FAY VOSHELL, whose comments are similar to some of the points I made in this thread on Trump, writes at The American Thinker:

What more loudly trumpets the surrender of evangelicals to the broader cultural capitulation to the world, the flesh, and the Devil than the support for Trump given by Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University, one of evangelicalism’s foremost institutions? Is there a more obvious and unrepentant secularist than Donald Trump?

Falwell’s complete capitulation, along with Catholics like Phyllis Schlafly who have joined the Trump secularist bandwagon, means the acceptance and reinforcement of a basic tenet of the Left; namely, that there really is to be a wall of separation between faith and the world. We leftists will take over and run the real stuff. You evangelicals can have your church rituals.

In sum, evangelicals have not only helped build the wall of separation, but they are living behind it in their own closed communities.

What the departure from former values and the support of a raging secularist means for the future of evangelicals in general is open to speculation.

But one can hazard a guess that after seeing the soft underbelly impotency of evangelicals in the realm of politics, the Left will ratchet up its attacks on Christian individuals and organizations opposing the leftist agenda. The reasoning will be something like this: What is there to fear?  So many evangelicals are not that much different than us!

Her last point in this passage [bold added] is especially important.

— Comments —

Bill R. writes:

What is this bizarre failure so many people on the Right are exhibiting to understand the meaning and significance of the support for Donald Trump? The support he’s winning from the Right is not because he’s some ideal moral candidate. They know he’s not and I know he’s not. Being the nation’s moral savior is not the president’s job anyway. The president’s job is to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. And right now the nation’s survival depends on having a chief law enforcement officer who will enforce the nation’s immigration laws. America is hemorrhaging at her borders and her life hangs in the balance, not by what is bleeding out, but by what is bleeding in. That hemorrhaging has to be stopped. This presidential election is not the occasion to battle over all the moral grievances we have with this society’s dominant culture and its ruling elite, important though they are. It’s a time to set priorities and to realize that Donald Trump’s candidacy offers a real choice, a real difference, an opportunity to save this country for the founding European stock that created it and who are the only ones who are going to maintain it. Clinton, Rubio, Cruz? One of those people is the alternative, and in each case it will be nothing but multicultural business as usual. With Rubio or Cruz maybe we go over the multicultural cliff at 85 miles per hour instead of Clinton’s 100. Trump is some hope, the only hope among the current candidates, that we may not have to go over that cliff at all. By the way, “the Trump secularist bandwagon???” He’s running for president, for goodness sake, not Pope!

Laura writes:

You write:

What is this bizarre failure so many people on the Right are exhibiting to understand the meaning and significance of the support for Donald Trump?

I’m confused. The whole point of the post was that very few are raising objections. The “so many people on the Right” you are referring to don’t exist. Most people are willing to abandon any moral high ground on family issues the Republican Party once had.

The idea that the president is just the chief law enforcement officer is pretty ridiculous. Do you think George Washington is so admired because he simply enforced the laws? The president is a national father.  He sets the moral tone with his character. We’ve already dipped pretty low, of course, but the point isn’t what we get but what we want and what we give our limited energy to.

“This presidential election is not the occasion to battle over all the moral grievances we have with this society’s dominant culture and its ruling elite, important though they are.”

Who is doing that? Seriously, who? You mean if people don’t submissively fall in line with Trump they are simply poor sports trying to settle “all moral grievances?”  I think that’s an unfair accusation. And implicit in that is the idea that our ancestors were prigs for caring to sacrifice so much to protect their moral heritage.

Now I know your point is that we don’t have the luxury to worry about Trump’s Kardashian character or the poor example, that we face this critical situation and Trump’s the only one who could possibly address it. America is already so decadent what difference does it make anyway? I sympathize with that argument. I understand that argument. I’m not saying anyone is a bad person for their alarm and desire to vote for Trump.

But I don’t believe we can maintain a secure border unless we have the character to do it. Heroism doesn’t come from decadence.

Laura adds:

For fifty years, America has been steadily subverted, and immigration is one aspect of that.

Americans are waking up to the immigration subversion in greater numbers than ever and are finding their voice on that issue. But I’m not into this apocalyptic political millennialism that says TRUMP IS OUR SAVIOR. Good heavens, the man has been a political liberal for decades.

Is Trump trustworthy? Has he led a good life? No. I think he will make cosmetic changes and move on. After all, even he has said he wants a “big, beautiful door” in his border wall for legal immigration. Trump has said:

I would get people out and then have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal…. A lot of these people are helping us … and sometimes it’s jobs a citizen of the United States doesn’t want to do. I want to move ’em out, and we’re going to move ’em back in and let them be legal.

