Demands to Denounce

[Valerie]

I’ve also heard several people I highly respect because I take the time to listen to them say that President Trump is the best president in their lifetime.

That's okay if they are younger than 38.

All of them are quite a bit older than 38. My Mom is one at 89 even though she was extremely happy with Regan as a president. However I was not referring to her.
You’d have to hear them in their own words as to why to understand.

[Valerie]

I’m a Trump supporter, and am not ashamed of it.
There’s a lot he says that makes me want to get my duct tape out of the drawer & run to DC with it.
I watch a LOT of Fox News (unashamedly as peoples opinions matter didly squat to me)
Poll #s do not matter to me as daily I see people on the street interviewed about various current event topics & it’s amazing how ill informed they are. That’s okay, they have other things they’d rather do with their time that’s fine. But it also tells me they don’t really understand a lot of the things that Trump is doing and why because he takes a lot of time and so do people that I highly respect, explaining what he is doing, and it makes complete sense to me.
I’ve also heard several people I highly respect because I take the time to listen to them say that President Trump is the best president in their lifetime. These are not the average Joe Schmoes walking down the street. These are people that have spent their lifetime trying to make the country a better place and they happen to understand what Trump is doing and agree with him so the average person polled about whether they approve of Trump’s performance probably do not take a lot of time trying to understand all things Trump because he is doing more than any president I have ever seen in my lifetime to try to get this country back on track .

I think you have been clear about this all along, and I respect you. I also disagree with you on a lot of these things, but would be happy to have coffee with you or do a Bible study together or pray together. These are not things Christians should be dividing over.

Agreed but they are unfortunately.
Christians are dividing over other things as well- denominations are splitting on many differences that have nothing to do with Trump.

[temporal1]

Much has been lost in forum resets since 2016.
i believe 2016 was “THE BIG ONE” .. wherein MD was lost (?)

Thus, searching archives for specific examples is greatly damaged.

A number of active members remember MD and refer to it.
Presently, some members have no recall earlier than 2024, some later, searching archives has been diminished more than once.
“i’ve never seen that on forum” means quite different things to different members.

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

i think it was PragerU that came up with a helpful descriptor for LOTS of people: “NON-LEFT”
i would guess many who “don’t hate T” would probably describe themselves as non-left, rather than righ or left.
the word, “extremist” has been destroyed by the over-zealous, who use it to mean “those i dislike/don’t agree with”.

For myself, i’ve written, for years, “i’m not afraid of Trump” and “i don’t hate Trump”,
“i don’t follow Twitter” or other similar outlets, X, Truth Social, what have you - i recommend resisting.

Frankly, my response to T is faith-based. i’m not afraid of him. Isaiah 41:10 i don’t hate him. John 13:34
i believe T is God-created, as all life is God-breathed. Genesis 2:7

Wrt the OP,
One standout example where i felt personally pressured to “absolutely” denounce Trump
was following the 2017 Charlottesville tragedy, when it was demanded i give “full-throated” rejection of Trump because he said something about “good people on both sides”.

i remember specifically because of the word, full-throated, which i rarely use or rarely hear, but it was flying in airwaves.
There’s a lot of “monkey-see, monkey-do” (+monkey-say) in partisan politics. A whole lot. Much of it lands right away on forum.

On forum there’s a good measure of passive-aggressive judgments. Not as easy to recount.

Anyway.
i couldn’t and wouldn’t comply, ‘cause, i didn’t have full facts - not-even-close! Neither did others.

Brazen opinions, “Not even close” to having balanced facts has been 100% normalized in msm+politics and overall airwaves.
It runs through schools, Pre-K through college. Children do not get an exemption. All that and more than that.

Even tho, it seems (to me) the majority of these “hit+run” brazen presumptions are soon proven fallible.
Plenty in slower-moving human courts of law. $$$

Evidently, being noisy for partisan leveraging is far more important than being anywhere near correct.
Evidently, there are very deep pockets ready to bail them out and keep them running. It’s a huge industry.

[Bootstrap]

I think you have been clear about this all along, and I respect you. I also disagree with you on a lot of these things, but would be happy to have coffee with you or do a Bible study together or pray together. These are not things Christians should be dividing over.

