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2020: The Flight 93 Election once again

2020: The Flight 93 Election once again

The 2020 choice is between voting again for Trump, or putting #TheResistance in control. It’s another ‘do or die’ decision.

https://www.facebook.com/yahoonews/videos/10155118828849714/

I’ve written many times about “The Flight 93 Election,” the September 5, 2016, article in the Claremont Review of Books, by Michael Anton, writing at the time under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus.

The thrust of the concept of the Flight 93 Election was that whatever Trump’s faults, the alternative was definitively and certainly worse:

2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.

Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

In July 2018, I rephrased the concept, writing that The value of Trump to the Trump voter is that he stands between them and #TheResistance:

I’d use slightly different wording:

Right now the value of Trump to the Trump voter is he is all that stands between them and the people who hate them every bit as much as they hate Trump.

Or if you want an even shorter version, “the Flight 93 Election never ended” ….

Trump voters are berated and belittled with the same ferocity as directed at Trump himself. #TheResistance doesn’t distinguish between Trump and his voters.

We all understand that what is being done to Trump is simply a continuation of the attempt to unwind the 2016 election. And that if they succeed, the IRS abuses against the Tea Party and conservatives will seem like child’s play.

Which brings me to an article in The Atlantic by Never-Trumper Peter Wehner, The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity.

The article doesn’t actual prove a deepening crisis, despite the title, except to the extent that unyielding support for Trump among evangelical Christians is a crisis for people who hate Trump.

What caught my eye was this passage about the continuing and unyielding support for Trump, referencing The Flight 93 Election:

The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing developments of the Trump era. How can a group that for decades—and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency—insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him? Why are those who have been on the vanguard of “family values” so eager to give a man with a sordid personal and sexual history a mulligan?

Part of the answer is their belief that they are engaged in an existential struggle against a wicked enemy—not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, but rather American liberals and the left. If you listen to Trump supporters who are evangelical (and non-evangelicals, like the radio talk-show host Mark Levin), you will hear adjectives applied to those on the left that could easily be used to describe a Stalinist regime.,,,

Many white evangelical Christians, then, are deeply fearful of what a Trump loss would mean for America, American culture, and American Christianity. If a Democrat is elected president, they believe, it might all come crashing down around us. During the 2016 election, for example, the influential evangelical author and radio talk-show host Eric Metaxas said, “In all of our years, we faced all kinds of struggles. The only time we faced an existential struggle like this was in the Civil War and in the Revolution when the nation began … We are on the verge of losing it as we could have lost it in the Civil War.” A friend of mine described that outlook to me this way: “It’s the Flight 93 election. FOREVER.”

Many evangelical Christians are also filled with grievances and resentments because they feel they have been mocked, scorned, and dishonored by the elite culture over the years. (Some of those feelings are understandable and warranted.) For them, Trump is a man who will not only push their agenda on issues such as the courts and abortion; he will be ruthless against those they view as threats to all they know and love. For a growing number of evangelicals, Trump’s dehumanizing tactics and cruelty aren’t a bug; they are a feature. Trump “owns the libs,” and they love it. He’ll bring a Glock to a cultural knife fight, and they relish that.

I think this is correct. For the reasons I’ve stated before.

And it will be correct in 2020. If anything, the choice is more stark: Capitalism versus Socialism, free markets versus Soviet-like central economic and social planning, individual freedom versus social justice warfare weaponized through government and high tech, border and immigration enforcement versus open borders and “the sense that we are losing control of our own country, by the design of politicians.”

Whether it’s enough to overcome the built-in Democrat advantage in the Electoral College and media remains to be seen.

[Featured Image: Protest against Trump Inauguration, via Facebook video]

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Comments

DouglasJBender | July 9, 2019 at 9:30 pm

There are now essentially two Americas, and one is anti-America.

    There’s only one America, with an insurgent movement within, run by an elite coterie of swamp/left/isliamic psychos, who would kill each other if they ever gained absolute power (after they’ve killed us.)

    This is what happens when you cede your policical parties to the crying boehners, who in turn cede your educational system to the swamp/left/isliamic psychos.

