By BOB GAYDOS

Biden and Trump

Strange world.

     Recently, a contributor to a Facebook group to which I belong asked members if they could give some reasons to vote for Joe Biden “without mentioning Trump.”

      My initial reaction (admittedly a bit sarcastic) was to comment: “Why?”

      Upon further thought, I have decided my initial reaction was correct. In my opinion, there is no reason this year to quibble over issues. The only compelling issue in this presidential election is to remove from office the man who has made a mockery of everything Americans used to like to brag this country stands for. Donald Trump.

      Truthfully, any of the candidates who sought the Democratic nomination for president would be acceptable to me over Trump. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is more than qualified, having served as a vice president to Barack Obama for eight years and in the U.S. Senate before that. What Biden’s views are on Medicare-for-all or global warming or income disparity do not matter to me in the sense that he actually understands those issues and knows how to work with people to achieve a consensus while the one-who-shall-not-be-mentioned has encouraged people to take bleach to fight off COVID-19, then announced he was taking an unproven and occasionally lethal drug for the same purpose, counter to the medical advice of virtually every doctor in the world. His personal doctor came up with some Mickey Mouse reason just to keep his job.

       So, really? What do I like about Biden? For starters, he won’t tell me to drink bleach. 

       And here’s another thing — if Democrats learn to stick together for the future of the country, they will in all likelihood also regain control of the Senate, removing Mitch McConnell from the majority leader post he has used to enrich himself and other Republican senators and donors while allowing the unnamed one to do the same while escaping any consequences for a long list of illegal, unconstitutional, immoral and just plain stupid actions.

     Indeed, McConnell has been the worst actor in this horror show of a government because he could have stopped it at any time but hasn’t. Republicans, having lost their minds in 2016 (along with a lot of non-Republicans) with their presidential choice, have now lost their souls and any claim to being a respectable political party.

     What is astonishing to me is how deep the hold of the fear of retribution from national Republican leaders goes on a local level. The silence from local Republicans regarding the bleach-pushing, woman-hating, racist, narcissistic con man in the White House is beyond deafening. Private complaining doesn’t count if you’re a public official.

    Why Biden, you ask? How about this — evangelical preachers don’t like him. They love the other guy. At least they say they do. I say they deserve each other. Everything about them is false and self-serving. They prey upon the desperate and gullible.

     Case in point —  Norma McCorvey. Until a couple of days ago, few people knew that name. But millions knew her as Jane Roe of the Roe v Wade 1973 Supreme Court decision. As it happens, I recently wrote about her in a column about “famous” people I have met. She was perhaps the most unknown famous person in my experience. She visited the newspaper I was working for in her campaign to undo the court ruling which gives a woman the right to control her own body and choose to have an abortion.

      McCorvey, who died in 2017, was going around the country in the mid-90s saying she had changed her mind, had become a Christian, had unbecome a lesbian and was now opposed to abortion. I don’t remember being particularly impressed with her professed change of heart and mind and sexual preference. Well, it turns out she was lying. In what she called a “deathbed confession” in a recently released movie, “AKA Jane Roe,” McCorvey says she was paid by conservative evangelical preachers to say she had changed her mind and was no longer pro-choice. Paid nearly half a million dollars to say so. She said, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say.”

       McCorvey’s life had been a series of being used and abused. She was homeless and too poor to afford an abortion back in the ‘70s when she became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. In the ‘90s, she was still needy, but more media savvy. The money looked good to her. Evangelicals followed their script: If you don’t have right and decency on your side, lie. Lie to raise money. Raise money to lie. Lie to raise more money, etc.

       Evangelicals say they love Trump. It’s a lie of convenience. He knows it and accepts the benefits he can reap from it. Their “deal” is pathetic and transparent, yet it has swindled millions of dollars from gullible believers

       So, why Biden? Because I’m not gullible. Because Trump and his Republican and evangelical enablers are out to destroy this country and have made a lot of headway. Because I’m about to turn 79 years old and spent more than half a century proudly describing myself as a journalist and Trump has labeled me an “enemy of the people.“ You bet it’s personal. Because, let me be clear, the future of America is at stake and the threat is named Trump. There, I said it.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com

By Bob Gaydos

Is he praying in this photo? For what?

