Interpreting Trump and the Never or Anti Trumpers

… also doing a whole lot of damage to “the righteous team,” including pretty much destroying the whole idea that there even is a “righteous” team. All the hats are gray now. Maybe they always were, but now we’re embracing that apparently rather than merely tolerating it while striving for something better.

But yes, Trump does remind me more than a little of Samson, other than the physical strength part. It’s a different kind of power, but other than that, the character is quite similar.

It’s worth noting that “we” supported the first divorcee to reach the White House, no? A guy with pretty limited political experience, an actor and (alors!) former announcer for the Chicago Cubs. (side note; thank God Harry Caray never went into acting) A guy who had signed an early bill legalizing prenatal infanticide in California, and who is alleged to have dated/bedded a string of Hollywood starlets in his younger years? Remember?

Perhaps we also ought to remember that a major group supporting him—really the same guys that started supporting Trump in the primaries, or at least some of their sons/friends—ended up with false prophecy (at least as nasty a sin as adultery, no?) by Robertson, tolerance of segregation by Helms, appallingly bad writing by Tim LeHaye (Left Behind series)…..really, brothers, I think we’ll do well to take Romans 3:10 seriously here, don’t you think? Let’s not preach legalism, but rather repentance from sin.

And let’s be honest here; I’m pretty sure somebody in Ekron or Gath made nasty jokes about the son of Manoah not being able to keep it in his pants robe. Don’t you think? We’ve been here before, God is still sovereign.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

I continue to be astounded at the amount of love and support Christians give to Trump.

As for parallels of Trump to the judges, let me say that I disagree vehemently. I would also submit that this passage provides a closer frame of reference to our relationship with Trump than the judges do:

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

-1 Samuel 8:19‭-‬20 ESV

Kent Brandenburg,

Thank you for your article. I passed it on to several others. My choice in the primaries was Ted Cruz. He lost. In the general election I voted for Trump over Crooked Hillary. For the most part Trump has either kept his promises or attempted to keep them against enormous opposition and unmitigated hatred from the left. Despite his sins and personal failures which are many, his policies have been very helpful to conservatives, Christian organizations, and our economy. I appreciate his backing of our Law Enforcement, Military, Christian Organizations, a Conservative Judiciary, a Robust Economy, Pro-Energy agenda. I also appreciate his opposition to Radical Islam, Illegal immigration, NK and Iran, liberal judges, and the mostly corrupt major news media outlets. Trump is not a Christian (I pray he will be one day), but for reasons I cannot explain he has been very kind and friendly to Christian organizations, Christian education, and Christian Freedom (Like Cyrus King of Persia perhaps). I have direct knowledge of this on account of my positions on various education boards and committees. In this year alone we have seen a dramatic drop in the number of murders of blacks in Detroit (I am just a few miles north of the city) and murders of police officers. The same is true in Chicago (where I was born).

I appreciate Kent’s article. It’s as robust a defense of Trump you can get, without buying into the Robert “MAGA” Jeffress approach and worshipping the man, or this country. I don’t personally like Trump, or respect his morality (or lack thereof). However, I broadly agree with a good deal of what he’s done. I don’t worship him, and but he is getting some necessary things done.

I didn’t vote for a presidential candidate in 2016… left my choice blank. Evangelical Christians are treated by republicans like African Americans are treated by democrats. Time to get off and stay off the plantation.

I find this article a mixture of truth along with a sprinkling of logical fallacies, and sadly, a batch of unholy pragmatism. The appointment of Neil Gorsuch and the defeat of ISIS are probably Trump’s biggest accomplishments this past year. As for ISIS, the best thing that Trump did was delegate and allow his generals to make the decisions to win along with a better strategy with Syria (which was the opposite with Obama, whose Syria failure helped escalate ISIS). I am even (mostly) fine with his tax-cut. However, Brandenburg seems susceptible to the “false-cause” fallacy such as his view of Iran and the current uprising that is happening in that country. He asks the question, “would they be emboldened in an Obama-like environment? The answer to that question is a definite yes, since there were similar protests in 2011 during the Obama-like environment with “Arab Spring” in Iran. Or the Hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy? Making judgments that McCain, or any of the Bushes, Romney or any other Republican candidates that ran against Trump wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what Trump did because they sought some measure of bi-partisanship is treating a hypothetical situation as if it were fact.

