Saturday, March 9, 2024

News bit 'n chunk: Christian nationalism on family sex; The final reality of the TTKP

Megachurch pastor warns Christian wives not to withhold 
sex from husbands as it’s unbiblical

With the approval of her co-pastor husband, Reginald Steele of Kingdom Church in Phoenix, Arizona, Kelley Steele warned Christian women in her congregation to avoid withholding sex from their husbands because it’s unbiblical and they could push their husbands in the arms of “some trick, some ho, some homewrecker that will give him exactly what he needs with no rules.”

“I fear the Lord first, so it makes submission easy. If you don’t like what he’s doing, you still have to submit. If you don’t feel like submitting, you have to do it to honor Jesus,” Kelley Steel told her congregation.  
“What if he’s not acting right. What if he’s not following God? This is your husband now, what if he’s not living for Jesus. Let me tell you what the Bible says. In 1 Peter 3:1 it says, ‘wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,’” she explained.
Woof!! Maybe this Christian nationalism thing is better than I thought. I thought it was just a creepy cult. But it is more, much more! (sarc) 
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MSNBC reports that DJT has formally taken control of the TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party) and is poised to turn it into his personal piggybank:
On Friday, the Republican National Committee officially voted to install Donald Trump’s hand-picked nominees to oversee the RNC’s operations — and, perhaps more importantly, its finances — in the run-up to this year’s elections.

After Trump and his supporters pushed out (now freshly resigned chair) Ronna McDaniel, the MAGA movement installed in her place a pair of even more ardent loyalists — exemplified by the former president’s own daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who has vowed to spend “every penny” of the RNC’s money to elect Trump. Elected as her co-chair is Michael Whatley, an election denier who previously led the North Carolina GOP. And serving as the RNC’s chief of staff alongside those two is Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, a Swift Boat campaigner who’s functioned as the former president’s personal attack dog.

With that, Donald Trump has essentially turned the Republican Party into another of his family businesses. It’s certainly insular and (if you take Lara Trump’s word for it) singularly focused on her father-in-law’s success. For Republicans’ sake, they ought to pray the RNC doesn’t go the way of other ventures that had "Trump" on the label, like Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump University, Trump Airlines, etc., etc.  
What makes the timing of this takeover more noteworthy is that it comes on the same day Trump meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a bigoted authoritarian who has sat atop his Fidesz Party for most of the last 30 years and used anti-democratic means — like gerrymandering and attacks on press freedoms — to harden its political power in ways some fear could keep Orban in power indefinitely. (He’s already the longest-serving leader in the European Union at 14 years.)

Trump’s RNC takeover, paired with his Orban meeting, signals the conservative [wrong, it is authoritarian] movement's race toward a truly illiberal agenda. Like Orban, Trump has assumed full control of his party. Now, I suspect, comes the self-serving spending and another Republican platform that's only designed to put Trump in the White House and to ensure he can stay there as long as he wants.
The moral rot that DJT spreads to everything he touches has now completely engulfed and destroyed what used to be the pro-democracy Republican Party. The floodgates of kleptocracy are open. If donors pay in enough to the TTKP, they can expect the services they want from DJT if he gets back in power. What services? The usual, more wealth and power, with less taxes, regulations and consumer and worker protections.  

Lest we forget, this 5 minute interview explains why the TTKP holds Viktor Orban in such high esteem. He knows how to efficiently kill democracy. The TTKP has learned from him. An earlier post about him is here.


  • Orban gained power in 2010 based on nationalist and racist demagoguery and dog whistle culture war. People open to this kind of message flocked to him and put him in power. His demagoguery created a false narrative of White victimization and dire threat of Whites by non-White people and globalization. 
 
  • Once in power Orban changed election rules to destroy free and fair elections. Elections after he came to power were heavily rigged. He has now been elected in three consecutive, heavily-rigged elections after gaining power in 2010. Those faux elections are the basis for his claim to legitimacy.

  • At the same time he destroyed elections, Orban neutered other aspects of Hungarian democracy. He got rid of professional public servants loyal to the rule of law and the people of Hungary. He replaced them with people loyal to him. 

  • Republicans see what Orban has done as a proof of concept in how to overthrow a democracy. The Orban democracy kill model is shockingly simple: 
(1) start with culture wars to whip up a loyal base of public support, 
(2) once in power, manipulate the rules of democracy and government functions to cement minority rule, and 
(3) “win” rigged elections to stay in power.

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