Irreverin
Here’s the good news. And the bad news. Conservative evangelicals are getting nervous about Donald Trump.
It’s good news because they SHOULD be nervous. This whole thing is bananas. Frighteningly absurd, brown and mushy bananas.
The bad news: the only reason they’re worried is they think he might be a closet liberal. I just…I don’t… I can’t even… WHAT?? Do they know what liberal MEANS? Have they met us? What brand of progress are they mistaking for Trump’s mind-melting ideology?
Popular evangelical blogger Matt Walsh posted on Facebook that a Trump win would be “the death of conservatism.” I am not going to share a link to Walsh’s blog because I do not want to drive any traffic his way. And also, if I open his page in my browser, my computer will think I’ve been hacked and go into immediate stranger-danger freeze-out mode. So no. If you don’t know who he is, I’m not telling. You’re welcome. (I will, however, share this fun site, What Matt Walsh is Wrong About Today). Let’s just say, MW is usually the voice of fundamentalists when it comes to all things misogyny. He is the expert, y’all. So if HE is ranting and railing against Trump, that should be good news, right??
Well. It is and it isn’t. Because Walsh, and many others in the same camp, are worried about Trump for all the wrong reasons.
They’re worried he will be a friend of the LGBT community. They’re worried he will not be a dogmatic pro-life warrior. They are uncomfortable that he doesn’t know the Bible and won’t be able to preach from the Oval Office. They are horrified by how many times he’s been married, and how unapologetic he is about his loose interpretation of fidelity.
Ultimately, they are concerned that he is a lying, adulterous, war-mongering buffoon who doesn’t have the moral compass God gave a raccoon–and on that, friends, I agree with my right wing fundamentalist brothers and sisters more than I have ever agreed with them on anything. But their worry is otherwise misguided. Trump is not a closet liberal.
Let that be the least of your worries.
Just so we’re clear: there is nothing about Donald Trump that should be mistaken as even remotely progressive. He is a racist, homophobic, toxic, woman-hating narcissist who has promised to wage a violent war on the rest of the world. Call him a “New York City Liberal” if you want, but we aren’t claiming him either, over here in lefty- society.
So yes, you should be worried about the kinds of support he’s getting… but let his “liberal” leanings be the very least of your concerns. Mercy. If he were a closet liberal, he would be speaking in code about his support for marriage equality; about the wage gap between working women and their male counter-parts; about the importance of interfaith dialogue with our Muslim brothers and sisters, with whom we need to work to fight Isis.
If Trump was really a liberal liability, he would be talking about re-funding public education; maybe even higher education. He would use sneaky, alarming buzz-words like “peace,” “opportunity,” “empowerment,” “middle class,” “working class,” “diversity” and, I don’t know, “fair and accessible health care.” Just so we’re clear, these are progressive values. Just because Trump doesn’t share conservative Christian values, doesn’t mean he secretly harbors liberal ones. Or that he has values at all.
I think this might be the one thing about which we can all agree. There are no “values” in play here.
So yes, it is good news/bad news that the right wing voter base is getting twitchy about his success. The good news is, they are afraid he will secretly take down the privileges and imbalances that currently benefit said voter base, and level the playing field for those on the margins. The bad news? We all know that’s not happening.
However. As long as we can all agree that a Trump presidency would be a very, very bad idea, perhaps we should run with that point of consensu. Maybe we should focus on the fact that we are agreeing about something, across ideological lines that are normally difficult to cross. Maybe we work together, for now, to create a different kind of dialogue. Maybe we demand a higher measure of authenticity, not just from him, but from all of the candidates. Maybe we should learn to look for “values” that are not so easily wrapped up in sound bites and buzz words.
In this excellent commentary for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Danielle Allen points out that “Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country.” Read the whole piece, because it is all around excellent, and so important. And we know it’s true. Our inability to communicate outside of our own little pockets of like-minded people creates the perfect climate for someone like Trump to step in and fill a void.
It’s time for people from all brands and expressions of faith to unite in saying, “We are not that desperate yet!” We can ask for a better story. We can demand some small indication of integrity from those seeking our nation’s highest office. If nothing else, we can vote for the raccoon… But, since we’re all getting nervous here, let’s just all agree that we can do better.
We can fight amongst ourselves, later, about all the things we usually fight about. It will be a comfort, really, to get back to our same old arguments about women preaching the gospel, what Jesus would say about welfare, and how old the earth is. But meanwhile, we need to get together on this. Or there won’t be much left to fight over.
And ALL y’all, quit saying you will just move to Canada! If this guy is President, we are taking the whole world down with us. Not like hopping the border is going to put you in another dimension…
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In