This week in Washington, D.C., the ultra-conservative Family Research Council held its annual Values Voters Summit. Although it's difficult these days to discern precisely what these sanctimonious blowhards regard as "values" considering their unwavering support for a philandering president on his third marriage, who breaks up families and puts the babies in cages, who is openly bigoted, who brags about sexually assaulting women, and whose policies harm the most vulnerable Americans.
Among the speakers at this Christianist revival meeting were Republican heavyweights Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, Sebastian Gorka, Ben Carson, and Mike Pompeo. Donald Trump made it last year, but skipped this year's summit in favor of holding his own cult rallies in Las Vegas and Missouri. But that didn't dampen the spirits of the attendees who were treated to some stemwinding political sermons.
One of the most most noteworthy was the address by Sandy Rios, a director of the American Family Association and a Fox News contributor. For part of her speech she chose to enlighten the audience with a passage from the Bible's Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy. Her intention was to malign liberals and Democrats as heathens and sinners. However, the words had a familiar ring that she was too tone deaf to hear (video below):
"In the last days perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters. I just want you to think of each of these things without me even elaborating. Boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers. Can we say 'Judge Kavanaugh'? Without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors. Shall we say 'deep state'? headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."
Can she hear herself? There is no one in public life who fits that description better than Donald Trump. As a malignant narcissist, he is a diagnosed lover of himself. He's an alleged billionaire who continues to illegally enrich himself via his office. As an Olympic-grade boaster he has no challengers. His ego is totally unrestrained. He’s a blasphemer who said that he doesn’t need to ask God for forgiveness. Every single one of the critiques in that verse fit Trump like a glove. And not the least among them the charge of slanderer, i.e. liar. And do we even have to mention the part about being a traitor?
The fact that Rios could read through that paragraph and not see the resemblance to the president she reveres is proof positive of the effect that cult worship has on these evangelical fakers. They simply don't care about Trump's obvious moral failings so long as he promises to strip women of their reproductive freedoms and deport everyone with brownish skin. And it's that disregard for the values they claim to uphold that exposes them as purely political operatives. A church that is so closely associated with shame is not serving its faith by letting these hypocrites get away with this - let's say blasphemy.