Monday, June 01, 2020

by

Abby Zimet, Further columnist

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Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Surreal. Moments after citing the 2nd Amendment and threatening to unleash the U.S. military against his own people - aka "professional anarchists” - for the crime of seeking racial justice, our impeached reality show "president of law and order” ordered police to shoot teargas and rubber bullets at peaceful, unarmed protesters so he could hold a deranged, utterly pointless photo op.

As cops in full riot gear and on horseback charged the crowds, Trump lumbered across the road past furious graffiti to St. John's Church, where he awkwardly held a Bible like a small unruly animal he'd never seen before and didn't want to so reporters could take a picture of him lamely pretending to be a president.

As widely noted - per the headline, "Peaceful Protesters Gassed So Trump Can Do A Sacrilegious Bible Photo Op" - "He did not enter the church...Nor did he explain the reason for this juxtaposition of hellish threats of violence against American citizens and a brief appearance in front of a place of worship consecrated to the Prince of Peace." A brief exchange with the press only added to the Monty Python-esque feel of the scene: Q: "Is that your Bible?" A: "It's a Bible." Clergy, who were neither asked nor told of the intrusion, were not amused. D.C.'s Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, who oversees the church, said she was "outraged" that heathen money-changers had tear-gassed innocent people "so they could use one of our churches as a prop." Charging Trump with "abuse of sacred symbols" in the name of everything antithetical to church teachings, she argued, "Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence" and declared, "We disassociate ourselves from the messages of this president." God knows she is not alone. The horrified consensus of the evening's sordid spectacle: "Fascism has come to America."

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others...When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” - Matthew 6:5-6