The big joke

There are plenty of reasons to laugh at the current occupant of the White House, but plenty more reasons to laugh at his sycophants, enablers, and lackeys. The above Facebook post shares an example.

The gist of the story is that Secretary of State Pompeo was asked if the current occupant “is a new Esther.” This refers to the biblical legend in which a Jewish woman named Esther, said to be a woman that the Persian king (supposedly Xerxes I) married because of her great beauty—and to replace a disobedient wife. Esther, the legend has it, heard about a plan to kill all the Jews under Persian control, and she thwarted it.

Pompeo said, “As a Christian I certainly believe that's possible."Sending more chills down the spine of everyone who doesn’t share his particularly rigid form of extreme fundamentalist Christianity, he added, “I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

Why? Because the radical “Christian” extremists think that the current occupant will “save” the Jews (Israel) from Persia (Iran) by solving a problem the current occupant himself created in the first place. Their Lord (temporal and spiritual alike) moves in mysterious ways, indeed.

It doesn’t happen much anymore, but I did literally laugh out loud when I read about this. It was only last year that I read about radical “Christian” extremists declaring that the current occupant of the White House is a modern day King Cyrus, the Babylonian king who, while not Jewish, nevertheless “saved” the Jewish people according to biblical legend. He was, according to the legend, an unwitting tool for the Jewish god to use.

This is known as “vessel theory” in which the radical “Christian” extremists’ god can use someone who may not be a believer or even "worthy"—in this case, the current occupant of the White House—as a “vessel” for the god's will to be done. In this way, the radical “Christian” extremists can excuse and ignore the current occupant’s serial adultery, his bragging about committing sexual assault, paying off a porn star, etc., etc., etc.

This is all pretty hilarious, really. The radical “Christian” extremists are SO wedded to their man, so willing to overlook everything bad about him, that they’ll come up with anything, no matter how bizarre, to use as justification for giving him their utter loyalty. And, in return, they get absolutely everything they want. Politics at play, obviously, in which power—and gaining power over people who don’t share their beliefs—matters more than honesty, integrity, or principle. Every time.

So, I mocked them in my post:

“Waitaminute, waitaminute, those “Christian” extremists have been banging in for two years that their guy is a new King Cyrus, used by their god to accomplish things that, just coincidentally, of course, align perfectly with their radical political agenda. Now he’s supposed to be ESTHER?! I thought those radical “Christians” hated trans people…

Because, if they can come up with bizarre and stupid justifications to allow them to fall at the feet of someone not worthy of such worship, then we all get to mock them for it. Don't worry, though: The radical “Christian” extremists have plenty of quasi-biblical, loosely "Christian" rationalisations as to why such mockery is actually good for them, a "storing up treasures in heaven" sort of thing, or maybe one of those "five crowns". Point is, they don't care, which isn't even the point of such mockery: There's a social good in helping others to see how silly the radical “Christian” extremists' rationalisations and excuses for supporting the current occupant really are.

Of course, those radical “Christian” extremists could always go and sin no more, but I certainly don’t expect that to ever happen.

Related: "Trump’s spiritual adviser: relationship with president is ‘assignment’ from God" By Jessica Glenza, The Guardian