    Does Donald Trump pray?

    If he does, to whom or what or for what does he pray?

    I don’t think he prays. I know, he’s got all those believers laying on hands in the Oval Office all the time, but I don’t think he prays.

    In fact, until recently, it never entered my mind that he prays, nor did I much care. I think the Founding Fathers got it right when they separated church and state, prayer and politics. To me, it’s more important that a president have a solid moral foundation, a sense of right and wrong, a capacity for compassion and a generous dose of humility. I would hope it would be someone with the common sense to realize that, if there is a god, he or she is not it.

      But now I want to know. Does Trump pray? I want one of those “enemies of the people” to ask him next time he holds a press conference as he’s rushing to a helicopter: “Mr. President! Do you pray!? Rick Perry says you’re ‘God’s chosen one!’ Do you pray, sir!?”

      The questions would have to be shouted to be heard over the helicopter noise, which might seem a tad inappropriate to some, given the context, but given the noisy tenor of this presidency, it seems reasonable to me. I don’t think God would mind.

     Normally, I’d say a president has the right to some privacy on such matters, sharing or not sharing any religious practice or belief according to comfort level. But there is nothing normal about this presidency and Perry, bless his uncluttered mind, has made the issue relevant. The departing Energy Secretary and former governor of Texas (George W. and 1,2, umm 3, Rick — way to go, Lone Star) said in a recent interview that “God uses imperfect people through history. King David wasn’t perfect. Saul wasn’t perfect. Solomon wasn’t perfect. And I actually gave the president a one-pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago. And I shared it with him and I said, ‘Mr. President, I know there are people who say that you say you were the chosen one.’ And said, ‘You were.’ I said, ‘If you are a believing Christian, you understand God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government.’ ”

     So, is Trump “a believing Christian?” Does he believe, as Perry and other evangelicals do, that God has sent an amoral dunce to foster chaos and violence upon the planet, so as to be able to ultimately deliver the “true believers” out of the ruins to the Kingdom of Heaven?

     This is, I believe, a legitimate question, since it is the rationale being used by so many of his followers (as in a cult) to justify their support for every act of his that is considered sinful, evil, immoral, blasphemous by pretty much every other religious doctrine and most non-believers as well. In fact, I think most non-believers were done with Trump a long time ago and have trouble understanding any god that would choose someone like Trump for any Divine purpose.

     While we’re at it, what does Trump think, as Perry alleged, is “God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government?’” That’s kind of an important question. Is all this corruption and dismissal of the rule of law to be considered part of “God’s plan?” Does one have to simply accept it, like it or not, as most Republicans have, because to reject it would be to forfeit any shot at being among those chosen at the Rapture? 

      Do you see how smart the Founding Fathers were to want none of this in their government?

       So, back to prayer. Trump recently hired a television evangelist to be a faith liaison in the White House. She happens to be an attractive blonde. God’s will, I assume. I think Trump’s true talent is being able to identify and recruit other masters of the con, charlatans who shamelessly make declarations that most people would dismiss, even ridicule, as absurd because they know that some people, enough people — “true believers” — will take them seriously.

      Send me your paycheck and reserve a seat on the flight to Heaven. Also, let me fly there on my own private jet as one of God’s chosen messengers. With my whole family, of course.

      They know it’s a con, these Falwells and Grahams and Osteens and Bakkers and Robertsons and new White House aide, Paula White. They know Trump knows. He knows they know. They know he knows they know …

      If they stick together, they succeed, on earth at least. If someone falters — the anointed chosen, especially — the con falls apart. So they lay on hands and bow their heads in the Oval Office. The messengers all pray, I’m sure, not to be found out. Also, for Trump not to renounce them if he’s got nowhere else to go.

      But Trump, if he’s truly the chosen one, to whom does he pray and for what? I ask for millions of Americans because Rick Perry tells me my future and that of the planet lie in the hands of this “imperfect” person.

     Ask him the question, reporters. Do your job. Is Rick Perry right? Does Trump think he is chosen by God? To do what? When did God deliver the news? Was Putin in the room at the time?

rjgaydos@gmail.com