Hillary Clinton is evil. And you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that I’ve ever written that even remotely suggests otherwise. My strongly held belief about Hillary is rooted in the fact that her elitist ideology of power can be traced through Saul Alinsky, Marx’s dialectical materialism, and Rousseau as interpreted by the French Revolution, among other social-fabric shredding ideas. In other words, pretty much everything that she advocates stands in stark contrast to my Christian faith and worldview.
On schedule, Hillary Clinton has risen to her rightful place as the standard bearer for the Democratic Party. And while not surprising, the pedal-to-the-metal progressivism of today’s Democratic Party does tempt me to despair for the future of the United States. However, as much as I’m saddened by liberalism’s fevered efforts to lay the bricks of sexual revolution, divisive identity politics, and big government as savior in the construction of their Tower of Babel, it doesn’t match my dismay as I’ve watched Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party this past year.
Prior to Donald Trump, Republicans carried the pretense, at least, of normative ethics that had been developed out of true conservativism. Politically, the GOP was the party that attempted to hold onto the understanding that humans are fallen/broken and that however redemption is defined, big government is not the answer. While having little faith in the Republican Party, I had arrived at the conclusion that even with all of its many flaws and hypocrisies, the GOP offered the best chance to live peaceable lives in order to promote justice and to live out my faith. For me, the Republican Party best represented my worldview, and did so in a complete enough manner to justify my support. That has changed.
On Monday, I watched with sadness as Donald Trump took the stage at the RNC. As Queen’s “We Are the Champions” played a smug and strutting Trump to the podium, I felt sick to my stomach at the cheering, chanting crowd of supposed conservatives. It’s difficult to reconcile myself to the reality that the supposed conservative party has nominated a decidedly anti-conservative candidate. For me, the GOP’s embrace of Trump is one of the most culturally and politically disheartening aspects of our current society.
Professing conservatives have traded actual principles that have been the bedrock of Western civilization for a populism that echoes the sobering claim from the Book of Judges that “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” You see, populism is always a bad idea. Populism is a fragile sail that is filled by whichever wind is currently blowing the strongest. Leftists recognize that the “winds” can’t be counted on to blow in the direction of progressivism. Hence, the Leftists’ lust for power. Hillary and company are determined to enact their progressive agenda regardless of what the populace thinks or wants. Make no mistake, however: like his old leftist buddies, Trump will ride populism to power. And with power, Trump will seek even more power.
Trump’s political genius is found in harnessing the prevailing cultural winds of fear and anger. That explains, in part, why supposed conservatives and Christians have full-bore aligned themselves with a man who talks like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Fear and anger, two emotions fraught with self-centeredness to begin with, have allowed Trump supporters to willfully blind themselves to the hubristic evil attempting to mount the throne of power.
Here’s one of the major differences between Hillary and Trump – while brimming with her own deceitfulness, Hillary doesn’t slither words of appeasement aimed at conservative Christians out of her mouth. She has clearly staked out whose side she’s on. Trump, however, while openly immoral, greedy, arrogant, unrepentant, and deceitful, coddles up to evangelicals and tickles their ears while stoking the fire of their fears.
Over the last year, those fears have consumed pretty much all semblance of actual conservativism within the Republican Party. In fact, I’ll go a step further – supporting Donald Trump means that you are decidedly NOT a conservative.
The amount of Trump’s unconstitutional promises is incredibly troubling for anyone who respects the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, and conservative principles, in general. A quick overview of Trump’s stated policies reveals that the man has no respect for the separation of powers as enumerated by the Constitution, is eager to gut the First Amendment, and has utter contempt for the principle of private property. In a recent 60 Minutes interview, echoing liberal jurists, Trump dismissed the Constitution’s restraint on his potential presidential powers. And none of that touches Trump’s vile racist, misogynistic, and elitist disdain for fellow humans whom he considers an impediment to his coronation.
Trump’s current reign over the GOP signals that American politics no longer has a viable political party that stands counter to the progressivism of the Democratic Party. With this year’s RNC, the GOP has revealed that power is more important to them than principles. That means, for the Republican Party, that everything is for sale.
This is why I reject the attempts by Trumpkins to shame me into voting for Donald Trump. Scolding me that now is the time for unity is nonsensical. There is no longer anything within the GOP for me to unify with. If Donald Trump is the standard bearer for the Republican Party, I am no longer a Republican.
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