Praise the Lord (Trump)

I try not to have disdain for Trump voters. (Ignore the fact that in my other blog today over in Isthmus I said that I couldn’t understand how anybody with an ounce of moral sense or half a brain could vote for that guy. I try. I don’t always succeed.) My view is that disdain doesn’t help. What’s important is that we try to better understand what’s driving this broader hard-right populism that Trump embodies so well.

What I’m particularly interested in is the blue collar Trump vote. I don’t have any use for country club Republicans who vote for him because they think he’ll cut their taxes or because they’re so goofed on Fox News that they’ve convinced themselves that somehow Joe Biden is worse than a guy who quotes Hitler.

But I grew up in a blue collar town and while I’ve spent my adult life in the center of Subaru (an update on limousine) liberal land I still have plenty of West Allis in me.

So I read with a lot of interest a recent New York Times story (because who understands blue collar voters in the Midwest better than the New York Times?) about why evangelical voters in Iowa are so devoted to Trump, despite his lifestyle which is somewhat less than exemplary and no expressed interest on his part in finding salvation. (Not every blue collar voter is an evangelical Christian, of course, but they make up a big part of that demographic.)

I think the explanation is credible. It goes like this. In the 1980’s evangelicals discarded any pretense about separation of church and state. They went all in on politics. But they were church goers. They took their lead from power brokers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the like.

What’s changed is that a lot of evangelicals have become DIY believers. They don’t belong to organized churches anymore. Instead they might listen to podcasts or tune in to online preachers, but the power brokers have been subverted. They go directly to Trump for both their beliefs and their politics. Church and state have been united in the Orange One. A thing is right because Trump says it is. If a spiritual leader disagreed with Trump, they’d attack or dump the leader for deviating from the Word according to him.

What’s also changed are the issues. Polls now show that evangelical voters are not that concerned about abortion (perhaps because they won at the Supreme Court) and other issues of “morality.” Their top issue is immigration.

It’s hard-right identity politics. Evangelicals see themselves (not their former churches) as the true rulers of America and they are deeply threatened and frightened by their loss of control. Trump reassures them that they’re right to feel entitled and under attack and he promises to be their protector.

Which accounts for the recent turn to even more scary, harsh language, echoing Adolf Hitler in some cases, about not just victory in November, but retribution thereafter. In fact, at the end of the Times story an Iowa free-lance preacher is quoted as saying, “This election is part of a spiritual battle. When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”

In the days of Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan the most progressive and open-minded evangelicals were willing to accept non-Christian, non-white people as guests in their homeland. Now they see their homeland being over-run by people who are not them. Thus the language about retribution and taking things back.

This take on the world is factually correct and morally wrong. Conservative white Christians are, in fact, loosing their hold on politics and culture. In fact, they fight so hard in politics because they’ve been completely routed in the culture.

The whole point of America is to not be about blood and soil. Americans aren’t defined by religion, race or language. But Trump has imported a European style national identity populism to the United States. It’s just about the most un-American thing I can think of.

Usually, the point of my trying to understand Trump voters is to try to figure out how to win over some of them or, failing that, keep them less motivated to vote for him. In this case, I don’t have much of a strategy. If you really believe America is for white Christians, well. I can’t say I want to belong to a party that wants to appeal to you in the first place.

The best I can do is to offer up a suggestion as to how the liberal elites, who just fan the problem, can be set back a bit. I’ve long advocated for the development of an organized moderate sub-party within the Democratic Party. Those Moderate Democrats would push the popular parts of the party’s agenda (e.g., protecting Social Security, expanding Medicare, abortion rights) while downplaying or rejecting the unpopular parts (e.g., affirmative action, DEI, transgender athletes).

The only other hope I can offer is mortality. Trump will not live forever. And when he’s gone there’s nobody quite like him (thank God). He is a unique “talent” and I don’t think he can be replaced. Nobody fans the flames of resentment, hatred and retribution quite like Donald Trump. I just wish the embers weren’t there to be kindled in the first place.