Donald Trump and maga Republicans ignoring the lunacy of a failed administration where moral incompetence is running amok

The Psych-Ward Lunacy of Donald Trump
Obviously, Donald Trump has no moral core. 

And, according to his own chief of staff, he’s surrounded by amateurs, opportunists, and drug users.😵

Another tranche of sour🤢  💲economic data came down from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today. Jobs rose by 64,000 in November, but fell in October by 105,000, thanks in part to DOGE-induced federal layoffs that finally took effect. Even worse❗ 

So, the US economy is now losing blue-collar jobs—for the first time since the pandemic— and the unemployment rate ticked up more than expected, to 4.6 percent, the highest in four years. "Happy Holidays"❗😓😞😡

Donald Trump Is Morally Inept and Mentally Ill- As a professional registered nurse, my opinion about Trump's inability to behave like a human being is because he is overwhelmed by the stress of trying to be a King instead of behaving like a competent leader. Stress is a conduit to mental illness, believe me, psychiatric hospitalized patients give evidence to this cause and effect. 

This assessment is reported by Mona Charen in The Bulwark:

Tragedy in Hollywood. Indeed, the world reacted in horror to the news of the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, apparently at the hands of their own troubled son. Donald Trump had a more uniquely evil response.

Donald Trump's patholically deranged post is narcissistic, crude, stupid, and cruel. No human adult outside a psych ward expresses such thoughts. This is Donald Trump's low IQ statement is evidence of a twisted soul.

A bizarre response unconnected to the reality about what happened to Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner. A mental health nurse would call this "tangential thinking", a symptom of mental illness. 

A couple was murdered in their own home, their throats slit. 

Rob Reiner was a Hollywood giant who played a huge part in American culture for half a century and brought pleasure to millions around the globe. One might think that Trump’s admiration for fame and money alone might have stayed his hand in celebrating this tragic crime. But no. Reiner was a Democrat and an opponent of Trump, so our commander in chief, who evidently fantasizes about the violent death of every critic, took time out of his busy TV-watching schedule to gloat that Reiner had been murdered because of his “raging obsession” with Trump.

Take a minute just to marvel at this. For most people, the idea of political violence committed by one’s own side is so psychologically uncomfortable that many would prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist. When such violence does break out, many prefer to retreat into comfortable lies rather than face the fact that their allies might stoop to such lows. And when the evidence is overwhelming that their confederates have done something despicable, they reach for crutches like “false flag.”

Trump is the opposite. So powerful is his thirst for political violence that he not only fails to recoil from it when it breaks out; he fantasizes that it’s taking place even when it isn’t. There’s zero reason to believe Reiner’s murder had anything to do with his political opposition to Trump. But the president says this is true for the same reason he says many false things are true: because he wants it to be true.

Has there ever been a simpler encapsulation of the Trump era❗❓

We suffer daily through reminders about the weakness of Donald Trump's amoral mind, but the United States has muddled along with other dim presidents. Where Trump occupies a category all his own is in his breathtaking moral depravity.

And witness the devoted maga cult cheering section who insist upon overlooking this man’s monstrousness. 

Donald Trump’s immorality has been on vivid display for a decade, but the response by his defenders has always been to treat attention to the matter either as pure partisanship or as class condescension.

For those whose minds were not nailed shut, however, the brutality of his actions comes as no surprise. Yes, a man who could rouse a crowd to murderous fury to attack Congress and his own vice president can assassinate people in boats, starve and kill hungry mothers and children in poor nations, pardon powerful drug runners, and send hapless immigrants to foreign gulags.

During these ethical swamp years, Trump’s denizens have fallen back again and again to excusing his evil as a matter of manners. Sorry, no. This is not a matter of style. The man is a moral abomination, and so are his defenders.

Not only that—notice how he continually makes his lackeys worse. Before Trump weighed in on this double horrific tragedy, most of the right wing’s social media discourse over Reiner was taking place in an odd, sanctimonious register—genuine shock and mourning over the tragedy paired with a million self-congratulatory little soliloquies about how Republicans, unlike those deranged leftists, don’t dance on the graves of their opponents. But then Trump posted, and the tone swung round at once: Suddenly dancing on Reiner’s grave was very much in style.

