I tried giving the Capitol riot mob the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were infiltrated by provocateurs to turn a peaceful protest into a disaster. But as the people who assaulted police officers and broke windows have been rounded up and questioned, it turns out they are all rabid Trump supporters. They didn’t have a temporary fit of insanity that day. The madness was a long time coming, all the while fed and cultivated by Donald J Trump.

In this thread, I’m going to look at the Trump phenomenon from a religious perspective. After all, he hijacked the religious right to do his bidding. Even now, they believe the big lie. The vaporware narrative of stolen elections, the conspiracy theories, and the messianic stature of Mr “grab them by the p”. Trump led them down the garden path to leave them swinging in the wind, a real life example of a Lucifer figure.

The reason so many people hitched their wagon to DJT is that he was set up as a messiah. Just what they were looking for. In hindsight obviously a false one, but at the time it was a case of “Even the very elect shall be deceived”. So it’s possible that DJT is the fulfillment of prophecy after all. Although Trump is the ultimate embodiment, religions made money their God a long time ago. What we may have just witnessed is the metaphorical fall of Babylon.

It seems we have reached a turning point. America will be different now. The Antichrist, if Trump is that, is gone. His empire, collapsed like a house of cards. His family, thoroughly disgraced. So maybe this is the year things start looking up and a new golden age dawns.

There was a liberal Utahn, it transpires, in the mob. I strongly suspect there were a few others--not instigators but rather unbalanced hangers-on.

As for the rest of your post, it basically requires that we accept the Bible and biblical prophesies as true. Many of us won't follow you there. Trump is no more an anti-Christ than Hitler (also welcomed as the savior of Christian civilization), or Alexander in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, or any number of other charlatans who expediently availed themselves of the religious mantle.

I also reckon you are too optimistic (since we share a general worldview) about Trump and his movement. The grievances of his supporters will remain until the underlying problems are at least partially remedied; and the man himself has a lot of money and a lot of followers. It will take years if not decades to reunite the country after this debacle.



ETA: Social media are also a huge and complex challenge. We can't allow polarization-for-profit businesses to run amuck and yet having a few aging adolescent billionaires make decisions for society is equally nonsensical.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2021 03:01AM by Lot's Wife.

Cold-Dodger's incredible post in another thread touches on the same subject:

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2356779

I too think that you are rather too optimistic, Bradley. Sure, Trump was the messianic figurehead, but his supporters are still out there, most of them still supporting him on the basis of the lies they've chosen to believe. We have to get those people back closer to the real world, because being angry when the real world doesn't match the fantasy that you've been sold is sad and dangerous. After all, unlike in Europe (mostly), your extreme-right are armed!

Mormons, prosperity gospel followers, right wing evangelicals, christofascists, and other white Christian identity movements have all created their own version of Jesus Christ based on a projection of themselves.


There is not one antichrist.
There are many.


#45 is so obviously twisted and utterly corrupt and devoid of human compassion or feeling he certainly fits the description the false messiah:

"For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."

—Matthew 24:24


But here's the dilemma: For #45 = 666 to lead the righteous astray assumes the righteous were righteous to begin with.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2021 07:38AM by anybody.

There was a faction of the U.S. that was already who they were, keeping their ways to themselves, though, because their views were not tolerable to a kinder society. "Someone" made them feel that they had a license to act on their views. Their ways had been championed.

They are legion now. They have been empowered by the "Beast." The slaps in the face they just got are nothing to them. In their minds, the game is on and they don' necessarily need the Coach anymore.

The game is not over by a long shot.

Trump never fooled anyone; they fooled themselves, ever so willingly.

If he is the Anti-Christ then the mark of The Beast is a red hat made in China?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvsCwPVkBsQ

That is so inspiring a message. I think I'll take to FB to tell everyone to not follow DJT anymore...wait, my feed isn't as pro-DJT as it used to be.

BTW, happy National Hat Day!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2021 02:03PM by Elder Berry.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BTW, happy National Hat Day!
>

Thanks but I don't wear a Happy National Hat.

Mine is International.
But it fits!

