How Rapidly Things Change

                                                                                       written 11 August, 2024

                                                                                   published 18 August, 2024

   

            The first debate of the 2024 election season was June 28th.  Biden's performance was dismal.  Republicans believed they were a shoo-in for election.  Democrats were discouraged and started to clamor for Biden to drop out. The media focused on the presidential "cult of personality", not the party platforms. 

            However, information about the massive GOP Project 2025 was beginning to be noticed.  This radical theocratic authoritarian plan had been under development for two years, but only 1 in 7 had even heard about it, according to Representative Huffman, who is part of a group working to educate the voting population.  

            Wanting to help, on July 14th I wrote the first of four articles on Project 2025, choosing my primary topic of interest: the climate crisis.  The GOP plan believes the climate crisis is a hoax, and intends to destroy any efforts to deal with the climate, choosing instead to invest heavily in their billionaire friends in the fossil fuel industry.  That same week, the RNC Convention officially nominated Trump for president, and he picked Vance as his pliable "mini-me", for vice-president.  The Democrats were feeling more desperate, and calls for Biden to drop out got louder.

            On July 21st, I wrote my second Project 2025 article on women, describing how the plan intends to curtail women's rights, pushing them back a century, returning to being chattel for men.  The male dominated GOP assumes women will just "get over it".

            That day Biden announced he would drop out of the race, threw his support to Harris, and the Democratic political world exploded with enthusiasm.  Donations flowed in at unheard of rates, volunteers for the campaign jumped by a factor of one hundred, and registration of new voters surged.  Within a few days, Harris had lined up enough convention delegates to assure a unified convention, and there was a noticeable change in the energy of the entire campaign.  Everything had flipped.

            Trump is now the tired old man in the race, facing a fresh young opponent, his worst fear, a mixed race woman prosecutor!  It was weeks before Trump could even acknowledge Biden was no longer his opponent, and Vance suddenly became a liability, not an asset.

            On July 28th, my Project 2025 article outlined the plan to cram fundamentalist "Christianity" down everyone's throat, because they believed "God was on their side", despite being a decreasing minority of the population.  The next one described the assault on immigration. 

            Trump and Vance have yet to recalibrate their campaign to the new reality.  At every public appearance they further offend, with abusive and angry outbursts.  Vance is now associated with couches and angry cat ladies, and Trump was so repulsive at the Black Journalist Conference, his staff pulled him off the stage long before the scheduled end time.  

            A few days ago, Harris picked Minnesota Governor Walz as her running mate.  He is down to earth and straight talking, a sharp contrast to Vance.  Walz began the meme that that the GOP candidates are "weird", which seems to have stuck.  The contrast between the two campaigns is striking: joy, excitement, and enthusiasm versus anger, revenge, and insults.

            When Harris/Walz have an event, the venue is packed.  When Vance has an event, the cameras have to avoid showing how few people showed up.  Trump seems to have abandoned the campaign entirely, only phoning in at his few scheduled events.

            While polls have been shown to be inaccurate predictions of political reality, the trend has Harris/Walz pulling ahead.  The Democratic convention, which traditionally gives a further boost, starts next week, on August 19th.

            I find it amazing that this race is still being considered tight.  But many voters don't begin to pay attention until a few weeks before the election.  However, the sudden burst of excitement around Harris, is anything but traditional.  Furthermore, details of Project 2025 are now widely known, with almost two thirds the population aware.  Most of those who have studied the plan are appalled, and Trump is unsuccessfully trying to distance himself from it.

            In addition, Trump is not a healthy man, nether physically nor mentally, so there is no telling what might happen in the next three months.  We are in times of rapid change, and yesterday is no longer an accurate predictor of tomorrow.  Stay tuned, it's going to be an interesting election.  Make sure you are registered, and plan to vote.

Project 2025 on Immigration

                                                                                         written 4 August, 2024

                                                                                   published 11 August, 2024

      

            From a unity perspective, all borders are relative illusions.  The climate crisis proves the physical reality that we really are all in this together.  No one country can effectively deal with the crisis, because weather patterns sweep around the globe, without regard for borders.  

            Similarly, human populations ebb and flow around the world, creating pressure at the borders.  Over time, there have been multiple drivers.  Changing climate, diminishing food supplies, population pressures, wars of conflict, economic collapse, desire for economic improvement, or lust for adventure: all have spurred waves of humans to pull up roots and move.  With very few exceptions, everyone now in America had ancestors who moved here from some other country relatively recently. 

