Conservative evangelical columnist
David French has written often about how Donald Trump has corrupted much of
Christianity. In a recent column,1 he talks about friends and family
who vote for Trump. He says, “I love them dearly. But the most enduring legacy
of a second Trump term could well be the conviction on the part of millions of
Americans that Trumpism isn’t just a temporary political expediency, but the
model for Republican political success and—still worse—the
way that God wants Christian believers to practice politics.”
He notes changes in individual
character, not just of Rudy Giuliani and other MAGA insiders, but changes in
ordinary Americans. “Never before have I seen extremism penetrate a vast
American community so deeply, so completely and so comprehensively.” He says
this isn’t a subjective sensation. “Polling data again and again backs up the
reality that the right is abandoning decency, and doing so in the most alarming
ways.” In 2011, white evangelicals were least likely to say that a politician
could behave immorally in private but “still behave ethically and fulfill their
duties in their public and professional life.” By October of 2016, they had
become the most likely to find immoral behavior acceptable in politicians.
He then cites polling that shows 33
percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Trump devotees agreed with the
statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American
patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Only 13
percent of Democrats, by contrast, agreed with this statement.
French is obviously disturbed by
the changes he has seen and that have been documented among his own people, evangelical
Christians. “The result,” he says, “is a religious movement steeped in
fanaticism but stripped of virtue.” Perhaps most troubling to French is “how
Trump’s core supporters convey their tribal allegiance. They’re often deliberately
rude, transgressive or otherwise unpleasant, just to demonstrate how little
they care about conventional moral norms.”
The core of the MAGA movement is
made up of white evangelical Christians, if we can call them that. How can we
possibly call people Christians who excuse the endless lies, the sexual crimes
and indiscretions, the repeated business fraud, the self-dealing, the narcissism,
the hatred of refugees, the disregard for the environment, the bragging (often
about behaviors that are far from admirable), the 91 indictments, and on and on
and on? How can a Bible-believing people become so thoroughly corrupted by a two-bit
huckster?
Unfortunately, evangelical Christians
are not alone in this. Many Latter-day Saints have become more Trumpist than
Mormon. Look at Mike Lee, Utah’s senior senator, who spent many hours each day
trying to promote an unconstitutional scheme to overthrow the will of the
voters. Look at the treatment LDS speaker of the Arizona House Rusty Bowers
received from his fellow “saints,” all for following his conscience and not
overturning a fair election.
The First Presidency’s letter last
summer to be read in sacrament meeting admonished Church members “to spend the
time to become informed about the issues and candidates[;] . . . study
candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity,
compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation”; and
understand that “merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’
without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is
a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards (see Doctrine
and Covenants 98:10).”
D&C 98:10 says, “Wherefore,
honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise
men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh
of evil.”
Most Church members did not
understand what the First Presidency was saying. I suppose if they really want
the members to avoid voting for dishonest and corrupt men, they are going to
have to be much more explicit. But I understand their dilemma. How do you convince
Church members to stop supporting evil, when they apparently can’t tell the
difference between morality and immorality anymore? If they do come out and
tell the members to vote against a corrupt party, they may well alienate a good
portion of the American Church.
Liberal columnist Frank Bruni (New
York Times) wrote recently about the new religion of the GOP: nastiness.2
“We’ve spent the past few days deconstructing what happened at the
Iowa caucuses. I’m still stuck on what happened before: We saw just
how faithfully the Republican Party now worships at the church of nasty. Just
how fully it genuflects before the great god of nastiness, Donald Trump. I
don’t mean by supporting and voting for him, though there’s that. I mean by
idolizing and emulating him.”
He then went into detail about how
the also-rans in the Republican presidential primary have adopted Trump’s total
disregard for decorum. He summed up the Iowa caucuses with this: “There’s a
rationale for the nastiness. My Times Opinion colleague Zeynep Tufekci, who
recently interviewed scores of Trump voters, explained in a
column last weekend that they regard his ‘penchant for insults’ as
proof that he’s uniquely ‘strong and honest enough’ to say out loud what other
politicians want but don’t have the nerve to. He’s not indecent. He’s authentic
and unbowed.
“I guess that’s what Matt Gaetz
was going for back when he was tormenting Kevin McCarthy and bringing the
government to a halt. To some of his constituents, he wasn’t a preening punk.
He was a righteous hell-raiser, just like Marjorie Taylor Greene, for whom
nastiness is less trait than creed. The two of them are high priests (of a
sort) in their party. Says everything about the new religion.”
Unfortunately, this is the new
GOP, and Latter-day Saints who vote for this party are finding it increasingly
easy to put on the blinders and call good evil and evil good.
_____________
1. David French, “The Greatest
Threat Posed by Trump,” New York Times, January 12, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/opinion/donald-trump-culture-decline.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20240112&instance_id=112341&nl=opinion-today®i_id=93058658&segment_id=155029&te=1&user_id=b82adcd02b2fec762995462844df3be5.
2. Frank Bruni, “The G.O.P.’s ‘Nasty’
New Religion,” New York Times, January 18, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/opinion/trump-republicans-desantis-haley.html.