    Trump is all we have left.

      Tom Servo in reply to TheFineReport.com. | July 9, 2019 at 11:10 pm

      I almost miss rags, come to tell us that True Conservatives will have to Vote for Socialism, because Orange Man Bad.

        JusticeDelivered in reply to Tom Servo. | July 10, 2019 at 10:26 am

        Rags knew in his heart that Trump is a better man than he. Envy eats at his soal. He suffered from TDS and Little Person Syndrome (LPS), small mindedness.

        I suspect that he still lurks, occasionally doing his driveby downvotes.

      You forgot to list the GOPe along with the rest of the #resist members.

      EuripidesSmythe in reply to TheFineReport.com. | July 10, 2019 at 10:44 am

      Yes, only the “elite” are not truly elite — they are merely pseudo-elite or would-be elite that are in truth intellectually and/or morally impaired.

At the risk of going all hyperbolic (are we already there?) there comes a point at which our culture has schismed enough that there is no middle-ground possible. I am not the type to force my own values on other people as much as I reject their own reprehensible values. What more can I say than killing a baby after he’s born is wrong? This is a moral judgement, not a science fact, that long ago was agreed upon by everyone in society, but no more. Where, exactly, is the ‘middle ground’ here? How is it possible to “reach across the aisle”?

So we win elections, and the left will keep their leftward march going and #TheResistance expands, or they win elections and enact their soul-crushing leviathan government and amass their power and dissolve our borders and our culture.

We all saw this coming during the Obama years when logic and reason were no longer sufficient to persuade or change minds or ‘win arguments.’ I don’t know how to finish this comment.

    What ‘hyperbole?’

    They’re threatening our lives, they’re beating opponents in the streets, they’re shooting opposition (Steve Scalice), they’re advocating shooting our president, they’re denying the Halocaust, they’ve advocating hatred of Jews (right, John Cusak?), they’ve weaponized the FBI, CIA and the IRS against us. What hyperbole??

    Cusak’s tweet:
    https://twitter.com/yair_rosenberg/status/1140805656623980544

      Yes, exactly. I’ve been predicting civil war for about 20 years now, after listening to the insane rhetoric of the Democrats. (Yes, when you look back with hindsight, none of this is new and the seeds were sown back in the early part of the 20th century with Wilson, Roosevelt, later Johnson, and finally Pelosi and Obama.) At first, my wife used to scold me for being overly dramatic and not giving the other side the benefit of the doubt. Lately, she has finally come to the point where she thinks the Dems are certifiably insane. My standard refrain these days to anyone who wants to discuss politics is, “Wake me up when the shooting starts.” And make no mistake, I do believe that this inevitably ends in violence, pushed by the Left. We’re seeing the first stages of that being done by Antifa thugs just in the last couple of weeks. We’re dancing on a knife edge. At some point, the only choices open to good men and women will be to submit or fight. The Right will fight, not because they want to, but because that’s the only moral choice remaining. The only thing that might delay or mitigate this is if Texas and possibly some other states secede. Otherwise, the pressure continues to build toward a crisis point. And even that is only a delay because there are still a lot of insane Dems living in Texas who will continue to agitate even after such a split (trust me, I live in Austin).

        amwick in reply to OnPoint. | July 10, 2019 at 7:02 am

        Right now I separate people who are Ds from the politicians who are crazy. The D “base”, well, they are my friends and neighbors, and I will not lump them in, ideologically, with these terrible Presidential candidates. I have faith in them as people. There has to be some adults left in that party.

          OnPoint in reply to amwick. | July 10, 2019 at 10:19 am

          I think there are some reasonable people that still identify as Democrats, but I don’t think there are any adults driving the car. The reasonable people are just passengers at this point. The question is whether they can wake up and #WalkAway before the car goes over the cliff, Thelma and Louise style. Clearly, after the recent debates, there are no adults seeking the nomination in the Democratic Party.

