securing our borders, on standing with Israel, on standing up to our international enemies.
Why, then, vote for Trump?
When pressed further on this issue, the answer would sound something like this: “We still believe that character counts and morality matters, but things have become so extreme in America that we have to elect a streetfighter, someone who stands up for our cause – not just for our good, but for the good of the generations to come.”
And so, overall, balancing out the pros and the cons, Trump is the better choice.
And if we do choose to vote for him, a choice that the vast majority of Christian conservatives will make, we must remember to keep our focus on Jesus and the gospel and to be sure that, to the extent Trump’s character deficiencies are a negative example, we distance ourselves from those deficiencies while setting the bar high in our lives and conduct.
We can vote for him without becoming like him.
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We can see from the above that Michael is encouraging a Trump vote, but he has completely lost the plot and has ignored the herd of T-Rex's in the room....
Micheal lets slip the real reason why he wants Trump: As we can see from the quotes above Micheal believes Trump to be a streetfighter who is on the side of Christians like himself and will therefore fight a dirty fight for their ministries, implement right-wing agendas around immigration and oppose China (but I suspect not oppose Putin's Orthodox Russia which Trump and Steve Bannon admire).
As long as Trump defends their ministries, they are prepared to pay the price of ignoring that herd of T-Rexs, of which both Ken and Michael say nothing......Nothing about those dubious stolen election stories. Nothing about the QAnon fantasy. Nothing about Trump's extreme supporters like Marjorie Taylor-Green, Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer, and white supremacists like Nick Fuentes. Nothing about Trump's lying accusations and conspiracy theory promotion. Nothing about those implausible accusations of Kamala being a communist. Nothing about Trump being a big step toward a corrupt criminal authoritarian autocracy where cleverer would-be-dictators are waiting in the wings for a Trump victory. Nothing about the trouble that the AR15 armed Trump militia are likely to cause if Trump isn't elected. Nothing about those rumors of civil war. Nothing about Trump's relationship with aspiring plutocrat, oligarch & naive crony capitalist Elon Musk. Nothing about the rampant conspiracy theorism of the Trump supporting far right. Nothing about signs that Trump will imprison political opponents. Nothing about those bogus "deep state" stories which prepare the naive mentality for the great fascist-like simplifications of top-down autocracy. Nothing about 1 Samuel 8:7-18 with its clear warning on the effects of the absolute rule of Godfathers.....and the list goes on and on....
Micheal of course might claim that all these stories are mischief making by a Democratic party who themselves are trying to criminally undermine democracy. But if that is true, why isn't he making this a good reason to vote Trump? That's because he can't afford to draw attention to this subject as it would take his support base dangerously close to the truth: After all, 2024 is far from a normal US election: It's not a case of democratically electing a right-wing but principled figure like a Ronald Reagan or a George Bush or a Margret Thatcher. There have been no hints in previous US elections about charging and imprisoning political opponents. Such talk has only surfaced since Trump appeared on the scene. All this and with armed Trump supporters at the ready if the election system doesn't go their way it is clear that this is a dysfunctional election. But Ham and Brown have a vested interest in not drawing attention to this dysfunctionality because that would be too telling.
For Ken and Micheal, it's really all about keeping their Trump voting support base sweet and ensuring the survival of their ministries; they simply can't afford to alienate their supporter base. Ken Ham isn't the nicest of persons (See also here) and his authoritarianism readily comes to the surface and this chimes with the sentiments of the far-right. Micheal, however, is of different stuff; he can sense the conflict, but in the end he's captive to the Trump tribe. Both have sold out to the gross evils of Trumpism in order to preserve their ministries.
In this post of mine are some thoughts as to the reason why we are at a juncture where North American Evangelicals have sold out to a corrupt movement. In that post I quoted one commentator who had studied the subject, and this is what he said regarding the 2016 election:
RELEVANT LINKS
1. Threats of imprisonment
Liberals go into meltdown after Trump vows to jail political enemies (msn.com)
2. The Political Pied Piper
3. Ken's rule driven morality
Views, News and Pews: The dangers of rule driven morality. (viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com)
4. History of right-wing evangelicalism
Views, News and Pews: Origins of the US Evangelical Right (viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com)
5. Panda's Thumb's view
Tax-exempt AIG attacks Presidential candidate, may be reported to IRS (pandasthumb.org)
6. Persecution of Gays
X refuses to take down post falsely accusing Rev Richard Coles of being a paedophile (msn.com)
7. Scientific American endorses Kamala
Quotes worth noting: Trump peddles lies and conspiracy theories....
“The US faces two futures,” the editors wrote, pushing one candidate who “offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience.”
They continued: “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.”
The article highlights Trump’s baseless claim during the debate that some states allow a person to obtain an abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy, and calling it “execution after birth.”
“No state allows this,” Scientific American clarified. The magazine also emphasized that Trump refused to answer whether he would veto a national abortion ban.
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