Sept. 21: Why Trump?

 Yesterday, I took my kid for a swimming trip in Ottawa. While on the road, I thought I'd check my Sirius radio to see if the subscription was still valid. It was. Usually, I keep Sirius on the 80s station but for some reason, I decided to listen to Fox news. 

I had never heard anything like it before. Whoever it was on there spent a lot of time defending Mark Robinson, the North Carolina ultraconservative Republican nominee who had allegedly made some disgusting comments on a porn site somewhere. The Fox people were saying that Robinson had been set up.

Then someone else came on and talked about how the last Trump assassination attempt was not arranged by the Trump team.

Then someone else talked about how terrible it was to live in Montana and this was because a lawmaker there was just "a rubber stamper for the Biden-Harris administration."

Then there was a commercial for something called the Trump Kids Guide. The announcer warned parents that their kids might have been brainwashed against President Trump by their liberal teacher. The antidote for this indoctrination? The Trump Guide for Kids, which will tell kids about all the wonderful things Trump did etc et al.

I know enough about Fox news to know that they have a right wing bias; I also know that MSNBC is tilted to the left. I have no problem with this, though I would have a problem if either of them claimed to be completely objective. If I've learned one thing from my 20 plus years as a working journalist, it is that confirmation bias reigns supreme and we should investigate all claims, even those that support our positions.

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In March, Gregory A Smith wrote this at the Pew Research Center, (which sounds like an organization that researches long wooden benches): "For most of the last decade, observers have been trying to understand why so many highly religious Americans have a favorable view of Donald Trump, asking how values voters can support a candidate who has been divorced twice, married three times and found liable for sexual abuse. Is Trump viewed most positively by those who might be described as 'Christians in name only' – people who identify as Christians but aren’t actually religious?"

I think the answer is that as a Republican, Trump is more likely to defend religious people than Democrats. At least that's the takeaway from the Pew Research Centre. From the same article: "Most people who view Trump positively don’t think he is especially religious himself. But many think he stands up for people with religious beliefs like theirs. Just 8% of people who have a positive view of Trump think he is very religious, while 51% think he is somewhat religious and 38% say he is not too or not at all religious.

"But 51% of those with a favorable view of Trump think he stands up for people with religious beliefs like their own, including 24% who think he does this a great deal and 27% who say he does this quite a bit."

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Still, it should be noted that Trump does not have a stranglehold on the Christian vote. After Trump's debate with Harris earlier this month, Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III asked "who would vote for Trump after this debate. Especially Christians?" My recent Facebook friend, Christian debater Chris Date, listed numerous problems with both candidates.

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I don't know if I'm being irresponsible, but I'm more interested in what's happening in Canada's political landscape. Parliament was just called back and one of our MPs wasted no time blasting the New Democrats and calling for a "carbon tax election." I think it's going to be a nasty and dramatic Parliament session regardless of what happens south of the border in November.

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NOTE: The title for this note was given to me by the late American film director George A Romero shortly before he passed away in 2017. I met him at a ComicCon in Ottawa after Trump's election. I tried to tell Mr. Romero how much his 1982 movie Creepshow influenced me but he seemed a little bored. I didn't blame him.

I also predict this note will get more comments than anything else I will write in note-a-day this month.