          D Grant in reply to amwick. | July 13, 2019 at 8:55 pm

          I have family members who are Dems, not so many friends that are (at least they won’t admit it). The problem with Dems is that they will not, cannot, bring themselves to vote for a Republican. I have voted for a Dem before, because the Rep was such a bad choice. But I don’t see a Dem doing that.

    Tom Servo in reply to rdmdawg. | July 9, 2019 at 11:13 pm

    Well personally, I hope that eventually Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma (probably a couple others too) break off and form The Republic of Greater Texas. I think that has a nice sound to it.

      OnPoint in reply to Tom Servo. | July 9, 2019 at 11:43 pm

      God willing…

      stevewhitemd in reply to Tom Servo. | July 10, 2019 at 8:49 am

      I don’t see Oklahoma allowing itself to be called something that has “Greater Texas” in its title, nor do I see the good people there as willing to be governed from Austin or Dallas or Houston.

      We may indeed end up with schism; it may be as Kurt Schlichter writes, or it may be gentler; it may be two new nations or ten. But I’d like to think we’re not there yet.

      Of course, I also have a 2nd home in the south, just in case…

    “We all saw this coming during the Obama years when logic and reason were no longer sufficient to persuade or change minds or ‘win arguments.’ I don’t know how to finish this comment.”

    The way to finish it is to restate the obvious: we need to return to being ONE moral people. ALL laws are based on morality and our morality is where our freedom is found and protected. There used to be a ruling consensus in this country based on a clarity of who we are. Now it is a “choice”. Everybody is right they say. Except those who disagree with the only acceptable choice.

    There is no such thing as moral relativity. We are either pregnant or we aren’t. We are either honest or we aren’t. It’s not a choice. Chaos is never even an viable option and should never be on the table, especially when it comes to morality. If there is nothing we will fight and die for, maybe we have nothing to live for either.

Grrr8 American | July 9, 2019 at 10:00 pm

>>And it will be correct in 2020. If anything, the choice is more stark: Capitalism versus Socialism, free markets versus Soviet-like central economic and social planning, individual freedom versus social justice warfare weaponized through government and high tech, border and immigration enforcement versus open border and ‘the sense that we are losing control of our own country, by the design of politicians.’”

I would add that the choice is more on the scale of ETERNALLY EXISTENTIAL. See this satirical (yet still serious) post “Election 2020: Satan Throws His Horns Into the Ring for the Democrat Nomination” here: https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/election-2020-satan-throws-his-horns-into-the-ring-for-the-democrat-nomination

LookoutABear | July 9, 2019 at 10:01 pm

What’s changed is the left now openly advocates for the kinds of positions that conservatives used to accuse them of holding in secret.

The US left used to deny that they were anti-American, anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian, pro-socialist, anti-free speexh. But now many openly advocate all these things and it’s spread to the mainstream left. And the Democrats candidates cannot pander hard enough.

So yes it has become an existential fight. Trump is faar from perfect, but i don’t see anyone else pushing back against this nonses in anything close to an effective way.

    Close The Fed in reply to LookoutABear. | July 9, 2019 at 11:49 pm

    I agree with Lookout A Bear, except this stuff about Trump is “faar from perfect.”

    Trump is great. I’m furious he hasn’t done more on illegal aliens, but he’s been MUCH better than Reagan, and I’m 60, and I know. As far as I’m concerned 5,000 Trumps in government would be a good start. People talk about his flaws. He’s raised what appear to be five good children.

      MattMusson in reply to Close The Fed. | July 10, 2019 at 6:35 am

      Speaking as an Evangelical Christian, I truly believe that God has raised up Donald Trump for America, as he raised up King Cyrus for Israel. Isaiah 45;13

      People who feel obligated to qualify their support for Trump by stating “Trump isn’t perfect” or “although I have issues with Trump” are simplt being squishy cowards who fear offending their enemies. Let’s all agree to simply assume that no one is perfect. Drop the squishy language.

        Tom Servo in reply to Pasadena Phil. | July 10, 2019 at 9:27 am

        David French says he is perfect. That’s why he feels so justified in lecturing all other Christians about their sinful ways in supporting the Wicked Trump.

