They want to put the Ten Commandments in schools. They want a Christian Nationalist society.
And yet…. “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” This falsehood is going to get people killed. Bomb threats and schools closing over threats of mass shootings are happening in Springfield. JD Vance admits he made it up. And Trump keeps pushing it.
Eighth Commandment (Catholic or #9 Protestant): “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” That’s the way Sister Theresa taught us in third grade. (She also taught us that looking out of the window at the trees at the edge of the field was good for the eyes. “Green is good for the eyes,” she actually said. She was very old-school. She told us that there was absolutely nothing that Jesus despised more than hypocrites and the falsely pious. She also taught us how to diagram sentences.) Bearing false witness, she warned us, was more than just lying. Lying wasn’t good, but it wasn’t a mortal sin. What was a mortal sin was accusing someone else of doing something bad that they didn’t do, and you knew that they didn’t do, but you lied about them anyway to your own selfish gain. For example, a surefire ticket straight to hell would be repeating the lie that Haitian immigrants are killing pets because you (in this case Vance and then Trump) wanted to score political points. (The only way to avoid going to hell would be confession, and for it to work, one had to be truly sorry, which Vance and Trump never are.)
I haven’t been a Catholic for a loooong time. And I couldn’t diagram a sentence to save my life these days. But sometimes when I look at trees in the distance, I remember Sister Theresa. However, this example of supreme hypocrisy on the part of Vance and the evangelical supporters of Trump has me thinking about her a lot. I’m pretty sure that Trump has dementia, which might give him a pass in this case, although I'm pretty sure that Sister Theresa would say he was going to go to hell because of all the crap he’s done his whole life and isn’t sorry for any of it. (But she would also remind me not to judge, lest I be judged. So there’s that.) But Vance’s and Trump’s beautiful Christians “who never will have to vote again because he’s going to fix things so good?”
