Yesterday, I asked Mary Lee if she'd read the piece about President Trump's advisor, Steve Bannon, I'd linked to at the end of the hillbilly post?
The stream of hatred the press passes off as news about Bannon makes him out to be President Trump's Rasputin. Rosie O'Donnell agrees, so this morning she announced she wants to play the man on SNL. The man Bannon, you understand.
Mary Lee said she hadn't read the Bannon profile. If you haven't read it either, you simply must.
Some teasers. After introducing Bannon as a man who is "embracing... a fringe cast of ultra-conservative figures," the piece goes on to define Bannon's fringe ultra-conservatism...
Bannon’s political philosophy boils down to three things that a Western country, and America in particular, needs to be successful: Capitalism, nationalism, and “Judeo-Christian values.”
Capitalism, nationalism, and the Ten Commandments are fringe, ultra-conservatism?
The downward trend began with the 1960s and ’70s counterculture. “The baby boomers are the most spoiled, most self-centered, most narcissistic generation the country’s ever produced,” says Bannon in a 2011 interview.
Uh, yeah.
...the basis of a successful society should not be abstract notions like human rights, social justice, or equality. Rather, societies work best when traditions that have been shown to work are passed from generation to generation. The baby boomers, Bannon says in a lecture given to the Liberty Restoration Foundation (LRF), failed to live up to that Burkean responsibility by abandoning the tried-and-true values of their parents (nationalism, modesty, patriarchy, religion) in favor of new abstractions (pluralism, sexuality, egalitarianism, secularism).
Well said—particularly the part about "abstract notions." Followed by this:
...human rights and civil society do not come from anything abstract, but from tradition. For Bannon, this tradition is God; nation-states that establish people as the arbiters of truth and justice will ultimately give way to tyranny. The “ultimate check on the power of the state is God’s teaching,” says Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson in Torchbearer, the 2016 documentary that Bannon co-wrote, directed and produced.
Now we understand the chattering class frothing at the mouth about the guy. It's always and only about the Father Almighty. They hate God, and they employ the power of the state to proselytize their hatred, selling it as freedom.
Islam’s “war” against Christianity “originated almost from [Islam’s] inception.”
I'd quibble with "almost."
Finally this:
Bannon’s diatribes against the media brim with spite toward journalists’ arrogance, superiority, and naivety. ...he told the New York Times that the media “should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while. I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”
Bingo. Now read the whole thing.
We'll see how this whole Trump thing ends up. Nobody knows.
But again, the thing I want to emphasize is the almost-perfect choices they're making in enemies.
Calvin College students and alumni are demonstrating the expensive Christian education their profs feed them by having hissy-fits over President Trump's choice of fellow alumna Betsy DeVos for his Secretary of Education?
I've never liked Amway and I don't know Mrs. DeVos. I did read she served as an elder at Mars Hill under Rob Bell. Still, Calvin's hissy fits bode well for her.
I keep telling myself that half our nation can't really believe that these things Bannon stands for are beyond the pale? Yet there it is, in black and white.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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