The memes fly fast and furious with evangelicals. I should know; I’m surrounded by them and so I get to ride the bumpy ride of reading their Facebook posts, which lately are filled with their various sorry excuses for why they’d vote for a cheating, selfish, arrogant, prideful, nasty, all around horrible man this election. Someone that no one would ever find a way to compare to Jesus. Someone that Jesus would never consider supporting for anything higher than trash collector. It’s been fascinating reading these various excuses over time, with the Horrors of Hillary being the most consistent.
However, I find the most recent the most amusing.
Yesterday, my sister, whom I swear is actually a loving caring person in reality, posted a recent meme of theirs to the effect that she was more worried about Hillary’s actions than Trump’s words. Now I, being the sole sane member of my extensive family (or so I thought), avidly refrain from even dipping my toe into anything remotely political or religious with them and avidly ignore their political posts. However, the emotional upheaval that Trump’s horrible comments created made me ignore my own rule and I responded with something to the effect “But don’t Trump’s words say that he took the action of sexually assaulting women and doesn’t that matter?” Lo and behold, a miracle happened. Her granddaughter, my great niece, also added a comment essentially saying that Trump is all the things that she (my sister) and her mother (my niece) have always warned against — arrogant, rude, etc. etc. Bless her heart, there IS another person in the family that has some sense. You have no idea how reading that post warmed the cockles of my heart!
Apparently, our two posts had some kind of impact on my sister, something I never expected. But a post from her today indicates that she has decided to abandon Trump! She’s actually decided she can no longer feel comfortable voting for him. But, being the good evangelical she is, she still can not possibly vote for the horrible, horrible Clinton (and I still have no idea what those horrible, horrible things Clinton has done are — expect it has something to do with not thinking women should be forced to bear children they’re not ready for). And apparently there are more than a few evangelicals feeling the same way. But what to do, what to do? They don’t want to just not vote. They don’t seem to even consider voting third party.
But Wait! There is an out to this. They’re not going to vote for Trump!! They’re not going to vote for a president at all!! No, instead, they’re just going to vote for a vice president!! The vice presidential candidate they think would be best. (Which of course is going to be Pence, surprise, surprise.) And somehow that will make their voting for Trump actually not a vote for Trump. Somehow.
Sigh. I guess for people that do have basically good, decent instincts, the need to twist yourself into pretzels to justify making a decision based on what those getting very wealthy off your religion are telling you to do affects your brain function big time. But yes. That is their new meme out today. “I’m not going to vote for Trump because he truly is a horrible, bad person who will make a terrible president. Instead, I’m going to pretend he’s not on the ticket and I’ll vote for Pence as vice president.”
Well, at least I still have hope for one family member. Maybe Thanksgiving won’t be the disaster I expect.