It is hard to be surprised. When you’ve spent ten years allowing your conscience to atrophy, there’s no muscle left.

Eighteen percent increase in Bible engagement from movies

The Week reports:

Christianity survives and spreads by the recital of its central stories. And Hollywood — with a podium bigger and a microphone louder than perhaps any others in the world — is now retelling and spreading these narratives. This very naturally — even if unintentionally — increases engagement with the Bible itself.
Hollywood is finding success with Christian Bible movies.

Perhaps audiences have been responding to a growing threat of religious extremism, but for some reason, Hollywood is finding its stride with Christian themed movies.

Secular Hollywood is producing faith based films. As a result, "The Week" is reporting how Hollywood is unwittingly promoting the Christian faith

In fact, 2014 was dubbed Hollywood's "year of the Bible" because more Biblical blockbusters were released in the last 12 months than in the previous 12 years combined. And because religious audiences continue to buy tickets for these films, movie audiences can expect to see more spirituality and sacred scripture movies on the silver screen.

Faith-based entertainment is even driving interest in the Bible. Following the release of History Channel's wildly popular mini-series The Bible, a survey reported 18 percent of adults nationwide have an increase in Bible engagement. Among those who experienced an increase, 25 percent said the mini-series or religious media conversations had an influence on their interest.

YouVersion's Bible App for smartphones experienced an increases in traffic following various faith films' releases. 

After Noah opened, the app experienced a 300 percent increase in views of the Noah narrative in Genesis. During the debut of Exodus, the app experienced increases in opens of the first 14 chapters of Exodus, which feature the story of Moses and the liberation of the Jews. 

Some chapters were up as much as 33 percent, compared to the previous weekend (before the films). The app also saw increases in Bible engagement following the opening weekends of Son of God and Heaven is for Real.

Why the correlation between faith films and renewed interest in faith? Entertainment pundits say it's about the compelling stories (and money).

A preeminent Christian thinker of the 20th century, Richard Niebuhr, wrote, "The preaching of the early church was not an argument for the existence of God nor an admonition to follow the dictates of some common human conscience.... It was primarily a simple recital of the great events connected with the historical appearance of Jesus Christ and a confession of what had happened to the community of disciples."

As studios promote their films to religious audiences, marketing firms, specializing in this arena, have popped up. These firms often sell bulk tickets to churches and ministries, who in turn use the films as opportunities to evangelize non-Christians who may not attend a religious service but might show up for a free movie. Religious marketing firms often produce movie-themed sermon outlines and graphics for churches in hopes of generating interest in the film, while boosting church attendance.

Let's be clear: Movie studios are not consciously trying to evangelize moviegoers or promote religious practice. Often — in the cases of Exodus director Ridley Scott and Noah director Darren Aronofsky — they don't even believe the stories they're telling. Instead, Hollywood's greatest driving factor is lucrative business. 

Cumulatively, 2014's faith films raked in hundreds of millions in domestic ticket sales. Frankly, Hollywood is concerned about the almighty dollar, not Almighty God.

Nevertheless, films are more than mere moneymakers. Rather, they are also cultural touchstones, with the power to shape our collective consciousness. Movies can stoke society's passions, provoking us to ask questions we previously overlooked. They can elevate discourse and help.

Movies can define the meaning of who we are and what we do. Hollywood's choice to probe religious matters at the movie theater is not culturally neutral, regardless of Hollywood's intent.

For now, the arrangement seems to be satisfying Christians and the secular business capitalist. Christians are benefiting from the amplification of their most cherished stories and increased interest in their sacred scriptures. 

Meanwhile, Hollywood is making a mint of money off audiences who are willing to pay to see spiritual stories on the big screen. "The Week" asks, as time passes, if the Christian-business partnership will compromise the core values of both parties, or become a match made in heaven?

A more pragmatic correlation might be made between the rise in Islamic extremism and interest in Christian theme movies. During times of crises, as in the face of terrorist threats, people tend to seek security by returning to their cultural roots.