Bill R. writes:

You write, “I’m confused. The whole point of the post was that very few are raising objections.”

When I spoke of the failure of so many people on the Right, I should have phrased it better since I was including some neo-cons, too, who you really can’t describe as “people on the Right,” but nevertheless neo-cons that I still might have expected a more balanced assessment from with regard to Trump.  But I also had in mind people who are not open-borders neo-cons, such as Thomas Sowell, who nevertheless contributed an article to this entire issue of National Review that had been devoted to denouncing Trump.  Not once in the entire article did Sowell give the slightest acknowledgement to what has made Donald Trump the Republican front-runner in this presidential election, and that is the continuing betrayal and abandonment by the Republican Party and Conservative, Inc. of the interests of their base, the middle-class white European American.  And one of the most glaring aspects of that betrayal has been the unwillingness of Republican politicians to do anything at all to secure our nation’s borders or to make the argument to the people of this country that, as Ann Coulter puts it, “we’re a nation, not a department store.”

I didn’t say that chief law enforcement officer was his only job.  The president, obviously as the national leader, the head of state, carries a great weight of symbolic significance for the country.  I understand that.  I’ve said time and again that Donald Trump is not my ideal candidate.  But my ideal candidate is not going to be the next president of the United States.  Right now we need the substance of a closed border and that is directly related to one of the president’s primary constitutional duties, and Donald Trump is offering that (at least a closed border to illegal immigration).

But now, I have a more intriguing question for you.  Why all this negative focus on Trump?  What good — I mean, what practical good, particularly at this point in time — do you think you’re accomplishing with that?  I mean, I can understand a posting or two explaining your problems with Trump.  I have them too.  But not this.  What you’re doing gives the impression of a veritable anti-Trump campaign, and an intense one at that.  Calling Ann Coulter a “slut,” for example.  Forgive me, but I really thought that was over the top.  That’s now criticism that has risen to a level one can only describe as shrill.

It’s possible we may have other chances beyond this election to survive as a nation and a people.  But you don’t inaugurate a veritable campaign against an action right now that might save your life on the grounds that you might get another opportunity some time down the road to save it again!  First of all, you might get that opportunity, yes, but then again you might not.  Even more to the point, what is it costing you to take this action now?  You can take it, and you still might have that further chance down the road at an ever better opportunity to save it.  In fact, taking this action now might even enhance the odds of that further chance down the road, and also improve its quality should it, in fact, present itself.  But by denouncing this action now, it’s not like you get to skip merrily down the road with nothing happening at all toward your hoped for further and better chance at survival.  Something will happen first.  Something is going to happen in the interim.  Another action is going to be taken.  Before you get to continue down the road, if you get to, you and everyone and everything you love is, at minimum, going to be brutally beaten by someone named Hillary Clinton.  Got that?  That happens first.  Now, if you survive that beating, then maybe — maybe — you can hobble on, even more bruised and bleeding than you are now, toward your hoped for next chance at survival.  Pleasant journey!

Let me encourage you, Laura, let me implore you, to reflect on the practical effect of what you’re doing right now, as opposed to reflecting solely on the importance of articulating your ideals (which you can still do, by the way, without directly attacking Donald Trump, so you’re compromising nothing).  Who you help right now by people agreeing with you about Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton.  Every reader of yours that you may succeed in winning over to your view of Donald Trump is a vote you’ve just won for Hillary Clinton.  That’s who you’re helping.  That’s the practical effect of what you’re doing.  Neither Rubio nor Cruz will defeat Hillary Clinton.  The white European base of the Republican Party is abandoning it in droves, and without the enthusiastic support of that base a Republican candidate cannot win anymore than Romney could even after four humiliating years of Obama.  And they’re abandoning it for the same reason I did; they’re tired of voting for people who have ignored and betrayed their interests over and over again.  So even if Rubio or Cruz managed to defeat Hillary Clinton, there is no difference between them anyway, anymore than there was any difference between Bush (either one) and that other Clinton.  There is a difference with Donald Trump, and what I’m voting for is that difference.  And people who understand what that difference is about and its importance need to get on board and use what influence they have to support that difference, or at least not spend inordinate amounts of effort tearing it down.  Otherwise, they might as well pin a Hillary Clinton button on their lapel.

Laura writes:

This is a lot of words! I prefer shorter comments!

Let me get to your main objection: my negative posts about Trump.

