“He won’t shut up about having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot, and I got to say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children — I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history.”
“He won’t shut up about having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot, and I got to say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children — I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history.”
I read JD Vance's first book, Hillbilly Elegy. Thought it was sort of interesting. And there was an article in Atlantic Magazine from a decade or so ago saying why he could never support Trump. I didn't read it back then, they republished lately. He's done a 180 since then. The guy has told a bunch of lies additionally. I don't know why I would believe anything he said now. He doesn't seem to have an ethical center, conversion story notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteI just ordered a paperback copy of Pope Leo's encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. Hopefully I will actually read it.
The remarks were made at the GOP convention. Talarico has basically been taunted for remarks about trans people that MAGA dislikes. Context for Vance's remarks were provided by convention coverage in the Texas Tribune:
ReplyDeleteVance, meanwhile, took a swipe at Talarico by suggesting, without evidence, that his web browser history would be untoward.
“In Texas, you have Democrats — grown men — who seem to be pretty obsessed with trans children,” he said. “I gotta say a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender kids, I don’t know about you, but I never wanna see that guy’s web browser history. It’s not a good place.
Vance rolled out past comments by Talarico that the GOP has cited repeatedly as evidence the Austin Democrat is too liberal for Texas, while crediting Trump for the “Talafreako” nickname Republicans have adopted for him. (Early in the general election, Talarico’s campaign began selling t-shirts declaring, “I’m a Talafreako” in response.)
“This Talarico guy will not shut up about how there are six genders, he will not shut up about how, quote, God is nonbinary,” Vance said. “I don’t know what the hell that even means, my friends. He won’t shut up about how having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot.”
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has said some of his past remarks were “cringey” and “missed the mark.” He has more recently said he does not believe there are six biological sexes and that the point he was trying to make with his “God is nonbinary” remark is that God is beyond gender.
I read that what Talarico was referring to with the "six biological sexes" comment were conditions such as Turner's syndrome (in which there is part of an x chromosome missing) or Klinefelter's (in which there is an extra x chromosome). Hopefully he has learned that you can't talk genetic anomalies with MAGA and have it make any sense to them.
DeleteAs far as God being beyond gender, that's pretty standard theology. But unwise for a politician to get into those weeds.
Talarico actually did say something along the lines of there being six genders (citing genetic anomalies). and about God being "non-binary." He has very recently "backtracked" or "clarified." But Vance's comments were just plain ugly.
DeleteI personally believe it is not so very wrong to think of God as nonbinary. It has always struck me as disingenuous to say "God made us in his image and likeness" means humans have, say, intellect and will. In the early books of the Bible, God is depicted as having a human form. For example, he comes down to walk in the Garden of Eden, and he passes by Moses obstructing his sight so that Moses cannot see his face but only his back.
Stupid for Talarico to try to school people about gender. But overall, Vance wants to make out that empathy for trans kids is some kind of pedophilia and that "traditional Christian values" means outlawing anything outside heterosexual monogamy.
DeleteVance and the rest of the Republicans keep throwing culture war smoke bombs against Democratic candidates. I think the Dems should fight back by laser focusing on the blatant greed and corruption in the administration. They're all compromised.
DeleteThe republicans apparently have nothing of substance to run on, so they rely on the culture war stuff. The dems could fight back with plenty of dirt about GOP politicians who have been charged with child abuse, including some who are clergy. Anecdotally, I would guess that I have read about these abuse claims against children, but also against women, at least five times as often as I’ve read similar charges about democrats.
DeleteVance is a first class hypocrite and not a follower of Christ, so he shouldn’t call himself a Christian.
Katherine, yes, and Democrats need to distill the corruption message down to how much money Trump has made vs how much money American workers are losing because of high living costs driven by effed up Trump policies.
DeleteI'm hoping that as prices continue to rise, as Trump continues to push data centers and stay involved in Iran, and as Repubs continue to push the narrowest ideas of "Christian values," that right-leaning independents and moderate Repubs will stay home in November.
That would leave only MAGA cult members against centrist Democrats and leftists.
There's an interesting article on the former J.D. Vance (now known as JD Vance, with no periods after his initials) in The Guardian titled JD Vance’s Catholicism could be at odds with Maga evangelicals in 2028. A brief excerpt:
ReplyDeleteDaniel Hummel, director of the Lumen Center, a Christian research group in Madison, Wisconsin, said Vance’s public statements highlighted potential pitfalls as he tries to win over both evangelicals and Catholics.
“Vance is a recent Catholic convert, and he still talks a lot like an evangelical,” he said. . . .
