And hence the unwonted popularity of those governments which actually do as much, whether they be Britain's governing Tories delivering the peoples' (referendum) verdict upon Brexit - backed up bigtime at the end of 2019 by the biggest electoral landslide in the United Kingdom in a century - or even the likes of that vile specimen of 'humanity', Donald J Trump, delivering upon his own ill-fated border wall between Mexico and the U S of A...
To Be Continued...
Hey, I'm not saying it will happen, let alone that I understand the Bible itself to effectively be suggesting as much, just that, as things stand, in light of Trump's own well-understood persona, and in light of the ever fraught situation in the Middle East - which his own policies have hardly managed to assuage - this all looks highly likely...
Though I simply must add that as far as my own careful study of Scripture over the decades suggests, such a war may well be a 'limited nuclear war' affecting the (larger) Middle East only...
Much like the legendary (at least in name!) American President of the 1880s/1890s, Grover Cleveland - apparently a model of nepotism in U S politics, incidentally, as well as other graft and corruption, if ever there was one (*BT, that is) - for a second, ultimately catastrophic, cataclysmic term, in all likelihood the last in history, issuing and ushering in the long-prophesied Millennium...
*I.e. Before Trump...
And that despite the eminently sensible and logical, well-articulated thoughts of Trump's niece Mary.
Postscript: As I suddenly came to the realization of - in a personal epiphany of reflection post-the-effective anointing of Joe Biden upon November 10th, NZ time - whilst upon a holiday recently...
Whilst being conducted by a tour guide through the Grand Hall of the American Constitution (or some such) during my brief visit to Philadelphia (the 'city of brotherly love'), Pennsylvania (so named for its Christian founder, the Quaker William Penn) back in later 1992,
I recall him pointing towards a painting of/with a sunrise/sunset gilding America...
...saying it remains with observers/viewers to decide whether that represents a/the sun rising or setting over the United States of America...
...perhaps adding the little caveat/vignette (in rhetorical query): are America's greatest days before/ahead of it or are they now behind it?
A good question indeed, and worthy of much deep and ongoing contemplation and consideration...
Curiously only this very afternoon I chanced to stumble across an interesting book upon the United States of America in the first decade of the 2000s, and, flicking through to the index, I thought I'd see if there were any references to the likes of the Moral Majority/Christian Coalition...
...and then, finally 'in luck'...
...to Ralph Reed...
...and, hey presto, one to his 'relations' to the (rather quaint, almost 'old-fashioned') matter of gambling...
It revealed that whereas he'd been vocal against this industry/pasttime, he'd nevertheless been a willing recipient (on occasion) of its largesse...
Though I believe 'the Donald' *might well pull ye proverbial rabbit out of the hat, the great likelihood - unlike in 2016, when for all manner of reasons the (great majority of mainstream) pollsters, though quite correct as to Hillary Clinton's sizable popular majority margin throughout the United States, got it completely wrong as to who would move into the Oval Office - is that **this time tomorrow Joe Biden will have won such a sizable majority (electoral votewise as well as in total popular votes)...
...that it'll simply be a case of all over, rover...
***Unlock the Doors (to 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue)!
*The (well-chronicled) 'Brexit Effect', as cited/referred to in yesterday's blogpost upon the same (matter); i.e. those (oftentimes/generally even 'fundamentalist' evangelical Christians) 'holding their noses - and (also, these days) covering their faces (as protection against the dreaded coronavirus)', and yet ticking Trump's name in the voting booth despite it all anyway...
...much like the 'silent Brexit voters' in the United Kingdom, who, at the very end of 2019, gave Boris Johnson's Conservatives a resounding victory in their General Election, thus ensuring that the decision of ****'Britishers given in the 2016 June 23rd referendum would indeed be enacted into law: no ifs, buts and most certainly no maybes (as former Irish Catholic kiwi Prime Minister Jim Bolger once put things)...
...despite pollsters continually being given the effective 'runaround' by the same, the received wisdom being that the British are (congenitally) simply too polite by half to tell opinion pollsters what they really think, especially when they well know it's not the sort of answer such pollsters probably were hoping for...
...for fear of being accused - as per usual - of being racist xenophobes (and all the rest)...
But also it's clearly the case that Republican voters often prefer casting their vote/s (much like Yours Truly) on the day (and at the polling booth), and so, as pollsters and pundits have already well suggested already today, Trump might well do very well on the night, whereas the record-shattering turnout in days and weeks prior (c/o the Advance Voting) might well/even in all likelihood will go the other way entirely
**That is, if either/both Florida and/or Pennsylvania prove not to be the down-to-the-very-wire affairs that all the punditry and pollsters have thus far been suggesting - based upon a few previous presidential elections - they might well (be)...
***As kiwi parliamentary procedure 'expresses things' after 'the lobbies' have been filled up with MPs voting, invariably upon contentious 'moral' matters, in their own individual capacities, the votes for the respective sides have all been tallied, and the result for each side is confirmed and conveyed back to the House (of Parliament) as a whole...
