Has Trump finally done himself in?

By Rob Janicki

Over the past weekend Donald Trump may have gone too far.  

Inexplicably, Trump attacked Dr. Ben Carson personally as someone with some kind of an untreatable pathological personality disorder, while also equating this condition with that of an incurable child molester.  Character assassination doesn't get much worse than this and is unheard of in Republican politics.  Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave with this kind of behavior from someone who claims to be a conservative Republican in the mold of the Gipper.

Doubling down, Trump then scurrilously tried to square the circle of his contemptible smearing by attacking Dr. Carson's faith and membership in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, as if they are some kind of cult, rather than another protestant Christian sect that subscribes to all the major Christian tenets.  What is astonishing is that Trump went on to equate his membership in the Presbyterian Church USA as if it was some kind of middle of the road mainstream protestant Christian church.  It's not.

Since I was baptized and raised in the Presbyterian Church USA, I can tell you a different story.  Ten years ago I left the PCUSA because they had become something different than I had been raised to believe in.  For 25 years I had been active in my congregation, first, having been ordained a Deacon and later having been ordained an Elder.

The PCUSA has become politicized to the extent that it now includes just about every weird, non-orthodox Christian, leftist political tenet out there, including abortion on demand and gay marriage within the church, not to mention its allied association with Planned Parenthood.  This is to say nothing of the PCUSA's anti-Semitic positions.  

The last straw for me was when, about ten years ago, the PCUSA joined in the BDS movement to Boycott Israeli businesses and their products and/or services.   Additionally the PCUSA engaged in Divesting themselves of all Israeli business holdings and encouraged others to do likewise.  Still further the PCUSA has sought to get nations to impose Sanctions on Israel for claimed crimes against Palestinians.  I call that anti-Semitism.  

BTW, membership in the PCUSA has declined from 2,313,662 in 2005 to 1,667,767 at the end of 2014.  A rather precipitous decline by any evaluation.

While Trump would like people to believe that he is a member of a middle of the road protestant Christian church, the PCUSA is anything but a middle of the road Christian sect and is more like a cult of political liberalism masquerading as a Christian religious sect.  

Apparently all that diatribe against Dr. Carson was not enough for Trump.  He then went into a mindless rant that is certain to cost him dearly among Iowa voters when he implied that Iowans would be fools to vote for Dr. Carson.  Say what?  Trump has called Iowans fools if they vote for Dr. Carson?  Does Trump not realize that there is a substantial number of evangelical Christians in Iowa that are voters?  After this shameless behavior, how can Trump now expect any decent person of Christian faith to vote for him?