Have you ALWAYS been this bonecrushingly stupid?
It’s worth contrasting Trump, who denied Carroll’s claim (as well as his other accusers’), with Clinton because his scandals helped spur the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 to issue its seminal “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials.” That document’s key statement was ominous and unequivocal: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”
Which had absolutely nothing to do with any public statement Clinton ever made. But do go on.
The relentless drumbeat of claims against Trump–combined with the clear moral declarations of the past–have caused millions of Americans to look at their evangelical fellow citizens and ask, simply: Why? Why have you abandoned your previous commitment to political character to embrace Donald Trump?
Dave? I don't know if you're aware of this or not but devout Christians have voted for sinners for president since the foundation of the Republic. It's kind of all we have.
Part of the explanation is undeniably basic partisanship and ambition. White evangelicals are largely Republican, and they’re generally going to vote for Republicans. And proximity to power has always had its attractions for religious charlatans of all stripes. But I’d suggest the real reason for the breadth and depth of evangelical support is deeper and–perversely–even more destructive to its religious witness.
That reason is fear.
Drama queen.
Talk to engaged evangelicals, and fear is all too often a dominant theme of their political life. The church is under siege from a hostile culture. Religious institutions are under legal attack from progressives. The left wants nuns to facilitate access to abortifacients and contraceptives, it wants Christian adoption agencies to compromise their conscience or close, and it even casts into doubt the tax exemptions of religious education institutions if they adhere to traditional Christian sexual ethics.
Credit where it's due. You got one right.
These issues are legally important, and there are reasons for evangelicals to be concerned. But there is no reason for evangelicals to abandon long-held principles to behave like any other political-interest group.
Bass-ackwards, Dave. We're not abandoning principles. We're holding on to them. More on that in a minute.
Instead, the evangelical church is called to be a source of light in a darkening world. It is not given the luxury of fear-based decision-making. Indeed, of all the groups in American life who believe they have the least to fear from American politics, Christians should top the list. The faithful should reject fear.
Which we have. But before I explain Why You Got Trump, a little history.
It's no secret that when Ronald Reagan became the Republican candidate for president in 1980, won the presidency and then won it again in 1984, some of the most disappointed people in the world worked for GOP Inc.
Why? Reagan had won outside of proper GOP Inc. channels. He had gone over the empty heads of Professional ConservatismTM and appealed directly to the people. And, worst of all, he brought all those horrible evangelicals over to the Republicans.
Because that meant that from then on, any Republican who wanted to win the nomination had to pretend to care about issues like abortion. Although he won big in '88 (hard not to do when you're running against a clod like Mike Dukakis), a good Episcopalian like HW certainly couldn't do that convincingly. Bob Dole couldn't either.
So we got eight years of Bill Clinton, as morally virtuous a presidential candidate as any political party has ever put forward.
End corrosive, acidic sarcasm.
You see where I'm going with this, Dave?
W barely won in 2000 and once again, he knew all the right words to say and, at least, kind of sounded like he took us seriously. So the evangelicals stayed on board and we got eight years of Bush but nothing much actually happened on their key issues since W knew that the evangelicals weren't going anywhere.
Then GOP Inc. put its foot down. It still courted evangelical votes but it decided that it was no longer going to be ordered around by a bunch of Holy Rollers. So, come 2008, evangelicals were instructed by Professional ConservatismTM to support John McCain.
War hero. Decent guy. Conservative (I guess).
Godawful campaigner.
And we got four years of Obama.
Now it's 2012 and who does GOP Inc. and Professional ConservatismTM expect evangelicals to accept as a viable "conservative" candidate? That life-sized, cardboard cutout of Mitt Romney, a man with no discernible principles of any kind, never mind "conservative" ones.
The man was the governor of Massachusetts, for God's sake, enthusiastically participated in gay pride parades, called himself pro-choice at one point, and came up with an Obamacare prototype. But now, evangelicals were assured that he was a genuine conservative.
We all knew Willard was reading a script, Dave. We're not stupid. Besides, what idiot at GOP Inc. thought that Protestant evangelical Christians would ever happily back a Mormon for very long? So evangelicals sat out 2012, giving the country four more years of Obama.
Now we come to 2016 and what kinds of "conservative" candidates did GOP Inc. put forward? Marco Rubio. Lindsey Graham. John Kasich. JEB! Quite frankly, Dave, Gam-Gam would have wiped the floor with any of the Republican candidates running that year.
But we would have maintained our "Christian principles." So there's that.
Except that there was also Donald J. Trump. A man who sounded like he meant what he said. A man who sounded like he wanted the presidency and would do whatever he needed to do in order to get it. And most importantly, a man who knew how to at least plausibly sound like he took evangelical concerns seriously.
