PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that it what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions like.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

It was an incredible photo.

Unbelievable.

There Donald Trump stood with a Bible in hand, as if, (a) he had read it, (b) had ever paid attention to what it said, and (c) it gave him the authority to violate the Constitution, also something it appears he had never read.

It was a photo op designed, I suspect, to appeal to the so-called “evangelicals” who are part of his cabal.

As an aside, I hate to denigrate the term “evangelical” by using it in connection with Trump.  He lowers a good term to be a useless one.

In the Washington Post, columnist Michal Gerson, one of my favorite writers, made the same points in a piece he wrote for Friday’s edition.  It appeared under this headline:

Trump wants to turn his opponents into infidels to be destroyed, not defeated

The best approach is to reprint excerpts of what Gerson wrote because his words are so telling:

“In addition to being an act of sacrilege, Trump’s (literal) elevation of the Bible following the Battle of Lafayette Square was a culmination of the president’s approach to communication.

“In front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, the president removed a syllable from his monosyllabic rhetoric and only held up a symbol.  His awkwardness in handling the Bible made even his silence inarticulate.

“This approach does have the advantage of making the lives of White House communications staffers simpler.  Instead of his next speech on agriculture, Trump could simply hold up a carrot.  When communicating on law and order, he could have jackbooted enforcers of his whims throw flash-bang grenades and pepper balls at citizens assembled in lawful protest.

“Sorry, Trump already thought of that.

“The problem with symbols, however, is that they don’t interpret themselves.  In other settings, holding up Holy Scripture might have been the president’s way of saying:  “BIBLE GOOD!”  But the context here is more sinister.

“Following the brutal clearing of Lafayette Square, Trump seemed to be using the Bible as a symbol of conquest.  It was a bit like planting the flag at Iwo Jima — except without the courage, honor or patriotic purpose.

“Trump seeks to employ the sacred as a means of political influence.  And more than that, he is now using the Bible to sanctify the physical abuse of peaceful protesters.  It is a strategy that doubles as blasphemy.  Trump is, in effect, proposing his own bent Beatitude:  Blessed are the brutal, for they shall dominate the battlespace.”

“Trump is attempting something ambitious and revolting — he is trying to reshape the content of Christian social engagement in his own image.  He is making the claim that brutalizing protesters, disdaining migrants, excluding refugees, discriminating against Islam and treating opponents with casual cruelty are the natural elements of a biblical ethic.

“And he is using the Bible itself as a kind of talisman or fetish, carried into culture war conflicts.  ‘In this sign,’ Trump seems to be saying to his followers, ‘you will conquer.’

“But, for Christians, the Bible is not a charm to be borne into battle.  It is not the words and pages that are holy; it is the message they contain.  And that message, as Jesus summarized it, is this:  “He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This statement of purpose stands in opposition to everything Trump promotes.

There are those on the evangelical right who have clearly abandoned the proper conception of scripture.  They display, as Gerson, writes, “not the transformed heart of the believer, but an iron stomach of a political operative.  They will swallow anything.  If Trump stepped on the Bible, they would interpret it as ‘the foundation of his life.’  If Trump lit it on fire, they would regard it as ‘lighting the way to a better future.’  Their tolerance for sacrilege is the revelation of their true priorities.”

The good news of Jesus Christ is the story of extravagant, creative, sacrificial, relentless, divine love.  If the biblical account of that love is true — as genuine evangelicals would uniformly contend — trading it for the gospel of Trump is an act of monumental foolishness.

So, it’s time – past time – for the end of Trump.