About 4 years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled Respect for the President in which I argued that Christians have the moral duty to show a certain degree respect to the leader of their country. I wrote:
The Bible passages above make it clear that we are required to give respect and not merely grudging obedience to our leaders. Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to criticize the President's policy decisions, to sound the alarm at usurpations of power, to whistleblow crimes, to reject immorality etc. You are not required to agree with him or her, any more than the command to "honor your father and mother" means you must always agree with their decisions.
About the specific candidates for the election, I said that:
That does not mean I am neutral when it comes to this election. While I am not a huge fan of either candidate this season, Donald Trump is far more dangerous, irresponsible, and crude than his rival, and I may have some personal difficulty in following my own advice if he is elected. Although it is conceivable he would keep his promise to appoint justices to the Supreme Court in keeping with my own views, this year the "worst case scenarios" for the Executive Branch seem way worse than for the Judicial Branch.
Well, Trump has kept his promise to appoint conservative justices, I'll give him that.
But in other respects, I don't think he's really governed as a conservative at all. Nobody who is almost completely without respect for honor, decency, military service, civil unity, the Constitution, or due process of law, can really be called a conservative in any meaningful sense. Unless you just mean that phrase as an arbitrary label to describe one particular political team, I think that both in temperament and policy, St. Joe Biden is much closer to being conservative than Trump is.
(For that matter, I have some qualms about calling a "conservative" anyone who doesn't believe in some form of environmental conservation—the arguments for doing so are almost exactly the same as the arguments for not making radical changes to the economy or civil society, namely that these things represent a delicate balance that has evolved over a long period of time, and that balance is easy to destroy but very hard to replace. In other words, it's a bad idea to try to cut off the branch you are sitting on.
Except that actually it's even more foolish to ruin the ecology, as in that case we are talking about a system which God allowed to evolve over millions of years, not mere hundreds of years. I believe that we humans have been placed on this Earth as divinely appointed stewards of the Environment. God wants us to cultivate our planet and care for it—not pillage and destroy it for the short-term profit of shareholders. It may be hard to replace a repressive system of government, but it is far easier than to recreate an extinct species, or to suck 1/3 of the carbon dioxide out of the air in order to return the atmosphere to the condition it was in before the Industrial Revolution.)
This is not really a political blog, and I don't think it is useful to make long lists of links to describe (1) all of the cruel or irresponsible things that the current President has done, (2) formerly respected conservatives who have come out against him, (3) the way his politicization and minimization of the Covid Pandemic led to a far larger death toll than necessary (currently around 200,000). There are plenty of other places on the Internet to read about this sort of thing, so I try to avoid getting mired in politics except when I have a distinctive angle. Nor do I think I am very likely to persuade anyone of Trump's unfitness to hold office, who doesn't already acknowledge that fact.
Nor is it particularly worthwhile to recount all of the ways in which Trump, at least verbally, likes to subvert American instiutions by verbally playing around with ideas like violence towards journalists, or voting twice, or chanting "12 more years" instead of "4 more years" during the Republican Convention. (But I'm sure he just meant 4 more years of him, and then 8 more years of some other Republican crony. Right...) This is the way he tests out authoritarian fantasies (things that are currently impossible in our system, but would be possible in other countries, and might eventually become possible here).
If people call him on it, his supporters just say that he was just joking. But even if that is true, this is still not the path of wisdom:
Like a madman shooting
firebrands or deadly arrows
is a man who deceives his neighbor
and says, “I was only joking!”
Without wood a fire goes out;
without a gossip a quarrel dies down.
As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire,
so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife.
(Proverbs 26:18-21)
Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, not to sow discord and strife!
Even an Incompetent Administration gets some things right
It would probably be far easier to make a list of the very few things I think the Trump administration has done well, such as signing the First Step Act, negotiating a peace treaty between Israel and the UAE, and rolling back a few of the last administration's more creative interpretations of Executive authority (for example on educational policy).
The tax bill he signed made a few structural improvements (e.g. by cutting back on several popular deductions which many economists think are bad policy), and might end up becoming a balanced reform after Democrats get a chance to make some changes. But I think it was a net negative, due to killing the individual mandate. Despite its unpopularity and dubious constitutionality, the mandate was originally motivated as a way to minimize the risk of a future death spiral totally destroying the individual insurance market. Removing the mandate alone, without changing anything else about how Obamacare is structured, was deeply irresponsible.
I also think his administration made a good faith effort to negotiate with North Korea, even though, unsurprisingly, very little came from it. (However I deeply disagree with his approach to the Iran treaty. It was as good of a deal as we were likely to get. Since we weren't prepared to go to war, America should have tried to make it work.)
Is Respect still Warranted?
But what I want to talk about today is this. If the leader of our nation is this selfish and irresponsible, are Christians still obliged to respect him? In other words, was my blog post 4 years ago wrong?
First let me dispose of one rhetorical maneuver I don't think is very sensible. Sometimes people of a liberal bent say things like "Well, Trump is not my president", or that he's an illegitimate President because of issues with the election.
But I think these types of slogans are confused about the definition of the term "legitimate". Our system of government does not allow for the possibility of a vacancy in the Presidency for 4 years. So it's only reasonable to say that Trump isn't really the President, if you think that somebody else is the President. But no judge, no matter how liberal, thinks that whether or not a bill becomes law depends on whether Hillary Clinton signs or vetoes it, or that she has the power to nominate Judges to be considered by the Senate. No, right now that President is Donald Trump. (Although more likely than not, he won't be for much longer.)
The main supposed problem with the election was that Russia paid for fake internet accounts which persuaded too many voters to support the wrong candidate. Now I'm not going to say that Putin trying to mess with voters is a good thing. But in a democracy the goal is to persuade the voters. If you think the voters were persuaded wrongly, by bad people, that doesn't make the system undemocratic. It means that Clinton should have done a better job of persuading the voters she had their best interests at heart. Just as a monarchy doesn't cease to be a monarchy because the King listens to flatterers who don't have the country's best interests at heart, so to a democracy doesn't cease to be a democracy when some of the people listen to fake news. It just makes it a democracy where the sovereign is behaving in a foolish manner. If you only accept the results of democracy when the voters do things you like, then you don't believe in democracy at all.
(As for the Electoral College, that's the system we have for picking the President unless and until it is changed, so deal with it.)
Now to answer the question, I'm going to say Yes, it's still important to show some degree of respect to civil leaders, including Donald Trump (and also the Governor of your own state who may or may not be mismanaging things, and also local authorities—this isn't just about the top position.)