****Yeah, it ain't 'correct terminology', but as a one-off I kinda like the sound of it...
Acknowledgment in thus making up my mind - but actually, no, they only confirmed me in those two directions I'd already (long since) arrived at anyway - must go to the four individuals alluded to below; though, yes, I arrived there with a little help from such psephological friends, I freely admit...
Anyway, I acknowledge the following (quite individuated) foursome...
Latterly, I consulted Nate Silver, but only as the final voice (c/o his '528 website') of these four - being of course the pundit/pollster who so famously got the 2016 Election right whereas virtually all others made a complete hash of it...
...preceded by Henry Olsen, whose own calculations etcetera (for 'The Washington Post' et al, I do believe), I spent awhile earlier this evening poring over, finding them fascinating stuff indeed, focusing upon the close association between approval ratings of various presidents, especially the final ones preceding (would be) re-elections, and actual re-election...
Though his evaluation contained many other interesting bits 'n bobs, like another much-quoted presidential election prognosticator, whom Mike Hosking briefly interviewed this/yesterday morning (his name meanwhile eludes me) he safely seemed to go/rely upon the general tenor of certain trends, and thus found the likelihood of Joe Biden winning and Donald Trump losing to be fairly substantial and weighty.
This morning's interviewee has also been interviewed of late upon RNZ National Radio etcetera, and had/has a scale of eight or ten 'indicators'/indicative measurements for evaluating a particular incumbent's/incumbent president's chances of returning to office...
The first of the four was another *'forgotten' name (*but evidently linked to The Washington Post again) who simply held to the 'Brexit effect', imagining a rerun of sorts of Presidential Election 2016, whereby the then outsider Trump managed to garner a relatively miniscule (in the overall scheme of things) number of votes of largely disenfranchised blue-collar workers (in particular) in a couple of (unexpectedly) 'swing states', and thus and so c/o the state of Pennsylvania in particular Trump would beat his path back to the White House...
...though apparently he has no intention whatsoever of even vacating the premises upon Election Night, evidently believing that 'possession is (indeed) nine-tenths of the law'...
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em!
*But as the Anointed One, at the very outset of His earthly ministry, declared:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel.
**Or as the Older Testament prophet Ezekiel so powerfully declared:
Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and ***make you
a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die...?
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
*Gospel of Mark 1:15
*Ezekiel 18: 30-32
***'get yourselves' (New King James Version)
*486 or so days on...
With President Donald J Trump's latest nominee to the U S Supreme Court just now being confirmed in office, the fears of many Americans as to what the future holds will have just gone up exponentially...
And whether one approves of this development or otherwise, it cannot be doubted that its potential impact upon three critical areas of American life is front and centre in the minds and hearts of many...
Such concerns as the future of legalized abortion in the USA, the future of Obamacare, and indeed even potentially whether - in a disputed ballot come **November 3rd (Northern Hemisphere time) - Trump himself gets to see out a second term...
And though Trump himself is no longer necessary for (the achievement/realization of) what is ***in all likelihood the one and only reason a large swathe of evangelical Americans, whilst holding their noses, voted for Trump in the first place...
now, in sheer gratitude for his ****delivering what *****previous Republican presidents have only promised, a large number of such American Christians will doubtless now express their thankfulness by ticking Trump's 'box' on the ballot this time around as well...
*Since I last posted herein, that is.
**November 4th Southern Hemisphere time (i.e. the very day 38-some years ago I gave my life to Christ.)
***As many have commented, and as Yours Truly has long since intuited.
****/*****As the likes of former Focus on the Family radio host and bestselling author (among many other notable 'things') Dr James Dobson has himself noted; many such Christians being frustrated (to use a rather extreme euphemism or understatement!) with the actual (legislative) delivery of the long-promised 'constitutional amendment' on abortion regularly assented to and pledged by former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush in particular...
...but never ever actually gotten around to (when push came to actual shove)...
But what exactly is it, you rightly ask me, that President Trump has thus delivered? For as Barrett herself has made abundantly clear over recent days, onlookers have no reason or justification for simply assuming that she will in future cases decide against 'Roe Vs Wade' and in favour of a pro-life stance.
No indeed, and many previous conservative Supreme Court appointees (over recent decades) have proven that very thing; i.e. that one cannot necessarily or reliably anticipate that a particular appointee's long-held views and beliefs upon abortion or any number of other hot-button issues will (pre-)determine her or his subsequent rulings and/or determinations on the Bench...
True enough, but it's surely a sheer leap (of logic) to suppose that such beliefs, nay, even convictions in this case, will have no bearing upon Ms Barrett, or play no part in steering her in a particular direction, or why else would she have been so eagerly promoted and stridently acclaimed by evangelicals throughout the length and breadth of America?
Why indeed? However no-one can read her mind - even if and when such cases are forwarded for her and her fellow jurors' due consideration; and even then, talk of revoking Roe Vs Wade is apparently quite premature, as, from what this particular pleb and longstanding observer of the American political scene at least can make out, the most that might happen vis-a-vis championing of the pro-life approach to abortion in the USA is that it might be deemed no longer a federal matter/issue and shunted back to the 50 individual states to rule thereupon...
...as so many (such as commentators upon CNN"s 700 Club) have regularly maintained...