It is also International Fetish Day! YAY :)

I have a Hat Fetish

What A Day!
What a way-

♡HEY♡

Even if Revelations was true, this seems like a silly game to play. Without a lot of effort I could see my dog filling the role. The number of times I've had to deal with her shenanigans this week alone...

LOL, Humberto

HAHA. HA.

Vague prophecies can be bent to fit practically anything, as John, Nostradamus, and every astrologer ever are well aware of.

You Can Fool Some People Sometimes... But You Can't Fool ALL THE PEOPLE All The Time (Bob Marley & The Wailers)

He's like the Mormon 'church', or any other divisive, overbearing, disingenuous, or hateful person, governmental body or other secretive or harmful person, group, or organization, surely putting themselves above reprove, bowling over EVERYBODY they wish, on the way to the trough.

If they don't get their way they whine, throw punches, and LOUDLY cry out. They will smear you like a wet marker line. It's like a two-way mirror. They only like looking at one side (the wrong side [that they can't see through]).

He doesn't care about neighbors, laws, formalities, respect for this county!... but about plundering, pillaging, sidelining, alienating, disassociating, ill-preparation, [others] fighting, making a mess, flip-flopping, double-dipping, sneaking-a-peek, lying, thieving, financial manipulation, corrupt connections and associations, other's bidding, single-sided-followers, media (persona) manipulation, and other indescribable, despicable, abhorrent, illicit behaviors...

With a now disgraced family name, bringing shame to himself, people once thought "friends" (he has no friends, it is said) the government of the U.S.A., and humanity at large, he double-speaks: You Respect Me And I'll (probably) Disrespect You [sooner or later] (given half the chance).

He believes in strongarming.
Can he armwrestle Arnold S.?

But can he walk the streets of his country, or the world, like Great Men always felt like they could.

By putting a mark or a stain (which usually comes from a markER) on otherwise Great People, the environment, jobs, health, the U.S. postal service, the W.H.O., and America at large, and he may have put one on himself. Ironic? Perhaps.

Sad. for sure

He's built his walls though
All 3 miles (he visited a few weeks ago). Now, can he climb them?0

"Unconfirmed sources report that Eric Trump was so depressed about the family failure that he locked himself inside a closed garage for over an hour with his Tesla running."

You are a bad man, DtA.

Shocking! :0

I see Trump as being the kind of person who uses other people's religion to his own ends. He is rather like Joseph Smith, Jr. in that regard. So IMO he's a narcissist and possibly a sociopath.

I accept that he calls himself a Christian, and likely attends church at least occasionally. But I used to regularly attend his church in NYC, and never once saw him there. So I got quite the chuckle when he had a photo op waiving a bible in the air, and at how he has tried hard to appeal to the evangelicals.

I read a news report that talked about how Trump reacted to the protest and incursion. He was reportedly watching events on TV, and he made a comment on how "low class" his supporters appeared. Maybe his supporters should let that sink in.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I used to regularly attend his church in NYC, and never once saw him there. >

He is usually only found where people are worshipping him so he wouldn't work there (or anywhere).

> So I got quite the chuckle when he had a photo op waiving a bible in the air...
>

To SHOVE beautiful protesters aside

> I read a news report that talked about how Trump reacted to the protest and incursion. He was reportedly watching events on TV, and he made a
> comment on how "low class" his supporters
> appeared. Maybe his supporters should let that
> sink in.

He can ONLY watch, because he can't make, TV.

He wanted to see the results of his decisions, and indecisions.

How Low Class he is

> I read a news report that talked about how Trump
> reacted to the protest and incursion. He was
> reportedly watching events on TV, and he made a
> comment on how "low class" his supporters
> appeared. Maybe his supporters should let that
> sink in.

Here you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5STRpmeTCY4&feature=youtu.be

Sure, could be, of course. Why not.

Could stick him in the "Anti-Christ Box" and everything suddenly pleasingly makes sense -- but need to first have an "Anti-Christ Box" to begin with.

And the bugger of it all, is embroidered box or no box at all, it could simply be
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=plZRe1kPWZw

Decades ago I watched the videos and read the books called The Left Behind Series. When all the craziness started I kept wondering about the series thinking we are there. Both had masses of people hysterically following a cult leader.