The first reason I think this, is because I think that if Democrats had done a better job of respecting their civil leaders when St. George W. Bush was in charge, and if Republicans had respected St. Barack Obama when he was in charge, then I think the contrast between that respect and Trump's disrespectful demeanor would have been so great, that he could never have captured the Republican primary. It is only because our civil society was already wounded by extreme partisan bias on both sides, that a person who specialized in trolling people was able to take charge of the political process.
So if I said people didn't have some obligation to show a some degree of respect for the current President, I would be enabling the same process that led to Trump being President in the first place. That seems counterproductive, to say the least!
Comparison to Respect for Parents
Secondly, I think it is helpful to make an analogy to another commandment about respect, Honor your father and mother. (This is one of the Big Ten, so we definitely aren't allowed to ignore this commandment and hope it goes away.)
Our parents gave us life, provided for us in our early years, and gave us rules and principles to live by. For religious people, our earliest image of what God's character is like, will be a combination of the character of our father and our mother. Hence, our (limited) respect for our parents is a natural corollary of our unlimited respect for God, who is totally authoritative, and the giver of all life.
But parents differ in their quality. Let's consider 4 cases:
1) Some people, like me, grew up with great parents, who were loving and wise and interested in our welfare, and set a good example. (Nobody is ever a perfect parent, of course, and in a fallen world, every parent is going to leave their kids with issues of one sort or another.) But taken as a whole, such parents make it easy to respect them as images or symbols of what God is like.
2) Or you might have had mediocre parents who did everything necessary, but not in a super inspirational sort of way. Perhaps they weren't very affectionate, or were overly strict, or workaholics, or got a messy divorce. But they still definitely loved their kids and took care of them and gave them a reasonable start in life.
3) Or you might have had 1 or 2 parents who did a terrible job of parenting. Perhaps they were unaffectionate, abusive, neglectful, just plain irresponsible. But they still probably cared about you to some extent, and they still did some of the jobs a parent is supposed to do. (In extreme cases, they may be sufficiently bad news that their children might even need to resort to cutting off all contact with them, for the sake of their own sanity and protection.)
4) Finally, another class of parents were just completely absent as a caretaker. They took zero responsibility once you were born (or in the case of the father, begotten), and totally abandoned you. The only reason you are still alive today, is because somebody else stepped up to the plate to take care of you when you were younger.
Now God says to the children of all of these people, Honor your Parents. There is no person to whom this commandment is totally inapplicable, since none of us can survive early childhood without having received some caretaking from somebody. But it must be conceded that this commandment is going to be a lot harder for people in the last two categories than for people in the first or the second categories.
I think everybody is capable of obeying this commandment in one way or another. However, the way in which we do so, may reasonably depend on what kind of parent we have had.
In any of the first 3 cases, we can honor our parents by giving them credit for whatever good things they gave us (with no need to pretend that their mistakes didn't happen). And to take care of them in their old age to the extent that this is reasonable and possible given your circumstances. In cases of abusive parents, it may not be safely possible to interact with them, and the best you can do to fulfill your filial obligation is pray for their souls from a distance. In a few extreme cases, the most reasonable old age pension might be in a jail cell!
If your parents were totally neglectful (case #4), or if you had to be removed from them (in extreme versions of case #3), it seems appropriate to give the greater degree of honor to whoever actually raised you in their place. Those folks, whoever they are, may have a much greater claim to be respected as your "parents". But this does not give you the liberty to curse or hate your biological parents. For it is written:
Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, "What are you making?" Does your work say, "He has no hands"?
Woe to him who says to his father, "What have you begotten?" or to his mother, "What have you brought forth?"
(Isaiah 45:9-10)
Even if your biological parents provided you nothing except for your genetic material and 9 months in a womb, you can still honor them for that one little thing, because by doing so you are really only respecting your own self. Otherwise you are saying "I wish I was never born", and (unless your piety and suffering equals that of Job) that can slip very easily into despising the Lord who created you, who is your true loving Father.
I recently saw the film Capernaum, in which a Syrian boy named Zain is born in poverty to selfish parents, runs away from them after they sell his sister in marriage, and after a series of unfortunate events, ends up in jail. There, he sues his parents for allowing him to be born. This lawsuit is, I think, an example of something that the 5th Commandment categorically prohibits. (And for those who have seen the movie, I do not, in fact, think that it would be better for the world if Zain hadn't existed; for one thing he spends a good portion of the movie trying to take care of a baby after its mother is deported.)
So what does this mean for you if you are an American who hates Donald Trump and thinks he's bad for the country? Well, he doesn't seem to be like a parent in class #4, who isn't trying at all to run the federal government. At worst he's in category #3, an irresponsible and abusive authority.
Respect doesn't mean you have to pretend he's doing a good job when he isn't. (Although, I don't think he's the worst President ever, when you remember that this includes people whose mismanagement led to a literal Civil War, and also people who directly supported slavery, or segregation, or the genocide of Native Americans.)
At the very least, you can refrain from making juvenile permutations of his name, since that is totally unnecessary in order to make substantive criticism of his administration of office. You can still acknowledge that he is the President of your nation. You can grudgingly acknowledge it when he occasionally does good things. And you can pray for him, in ways that aren't entirely about him being struck by lightening, or ignominiously losing the election. That would be a start.
The Mirror of the Word
I also don't think that respect for Civil Authority means that we shouldn't hold up the mirror of Scripture to the President's conduct, to see how it looks from a spiritually informed perspective.
I thought this article about 10 Scriptures to pray for Donald Trump crossed the line from sermonizing to cheerleading, especially in the topic headers, for example: praying for "Trump to do everything in his power to continue to care for those who need assistance" (as if he ever cared), or that "Trump will lead America to continue to be a light for all nations" (which misinterprets "my chosen people" in Isaiah 51:4 as though it referred to the USA, a theological blunder with serious political implications).
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to compile a list of Scriptures which are helpful for understanding how we should think about Donald Trump as Christians. But no such list is complete which doesn't include this obviously applicable statement:
There is no fear of God before his eyes,
for in his own eyes he flatters himself too much
to detect or hate his sin. (Psalm 36:1-2)
Reciprocal Respect
Now let me make another hopefully obvious point. If children have the responsibility to honor their parents, then obviously parents also have the responsibility to try to be the sort of parents that are easy to honor. Otherwise, they (the parents) are responsible for the profanation of the Divine Name that occurs when their children reject or despise them. Perhaps, they are even more responsible for the violation of the commandment than their children are.
The rest of this post is aimed mostly at political conservatives. I'm sure there are also lots of liberal-minded people who read my blog, but they are unlikely to be very tempted to support Donald Trump, and so the points I am going to make are not primarily aimed at them.
