In Joe Biden, Donald Trump had the perfect opponent. For a brief moment in time, Republicans enjoyed a surge of optimism about the November election. Word on the street was that even die-hard Democrats were glumly hoping that they might hold the Senate and possibly retake the House.
Enter Kamala Harris.
Despite Harris's track record, Democrats have found the candidate they need to give them a surge of confidence and votes. She is the sitting Vice President, says all the right things, and meets the demographic qualifications that appeal to the Democrats' core. Whether you want to believe it or not, Harris is electable. It might not be for the reasons conservatives hold valid, but she is electable nonetheless.
Buoyed by this change of fortune and spike in energy, the Left and its media will be focusing the microscopes and endoscopes on Trump and JD Vance like never before. With that in mind, Trump may want to consider some course corrections when it comes to campaign speeches. True, the Left will savage him for anything and everything he says, as is usually the case, but he would not go wrong by exercising some caution.
In this week's edition of "The Intersection of Faith and Politics," Paula Bolyard and I discussed Trump's speech last week at the Turning Point Action's Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla. Trump was exhorting Christian voters to cast their ballots, especially since he will need a decisive margin to regain the White House. According to The Chrisitan Post, Trump said:
I don't care how, but you have to get out and vote. Christians, get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote.
Trump can hardly be faulted for trying to galvanize his base, and since he was speaking to a room full of Christians, the comment makes sense in context. Trump also has a penchant for speaking off the cuff and making jokes. Anyone who is not screeching about the coming Trumpocalypse understands that. The Left ignores the fact that Trump uses hyperbole and humor in his speeches and, in this case, saw the comment as more proof that Trump 2.0 would usher in a new era of Right Wing Christian dictatorship.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
It was a joke. Maybe it fell flat; perhaps it was poorly timed, but it was a joke. No one in that audience believed that Trump was about to abolish the Republic. Everyone's "democracy" is safe.
In an op-ed for Religion News Service, the ministerial team at Middle Church in Manhattan wrote:
What Trump and his allies do instead is leverage Christianity’s slight majority to force all Americans to obey a narrow interpretation of our faith. This is called Christian nationalism, which is an act of religious supremacy. It is this dream that lurks behind Trump’s promise to his followers that they “won’t have to vote in four years.” Place your faith in me, he says, and I will reshape this country into one where Christianity wields total control.
Everything is a portent of doom.
Everything is a threat.
Anyone who doesn't think like us is dangerous.
Years before I decided to leave the Left for the Right, one thing that struck me even then was how unhappy we all seemed. Sure, we made jokes, but they were cruel, cutting, and sarcastic. We laughed, but it was always mocking laughter. We saw beauty nowhere and danger everywhere. Life and other people were things to be lampooned. We all seemed incapable of enjoying anything without darkening it with a shade of cynicism. There was never any empathy for anyone else. We never took a break from the nastiness. There was never any joy.
As I have said before, I can tell you from experience that emotion drives the rank-and-file members of the Left. The primary emotion is outrage, which can drain the soul, especially if one thinks that their outrage is always justified. How else could "Saturday Night Live" start so brilliantly with the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players, only to devolve into the comedic landfill it is now?
Constant outrage robs one of not just the ability to tell when a joke is a joke or, on a more silly, pedantic level, of savoring a sunny morning for a moment or two but also of one's humanity. The situation in the Middle East is horrifying. But in its outrage, the Left wreaks havoc with violence, graffiti, and smoke bombs, oblivious to the horrors inflicted on Oct. 7 and the depredations of Hamas and similar groups. The Left doesn't want solutions; it wants its hunger satiated. Good luck with that.
Outrage over the treatment of trans people led to a young female boxer at the Olympics getting pummeled into defeat by a boxer with male chromosomes after just 46 seconds. When outrage is your stock in trade, the results don't matter. The collateral damage doesn't matter. Actions do not have consequences. And if they do, the Left can always use those consequences to fuel more outrage.
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