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revanon OP t1_j1hv9k8 wrote

I answered this a bit elsewhere in my response about power and status, but to dig just a bit deeper, I think that politics in many ways comes down to the protection of one's power and status, even at the expense of financial success (like, just look at how Elon has flushed tens of billions of dollars on Twitter, but white supremacists get to tweet again).

For instance, it is more or less what Ronald Reagan promised when he campaigned on "welfare queens" against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Carter was considered a turncoat by many white Christians for enforcing the law against private segregation academies, and Reagan was pretty clearly saying that he would make Black Americans, and especially Black women, suffer without spelling it out. And even though a whole lot of people suffered economically during Reagan's first term--it was a significant recession--he won reelection in a landslide.

To me, there's a pretty direct line to draw from that to present day politicians basically running on a platform of, "I will make the people you hate suffer." And I think that many US Christians have decided that they will be good voters for those politicians first and good Christians a distant second.

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TacoCommand t1_j1pge45 wrote

As someone who walked away from seminary and active duty because of the 2003 invasion, I deeply appreciate hearing a thoughtful pastoral/clerical response.

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