If you are a political conservative; if you believe in the importance of civil society; if you think it is important for people to respect the Constitution and the laws—then obviously it is important to select leaders who model that kind of respect for something higher than themselves. Respect works best when it is reciprocal. Only a leader who cares about being respectable is likely to inspire respect.
Similarly, if you want people to respect the cops, then this is a lot more likely if the cops hold themselves to high standards, and strictly adhere to the law and to their constitutional limitations, without people giving them a free pass.
There are lots of ways to win politically in the short run, but the only way to win in the long run is to win hearts and minds. Anything you do for a political position or party which doesn't work towards this goal, is in the long run counterproductive.
(For example, the last thing the pro-life movement should want, is for the face of the movement going forwards to be a man like Donald Trump. That is like saying, yes please tie a millstone around the neck of my social movement and toss it into the sea! )
Hence, if you are a political conservative who wants to get people to respect lawful authority, your standard of goodness had better not be that anything which "triggers liberals" is therefore good. That is the exact opposite of Winning Hearts and Minds. As St. Paul wrote to Christians:
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)
No matter how misguided you think another group of people is, defining their evil as your good is one of the quickest ways to become evil yourself. There is no group of people so terrible, that opposing them can be a substitute for doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God. To be respectable, you need to have your own moral compass, not simply borrow another person's and then turn it upside-down.
When I was a kid our one of our neighbors had a large, rowdy dog that would sometimes bark at us, through the fence. It was rather intimidating. One afternoon, me and my younger siblings started loudly barking back at the dog to show we weren't afraid of it. Well my Dad didn't like that. He said, "If you meet that dog in a dark alley someday, do you want it to lick your hand or tear you apart?"
Don't get me wrong. Sometimes in politics, it's necessary to do the right thing even when the other side calls you Hitler. Most politicians are cowards, and yes, it's often hard to do the right thing when a lot of people in the media take everything you do out of context.
Still, you should be trying to maximize the amount of accomplishment per unit of outrage. Not deliberately doing cruel things which don't lead to any permanent good, just in order to spite and enrage the other side. That will just lead to worse things down the road next time the other guys are in charge.
Considerations while Voting
Next I'm going to say something now a lot of political operatives on both sides don't want you to hear, so pay attention. Since WWII, the White House has pretty regularly switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats every few years. It's unrealistic to expect either party to have a victory that will permanently shut out the other party. If you aren't going to advocate for a dictatorship, or permanently killing or disenfranchising your enemies, or rigging elections, things are going to go back and forth.
So if you think the only way to save America is for Democrats (or Republicans) never to win another election, then I hate to break it to you, but that ain't gonna happen!
You should think of it more like this. You should vote, because on average your vote can do a significant amount of good. But in every election, you aren't just helping to determining whether the R's or D's win. You are also helping to determine what kind of party the R's and D's will be going forward. And this is even more important that deciding who wins in the short run.
If you want the future Republican party to look more like Donald Trump, and the future Democratic party to look more like Warren or Sanders, then by all means vote for Trump! But if you would prefer a Democratic party that looks like moderates like Biden, or a Republican party which looks like somebody who cares about something other than their own ego, then you should probably vote for that outcome.
Yes, Christians should respect Civil Authorities like the President. And if we are obliged to have respect for the Presidency, then a natural outgrowth of that is that we should try to vote for people who will treat that Office with respect. Character matters, and people in high office who have a bad character will tend to corrode the work of everyone they oversee below them. As it is written:
If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked.
(Proverbs 29:12)
Double Standards
By the way, I don't want to hear any replies in the comments complaining about the media's double standards, or "What about this other terrible thing that Democrats did, and liberals let them get away with it?!?"
If you are going to have a double standard at all, at least make it point in the right direction: conservatives should hold conservative politicians to a higher standard than they hold liberals to, and liberals should hold liberal politicians to a higher standard than they hold conservatives to. Whichever "side" you agree with more, those are the people you should hold to a higher standard! Not the other way around.
(Far more so, as a Christian, I expect the Church to uphold a higher standard than the world, and I'm okay with the world holding the Church to a higher standard as well. We should be held to a higher standard.)
It is predictable that liberals would react with outrage to a Republican president regardless of how bad he was. No matter how bad the President is, there are always going to be hyperbolic people who think he is 10 times worse than he actually is. (It is not hard to find conservatives overreacting to Obama.)
Precisely because this overreaction is predictable, and happens no matter what, you cannot allow them to shatter your own sense of morality, by saying that because they overreact, you are therefore pre-emptively justified in ignoring the real problems and issues caused by the President's lack of moral character (which currently has a significant death toll, remember). Is it really an excuse to say: the other side is going to complain no matter what, so I may as well do terrible things? Is that what passes for moral analysis in politics-land?
I'm sick and tired of partisans on both sides of the political spectrum using the (real or imagined) terribleness of people on the other side, to excuse bad behavior on their side.
If you genuinely thought that Trump was the lesser evil in 2016, or 2020, I profoundly disagree, but I understand that people of good conscience can weigh issues differently than I do. I will not cut you off from my friendship or disrespect you, simply because you have different political opinions from me about which priorities are most important.
(And yes, there are more abortion deaths every year (around 600,000) than Covid deaths this year. However, as St. David French points out, the abortion rate is now lower than it was in the year Roe v. Wade was decided, suggesting that Winning Hearts and Minds, supporting mothers with crisis pregnancies, and encouraging Adoption might actually work better than direct attempts to change the issue by means of Supreme Court politics—something which would at best return the issue to the States and allow abortion to be banned mostly in Red States where it is already rare.)
The trouble is, that a lot of the people who were arguing that Trump was the lesser evil in 2016 (because of abortion or whatever), are now bending over backwards to present him as the greater good, covering up all of his flaws, and trying to purge from the Republican party anyone who criticizes him. That's not what supporting someone as the "lesser evil" means. That's moral corruption.
I don't think you have to endorse everything a politician does in order to vote for him, or to encourage others to do so. But Trump, because he loves flattery, makes it pretty hard for famous people to support him, if they show any reservations at all, and aren't enthusiastic about him. So lots of people have ended up endorsing lots of bad stuff along with the good stuff.
Corruption in the Church
This is most disturbing when the people who do so, are respected leaders in the Church.
Because, while the Church ought to submit to Civil Authority so far as it acts within its legitimate authority (for example, when your State's Governor requires you to wear a mask in large gatherings for your own safety!), Christian pastors and leaders also have a Spiritual Authority of their own, which they need to exercise to ensure that people know about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, a pastor who meets with the President, has the obligation to inform him of the basics of what God expects.
