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I’m just old enough to remember Donald Trump as a pop culture icon of the 1980s. Bombastic, materialistic, womanizing. Where Ronald Reagan represented the bourgeois conventions and down-home demeanor of his native Midwest, Donald Trump represented the bravado and greed of the Northeast. I’m not much for bravado and greed—not quite in line with the modesty and simplicity of my religion—so why would I support President Trump? Here’s why:
I believe the first order of business for anyone in Washington, D.C., is to undo socialism. Since 1848, socialism has been the primary means of eliminating not only God but the human soul from any consideration when determining what government will do to and for its people. I’m not talking about prayer in school or politicians showing up for photo ops in front of a church on Sunday morning. I mean acknowledging that this world was created with a God-given nature that we have to understand and work with if we want to make anything good happen in it. I mean acknowledging people as something more than economic units. Socialism denies both of these. It is the ultimate social construct, built on unrealities and appeals to grievance and entitlement. In the end, socialism becomes its own sort of religion, one that makes government bureaucracy into a church and entitled individuals and special-interest groups into gods.
Donald Trump seems more serious about undoing American socialism than anyone since Ronald Reagan, and really, he strikes me as more serious about it than even Reagan was. As a traditional Christian, am I expected to be opposed to Trump because he’s bombastic, materialistic, and womanizing? Look, I wouldn’t want him for my pastor, I wouldn’t want him for an in-law, I doubt I’d even want him for a neighbor (although I suspect he’d make a good drinking buddy). But because socialism (or whatever it’s calling itself today–progressivism, liberalism, secularism, globalism etc.) is our primary political threat, I’m glad to have him for a president.
The fact is, the past year has surprised me. I expected Trump to drive liberals crazy (reason enough to vote for him) and undermine as much of their designs as possible for at least four years, but he has done more than that. He has over the last year expressed more ideals than I ever would have thought he had. He actually seems to believe that America is a people and place rather than just a world HQ for some mishmash of competing and contradictory ideologies and business interests. He talks like a real person. Even as he tweets in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, his work seems to stay focused on his own priorities without regard to the blowing of the wind that comes from the news media.
Quite frankly, if you’re shocked that Donald Trump is crude in his speech, unashamed in his support of big business, and a cad with women, you’re a moron. He has been consistent and more or less open about who he is for decades, and I for one have far more suspicions about wealthy people who got their money while serving in public office (like, say, the Obamas and Clintons) than I do any businessman.
Elections aren’t popularity contests, nor are they canonizations. There are, no doubt, better Christians for whom to vote, but I don’t really care. In fact, I question whether or not any truly virtuous person would even run for national office, so my assumption as soon as you announce your candidacy is that you’re no saint. A saint would never run nor get elected. Instead, I want someone whose going to undo the stranglehold socialism, and the toxic political correctness that has attached itself to socialism, has had on my country for my entire life.
Ultimately, I’d like a nation where the organic connections of family and community are allowed to flourish. I’d like to see a government that focuses on infrastructure, defense, and diplomacy rather than social engineering. I’d like to see the socialist mania that sees everything through the prism of class conflict banished in favor of an outlook that sees the need and the possibility for class cooperation. I don’t know that President Trump would or could ever deliver on any of that. However, I do know that not until American socialism is undone will those ideals have any chance of success. That’s why this traditional Christian supports the president.
Deplorable Me 