Agreed but they are unfortunately.
Christians are dividing over other things as well- denominations are splitting on many differences that have nothing to do with Trump.

There are things I think worth dividing about - whether we accept the Bible's authority for sexual ethics and our understanding of male and female, for instance.

This is not one of them.

I'm curious, you identify as a Trump supporter. JohnH says that's a label people use as an insult. Have you experienced it that way, or do you see it just as a way of saying you support Trump? If I were to describe you as a Trump supporter, would that feel different than it does when you call yourself a Trump supporter?

[Bootstrap]

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

I think the vast majority of people here would say that describes us.

This thread is about something else. I don't think most people who disagree with Trump hate him, I don't think most people who disagree with Trump are deranged. I don't think anyone has ever asked anyone to denounce Trump 100% in order to be treated as human. I don't think anyone has suggested that people who support Trump should be persecuted.

Yet these claims keep coming up. I find that strange.

[temporal1]

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

I think the vast majority of people here would say that describes us.

This thread is about something else. I don't think most people who disagree with Trump hate him, I don't think most people who disagree with Trump are deranged. I don't think anyone has ever asked anyone to denounce Trump 100% in order to be treated as human. I don't think anyone has suggested that people who support Trump should be persecuted.

Yet these claims keep coming up. I find that strange.

.. Wrt the OP, i tried to respond, did you notice?

.. Wrt the OP,
One standout example where i felt personally pressured to “absolutely” denounce Trump
was following the 2017 Charlottesville tragedy, when it was demanded i give “full-throated” rejection of Trump because he said something about “good people on both sides”. ..

J6 was another example of msm immediately running the word, “INSURRECTION” like wildfire, with years-long deliberate drama following. Including on forum.

i’m pretty sure JohnH has frequently described RL problems happening in the world, less so about those problems blooming on forum, it’s sometimes easy to conflate what he’s saying/meaning.

Esp as Christians, it’s important to seek out intent, “perfectly” written words are hard to come by.

[barnhart]

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

Who are these people on MN who carry about this hate and try to press others into it.

[temporal1]

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

Who are these people on MN who carry about this hate and try to press others into it.

i believe that’s more or less the OP question presented to JH, in this clip, i noted different members (not Grace+Valerie alone) i could think of (there are more) who don’t hate T.

i provided an example from the Charlottesville tragedy i could recall, because a distinctive word was used. No response.
Those topics are gone due to forum resets.

i expect a lot of the non-answers here are because posts are not searchable anymore. even if one was motivated.
Members have the disadvantage of being human, not the preferred (by some) AI.

[barnhart]

As i recall, Robert, HK, Grace, Valerie, Josh/JohnH, and i have consistently resisted hating President Trump, none worshiping him or confusing him with perfection, the annointed, or God. All have been disappointed or disgusted at times, openly stating so.

Who are these people on MN who carry about this hate and try to press others into it.

i believe that’s more or less the OP question presented to JH, in this clip, i noted different members (not Grace+Valerie alone) i could think of (there are more) who don’t hate T.

i provided an example from the Charlottesville tragedy i could recall, because a distinctive word was used. No response.
Those topics are gone due to forum resets.

i expect a lot of the non-answers here are because posts are not searchable anymore. even if one was motivated.
Members have the disadvantage of being human, not the preferred (by some) AI.

So nobody on MN?

[ohio jones]

Wrt the OP,
One standout example where i felt personally pressured to “absolutely” denounce Trump
was following the 2017 Charlottesville tragedy, when it was demanded i give “full-throated” rejection of Trump because he said something about “good people on both sides”.

i remember specifically because of the word, full-throated, which i rarely use or rarely hear, but it was flying in airwaves.
There’s a lot of “monkey-see, monkey-do” (+monkey-say) in partisan politics. A whole lot. Much of it lands right away on forum.

i provided an example from the Charlottesville tragedy i could recall, because a distinctive word was used. No response.
Those topics are gone due to forum resets.

i expect a lot of the non-answers here are because posts are not searchable anymore. even if one was motivated.
Members have the disadvantage of being human, not the preferred (by some) AI.

Here are several threads on Charlottesville, none of which feature the word in question.
https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?p=18256
https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=749
https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=739