President-elect John F. Kennedy delivered an address in Boston, on January 9, 1961. It is called the"City Upon a Hill speech."
"For what Pericles had said to the Athenians has long been true of this commonwealth: 'We do not imitate — for we are a model to others.'"
And so it is that I carry with me from this state to that high and lonely office to which I now succeed more than fond memories of firm friendships. The enduring qualities of Massachusetts — by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant— will not be and could not be forgotten in this nation's executive mansion.
They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, and my hopes for the future.
Allow me to illustrate: During the last sixty days, I have been at the task of constructing an administration. It has been a long and deliberate process. Some have counseled greater speed. Others have counseled more expedient tests.;
But I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier."
"We must always consider," he said, "that we shall be as a city upon a hill the eyes of all people are upon us."
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop out of a total of 16 funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630, during the first period of the Great Migration.
John Winthrop (1587-1649) became governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and like many towns in New England, Boston has its naming roots in old England. Boston, Massachusetts was named after Boston, Lincolnshire, about 100 miles north of London on the North Atlantic Sea.
At the start of the voyage, John Winthrop wrote his sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity.” But it was generally unknown until 1838 when it was discovered by the New York Historical Society.
Winthrop was not the author of this sentiment. He quoted the Bible: Matthew chapter 5 verse 14 in his famous phrase, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill."
Ronald Reagan, governor of California, in January 1974, introduced John Winthrop to the first convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). He later added 'shining' to the "city upon a hill."
In President Reagan's Farewell Address, in January 1989 he said:
"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."
John Lehman, who served for six years as secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, published an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal this year titled “Reagan Would Never Vote for Trump.” He lauded Reagan as an unswerving friend of America’s democratic allies and criticised Trump’s unstinting admiration of foreign dictators such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
White Christian Nationalism
In 2022 The Pew Research Center reported that 45% of Americans said the US should be a ‘Christian Nation.’ But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of US adults say churches should keep out of politics.
The PRRI/Brookings Christian Nationalism Survey in 2023 polled more than 6,000 Americans.
"The US government should declare America a Christian Nation" found that 10% are adherents while a further 17% are sympathetic. 50% completely disagree.
An Evangelical pastor in North Carolina calls the 'Trump Bible' blasphemous.
Rev. Loran Livingston, the senior pastor of Central Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, criticized the Trump-endorsed "God Bless the USA Bible" this month as both blasphemous and disgusting.
Reagan’s Shining City upon a Hill is twisted into Trump’s dark vision of Christian Nationalism according to Prof Diane Winston.
Among religious groups, White Evangelical Protestants continue to have the most positive opinion of Trump. Overall, two-thirds of White Evangelical Protestants say they have a favourable view of the former president, including 30% who have a very favourable opinion of him.
Trump’s favorability rating is similar among Christians who attend church regularly and those who don’t. Some observers have pointed out that Trump’s political base consists largely of people who call themselves Christians but don’t go to church. However, a survey shows that Christians who regularly go to church express equally favourable views of Trump as those who don’t often attend religious services.
Most people who view Trump positively don’t think he is especially religious himself.But many think he stands up for people with religious beliefs like theirs.
Just 8% of people who have a positive view of Trump think he is very religious, while 51% think he is somewhat religious and 38% say he is not too or not at all religious.
Trump is likely an atheist and in 2020 The Atlantic reported that former aides said that in private, that then-president had spoken with cynicism and contempt about believers.
Most US Protestants who describe themselves as “born-again or Evangelical Christians” (60%) say they view Evangelical Christians favourably.
The 'Elmer Gantry' novel by Sinclair Lewis, a satiric indictment of fundamentalist religion caused an uproar when published in 1927.
“Happy Holy Week!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible.”
The modern Elmer Gantry said “I think it’s one of the biggest problems we have. That’s why our country is going haywire. We’ve lost religion in our country," he said.
Priced at $60, the Bible, featuring the King James Version, includes lyrics from Greenwood’s "God Bless the USA," along with excerpts from the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance.
The con man praised the Founding Fathers for establishing America on Judeo-Christian principles, highlighting that the foundation is currently under threat.
“I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again,” Trump said.
5 facts about religion and Americans’ views of Donald Trump
$1.2 Trillion Religious Economy in the US
A book-burning bonfire in Nashville, Tennessee. There are more around the country. Republican politicians righteous and hypocrites are pushing for Christian rule.
Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to say the Bible have at least some influence on US laws.
The Project 2025 says the United States should look to African countries where legal abortion is outlawed and LGBT people.
