Westin

quote:

---

Before Sunday, to be clear, the term Easter worshipper was considered straightforward enough that the AP used it in a headline about another recent church-based international tragedy: “Tourists, Easter Worshippers Lament Closure of Notre Dame.” Nevertheless, let me try to help: “Easter worshippers” describes Christians in church on Easter Sunday. The term is more descriptive than “Christians,” because it conveys the additional fact that the victims were actively celebrating Easter when they were killed. They are worshippers, and it is Easter. If it helps, try putting the emphasis on worshippers in the phrase: It’s Easter worshippers, not Easter-worshippers.

Here is how the construction works in similar contexts:

• BBC: “Finsbury Park Attack: Roses for Ramadan Worshipers”

• The Guardian: “Afghanistan Suicide Bomber Kills Eid Worshippers at Mosque, Police Say”

• The Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Homeless Couple Attacks Synagogue Worshippers in Buenos Aires”

I would argue that it takes a true savant of exquisitely attuned grievance collection to read an individual reference to “Easter worshippers” as an attempt to avoid acknowledging Christianity. Easter is the most important holiday in the Christian calendar. “Easter” has no other meaning. As a celebration, it is far less secularly degraded than Christmas. Bunnies aside, it is basically inaccessible as a holiday to anyone uncomfortable with acknowledging the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If anything, “Easter worshippers” puts extra emphasis on the religious nature of the attack by pointing out that it happened on a day of special spiritual meaning to victims. It implies: Not only did you attack Christians, you did it today of all days.

---

quote:

---

Lemme guess, you have not left your home since January 2020.

---

quote:

---

You're right about the Dems mostly abandoning the working class... you're just excusing who is responsible for it.

A Bill Clinton speech did sound, economically, like a Trump speech. And Bill Clinton is the one that sold out to the US Chamber of Commerce and turned the Democratic Party into "Republicans, economically, who are SJWs." Younger and/or more progressive Dems - the ones you guys hate the most: Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Warren, AOC - are trying to reverse that... I support them in that, most veteran Dems are hooked on the campaign donations. It is the biggest inner-party fight... and the economic progressives will win, because of time and age. But people will call them Socialists.

Also, Clinton knew if Trump ran on that message he'd annihilate the GOP primary field, and that's why he talked him into finally actually running instead of just talking about it. Of course, he also thought Hillary would beat him in the general, and that didn't happen.

What did Trump actually do besides - like Clinton - give speeches about working people? The tariffs didn't work in America's favor because he didn't understand who pays them (still doesn't, apparently) or why they're usually used, which is to make domestic products cheaper... but we don't have domestic products for most of the stuff he put tariffs on so he just put a bunch of American manufacturers out of business when he made their raw materials unaffordable and caused retaliations in foreign markets that killed export sales for a lot of American companies.

Trump's tax breaks benefitted the Wealthy and Corporations, who aren't increasing their hiring. The stock market keeps soaring because it is mostly a make-believe world in that sector... companies buy back their own stock and make themselves worth millions more, using money from the Fed at low or no interest rates. He strong-armed the Fed into keeping interest rates as low as possible, which is slow suicide for when a recession really kicks in and you can't lower them any further... I've refinanced just what's left of the mortgage on my house so often in the past few years I've lost count because the rates keep diving so much it's worth it... from "wow, that's low" to "you're kidding me!"

Meanwhile, people were losing living wages jobs the entire time in the middle. The bottom was more screwed than ever... and that was before the COVID monkeywrench. He screwed American farmers with his trade war... and I mean just destroyed them, put the multi-generational family farm and dairy right out of business and on the auction block. And he tried to hide that with aide payments, but it wasn't enough to save the family businesses, just extra money for the corporate-run farms or the tax write-offs (like Devon Nunes's non-working, no equipment farm that makes no money).

---