How's that Grifter Messiah?

 

Having written so much about politics, I definitely feel where Jim Acosta is coming from in talking about "post-Trump stress disorder". Do I want to pay the Former Guy any mind or finally get myself off of that loser and write about things that are actually happening now? But the thing of it is, the damage that Trump did will live on for a long time, and his biggest fans still don't seem to understand that.

Case in point--the campaign cash-grab where Trump donors were signed up for automatic recurring WEEKLY donations. From the story:

Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out. 

As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language. 

The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.

WinRed fraud claims at one point comprised 1-3% of credit card fraud claims, which is just astonishing--and yet, there are some awfully gullible people who think that lovely Mr. Trump didn't have anything to do at all with how their bank accounts got raided. And some of them might have even given to Trump's post-election money begs, since Trump claimed (and why would he lie?) that he never lost. And he still does claim that very thing, even in his Easter message.  

He's something, isn't he? Just a very put-upon billionaire who definitely thought he was winning that election, but he needed your dollars and your prayers. And some folks will tell you that he could still rise again. From the pulpit, no less. 

Even though he was a failure as a president, never even built the fucking racist wall that was the cornerstone of his promises, and let hundreds of thousands of people die of COVID-19 under his watch through sheer ineptitude and partisan wankery. This should tell you an awful lot about the kind of pastors who would "prophesize" about Trump--not any of it good. The man was picking the pockets of his faithful. He was fleecing his sheep. I would assume that any church that lifted him up as an example would "go and do likewise". 

*The above picture is not a photoshop--it's real. And they were not either trying to equate Trump with Christ--they said. This is the exact reason I'm for separation of church and state and especially don't love pulpit politicking. It's manipulative and debases politics and religion alike.