Vance, who has said he drifted from his evangelical upbringing into atheism by the time he joined the US Marines Corps, may face a further barrier to his political ambitions through a lack of clarity around his religious views.
“It’s pretty clear to me that he understands himself to be a Christian, who is being driven into politics in part because of his Christian faith,” said Hummel. “But it’s unclear to me – even as someone who observes him regularly – what exactly is the content of that Christianity.
“It’s unclear sort of where he’s actually drawing his ideas from when it comes to political theology or how he understands the relationship between religion and politics.
“I think that’s a huge threat to him, because he’s with communities that have strong opinions on these things, and talk about them in very certain ways. So there’s a danger he’ll either commit too much to one side, or the other, and then alienate the other side.”
I haven’t seen any stories indicating that his rant that Pope Leo should stay in his lane has bothered the 60% of white Catholics who voted for trump.
DeleteThanks, David.
DeleteThe Church Ladies refer to me with an eyeroll as "a seeker," somebody who shops different religions over a lifetime but can't light on one, so I kinda feel for Vance. He's hoping that with each incarnation he's found some kind of Almighty Cosmic Truth.
I'd like to tell him that that search is a fool's quest. Jesus didn't ask more of us than to love God and our neighbors. That's hard enough without trying to find the "right" religion. Or any religion.
Vance is also a political seeker, trying on various ideologies. He's now playing white Christian nationalist apparently without any sense of irony that he's married to a brown immigrant working woman.
I find him endlessly fascinating in the same way Willie Stark or Elmer Gantry are. But I wouldn't want any of them to be president.
Vance is evil. Trump is irredeemably evil.
DeleteVance has said that he thinks UFOs are demons or demonic activity. This is a large and growing belief among evangelicals. Do you think that this might make conservative MAGA Catholics think twice about him even if his insulting comments to Pope Leo don’t?
DeleteAnne, I doubt it. It might make them chuckle, but as long as he keeps yipping about big families, heterosexuality, and our nation's Christian foundation, he'll be fine with that crowd. I don't think most Catholics, MAGA or not, buy Pope Leo's point about the good Samaritan.
DeleteThey talk about mutilating children for trans ideology. Meanwhile, there are kids in Gaza with amputated limbs and, though you don’t see it, bomb-mutilated or missing genitalia. Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands. And they don’t talk about that. And they get away with it.
ReplyDeleteIt's their parents' fault for voting in Hamas, according to my aunt. I wish I could say she's senile, but she's always been a hard case.
DeleteI was put on permanent filtration by America Magazine because I referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as resistance groups, not terrorists. Terrorists, resistance fighters, all a matter of perspective. I know what my perspective is.
DeleteI think they're terrorists. But repressive Israeli policy has a lot to answer for in creating impossible living conditions.
DeleteTo sow division among Palestinians, Israel wanted Hamas to exist. They, at times, supported it. The same way we supported the Taliban when it suited our purposes. The leader of Syria is Al Qaeda, in a nice suit now, no robes and burnooses. Plans within plans. Games within games. Toward what end? I think that the Israeli government, the queen of espionage, false flags and exploding pagers, knew exactly what would happen on October 6 and wanted it to happen. And I wish the US government, having demonstrated its bad faith and incompetence, would bring all our military assets home. We should then model our military on the Iranians and Ansar Allah. Cheap and effective at defense, useless at force projection. We can then defend our territory we stole fair and square. Sometimes, I think less is more.
DeleteReminds me of Graham Greene's satire, "Our Man in Havana." Hilarious, except you know it isn't that far off the beam.
DeleteNever read that one. I will. Greene was a great expositor of American mischief. But a lot of contemporary problems trace back to the British Empire. The arbitrary borders drawn by them, Indian poverty, the existence of Israel. They only turned the job of hegemon over to us and, now, it’s our turn to bite the dust. I guess that’s the only thing that annoys me about Greene. There was always the disheveled, alcoholic British expatriate acting as witness to American tomfoolery. But the British set up the system originally.
DeleteThe Brits come in for plenty of derision in "Havana."
DeleteYeah. I’ll read it.
DeleteIf that's the book that became the film, "Our Man in Havana", I watched it decades ago. It was not complimentary of MI6.
DeleteI haven't paid too much attention to Talarico but think he presents as a little non-mainstream. His opponent is a despicable grifter who won his primary over a GOP incumbent who fell victim to the Trump Revenge Tour. If Trump had trusted Texas voters, he'd have a better chance of the Senate staying in GOP hands. Georgia is a case study for Texas about what happens to Senate GOP seats that are p*ssed away by running bad candidates: once a Democrat takes one of those seats, s/he becomes the incumbent and is difficult to dislodge.
ReplyDelete