In May, 2018 I wrote the following in my blog:
Trump’s Washington is a political black hole whose denseness does not allow light to escape—or compassion to be released. (1)
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This past Tuesday, at the post-Inauguration Day interfaith ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, gave a sermon directed at newly-sworn-in President Trump asking him,
“In the name of our God, . . . to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
Budde's plea mentioned “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families,” across the country “who fear for their lives.”
The bishop also spoke up for immigrant workers, including those who may not “have the proper documentation,” saying the vast majority of them are “not criminals” but rather “good neighbors.” (2)
She added:
“And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”
The plea for compassion, “for we were all once strangers in this land,” should be particularly meaningful to Jews, who, Rabbi David Russo explains,
are consistently reminded of our obligation to take care of those around us, to raise our voices in the face of oppression and to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves. Far from exempting us from this special responsibility, the Jewish people’s history of hardship is exactly the reason why we are called upon to show chesed, lovingkindness, to immigrants in our midst. As the Torah says, we know the heart of the stranger, because we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (3)
And what was Trump’s trenchant response to the sermon? As expected, he reached into his fifth-grade lexicon and came up with “nasty.”
Trump was supported by his MAGidiots, chief among whom was Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.): “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.” (4) (Where do you deport someone who was born in New Jersey?)
The statement by Collins falls in line with the lack of Constitutional awareness that afflicts TrumpWorld. In the past, Trump himself spouted such anti-Constitutional craziness as wishing to see Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley executed. Trump wrote that
Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” (5)
As of 2019, according to Axios, Trump had accused 24 persons of “treason.” (6)
And he continued after that, the following year tweeting that
a statement by a Black Lives Matter chapter leader made during an interview with Fox News was “Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!”
That was just days after Trump became the first president in modern U.S. history to accuse his predecessor of treason.
“It’s treason,” Trump said during a Monday interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “They were spying on my campaign, I told you that a long time ago. It turns out I was right.” (7)
One would think that the person serving as President of the United States would know the Constitution of this land:
Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Trump, of course, would eliminate the word “only” and add “or offending the amour-propre of the President.”
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(1) https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2018/05/black-holes.html
(3) https://journeys.uscj.org/strangers-in-land-of-egypt/
(4) https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-member-wants-bishop-added-224103604.html
(5) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/trump-milley-execution-incitement-violence/675435/
(6) https://www.axios.com/2019/06/16/trump-treason-russia-investigation-new-york-times
(7) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/27/president-who-cries-treason/
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