September 3, 2016

RedState, sneering at a man for failing to sway properly in church.

"Look at the robotic swaying.  His awkward arms.  The look on his face.  Everything about this is perfect. Donald Trump: winning minorities over one by one with his sick moves and uncomfortable smile."

I don't know why Trump haters think they will get somewhere by expressing this kind of contempt. It feels utterly repellent to me. How on earth do you want to see a white man act in a black church? Is it supposed to be simply impossible?

By the way, only a few weeks ago, George W. Bush was criticized for improper church swaying:



What I said at the time: "The reason George Bush swayed and smiled during 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' is that he actually believes his religion."

77 comments:

Bob Ellison said...

Some of us have rhythm but still can't dance. It's a pickle. Trump may not even have rhythm. It's not a disqualifier.

Barack Obama has rhythm and can dance. That's not a qualifier.

I would like to be a good dancer, maybe, but I can't stand to watch others dance. Doesn't matter what they're doing: ballet, disco, whatever. It just makes me want to look away. That's probably why I never learned how to do it myself. They say it picks up girls, though.

Redstate seems to be going through a tough time. Not sure what it wants to be if it grows up.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I joke twitted to an editor there... "@LeonHWolf Red State should change it's name to Blue State."

He blocked me.

Bobber Fleck said...

"I don't feels no ways like swaying..."

Phil 314 said...

Though I have no love for Trump the candidate, if you've never been in a black church the first time is different and frankly a little uncomfortable. Would we react the same way if it was a rural Appalachian Assembly of God church?

tcrosse said...

Love trumps Trump-hatred.

Humperdink said...

Just can't please the Trump haters. Darned if you do and darned if you don't.

Trump in a black church? He will not be out-dressed.

Anonymous said...

You correctly assessed Bush's reason for swaying, in my estimation, Ann. Mr. Trump was not dancing for that same reason, again in my estimation.

And I didn't get worked up about RedState's commentary, any more than I got worked up about Mr. Trump dancing. Just another way to make sure everyone is looking in Trump's direction. Sigh.

chickelit said...

Just wait until RedState sees Trump shuckle at a synagogue

Freder Frederson said...

For someone who sneers at men in shorts, you sure get bent out of shape when others criticize awkward dance moves.

Michael said...

The Trump haters would find fault with how he winced if bitten by a serpent in a Church of God with Signs Following church.

At least he was doing an authentic white person sway and not trying to put on a fake black accent like his loathsome opponent.

mockturtle said...

At least he was doing an authentic white person sway and not trying to put on a fake black accent like his loathsome opponent.

Exactly!

traditionalguy said...

Trump is RedStates hated enemy. No one knows why except they chose to smear him over talking back to Megan Kelly and never admitted they were legalistic religious frauds pretending Trump was a worldly atheist for using bad words.

Trump fits in perfectly in a spirit filled Black Church. They both rely on the Spirit of Truth.

chickelit said...

Redstate seems to be going through a tough time. Not sure what it wants to be if it grows up.

Trump really has reshuffled American politics. Outfits like RedState have little choice but to willfully go full Will and to back Hillary. But no matter who wins in November, they will lose. What petulant little boys they are. And they are acting like this because they know it.

Paul said...

Most democrat activist are basically atheist. They cannot understand churches. Now I'm Catholic and our church services are kind of, uh, boring. But I've been to charismatic services by other Christian denominations and they are VERY different!

These hard core democrats just cannot understand religion except as a platform to control others. To them, religion is merely the opium of the masses (to paraphrase Marx.)

Freeman Hunt said...

You'll find both Bush type swaying and Trump type stiffening at the church I attend. It's all good. So glad you could come.

n.n said...

With friends like this...

rcocean said...

Red state Commissar Leon Wolfe used to claim he was a conservative, now he just claims he hates Trump.

But anyway, Trump isn't really a church going guy. A lot of us aren't. And even when/if he went to Church, like most White Protestants he's just used to singing a hymn or two.

As usual, black people just seem to have more Fun, even in Church. But its hard to blend in, if you're not used to it.

rcocean said...

Bush II - LOL. Guy looks like a drunken zombie.

Darrell said...

Fake black accent and a bottle of hot sauce in your purse. Hillary knows black voters. Doesn't she, Lamar?

SukieTawdry said...

His moves are a little tentative and awkward, but his expression strikes me as, for the want of a better word, wonderstruck. Maybe even transcendent. He seems someone very moved by his experience.

If there were a black church anywhere around me, and one that would welcome me into its congregation, I would attend church there in a NY minute. I love the exuberant joy with which black people worship the Almighty.

Ken B said...