            Immigration has always enriched the US society, bringing people eager to work hard, with drive and creativity, doing essential jobs most legal citizens avoid.  Migrants today pay over $100 billion in taxes.  But immigration has also been a source of conflict with those already here, who fear they will "lose" something.  

            Our economic system is designed to extract wealth and resources from other areas of the planet, for our limited domestic benefit.  US foreign policy supports autocratic governments overseas which favor US corporate resource extraction, resulting in massive structural poverty in those countries.  The US is 4 percent of the world population, but represents almost a quarter of the global economy.  The global average wealth per adult is $85K, but in the US, the average wealth per adult is $551K, a distortion further amplified by local inequity, which is growing everywhere. 

            In addition, the US produced a quarter of all the CO₂ ever added to the atmosphere, driving the climate crisis, which falls disproportionally on countries that never received the economic advantages.  The increasingly extreme economic and environmental global impacts, are powerful drivers of immigration today.  Given we have collected more than our share, is it a surprise people want to come here?

            Being the party of the extremely wealthy, the GOP has always been threatened by immigration.  Trump promises to "terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration", "begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history", and "end birth right citizenship."  Project 2025 outlines more changes in detail.

            Temporary work-visa programs that allow seasonal employers to hire foreign workers will be phase out.  Processing and application fees for migrants will increase.  "T" visas, for victims of severe human trafficking, and "U" visas, for victims of crimes that occur in the US, will be eliminated.  The plan calls for adding a citizenship question to the next census to further "conservative principles". 

            Project 2025 will dismantle the DREAM Act, which grants conditional residency and work permits to immigrants who entered the United States as minors.  It will restrict the DACA program, which allows immigrants who were children in the US in 2012 to be deferred from deportation.  

            Homeland Security grants Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to immigrants already in the US who are nationals of a country experiencing ongoing armed conflict, or environmental disaster, that would prevent them from returning safely.  Project 2025 would repeal all active TPS designations, affecting over 700,000 individuals, many of whom have been in the U.S. for decades.  

            Project 2025 directs the DOJ to assist Homeland Security in collecting information about aliens across the United States, and impose financial punishments on "sanctuary cities" that do not follow federal immigration laws.  It will increase the authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize “the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without warrants" which could affect over 10 million people.  It would “bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.” 

            This harsh authoritarian agenda would create an intrusive police state, and disrupt essential food and service sectors of the economy, without any element of "Christian" compassion

            Think about how this impacts you, or your relatives, or your friends.  Is this a world you want?  Educate yourself about the GOP Project 2025, and then talk about it to everyone you know.  Share this information with people outside our local area.  The more people learn about these GOP plans, the more motivated they become to work to ensure they never comes to pass.  Make sure you are registered, and on election day, get out and vote!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project 2025 on Religion

                                                                                            written 28 July, 2024

                                                                                     published 4 August, 2024

    

            A 2024 Gallup poll on Religion in US found 68 percent identify as Christian (33 percent Protestant, 22 percent Catholic, and 13 percent other Christians), 7 percent as other religions, and 22 percent listed no religious preference (3 percent didn't answer).  This is a sharp difference from 50 years ago when 87 percent identified as Christian, 6 percent as non-Christian, and only 5 percent had no preference.

            In that same time frame, church membership declined from 73 percent to 45 percent, primarily among Catholics and evangelical Protestants.  Weekly church attendance declined as well, with 57 percent now attending "seldom or never".  While this decline is mostly young adults, it includes older adults who previously attended. 

            It is important to distinguish between the message within each spiritual tradition, and the man-made, dogmatic rules of the religious organizations, which arise with growing political and financial power.  I suspect attendance decline represents growing dissatisfaction with the heavy dogma, and outright hypocrisy, that oppresses what is essentially a personal investigation of spiritual reality. 

            There are more than 200 Christian denominations in the US, and over 45,000 globally, all distinguished by the different dogmas they profess.  At the extremes, religious sects fight, and kill, members of other sects, and even members within their own sects, who are defined as "heretics".  Wars between Christian denominations have killed over 100 million Christians, and many more "unbelievers", all in the self-righteous assurance that they do the "work of God".