Perhaps Pharisee Peter Wehner could enlighten the Deplorable Christian evangelicals as to why Trump’s adultery is totally disqualifying, but Democrats’ in-your-face racism, antisemitism, using the IRS and FBI to persecute political opponents, proclivity for sexually assaulting women, and willingness to publicly embrace violent terrorist groups like Antifa and BLM is somehow ….. no biggie?

    Yes, and I would also point out to him that Trump’s “sordid personal and sexual history” is just that — his history. Unlike the degenerate Bill Clinton, Trump is not spending his presidency diddling White House interns in the Oval Office and wagging his finger in Americans’ faces as he lies about it on camera and perjures himself about it in sworn testimony. Instead, Trump is doing what we elected him to do: nominating conservative judges, trying to enforce immigration laws, cutting taxes and burdensome government regulations, etc.

    And that’s why we defend Trump. We know he’s not perfect, no man is. But Trump stepped up to do this job and he’s done it remarkably well thus far, and without any hint of the kind of gross personal misconduct in office that characterized the Bill Clinton presidency. And Trump has been subjected to far more — and far more vicious and vile — personal attacks in office than Bill Clinton ever dreamed of.

      DINORightMarie in reply to Observer. | July 10, 2019 at 11:03 pm

      I would add to your point that Christians are fundamentally, by our very definition, forgiving of others. We are called not to judge, but rather to show grace as we have been shown grace by our Savior, Jesus, since we are all sinners and have fallen short. Is Donald Trump repentant, did he confess his past sins? That is between him and His Savior. What I see is a man who is faithful to his wife, a man who plays golf and does not drink or smoke (i.e. is healthy and takes care of himself, with fast food as his vice), focuses on his family, and dedicated to American principles, taking this nation from the brink of economic collapse and restoring it to its best in DECADES, keeping his promises, and making our nation great in the eyes of our friends and foes, and perhaps most important of all loving the PEOPLE of this great nation and wanting to put us back in positions where we can work and prosper once again. And, thankfully, he has done that VERY well.

      I am deeply concerned with what you and Recovering Lutheran say regarding the Left–they are NOT repentant, they are PREACHING vice and evil–they are projecting their sins on US as they call for codifying the most heinous things, making them federal law (e.g. murdering babies up to and even after birth, open borders, giving free health care to “migrants” while citizens must pay for ours, projecting their racism and anti-Semitism on their “target” (Repubs.)).

      Stopping them is CRUCIAL. They are evil personified. It is really a Flight 93 election, again, and will be for the next several elections, until the dangerous leftist #Resistance #Antifa (what a misnomer!) mob of insurrectionists is defeated.

      ConradCA in reply to Observer. | July 11, 2019 at 1:03 pm

      You mean BJ Clinton?

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Recovering Lutheran. | July 10, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    I have an innate distrust of politicians because their primary expertises is selling themselves. I accept that everyone is flawed, and that some are much more flawed than others.

    I have always appreciated people who are forthright.

    I am probably Asperger Syndrome, and I have children and grandchildren, some of whom are. I excel in science and math, but literary skills were difficult for me. I am unable to connect sound and letter combinations, or to read facial cues, or remember names or faces.

    So I operate on the basis of usually saying what I think and greatly appreciate others who do the same. That generally polarises people, and I quickly know rather they are potential friend or foe. That is a big part of why I like Trump. I have an innate distrust of smooth talking glad handers (like Obama).

    I also find Trump leading the masses around by their nose one tweet at a time. That is really funny, even funnier is that while they are chasing their tails, Trump is appointing judges and skewering them in so many ways. The embassy was a dozie, from left field.

OT: Another #NeverTrump Pharisee David French, who uncritically believes all charges against Trump because #FrenchBeSooperChristian, is twisting himself into a pretzel to explain away William Jefferson Clinton’s verbal gymnastics over Jeff Epstein.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CindyCoops/status/1148462726106116097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1148462726106116097&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F

Well, this circumstance is still the same as what existed in 2016: All the alternatives are definitively and certainly worse.