Why do you blog? I assume you have a reason. Some people blog precisely to express contempt. It is an end in itself. They aren't trying to persuade anyone.

rhhardin said...

Derrida, turning his interest from classical philosophy to faith:

[A] prayer is something secret. It is absolutely secret. Of course, there are public prayers. There are people in communities who pray together. And the first thing I will tell you is this: when I was young, my first rebellion against my religious environment had to do with public prayer. So my way of praying, if I pray, is absolutely private. Even if I am in public, even if I am in a synagogue and praying with others, I know that my own prayer would be silent and secret, interrupting something in the community. That is another reason for not answering your question.

Nevertheless, I will say something. On the one hand, a prayer has to be a mixture of something that is absolutely singular and secret -- idiomatic, untranslatable -- and, on the other hand, a ritual that involves the body in coded gestures and that uses a common, intelligible language. That is the way I pray, if I pray. And I pray all the time, even how. But there is a problem. My way of praying, if I pray, has more than one age at the same time. There is something very childish here, and when one prays one is always a child. If I gather these images from my childhood, I find images of God as a Father -- a severe, just Father with a beard -- and also, at the same time, images of a Mother who thinks I am innocent, who is ready to forgive me. This is the childish layer of my prayers, those I perform once a day, for instance, before I go to bed, or a prayer that I might pray right now. There is another layer, of course, which involves my culture, my philosophical experience, my experience of a critique of religion that goes from Feuerbach to Nietzsche. This is the experience of a nonbeliever, someone who is constantly suspicious of the child, someone who asks, "To whom am I praying? Whom am I addressing? Who is God?" In this layer -- this layer of a more sophisticad experience, if I can put it that way, I find a way of meditating about the who that is praying and the who that is receiving the prayer. I know that this appears negative, but it isn't; it is a way of asking all the questions that we are posing at this conference, all of them. These questions are a part of my experience of prayer.

When I pray, I am thinking about negative theology, about the unnameable, the possibility that I might be totally deceived by my belief, and so on. It is a very skeptical -- I don't like the word -- prayer. And yet this skepticism is part of the prayer. Instead of skepticism, I could talk about the epoche, meaning the suspension of certainty, not of belief. This suspension of certainty, this suspension of knowledge, is part of an answer to the question, "Who do you expect to answer these prayers?" That suspension must take place in order for prayer to be authentic. If I know or were simply expecting an answer, that would be the end of prayer. That would be an order -- just as though I were ordering a pizza. No, I expect nothing like that. I assume that I must give up any expectation, any certainty, as to the one, or the more than one, to whom I address my prayer, if this is still a prayer. Of course, the child who is praying is expecting an answer, expecting some protection for himself, for his beloved ones, for his relations, his wife, children, friends and so on. But I can't tell if I am praying to something invisible, to the transcendent one, or if I am praying to those others in myself that I want to address out of love and for the protection of their lives.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Leftists, Democrats and the media, hate Trump, his supporters and anyone who would even for a fleeting moment consider voting for him. So of course their comments are trite and petty.

rhhardin said...

What we need is a women's church, not a black church.

Megthered said...

I was in line at their grocery store last night and then black couple in front of me were going off on Hillary. They were calling her a lying b, a crook, dishonest, a cheat. They man whips around and asks me if I'm a hillary supporter, I just say nope and they continue on. They were disgusted that because they were black they were expected to go along and vote dem. Not anymore, they said they were voting for Trump because they felt that he cared for people. They were very vocal and as they left my cashier laughed and said she was voting Trump too, but she would never tell anyone. I am still stunned.

Anonymous said...

chickelit: But no matter who wins in November, they will lose. What petulant little boys they are. And they are acting like this because they know it.

Know it? RedState is Cuck Central. I've yet see any evidence that those crazy little buggers know anything.

Anonymous said...

Peggy Coffey: Not anymore, they said they were voting for Trump because they felt that he cared for people. They were very vocal and as they left my cashier laughed and said she was voting Trump too, but she would never tell anyone. I am still stunned.

Interesting. I have no idea what's going to happen in November. If I had to bet money, I'd say Hillary was going to take it. But no outcome would surprise me - not Hillary BTFO'ing Trump, not Trump BTFO'ing Hillary, not a squeaker going in either direction. Still, on the way to not being surprised in November, I'm surprised as hell by the things I'm seeing and hearing every day.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Iñárritu the Mexican film maker "excoriated" Nieto for inviting Trump over there.

So was this black church pastor, BTW.

I can't recall an invitation of this kind that was later regretted.

This is good, I thought, that certain individuals can move beyond the exigencies of the moment to reach out a hand if only in pro forma politeness.

