Ignorance proclaims normal life by Easter

We are being implored to fill our churches for Easter Sunday. If I give the name of the national leader who is leading this call, you'll think the purpose of this post is to "bash" him. What's it to you, if I want to "bash" him? He is a political leader in a line of work where disagreements are supposed to be freely exchanged.
Heaven knows, the president of the U.S. assails various people, like how he recently described the governor of Washington as a "snake." Of course that governor is a Democrat. He was even a presidential candidate for a time, not of a mind to support the president on various issues such as climate change.
Could you ever see Barack Obama describe someone on the other side of the aisle as a "snake?"
This curious red state/blue state situation among us seems never to abate. I see a friend with his pickup that has a bumper sticker (actually on the back window), "Another deplorable for Trump." Let him drop the name here.
There are people like this all over our Seventh Congressional District. How detailed an argument could that guy give on behalf of the Republicans' actual policies? It seems to be more of a cultural thing that has taken over. Or, a response to the president's manipulative ways with rhetoric. Who else from world history had this gift of manipulating public opinion, not with logic but by pressing certain buttons? You can fill in the blank.
As of this morning, March 25, we are learning again of the red state/blue state division. I wasn't holding out hope for any change. Trump draws a line at Easter and wants things to jump back to normal then. Again he postures as a symbol of Christian reverence. He does this in our increasingly multi-cultural and multi-faith national makeup.
Again, Obama would proclaim his personal Christian faith while never invoking it directly in connection to policy. The president now does the opposite and as a result, gets a significant chunk of the Christian faithful in America eating out of his hand.
Our president now will do anything to be re-elected because if he isn't, he and his family will almost certainly have legal exposure on more than one front. He influences the Federal Reserve to enact any sort of short-term fix to try to create the illusion, a rough approximation, of normalcy. He autographs the report of a 2000-point gain in the Dow, a day after it went down 2300.
This fixation on "the Dow" seems increasingly irritating. Markets go up and markets go down. Some of the biggest rallies are bear market rallies. But who really cares? If we do not prioritize the health of a maximum number of U.S. citizens, won't God be displeased?
The president says "we have to go back to work." He speaks of the Easter time as being so appropriate, so joy-filled. Watch the Mel Gibson movie about Christ's crucifixion and then tell me about all the "joy." This is a religion that fixates on images of Christ's literal torture as a means of fulfillment. I pass on that, choosing instead to call up the concluding scene of the movie "Life of Brian" (Monty Python) on YouTube. Levity is the only remedy: "Look on the bright side of life."
We have self-identified leaders of Christianity in the U.S. calling for a return to normal life soon. Liberty University wants its students to come back like normal. But, even Wall Street economists are pushing back on the idea that the U.S. economy can restart within weeks.
The red staters seem to be suggesting that a large percentage of the virus victims will be up in years, and well, these people aren't productive any more anyway. We can make "sacrifices." Don't even the Apostolics among us - people so all-in with Trump support - realize how toxic it is, this suggestion that April 12 is a magical date for everything in the U.S. to go back to normal?
I can celebrate Easter as an individual if I want - it should not be a factor in the timetable within our current crisis. Trump is merely winking toward his blind and subservient evangelical crowd. Many of these folks are in Stevens County. "Another deplorable for Trump." It was a takeoff of course on a statement from Hillary Clinton who suggested that in fact many people of an ignorant bent were behind Trump, which was absolutely true.
Public health experts are strongly warning our political leaders about how the worst effects of the virus are still weeks away. Lifting the restrictions now in place will result in deaths. Other parts of the world are in fact shifting in the opposite direction from Trump: increased lockdowns etc. Yet the president announced from the Rose Garden that he's ready to "have the country opened up" by that magical (superstitious) day of Easter.
Chocolate bunnies are fine for me for Easter, a joy. Images of Christ's body all bloodied up, I have a hard time countenancing.
Trump says "you can't just come in and say let's close up the United States of America, the biggest, the most successful country in the world by far." Seems to me, the Roman Empire once left a grand imprint on the world too. We must decide where our reverence really lies, with a just God who just may be a blue stater, or the Dow Jones. I know where I'll throw my lot.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com