Seeking what he may devour

Those who most passionately admire Donald J. Trump love him especially, it seems, because he refuses to live by American institutions and traditions. He's a bull who treats government as if it were a china shop. His people voted him in precisely because he would shake things up, a real estate tycoon, at least no blasted politician. Donald J. Trump would make a mess.

And he has. Nothing so amuses him, it seems, than to jab a sharp stick in the eye of whoever opposes him--or has opposed him. The mere mention of Barack Obama sends him into chilling tirades. But he doesn't stop there. He knocks everything off the shelf and, for good measure, kicks over stools and tables all over the world.

As he did last week, when he determined that long-established United States policy in Israel was flat wrong. "The impetuous and irresponsible Trump administration announced Monday that, effective immediately, the United States government no longer considers Israeli settlements illegal," or so wrote the Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times. "Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, who made the announcement, said the administration was merely recognizing 'the reality on the ground.'”

"The reality on the ground" is that ever since the 1967 war, U. S. foreign policy has advocated a solution to unending middle eastern problems by way of a two-state solution, maintaining that any substantive peace proposal had to acknowledge the rights of both the Jewish state and the Palestinians who were moved out when the nation of Israel was created after World War II. 

With the one flat flick of a Sharpie, our fearless leader shut that door and opened up the West Bank to further Jewish development, allowing Israel to have its way with land it's controlled since 1967, a wonderful gift to one of Trump's favorite strongman, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, by the way, finds himself stewing in his own doo-doo. 

Why would Trump do that? No one was advocating for a change of policy last week. What possible reason might he have to announce that he was knocking the legs out of yet another traditional view as well as United Nations Resolution 242--not just Obama's legacy by the way, but the whole succession of Presidents since 1950? Who cares? 

The answer is clear. He did it because he loves Christians, because he adores disciples who claim the name of Jesus, men and women like Franklin Graham (son of Billy) who so notably explained the place of Donald J. Trump in the cosmic warfare between divine light and the powers of darkness, when Graham told interviewer Eric Metaxis last week that he understood the impeachment proceedings in Washington were under control of a "demonic power." That puts me in Satan's legions.

It's the fundamentalist Christians, American's evangelicals, who loved the move he made in Israel, not because they love Jews--some of the most anti-Semitic folks among us are Bible-toting Christians--but because the calendar they zealously keep to determine the Second Coming of Christ points specifically at the reorganization of the Jewish state as a major indicator of the forthcoming Day of Doom. 

No single group of Americans voters have been as unflagging in their approval and support of President Donald J. Trump as Bible-thumpers. And if 45 is to win again--and the only way he can do it is as he did in 2016 by way of a few votes in states with significant white evangelical Midwestern states--he absolutely must maintain his sky-high approval ratings among those white Christians who believe, as does Franklin Graham, that the being at control of the opposition is a horned thing with cloven feet who breathes hellfire. 

Donald J. Trump could care less about Israel or Palestinians or peace in the Middle East. What he cares about is oil and money and holding on to his power by way of a whole ton of votes from pious saints like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr., who follow him (lower-case h).
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