Sebastian said...

"I don't know why Trump haters think they will get somewhere by expressing this kind of contempt. It feels utterly repellent to me. How on earth do you want to see a white man act in a black church? Is it supposed to be simply impossible?" Anything goes.

"By the way, only a few weeks ago, George W. Bush was criticized for improper church swaying" Anything goes.

It's nice you're still repelled. Not many of you left in American politics.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

From the perspective of 2009, just after the inauguration of the one, did we imagine a political future where the invitation of a white male to a black church would be a source of contention and controversy?

There is a strong case to be made there as to what the legacy of Obama should be.

Unknown said...

Trump can sway this a way and that a way, but he won't sway the black vote. He should've thought about the black vote when he pretended not to know who David Duke was.

gadfly said...

So the Trump Trolls (and surprisingly, Ann Althouse) continue to attack anyone who attacks Trump but cheer his most egregious remarks and lies about his perceived enemies. Trump obviously opened the floodgates with this hatefulness attack on a Washington Post reporter. Listen to Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and even Rush Limbaugh, decry the lies of Hillary - without ever saying a word about Donald's inability to tell the truth and flat out attack every GOP candidate but one. Then there is the blame shifting going on about NeverTrumpers being to blame for Trumps poor poll numbers without remembering that Never/Trumpers didn't prevent Trump's nomination because we oppose him. The Trump Army is just as capable pf changing their vote as it expects of us. Johnson-Weld thank you in advance for your vote. Otherwise, as they say in South Russia, "Y'all are fucked."

Paraphrasing Wisconsin Talker, Charlie Sykes: "If you embrace Donald Trump, you embrace it all. You embrace every slur, every insult, every outrage, every falsehood. You're going to spend the next six months defending, rationalizing, evading all that. And afterwards, you come back to women, to minorities, to young people and say, that wasn't us. That's not what we're about. The reality is, if you support him to be president of the United States, that is who you are, and you own it."

cubanbob said...

So gadfly tell us why supporting and voting for a fascist, grifter, perjurer, criminal and traitor is less bad than supporting and voting for Trump.

Unknown said...

When this election is over, not only will Trump be a pariah in the US, anyone who kissed his ass leading up to the election will find their careers mostly over. The man is poison and those politicians who drank from his poison cup will be poisonous.

Achilles said...

Watch the liberals squirm. Trump is actually listening to the black electorate. He is actually addressing them and their concerns. Trump is going to win a significant chunk of the black vote as well as the Hispanic vote.

Watching gadfly fly off the rails in that dishonest post by assertion above just shows how hollow the left is right now.

Achilles said...

"Blogger Unknown said...
When this election is over, not only will Trump be a pariah in the US, anyone who kissed his ass leading up to the election will find their careers mostly over. The man is poison and those politicians who drank from his poison cup will be poisonous."

Anyone who supports Hillary Clinton is a soulless wretch. She has knowingly lied to the parents of dead veterans about why their children died while standing on their children's coffins. This in addition to running an obvious bribery scheme out of the Clinton foundation.

You cannot vote for Hillary Clinton and be a decent human being.

If trump is elected there will be some small riots and nashing of teeth. If Hillary wins nobody is going to be the only sucker who follows the law. If the law doesn't apply to her it doesn't apply to any of us.

Unknown said...

"Watch the liberals squirm. Trump is actually listening to the black electorate. He is actually addressing them and their concerns. Trump is going to win a significant chunk of the black vote as well as the Hispanic vote."

LOL,
Someone still believes in the tooth fairy.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Had Trump shown mastery of the form, he would have been lambasted for Cultural Appropriation.

J. Farmer said...

I think Trump is most probably a cultural Christian. He probably believes in Jesus and the Bible in some general, vague way, but I doubt that religion has ever played any significant role in his life. Fine by me.

rcocean said...

"Gadfly" LOL - better call him "Liberal Establishment Butt Boy"

rcocean said...

"Gadfly" = believes everything in the New York Times, Wapo, abc/nbc/cbs/pbs.

A real "independent thinker".

A "rebel"

LOL!

Marc in Eugene said...

It occurred to me the other day to wonder-- her people have been making propaganda about a Clinton 'landslide'-- what if there's a very close election in one way or another, e.g. one in which that Trump fellow wins the popular vote by a slim margin and Mrs Clinton the vote in the Electoral College by a larger one? My guess is that Achilles at 7:06pm understated the consequences.

J. Farmer said...

@Gadfly:

"You're going to spend the next six months defending, rationalizing, evading all that."

