Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:20 pm
Phil Robertson has threatened to run for president, because apparently he’s a better solution to nonexistent problems than the guy he is endorsing, Donald Trump. But I don’t think that’s the real story here. The real story is Robertson’s almost incomprehensibly high levels of hypocrisy. It’s breathtaking.
According to Robertson, who says “spiritual warfare is what I do,” lying is the work of Satan, and he blames “rising secularism” in the United States, “the greatest assault on Christianity,” as being responsible for the problem.
“You call it secularism, I just call it the Evil One, the Evil One that controls human beings.”
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Watch courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Right. Well, whatever gets you to sleep at night, Phil. We’ll just call that “spiritual warfare” stuff “disinformation.” How’s that? There are other words for it too, but I can’t use them here.
Remember, Robertson is endorsing Donald Trump, who is proven to lie 9 out of every 10 times he opens his mouth, and then lies that he didn’t lie, if he isn’t claiming that he never said it in the first place.
Leave aside for a minute the fact that most of us don’t believe a figure such as Satan exists, or the fact that in the Old Testament, Satan isn’t a bad guy, just a lieutenant of God doing God’s work, and that the snake in the Garden of Eden was just a snake.
Just put all that in a box and forget about it and focus on this: Since many on the Religious Right are now endorsing Trump as well, logic dictates that the Religious Right, and not secularism, is doing the work of Robertson’s Satan.
After all, nobody – and this includes Robertson himself – lies with greater regularity.
The solution, obviously, is to vote for somebody like Trump, who, according to Robertson is godly, and therefore doesn’t lie.
Or, as he puts it, “The one that at least won’t disarm us, spiritually speaking and physically speaking.”
“I can’t tell you how to vote,” he said, but “if they keep fooling around long enough, they’re going to force me to run. If you want to see a change in America, get me in there, dude, and there will be a big change then, if you all are ready for it.”
Well, if he puts that chair in the Oval Office and wears those clothes, nobody will notice him sitting there anyway, so maybe it will all be okay.
It is ridiculous for Robertson to sit there and complain about dishonesty while endorsing Donald Trump. Clearly, dishonesty is not what bothers Robertson, but rather people disagreeing with his worldview, and the belief that those people should be punished as a result. While this thinking is defensible in terms of evidence from the Old Testament, it is completely incompatible with the United States Constitution.
His dishonesty and hypocrisy just puts the exclamation point on his endorsement of religious bigotry.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