            It was in reaction to this long-standing religious barbarity that the founders of America prohibited Congress from enacting a state religion (which would prioritize one sect among the many), but saw nothing wrong with having religion in American culture.  But the same self-righteous assurance that has historically led to religious wars, is alive and well in the today's "Christian nationalist" extremism, a foundational part of the current GOP, explicitly expressed in the Project 2025 document.

            The Center for Renewing America, a member of the Project 2025 advisory board, was founded in 2021, by Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official.  They have "a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society", and lists “Christian nationalism” as one of the major priorities of a second Trump term.  

            Project 2025 claims that centralized government “subverts” families by working to “replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones,” as evaluated by their narrow biblical interpretation of "natural" versus "unnatural".  For the “well-being of the American family”, it attacks gender ideology, arguing “these theories poison our children", and assaults the "traditional" nature of men and women. 

            The plan calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to “maintain a biblically based, social science reinforced definition of marriage and family,” arguing that “families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society.”  It objects to “nonreligious definitions" of marriage and family as put forward by the Respect for Marriage Act, claiming that all family forms apart from “heterosexual, intact marriage", involve higher levels of instability.  It further claims that Biden’s administration is “hostile to people of faith".

            The religious orientation presented in Project 2025 is inspired by the most conservative arm of Catholicism, and fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism, the two religious sects most in decline in America.  The orientation is judgement, guilt, fear, and punishment, based on dogma, not the spirit of love at the core of Christ's teachings.  This push toward theocratic autocracy is a last gasp of a dying perspective.

            At least 30 percent of America does not even identify as "Christian", and of those who do, the majority are not fundamentalists.  For anyone who lives any form of a spiritual path, you know the foundation is personal and interior, between you and however you view the larger divine.  It is arrogant and offensive to have any one group pushing their specific, limited narrative on everyone else, thinking they have “the one and only truth”.  

            Educate yourself about the GOP Project 2025, by searching for "Project 2025 document", or find summaries.  If this is a world you don’t want, talk about Project 2025 to everyone you know, so we are aware of what is coming.  The more people see what is in the plan, the more motivated they become to work to make sure it never comes to pass. 

 

Project 2025 on Women

                                                                                            written 21 July, 2024

                                                                                        published 28 July, 2024

 

            At some point we will view extreme wealth as a hording/addiction disorder, much like seeing a 500 pound person.  "Too Much, and Never Enough" is Mary Trump's book about her uncle Donald.  But, in our culture of personality, the wealthy are worshipped and have traditionally dominated the GOP agenda, despite having unpopular goals.  Social justice progress in the 60's and 70's prompted GOP alignment with "Christian" conservatives, specifically around the issue of abortion.  This resulted in a decades long project to stack the Supreme Court, and in 2022, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion was reversed.

            Much to the GOP surprise, this reversal was not popular with 70 percent of the population.  Trying to distance themselves, they shifted the rhetoric to a States Rights issue.  However, since 2022, all 7 states that had abortion on the ballot legalized it, bringing the total to 29.  2 more of the currently limited or banned states will vote in November.  Idaho, typical of those with an abortion ban, has lost 22 percent of their obstetricians, and 3 hospitals have closed their labor and delivery departments.  Most medical students say they won't practice in states with abortion bans.  But the GOP, driven by a self-righteous agenda, ignores this and pushes ahead anyway.

            Project 2025 is a set of administrative actions the president can take unilaterally, without regard for Congress, individual state decisions, or voter's desires.  The section on Reproductive Rights will remove any mention of abortion from all government laws, policies, and regulations.  Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts writes that a pro-life administration starts by removing the terms “abortion, reproductive health, and reproductive rights, out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, and legislation that exists.” 

            The 1873 Comstock Act, named after Anthony Comstock, a devout Protestant activist who opposed women suffragettes, is still on the books.  It criminalizes the involvement of the United States Postal Service in conveying "abortion-related" material.  Using the Comstock Act, sales of mifepristone, which is used in over 50 percent of abortions these days, will be tracked and criminalized, effecting a national ban on at-home abortions.

            The Department of Health and Human Services will redefine Medicaid to avoid providing reproductive health care and penalize providers who do.  States will be allowed to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans, and disqualify providers of elective abortions.  Medicaid funding will be withdrawn from states that require abortion insurance. 

