Prager: In Defense of Pro-Trump Christians, Sort of

There is no connection between marital

fidelity and fidelity to country

Dennis Prager 

There are many good conservatives who are Never-Trumpers, and there are many good conservatives who will vote for Donald Trump. Eight months ago, I warned that conservatives must resist gratuitous hatred or they will destroy themselves more effectively than the left ever could on its own.

I used the term "gratuitous hatred" because it is the term Jews and Judaism use to describe the reason for one of the greatest calamities of Jewish history: the destruction of the Second Temple and the second Jewish state. It wasn't the Romans who Jewish tradition blames; it was the Jews themselves -- for hating one another for no good reason.

When I read the Boston Globe column "How the Religious Right Embraced Donald Trump and Lost its Moral Authority" by Jeff Jacoby, a man whose work I have long respected, gratuitous hatred came to mind. Just as there are pro-Trump people who have expressed contempt for anti-Trump people since the very beginning -- as an early anti-Trumper I can personally attest to this (even though I wrote repeatedly that if Trump wins the nomination, I would vote for him) -- some Never-Trump people now dismiss the decency and moral credibility of conservatives voting for Trump.

In light of this, I would like to respond to Jacoby and the editorial against Trump that was published last week in the important evangelical journal World.

Jacoby's piece consisted of contained attacks on the moral credibility and decency of pro-Trump Christians. He said: "Religious conservatives shed their principles, and thereby dismantled their influence. ... Buried under the post-election wreckage will be the moral credibility of the religious right. ... (Their) hypocrisy ... is orders of magnitude worse than the customary flip-flopping and sail-trimming of a presidential campaign." Unlike Jacoby, World went out of its way to be gracious to those Christians still voting for Trump, saying, "We also value those who still plan to vote for Trump so as to vote for the Supreme Court."

But the private Trump comments on groping women pushed World to call for Trump to resign and for Christians to withdraw their support. It said, "If a person is unfaithful to his spouse, he's also likely to be unfaithful to his country."

I have heard this argument about the alleged connection between marital infidelity and infidelity to one's country my whole life. And it has been false my whole life -- as well as throughout history. There is no connection between marital fidelity and fidelity to country. Were the unfaithful Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy also unfaithful to America?

Indeed, some of the world's greatest leaders have been unfaithful to their wives. And some of the worst have been faithful.

I wish there were a connection. Choices for leaders would then be much simpler. The only married candidates we would vote for are those we believe had never been unfaithful to their spouses.

Jacoby and World must think God was pretty flawed in voting for King David. King David did much worse than privately boasting about women allowing him to grope them. He had a man killed so his adultery with the man's wife would not be exposed. And while God was angry with David and punished him, God still maintained David as king and gave him a central role in Jewish history. If God shouldn't be ashamed for supporting King David, Christians shouldn't be ashamed for supporting Donald Trump, given the far more corrupt and destructive alternative.

Mr Prager had me until now. However, there is little comparison between King David and Donald Trump. David was a man after God's own heart who went astray out of lust and repented intensely. Donald Trump is not a man after God's own heart, he is a 2 Timothy 3 man, and one all Christians should turn away from as Paul directed.

The unfaithful argument does not do honor to those fine people who make the argument because telling the truth is also a divine command.

World wrote, "To quote (Albert) Mohler (president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), we should not 'allow a national disgrace to become the Great Evangelical Embarrassment.'" That means that World is for allowing another national disgrace -- Hillary Clinton -- to become president. Why wouldn't that be a "Great Evangelical Embarrassment"?

"Another national disgrace"? Mr Prager has come to believe his own hype and the disgraceful exhibition of name-calling and character assassination that the Republicans have been ruthlessly hammering on for several years. Hillary is not the most wonderful person to run for President, but there are several presidents who's character has been far worse than hers, Johnson, Nixon, and her own husband just to name 3. I would vote for Michelle Obama in a heartbeat before voting for Hillary, but the US has had worse. Yes, even worse than Trump.

It's unfortunate that Prager uses such language for it makes it almost impossible for Trump supporters to lose gracefully and that will ensure a country that is almost impossible to rule with any elegance. Trump supporter's intransigence is liable to be the cause for a President Clinton to be the fulfillment of all the fears they express like gun control.

But they will respond that they are not for Clinton either.

This is the only argument of anti-Trump conservatives that drives me crazy -- this vociferous denial that they are not for Clinton. Of course they aren't for Clinton intellectually, emotionally or morally. But the voting booth does not assess intellect, emotions or morals; it only assesses votes. So no matter how much a Republican loathes Clinton, in depriving Trump of Republican votes, anti-Trump Republicans are helping Clinton win the presidency.

It didn't have to be this way. It was the complete lack of discernment in the character of Trump that allowed him to get the nomination in the first place. Had Mr Prager and others been more critical of Trump rather than hammering away at Hillary's emails, there might actually have been a reasonable alternative to Hillary.

In sum, a religious conservative can honorably support Trump just as honorable Christians supported Joseph Stalin against Adolf Hitler (and for the sake of those who enjoy mischaracterizing conservatives, I am, of course, not implying that Trump is Stalin, or that Clinton is Hitler -- only that if Christians could ally themselves with Stalin to defeat a more dangerous foe, Christians could support Trump to defeat Clinton).

