Stalin once remarked that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. Our brains tend to zone out when deluged with information. Trumps outrages are so numerous that it is hard to take them in. You get numb. So I will simply point to one tiny example of the ugliness of this pathetic little bully:

It is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor incident in his long career of bullying. But it gives us the measure of this puny little man. His puniness is everywhere: his jealousy because she is rightly nominated for a Nobel while he never will be; his repulsive use of his office as the most powerful man on earth to sneer at a 16 year old girl; and, of course, his eagerness to gin up a mob to do the same while adoring him like the toadies they are. As with every tweet, his cult fawn over his courage in beating up somebody infinitely less powerful than he, because he is the channel through which all their hatred, bitterness, resentment, and urge for vengeance is channelled.

It is that last point I want to address here. Trump is Trump and, barring a miracle, will not change. What has changedradically and for the worseis his audience of conservative Christian defenders. For as I have warned for years, the great danger of supporting this man was seduction. As Jesus said:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt 10:28).

There is only one person who can do that: you. God does not send us to hell. We send ourselves there. Jesus did not die to save us from his Father. He died to save us from sin. The gates of hell are barred from the inside.

The promise of the Christian Right was that they would hold his feet to the fire and bend him to their will. He was (they lied) a baby Christian and would learn righteousness under their wise guidance. Yes, and men of Gondor will never be corrupted by the Ring.

Instead, what has happened in spades is that conservative Christians have turned into Nazgul in their slavery to his every lie and cruelty. There is nothing they will not defend and there is very little left that they do not eagerly approve. Case in point: mockery of a child with autism.

It is eviland seducedto join this vile bully not only in mocking a child, but in making fun of her looks:

It is even more repellent to declare that anybody who disapproves of this ugly bullying has no sense of humor.

(Important Republican Rite Rule:When white conservative feels are hurt by the truth, however gently stated, the cry is for civility or the need for a sense of humor.When brown, poor, autistic, gay, mentally ill or right wing culture war enemies are obviously and wantonly insulted, the cry is political correctness.)

A reading from the Book of Proverbs:

Like a madman who throws firebrands,arrows, and death,is the man who deceives his neighborand says, I am only joking! (Pr 26:1819).

Speaking of insulting her for autism, FOX reliably aired goon Michael Knowles to do that by calling her mentally ill.

Well, you know those secular conservatives. They play hardball. Yeah, about that:

Knowles was raised in the Catholic faith by his family, but had fallen away during his adolescence; while at Yale he experienced a reversion to the Church, spurred at first by ontological arguments.

Yet another prolife faithful conservative Republican Rite convert willing to spit on the dignity of the human person while hiding behind the unborn in the service of the god-king.

FOX apologized for Knowles and promised to never book him because he is a nobody. What they did not do was apologize for Laura Ingraham comparing an autistic girl to The Children of the Corn. Nor, I warrant, will we hear a peep from Raymond Arroyo for her disgusting mockery of autism. That fell to her brother:

And then, of course, there was the reliably disgusting convicted felon and adulterer Dinesh DSouza:

Thunberg, meanwhile, was a class act, expertly trolling the Bully-in-Chief:

Now, before anybody speaks: stop. Is your first impulse to denouncewithout qualification, excuse, deflection or denialthis ugly attack by immensely powerful bullies on a good-hearted child with autism who is doing her best to promote the common good?

Or do you feel an ungovernable impulse to excuse, deny, and even pile on? Do you want to rush past this ugly, ugly display of viciousness to a kid so that you can shout, NO! THEM!

Perhaps you tremble at the opportunity to call her a stooge or puppet (unlike the Holy Martyrs of Covington you passionately defended, still used to this day by the Right Wing Lie Machine).

Maybe you want to shriek something about how kids should not be allowed have political opinions in the public square (a conviction that utterly vanishes every time the pro-life movement marches on Washington).

Maybe you want to blast past the insults directed at her age, her looks, her autism, her alleged mental illness by some of the most powerful and vicious bullies in the world to wring your hands and cynically lie that you care about her and are oh-so-concerned about those who are exploiting her.

Maybe you long to just say, Screw PC! I love comparing her to Nazis and making fun of her looks and her autism! I wont be intimidated by you Bergoglio liberals! MAGA!

Or perhaps you want to play the Wounded Card and ask why I am making a so-called blanket condemnation of all conservatives.

If you object to blanket accusations when I have mentioned no names except the Right Wing Lie Machine perps and the little bully boy they serve, then consider the possibility that you suffer from a guilty conscience. The solution is simple if you feel personally condemned by me: stop wearing the shoes you claim dont fit you.

Heres the deal: I dont know you, gentle reader. What I condemn here is a behavior, not you. If you feel condemned, dont blame me. Ive never met you and dont know you. But if you feel guilty because you support Trump with your silence, or excuses, or denials, or lies, or flat out defiance of the gospel and common decency, then good. You should. And then you should repent and believe in Jesus Christ by the only real means he accepts: obeying him.

Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.

Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it. (Mt 7:2127).

Read more:

If You are Not Against Trump, You are for Him - Patheos