The VoteCommonGood bus tour started out on Tuesday night in Bethlehem, PA with a rally for progressive Democrat Sue Wild in a swing district the Democrats are counting on flipping. Not all evangelicals are happy with Trump-- not with his demeanor, not with his policies and not with the way he's been handling his job. Vote Common Good is seeking to introduce evangelical communities across the country to Democratic candidates in the hope of helping to flip the House. Last night they were in Lancaster doing exactly that with Jess King. Tomorrow they'll be in Asheville, Tennessee. Christina Tatu and Laura Olson covered the first rally for the Morning Call: Bucking their brethren, Evangelical group brings message to Lehigh Valley: Vote Democratic to flip U.S. House. "Darlene Sinclaire of Allentown considers herself a Christian," they wrote, "but unlike most of her church-going friends, she doesn’t plan to vote for the conservative candidate in this year’s election. Sinclaire, who was once a registered Republican and is now a Democrat, was among those attending a rally in Bethlehem on Tuesday night to sway religious voters to Democratic candidates. 'I’m upset with the current administration. … I feel like there’s a general lack of humanity,' she said during the Vote Common Good rally at Bethlehem’s Rose Garden Park. Most of Sinclaire’s religious friends support President Donald Trump because they believe he could overturn abortion, but Sinclaire says voters need to 'look at the bigger picture. I can’t look at just one issue anymore,' she said, citing women’s issues and immigration as among her top concerns." Robb Ryerse is an evangelical pastor from Arkansas as well as the VoteCommonGood political director. He came up to Pennsylvania for the start of the bus tour. "Beautiful things get born in places called Bethlehem," he reminded us. "Yesterday, a new movement was born, a movement to call people of faith back to the common good as our motivating impulse for political engagement." Back to Tatu and Olsen:
Conservative evangelical voters have been a reliable constituency for Republicans for years. In 2016, more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters supported Trump, according to Pew Research Center.But organizers of Tuesday’s rally in Bethlehem believe the demographic can play a role in seeking to flip the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats.“Religion is lock step with Republicanism without any concern about what kind of Republicanism it is,” said said Doug Pagitt, a pastor from Minneapolis who is leading the Vote Common Good effort.“We believe there are people who are not comfortable with the choices. Their faith calls them to one thing and their Republican impulses call them somewhere else,” Pagitt said, describing some of those involved as frustrated with Trump’s nomination in 2016 and others who found they could no longer support him after he was elected.So Pagitt and others are embarking on a 31-city tour across the country, bringing their message to voters in districts seen as the most likely to flip parties and where they made connections with similar-minded pastors and activists working on the ground on immigration and other issues.Pagitt said he’s a bit of an activist and has been involved in rallies for issues like abolishing the death penalty and stricter gun control. Part of his activism is getting other church leaders to participate, which led him to organize Vote Common Good.The effort has support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the New York Times, with Democratic nominees across the country participating.Democrat Susan Wild, who is running to represent the Lehigh Valley in Congress, said Tuesday that she is seeing more voters “cross the aisle” from Republican to Democrat for a variety of reasons, from wanting to see more women in office to the stance on immigration.“I don’t think this is a partisan experience. I think this is a moral experience. People who cross the aisle this year are doing so because of their moral compass,” she said, adding that this year’s slate of political candidates seems to be more diverse than ever before.Wild said she attended the rally to reach out to religious voters, who make up a significant portion of the Lehigh Valley’s voting population.The event was also about unity and working together for the common good instead of against each other, she said.“I want to reach across the aisle. The only way we can move forward is together,” Wild said.There were about 60 people at the rally Tuesday night. The majority of those in attendance were Democrats.Organizers said the event was intended to feel more like a “block party” than a political rally, with a positive message and live music. Organizers also shared their own stories, like Christy Berghoef from Holland, Mich., a mother of four young children who decided to spend the next five weeks touring with Vote Common Good.“My friends have said, ‘Why are you doing this? Why would you leave your four young children to travel in cramped quarters for five weeks?’” said the lifelong Republican.For Berghoef the decision was easy.“We have a responsibility to balance systems that oppress. We have a responsibility to feed the hungry and care for the sick,” she said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. As a follower of Jesus, I believe we need to leave the world brighter than we left it,” she said.On Wednesday, Democratic congressional candidate Jess King will join organizers for an event in Lancaster. The rest of the tour includes stops in the Carolinas, West Virginia, Texas and New Mexico, before ending in California.Pagitt said Wild and King have the “right spirit and attitude,” and said many of the candidates they are supporting on the tour are women.A spokesman for Wild’s opponent, Republican Marty Nothstein [another GOP sex predator], said in a statement before Tuesday’s event that Vote Common Good “appears to be another wing of the Democratic campaign.”...“From fear to faith, we are calling on people to set aside their fears, whether they have faith in God or believe in this country,” Pagitt said.
Our friend, Samir Selmanović, who is on the tour, explained what this journey means to him. "Something outrageous is going on in the world. And it requires a response that asks us to take new and outrageous risks. We will no longer be subsumed into an 'American Christian' stereotype built by the Right, be marginalized due to our faith by the Left, or be politically timid for fear of appearing partisan."We will use our voices and wield our votes as we work together towards the Common Good that Jesus invited us to imagine and embody. As such, we reject any special privilege, position, or influence accorded Christianity by the American nation in its principles, laws, or practice."We measure the value of our religion by the value it brings to its non-adherents. Especially to its non-adherents. Right now, interested only in privileging Christianity, Christianity of self-serving sort, Republican Congress and the President could not possibly care less about Jesus and about what is, for them, Jesus' naive worldview and agenda."For most Christians in Congress, Jesus is a liberal wussy. For us, he is the teacher and the Lord."Samir and the rest of the VoteCommonGood crew is up against quite a machine in this David v Goliath battle. The religionist right has been bullshitting their congregants for a long time that the profane and anti-God Trump is "the chosen one." And now they have a film. "More than 1,000 US cinemas are screening The Trump Prophecy-- which posits that God chose the philandering billionaire to restore America’s moral values." Far right crackpot, Franklin Graham, said last year that Trump’s victory was the result of divine intervention. "I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up."The filmmaker claims that "Trump will serve two terms, the landmark supreme court ruling on abortion in the Roe v Wade case will be overturned, and that next month’s midterm elections will result in a 'red tsunami,' strengthening Republican control of both houses of Congress. Barack Obama will be charged with treason and Trump will authorise the arrest of 'thousands of corrupt officials, many of whom are part of a massive satanic paedophile ring.' Trump will also force the release of cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s that are currently being withheld by the pharmaceutical industry."Vote Common Good, isn't completely in feeling the Trump Regime is a fraud when it comes to Jesus' message. Yesterday America's nation’s largest coalition of Christian churches, the National Council of Churches issued a statement that they believe Brett Kavanaugh has "disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately." They were offended by his lying and stated that he "exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation."