And, it turns out that Donald Trump is, taking everything about his performance in office into account, pretty damn good!

Donald Trump has been delivering in ways conservatives would want from a conservative president.

Personally, I’ve gone from, “I’m for him because he’s not Hillary” to “I just plain want Trump to be president right through 2024.”

    OnPoint in reply to Ira. | July 10, 2019 at 12:02 am

    I’m very similar. I was not Never Trump but I was definitely Trump skeptical. I was a Cruz guy and my standard comment to Trump supporting friends was, “I understand Trump’s appeal and he’s right in his identification of the problem, but I don’t think he’s the answer.” Mostly, that was driven by my skepticism that he was really in any way conservative. I figured he’d get the office and then become the bastard love child of John Boehner and Jeff Flake. So, in 2016, I didn’t vote for anybody for President (I did vote, but not for President). But that hasn’t happened. And he’s been undeservedly assaulted from every direction. So, now, I’m not just going to vote for Trump, I’m **enthusiastically** voting for Trump. He’s delivered far more reliably than Bush, Boehner, Ryan, Romney, Collins, and a long list of other GOP idiots. The economy is roaring. He’s actually making progress with the NorKs. He’s got China over a barrel. And then Gorsuch (Kavanaugh was unfairly smeared but he’s more similar to Roberts and therefore a “meh” in my book). I’m almost tired of so much #winning. But not quite. The one thing that scares me is identifying who can carry things forward in 2024? This is a real problem.

For all the dire predictions about Trump, he comes of way better than his enemies in terms of being genuine, transparent, tough, and caring for the country and all its people as a leader should.

The resistance has become scary, with the help of big tech and SJW’s. But it may pale in comparison to the resistance they may be in store for.

One day anti-Trumpers may kick themselves in the lost opportunity they had to work with a deal maker builder whose primary goal is to further the American interest.

There is an interesting debate on where America is in New Testament Biblical prophesy…..namely when the nation’s of the world descend upon Israel to destroy the Jewish State. For some, there is no mention because America is powerless, but seeing these times…a dread that America is one of the nations plotting against Israel and against G_d. Even taken on a secular basis, the devaluing of human life and attack on liberty are popular by those touting “progressive humanism” . It’s all perversion of morals. Some days I just want to move to Israel to be on the front lines in the real struggle .

    JusticeDelivered in reply to alaskabob. | July 10, 2019 at 1:37 pm

    I have known some really nasty characters who professed to be religious and also humanists who other than belief in god would otherwise fit in very well with real Christians. In fact, I think that Christians would accept them.

    The real problem are Muslims and socialists and those people who buy socialism BS.

Comanche Voter | July 10, 2019 at 12:35 am

The Never Trumpers, the left, the progressives, the “resistance” et al absolutely refuse to recognize that the 2016 voters were faced with two very flawed candidates.

Trump is a pussy grabbing, Twitter mouthing, bragging blowhard. And those are his good points. But he did like America and Americans.

On offer on the other side was a lying, sneering corrupt politician trailing enough ethical baggage to fill a stolen 747. She had contempt for a good 50% of the American population and expressed it.

Now between these two weasels who will you choose?

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Comanche Voter. | July 10, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    Show me a man or woman that are not grabbing each other in the right circumstances. Trump’s bragging is self promotion, something which every politician is doing. What I was looking for was a politician who would actually follow through on their promises, and in that regard, Trump has really performed. I am results oriented, don’t care much about personality.

I’m pretty damn tired of everything needing that “of course Trump’s a flawed person” bullshit tacked on. What are we comparing him to? FDR? JFK? Clinton? Obama? In such company, DJT is a bloody saint. So let’s knock off all the shabby lip service to the puerile claims that he’s some sort of bum. That crap was inappropriate two years ago, and it gets sillier by the day.

Michael Anton spent much of 2016 filling in intellectual reasonings as “Decius Mus,” to convince the world that Donald Trump has a plan that somehow finds its way outside the world of his severe egotism. If the world discovers a mobster in place of a president then it is the opposition lying, not deliberate treasonous acts despite 141 meetings with Russians.