Or what about Brandenburg’s view that Trump cannot be racist/white supremacist because his son-in-law and daughter are practicing Jews? How about the “Honor-by-association” fallacy, as if one’s relationship somehow nullifies the many racist statements/actions that Trump has done? Does it matter that Trump re-tweeted racist fake crime statistics to strike fear in his alt-right supporters and then refused to apologize for it? Or what about encouraging the roughing up of a BLM protester at his MAGA rally? Or if you go back several decades earlier, the justice department sued his company for discriminating against minorities or how he took out full-page ads against the central park 5-encouraging mob-mentality justice/execution of minority teens. And then when DNA evidence proved their innocence a decade later which allowed them to sue the state for unlawfully convicting them, he still considers them guilty. Or taking way too long to disavow white supremacists, whether it was in the Charlottesville protests or the many white supremacists such as David Duke who wholeheartedly supported him. Or how he stereotyped the Pakistani Muslim Khizar Khan’s wife for not speaking at the democratic convention, implying that she wasn’t allowed to speak due to her Islamic faith. I could go on and on with more examples if you’d like. And if it were only a few of these instances, I would be giving him the benefit of the doubt, but his history is checkered with too many instances to not suspect racism.

But sadly, Brandenburg’s pragmatism where the “end justifies the means” baffles me. He writes, “Others have tried to get along and just take the hits, to remain in good standing, and they haven’t come close to getting done what Trump has been able to accomplish in just a short period of time. He should be judged by these accomplishments, not by the style by which he has done them. Most wish he could use a different style, but in this present environment, we have to look past the style. The combat is what is needed in this climate.”

What is communicated by this statement is that morals really don’t matter when it comes to politics as long as the conservative side wins. Although the mainstream press has been caught telling several lies about him, that doesn’t excuse his constant pattern of lying either Or his sophomoric attacks through twitter. Remember that Trump now claims to be a follower of Christ. Shouldn’t I Peter 2:12 apply to him as well? I’d be interested in how Brandenburg would advise a member of his church who was involved in politics. Would he be fine with a plethora of sins committed like Trump has done in order to win and to maintain power for conservatives?

By the way, I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary either. I felt the choice I was making at the ballot box last year was between a Mafia Crime boss (Hillary Clinton) and someone who carries himself like a dictator from a third-world country.

Here’s one:

I understand you believe Trump is working to defend your point of view, but I really don’t understand how any Christian can believe that a thrice-married adulterer who lies as easily as he breathes furthers your cause. You may win a few battles but your association with such a person tarnishes your faith and Christianity as a whole to non-believers. I say this, not as a liberal, but as a life-long conservative.

and

If you want to adopt a Machiavellian political approach for temporary, short lived political gains, that is your right as a citizen, but it taints you. The world looks at you and sees a disparity between what your profess and who you support politically. It’s not surprising that young people are turned off politics and Christianity when they see the two vulgarly welded together. The backlash against Trump will be severe. Democrats have already won races they generally would have no chance to win. Your position in the long run will be weaker because of your support for Trump.

I’ve always wondered what the backlash will be like when Trump leaves office (whenever that is). I expect that whichever Progressive/Democrat wins the Presidency next will make President Obama look like Reagan.

Not arguing that Trump hasn’t said some [edited] stupid things, but the flip side is that he’s not the guy credibly accused of rape, as was his predecessor Bill Clinton. Nor did he admit illegal drug use (not just dope) in his autobiographies as did Obama.

the big diference, IMO, between these guys is that the media are putting their finger on the scales with Trump, being far more willing to use anonymous sources (or nonexistent in many cases) to beat on a Republican, and moreover being willing to actually change the question in “Factcheck” articles to claim that a Republican’s claims were false.

Again, we’ve been there before, repeatedly, and let’s pray that a new Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, or Mao does not come up for the Democrats to try to elect—or that if one does, that even the left realizes this isn’t a good idea.

You nailed it. Thank you.

In light of Trump’s recent comments “why are we having all these people from ………………countries,” are those who agree with this article still defending the notion like Kent Brandenburg that “this combat is needed in this climate?”

I recently stumbled across the entire archive of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line program (33 years worth!) on YouTube. This is journalism. This is substance. These are serious people. Is it too much to hope that our country can ever return to this kind of discourse? We’ve gone from Buckley interrogating Reagan shortly before his first election, to his discussion with Margaret Thatcher about the failures of British socialism … to President Trump’s tweets. Tellingly, Firing Line spent most of its time on public television, because it was too “boring” for network television.

Nah, Tyler, those guys are the elites, the establishment. We are smarter now. We now know that the lowest of the low are the source of true wisdom, especially when they all get angry at the same time… because crowds getting angry all at the same time consistently accomplish things of lasting value for the good of all society, especially crowds that get all their info from Twitter or TV.

I’m sure history is full of examples to prove that. As if we need history anymore.

Hey, Buckley had Ann Coulter on, too!