By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
On
Thanksgiving morning I ran across an article from the National Review captioned
This Thanksgiving, Thank Donald J. Trump. I thought it must be satire, but soon discovered
it was not. It begins: “This
Thanksgiving, Americans in general — and free-market conservatives in
particular — have plenty for which to be grateful. And much of it would be absent had the White
House’s current occupant not become president on November 8, 2016.”
The
article contends that Trump should be given credit for improving economic
conditions and that his deplorable personal behavior can be ignored as irrelevant
to U.S. politics. The opposite is
true. Favorable economic conditions are tenuous. Without renewed moral underpinnings for American
politics they will degrade further to reveal their fundamental weakness. America
the Beautiful will become America the
Ugly—if it isn’t already.
I
was stunned that a publication I once considered the jewel of political
conservatism would publish an article praising Donald Trump. It precipitated a dark revelation of ontological
proportions for me, and brought to mind a recent article by Garrison Keillor: I’m a Conservative. It reminded me that traditional terms describing
political views such as conservative, liberal, libertarian and socialist have
become muddled, and left me wondering how to describe myself.
I’ve
always considered myself a conservative and Garrison Keillor a liberal, but his
article resonated with me. It seems that
we both share reverence for traditional values related to family, community and
culture, and are also open to progressive change. I always thought that most sensible
Southerners shared my moderate free-market conservatism, but I was proved wrong
on November 8, 2016, when most white Southerners voted for Donald Trump.
Southerners
have traditionally been libertarian conservatives who favor individual freedom
and limited government. They oppose
socialism, but as people of faith they understand the need to balance
individual rights with providing for the common good. They have a healthy skepticism of both Tea-Party
neo-libertarians who seek to eviscerate government, and socialist liberals who
seek to eviscerate traditional values. Occasionally
they have supported populist demagogues like “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman and Donald
Trump, but that has not been the norm.
Since
Trump’s election commentators have described his supporters as undereducated white
voters motivated by their eroding political power and their distorted Christian
beliefs. But the National Review
article blew the cover of Trump’s more quiescent but formidable rich and powerful
allies. It is eerily reminiscent of the Antebellum
South, when aristocrats exacerbated the fear of poor white dirt farmers to support
secession and fight a terrible Civil War.
My
dark revelation was of an unholy alliance between white evangelical Christians
who follow a distorted prosperity gospel and rich and powerful Randian
objectivists on Wall Street who are the primary beneficiaries of Trump’s economic
policies. It will take a moral revival
to convince Trump’s less affluent evangelical supporters that they have been
exploited by Trump’s Wall Street allies and convince them to promote a new
standard of morality in politics.
A
moral revival in politics must be led by the church. Christians provided Trump with his margin of
victory and will likely determine the outcome of the next election. To counter the corrosive influence of wealth
in politics, the church must restore the primacy of the teachings of Jesus over
distorted evangelical beliefs that have supported radical right politics and that
are closer to the self-centered objectivism of Ayn Rand than to the altruistic teachings
of Jesus.
The
teachings of Jesus are summarized in the
greatest commandment to love God and to love our neighbors as we love
ourselves, and that includes our neighbors of other races and religions. It is a
common word of faith and a moral imperative for Jews, Christians and
Muslims that can provide the foundation for a moral revival in religion and
politics; but such a revival will require a new spiritual Awakening to unite a fragmented
church that has lost its moral compass.
America
is polarized by partisan politics defined by the radical right and radical left,
with moderate voters left on the sidelines.
Trump and his Republican supporters are more than a passing political aberration. The rich and powerful are in control, but they
are just 1% of Americans and rely on exploiting others to maintain their grip
on power. Most of the remaining 99% are people
of faith whose moral values—if revived—can save America from itself.
Notes:
For the National Review
article This Thanksgiving, Thank Donald J.
Trump, see http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454028/donald-trump-accomplishments-thanksgiving.
For Garrison Keillor’s article, I’m a Conservative in the Washington
Post, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/im-a-conservative/2017/11/07/1d2a9890-c3e2-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1.
On evangelicals having to choose
between morality and the corrupt radical right politics of Donald Trump and Roy
Moore, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-some-evangelicals-a-choice-between-moore-and-morality/2017/11/16/27a28a16-cadc-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1.
Ilya Somin has taken issue with
the assertion of Will Wilkinson that “libertarian skepticism about democracy is
a major cause of the current pathologies of the political right in the U.S,”
and has argued that libertarianism may be a remedy rather than the cause of
radical right politics. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/05/will-wilkinson-on-libertarian-democracy-skepticism/?wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1.
Jim Wallis has suggested that Christians are facing a spiritual reckoning
a year into Trump’s presidency on the corruption of standards of morality
in the areas of sex, money and power.
See https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-year-into-trumps-presidency-christians-are-facing-a-spiritual-reckoning/2017/11/17/551dc318-cafd-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html?undefined=&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
On how the prosperity gospel explains Donald Trump’s popularity with
Christian voters, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/15/how-the-prosperity-gospel-explains-donald-trumps-popularity-with-christian-voters/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
Related
commentary:
(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(3/8/15): Wealth, Politics, Religion and Economic Justice
(3/22/15): The Power of Humility and the Arrogance of Power
(7/5/15): Reconciliation as a Remedy for Racism and Religious Exclusivism
(8/2/15): Freedom and Fundamentalism
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/freedom-and-fundamentalism.html (8/9/15): Balancing Individual Rights with Collective
Responsibilities
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(10/18/15): God, Money and Politics
(3/26/16): Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery
(4/23/16): Standards of Legitimacy in Morality, Manners and Political Correctness
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(5/7/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
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(6/4/16): Christianity and Capitalism: Strange Bedfellows in Politics
(6/18/16): A Politics of Reconciliation with Liberty and Justice for All
(6/28/15): Confronting the Evil Among Us
(10/18/15): God, Money and Politics
(8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and Cultural Divide
(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(2/11/17): The Mega-Merger of Wall Street, Politics and Religion
(2/25/17): The Need for a Revolution in Religion and Politics
(3/4/17): Ignorance and Reason in Religion and Politics
(3/18/17): Moral Ambiguity in Religion and Politics
(4/22/17): The Relevance of Jesus and the Irrelevance of the Church in Today’s
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(6/3/17): When Winning Trumps Mercy and Losing is Evil
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
(7/15/17) Religion and Progressive Politics
(7/29/17): Speaking God’s Truth to Man’s Power
(9/23/17): Tribalism and the American Civil Religion
(11/4/17): What to Believe? Truth or Consequences in Religion and Politics http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/11/what-to-believe-truth-or-consequences.html.
(11/11/17): A Politics of Reconciliation that Should Begin in the Church
(11/18/17): Radical Religion and the Demise of Democracy
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