(photo: Marek Studzinski, Unsplash)
(Well not me, personally, but Mike Judge, Editor of Evangelical Times who has just posted this excellent piece on their website.)
It’s bonfire night here in the UK, and this article may just blow up in my face. So let me say, right off the bat, that I’m flying solo on this one. This article does not necessarily reflect the editorial line of ET. And I haven’t discussed the matter with the board of directors. It’s my personal view. We will see if I’m still in the editor’s seat after this has gone live. Hopefully they will forgive me for wading into the choppy waters of the US election.
So here goes. If I were voting in the US election I’d vote for… well, I’ll come to that. I was listening to an interesting podcast recently where one US political commentator was asked whom she thought would win and whom did she want to win. She said she was still an undecided voter and that, as decision day is now upon her, her ‘fears’ about who will win probably reveal where her head and her heart really are at.
She had been a Democrat voter in previous elections. But she said the party had gone so far into progressive la-la land with all of its woke nonsense that she could not bring herself to vote for them now. In ordinary circumstances, that would lead her to vote Republican. But these are not ordinary times. She said Trump — with his payment to a porn star and his appalling behaviour on 6 January 2021 — put him beyond the pale. So which one does she fear the most, a Democrat White House, or a Trump Presidency?
For what its worth, we ought to remember that the last Trump Presidency was not nearly as bad as the mainstream told us it would be. World War Three did not kick off, as some people insisted would happen. He took a strong line against Iran and North Korea. When it comes to US foreign policy, Trump doesn’t want US troops getting embroiled in overseas actions that they can’t get out of. If he wins this 2024 election, he says he can broker a deal in Ukraine and he has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel.
Domestically, during his previous time in the White House, he was a strong advocate of religious freedom and he appointed pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. That court later overturned Roe v. Wade, giving each individual state the power to decide their own laws on abortion. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has made abortion a central part of her 2024 election campaign, vowing to restore abortion rights nationwide.
I’m a conservative on many of the social issues that are debated in our culture. So I doubt it would come as a shock to learn that, on those issues, I’m more aligned with the Republicans than the Democrats. But my commitment to those conservative social issues also means that the moral character of political candidates matters a great deal to me. I’m not so naïve as to believe I’ll find a politician who’s purer than the driven snow. I know I have to compromise to some extent. But there’s a limit.
For me, Trump goes beyond that limit. Well beyond. His comments about grabbing women’s bodies, then dismissing it as ‘locker room talk’; his dodgy payment to a porn star; his unashamed narcissism; the way he pressured Mike Pence to throw out the 2020 presidential election results; his behaviour on 6 January 2021 which certainly did nothing to stop the assault on the US Capitol — all these things and more tell me I couldn’t vote for Trump.
It’s no good we, as evangelicals, telling the world that morality matters and then aligning ourselves with a man like Trump. Does that mean evangelicals shouldn’t vote for him? No, I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think I would vote for him, but I do understand why others would. There’s a difference between voting for him while holding your nose and voting for him with gusto. And I think for US evangelicals who are in swing states, you may feel a greater responsibility to cast your vote for the more conservative ticket.
For us evangelicals here in the UK, it’s difficult to make a true assessment. So much coverage of US politics comes to us through the filter of a progressive mainstream media. Yet I’ve seen enough of Trump to know that I could not — in good conscience — vote for him. But I’ve also seen enough of Harris’s policies to know that I couldn’t vote for her either. That bothers me, because I believe in the importance of voting and I’ve very little patience for people who take the easy option of sitting on the fence. But I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for either of them. So, who will win? We will find out soon enough. And I’ll find out whether I still have the job of ET Editor.”
Speaking personally – me, JB – that is, I completely agree with Mike and am glad that in practice I don’t have to make that decision; though if I did I would almost certainly write on my ballot paper ‘none of the above’, which is what I have in the UK for some time. I couldn’t support either of the US main candidates and am troubled by Christians who will vote for Trump because of his policies but ignore his personality. This man is a pathological liar, a womaniser, a sexual offender and a narcissist, just to name a few major flaws, and if he can’t be trusted – as he clearly can’t – how do you know he will actually implement the policies he is promoting? Character is far more important than competency or chemistry in my opinion and on that point alone Trump fails big time.