David Garcia via nettime-l on Fri, 24 Jan 2025 10:35:28 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> So what's the use of art, theory, activism?


Trumpism and other autocratic strongmen of the new era of ‘the deal’ routinely claim to be an insurgency displacing elites. But so far the most impactful voice I have heard challenging this narrative has been Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, speaking in the post inauguration service. She quietly but defiantly forced Trump and his acolytes to endure a sermon asking for compassion and mercy for those individuals and communities that are being targeted and living in fear. And she did so in a manner that highlighted the key way in which Trumpism for all its cheap religiosity contradicts the core of the Christian message, which contains the weird and radical claim that it is better to endure suffering than to be the cause of suffering. In simple language it exploded all of Trump’s expedient and hubristic claims of being an instrument of divine intervention. Maybe it opens up surprising avenues of resistance that escape pocket book politics and the usual sterile liberal pieties.

David Garcia
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