Saturday, March 24, 2018


Sermon on the Swamp
Marc Thiessen and Michael Gerson are both conservative commentators. Some would say, not without reason, that they are both ultra-conservative. Both write for the Washington Post.
It is worth noting that the Washington Post is often (inaccurately) demonized by the far-right as a leftist publication. But one (of many) things that expose this as a lie is that the Post employs people like Thiessen and Gerson—the Post is a professional new organization interested in helping us understand the conflicts we face and doing that requires us to understand the multiple perspectives in play.

This is one (of many) reason the criticism of Fox Noise as a right-wing propaganda outlet is not a lie—they make no effort, zero, of presenting all sides on the issues we need to understand today. Quite the opposite.

Anyway, back to the story at hand: understanding why voters for whom being Christian is the most important part of their identity so overwhelmingly support the most indecent and crude and unchristian president in our lifetime.

This question continues to perplex me. I also think it is an important question for us all to wrestle with thoughtfully and seriously—that is, without framing it as ‘this confirms what I have always thought’ about either evangelicals or Trump or voters or democracy.

Below you will find the full text of both Gerson and Thiessen. Both conservatives. Gerson argues evangelicals have sold their soul and makes a good case that this will ultimately hurt them and the political causes they support.

Thiessen does not so much disagree with Gerson as examine the question from another angle, arguing there are good reasons for evangelicals to support Trump. He makes a good case and if we extend his logic to loop back to Gerson, the concrete gains noted are likely to pay enormous political dividends for evangelicals and the causes they care about for generations to come.

As I see it, a core of the shared argument here is that Trump appeals to these voters because he voices their grievances. Stating it this way makes Trump like just about any other politician in kind, if not in degree. Trump goes beyond voices the grievances of his supporters—he has raised grievance to a political ideology that validates the sense among many that their way of life has been under attack and Trump is fighting back for them.

As Gerson (and Perkins) put it, what many see as Trump’s greatest liability is likely seen by these voters as his greatest strength. His “approach to public discourse is actually the main selling point. His bullying — his cruelty, crudity and personal insults — is admired because it is directed at other bullies.”

In this sense it matters less that he often gets the facts wrong and more that, right or wrong on the specifics, he is accurately articulating a grievance-centric world view the animates many voters…and he is willing to back up his crude and often inaccurate rhetoric with decisive and powerful action against those seen as the ‘real bullies’ by those who hold this grievance-centric world view.

See what you think.


With their reactions to the Roy Moore candidacy and the Stormy Daniels scandal, the Trump evangelicals have scaled the heights of hypocrisy to the summit. Family-values conservatives who dismiss credible accusations of sexual abuse and wink at hush money for a porn star have ceased to represent family values in any meaningful sense. They have made a national joke of moral standards that were once, presumably, deeply held. At least when a Democrat violated them.

My friend Pete Wehner proposes a thought experiment: If a militant atheist were to design a trap with the goal of discrediting evangelical Christians, could they do better than Moore and Daniels? It would take some consideration.

But this barely scratches the surface of the moral compromises being made. The problem with Trumpism is not only the transparent excuses it offers (and requires others to accept) for shoddy and offensive behavior. As I argue in the Atlantic , the deeper issue is the distinctly non-Christian substance of President Trump’s values. His unapologetic materialism. His tribalism and hatred for “the other.” His strength-worship and contempt for “losers,” which smack more of Nietzsche than of Christ.

Trump’s nasty mash-up of the power of positive thinking, the Playboy philosophy and the will to power is a naturally poor fit for religious conservatives. Or so one would have thought.

Trump evangelicals defend their support for the president in the pose of political realists. A president, they argue, is not a pastor. A certain amount of compromise is necessary to get conservative judges and more favorable treatment of Christian institutions. This is the way of the world.

There are sometimes conflicted political choices in a fallen world. But this argument would be more credible if so many Trump evangelicals were not such sycophants. It is one thing to point to the difficult binary choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton. It is another to provide Trump political cover in every scandal and offer preemptive absolution of every character failure.

There is something else at work here than weary realism — something that Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently clarified. Conservatives, he said, “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.” In this explanation, Trump’s approach to public discourse is actually the main selling point. His bullying — his cruelty, crudity and personal insults — is admired because it is directed at other bullies.

This is, perhaps, politically and psychologically understandable. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the Sermon on the Mount. Nothing to do with any recognizable version of Christian ethics. The very thing that should repel evangelicals — Trump’s dehumanization of others — is what seems to fascinate and attract some conservative Christians. It is yet another example of discrediting hypocrisy.

The Trump evangelicals are best understood as conservative political operatives, seeking benefits for their interest group from politicians who are most likely to provide them. So how good is the quality of their political advice?

