{"id":4131,"date":"2016-02-22T14:06:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T21:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2016-02-22T14:13:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T21:13:17","slug":"conservatives-worried-about-trump-for-all-the-wrong-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/2016\/02\/conservatives-worried-about-trump-for-all-the-wrong-reasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservatives Worried About Trump…For All the Wrong Reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s the good news. And the bad news. Conservative evangelicals are getting nervous about Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good news because they SHOULD be nervous. This whole thing is bananas. Frighteningly absurd, brown and mushy bananas.<\/p>\n

The bad news: the only reason they\u2019re worried is they think he might be a closet liberal.\u00a0<\/em>I just\u2026I don\u2019t\u2026 I can\u2019t even\u2026 WHAT?? Do they know what liberal MEANS? Have they met us? What brand of progress are they mistaking for Trump\u2019s mind-melting ideology?<\/p>\n

Popular evangelical blogger Matt Walsh posted on Facebook that\u00a0a Trump win would be \u201cthe death of conservatism.\u201d I am not going to share a link to Walsh\u2019s 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\u2019ve been hacked and go into immediate stranger-danger freeze-out mode. So no. If you don\u2019t know who he is, I\u2019m not telling. You\u2019re welcome. (I will, however, share this fun site,\u00a0What Matt Walsh is Wrong About Today<\/a>). Let\u2019s just say, MW is usually the voice of fundamentalists when it comes to all things misogyny. He is the\u00a0expert,\u00a0<\/em>y\u2019all. So if HE is ranting and railing against Trump, that should be good news, right??<\/p>\n

\"Commons,<\/a>
Commons, Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well. It is and it isn\u2019t. Because Walsh, and\u00a0many others\u00a0in the same camp, are worried about Trump for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re worried he will be a friend of the LGBT community. They\u2019re worried he will not be a dogmatic pro-life warrior. They are uncomfortable that he doesn\u2019t know the Bible and won\u2019t be able to preach from the Oval Office. They are horrified by how many times he\u2019s been married, and how unapologetic he is about his loose interpretation\u00a0of fidelity.<\/p>\n

Ultimately,\u00a0they are concerned\u00a0that he is a lying, adulterous, war-mongering buffoon who doesn\u2019t have the moral compass God gave a raccoon\u2013and 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.<\/p>\n

Let that be the least of your worries.<\/p>\n

Just so we\u2019re clear:\u00a0there is nothing about Donald Trump that should be mistaken as even remotely\u00a0progressive. 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 \u201cNew York City Liberal\u201d<\/a> if you want,\u00a0but we aren\u2019t claiming him either, over here in lefty- society.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

So yes, you should be worried about the kinds of support he\u2019s getting\u2026 but let his \u201cliberal\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cpeace,\u201d \u201copportunity,\u201d \u201cempowerment,\u201d \u201cmiddle class,\u201d \u201cworking class,\u201d \u201cdiversity\u201d and, I don\u2019t know, \u201cfair and accessible health care.\u201d Just so we\u2019re clear, these<\/em> are progressive values. Just because Trump doesn\u2019t share conservative Christian values, doesn\u2019t mean he secretly harbors liberal ones. Or that he has values at all.<\/p>\n

I think this might be the one thing about which we can all agree. There are no \u201cvalues\u201d in play here.<\/p>\n

So yes, it is good news\/bad news that the right wing voter base is getting twitchy about his success. The good\u00a0news 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\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0we are agreeing about something,\u00a0<\/em>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 \u201cvalues\u201d that are not so easily wrapped up in sound bites and buzz words.<\/p>\n

In this excellent commentary for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Danielle Allen points out that \u201cTrump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country.\u201d<\/a> Read the whole piece, because it is all around excellent, and so important. And we\u00a0know it\u2019s\u00a0true. 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for people from all brands and expressions of faith to unite in saying, \u201cWe are not that desperate yet!\u201d We can ask for a better story. We can demand some small indication of integrity from those seeking our nation\u2019s highest office. If nothing else, we can vote for the raccoon\u2026 But, since we\u2019re all getting nervous here, let\u2019s just all agree that we can do better.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t be much left to fight over.<\/p>\n

And ALL y\u2019all, 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\u2026<\/p>\n

*Photo credit<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the good news. And the bad news. Conservative evangelicals are getting nervous about Donald Trump. It\u2019s 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\u2019re worried is they think he might be a closet liberal.\u00a0I just\u2026I don\u2019t\u2026 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":4133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[210,1165,1164,9,1197],"class_list":["post-4131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spirituality-in-culture","tag-donald-trump","tag-faith-based-voters","tag-presidential-campaign","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-trump-presidency"],"yoast_head":"\nConservatives Worried About Trump...For All the Wrong Reasons<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's the good news. And the bad news. Conservative evangelicals are getting nervous about Donald Trump. 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