"Through Trump’s Iran War, shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, futile effort to pass a Jim Crow-style voter suppression act (the so-called SAVE Act), and inflation-aggravating tariff scheme, Republicans are discovering they are tied at the hip with Trump. Refusing to deviate from his dictates, they will bear the brunt of his serial failures."

#Trump #Republicans #ApprovalRating #Iran #war #oil #gas #economy #affordability #ICE #immigrants #cruelty
/4

"They figured congressional Republicans would share in any successes but somehow avoid any blame when things (inevitably) went haywire. Politics rarely works out that way."

#Trump #Republicans #ApprovalRating #Iran #war #oil #gas #economy #affordability #ICE #immigrants #cruelty
/3

"Republicans made a calculated bet that by indulging Donald Trump’s ill-conceived and cruel schemes (e.g., unleashing ICE on cities, tariffs, wars with Venezuela and Iran, slashing healthcare to pay for tax cuts for the rich), the country would somehow stumble through."

~ Jennifer Rubin

#Trump #Republicans #ApprovalRating #Iran #war #oil #gas #economy #affordability #ICE #immigrants #cruelty
/2

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/what-did-republicans-expect

As Bologna explains, vertical morality prizes rules and laws that are conceived as divine commands, unquestioning obedience to such rules and laws, and straighforward absolutism, and it demonizes empathy.

It has no willingness or ability to compromise or dialogue, since it imagines itself on the side of the divine and anyone raising questions as on the side of evil.

#Trump #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #morality #cruelty
/6

(continued from /4)

"said Tia Levings, a former Christian fundamentalist and author of 'A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.' …

'Evangelicals are taught that all morality comes from God and therefore true goodness can only be spread by obeying God, even if it harms people around us,' [April] Ajoy said."

#Trump #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #morality #cruelty
/5

"This ethical framework measures righteousness not by goodness to others, but by something more simplistic. ...

'Vertical morality teaches that authority, power and a moral code of right and wrong, or acceptable and unacceptable, come from "above" ― an external superior who designates rules, systems and tenets that must be obeyed by those beneath,'” (continued in /5)

#Trump #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #morality #cruelty
/4

"For many Americans, the gap between Christian teachings and MAGA politics is baffling. How can people profess faith in Jesus ― who preached love, mercy & care for the oppressed ― while supporting policies that punish immigrants, demonize LGBTQ people and glorify cruelty? The key to understanding this apparent contradiction might lie in something called 'vertical morality.'"

~ Caroline Bologna

#Trump #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #morality #cruelty
/3

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vertical-morality-might-describe-why-maga-christians-seem-so-unchristian-goog_l_69bc09f1e4b0bb6debb7954b/amp