Not particularly good. Identifying evangelicalism with Trump’s ethno-populism may have some short-term benefits. But public influence eventually depends on the persuasiveness of public arguments. And close ties to Trump will eventually be disastrous to causes that evangelicals care about. Pro-life arguments are discredited by an association with misogyny. Arguments for religious liberty are discredited by association with anti-Muslim bias. Arguments for family values are discredited by nativist disdain for migrant families.
The damage radiates further. Trump evangelicals are blessing the destruction of public norms on civility, decency and the importance of public character.

And the ultimate harm is to the reputation of faith itself. The identification of evangelical Christianity with ethno-nationalism and white grievance is a grave matter. Evangelical Christians hardly distinguished themselves during the civil rights movement. Some used Christian academies as a cover for continued segregation. Getting this issue wrong again would be particularly damning in a nation — and in Christian churches — growing inexorably more diverse.

Here are the sources of hope: Evangelicals have a rich history that includes abolitionists and social reformers to inspire them. They have a rising generation of leaders — from Pastor Timothy Keller, to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore, to Bishop Claude Alexander, to Bible teacher Beth Moore, to anti-slavery activist Gary Haugen — who are embracing a different and better model of social engagement. And they hold to a faith that for two millennia has survived not only the wrath of its opponents but the cynicism of its advocates.

Why Conservative Christians are Sticking with Trump, Marc Thiessen
As "60 Minutes" prepares to air its interview with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, conservative Christians are being accused of hypocrisy. How can so-called "values voters" continue to stand with President Trump despite revelations that he allegedly had affairs with a porn star and a Playboy model, and paid them for their silence?

No doubt some Christian leaders have gone too far in rationalizing Trump's past personal behavior and excusing his offensive comments while in office. He is a deeply flawed man. But Trump does have one moral quality that deserves admiration: He keeps his promises.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to defend religious liberty, stand up for unborn life and appoint conservative jurists to the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. And he has done exactly what he promised. The abortion-rights lobby NARAL complains that Trump has been "relentless" on these fronts, declaring his administration "the worst .?.?. that we've ever seen." That is more important to most Christian conservatives than what the president may have done with a porn actress more than ten years ago.

Trump's election came as religious liberty was under unprecedented attack. The Obama administration was trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious conscience and facilitate payment for abortifacient drugs and other contraceptives. During oral arguments in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, President Barack Obama's solicitor general told the Supreme Court that churches and universities could lose their tax-exempt status if they opposed same-sex marriage.

Hillary Clinton promised to escalate those attacks. In 2015, she declared at the Women in the World Summit that "religious beliefs ... have to be changed" -- perhaps the most radical threat to religious liberty ever delivered by a major presidential candidate. Had Clinton won, she would have replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal jurist, giving the Supreme Court a liberal judicial-activist majority.

The impact would have been immediate, as the court prepares to decide two cases crucial to religious liberty.

In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Court will soon determine whether the government can compel a U.S. citizen to violate his conscience and participate in speech that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs.

In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra, the Court will decide whether the state of California can compel pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertise access to abortion to their clients, in violation of their conscience.

Those cases are being heard not by five liberals, but five conservatives, including Justice Neil M. Gorsuch -- because Trump kept his promise to "appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the bench."
The president is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges who will protect life and religious freedom for decades. He also fulfilled his promise to defend the Little Sisters from government bullying, by expanding the religious and conscience exemption to the Obamacare contraception mandate to cover both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

Trump ordered the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the civil rights of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who refuse to take part in procedures such as abortion, reversing an Obama-era policy that required them to do so. And his Justice Department issued 25-page guidance to federal agencies instructing them to protect the religious liberty in the execution of federal law.

While Clinton promised to repeal the Hyde Amendment barring federal funds for abortion, Trump has been a pro-life champion. He became the first president to address the March for Life when he spoke by satellite video from the White House's Rose Garden. He reinstated and expanded the "Mexico City policy" -- which prohibits U.S. foreign aid from going to groups that perform or promote abortion. He signed legislation overturning an Obama-era regulation that prohibited states from defunding abortion service providers.

Indeed, Trump has arguably done more in his first year in office to protect life and religious freedom than any modern president. Little wonder that religious conservatives stick with him despite the Daniels revelations. This is not to say that Christians don't think a culture of fidelity is important. But the culture of life is important too. So is a culture that is welcoming to religious believers rather than waging war on them.

No one upholds Trump as moral exemplar. He is not the most religious president we have ever had, but he may be the most pro-religion president. Christian conservatives are judging Trump not by his faith, but by his works. And when it comes to life and liberty, his works are good.




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