No, conservative principles are not wrong and constantly attacking Trump’s hot subjects over and over is not leading a nation. Controversy as a means to stir the pot is tiresome. Perhaps Louis MacNeice got the Trump presidency right 80 years ago:

Sleep, my darling, sleep;
The pity of it all
Is all we compass if
We watch disaster fall.
Put off your twenty-odd
Encumbered years and creep
Into the only heaven,
The robbers’ cave of sleep.

The wild grass will whisper,
Lights of passing cars
Will streak across your dreams
And fumble at the stars;
Life will tap the window
Only too soon again,
Life will have her answer –
Do not ask her when.
When the winsome bubble
Shivers, when the bough
Breaks, will be the moment
But not here or now.
Sleep and, asleep, forget
The watchers on the wall
Awake all night who know
The pity of it all.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | July 10, 2019 at 7:45 am

It’s not hard to see why Evangelicals supported Trump. As Sean Trende observed, just since 2012 Democrats and liberals have:

“Booed the inclusion of God in their platform at the 2012 convention (this is disputed, but it is the perception); endorsed a regulation that would allow transgendered students to use the bathroom and locker room corresponding to their identity; attempted to force small businesses to cover drugs they believe induce abortions; attempted to force nuns to provide contraceptive coverage; forced Brendan Eich to step down as chief executive officer of Mozilla due to his opposition to marriage equality; fined a small Christian bakery over $140,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding; vigorously opposed a law in Indiana that would provide protections against similar regulations – despite having overwhelmingly supported similar laws when they protected Native American religious rights – and then scoured the Indiana countryside trying to find a business that would be affected by the law before settling upon a small pizza place in the middle of nowhere and harassing the owners. In 2015, the United States solicitor general suggested that churches might lose their tax exempt status if they refused to perform same-sex marriages. In 2016, the Democratic nominee endorsed repealing the Hyde Amendment, thereby endorsing federal funding for elective abortions.”

Going back further, in 1962 Hugo Black decided saying a prayer in a public school is unconstitutional and in 1973 Harry Blackmun invented a constitutional right to abortion.

And that’s just for starters. I could keep going.

So we are doing now poetry.

Sweeet and proper it is.
is.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

The death of the ball turret gunner.

https://poets.org/poem/death-ball-turret-gunner

I sm so cheerful.

    Tom Servo in reply to Arminius. | July 10, 2019 at 9:37 am

    if we’re doing depressing poetry, might as well go for the best:

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

      Spurius in reply to Tom Servo. | July 10, 2019 at 4:33 pm

      Yeats was so prescient that I am still amazed every time I read that. It is depressing – it was written in 1919, after the horrors of WWI, when the Irish Rebellion had begun. But I think it is highly accurate in its description of a disintegrating political and social order.

      Unfortunately, he was right to be so worried and dramatic – Lenin was in power, and soon after the poem was written Stalin and Hitler came along. Yeats died in 1939; sadly, he lived long enough to see his prophecy come true, but not long enough to see the victory of the Allies over Hitler.

      Now it feels as if we are in a similar sort of time – the forces of chaos are on the move, but they will be defeated.

2smartforlibs | July 10, 2019 at 8:30 am

No nation no FREEBEES

“Many evangelical Christians are also filled with grievances and resentments because they feel they have been mocked, scorned, and dishonored by the elite culture over the years.”

FEEL?

No, we HAVE been outrightly mocked. Pick up any newspaper, on any given day, you will have your answer right there.

Albigensian | July 10, 2019 at 9:46 am

“The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing developments of the Trump era.”

Perhaps Trump has some uncritical enthusiasts among white evangelicals; nonetheless, it would seem more accurate to say he has strong support because white evangelicals are (not unreasonably) concerned about restrictions the Trump-alternatives may place on the free exercise of religion.

And perhaps the other freedoms mentioned in that Amendment (freedom of speech, freedom to peaceably assemble). At least a few may see a newly militant secular socialism as the moral equivalent of religion, and fear its potential to become the Established religion.

