US Politics

Always surprises me how big a part religion plays in politics over there. I guess it’s the only way to win the Midwest and maybe even the south?

But clearly self enrichment/the economy is more important than jeebus otherwise Trump would never have gotten in in the first place.

Yeah. This is tough. Lots of East Coast Catholics, Midwest Protestants and Southern Baptists and general Evangelicals.

Personally I hate it. I am a huge believer in the separation of Church / State and have always been annoyed by even the "In God We Trust" on currency.

Also spending lots of time growing up in the city with the largest Baptist population in the US, I have developed a strong loathing of the underpinning behavioural hypocrisy of "Christians." Trump is a prime example of this hypocrisy. His personal life should leave him shunned by the people who selectively quote Bible passages to justify their prejudices, but they embrace him because "Jesus Forgives." The Bible allows them to hold those contradictions in their heads.

Trump is a strange one. If you actually pay attention to him, he's a blank canvas. He has no original thoughts of his own and his own speeches are word salads that people can, and have, interpreted with their own meaning. He is a terrible communicator in that respect, he cannot articulate a clear idea so people fill in the blanks on their own. I think it is why he was able to pull together such a broad coalition of traditional Republicans, evangelicals, working class, rich, poor, nationalists and racists.

Everyone was able to project what they wanted onto his flabby orange canvas.

They all feel betrayed for different reasons, but ultimately it reflects onto them. The "stab in the back" was watched real time and the knife wielder was their own guy. Trump has only ever been about Trump - he remains the thin skinned narcissist everyone warned about in 2015. But that was not what people wanted to see. It was a mass delusion.

Hopefully the spell will remain broken, a narrowly averted serious mistake. The Republicans will throw him under the bus in the impeachment. Trump will not be able to form a political party and run again. His "Brand" will forever be tainted and his kids will run his empire into the ground as his funding sources disappear.

It is unlikely that anyone will have enough charisma to form and run a Patriot Party. Pompeo? Tumps kids? Twitter based pundits? No. The current elected nut jobs will be turfed out at the next election as no one will fund them (Cruz and Hawley are dead in the water long term). You will still end up with the odd 2A idiot in place but the NRA are in for a long and expensive fight and their influence will wane until that is over.

After watching the past 5 years from afar but through the lenses of my family back home, I am hopeful long term that things will calm down. For all of its faults, the US is still a great place, but like everywhere else, it needs a lot of work. The side show has been exhausting and a terrible distraction to the important shit that needs doing. I'm looking forward to the boring functioning of a well organised government working towards the betterment of its people.