Jesus would never vote for Trump
Dear John,
Thank you for trying to help me understand why you support the president and his policies. I read the article you recommended by Victor Davis Hanson and I must say that, unlike the current occupant of the White House, he seems to have a grasp of history, world affairs and the English language. But he lost all credibility when he called Obama “the most corrupt president since Warren G. Harding.” Really? Talk about projection, talk about preposterous! At that point, Mr. Hanson shed his cloak of reasonableness and took a hard, off-putting turn toward raw propaganda.
I understand why conservatives who find Trump’s character and behavior repulsive support him. He is a “useful idiot” who is enacting a pro-business, tax-cutting, regulation-busting, damn-the-environment, screw-posterity agenda that keeps their investment portfolios plump (for the time being) and who puts on a nostalgic show of phony patriotism and military might (oh, those aching bone spurs!) that is comforting amid all the dizzying change and social and economic disruption.
(For the record, I am just as disgusted as you by the rioting and looting that marred the BLM protests. Totally indefensible and counterproductive. Martin Luther King would never countenance such behavior. This is not the “good trouble” John Lewis advocated. The scenes of anarchic destruction just alienate would-be sympathizers and play into Trump’s hands.)
Still, I marvel at the moral compromise required to overlook the depravity of Trump, a blatant fraud, sociopath and degenerate (golden showers, anyone?). When I visit Episcopal Academy, my alma mater, and see SUVs with Trump and MAGA stickers waiting to pick up students, I am amazed by the contradiction and hypocrisy. These rich Republican parents, many with sterling educations and Ivy League degrees, are spending $40K a year so their precious progeny will receive instruction in Christian principles (love, charity, humility, etc.), as well as the noble character traits symbolized by the stripes on the sleeves of the school jersey (faith, honesty, courtesy, kindness, generosity, gratitude, courage, respect, sportsmanship), yet they support a president who embodies none of them, and is, in fact, the polar opposite in every way.
(I don’t mean to pick on Episcopal. You can see the same phenomenon at every other Main Line private school. I’m sure Episcopal has its share of defiant Democrats and bleeding-heart liberals who are as appalled as I am by the depredations of Trump and his pliant minions.)
You are one of the finest, most decent people I know — honest, kind, modest, compassionate, generous, loyal — in a word, a gentleman. So it’s difficult for me to picture you siding with Trump and his mean-spirited gang of scoundrels, thugs, miscreants and incompetents (as well as his lockstep Fox News cheerleaders). You are a man of faith who believes in God and knows Jesus far better than I do, but from my limited reading of the New Testament, I’m sure that, were he to return, Jesus would not be dining at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and his plutocratic pals or attending Trump rallies with the gun-toting haters who make up a significant portion of his “base.” Nor would he be eager to fraternize with a self-absorbed narcissist and braggart (Jesus: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”), who has lied over 20,000 times since inhabiting the White House, who idolizes strongmen, dictators, autocrats and murderers, who fuels racial and ethnic animosity and baseless conspiracy theories, who spends hours a day tweeting nasty insults, and who divides people into “winners” and “losers.” (Can you imagine Jesus calling anyone a “loser”?) Trump is by far the worst president in U.S. history, and one of the worst human beings on the planet. The Jesus I know would more likely vote for Pontius Pilate or a Pharisee than cast a ballot for Trump. In his infinite mercy, he would forgive Trump his many trespasses, but he would denounce his bigotry, shun his company, and decline to join him for a round of golf. Instead, he would be ministering to the wretched people fleeing poverty and hunger in Central America and comforting the terrified kids imprisoned in cages and concentration camps at the Mexican border.
I cherish your friendship and count it one of the great blessings of my life that you and I were randomly assigned to the same room freshman year. I am grateful for your steady companionship as we navigate what Jack Kerouac called this “great strange dream.” It would be another reason to resent Trump if he came between us.
Yours in agreeing to disagree,
Art