            Abortion access is currently allowed at VA hospitals, in some circumstances.  The Department of Defense allows abortion for servicemembers.  Hospitals are required to offer abortions in medical emergencies regardless of state bans.  All these will be reversed.

            Project 2025 will reinstate a longtime Republican policy goal, barring nongovernmental organizations receiving U.S. aid from providing abortion services or advocating for legal abortion.  Title X, a federal Family Planning Program, provides low-cost contraception, STD screenings, and prenatal care to low-income people, and has never been used for abortion services.  Project 2025 will eliminate these services.

            The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will cancel programs that are deemed "pro-abortion".  Based on the contested religious theory that life begins at conception, the CDC will “eliminate programs that do not respect human life”, and pivot from "abortion as health care” to “research that supports pro-life policies." 

            Project 2025 is anti-surrogacy, claiming that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them” and aims to end all fetal cell research to “ensure that abortion and embryo-destructive related research become both fully obsolete and ethically unthinkable.”  This includes In Vitro Fertilization, a common aid for infertile couples.

            Religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act would be reinstated, allowing coverage denial of any kind of contraception.  Instead, education on “fertility awareness-based” methods of contraception and family planning (charting ovulation, and avoiding sexual activity) would become mandatory.  Health Resources & Service Administration guidelines would eliminate support of condoms because they are not a “women’s” preventative service.  

            In their arrogance, the GOP is convinced abortion is a passing phase, just a "woman's issue".  Personal empowerment is to be subverted to intensive, pseudo-religious, governmental intrusion.   If you have a mother, wife, sister, or daughter, or are a woman yourself, get educate about Project 2025.  Decide if that is the world you want.  If not, talk to everyone you know about Project 2025, so we all see what is coming, and vote Harris for president!  

 

 

Project 2025 On Climate

                                                                                            written 14 July, 2024

                                                                                        published 21 July, 2024

  

            In 1973, a military junta, with US assistance, overthrew the elected Allende government in Chile, and installed Pinochet as dictator.  Massive changes were swiftly made at all levels of government, destroying the previous democracy.  "Shock Doctrine", by Naomi Klein, describes this in detail.  Chile didn't recover until 1990.  Similar events are brewing in the US.

            The billionaire class knows their self-serving policies are unpopular, and they are losing demographically.  They have aligned with so called "Christian" fundamentalists, another declining demographic, to push through a last gasp effort: Project 2025.  

            The GOP has yet to articulate any specific policy goals for this campaign, but Project 2025 has been in secret development for years.  Trump serves as a media distraction, with his torrent of lies, fantasies, and bombastic behavior, while right wing organizations have created a detailed, 900 page agenda, for the first 180 days of his next administration.  Trump claims to "know nothing about it", yet over 30 members of his first administration are authors of the various sections.   

            One hundred groups, led by the Heritage Foundation, funded by dark money from the Donors Trust and the Koch network, funneled through the Federalist Society vice president Leonard Leo, plan to remake our government to suit their limited desires.  You can read it for yourself, just search on "Project 2025 document", or find summaries.

            Numerous agencies in the government would be eliminated, or redefined.  Over 50,000 civil service positions will be reclassified as “at-will” workers, which the administration could then fire and replace.  A list of 100,000 possible applicants is already being compiled, with MAGA loyalty the primary requirement, and knowledge appropriate to the job they will be assigned being secondary.  A training academy will provide appointees with background knowledge and expertise, to immediately begin rolling back "unwanted" policies, advancing conservative, and "Christian" Nationalist ideals.

            Of the ten major sections in Project 2025, this article focuses on just Climate Change.  

            The core goals are: ending climate protection, gutting clean energy programs, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, and deregulating the oil industry.

            Four specific agencies are defined for elimination: Clean Energy Corps, Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies, DOE Loans Program, and DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.  These offices invest in American manufacturing, create good paying jobs, set minimum energy efficiency standards for appliances and equipment, drive research and development, and help launch utility-scale solar and wind industries, expanding domestic manufacturing.

            Another agency to chop is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, managing fishing, and protecting marine mammals in the US economic zone.  For the GOP, ignorance is bliss.

            The chapter on the Agency for International Development plans “rescinding all climate policies from foreign aid programs” and shutting down any offices or departments connected to the Paris Climate Agreement.  It will eliminate or curtail funding to federal programs or offices related to climate change, and recommends reopening the Arctic for oil drilling, expanding other drilling projects, and leasing land in western states for coal mining.

