Monday, December 23, 2019

Stille Nacht


Christmas has come early – especially to people with more than one brain cell and a molecule in their hearts. Donald Trump, America’s favourite news-hog became the third president in history to be impeached.

While the odds of him being removed in office are unlikely (no Republican has indicated they’ll abandon ship) and his election victory looks likely, it’s good to see America’s system of checks and balances finally doing what they’re supposed to be doing – keeping a check on each other.

I’ll never get tired of saying it but my loathing for Donald Trump has nothing to do with being left wing or right wing, nor does his personal life really trouble me (a man who is on his second marriage should not cast judgment on a man on his third). I loath the fact that Donald Trump came into power by invoking the worst in people and has governed accordingly. I grew up believing that there were limits to certain things and the Nazi’s and the Ku Klux Klan were as bad as it got. I grew up in a world where the Americans saved the world from the Nazis. So, to have an American President fail so miserably to even condemn either the Nazis or the KKK goes against everything that I was brought up to believe.

While the man has been wonderful fodder for late night comedians (if comedy was the sole criterion in judging a presidency, I’d do everything possible to see that he gets elected in perpetuity), he’s tried to run an otherwise decent superpower like a thug. If Bill Clinton could get impeached (four charges) for “misleading” people about a blow job from a young girl – surely Donald Trump should be impeached for trying to strong arm a leader of a vulnerable US ally into investigating a political rival (two charges). The fact that he’s not denied it (remember, after the Ukraine, he asked the Chinese to investigate Bidden) should make this an open and shut case to any sensible human being. After all, the US constitution is pretty clear – the President should be removed for “Treason, high crimes and Misdemeanors.” If you can argue that “Misleading” people under oath about a blow job is breaking the law but can’t see that asking a foreign power to investigate your fellow countrymen (even if you don’t particularly like them) is treason, I’d suggest that rationality has escaped you.

The sweetness of his impeachment was further strengthened by the fact that “The Christian Post,” an evangelical publication actually called for his removal from office. The evangelical community, which has been a strong supporter of Trump for his appointment of “conservative” jurist and “anti-abortion” legislation looked like it was suddenly discovering what was like to be Christian. One of the articles from the Christian Post can be seen at:


Another article from the “The Gospel Herald” can be found at:


Reading these articles in these publications gives me hope that Christ, whom I argued was “God from the Gutter”, and stood by the poor andoppressed were finally discovering Christ and what he stood for.

Donald Trump, who is as elite as it gets and who has governed to enrichen the elite (tax cuts) and crushed the poor and downtrodden (who gives a shit about Brown kids at the border) has successfully conned the Evangelical Community (or the Evangelical Community has not actually been Christian) into believing he promotes Christian values. It was refreshing to see some Evangelicals starting to recognize that their so-called champion was as unchristian as it gets.

I have written on many occasions of the “Silent Night” incident during the First World War, when British and German soldiers stopped shooting each other across the trenches, crossed the lines and celebrated Christmas, before resuming the killing the next day.

If Christmas had the power to unite people in the most horrible of circumstances all those years ago, surely its time for us to ignore our differences and focus on our unity. Let us cast out the demagogues and at least pretend we care about goodwill to all mankind for a better world

No comments

© BeautifullyIncoherent
Maira Gall