As GOP leaders get in line, the outlook for democracy looks grim—in Ukraine, and even in America.
In 2016, Republicans could profess some uncertainty about the kind of president Donald Trump would be. Maybe the office would change the man? Maybe the party elite could bend Trump to its will?
But in 2024, there’s no uncertainty. Trump’s party is signing up for the ride, knowing exactly what the ride is. Pro-Ukraine senators are working to elect a president who will cut off Ukraine, knowing that he will cut off Ukraine. Pro-NATO senators are working to elect a president who will wreck NATO, knowing that he will wreck NATO.
Many top Republicans have been hoping for a way out of their Trump dilemma. That’s why Nikki Haley has raised tens of millions of dollars and Ron DeSantis has raised hundreds of millions. It’s why, even now, more than half of the Republican senators have not endorsed a primary candidate. And that’s why so many conservatives get twitchy when told that the 2024 presidential race is already a binary choice between Trump and Joe Biden. It’s also why the lopsided nomination contest will continue its fictional progress for some while longer.
But the exits are blocked. The many criminal and civil legal processes against Trump were too slow to rescue his party from him. The thesis that Trump might be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment awaits a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Republican contest will be over within weeks.
Revelations was written down a few decades after Nero’s famously-poor rule of the Roman Empire, and there had been plenty of poor leaders in living memory. There have been plenty of boastful liars who gained power in history, and so many of them have had similar comparisons drawn.
And the antichrist characteristics they describe are a selection of the ones he fits, without including those he doesn’t. He hasn’t (pretended to) come back from the dead, and isn’t connected obviously to the number 666, for example.
That he fits into some of the classic descriptions of dangerously bad leaders doesn’t seem eerie to me, but unsurprising. He’s a classic con man.
The article actually specifically mentions both coming back from the dead (Covid) and 666 (Kushner).
Dont get me wrong, I’m not saying they aren’t tenuous and I’m 100% not saying he is the literal antichrist. But its not accurate to say they dont include that stuff
Oh you’re totally right, but yeah it is still cherry picked, and some of the connections are tenuous at best
The 666 connection isn’t far off
He’s an archetype.
No president has ever won an election to become president again after losing once. This is about as close to political resurrection as one can imagine.
Grover Cleveland did.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
What about Grover Cleveland?
I did not know about him. I stand corrected.
Actually, there is a Trump/666 connection
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/jared-kushner-666-fifth-avenue-qatar-investigation
It’s probably 616 anyway.
I always heard that ‘666’ was code for the Romans, because DCLXVI uses all the Roman numerals
Not according to these scholars.
The Revd Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography at the University of Birmingham, said on Tuesday that the possibility that the sign of the Beast was 616, not 666, was considered by Irenaeus in the second century, but he rejected it.
Referring to the newly examined text he said: “This adds weight to those who believe that it is a reference to Caligula’s attempt to desecrate the Temple in Jerusalem, by having his statue erected there as part of the cult of emperor worship.
“There may be a reference to it in Mark [13.14], where he refers to the ‘the abomination of desolation’. But this was overlaid by the Neronian persecutions. People believed that you could get from ‘666’ to Nero because in Greek he is the emperor Neron Caesar. And 666 is one number less than the perfect 777.
“The text is quite legible to the naked eye. It was published in 1999, but it has taken people time to catch up,” he said. www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk
The article says it’s a possibility, not a proven fact.
Yes he is, specifically 666 Fifth Avenue
“Papyrus 115 (which is the oldest preserved manuscript of the Revelation as of 2017), as well as other ancient sources like Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, give the number of the beast as χιϛ or χιϲ, transliterable in Arabic numerals as 616 (χιϛ), not 666”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_beast
Who do you expect me to believe? Some old piece of paper or Iron Maiden?
Bruce Dickinson knows how to fly planes, can the bible fly planes? I think not.
I’m sure if I divide the numbers of bottles of tanner he uses on his face by the number 45, and multiple it by 13… it would end up 666! CHECKMATE… somebody.
Just watch Trump have a heart attack and be brought back after being dead for 2 minutes at 6pm on June 6th.
He did survive COVID.