            The chapter on the Environmental Protection Agency calls for shrinking the agency by firing new hires and eliminating the environmental justice department.  The author, Mandy Gunasekara, Trump's former EPA chief of staff, claims the left has "overstated the climate crisis, which will be mild and manageable".

            Mild and manageable?  These people are ignorant, delusional, or corrupt.  

            Heat is setting records everywhere, becoming more lethal.  Availability of affordable homeowner's insurance is a growing concern.  In Texas, millions are still out of power and flooded by hurricane Beryl, with heat coming next.  Midwestern farmers can't work their flooded field.  In the last two weeks, Ruidoso, New Mexico evacuated from devastating fires, and was then twice inundated by flooding.

            Project 2025 will destroy our democracy and threatens the planet, so the GOP must lose.  We can still vote.  The Democratic candidate for president is irrelevant, compared to what the MAGA GOP Project 2025 plans.  Even a head of cabbage would be better.  Pick a section of Project 2025 that is important to you, and educate yourself.  Decide if that is the world you want.  If not, vote Democratic across the board.  Democrats have their issues, but they are not pushing theocratic autocracy.  Talk to everyone you know about Project 2025, so we all see what is coming.  Let's leave a habitable planet for our descendants. 

 

GOP Unveiled

                                                                                              written 7 July, 2024

                                                                                        published 14 July 2024

                                                                   

            On September 11th, 2001, watching the Twin Towers fall, I felt gut punched, realizing the whole world had changed that day.  That attack by foreign terrorists used planes.  This July 1st, I felt the same way, but this time, domestic terrorists used their position of trust.  The Supreme Court decided to grant immunity to the president, destroying the foundation of our society: equal application of the law.  This clarifies the election.  The GOP has dropped its mask, and stands revealed as a party that prioritizes profits over principles, party over country, driven by self-righteous religious fervor. 

            The GOP was forced to tip its hand in order to keep their felonious, morally compromised candidate out of court before the election, giving a modest window for effective response.  Because Biden is president, he is now immune, and can never be prosecuted.  Further, Biden is now "King Joe", with previously unrealized executive powers, should he choose to act.

            Floods of suggestions have been offered, ranging from expanding the Supreme Court to arresting Trump as a "national threat", and sequestering him in Guantanamo.  The Republicans on the Supreme Court could be removed from the bench, as allowed in the Constitution, for failing to act with "good behavior" while in office, and then arrested for treasonous acts and perjury during their Senate confirmations.  Simple assassination has been suggested as the most expeditious remedy, now "legal" when declared "official acts".  But just because corrupt GOP judges have given "King Joe" these sweeping powers, actually having moral values precludes such acts, so a more refined response is needed.  

            The goal is restoration of the rule of law, and the first step should be a resounding electoral defeat of the GOP authoritarian power grab.  With control of Congress and the White House, Supreme Court reform could proceed, with term limits and mandatory ethical standards, previously unnecessary until this MAGA Court.

            Towards this end, "King Joe" can declare that presidential election be decided by popular vote, eliminating the structurally skewed Electoral College and the swing state drama, which has allowed minority rule for decades.  The President and Vice President are the only people selected by all voters, so applying popular voting to them is reasonable, and doesn't affect any other part of the electoral system.  Five of the six renegade members of the Supreme Court were selected by Bush the younger, and Trump, both losers of the popular vote, so their judges don't represent the will of the people.

            The National Popular Vote bill is an existing agreement between states that vow to cast all their electoral votes for the national winner of the popular vote, to take effect when states totaling more than 270 votes agree.  So far, 18 states, with a total of 209 votes, are on board.  Another 7 states, with Democratic governors, have 87 more votes, and most have already had hearings on this bill, so are possibly open to supporting immediate federal action.

            "King Joe" can decree election day to be a national holiday, mandating that no one wait in line for more than 1/2 an hour to vote.  Further, harassing poll workers could be made a Class A felony, with strong fines and jail time.  The National Guard could be assigned to secure every polling station to deter voter intimidation.

            Strategically, the Democratic campaign should shift the focus away from the personality conflict between Trump and Biden, onto the stark policy differences between the parties.  Whatever Biden's actual limitations, he is an ethical man, with ethical people advising him, unlike his opponent.  The GOP has made it clear: ethics have no place in their drive for absolute power.  This election is between representational democracy, with law applied equally to all, versus theocratic autocracy, where the powerful few are "special", operating under different rules that advantage themselves.  