So it shouldn't have been any surprise to you, Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, National Review and other members of Professional ConservatismTM that the conservative unwashed decided almost en masse not to take instruction from any of you anymore.
Your track record sucks royally.
Has he worked out? So far. Neil Gorsuch. Brett Kavanaugh.
Jerusalem.
For generations, everyone, GOP Inc., Democrat and Professional Conservative, claimed to believe that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. So they regularly and quite happily supported and/or voted for numerous congressional resolutions to that effect.
Knowing that nothing was EVER going to happen. "Peace process" and all that garbage.
Safest vote in the world.
Then along comes Trump who basically declares, all right, let's cut the crap and let's get it done. And so it was done, horrifying and/or outraging all the right people. Would President McCain have had the courage to take that step? Would President Romney have done it?
You and I both know the answer to those questions.
Let me bottom-line it for you, Dave. Your brain-dead "theology" notwithstanding, most evangelicals figured something out a long time ago that you don't seem to know yet. Every single US election for whatever office, from George Washington on down to the present, features two seriously flawed candidates.
Christians call them "sinners."
Since that's the case, here's something else you haven't seem to have figured out. "President" is not a sacerdotal term. When Americans elect a president, we're not electing the Presiding Bishop of the United States. We're selecting America's First Civil Servant.
And that's ALL we're doing.
So either give us a reason why you hate Trump that's more substantive than the fact that you think he's icky or spare us the pseudo-Christian pearl-clutching.
It’s worth contrasting Trump, who denied Carroll’s claim (as well as his other accusers’), with Clinton because his scandals helped spur the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 to issue its seminal “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials.” That document’s key statement was ominous and unequivocal: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”
Which had absolutely nothing to do with any public statement Clinton ever made. But do go on.
The relentless drumbeat of claims against Trump–combined with the clear moral declarations of the past–have caused millions of Americans to look at their evangelical fellow citizens and ask, simply: Why? Why have you abandoned your previous commitment to political character to embrace Donald Trump?
Dave? I don't know if you're aware of this or not but devout Christians have voted for sinners for president since the foundation of the Republic. It's kind of all we have.
Part of the explanation is undeniably basic partisanship and ambition. White evangelicals are largely Republican, and they’re generally going to vote for Republicans. And proximity to power has always had its attractions for religious charlatans of all stripes. But I’d suggest the real reason for the breadth and depth of evangelical support is deeper and–perversely–even more destructive to its religious witness.
That reason is fear.
Drama queen.
Talk to engaged evangelicals, and fear is all too often a dominant theme of their political life. The church is under siege from a hostile culture. Religious institutions are under legal attack from progressives. The left wants nuns to facilitate access to abortifacients and contraceptives, it wants Christian adoption agencies to compromise their conscience or close, and it even casts into doubt the tax exemptions of religious education institutions if they adhere to traditional Christian sexual ethics.
Credit where it's due. You got one right.
These issues are legally important, and there are reasons for evangelicals to be concerned. But there is no reason for evangelicals to abandon long-held principles to behave like any other political-interest group.
Bass-ackwards, Dave. We're not abandoning principles. We're holding on to them. More on that in a minute.
Instead, the evangelical church is called to be a source of light in a darkening world. It is not given the luxury of fear-based decision-making. Indeed, of all the groups in American life who believe they have the least to fear from American politics, Christians should top the list. The faithful should reject fear.
Which we have. But before I explain Why You Got Trump, a little history.
It's no secret that when Ronald Reagan became the Republican candidate for president in 1980, won the presidency and then won it again in 1984, some of the most disappointed people in the world worked for GOP Inc.
Why? Reagan had won outside of proper GOP Inc. channels. He had gone over the empty heads of Professional ConservatismTM and appealed directly to the people. And, worst of all, he brought all those horrible evangelicals over to the Republicans.
Because that meant that from then on, any Republican who wanted to win the nomination had to pretend to care about issues like abortion. Although he won big in '88 (hard not to do when you're running against a clod like Mike Dukakis), a good Episcopalian like HW certainly couldn't do that convincingly. Bob Dole couldn't either.
So we got eight years of Bill Clinton, as morally virtuous a presidential candidate as any political party has ever put forward.
End corrosive, acidic sarcasm.
You see where I'm going with this, Dave?
W barely won in 2000 and once again, he knew all the right words to say and, at least, kind of sounded like he took us seriously. So the evangelicals stayed on board and we got eight years of Bush but nothing much actually happened on their key issues since W knew that the evangelicals weren't going anywhere.