And yet, respected evangelical leaders like Sts. James Dobson and Franklin Graham (son of the great evangelist St. Billy Graham) chose to whitewash Donald Trump, and pretend he was a Christian, in order to reassure rank-and-file churchgoers to get them to vote for him. (To anyone who is old enough to remember what Dobson or Franklin Graham said about the ethical character of President Bill Clinton, just 16 years earlier, the stench of hypocrisy is palpable.)
They did this, even though quite clearly, Trump is not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. (Trump has said that he's never repented of any sins; if this is true he is definitely unsaved by according to any Evangelical Christian theology.)
Thus, these "leaders" chose to sacrifice the very sine qua non of Evangelicalism—conversion to Christ, being "born again"—for political advantage. In doing so, they also sold the soul of Trump himself—who is desperately spiritually sick—for the sake of a mess of pottage, namely their chance at defeating their enemies in the culture wars (although, this will inevitably be a hollow victory, because of the Not Winning Hearts and Minds thing).
As God said to the prophet Ezekiel:
Now at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman over the house of Israel. When you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me. If I say to the wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him—you don’t speak out to warn him about his wicked way in order to save his life—that wicked person will die for his iniquity. Yet I will hold you responsible for his blood. But if you warn a wicked person and he does not turn from his wickedness or his wicked way, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. (Ezekiel 3:16-19)
It was the duty of Evangelical leaders to warn Trump that his towering arrogance put him out of touch with God, and to explain (however unlikely it might seem that he would accept it) the Good News that there is somebody even more important than he is, who was capable of saving him.
But they chose not to warn him. They kissed him on the cheek, soothed his worries, and left him drowsily sliding towards Hell. And God will hold these Evangelical leaders accountable for his blood.
[Some people might think it's not very consistent to worry about the damnation of the President at the end of a blog post where I urge people to be more respectful of the Presidency. But respect includes taking people seriously. And urging people—not just Donald Trump, but also Joe Biden, and all the other politicians and preachers, and all the readers of this blog post—to be reconciled with God is not only a serious matter, but the kindest and most loving thing we can do for them.]
The term "conservative" is doing a lot of work here-Trump didn't govern as a conservative, Biden is more conservative, Trump appointed conservative judges, etc etc.
But you don't define conservatism and as a observer of American politics for 20 years now, I am hard put to name a more revolutionary country than USA. America has led the drive out of Tao (in the sense of CS Lewis' Abolition of Man).
Where do you find conservatism in USA?. How is Biden who leads a party that cheered revolution in family, such as free divorce, unrestricted abortion, same-sex marriages, all kind of transgender mania, what kind of conservative he can be, if the word "conservative is to have any other meaning than "nice"?
Trump isn't nice and Biden is. That's all you are saying. True but who cares. Are presidents supposed to be nice?
Mactoul,
You can construct an implicit definition of "conservativism" from my blog post:
* "respect for honor, decency, military service, civil unity, the Constitution, [and] due process of law"
* "not making radical changes to the economy or civil society, namely that these things represent a delicate balance that has evolved over a long period of time, and that balance is easy to destroy but very hard to replace."
Neither of these two points are primarily about niceness, actually. For example, "respect" for the law means primarily obeying it, and encouraging others to obey it. Although courtesy does have some real positive value with respect to the "civil unity" point, and so yes indeed it is the moral duty of the President not to inflame social discord, for the reasons I explicitly mentioned in my post.
I know you are not an American citizen. Have you spent much time in the USA? If not, it's not very surprising if you haven't encountered much American conservatism. The image one gets of a country from international news is often quite misleading.
I'm not sure what you think the (thrice married) Trump is doing to stop America from being the land of free divorce.
I originally wrote a more detailed reply concerning the other 3 specific social issues you mention, but then I decided I didn't really want to be sucked down that path. It's not my opinion that only Americans should be able to criticize America. But American-style conservativism has to be based on the idea that (despite all our flaws) there is something valuable and good about the American experiment which ought to be preserved. If you aren't willing to acknowledge that basic point, then I'm not really interested in having a conservation with you about what the the precise contours of the Republican Party should be.
Very bizarre reasoning for someone who is usually so crisp on other topics.
Seems your reasoning is mostly summed up as he's coarse, rude, rambles a lot, and doesn't respect "institutions", in your opinion, therefore Biden.
You have a President who jokes around about 12 years, you can read his mind, and you know if he's serious or not (which is seemingly an ability everyone on the Left has pertaining to who is and isn't a racist, and any other claim they make but have no evidence for).
Let's say he's absolutely serious for a moment (I hope he is), you do understand that the only President to serve more than 2 terms was a Democrat, right? We amended the Constitution to prevent that, and there is absolutely nothing to prevent us from amending it again (as in the case of the 18th and 21st Amendments). You then assert your mind-reading abilities and make the lame appeal to his "authoritarian fantasies". There's nothing "authoritarian" about serving 12, or 50 years. We see this in Congress all the time. We have a Constitutional process, and laws, that would enable a completely legal path that would enable him to serve as long as he kept getting elected. You did nothing to demonstrate how any of this pertains to the word "authoritarian".
Why not focus on actual propositions that candidates believe in, and perhaps making that more of your reason for supporting a candidate. If you're a Christian, are things like collectively reading minds, and calling literally everybody alive a "racist" ok? Is doing so synonymous with the word "slander" if indeed they are not a racist? Is it ok to suck nearly newborns brains out of their heads while they are still alive? Do human-fetuses ontologically have the status of a "human", and do human-beings have intrinsic value? Is there a spiritual dimension at play when there is a political party who is literally repulsed by seeing a Bible in a school, seeing the Ten Commandments hanging anywhere, if the Bible says he created them "male and female He created them" and the opposing position is despite having and X and Y chromosome, "no they aren't, we can change that!", he made them "man and wife" the response is "then you're a bigot", can you pray in a public place (nope), can you hold a student-led Bible study after school (nope), I could go on and on and on. Literally every single issue, if it is Biblical, Joe Biden and his party takes the opposite position (except for their supposed support for the poor, and it's debatable if their policies are to control of the poor, or to help the poor). They respond to the Bible and the cross, pretty much in the exact same way as Dracula. If I'm exaggerating here, and there's actually an issue that is Biblical that Joe Biden's Party supports, maybe you could tell me what it is, and I'd give them credit for at least that. It's one thing to not be a Christian, not be a good Christian, and to be utterly repulsed by everything Biblical.