I guess from my perceptive, "all that" seems like not much. Every politician lies (to the public and to themselves). I don't give a shit about that. I care about what I think a politician will do. I think Trump will be tough on illegal immigration, and that's the seminal issue for now as far as I'm concerned. For the incessant charge of "racism" against Donald Trump, the actual evidence is shockingly superficial and unconvincing. Hillary cheerlead a war that got thousands of people killed, destabilized two African countries, and created a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. But Trump is beyond the pale because he once crudely imitated a disabled man. What's wrong with this picture?

richardsson said...

Yes, no trivial fault goes unpunished. Just like W. Anyone who was ever 13 years old and went to a new school knows what its like to feel awkward and made fun of for that.

I read an article in USA Today hyping GOP Defectors who endorsed Hillary. The article was so hyped up you'd think it was landslide and California fell into the ocean. Not exactly. Three low level PR flacks who worked for losers announced they would vote for Hillary. Sorry, I'm not impressed. This is all very delusional.




Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Elie Wiesel condemned Reagan for going to a cemetery in Germany were SS were also buried.

Is this the same kind of thing... I don't know.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Next stop, Chicago and Jeremiah Wright's church. Lets see how the media handles that one.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

... media handle ...

cubanbob said...

Unknown said...
When this election is over, not only will Trump be a pariah in the US, anyone who kissed his ass leading up to the election will find their careers mostly over. The man is poison and those politicians who drank from his poison cup will be poisonous.

9/3/16, 6:57 PM"

More likely it will be Hillary who will be the next Nixon. She may win but if she does she will be the first US president to be impeached and removed. The first woman president to be impeached and removed was Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. Poor Hillary at best she will only be in second place as a woman president but she may come in first place as the first US president to be impeached and removed.

mockturtle said...

She may win but if she does she will be the first US president to be impeached and removed.

And that would leave us with ...Kaine! Yikes!

John henry said...

Best concert I ever went to was in Memphis about 10 years ago.

I was there for a client and had Sunday free. I got up early and went to Graceland, went to the Museum of the Mississippi (or whatever it is called)then walked down Beale Street (I think).

A local Christian radio station was staging a concert with choirs from about 6-8 black churches. Each choir had a 5-10 piece band and 20-30 singers. All from black churches and mostly black but a few white singers mixed in.

It was outside in a park, in July and hot. No shade for the audience, a bit of shade for the choirs. I stayed for about 2 hours until it finished. I have never seen such energy as in those choirs. People in the bleachers dancing or just shuffling around but obviously moved by the music. I was one of the few white people in the stands but never felt anything less than totally welcome.

I was deeply moved too. Some of the hymns I knew, some I didn't. I'd never heard any of them sung with such feeling.

If I lived in Memphis I'd think seriously about going to one of those churches.

John Henry

mockturtle said...

... media handle ...

Good boy! ;-)

DaMav said...

Red State, which I used to read regularly, has unfortunately turned itself into an irrelevant sewer of Trump hatred.

Dude1394 said...

Isn't it wonderful to have redstate in the third for Hillary as well.

traditionalguy said...

For the joy of it Listen to some recorded music concerts by
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. NYC boy Trump has probably seen it all in that cultural mixing machine.

jimbino said...

You should experience the exuberant rapturous celebrations at the First Church of Deliverance on Chicago's South Side. Bush is totally with it.

Boxty said...

She may win but if she does she will be the first US president to be impeached and removed.

Don't hold your breath. Only Republicans eat their own.

richardsson said...

Blogger Unknown said...

When this election is over, not only will Trump be a pariah in the US, anyone who kissed his ass leading up to the election will find their careers mostly over. The man is poison and those politicians who drank from his poison cup will be poisonous.


...and this is your first election, right?

Gahrie said...

I don't know why Trump haters think they will get somewhere by expressing this kind of contempt.

Because the MSM and Democratic Party have regularly done this since at least Goldwater.

It feels utterly repellent to me.

Seems to me to be a matter of whose ox is gored. There is nothing new or novel about this...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well, I would have initially bought your explanation about W., given there's a "precedent" whereby religious Jews sway forwards and back in weird, even suggestive ways that are perfectly routine and pious. But then I watched it and his weird smirking and couldn't help finding it a bit frivolous and tone-deaf. Yes, disrespectful. Insanely tacky, at the least.

Gahrie said...

Just for shits and giggles...can anyone name for me the last Republican presidential candidate to be treated with dignity, equality and respect by the MSM?

Or even just fairly?

richardsson said...

