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French, White Evangelicals, and Donald Trump
I enjoyed reading David French’s columns and musings at National Review. I looked forward to reading his perspective on everything from law to religion. I still enjoy reading much of what he writes.
However, the 2016 presidential campaign and election had a demonstrable effect on French; it changed him. It changed a lot of us, truthfully. Many thought and felt that the country had two less-than-desirable choices on the ballot for president. Frankly, for the center-left, voting for its candidate was a no-brainer. For the center-right, the decision was not so easy. In addition to his recent conversion to Republican politics, there were legitimate questions regarding Donald Trump’s understanding and commitment to what remains of Republican principles as well as questions concerning his personal character, his temperament, and his ability to lead in a role that was outside of his purview.
Despite these and other legitimate concerns regarding the costs of a Donald Trump presidency, he won the election — thanks in large part to the support of white Evangelicals. Christian support for Donald Trump has wedged itself deeply under David French’s skin and he’s (figuratively) spilled loads of ink letting everyone know about his disgust for his fellow white Evangelicals.
Writing at The Dispatch, French has penned a number of pieces castigating his fellow Christians for supporting and defending Donald Trump. In full transparency, I share some of his concerns regarding the unwillingness and apprehension of Evangelicals (and MAGA world, generally) to publicly hold President Trump accountable when he errs. Over the last four years, it would’ve been in the best interest of the president — and our country — had both groups spoken up sooner and more frequently to let the president know that support didn’t equal a blank check. It would have made President Trump a more reliable and consistent leader.
Having said that, French has taken a professional Never Trump stance to use as a bludgeon against fellow Christians. He misses few chances in letting the public know his feelings about white Evangelicals that continue to support Donald Trump.
Here’s a recent piece posted this past week on The French Press.
The first portion is fairly legit. Though I think the video announcement is fairly clear, French questions how Albert Mohler, the potential next president of the Southern Baptist Convention, could endorse Donald Trump in this year’s election — specifically when he didn’t support Donald Trump in 2016.
French writes:
In 2016, he was consistent with his denomination’s clear and unequivocal statement about the importance of moral character in public officials. He has now decisively changed course.
In 1998—during Bill Clinton’s second term—the Southern Baptist Convention declared that “tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment” and therefore urged “all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character.”
Mohler so clearly recognized the applicability of those words that he said, “If I were to support, much less endorse Donald Trump for president, I would actually have to go back and apologize to former President Bill Clinton.” I do wonder if Mohler will apologize. He absolutely should.
Though Mohler discusses the overall character deficits of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, I think French misses a few things in this comparison. French doesn’t clarify the difference between the evangelical condemnation of former President Bill Clinton and the lack of evangelical condemnation of President Donald Trump.
The personal fouls and unforced errors committed since President Trump has been in office, though not excusable, are not of the same standard as those committed by Bill Clinton when he was in office. It’s a distinction with an important difference. The comparison, here, is with the moral offenses committed while in office (hence, the citation of Bill Clinton’s second term). To be consistent, we have to then compare both presidents to what they’ve done while in office.
Among many, many other indiscretions, Bill Clinton had an extramarital relationship and deliberately lied to the public about it. Clinton also lied under oath during his civil case — he denied the affair, the relationship, and that he had sexual relations with his intern; he lied under oath during grand jury testimony about his sexual relationship with his intern; he obstructed justice and persuaded his former intern to lie under oath, and was also guilty of witness tampering.
Many of the offenses that Donald Trump has committed in office haven’t (or haven’t yet) reached Clinton’s level of sinfulness (if one can use that term). Again, I’m not excusing the current president for the growing list of transgressions he’s committed (macro or micro). I’m simply highlighting the difference between the two, demonstrating why the comparison fails. All sins aren’t the same. For good reason, the Bible goes to great lengths to educate its readers about the gradations of sins — the severity of which, if not immediately obvious, are seen in the varying consequences of and responses to those sins. For example, the penalty for murder is death. Conversely, the penalty for unintentional killing (negligence that leads to killing, manslaughter) is expulsion to a city of refuge — ending only when the high priest in office at the time of the killing dies.
Additionally, I don’t remember reading French conceding the difficulty of choosing between Donald Trump and Hillary in 2016. He has repeatedly minimized or ignored the inconvenience many Christians endured as they thoughtfully contemplated and ultimately decided between the two broadly unlikeable candidates. However, in this particular piece, it’s the closest French has come to acknowledging that struggle. He says,
The role of the people of God in political life is so much more difficult and challenging than merely listing a discrete subset of issues (even when those issues are important!) and supporting anyone who agrees to your list. The prophet Jeremiah exhorted the people of Israel to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.”
