Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Anti-Trump Republicans Target Evangelicals

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A new anti-Trump Republican group has produced its first anti-Trump ad. And it targets evangelical Christians.

The video is titled "the MAGA church" and is designed to mock and berate evangelicals who voted for Trump---and may do so again in 2020.

It's brutal.

But we've got to be informed. And you need to see the video.

ABC News is reporting that a "group of Republicans want to tank Trump" and are organized, funded and are out with their first ad "targeting Presidential Donald Trump."

The video, features a string of unflattering clips of the president along with this message: "If this is the best American Christians can do, then God help us all."

It warns American Christians to "beware of false prophets" who "come to you in sheep's clothing, but inward they are ravening wolves."



This video---with more of the same coming over the next months, is an attempt to silence pastors, churches, and Christians in general who could not vote for a Hillary Clinton and cannot vote for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg.

Who is the group behind this campaign?


The group launched itself a the New York Times story.

The group is called "The Lincoln Project" and their mission statement says,
"We are Republicans and We Want Trump Defeated." A tag line says, "The president and his enablers have replaced conservatism with with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet."

Those who have founded the organization are named in the NYT link above and include George Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kelly Ann Conway, and a prominent New York City lawyer who wanted Trump to nominate him to the Supreme Court in place of Gorsuch, and has not gotten over it.

Another founder is Rick Wilson, a longtime Republican media consultant and author of the New York Times best-selling book, "Everything Trump Touches Dies."

There are several others in the group who have served as consultants and/or staff to George W. Bush, John McCain and others in the Party.

The Lincoln Project statement says this in part. You may read the entire statement here.

Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics.
That’s why we are announcing the Lincoln Project, an effort to highlight our country’s story and values, and its people’s sacrifices and obligations.
Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line.
The 2020 general election, by every indication, will be about persuasion, with turnout expected to be at record highs. Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College and majorities that don’t enable and abet trumps violations of the constitution; even if that means Democrat control of the Senate and expansion of the Democratic majority in the House.
Indeed, national Republicans have done far worse than simply march along to Mr. Trump’s beat. Their defense of him is imbued with an ugliness, a meanness and a willingness to attack and slander those who have shed blood for our country, who have dedicated their lives and careers to its defense and its security, and whose job is to preserve the nation’s status as a beacon of hope.
Congressional Republicans have embraced and copied Mr. Trump’s cruelty and defended and even adopted his corruption. Mr. Trump and his enablers have abandoned conservatism and longstanding Republican principles and replaced it with Trumpism, an empty faith led by a bogus prophet. In a recent survey, a majority of Republican voters reported that they consider Mr. Trump a better president than Lincoln.
Mr. Trump and his fellow travelers daily undermine the proposition we as a people have a responsibility and an obligation to continually bend the arc of history toward justice. They mock our belief in America as something more meaningful than lines on a map.
Our peril far outstrips any past differences: It has arrived at our collective doorstep, and we believe there is no other choice. We sincerely hope, but are not optimistic, that some of those Republicans charged with sitting as jurors in a likely Senate impeachment trial will do likewise.
American men and women stand ready around the globe to defend us and our way of life. We must do right by them and ensure that the country for which they daily don their uniform deserves their protection and their sacrifice.
We look to Lincoln as our guide and inspiration. He understood the necessity of not just saving the Union, but also of knitting the nation back together spiritually as well as politically. But those wounds can be bound up only once the threat has been defeated. So, too, will our country have to knit itself back together after the scourge of Trumpism has been overcome.

The first shot fired by this group is directed at the evangelicals who voted for Trump and plan to do so again in November of this year.

The evangelicals respond.


One of the voices in the television ad is that of Pastor Robert Jeffress, an evangelical adviser to President Trump, who is heard in the ad saying, "If President Trump isn't reelected, there is going to be a backlash against people of faith like we cannot imagine."

Jeffress is the senior pastor of the 20,000 member First Baptist Church in Dallas. He is also a regular commentator on Fox News.

He told One News Now that the ad is so offensive to Trump supporters it has no hope of changing any of their minds.

He said, "This video that mocks Trump and mocks religious leaders like myself who support Trump is produced by a group of never-Trumpers who are losers in every sense of the word."

He says the ad is an attempt to shame Trump's evangelical supporters, inferring that they are hypocrites for supporting President Trump---it's just not going to work."

ABC News agrees with Pastor Jeffress. They say, "If the Lincoln Project is to pick off Republican support away from the President, they will have their work cut out for themselves, as Trump remains overwhelmingly popular within the GOP."

The pastor says those in The Lincoln Project are still hurt over not being able to defeat Trump in 2016. "Their influence could not stop Donald Trump from winning," he says and, "They're bitter about that" and "they're bitter that their continued protestations continue to have no effect."

Jeffress's final assessment? "George Conway and his group are either too dumb to get it or they're too dishonest to explain it---and I think it's more dishonesty than it is ignorance."

Takeaway.


This is a hint of what is coming in 2020. These folks, with the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, have set out to deceive the tens of thousands of evangelicals who support Trump. They admit in their statements that they have no hesitation in handing the leadership of our country to the far Left progressives who claim to be "Christian," but create policies that are at war with religious freedom for biblical Christians and our biblical beliefs regarding marriage, the family, human sexuality, the sanctity of life and absolute Truth itself. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power of their own profession of faith.

How is that a righteous position? It is self-righteousness in its lowest form.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.