Then GOP Inc. put its foot down. It still courted evangelical votes but it decided that it was no longer going to be ordered around by a bunch of Holy Rollers. So, come 2008, evangelicals were instructed by Professional ConservatismTM to support John McCain.
War hero. Decent guy. Conservative (I guess).
Godawful campaigner.
And we got four years of Obama.
Now it's 2012 and who does GOP Inc. and Professional ConservatismTM expect evangelicals to accept as a viable "conservative" candidate? That life-sized, cardboard cutout of Mitt Romney, a man with no discernible principles of any kind, never mind "conservative" ones.
The man was the governor of Massachusetts, for God's sake, enthusiastically participated in gay pride parades, called himself pro-choice at one point, and came up with an Obamacare prototype. But now, evangelicals were assured that he was a genuine conservative.
We all knew Willard was reading a script, Dave. We're not stupid. Besides, what idiot at GOP Inc. thought that Protestant evangelical Christians would ever happily back a Mormon for very long? So evangelicals sat out 2012, giving the country four more years of Obama.
Now we come to 2016 and what kinds of "conservative" candidates did GOP Inc. put forward? Marco Rubio. Lindsey Graham. John Kasich. JEB! Quite frankly, Dave, Gam-Gam would have wiped the floor with any of the Republican candidates running that year.
But we would have maintained our "Christian principles." So there's that.
Except that there was also Donald J. Trump. A man who sounded like he meant what he said. A man who sounded like he wanted the presidency and would do whatever he needed to do in order to get it. And most importantly, a man who knew how to at least plausibly sound like he took evangelical concerns seriously.
So it shouldn't have been any surprise to you, Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, National Review and other members of Professional ConservatismTM that the conservative unwashed decided almost en masse not to take instruction from any of you anymore.
Your track record sucks royally.
Has he worked out? So far. Neil Gorsuch. Brett Kavanaugh.
Jerusalem.
For generations, everyone, GOP Inc., Democrat and Professional Conservative, claimed to believe that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. So they regularly and quite happily supported and/or voted for numerous congressional resolutions to that effect.
Knowing that nothing was EVER going to happen. "Peace process" and all that garbage.
Safest vote in the world.
Then along comes Trump who basically declares, all right, let's cut the crap and let's get it done. And so it was done, horrifying and/or outraging all the right people. Would President McCain have had the courage to take that step? Would President Romney have done it?
You and I both know the answer to those questions.
Let me bottom-line it for you, Dave. Your brain-dead "theology" notwithstanding, most evangelicals figured something out a long time ago that you don't seem to know yet. Every single US election for whatever office, from George Washington on down to the present, features two seriously flawed candidates.
Christians call them "sinners."
Since that's the case, here's something else you haven't seem to have figured out. "President" is not a sacerdotal term. When Americans elect a president, we're not electing the Presiding Bishop of the United States. We're selecting America's First Civil Servant.
And that's ALL we're doing.
So either give us a reason why you hate Trump that's more substantive than the fact that you think he's icky or spare us the pseudo-Christian pearl-clutching.
4 comments:
Keep in mind there is little or nothing in the way of a popular constituency in favor of a NeverTrump perspective. Compare The Donald's approval rating among Republicans to George W. Bush's and you see the dimensions of the NeverTrump constituency do not exceed 4% of the self-identified Republicans, if that.
This mess isn't quite as phony as the Obamacon phenomenon, but it's a similar phenomenon: the Capitol Hill nexus and the corps of opinion journalists. They're paid salaries by the political opposition (Jennifer Rubin, George Will, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, Ross Douthat), or they're paid with the endowment and donation income of legacy institutions (Max Boot, David French, Mona Charen, John Podhoretz), or they are independently wealthy and do not need a salary (David Frum, and, again, George Will). Since the parent company of what was left of The Weekly Standard cut them off at the bar, Wm. Kristol has reportedly been jonesing for donations from liberal billionaires to support his newest venture, The Bulwark, which is so starved for manpower that they've recruited off of veterans of Slate and The Huffington Post.
A student of these chaps has suggested their real problem is that they took stances publicly and insistently which have been largely discredited by events, and their reaction has been to double down. It's largely personal vanity.
Between Newt Gingrich's resignation from Congress and the Donald's inauguration, we had 18 years of failure theatre by the GOP establishment. Not that David French noticed.
Here's some brief remarks about one of David French's recent excursions.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/381971.php
More commentary on French.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/381679.php
French also fails to note that Trump's alleged and admitted personal life sins occurred many years before he ran for, or occupied, public office. Clinton's involvements with women, both voluntary (on their part) and involuntary, and his and his wife's corruption, were while he and Hillary occupied public office, first in Arkansas and then in Washington.
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