            Trump's personality is a tar baby distraction, sucking attention away from the complete lack of publicized GOP policy goals.  The real GOP action has proceeded in secret, planning a "shock and awe" project to gut the government, and rapidly install an autocratic alternative to dominate every aspect of American life, as outlined in the massive Project 2025 document, available online. 

            A unified Democratic campaign should completely ignore Trump (further infuriating him), and pound on the policy differences between the two parties, to make sure every voter knows exactly what the GOP Project 2025 plans for them.  We win on policy, not personality.

 

 

Moral Values

                                                                                           written 30 June, 2024

                                                                                          published 7 July 2024

     

            The first debate showed Biden is indeed an old man.  He has spinal arthritis and walks slowly.  He had a summer cold and his voice was raspy.  He talked softly and lost his train of thought at times.  However, when he spoke, he was relatively coherent, 

and answered the debate questions with actual facts and policies.

            Trump showed his true nature as well.  He is a pathological liar, and a totally self-obsessed bully.  Post-debate CNN fact checkers documented over 30 major lies.  Trump never answered the questions asked, despite repeated requests from the moderators, but returned over and over to his standard fantasy: America is a hell hole, and it is all Biden's fault (or Pelosi's, or migrant invaders, but never him).  He refused to take responsibility for any of his actions, claiming America was perfect during his term, but immediately went downhill after he left.  

            Biden looked weak, but relevant, and Trump looked mentally ill, autocratic, and irrelevant.

            Like it or not, these are probably our choices in November.  However, in America, we don't have an authoritarian as President (although Trump and Republicans plan to change that).  It isn't just the person in the Oval Office, but an entire team, at all levels of government, that actually make things happen.  So, in addition to focusing on the strength or weakness of the presidential candidates, it is important to look at the team with which they are aligned.

            When the candidates were asked the one question about the climate crisis, Trump described how the water and air were "perfect" during his term, and Biden discussed the IRA legislation, which is the largest climate action yet taken in the US.  Despite being hindered by their big business ties, the Democrats understand the climate crisis, while the Republicans deny it even exists, legislating in Florida against any official mention.  Trump told the fossil fuel executives if they gave him $1B and he would remove all the climate legislation limiting their desire to kill the planet for trillions in profit.

            The Republican dominated Supreme Court (stacked by Trump), is waging relentless war on women, yearning to return us to the days when women "knew their place" (barefoot and pregnant).  Republicans in Arizona support laws written in the 1864, having learned nothing since.

            Republicans in Louisiana are taking us even further back: to Moses, 3500 years ago.  The Ten Commandments are now required in every school in that state, setting a "moral standard" for all, and other Republican led state are following suit.  Recently, Bill Maher, a confirmed atheist, pointed out the first four commandments support God's ego, as if he is insecure.  Another five prohibit killing, adultery, stealing, coveting, and lying (Trump fails at least four of these), but there is nothing about rape, slavery, or child abuse.  Perhaps Republicans aren't too concerned about those, as they make war on women, support low wage slavery, and want to put children to work. 

            Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, and went up on the mountain to commune with God.  The masses got bored, and cast a golden calf to worship, a vestige of their previous religion.  When Moses returned with the Commandments, he was upset by this retrograde behavior, and the tribes were condemned to wander in the desert for 40 years until all the transgressors had died.  Moses's God is judgmental, punishes the wicked, and fear of God is expected.   

            1500 years later, Christ brought a new set of rules, teaching that God should be loved, the essence of a unity perspective.  Both sets of rules are included in the Bible as the Old and New Testament, and fundamentalist Christians worships both sides, so you should be God fearing to be a "good" Christian, but also love God.

            This confusion of love and fear seems insane, as they are polar opposites.  Despite this, many people strive to live Christ's spirit of love, but the religious organizations founded by men are often aligned with fear, guilt, judgement, and punishment. 

            The US Constitution declares a separation between Church and State, allowing each to choose for themselves.  But Republicans, supporting self-proclaimed "Christian nationalists", self-righteously believe they know what is best, and are willing to force Old Testament morality upon everyone.

            Those are the choices this November.  The leader of the party is consequential, but so is what their party has in mind.