In short, there are plenty of rational reasons for evangelicals to support Trump, and little evidence that this support is “uncritical” or even particularly enthusiastic (as opposed to merely necessary, aka “Flight 93”).

Of course, Peter Wehner is an author and presumably understands the importance of setting up some dramatic tension in the narrative (“Evangelicals abandon social conservatism to follow Trump!”), but, I don’t see that he supports the assertions behind that narrative.

The US president in recent history who comes the closest to following the Ten Commandments–with some gray areas on 8 and 10–is Jimmy Carter. I don’t believe that I’d want either one for a friend, but as far as national leadership, I’ll take Trump.

    Barry in reply to farmermom. | July 10, 2019 at 8:30 pm

    “with some gray areas”

    I’ll say, gray as in black. Carter supports slavery as long as it has a “legal” framework.

Funny, I don’t remember any navel-gazing articles about how the feminists wholeheartedly endorsed Clinton despite his record of sexual predation against women.

WAIT… who voted for Trump in 2016 and is NOT happy with what they are getting? I have not met a single Trump voter who regrets their vote.

NEXT: Every sane Trump hater I know is pretty darn happy with their daily existence (except Health insurance).

I’d argue the haters have the microphones, the happy people ain’t buying it.

They won’t say it out loud, but they know damn well who brought the record high employment and economic prosperity.

    I’ve seen commentary from people who claimed to have voted for him and been disappointed, but nowhere near as often as I see comments from people who didn’t vote for him in 2016 but wish they had, and plan to in 2020.

RandomCrank | July 10, 2019 at 1:36 pm

The writing style was typical old-school conservative intellectual: turgid to nearly the point of impenetrability, but I have to say that once I waded through all the debris I thought it made a good point.

BerettaTomcat | July 11, 2019 at 2:57 am

The anti-American coalition can be identified by 2016 electio. exit polls. The following demographic groups voted for Clinton over Trump by a margin of at least 2:1 —

– Democrats, 11.1:1
– Blacks, 11.1:1
– liberals, 8.4:1
– Jews, 3.1:1
– atheists, 2.7:1
– Latinos, 2.4:1
– immigrants, 2.1:1
– Asians, 1.8:1.

EuripidesSmythe | July 11, 2019 at 7:48 am

I expect those numbers to decline in 2020 for each group except for Muslims and, perhaps, liberals. As for liberals — those who are illiberal leftists will vote for the Dems 100%. But the true liberals today are the conservatives, of which I am one — our individual freedoms are protected by the Constitution and must remain so!

    BerettaTomcat in reply to EuripidesSmythe. | July 12, 2019 at 1:03 am

    Recent history doesn’t provide much hope. Take the Jewish vote in 2012 vs 2008. Almost all US Jews are Ashkenazim, by far the most intelligent of the Jewish subethnicities. Jews voted for Obama over McCain by 3.5:1 in 2008. Any voter with a triple digit IQ knew by 2012 that the natural-born British East African was a pro-Islamic, anti-Israel, anti-American usurper, but Jews still voted for him over Romney by 2.3:1.

    History leads me to believe the stauchly anti-American factions will remain anti-Americans.

Sparaticus Apocalyptus | July 11, 2019 at 12:07 pm

Re: “the sense that we are losing control of our own country, by the design of politicians.”

It would be more correct to say “by the pedo-blackmailed and ideological complicity of politicians controlled by deep state factions run by a cabal of very old money banking, occult power seeking families whose spiritual affinity with Lucifer / Satanos / Baal / Molech motivates them and their network of secret societies, cadres in intel agencies, and globalist organizations to pursue a world government run by a mystical leader who is the putative incarnation of their rebellious, humanity and God hating subdeity.

Whether it’s enough to overcome the built-in Democrat advantage in the Electoral College and media remains to be seen.

This comment made sense in 2016 but it doesn’t after Trump got 306 EV in 2016.

What is with our side that even in the face of success we can’t see anything but doom and gloom?

The problem is for the Democrats who need to convince voters to witch in 2020 when it is even more obvious than in 2016 that they shouldn’t.