How much does Donald Trump suck? Donald Trump sucks so much that he may be altering the face of American religion itself.
For decades, the Mennonites’ objection to war was the most notable intersection of their community and politics. But that might be changing now as a result of Trump’s executive order on immigration, a policy he reissued Monday after an earlier version was rebuffed by the courts.
Assisting immigrants, especially refugees, is a central tenant of the Mennonite faith. The plight of immigrants and refugees is especially resonant for many Mennonites, who fled from Europe to the New World hundreds of years ago in the face of religious persecution.
All right, so perhaps Trump's core platform of racism and paranoia is not shifting the foundations of American religious belief—though if we’re to be honest about it, it probably should. But that quote is from a very nice McClatchy profile of Mennonite protesters, a phrase that didn't exist a few years ago. Mennonites, like several other conservative-leaning Christian groups, give politics a wide berth as a matter of religious principle. The Trump team's overt hostility toward refugees, though, is too far.
[Lindsey Martin Corbo]'s outlook changed in January, the Saturday morning after Trump first issued his executive order on immigration. The news devastated Corbo.
“I cried. I cried a lot,” Corbo said. “We had guests there. I scared my husband because I was not coherent because I was crying. I just thought it was so incredibly mean, the way we were speaking about people who are in a really terrible situation.” [...]
Their anger compelled them to take action. They attended the Women’s March on Washington in January before participating in what Corbo described as “every sort of organization and meeting we could attend.”
She's now founded her own group to research immigration issues and groups.
So there's a bit of positive news, after weeks of bad. No, the opposition to Trump's cruel acts isn't going away. If anything it's still growing, as his blatantly racist and mean-spirited policies convince more and more Americans that they have a moral duty to oppose those acts.