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Sacrifice to the ‘Gods’
Just when you think events can’t get uglier, people are now posting on Twitter that they hope President Trump will die from COVID-19. The depravity of these people knows no bounds. They hate President Trump to the degree that removing him from office is not sufficient; they now wish for his death.
In thinking over the statements from these people, I have wondered how the evil among their retinue continues to grow. Is it just a “natural” outgrowth of the irrational hatred of the President? Is it any worse than all the other lies and attacks he has endured?
How is Twitter responding?
Twitter is pledging to remove tweets rooting for President Trump’s death in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis.
The social media site’s communications department made the vow Friday evening, just hours after the Commander-in-chief was airlifted to hospital amid reports that he was having trouble breathing.
‘Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension,’ an official statement from the company read.
Meanwhile, a tweet appeared, saying, “Listen, I don’t think Twitter is really enforcing it, so I hope Trump dies.”
It was followed by this one by the same poster: “Watch nothing happen.”
(I am not on Twitter, so I found this on the MSN site.)
Twitter has already stated that will need to prioritize tweets, since they can’t take enforcement action on every tweet.
* * * * *
It occurred to me that in a secular and anti-religious environment, something else is going on. I believe that these people, at a conscious or even subconscious level, see the possibility of Trump’s dying as a way to have a corrupt kind of justice, in two ways. First, If Trump dies, he will permanently be removed from “causing any further harm” to the country. But the second possible reason is even more shocking: Trump will serve as a human sacrifice to the virus “gods”; his death will satisfy the unseen, frightening “gods” that might take the lives of those who are at risk for the virus. They have already demonstrated their disregard for the sanctity of life in other areas: letting the elderly die and aborting children. They hope by offering this pagan ritual of sacrificing Trump that they will spare themselves and others who follow their cause. They will placate the gods.
Who will be next?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
You can just go back to 2006’s “Death of A President“, the George W. Bush assassination pr0n movie that got favorable reviews from the usual media outlets, or this fanticizing book from a few months later that’s still available on Amazon.com to see that the left wishing death on Republican presidents isn’t a reaction to Trump. It’s been the position for the angriest of the left for decades — the fact that Twitter or social media in general wasn’t around for the attempted assassination on Reagan in 1981 (or probably even for Ike’s heart attack in ’55) simply kept the bile far more hidden than over the past 20-plus years.
What social media has done is both to mainstream positions like that, and show lots of media outlets there’s a market for those positions, and for some at those same outlets, that it’s no-longer a job-ending offense to hold or sympathize with those positions. With so much of the media being addicted to Twitter, and with those same outlets having decided to base their business model not on appealing to everyone, but in maintaining a core audience of highly partisan viewers and readers, they’ve locked themselves into appealing to the type of angry people who do wish death on their enemies (this is especially true with the big newspapers that have gone to a circulation-based profit model — if they don’t cater to the angry types they’ve pandered to during the Trump years, they’ll lose them as readers to sites that will feed their confirmation biases. So even a moment’s sympathy for Trump or Melania is a potential threat to the business model).
Someone sent me this:
Totally aside from anti-Trumpers fundamentally misunderstanding what constitutes “harm”, there has to be some deep psychological significance to the “party of science” performing a pagan propitiation of the gods. I am guessing that their proposed “sacrifice” will not be assisting them in their endeavor.
I must agree. This is both pagan and cult-like. Not so much evil as atavistic (but still plenty evil).
Weren’t there two Bush-assassination-fantasy movies? The one you mention and another by John Sayles, which used a less direct approach, i.e. not naming the assassinated president GWB but unmistakably depicting the character as Bush 43.
When he survives without a scratch (because almost everyone does), will they feel cheated? Will somebody feel justified in getting the equivalent of an Incan knife into him for the good of all? These are the people who said “nothing is off the table”.
But on the plus side, won’t he then be immune? He can campaign-rally his butt off, drive them to new heights of crazy.
Oh, I don’t think they’re trying to appease the virus “gods.” That suggests they want an end to the chaos. They’re serving one master (h/t: @scottwilmot), and many of them say the quiet part out loud now.
Not only are we no longer a Christian country, we have many who serve the Liar in Chief, the Accuser, and the Divider. He has many titles. It will not end well — until it does. Wait for the eucatastrophe.
In the meantime, as Fr. Z suggests, pray, fast, make acts of reparation and, for those amenable to it, pray the Rosary.
And why do they wish the President ill? They fear they’ll lose the right to murder little babies? To dress up as women in order to ogle little girls going to the bathroom? To take the retirement funds of old people? To vandalize and loot at will?
But ’tis a thin reed on which they hang their hopes. The chance that Trump will die from COVID is less than 5%.
So, Trump haters can eat their hearts out.
When the nation turns from God, it will die.
Nonbelievers should take note. Let’s put it in unbelief terms. People are evolved to have a need for meaning connected to something bigger than they are. This is almost everyone. Without religion, they gravitate to some other faith. It may be environmentalism, earth worship, materialism, etc. It is always something.
I have met few atheists who had no real faith, but they are few and far between. None of them trust other atheists because they see this need to be true, and they tend to acknowledge they are freaks. Of course, my sample size is really small, there are so few.
Without a faith, nation’s cannot stand. Christianity preaches that all people are equal before God. That is the cornerstone of the West treatment of each other. It is what vanquished slavery. Without it, we are lost.
These malicious people simply show who they are. Better we see and know who they are, so we can avoid them.