I've been around politics long enough to know that predicting the future is not a way to be taken seriously. If you are right, nobody remembers except you. If you are wrong, everybody remembers except you. The most famous political prediction of my life time was, "....and you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more because, Gentlemen, this is my final press conference." said Richard Nixon at the close of his 1962 campaign for Governor of California, and then he stomped out of the room. Nobody ever held him to his prediction.

rcocean said...

"Elie Wiesel condemned Reagan for going to a cemetery in Germany were SS were also buried.

Is this the same kind of thing... I don't know."


Lem, what does that have to do with the price of potatoes? Or Trump going to a black church in Detroit?

Sayyid said...

Anyone who looks up my (few) other posts on the election will know I've always been on the Cruz Crew, and am probably not going to vote for Trump (or the felonious security risk for that matter).

But I agree with the professor here. So what if Trump pulled out the white boy shuffle. What's he supposed to do? If he dances and gets really into it, then he'd be portrayed as a white guy trying to act black. If he stands still, then he's the awkward guy who isn't even a little moved when everyone around him is dancing.

Can we all just agree that no matter what if you watch a film of a white guy in a black church, it's going to look a little awkward for one reason or another?

Then we can get back to real issues in this election, like how Trump wants to hand the Baltic states over to Russia, and how Clinton wants to be president so she can turn her pay for play graft up to eleventy.

Unknown said...

Here's a real issue: Democratic House members are asking the FBI to investigate the Russian hacking of the DNC with a possible Trump Campaign connection. Of course there are no blog posts about this, butthurt over someone making fun of Trump's white man dancing style in a black church more is important, I guess.

Unknown said...

"Just for shits and giggles...can anyone name for me the last Republican presidential candidate to be treated with dignity, equality and respect by the MSM?

Or even just fairly?"

Oh cry me a river, how was Obama treated by the right for the last 8 years?

Gahrie said...

Oh cry me a river, how was Obama treated by the right for the last 8 years?


Quite fairly in comparison. Where are the Hitler comparisons, the chimp comparisons, the books and movies fantasizing his death?

And the Right does not control the MSM, the Democrats do.

Lewis Wetzel said...

MSM is far left as the the Right is right?
Oh, heavens, 'Unknown'.
No one expects the Left to treat the right 'fairly.'
Our mainstream media types continue to swear that they are completely unbiased.

Gahrie said...

Here's a real issue: Democratic House members are asking the FBI to investigate the Russian hacking of the DNC with a possible Trump Campaign connection.

Cool...maybe they can investigate the Clinton Foundation, Hillary and the uranium deal at the same time......

Lewis Wetzel said...

R&B wrote:
"Yes, disrespectful. Insanely tacky, at the least."
How would liberals argue without adjectives? I mean insanely liberal people like R&B.

buwaya said...

Its all about what the money is paying for.
Most if not all these professional outfits, think tanks, political magazines, and websites that pay salaries, live off a benefactor or a clique of them. The left wing ones mainly off foundation money, like Brookings, the right wing ones off funding from a few wealthy individuals, and I think NR and Redstate are in this situation.
It seem this year that there is a supermajority of politically minded superwealthy against Trump.

amielalune said...

"Sick" moves? "Sick"??? Those people really are deranged, aren't they? I'd be embarrassed to let people know that someone has driven me insane as Trump obviously has them.

MAJMike said...

Stopped reading Red State several years ago.

machine said...

...too bad he won't rent to them.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Bruce Cockburn: Walking In Memphis

And Reverend Green be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer
But boy you've got a prayer in Memphis

Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
And she said
"Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I said "Ma'am I am tonight"

MikeR said...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/03/politics/donald-trump-black-voters-detroit/index.html
The picture of the tallis from Israel is awesome - from a black preacher.
"For centuries, the African-American church has been the conscience of this country." I feel that way too.
If Trump would keep doing this, I think he would win.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Here's a real issue: Democratic House members are asking the FBI to investigate the Russian hacking of the DNC with a possible Trump Campaign connection. Of course there are no blog posts about this, butthurt over someone making fun of Trump's white man dancing style in a black church more is important, I guess.

Even if it were that would have been less of a security breach than Hillary's emails. The DNC ain't res publica, lady! The DNC is a hack organization. Hacks hacking hacks. Big deal.

Anonymous said...

Garhie wrote:
Here's a real issue: Democratic House members are asking the FBI to investigate the Russian hacking of the DNC with a possible Trump Campaign connection.

Cool...maybe they can investigate the Clinton Foundation, Hillary and the uranium deal at the same time......

9/3/16, 11:19 PM

Okay, and they can investigate the campaign donation from the Trump Foundation to the Florida attorney general while she was deciding whether or not to pursue a case against Trump University. Trump has already been fined for that blatant effort to buy influence.