"African nations are particularly (and reasonably) non-receptive to the U.S. social policies such as abortion and pro-LGBT initiatives being imposed on them. nations are particularly (and reasonably) non-receptive to the U.S. social policies such as abortion and pro-LGBT initiatives being imposed on them. The United States should focus on core security, economic, and human rights engagement with African partners and reject the promotion of divisive policies that hurt the deepening of shared goals between the U.S. and its African partners."
Most women in Africa live in countries with restrictive laws. In Africa, 31 countries still criminalise homosexuality. Punishments range from imprisonment to the death penalty.
Roberts promises a 'Second American Revolution' while Trump says there will be no need to have elections in 2028.
Trump Declines to Back Away From ‘You Don’t Have to Vote Again’ Line (New York Times, July 30, 2024) "The former president, in an interview on Fox News, declined to back away from his comments and repeated his argument that if he’s elected, “the country will be fixed” and their votes won’t be needed.
Sean Wilentz, a Princeton professor of history says Trump's "followers made it clear that they will not accept defeat in November any more than they did when Trump lost four years ago. They believe that Trump is the one true legitimate president, that those who refuse to accept this fundamental fact are the true deniers, and that any result other than Trump’s restoration would be a thwarting of history’s purpose and a diabolical act of treason.
The authoritarian imperative has moved beyond Trumpian narcissism and the cultish MAGA fringe to become an article of faith from top to bottom inside the utterly transformed Republican Party, which Trump totally commands."
The Real Origins of the Religious Right: It was segregation
In May 1954, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine in place since 1896 and sparking massive resistance among white Americans committed to racial inequality.
Sixteen years later, President Nixon said that public schools in Southern states should be desegregated.
The US Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade legalised abortions.
Catholic groups criticised the move but the Religious Right didn't.
In his 2005 book, Farwell recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story.” Falwell writes about “growing increasingly fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.
This was a lie.
The Evangelicals: The Real Origins of the Religious Right, and Why It Matters
Prof Balmar said:
"In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging 'Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.' The convention, hardly a redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed that position in 1974, one year after Roe, and again in 1976..."
"In fact, it wasn’t until 1979 — a full six years after Roe — that Evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism."
The well-off can go to a liberal state and to hell for the poor.
A deranged Kennedy wants a job from Trump
The son of, Robert F Kennedy who was assassinated in 1968, has endorsed Trump and NBC has said RFK Jr. may be angling for Trump to appoint him as health secretary if Trump wins.
Kennedy is a dangerous quack and his family has denounced him. He has earned millions from his quackery.
Science Adviser: A Note on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
"We have enough cynical, manipulative bullshit artists in politics already, and Robert F. Kennedy's record in this area is utterly, totally disqualifying to him and to anyone who works with him."
Mother Jones: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked about the deadly measles outbreak that occurred in Samoa in 2019 and claimed the lives of 83 people, mostly children. Kennedy, a leading Anti-Vaxxer who had visited the Pacific island nation a few months before the outbreak, replied, “I’m aware there was a measles outbreak…I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate. I didn’t go there with any reason to do with that.”"
Kennedy was an Environmental lawyer but this amateur became chairman and founder of Children's Health Defense.
It has been a lucrative business.
"While many nonprofits and businesses have struggled during the pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine group has thrived. An investigation by The Associated Press finds that Children’s Health Defense has raked in funding and followers as Kennedy used his star power as a member of one of America’s most famous families to open doors, raise money and lend his group credibility. Filings with charity regulators show revenue more than doubled in 2020, to $6.8mn."
[Facebook and Instagram Remove Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Nonprofit for Misinformation: The social networking company said that Children’s Health Defense, a group led by Mr. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, had “repeatedly” violated its guidelines by spreading medical misinformation. New York Times]
The Lancet, the British medical journal, reported that "As of Dec 28, 2019, the outbreak of measles in American Samoa had caused 5,667 reported infections and claimed 83 lives since its beginning in early September 2019, the majority of which were children younger than 4 years.
This outbreak was fuelled by a precipitous decrease in coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine — from over 75% coverage for the first dose in 2017 to about 40% coverage in 2018, and less than 30% coverage for the second dose. The decrease in Samoa's vaccination coverage since 2013 has been attributed to growing concerns over vaccine safety by anti-vaccine groups."
Vaccination rates — meaning the number of young children covered — dropped to a low of only 31% in Samoa, compared to 99% in nearby Nauru, Niue, and Cook Islands.
Samoa's low vaccination rates were partly due to the deaths of two children who were given a wrongly-mixed vaccine in 2018.
