Republicans Abandon Faith and Values to Hail Trump as ‘Chosen by God’ -The iPINIONS Journal

Michael Steele is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. This is why the role he’s playing these days is so striking.

He is wandering across the American media landscape as President Trump’s most earnest and prophetic critic. This latter description is particularly noteworthy because it compels allusions to John the Baptist.

You see, Steele spends most of his time preaching to Republican leaders about the moral hazards of Trump’s presidency. This has him pleading in vain for them to act according to the principles of Christianity, family values, the rule of law, fiscal responsibility, and free trade. These, of course, were articles of their political faith before the advent of Trumpism, which makes a mockery of every norm of American political and civic life.

(These Republicans are like members of the “Inner Party” in George Orwell’s 1984.)

But nothing indicates why Steele might as well be preaching in the wilderness quite like Trump’s near 90 percent popularity among rank-and-file Republicans. This manifests in such absurdities as the poor among them hailing Trump for cutting the social programs they depend on to give tax cuts to the rich.

(These Republicans are like Orwell’s “Proles” – whose minds are all too easily swayed by political propaganda, empty promises, and proverbial crumbs that fall from the tables of their Inner-Party bettors.)

Republicans threw the fecklessness of Steele’s message into cult-like relief a few days ago:

Trump’s ownership of the GOP was on vivid display again Saturday, when the president appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, an annual gathering that has transformed into a raucous celebration of Trump, featuring propaganda-style art and a speaker who declared that the president was ‘chosen by God.’

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) publicly acknowledged [that] ‘The GOP is wholeheartedly accepting behavior and policies from Trump that would spark outrage from a Democratic president.’

(The Washington Post, March 4, 2019)

In other words, for most Republicans, Trump can do no wrong. Think about what that portends, folks …

This flag-hugging, draft-dodging charlatan delivered a Castroesque, two-hour diatribe at that conference. He spent most of it

bellowing one big lie after another about his morally bankrupt presidency;
undermining the democratic institutions and alliances that formed the bases for an unprecedented period of world order and prosperity; and
maligning the country’s most respected war hero, the late Senator John McCain.

Therefore, imagine the dystopian spectacle of these white, law-and-order, evangelical Republicans hailing this bum’s every word with rapturous hosannas.

The analogy that comes immediately to mind is that of giddy, lovesick teenagers at a boy-band concert. But the more appropriate one might be the biblical parable of the lost Israelites worshiping a golden calf.

Indeed, this CPAC was arguably the most distressing demonstration yet of how much Republicans have lost their way. And all the disillusioned Steele could do was bemoan their “celebration of the idolatry of Donald Trump,” which he did on Monday’s edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC.

My heart goes out to him. Not least because I was calling out Republicans long before he embarked on his mission to rescue and deprogram members of his party.

In fact, here is what I wrote in “(White) Evangelicals Supporting Donald Trump like Israelites Worshipping Golden Calf,” January 20, 2016:

____________________

I know Evangelicals. As the son of an evangelical preacher, I grew up among them. So trust me when I say that, for any sober Evangelical, Trump is the very personification of Mammon.

This, after all, is a man who takes diabolical pride in boasting that he never asks God for forgiveness because he’s without sin, he’s rich, and he’s like a god himself. He even boasts that The Art of the Deal, his book about the virtues of greed and the salvation of wealth, rivals the Bible. …

The only thing that explains this willful suspension of their evangelical faith is the precedent the lost Israelites set in Bible times [namely the famous parable about them forsaking their religious faith and traditional values to worship a golden calf]. …

It would be one thing if Trump troubled himself to show a little regard for their purported Christian faith and traditional values. But mean-spirited, bullying, even profane language is the feature attraction of his campaign rhetoric, which makes a mockery of that faith and those values. …

Which is why Evangelicals are sacrificing their Christian faith at the altar of Trump’s political ambition. Moreover, they have ceded their moral authority to speak truth to power and champion family values until kingdom come.

____________________

I mean, just consider the undeniable truth that, if Barack Obama did or said any one of the blasphemous things Donald Trump does and says every day, these same evangelical Republicans would have damned him to Hell as the anti-Christ.

Mind you, some Republicans would have you believe they are guided more by patriotic ideals than religious zeal. But I have had just cause to challenge them too in commentaries like “Humping Trump Exposes News Anchormen as Worse than Car Salesmen,” May 2, 2016.

____________________

Trump was probably right when he boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, in broad daylight, and still get enough votes to win this nomination. … People, it seems, just want to be entertained — even in politics; and, the more gauche and scandalous the better. Hence the popularity of reality TV, the tabloidization of the news, and the rise of Trump — the impact on cultural development, or even the welfare of the country, be damned.

Accordingly … I am challenging prominent Republicans like Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, and members of the #NeverTrump movement — who have publicly damned Trump as dangerous and utterly unfit to be president — to make a public show of endorsing Hillary, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

For, if ever there were a time to put love of country above loyalty to party, this is it; especially given reports that Trump’s signature trait is that he prizes loyalty not to country or party but to himself above all else.

____________________

Unfortunately, far from showing profiles in courage, Republicans like Romney and Cruz have shown the kind of quisling acquiescence not seen since the dystopia of Adolf Hitler. Indeed, not since the German people lost their senses and embraced Nazism have so many sacrificed so much (at the altar of one man’s egomaniacal ambition) for so little. Which compels this proverbial allusion:

What does it profit a Republican to gain partisan judges, tax cuts, and a US embassy in Jerusalem but lose his party … and his own soul?

Even more troubling, though, if it’s okay for a democratically elected president to act like a dictator, you no longer have a democracy. And the willingness of Republicans to not only support but enable Trump’s dictatorial actions indicates that it’s perfectly okay with them to see America lose it.

Incidentally, like me, you’ve probably wondered how so many ordinary Germans became Hitler’s “willing executioners.” Notwithstanding analogies to 1984 and the Bible, I submit (or warn) that the answer lies in the way so many ordinary Americans are practically worshiping Trump.

I cited and alluded above to the unsettling analogies afoot. But I have written about them in other commentaries, including “Prince Charles Draws Analogies Between Trumpism and Nazism,” February 8, 2017, and “Obama Joins Chorus Warning about Trump’s America Aping Hitler’s Germany,” December 17, 2017.

It took a world war for Germany to escape and recover from Nazism. It may not take a war for America to escape and recover from Trumpism. But I fear what looms may prove far worse:

Political tribalism is tearing America apart. And Trump’s presidency smacks of a demonic force designed to have Republicans and Democrats ape the Sunnis and Shias who have been fighting for the soul of Islam for over 1000 years.

(“Trump’s Insulting Tweet about Doug Jones, the Alabama Democratic Nominee, Reveals More about Trump,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 26, 2017)

(These Democrats are like members of Orwell’s “Outer Party” – who are politically wired to rebel against tyranny.)

More to the point, though, even if Democrats impeach Trump in Congress or defeat him at the poll, his presidency has already sown seeds of division and dysfunction that could harvest political thorns for a thousand years. I am convinced his black-swan presidency could prove that … disruptive.

God help America.

[Note: I could have cited parenthetical analogies throughout from Orwell’s Animal Farm. But I’ve found over the years that most book lovers have about as much appreciation for that book as cookie lovers have for animal crackers.]