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Unworthy of the citizens of a republic

Unworthy of the citizens of a republic

Last updated on: October 14, 2016 at 10:05 pm by Dan Peterson

Unworthy of the citizens of a republic 2016-10-14T22:05:57-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It’s probably already time to reprise this prophetic 1457 painting (supposedly of of Saint Sebastian) by Andreas Mantegna (Wikimedia Commons)

“As you have seen, I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country,” said Mr. Donald J. Trump at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday night. “They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

That’s right. The Trumpist movement is greater than the American Revolution, greater than the effort to ratify the Constitution, greater than abolitionism, greater than Reconstruction, greater than Prohibition or the campaign for women’s suffrage, greater than the military and agricultural and industrial effort that defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, greater than the Civil Rights movement, greater than America’s victorious opposition to Communism in the Cold War.

And why is it so . . . well, great? Because it’s led by One the latchet of whose shoes neither Martin Luther King nor Harriet Tubman, neither Thomas Jefferson nor Susan B. Anthony, neither Franklin D. Roosevelt nor Ronald Reagan is worthy to unloose.

But He’s offering Himself for us.

As He put it already back on 30 September, in Novi, Michigan, He’s facing “the greatest pile-on in the history of America.”

But He won’t give up

I’m doing it for everybody. Who knows? I’m doing it for everybody. I’m doing it for you.

She doesn’t know you like I know you. You are the smartest people, we’re the strongest people, we’re the most loyal people ever to be involved in a campaign.

I call you hard-working American patriots, and together we are going to save this country.

And we’re not going to have a second chance, folks. If we don’t do it on November 8, it is not going to happen. If we have to have Barack Obama-but-worse for four more years, I honestly believe our country can never recover. . . .

You have 39 days before the election. You have 39 days to make every dream you’ve ever dreamed for your country come true. Do not let this opportunity slip away.

That’s every dream. He will give you everything.

“This is our moment of reckoning as a society and as a civilization itself,” Mr. Trump declared in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday. “This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization.”

“I alone can fix it!” says Mr. Trump.

“L’Etat, c’est moi,” King Louis XIV of France is reported to have declared to the Parliament of Paris. “I am the State.”

No more of that tired old conservative “limited government” nonsense. We want a State that has the power to grant us our every wish and every desire. And we want a Leader.

Consider these words, from the late German government official Rudolf Hess:

Die Partei ist Hitler!
Hitler aber ist Deutschland
wie Deutschland Hitler ist!

The Party is Hitler!
But Hitler is Germany,
as Germany is Hitler!

Such sentiments are so profoundly (small “r”) unrepublican, and the response of too many to them so incredibly servile, that I’m embarrassed for my country. Mr. Trump will lose next month. Decisively, I believe. But alas, not so decisively as to remove the shame from the Party that nominated him and from the millions of voters who enthusiastically endorsed him back when they had plenty of genuinely conservative options.

“Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. (1 Samuel 8:4-7)

Posted from Cedar City, Utah

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