Your argument seems to be focused on these sort of formalities, your view of cherry-picked "institutions". Want me to give you a very long list pertaining to how his opponents see "institutions"? First categorically and universally they're all "racist' and need to be torn down, but you cherry-pick a few that Trump, in your view, apparently doesn't respect. Who cares if he respects them or not if they're all (currently) racist and need to be torn down (and don't tell me Joe Biden hasn't said that, his VP has, and their party supports those views)
I hate "Hitler" comparisons in politics, but it seems to me that it is applicable. I know very little about Paul Von Hindenburg, nor the election between the two of them. I don't care if Hidenburg was mouthy, coarse, didn't respect some of my favorite "institutions", and wanted to change their Constitution so he could serve until the day he died. I'd truly hoped that I'd have voted for him based on PROPOSITIONS (not the one's he supported, but the one's he didn't). Christians, at that time, as well as now, should vote on propositions, assertions and beliefs, and not the supposed ability to read minds.
Very poor reasoning in my view. I give you a D- Professor. I love your reasoning on other subjects though.
Aron,
I haven't visited USA but I have been politically formed by reading American conservatives, for instance National Review.
Consider the conservative judges that Trump appointed. You hail this as a positive for Trump. But Gorsuch wrote majority opinion for Bostock --a most revolutionary judgment--that enshrines transgender ideology into Civil Rights Act--an act that inevitably trumps the constitution itself in practice. Gorsuch accepts notions like "gender is assigned at birth". Is Gorsuch a conservative --by your criterion 2.
By the way, shouldn't criterion 2 be all a conservative requires. The criterion 1 looks suspiciously contrived.
But when has Trump disobeyed Constitution. If anything he has been too forbearing against subversion that had been launched against the constitutional authority.
I think you highlighted the most important thing that makes Joe Biden the more conservative candidate in our democratic country. The highlight was the point that in a democratic society, the other side will win. That is what it means to live in a democratic society.
Joe Biden believes in bipartisanship and his 'case' in the primary was that he knew how to work with Republicans, that he could convince some moderate and center-right conservatives to vote for him. And if not vote for him, at least work with him. I didn't vote for Joe in the primary, I voted for Sanders (and was interested in Booker, I feel that the Christian Left needs to stand up and forward and not to step back, either in society or in the Left). The reason I found Joe attractive was because of this case and I believe that that is why he won. Sander's case was that if the youth stepped forward (and voted), people would realize that the division was due to a small minority group. His case did not turn out to be reality.
From discussions with many people on the right, it seems like the only solution they see to the issue of the divide that our country suffers from is to defeat their enemies the extremists. There is no healing and no reasoning together (and with such views, little interest to 'follow the rules'). This is extremely concerning, I pray that Biden not only wins but is successful and that the next decades see healing.
Jon
Hi Aron,
I am Australian, but I have visited USA six times in the last 12 years because I have a child and friends there. I watch the US with great personal interest (and not a little trepidation). I was in the US the night Donald Trump was elected.
I appreciated this post greatly, and agreed with most of it. Thanks you for writing it. I especially agree with your strong words about some of the evangelical leaders. Names like Graham and Dobson were very respected among christians in Australia back a few decades, but many christians in Australia look on in wonder at how they seem to have sold out most of the principles they once held dear.
I personally believe this is a critical time for the US evangelical church. From outside, it has looked for years like it was departing from the teachings of Jesus, and this dalliance with Trump is the end result of a longer process. In taking this stand, the church appears likely to significantly lose the younger generations and so sow the seeds of demise.
We are praying daily for a fair election, for the genuine will of the people to be expressed and for (we hope) success for Biden & Harris.
Biden is no moderate, far less a conservative. See today's article at First Things:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/joe-biden-is-no-moderate
His position on abortion alone-no restrictions, partial birth abortion is fine, no fetal pain laws etc--should be sufficient to put him a million miles outside the limits of civilized discourse. But in America apparently, such unmitigated bloodthirsty fanaticism passes as bipartisan moderation and statesmanlike conservatism.
The Wager
Let's put skin in the game to see if you really believe what you wrote.
Let's do a Pascal's type wager, but for finite outcomes instead infinite. Doing so will show who is "authoritarian" and who is not.
I'll gladly play this game, because I have nothing to lose, you have a lot.
I'd say "Freedom Of Speech", Religion, are pretty important concept and even "institution". Would you? It only underpins every Western Democratic notion that exits, that's all...
Remembering that belief in any proposition can be enumerated as 1) Overt support. 2) Passive Support 3) Agnostic Support 4) Denial. Or some shade in between them.
Joe Biden either passively or overtly supports the following kind of authoritarian behavior.
Here's the wager: If you are not fired from your position, or forced to publicly recant with the warning never to say it again, I will vote for Joe Biden, giving my word as a Christian that I will do so. You can give me the same wager, for scenario you can think of (you will think of none), but I need to be forced to recant or fired as a result of beliefs Trump and his supporters believe.
This is to be done on some Poli Sci or related forum related to your Institution, or just wherever, so long as it is certain people and administrators from your institution would see it. Rather you believe the following assertions or not, just post them onto the forum, and watch what happens to you. Remember, it's just for experiment sake to watch what your Leftist Democrat authoritarian inquisitors will do to you. You will then give me the same sort of wager, and I will do the same.
Post:
"I love homosexuals very much as people. However, I unequivocally and unmovingly believe that homosexual 'marriage' is not in any way 'equal to' to a traditional heterosexual marriage. I believe heterosexual relationships are responsible for rearing 99.9% of the entire future generations of all of human civilization, and that homosexual relationships comparatively are not in any way comparable in value to human civilization as heterosexual relationships. I think the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, and I believe in the Bible".
Also state:
"I love transgender people very much. However, in 99.9999% of all cases, except in cases of some manner of genetic mutation, your gender is static. If you have a Y chromosome and male genital, you are a male. That can never be changed."
You can now think of the same scenario for me. My assertion is, you have a lot to lose doing this, I have very little, because the people you are voting for and vote with, are extremely totalitarian, and openly attack the most basic concepts that underpin our Republic.
We can then move to the one after that, and the one after that, for a very long time. We can then see how "dangerous" each side is.
Aron's post was not about cancel culture and cancel culture does not come from politics. Even many on the left (and I don't think that Aron self identifies as on the left or even moderate but as a conservative) find cancel culture severely problematic. See https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/academics-are-really-really-worried-about-their-freedom/615724/
More on the subject, I think that Trump's current positions are not at all supportive of 'Freedom of Speech'. Rather than supporting tolerant behavior, he supports conservative (I would argue reactionary) Evangelical Christians over other religions, the non-religious and even over other Christians.