Surely, there is something seriously wrong with the 2-party system in the USA. When it leaves Christians with no apparent choice but to support a man who exemplifies the culture of rape in America, it's time to reorganize the way Americans do politics.

There is no defense for Donald Trump's comments or alleged sexual misbehavior. But in terms of damage to America, there is no comparison between what he has said and allegedly done and what she has done and advocates for the future. Is acting on that realization un-Christian?

I completely disagree with this statement. The worst problem in America today is not Hillary, it is not debt, the economy, Mexicans, ISIS, Islam or anything else Trump is railing against. It isn't even abortion although about a million babies are destroyed annually even thought here has been 20 years (I think) of Republican presidents and more of Republican lawmakers since Roe v Wade.
The worst problem an America today is sex abuse of women and especially children. 3/4 of a million children are sexually abused every year in America, and that is a conservative estimate. Unlike aborted babies, very few of them get to go straight to Heaven. Most have to live their lives out in extremely difficult circumstances. Very few sexually abused children ever completely recover, and far too many struggle with horrible, debilitating, mental and emotional problems the rest of their lives. 

This is the worst problem in America as it is the worst problem in the whole world where about 35 million children suffer sexual abuse every year. And since most suffer repeated abuse the actual number of child sexual abuses could be, and probably is in the billions annually. 

So ask me, do I care about somebody's emails? Do I care about 4 dead bodies in Benghazi? If that's all you can wrap your mind around, then your priorities are severely screwed up! Just saying...

Voice Shaking, Michelle Obama Calls Trump Comments on Women ‘Intolerable’

Is the wrong woman running for president?

Michelle Obama is the best political speaker in America today

Michelle Obama Denounces Trump’s Words on Women

By REUTERS 1:45 Video The first lady, Michelle Obama, on Thursday spoke out against Donald J. Trump’s comments about women. “This is not something that we can ignore,” she said, while campaigning in New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton.

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, NYTimes

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michelle Obama issued a deeply personal denunciation of Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his lewd comments about women, exhorting voters in scathing terms to reject his candidacy and the campaign’s increasingly vulgar tenor by backing Hillary Clinton as a matter of conscience.

“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual,” Mrs. Obama said in a 25-minute speech here during which her voice at times quavered with emotion. “This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to,” she added. “No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse.”

In remarks that were among the most outspoken by a first lady in modern history, Mrs. Obama, who has mostly avoided the political limelight, positioned herself at the center of a campaign she characterized as having devolved into “madness.” (Theatre of the absurd?). She implored voters to “stand up and say enough is enough.”

“I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” the first lady told several hundred voters at a university here.

“I can’t stop thinking about this — it has shaken me to my core,” Mrs. Obama said, reacting to the emergence last week of a recording in which Mr. Trump was heard coarsely boasting about kissing and groping women without their consent.

What followed from the first lady, who has styled herself America’s “mom in chief,” was a message about empowering women to rise up against sexual abuse and harassment in every context. The speech was all the more striking because it was delivered on behalf of Mrs. Clinton, whose experience with her husband’s infidelity all but disqualifies her from speaking in similarly vivid terms.

Aides said Mrs. Obama had always planned to reshape her stump speech as Election Day neared to focus more on women and the significance of electing the first female president. But when Mr. Trump’s remarks surfaced on Friday, she ripped up that speech, ultimately settling on one that was all the more biting for its intimate tone.

“I feel it so personally,” Mrs. Obama said on Thursday, placing her hand against her heart for emphasis as she spoke about Mr. Trump’s treatment of women. “It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body, or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long so you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.”


Women listening to Michelle Obama speak during a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton on Thursday in Manchester, N.H. “This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to,” Mrs. Obama said of Donald J. Trump’s lewd comments about women. JIM COLE / ASSOCIATED PRESS

“I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women this way,” Mrs. Obama added. “To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.”

The speech was a riveting moment in an already remarkable campaign, coming just before Mr. Trump appeared in West Palm Beach, Fla., to angrily denounce as “false smears” news reports in which several women said he had made unwanted advances on them.

The New Hampshire rally was Mrs. Obama’s sixth campaign appearance for Mrs. Clinton in a month, and the first lady broke from her usual approach and did not speak about Mrs. Clinton’s qualifications for the presidency until halfway through her speech. She said the former secretary of state “embodies so many of the values that we try hard to teach our young people,” and ticked off highlights from Mrs. Clinton’s résumé, saying that any parent would be proud to raise a daughter like her.

But she also sought to appeal to those unenthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton or politics itself, issuing a call to voters across the political spectrum who have been alienated by a contest dominated by outrageous statements and partisan rage.

“We simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer — not for another minute, and let alone for four years,” Mrs. Obama said. “This has got to stop right now.”

She argued that even voters repulsed by the tone of the campaign — “we are drowning in it,” she said at one point — must consider the norms of behavior they wanted to instill in their children.

“In our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly O.K. We are validating it. We are endorsing it,” Mrs. Obama said. “We’re telling our sons that it’s O.K. to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country.”

I have been saying for months now that Trump talks, acts, and thinks like an adolescent. I would prefer someone with at least a semblance of maturity running the biggest military in the world.

Instead, she framed the decision to vote for Mrs. Clinton as akin to a woman’s choice to speak out in the face of sexual mistreatment or violence.

“We need to recover from our shock and depression and do what women have always done in this country,” Mrs. Obama said. “We need you to roll up your sleeves. We need to get to work.”