the organizing principle that runs through the campaign of the Republican Party’s likely nominee isn’t adherence to a political philosophy — Mr. Trump has no discernible political philosophy — but an encouragement to political violence.
.. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Mr. Trump said about a protester in Nevada. (“In the old days,” Mr. Trump fondly recalled, protesters would be “carried out in a stretcher.”)
.. When two brothers beat up a homeless Latino man last summer and cited Mr. Trump’s words as their justification — “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men reportedly told the police — Mr. Trump responded by saying that while this was a shame, “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate.” His supporters, he said, “love this country and they want this country to be great again — they are passionate.”
.. Note Mr. Trump’s linkage of violence, passion, anger and love of country.
.. Because we can no longer deny what Mr. Trump is and what he represents.
Who is Paula White, Donald Trump’s ‘spiritual counselor’?
White, who has emerged this year as one of Donald Trump’s most stalwart religious supporters, and has been called Trump’s “spiritual counselor” by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, brought forward three other pastors to pray.
.. As Trump looks to a tough election in November, he needs prominent conservative evangelicals to smooth his way with a constituency that has given 75 to 80 percent of its votes to Republican nominees in recent decades.
.. Russell Moore, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm and is one of Trump’s loudest public critics, recently called White a “charlatan” and a “heretic” — serious charges — on Twitter.
Moore told Yahoo News that White preaches a “prosperity gospel” that falsely claims that “God’s favor is seen in increasing wealth and freedom from sickness” and that emphasizes — often to lower-income, less-educated congregants — that the more money they give to the church, the more God will bless them.
.. “Father, we just secure him right now by the blood of Jesus. We thank you that no weapon formed against him would prosper, and any tongue that rises against him would be condemned, according to the word of God,” White prayed, one hand on Trump’s stomach and the other on his arm.
.. Linne named Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland, along with White, as “false teachers.”
.. There is, however, no question that White is extremely wealthy. Her salary is not known, but she has been reported to receive a multimillion-dollar income and reportedly owns a $3.5 million apartment in Trump Tower.
.. “His plans are not our plans,” White said, smiling. “Here [Trump] is, the nominee. That has to be providence. That has to be the hand of God.”
After the interview, Brody told viewers, “Forget politics for a moment. [White]’s an integral player in Trump’s faith walk.”
.. “I think the Christian community, when they come out for Trump, it weakens our position because — What do you really stand for?,” Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, told Yahoo News. “This guy’s belligerent. He’s denigrating. He’s everything we’re not. But people are so desperate to change things.”
.. White and Trump — who have known each other for more than a decade — share another experience that makes them targets for skeptics in the evangelical community: They have each been married multiple times. Both are on their third marriage, in fact, and have been the subjects of infidelity reports.
.. Years after the two divorced, she met Jonathan Cain on a flight, and the two were married in 2015. Cain is the keyboardist for arena rock band Journey and wrote one of the band’s most famous songs, “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
(Journey’s fame was resurrected in 2007 when HBO’s “The Sopranos” used “Don’t Stop Believin’” in the final scene of its series finale. The band is now scheduled to play at the Republican convention next month in Cleveland.)
.. White has not only attached sacred importance to Trump’s candidacy, but she has also vouched for his character and his Christian credentials.
At the Orlando rally, she defended Trump and said that despite his public reputation, he was “a man who had more integrity than most people that I have encountered,” calling him “a compassionate man, a man who is very strong to his core.”
.. But in recent days, James Dobson, the past president of Focus on the Family, said publicly that he had heard that White had only recently “personally led [Trump] to Christ.”
.. Regardless of whether Trump is actually a born-again Christian, for older members of the religious right, his claims to be one of them might be enough, simply because they cannot bear the thought of Hillary Clinton as president.
“We have only two choices, Hillary or Donald. Hillary scares me to death,” Dobson said. “And if Christians stay home because he isn’t a better candidate, Hillary will run the world for perhaps eight years. The very thought of that haunts my nights and days.”
Opioid of the Masses
To many, Donald Trump feels good, but he can’t fix America’s growing social and cultural crisis, and the eventual comedown will be harsh.
.. During this election season, it appears that many Americans have reached for a new pain reliever. It too, promises a quick escape from life’s cares, an easy solution to the mounting social problems of U.S. communities and culture. It demands nothing and requires little more than a modest presence and maybe a few enablers. It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump.
.. The thing is, the media still talks about us like we lost that war!
.. The thing is, the media still talks about us like we lost that war! I like to think my dead friends accomplished something.” Imagine, for that man, the vengeful joy of a Trump rally. That brief feeling of power, of defiance, of sending a message to the very political and media establishment that, for 45 years, has refused to listen. Trump brings power to those who hate their lack of it, and his message is tonic to communities that have felt nothing but decline for decades.
.. Yet a common thread among Trump’s faithful, even among those whose individual circumstances remain unspoiled, is that they hail from broken communities.
.. Though the details differ, men and women like my neighbor represent, in the aggregate, a social crisis of historic proportions.
.. Not long ago, a teacher who works with at-risk youth in my hometown told me, “We’re expected to be shepherds to these children, but they’re all raised by wolves.” And those wolves are here—not coming in from Mexico, not prowling the halls of power in Washington or Wall Street—but here in ordinary American communities and families and homes.
.. What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution.
.. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing.
.. Yet so long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning. There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.
.. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of “Make America Great Again” for real medicine.
Attacked by Trump, Mexicans look to Jewish groups for help
The Mexican community needs to polish its image to the point that “there has to be some sort of cost if you attack Mexico or Mexican Americans,” added Siegel Vann, who is Mexican-American and Jewish. “The moment that there’s attacks, that Mexicans are called rapists, there has to be some sort of national outrage.”
.. “Those who want to make a political profit stigmatizing these people, be [they] Mexican, Jews, Muslims, people of color, Asians are wrong for this country was founded on the very principle, the self-evident truth that all men and women are endowed with the same unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said.
.. In March, a group of business leaders set up the American Mexico Public Affairs Committee to lobby lawmakers and educate U.S. voters about the two countries’ relationship. The group is modeling itself after AIPAC
.. American Jews have a long history of political activism, especially on civil liberties, and Jewish organizations have been at the forefront of condemning Trump for his many comments about Mexicans, Muslims and other minorities.
.. He then joked that a plane buzzing overhead could be from Mexico and “getting ready to attack.” He also gave a backhanded compliment to Mexicans, saying: “I respect their leaders. What they’ve done to us is incredible. Their leaders are so much smarter, so much sharper.”