The central problem with the situation is the 'us versus them' nature. The left (particularly 'woke' culture in academia) is very problematic, but not politically powerful. The Trump right is politically powerful (despite not being the demographic majority) and is also very problematic. Biden, unlike some of the potential presidential candidates, is not part of this 'woke' culture on the left.
I know many African-Americans and immigrants who have very traditional views (especially on marriage) but are very forcibly told that they have no place in Trump's America. The way to solve the problem, both on the left and the right, is for healing. Not to dominate the other side and use political force.
@Jonathan Miller
Is that to me? All I care about is if the Dr will take my challenge or not.
Yes, the "cancel culture" is political, it's a far Left movement, is passively supported by Joe Biden, overtly supported by his running mate, his Party, and every person that they will appoint to any judicial position. The ideological framework he represents thinks the Constitution was written by "old white men, some of whom had slaves", and is therefore evil, and yet the Dr seems to have issue with people who don't support our "institutions" ???
Groups supported by Joe Biden literally support the overthrow of police, "the system", the "institutions", the Constitution, and so much more. Based on Biden's response, he is either 1) agnostic or 2) Passively supports these positions, both are unacceptable, yet Dr Wall claims that Trump does not respect for "institutions", and based on his ability to read Trump's fantasies, knows he is "authoritarian".
There is ZERO consequence for opposing Trumps beliefs, his supporters beliefs, universally and categorically referring to every single supporter on earth as a "racist", the ability to continually read minds and tell everyone what they believe and then argue from that axiom (as Dr Wall did, Joe Biden does, and so does everyone is his party, and their ideology). Because of this tactic by the Left, by arguing from the basis of a dystopian straw man argument, telling people what they believe, insisting on it, and then arguing against it, is evil. Every logician on earth knows it's illogical. It is why you are never going to see "healing" as you seem to wish for. That is not one of the options under this scenario.
You are playing with a very dangerous, very anti-Christian political ideology, and seem sort of oblivious. The Dr seems to think the inverse, which is absolutely mind boggling. Maybe some of those people you all mentioned, like Dr Dobson, and Franklin Graham, perhaps you should try to understand their positions a little better?
If you're a Christian, all I'm asking you is to vote based on propositions, and not based on people's claims to mind reading and Straw Man Arguments. That is all.
Thanks for reading, if you did (I'm probably going to get kicked off lol, but that's ok).
I am Christian and I find it very easy to vote against kid's in cages and with my brown, black and immigrant brothers and sisters.
I find the intolerance expressed by people of the Right to be as concerning as the intolerance expressed by people of the Left. After all, I have a brown family and a non-American spouse. And I don't believe in a literal eternal hell (among other differences in doctrine from beliefs commonly held by Evangelicals). (Also, I believe that homosexuality exists due to the existence of sin (metaphysically, similarly to why blindness exists Biblically) so I do appreciate the concern about intolerance of the Left ).
Since I did not succeed at getting a permanent academic position in the US and have now left academia, and I am not a politician, I find the intolerance from people on the Right to impact my life a lot more (and have a higher probability to significantly impact my life in the future) than the intolerance expressed by people on the Left.
I would like to think that even if my beliefs appeared to be in lock and step with those of the Right, that I would still look at the corruption and intolerance (not to mention the cages and so on) and not support Trump.
Does it not matter that Biden administration will continue and even intensify the prosecution of Christian institutions that began under Obama. It is a campaign promise, posted on the campaign website itself.
He promises to strip whatever religious liberty protections exist that allow Christian institutions to avoid doing abortions, place adoptions within same-sex couples, pay for abortificants, perform genital mutilations etc.
And what of Trump's disrespect to institutions? Are you speaking of recent anonymous allegations against soldiers published in newspapers. Trump never spoke truer than when he called these newspaper and media 'Enemy of the People".
@Jonathan
You: "I am Christian and I find it very easy to vote against kid's in cages and with my brown, black and immigrant brothers and sisters."
So why did President Obama's Administration build cages and put them in it when he was President then? Did you vote against him?
That's the problem with the double standards the Dr said he didn't want to hear about. You seem to have been spoon fed that narrative by a lying, slandering media. You're never going to have the healing you speak of, and honest debates, so long as the Drs side is involved in it. They seem to think debates based on mind reading, slander and lies are all ok, and he doesn't want to hear about any of that.
You can't have a party, and a candidate (Joe Biden), who relies on their ideological surrogates to lie, slander people, literally make things up ("Trump is working with Russian spies to over throw American Democracy", "Trump is plotting to hand the country over to Vladimir Putin", "Trump is busy building cages to put brown children them", "Americans have a unique history of racism", "The history of slavery is unique to the US, and it is uniquely 'ingrained in their DNA" etc etc etc).
It's easy to have an army of ideological surrogates who go around slandering your political enemies, as Joe Biden does, passively support it, and then have a bunch of oblivious Christians sit there and think he is the model of Christian virtue.
If one believes that anybody should be able to come into a country, period, and that would include human traffickers, drug lords, millions of honest families, murderers, saints, child rapists etc etc, then just argue for the proposition "Open borders are advantageous to any country". If one opposes that position, argue "There should be restrictions on who is able to immigrate to our country". It's as simple as that. As soon as one side introduces slandering surrogates because they can't win on the issue, its going to fly off the rails, as simple as that.
The Dr called Trump "arrogant", whilst he is yet another of thousands of elites, who do things like read minds, tell people what they believe, and then argue from that basis. I can tell you millions of Americans, and more by the day, HATE that. The populists are the rational ones, not the elites.
I didn't vote for Obama in 2012.
@Jonathan
The point wasn't to assert who you voted for. There are millions of Americans, who actually believe the following narrative: "Donald Trump opposes immigration, specifically from Mexico, because their skin is brown. Since he doesn't like their brown skin, he had cages built to put their children in".
This isn't like a joke, or hyperbole, they actually believe that and then launch their arguments on the basis assertion. It isn't to be taken seriously by any rational person.
Leftists continually use this form of argumentation. I could give cite endless examples. The author of this blog used this form of argumentation, and then seems to believe it's not "Christian" to fight back against it.
In logic, and debate, there is a fundamental principle called "The Principle of Charity" when determining what people truly believe, what they are actually trying to argue, and using THAT as the basis of an honest debate: (instead of mind reading) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
This blog author does not do that, most of the people in his institution do not do that, other similar Leftist institutions do not do that, and the Leftist MSM does not do that. They slander people who dissent. They hate someone who violates all of their totalitarian Newspeak, abut what acceptable words are, what you ought and ought not say. Trump does not involve himself in the ceremonial self flagellation every time they decree who is and who isn't a "racist", and this enrages them.
