'Trump’s 'bombastic rhetoric' spreads 'the language of evil': Catholic author

19 February 2024

As he moves closer and closer to winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump maintains a strong bond with far-right white evangelical Christian fundamentalists. Trump has plenty of critics among Mainline Protestants and Catholics, but Christian nationalists are among his strongest supporters.

One of Trump's Catholic critics is author Phyllis Zagano. In an op-ed published by Religion News on February 16, Zagano calls out Trump's "bombastic rhetoric" as "the language of evil" and laments that many fellow Republicans are going out of their way to sound like him.

"House and Senate Republicans routinely denigrate fellow lawmakers and political opponents," Zagano observes. "According to The New York Times, Republican members of Congress echo their presumptive nominee's bigoted stances, as they 'use rhetoric that denigrates people based on ethnicity, religion or nationality.' The virus of disrespect has spread."

Zagano continues, "Social media sites are replete with crude language and mean comments. Strangers act dismissively toward one another. Persons in positions of power more obviously demean others. Individual cogs in the wheels of systems and organizations routinely crush individuals. The dividing line is not only ethnicity, religion or nationality. Any real or perceived 'other' is a fair target."

Zagano laments that many of Trump's hardcore supporters enjoy his inflammatory rhetoric.

"Private bigoted language in the Congress is reportedly worse," Zagano writes. "When presumably educated, responsible politicians sound as if they are preaching from a bar stool at midnight, what can the rest of us do to remove angry denigration of a person or persons from whatever other pulpit we might be near? Votes can exorcise the Congress, but will that happen? The problem is that too many voters seem to like the language."

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