In a Washington Post column last week, Michael Gerson, former George W. Bush speech writer and Post columnist, criticized Sean Hannity of Fix News for exploiting the tragic death of Seth Rich for political gain.
Rich was a young staff member of the National Democratic Committee who was shot to death in the nation’s capitol in a senseless crime.
To use Gerson’s characterization of it, Hannity, “…without evidence, accused Rich rather than the Russians of leaking damaging DNC emails.”
On a daily basis Hannity fomented his vile bile about Rich until his bosses said enough. They disavowed the story, admitted it was not true, and an unrepentant Hannity is now on an extended “vacation.”
Reflecting on Hannity’s actions, Gerson wrote: “The conservative mind, in some very visible cases, has become diseased” (emphasis added).
Explaining what he meant he continued: “The movement has been seized by a kind of discrediting madness…With the blessings of a president, they have abandoned the normal constraints of reason and compassion. They have allowed political polarization to reach their hearts, and harden them. They have allowed polarization to dominate their minds, and empty them.”
You can’t shoot any straighter than that.
The radical right and its ordinary American minions like the ones who respond to my blogs have no respect for reason or restraint.
Montana Republicans just elected Greg Gianforte to the House of Representatives after he body slammed a reporter to the ground. James Buchak, a Republican Party District Chair, wants to use members of private militia groups to protect Republican office holders.
Around the country Republican politicians and voters continue to repeat unsubstantiated claims about liberals, about President Obama, about Trump’s achievements, showing no embarrassment by either their falsehoods or their vulgarity.
Recently one of them wrote me insisting that Trump was “at least” restoring respect for America around the world.
I will go out on a limb and say this person had not read (or did not know about) the editorial that appeared in De Spiegel, Germany’s most prominent new magazine, that said bluntly:
“Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it.”
It is no wonder that Michael Gerson believes his party is suffering from a “diseased mind.”
But for people like me who are Christian, the most difficult part of Trump’s presidency is the support he continues to receive from evangelicals.
To argue that his political stand against abortion and gay marriage are enough for them to overlook everything else is a disturbing example of a “diseased mind” that has corrupted people to the point where they see right and call it wrong, evil and call it good.
It is not enough anymore for other Christians to disagree with Trump evangelicals. We must now speak the truth about them.
They are, quite simply, not Christian.
I don’t consider it extreme in the least to suggest that their words in Jesus’ mouth would have made him vomit; their actions in his life would have made him sick.
The degree to which conservatives in general and evangelicals in particular will be successful in infecting our nation with their “diseaseed” thinking remains to be seen.
What is abundantly clear, though, is that they are too “sick” to understand the damage they are doing or even to care.
Our challenge between now and 2018 is to make sure they do not create a full blown plague.
linnposts.com 
Diseased or possessed, something is desperately wrong with the folks with whom I once affiliated. Claiming that Jesus approves their agenda has got to be blasphemy.
You’re not alone, Gene, and now is the time for us to reclaim the gospel from their political corruption of it. Thanks for commenting.
The story of Greg Gianforte is of interest to me, because the reporter he assaulted worked from the Guardian, which is the newspaper I read. That and something I saw on Facebook about an “evangelist” who believes that your country (sic) “…needs a more violent form of christianity” makes me think yet again of an Austrian who once dreamed a dream.
Franz Jaegerstaetter dreamt one night of a train going round a mountain, on which a whole throng of people wanted to travel. In the dream, even Franz himself felt got caught in the rush to get on board. But then, a voice whispered in his ear, that “…this train is going to hell. On no account board it, even if it costs you your life”. Thus began his Franz’s own journey to his refusal to fight for Hitler, and to his death by beheading in August 1943. His story is told in a film called “The Refusal”, which can be accessed on You Tube.
Writing as a child of the 1960s, I’m grateful that my generation of UK citizens was spared the experience of having to go to war. But with people like Trump in the White House, I’m sometimes fearful that my life, which began in 1954 with the public memories of a war just gone, may well end in the fact of another. Particularly with Donald Trump driving the train…
Your worry, Nigel, is shared by many of us here in the states.
The name of the “evangelist” I referred to was one David Daubenmire.
Nigel, Daubenmire is not a minister, he is a former coach who is right wing nut who is just plain ignorant, especially of Christianity. Social media has given him voice. In the not too distant past he would have lived on the fringes of civilized society where he still belongs.
Amen I say and amen again. Exactly. Acresounding YES
Thank you for this strong affirmation of what I wrote, Peggy.
The current regime is without a doubt opposed to Christian values, but so has been every other administration of this Humanist State. Its roots are dug deep in the soil of slavery and watered in the blood of genocide. Its fruits are now, and ever have been, war and theft and exploitation. Why is it so shocking that a lemon tree still isn’t producing apples?