To me, Donald Trump is a hero.
Matt,
For what it's worth I actually agree with you that the Left is seriously out of step with the Bible on multiple issues---but I also think that some religious leaders are very careful not to preach on any of the passages where the Right is seriously out of step with the Bible, so if you aren't an avid Bible reader yourself, you might not notice them. If you aren't aware of any such passages, you might want to consider reading the Bible a little more carefully. One good place to start, might be by doing a Bible study of every verse in the Bible about immigrants. (Depending on your translation, these people may also be referred to as "aliens" or "strangers".)
Having said that, it's really rich for you to condemn others for violating the "principle of charity," even though I can't see, anywhere in your 5 comments here, that you've tried to apply it yourself towards anyone on the other side of the political spectrum from you. Apparently, you only view the principle of charity as a weapon to be used against others, not as a rule that you would actually obey yourself.
(It's not like Trump is famous for his nuanced and charitable interpretations of other people's positions either.)
You don't like Hitler comparisons, and then you go right on to compare Biden to Hitler.
You are BANNED from making further comments on this blog. Not because you support Trump, but because you are not taking the trouble to try to understand how other people think.
Hi Aron,
Before I read your last comment, I had thought I would say this. Some of the comments from apparent christians here, and elsewhere on blogs and social media, appear to be very unloving and harsh. yet we all follow a Jesus who said:
"love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven" Matthew 5:44-45.
"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart" Matthew 11:29
And his apostles amplified these teachings:
"Show proper respect to everyone" 1 Peter 2:17
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" 1 Peter 3:15
"why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat" Romans 14:10
These are not the only similar teachings. We all fail this standard at times, but that realisation is not an excuse but a reason to repent and try to do better. I feel you are right to ban someone who appears to not be holding to these teachings.
Current example of media subversion
"Trump presses ahead with judicial coup to ensure win"
Headline in Times of India today, doubtlessly following the party line laid out by NYT
Thank you, Aron! It’s good to read something with clear attitude, that’s also fair and balanced. Best regards from Germany.
Aron,
I don't know if Bible talks about immigrants or prescribes an immigration policy. To my knowledge, it recommends fair treatment of resident aliens and is entirely silent on virtues of easy visa requirements.
Plenty of things have been regarded as Biblical. Slavery for one, a painful topic for Bible-believers. It is no secret that slavery was widely argued as Biblical. Even at present, many manage to reconcile same-sex relations as Biblical. An eminent Orthodox theologian recently published a book that makes the case that the doctrine of eternal hell is not Biblical. There is an ongoing controversy in catholic circles whether capital punishment is Biblical or not.
Mactoul,
There are indeed parts of Biden's agenda that pose very serious concerns regarding religious liberty. Christians, and other people of good will, can and should lobby against and oppose those aspects of his platform. (For example, St. David French, one of the political commenters I linked to, has a long career working to support the legal right of Christians to speak on college campuses).
However, Socrates said "It is better to suffer the unjust thing than to do it", and Jesus said "Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well."
Hence, I fundamentally reject any politics which is based on the idea of retaliation (outside of some very specific contexts like the criminal justice system). So for example I do not accept any argument of the form: the left wants to mistreat the right, therefore the right should mistreat the left back. (Or the same argument with rich vs. poor, white vs. black etc.) And anybody who makes such arguments, is more likely to lose my vote than to get it. This includes both critical race theory on the left, and Trumpism on the right.
Christians being persecuted is bad, but if the supposed champion of my rights is somebody famous for being vindictive to others, then I'm going to choose to risk being persecuted every single time, because I believe that is what our Lord calls us to do.
(Also, in political contexts, saying that group A should harm group B because group B has harmed group A, usually really means in practice that person A should harm B because of what some different person B' did to another person A'.)
Of course, these days a main talking point of the right is that the Democratic Party is totally in thrall to social justice ideologues, but I believe the extent to which this is true is greatly exaggerated, especially in the case of a tone-deaf old-school institutionalist like Joe Biden. Even if it were true though, I am sure that Trump is not the answer. I actually see Trump and social justice warriors as very similar to each other---and supporting either one of them makes the other side stronger, not weaker; because both sides feed on rage and the belief that the other side is irredeemable and has to be opposed by force rather than persuasion.
The correct path is to reject both ideologies; and in my opinion the correct strategic order is to first remove Trump from the White House, and then to oppose whatever aspects of Biden's agenda are harmful. (Hopefully with the support of a more conservative Supreme Court. If the Democrats resort to court packing, I agree that this would be a very dire scenario, but so far Biden is on record as being against it.)
As for the Bible and immigration, I am not trying to argue that all faithful Christians reading the Bible will come to the exact same conclusions about 21st century American policy. There is room for legitimate diffrerences of opinion. But I do expect and hope that all Christians will take into account biblical principles when formulating policy (for example, the principle you just mentioned of "fair treatment of resident aliens"). Visa requirements and border control were not of course logistically possible in the ancient Middle East (apart from walls around individual cities).
One anti-slavery biblical passage that seems relevant to the question of refugee policy is the following:
Of course there are some people who make false claims to be refugees, leading to some questions of practical implementation. But getting mad at the "other side" for potentially enabling invalid refugee claims, should not be used as an excuse to mistreat true refugees.
Aron,
Trump may be vindictive personally--I have no means of knowing but the policies of his administration are million miles saner than policies publicly advertised by Biden campaign.
It is all good to be nice and all but I don't think Bible recommends suicide.
The Libyan and Syrian misadventures of Obama the Noble Peace Winner are such as to rule out any member of his administration in any post whatsoever.
And you haven't seen vindictive yet. Why were Little Sisters of Charity in courts?
And you are going to see how they go howling against the current SC nominee.
As for again vague insinuations of immigrant-unfriendly Trump administration, there is at least one immigrant group in which Trump is pretty popular--Indian-Americans, one-third of whom favor Trump--unprecedented number for a Republican presidential candidate. For, the Indians generally identify Republican party as Christian and hence they prefer Democratic party as being anti-Christian.
Another view from Edward Feser:
No one who claims to favor Biden over Trump on the grounds of protecting “democratic norms” can, at this point, be speaking in good faith. They are either culpably deceiving themselves or cynically trying to deceive others. Packing the Supreme Court would be as radical a violation of “democratic norms” as any president has ever attempted. It would destroy the independence of the judiciary, making of the court a dictatorship for the party in power. Yet Biden and Harris persistently refuse to say whether they favor court-packing. Biden has now said that voters “don’t deserve” to know his position on this absolutely crucial issue before the election – even though he acknowledges that “it’s a great question” and says he doesn’t blame people for asking it! Can you imagine the hysteria that would ensue if Trump gave such a lunatic answer to a question that momentous? This is reason enough not to vote for Biden, whether or not you vote for Trump.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/10/joe-biden-versus-democratic-norms.html
Mactoul,
To a first approximation, anybody who claims that nobody can disagree with their political views in good faith, is themselves arguing in bad faith.
