One Half of All Republicans Believe Trump Was Chosen by God by tristero

One Half of All Republicans Believe Trump Was Chosen by God 

by tristero

If so, s/he sure as hell works in mysterious ways:

Almost half of registered Republican voters agree with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that God "wanted Donald Trump to become president," a new Fox News poll shows. 
Forty-five percent of Republicans agree with the sentiment—the Fox poll didn't mention Sanders by name, referring to a recent comment by a "White House spokesperson." That number represents a plurality, as 37 percent of Republicans disagree.   
Overall, one-quarter of registered voters share that view...

But fortunately:
...62 percent said they do not believe God wanted Trump to be commander-in-chief.
For the past 40 years or more, liberals and progressives have tended to dismiss public God-Talk as, at best, inappropriate for a secular democracy or, at worst, as puerile and even dangerous.

Fair enough. Basically, I agree. But there's a problem.  When liberals don't talk about religion, it cedes the public discourse to the most cynical of political operatives, the kind — like Mike Pence or George Bush — who are perfectly happy to invoke God to control what we do with our bodies, place our children in cages, deny our marriages, and basically burn anyone who's not a Bible-beating Republican at the virtual stake.

That's now changing. If intolerant Republicans are prepared to wrap their bigotry around a cross,  a new crop of liberals and progressives won't let them get away with it.  Thank God:
Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., is a Navy veteran who served in Afghanistan, a Rhodes scholar, married to a junior high school teacher. He’s gay and, more surprising for a modern Democrat, he is an out Christian, as quick to quote St. Augustine as Abraham Lincoln. On Sunday, he is expected to formally announce his run for president. 
Like Abrams and Senator Cory Booker, Mayor Pete says his faith made him a progressive. Scripture directs him to defend the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the societal castoffs.
Ditto AOC, who simply loves setting traps for the rightwing to fall into. She makes it look easy:
Afer Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent a holiday greeting to “everyone … including refugee babies in mangers,” some critics launched into an ongoing, highly politicized debate about whether Jesus was a refugee.  
“Merry Christmas everyone - here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents),” the progressive Democrat from New York tweeted Tuesday.  
When critics protested that Jesus wasn’t a refugee, she followed up with a link to a Jesuit magazine article arguing he was. The link was meant “for all the anti-immigrant pundits uncomfortable with and denying that Christ’s family were refugees, too,” she wrote.