“Circling the Toilet Drain”

Observing the number of times the toilet makes a ring of water to produce a satisfying flush provides a real world analogy to the Trump administration policies on democracy and life.  President Trump is presiding over one of the most dramatic flushing of the rights and privileges of individuals living in a democratic society as we have witnessed in our lifetime.  With my memory going back to President Eisenhower, we can safely say that President Trump has done more to dismantle liberty and freedom for the refugee seeking safe harbor in this nation than any President before him.  This tragedy is akin to the United States turning away the ships full of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany during WWII, when an isolationist United States refused to take “any more Jews.”

President Trump enjoys flushing the toilet on freedom and life.  What he deems to be waste and trash persons may instead represent the future growth and strength of this nation.  Calling countries like Haiti and parts of Africa “shit hole nations” is reflective of his internal racist “rich white man first” attitude which he is attempting to bring over into public policy.  Other examples include banning refugees and even grandmothers from select countries, Syria, Libya, Chad, Somalia, Yemen, North Korea and Iran.  Venezuela was allowed.  Iraq is subject to increased scrutiny.  The ban was challenged in court and eventually made it way to the Supreme Court, who allowed the ban to go into effect, but limited it to persons who did not have family connections to persons already in the United States.

President Trump’s remarks early in his Presidency, in an attempt to gain support for a “Mexican Wall” in which he spoke of many if not most of Mexicans as “criminals and rapists” also serves as a telling sign of the President’s attitudes towards Hispanics.  52 million Hispanics and Latino persons live in the United States, our second largest ethnic group.  47 million Hispanics and Latinos are American Citizens.  This President managed in one day to insult 52 million persons who are not as white as he is.  For a man who claims “I am not a racist,” this comment brings incredulity to even the little children in our schools.  What kind of man is this?  Is this the kind of person we want representing us in the United States of America?

 “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  (Emma Lazarus, advocate for Jewish Refugees)  (The Statue of Liberty).  

 President Trump responds, “Give me more white educated refugees from Norway!”

In the current Trump administration, according to Reuters, the data for the first batch of 1051 political appointees (those hired by June, 2017) found they are 27 percentage points whiter and 13 percentage points more male than the population at large.  In a second report by the Partnership for Public Service, published October 20, 2017 reported “the Trump administration so far has not in any direct sense prioritized diversity.” (Max Steir, president of Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan report).  Reuters reported, by mid-year 88 percent of appointees for mid-level positions were held by whites, 62% of which were men, citing Office of Personnel Management numbers.

Are these not telling statistics?  In the United States of America 12.3% of the population is black, 12.5% of the population is Hispanic.  According to the Gallup Poll white Americans, particularly those of lower income, estimate the non-white population to be between 30-40%, or about twice as many as are actually present in the USA.  In fact, in 1980 the population of the United States was 80% white, but by 2000 the US population of whites is lower, at 63%. (2000 census results)

The perception of the threats to the dominance of white Americans, as to both wealth and privilege is the fear or “white angst” which President Trump tapped to bring about his untimely victory as President.  The dislike of Hillary Clinton and the energizing of white racists found a base of support which surprised even President Trump.  There are still reports circulating in the media that the President himself was surprised by his victory and that his wife “cried.”  Whether any of these reports are true will never be known, owing to the President’s ability to alter what he calls “fake news.”

Jeff Flake, Senator from Arizona, this week said these words:  “A president who cannot take criticism, who must deflect and disturb and distort – who must find someone else to blame—is creating a dangerous path.”  “A Congress that fails to act as a check on the President adds to the danger.”  Senator Flake compared the President’s attack on the news media to the rhetoric of the late dictator Joseph Stalin.  “For without truth and a principled fidelity to truth and to shared facts, Mr. President, our democracy will not last.” (CNN News Feed, Internet, January 17, 2018).

While some of Trump’s supporters continue to rate this President high, the average approval rating since the beginning of his administration has been 38%.  The average for other US Presidents from 1938-2018 is 53%.  According to the Gallup Polling Organization, the average for elected presidents in the 4^th quarter of their first year is 64%.  George Bush was 84%, Bill Clinton 55%, and Barak Obama 49%.  A reasonable analysis of this President would say politically he is in a lot of trouble.  Whether this will be shown in the 2018 elections remains to be seen.

I have attempted to show the real facts about this administration.  It is still surprising to me that many conservative Christians of whom I am one, continue to support a man who abuses women, uses vulgar terms in reference to women, who espouses attitudes of racism, who promotes racist policies against Moslems, Hispanics and other non-white Americans, whose administration is clearly white male dominated, who does not represent the hopes and dreams of most Americans, and who continually lies, often contracting himself on the same day, who shifts blame to others, who attacks the news media for telling the truth about his policies and deeds, and who viciously attacks those who disagree with him — it is beyond belief how Christians can endorse this man with his distortions of the truth and compromise themselves with alliances to this administration!

The Holy Scriptures say there will come a day when many people in the world will be deceived by forces of antichrist and they will believe a lie, and think they are believing the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).  Adolf Hitler was able to distort the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany, with 80% of German Christians endorsing or acquiescing to his policies of government.  Only 20% of German Christians opposed him and his racist policies, which we know now as the Confessing Church, whose legacy is recording in the Barmen Declaration.  Some of these same Christians, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for their resistance with their own lives!

I wonder, how many American Christians, black, white or Hispanic or other nationalities will actual stand up and oppose the policies of this corrupt, racist President.  I pray to God that the blinders fall from our eyes, and the darkness and power of Satan which surrounds this man is thrown down.  I pray to God in Jesus Christ my Savior that the truth be revealed and the real President Trump be known.  In Jesus Holy Name we pray.  Let the truth and the righteousness of God be revealed in this place.  Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream, for we pray in the strong name of Jesus Christ who loves each of us and all of us as his brother and his sister.

O Lord, our Holy and blessed Lord, our Heavenly Father, our loving God, hear our prayers that we make today in the name of your Holy Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Lead all of us in the way of truth and righteousness in this nation.  Help us not to turn away from the poor, the sick, the down trodden, the refugee, those held in prisons of bars and disbelief, those who have no faith and those in need of greater faith.  Purge our own hearts through your righteous love and make us into those persons you would have us to be.  Turn this president away from this path of evil and onto the path of good, to the Way of your Cross and Your Salvation, for your name sake and ultimate glory, for we pray in Jesus’ blessed and holy name, world without end.  Amen and Amen.

Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”

“Amen!  We praise you alone, Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and our Friend!”

“Amen!”

The voice of one crying in this wilderness, “Make straight in this desert a highway for our God!”

Bill W.