The claim "Nobody can disagree with my position X in good faith" is a much, much stronger claim than proposition X itself is, and it is very rare for political propositions in particular to reach the level of certainty required for this to be the case. People who throw around such claims cavalierly, are themselves poisoning the tone of the political discourse, by pre-emptively declaring that nobody can reasonably disagree with them.
Deciding which candidate is best for the country involves, not only weighing the relative importance of the candidate's positions on a large number of controversial ethical issues, but also requires some ability to predict the future (a notoriously difficult task). There are probably some political propositions that no intelligent, informed, and reasonable person can argue in good faith, like say whether Soviet-style Communism is a good idea. But they are rare.
I think that Supreme Court packing would be a terrible, terrible thing for our democracy; and might possibly either tear our country apart or lead to the Consitution being a dead letter. So I think I take this issue pretty seriously. But I wouldn't say, even here, that nobody can disagree with my judgement on this in good faith.
Nor should Republicans gripe about this while giving themselves a pass on their most recent escalations of Supreme Court appointment politics, which (although an order of magnitude less bad then Court Packing), were bad in part because they predictably opened the door to discussions of Court Packing in retaliation.
(I've read some conservative columnists trying to argue that there are "no norms" in Supreme Court appointments besides the Constitution and political considerations. But Court Packing is also perfectly constitutional! It just sucks. And I think its incoherent to think that "political considerations" is something categorically different than people trying to articulate norms.)
I think its fairly unlikely that Biden actually wants to pack the Supreme Court (he's said explictly during the primary season, when there is the most incentive to pivot left, that he thought it was a terrible idea that would lead to reciprical retailiation). So in my opinion it's more likely he's stringing his base along, rather than stringing the center along. (And he's trying in vain to get Republicans to take the ambiguous threat of escalation as a reason to stand down with respect to the current nomination of St. Barrett.) He knows perfectly well that packing the Court would destroy any small remaining degree of cooperation from Republicans, could easily derail his entire first term agenda, and would make it more likey for Republicans to sweep the next wave of elections. Nor is it very likely that Democrats would have the votes to actually do it, given their likely slim majority next year in the Senate, given the number of current Senators and purple state candidates who have said explicitly that they want to keep the filibuster, and the lack of any obvious electoral mandate for a position that was too explosive for him to campaign on it.
But I admit that I could be wrong about what will happen. These are words that St. Feser apparently finds it very difficult to say.
A lot of people want to take the focus off of the bad things Trump has actually done, onto the speculative bad things that Biden hasn't distanced himself from fast enough (but has opposed in the past). To be clear, Biden's current messaging on this issue sucks royally, and I wish he would come out more clearly and consistently against it. I also wish that Trump would come out more clearly and consistently against white supremacist movements, and crazy conspiracy theories like QAnon. Turns out we can't have everything.
Personally, I think hopes that conservatives invest on Supreme Court are misplaced. See Gorsuch, supposedly a fine originalist. The revolution sweeps the judges forward and the any checks or reverses that the revolution may receive, are unlikely to come from the Court or matter much if coming from the Court.
As for the bad things Trump is supposed to have done, I am yet to know any. It seems to be everybody says Trump is bad but nobody says why. What is the unprecedented evil he has committed?
On the contrary, his achievements are easy to describe. Just one--normalization of relations between Israel and Arab countries, a goal that America has been striving for generations, has been achieved to a unprecedented degree.
Also, he is the first president in a generation at least, who has not presided over a new war. Compared with the war-mongering record of Obama Administration, he is a peace-maker, biblically recommended.
Trump 2020
I do study the Bible, and I do agree with the comments made by the names listed below. You for got about what Paul told the slave about going back to his master, New Testament. You for get Israel had a wall around it for defense. For someone so eloquent with their words, you fail to understand the Bible is more than laws, they are principles and statues to govern our lives by so we live righteously. God says,"My people die because a lack of knowledge". God knows it's not wise to let just anyone come in to your country. He explicitly spoke about and against foreign having influence over their lives and causing their hearts to be mislead. It also speak about making treaties it also talks about putting your trust in man also talks about not fearing man. Did you know God is a God of War, do you know he does not open up his borders to just anyone? Do you know that not just any one can come into his kingdom without entering in the way he says is only acceptable. If you like to play Bible trivia, I'm up to the challenge! Joe Biden is our President and I do agree with God's word we are to honor and support him as far as it does not go against God's ways, his word, his statues, his laws. His principles. I will submit to the authority he places over me. Joe Biden has already started dismantling the things Trump had done. He has already cause thousands of people to lose their jobs, so now you can see how he cares about the working class. You can see the wisdom he is lacking at getting us back into treaties, where we the American populist will suffer, because the global crisis environmental lies that have been so elaborately crafted to deceive, so that America can be drained of her resources, including funds. Your comment about Iran agreement being canceled as a bad thing, you obviously do not get their ideology, have you not learned their theology, they do NOT like America and they have repeatedly said they are going to wipe us out, and you want us to pay them money so they can enrich uranium, seriously have you lost your God brain. Stop being so naive and foolish go and get wisdom, because that is our enemy and it's not doing what you offered up in that scripture about feeding your enemy giving them drink when they are thirsty. It's not giving them your coat because they want to sue you. The Iran is like those who disguise themselves as foreigner from far away to make treaty the Israel people. God rebuked them for their foolishness. So stop being so blind and educate yourself and stop being so lofty in your blog, try humbling yourself and promoting those who don't value God and life and who promotes sin, remember end of Romans 1 for those who know right but chose to promote those who do wrong.
Trump was no Saint, for sure, but he did defend Israel, we as a Nation. Because Donald Trump spoke for us and acted on our behalf when he blessed Israel, God's people and yet, you claim to be a Christian and yet you support giving money to these counthat the Bible clear6states will come against Israel and God himself. Well Isaiah 49-61, is a great read for this day and age we are living in. You don't stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves, the Americans who supported Trump did so because he stood up for those that couldn6stand up for themselves
Matt says:
SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 AT 12:29 PM
Matthew Michaud says:
SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 AT 11:04 AM
Mactoul says:
SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 AT 12:19 AM and all else they said.