I think the people in this country will re-sort themselves into new categories. I pray for discernment.
As for me and my house…we will serve the LORD.
I wasn’t surprised to see this happen. Not one bit. If anything is a surprise, it’s lefties who wish for the President to fully recover. A cynic might doubt their sincerity, but I can’t believe a leftist in good standing would ruin said standing by going public with get well wishes for Trump.
There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats. All of the leaders of the Democratic Party have offered prayers for a full recovery.
Perhaps now is the time to look for the good in others, and hope that the President can also do this.
Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”
All of it is disturbing, @jon1979, but to watch it going mainstream is very disturbing. I guess like so many other ugly trends, this one is intensifying, too. Thanks.
I guess some things don’t change, @zafar. But we are supposed to be a civilized society. Sigh.
So far, I think Trump is ignoring them and focusing on recovery (although his family is outraged). I’d just as soon that he ignore them, but I doubt that will continue. I wouldn’t mind his saying something in the context of it being primitive behavior, though. Thanks, @rodin.
Excellent point, @thescarecrow. I love that idea. Heal soon, President Trump!
Amen, WC, amen. Prayers ongoing.
True. It is so sick and disturbing. Thanks, @rhfabian.
I think atheists believe they’ve made up their own morality, @bryangstephens, but if you’ve grown up in the US, you have been exposed to the Judeo-Christian ethic everywhere you go your entire life. You could not have avoided it. But I think you are right; they won’t admit their belief, but at some level they share the same foundation.
There sincerity is suspicious, @stad, but I’ll take their good wishes anyway.
The good wishes of the Democratic leadership is more likely knowing that if they go too far, they will sacrifice victory at the polls. I believe it is for show. I judge people by their overall behavior, and if they continue to demonstrate their goodwill, I will give them credit. Otherwise, I have no intention of trying to find their goodness, since it has not been apparent for over three years.
Even Bill Maher, who hates all religions and has contempt for its followers, has been forced to admit that fundamentalist Christians aren’t the threat others on the left make them out to be, compared to fundamentalist Islamic supporters. That’s gotten him in trouble with others on the left because their disdain for religion comes with an ideological qualifier, in that they hate what they grew up around and can’t control. So you see many of the angry progressive atheists give a pass to radical Islam, since they see them as sharing a common enemy in the current Judeo-Christian Western Civilization, and get mad at normal allies like Bill Maher, who doesn’t have a situational hatred of religion.
On the other hand, you can have atheists like a Penn Jilette who don’t disdain believers and will say some of the nicest people he’s ever met are fundamentalist Christians. It’s the angry types who use a non-belief in God to show their intellectual superiority to the masses that get into ‘othering’ believers and demanding they be silenced (with the irony being lots of these mental giants also get themselves wrapped up in New Age lifestyles or Wiccan beliefs, because the really smart people apparently believe in Paganism, and not the Christers’ Flying Spaghetti Monster….)
Indeed. How did I miss hearing about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Great minds want to know!
The arrogance is appalling.
My son’s theory is that the Internet has given a public platform to the 5 percent of the population who are totally crazy. He thinks the lazy reporters who also live on the Internet are listening to this 5 percent rather than talking to actual people. They mistakenly think they are more representative of the general public than they actually are so they then amplify their crazy rantings. I think he’s right. I think most people remain sane, even the Democrats. I live among almost all Democrats, and even though they have ideas I don’t share, they aren’t malicious.
I just don’t know, @marcin. I think it might be the other way around. I think the media is driving the narrative, and people who are already unbalanced are acting crazy. And I think there are lots more who believe the drivel from the media and the internet but don’t act nuts; they just think that way. I refuse to have conversations with people on the Left, but when I did, they may not have acted nuts but they thought that way.
The mindset on display is not so much about sacrifice as it is the weird need for the left to dehumanize everybody not currently on their side. Sarah Palin and Judge Kavanaugh were not entitled to the presumptions of human dignity. The eminently decent George Bush ‘43 was Hitler. Trump is Satan or whatever.
Dissent or disagreement can only be motivated by “hate” and hate means the forfeiture of all human rights, normal respect for feelings etc. Even if the “hate” is an unconscious manifestation of systemic societal racism or otherwise unintended, the failure to atone forfeits the right to respect of any kind.
The idiots who hate us are prisoners of an ideology that does not respect the humanity and inherent rights of its own adherents so why would we expect them to behave humanely toward us?
I haven’t seen discussion on the topic lately, @oldbathos, but the idea that they are entitled to tell us how to think is outrageous on its own. People on the Left are determined to scrub our minds of a supposed racism. I say to them, I am entitled to think and believe whatever I wish. But they say, no, because you will act on your thoughts. I say, no, I might act on them, but that is not any of your business. I’m so tired of being told what I think, or what I should think. They are entitled to think what whatever they want, and I don’t care.
It’s a feedback loop with consequences. Just think of the “arts” in the current period. In the push to either outdo or match others in diversity, the perception is left that the numbers of persons falling into a particular race, ethnicity, sexual preference or gender identity is much larger than it really is. While the purported goal is to make the arts reflective of the larger society, in reality it amplifies and focuses the identities in a way that makes it seem that there are, and they are, “more” (in whatever way you look at it). This is distortion in service of diversity. It promotes stereotypes rather than humanization.
So true! (and would make a great post from you!) I hadn’t thought about how the arts are serving distorted agendas, and we are supposed to bow down to their message. Unfortunately, in some ways its “working”; think of all the things we now tolerate that we would never have accepted.