No, I’m not campaigning against him. I honestly don’t believe Hillary will be elected. I feel certain at this point that Trump will win. I would never be concerned about personally affecting the election of course. : – ) But I’m not worried about interfering because my sense is that it’s a done deal.

My motivation anyway is not really to dissuade people from voting for him. It’s to dissuade people from viewing him as a savior.

Frankly, it scares me.

Leaving aside the moral problems, I think Trump will act as a release valve and many people will fall asleep once he is elected. I strongly believe that the reason Trump has gotten so much free publicity is that he is a necessary release valve for those in control to prevent other serious issues, which are becoming more and more understood by ordinary Americans and are not addressed by Trump (9/11 and Federal Reserve), from growing in public importance. This buys them time. Basically, I feel that anything less than deep suspicion at this point of everything that comes out of our political class is dangerous.

I actually think if Hillary were elected, the scenarios that you and some other commenters have presented would not come to be. Not that Hillary is a good choice, of course. I think there would be an explosion of anger and more Americans would be awakened. That would be good. They might actually begin to ask why all this has happened and begin to listen. She would also probably drag us into war. I don’t want to see her as president at all.

And, of course, it saddens me to think of the American presidency being held by a P.T. Barnum figure with no settled convictions, a gambling fortune and a third wife who has posed in the nude. I would be one heck of a hypocrite if it did not.

Oh, and Coulter is slutty. (That deserves an explanation but I don’t have time to get into it right now. I believe she has even admitted that she dresses in a slutty way. She’s a poor model for women, in a number of senses.)

If one has to fall in love with narcissists to be considered a conservative, I don’t fit the term and will happily be considered a heretic.

Bill R. writes:

Pardon the long comment of mine and thank you for posting it and for your reply.  I hadn’t really considered the possibility that you were certain Trump was going to win.  Wow!  I wish I felt that way!  I feel like it will be practically a miracle if that happens.  You don’t go a week without the mainstream media trying to link Trump half a dozen times with the “KKK” or “neo-Nazis,” and the pack hasn’t even warmed up yet compared to what’s waiting for him if he wins the nomination.  But, at the same time, I’m not deluded about Donald Trump and I’m not thrilled with him.  I’m thrilled about that one aspect of his campaign and the support it’s won him.  That’s all.  It’s enough to be worth my vote.  But I have no great enthusiasm for him, and I am self-consciously restraining myself from developing any.

You make a good point when you speak of the possibility of Trump being a release valve, whereas Clinton may give us a further needed jolt by reminding us of the horrors that await our people at her hands and the hands of her ilk.  For that reason, if it’s Rubio vs. Clinton or Cruz vs. Clinton, I prefer Clinton.  All you’re going to get with Rubio or Cruz is a Clinton who pushes tax cuts for the rich, cheap immigrant labor for Big Business, and taking away people’s Social Security (though I’m sure they’ll find some way to make sure non-whites like Jeb Bush’s father-in-law in Mexico still get his).

One final thing, if I may, about Ann Coulter.  Remember, she’s a satirist.  That’s her style.  She often likes to emphasize her point by making comically extreme statements.  So when she speaks of Trump performing abortions in the White House, you want to interpret it in that vein.  Anyone reasonably familiar with Ann Coulter knows how passionately opposed she is to abortion.  But she is also a political pragmatist.  And I think, up to a point, we need that too.

Laura writes:

I believe Trump will win.

Hillary has a weak strategy. She will continue to paint him as a bigoted, racist, sexist Nazi and all that. But just as we saw with New Hampshire, when she threatened women who would not vote for another woman, that kind of thing doesn’t have the same kind of thrill for younger people who have been indoctrinated in political correctness since kindergarten as it does for Hillary’s peers. I predict it won’t work. It actually might promote some of these politically incorrect issues. The drawing of attention to David Duke, for instance, probably enlarged his audience.

Also, Trump is going to hit her hard on the Iraq War, on Libya, on her emails, etc. He is smart on his feet and can keep up with her and won’t be so easily diverted by Clintonian wonkiness. It is possible Hillary will find some big scandal in Trump’s past. The problem with going in that direction is that Trump can play that game too. So I think she is not going to want to get too investigative. Anyway, if Hillary were elected her authority and ability to command would be weak. There isn’t the enthusiasm for her that there was with Obama.

I’m glad your enthusiasm for Trump is restrained.

As for Coulter, I am aware she is a satirist, a very sharp one too. She is highly talented, and sometimes she goes way, way over the edge. She is Trump’s fourth wife. What I mean by that is that they seem to be working together and sometimes work together in lowering the tone of the immigration cause.

Please follow and like us: