Trump is no Triumph

                             by Kenneth Bagnell

      It will take much more than historians to explain Donald Trump’s ascendency to the world’s most influential office: President of the United States. His track record is, to put it modestly, embarrassing; he has been, all reports say, guilty of many sexual assaults on women, he has uttered in public, vulgar, racist and thereby divisive references to those citizens who happen to be Muslim. As if this were not enough, his business reputation, to those who know it, is not at all impressive: going from bankruptcy to bankruptcy, accompanied by almost 4,000 legal actions in court. It goes on and on. And yet he is now President Elect of the United States.

        This morning, (November 13) the world’s most respected English newspaper, The New York Times, said this in its lead editorial: “Here is what we do know: We know Mr. Trump is the most unprepared president-elect in modern history. We know that by words and actions, he has shown himself to be temperately unfit to lead a diverse nation of 320 million people. We know he has threatened to prosecute and jail his political opponents and he has said he would curtail the freedom of the press. We know he lies without compunction.” (It calls Hitler to mind.) Moreover, his abuse of women is well known, his prejudice against Muslims is commonplace, and as The Times editorial puts it: “he has recruited as his allies a dark combination of racists, white supremacists and anti-Semites.” How can a democracy perform as a democracy when its leader is cut from this cloth? I suggest it cannot.        

      For those who are practicing Christians, it is almost humiliating to acknowledge that his major backers were active evangelical Christians, the very citizens who, knowing his ethical and moral record, should have been wary of him.  Instead they became the engine of his political campaign. (As for his own faith background it is long gone, though he tried first to claim he belonged to Marble Collegiate Church in New York. When they denied it he had his handlers say that he was affiliated with New York’s Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church. (The fact is that Dr. George Arthur Buttrick – – one of history’s finest preachers –performed his parent’s marriage in 1936. That’s it.)

       In any case, a man named Ralph Reed, with long experience in the conservative Christian culture, met up with Trump when he gave his speech to a group of evangelicals, Reed was very impressed. He believed — for whatever reason, I wonder – that people of faith would support him. Anyway that’s how the affiliation got its start. In any case, a day or so after the Trump victory, the ever accurate news organization, Religion News Service, reported: “Had evangelical Christians stayed home on Election Day – ‘or if the Rapture occurred’ – Donald Trump would have lost the 2016 presidential election by a landslide, according to Ralph Reed, by then founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.” So there’s the bottom line. RNS continues: “As it is, white evangelicals made up a little more than a quarter of those who turned out to cast their ballots. So by winning 81 percent of their vote, Trump was assured the presidency.” I can understand the cynicism of many:  a man who chased women, groped them, went from bankruptcy to bankruptcy has become the occupant of the most influential position in the entire world. It doesn’t warm the heart or strengthen the confidence.

      So what does it actually mean? I truly expect trouble.  As we all now know, the angry crowds have assembled, the United States has become more divided, so that much of the evangelical community is actually put off. Why? If you’ve given observation and thought to the campaign you’ll know that a fair number of the evangelical leaders and writers, didn’t go along with the wholesale backing of Trump. They were right. So, those who did back him –high profile sons of Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, and of course Ralph Reed — are not representative of the whole evangelical community. I’d guess that the more scholarly sophisticated – in theology and sociology – were against what the others did.

     For instance, Phillip Yancey, an author of many Christian books, put it in a few sensible words: “How can evangelicals support someone who stands against everything Christianity believes?” And Mark DeMoss, a professional media person, who was once chief of staff to Jerry Falwell, Sr. was equally insightful: “The evangelical movement has, in my view, forfeited any future moral authority in American public life.” Then, two magazines published, including the major one, Christianity Today, agreed with what the two men said. The first magazine commented: “Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord.” The second, entitled World, put it more gently: “We know that our suggestion that Mr. Trump should step aside will dismay many of his evangelical supporters…” In turn this brought on a sensitive but divisive culture within the evangelical community, the affect yet to be seen.

    So we all know only too well, that Donald Trump, is President Elect. We wonder what it all will mean not just for Americans, not just for Canadians, but perhaps for the world. That will have to wait until he’s in office and issues begin to unfold. I was reminded by The Toronto Star that women have a special response to Donald Trump, especially when he’s in the world’s most influential position. Actually I don’t feel comfortable with these two sentences from the editorial but The Star has Canada’s largest circulation so I draw upon them: “The man who bragged about grabbing women by their genitals and boasted about his penis size is set to hold the highest office in the world. The man who has been accused of assault by more than a dozen women will hold power over the lives of the more than 50 percent of the US.” What a situation!     

                      0000000000000000

Past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.