Yes, David, it is, and thanks for finally acknowledging the obvious. It was a challenge and it remains a challenge. Many Evangelicals, realizing that if they voted, had a choice between bad and worse. Consequently, many thoughtfully prayed, fasted, read their Bibles, studied Christian history, sought counsel from clergy and fellow believers — and still, prayed more. In essence, for many white Evangelicals, choosing Trump, warts and all, was “seeking the welfare” of the country so that they may also “have welfare (or as the NIV translates it, “…Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”).
Moreover, Christians and Evangelicals thought about the ramifications of voting for either candidate or not voting at all. French generally flouts this process. He’s flippant when it comes to why white Evangelicals, despite the president’s personal flaws, continue to support him. He disparages his fellow Evangelicals in ways that demonstrate a clear and consistent lack of Christian grace but also in ways that he hasn’t nor wouldn’t address black Christians regarding their vote for — and support of — former President Barack Obama.
And that’s one of the areas where he’s undermined his witness on Christian political activity and accountability — his differing standards between black and white Christians. French holds black Christians to a much lower moral standard than he does white Evangelicals. Black Christians deliberately and recurrently have escaped his admonitions. In this post, he stresses black Christian religiosity but only as a cudgel against white Evangelicals and the latter’s support of Trump.
Again, French has never taken black Christians to task for supporting Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) the way he does with white Evangelicals and Trump (if he has to the same extent, my apologies to him). I would like to know why — specifically in light of the fact that he openly speculated as to what Obama’s true “religious” beliefs were.
Obama was a self-identified Christian who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church — Trinity United Church of Christ (Chicago, Ill.) — for 20 years. Barack and Michelle Obama were married by Wright; Obama had his daughters baptized by Wright, used Trinity’s congregation to launch his political career, and who — again, as a self-identified Christian — passed and supported policies and positions that stood in clear and direct contradiction to the Bible and orthodox Christianity. Why didn’t David French loudly and consistently question or condemn black Christians for continuing to support Barack Obama? Why didn’t French rebuke black Christians for forming a cult around him and his leadership? Did he ever implore black Christians to speak up and hold Obama accountable? Did he write numerous pieces on why black Christians were obligated to forfeit their support of Barack Obama or risk losing moral and religious credibility? Did black Christians abandon “the character test” like their white Evangelical counterparts? Were they ever in danger of forfeiting their “competence” like white Evangelicals?
I think French would have established more credibility (again, on this issue) had he held his fellow Christians who’re black to the same religious standard he holds white Evangelicals. There would’ve been some consistency in his position.
Then, there’s this:
And please Christians, do not run back to arguments about “binary choice.” When I walk into the voting booth (or mail in my ballot), I will see more than two names. I’ll also have a choice to write in a name. I will not have to compromise my convictions to cast a vote for president.
This has always been a less than persuasive argument to me. Of course, one can write in and vote for Mickey Mouse on the ballot.
But there are certain variables that exist that one must take into consideration if one wants to throw away one’s vote to maintain, in this case, a sense of moral superiority. One variable is who’s also on the ballot running for office, here, the presidency. This is particularly important if and when a notable third-party candidate is running and from whom this third-party candidate will siphon votes. Not actively voting for one of the two major candidates is passively a vote in favor of the other.
He continues:
If you do, however, want to revert to the language of “binary choice,” we need to examine the larger context. In January the nation faced a different kind of binary choice. It was, quite simply, “Trump or Pence.” When the president was impeached after he clearly attempted to condition vital military aid to an ally on a demand for a politically motivated investigation of a political opponent and on a demand to investigate a bizarre conspiracy theory, white Evangelicals had a decision to make.
They chose Trump.
They chose Trump when they would have certainly sought to impeach and convict a Democrat under similar facts.
This, too, is unpersuasive. His position underlies many assumptions that Trump was deserving of impeachment based on information contained in the transcript of a phone call between him and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In my opinion, and not having voted for Donald Trump, I didn’t think there was enough in that transcript that qualified as a “high crime” or “misdemeanor,” and I certainly didn’t think it justified impeachment, much less conviction and removal.
Second, David French is right: it was a binary choice, but not between “Trump or Pence.” It was between supporting the flagrant use of impeachment as a political tool to remove an elected president for partisan reasons and not using impeachment for politically partisan reasons, full stop. To use that embarrassing episode to reinforce an already flimsy argument against the “binary choice” argument, and to further diminish white Evangelicals, missed the mark.
Look, I get it. David French has a severe loathing for Donald Trump. In the professional and credentialed class, he’s certainly not alone. But his animosity for Donald Trump has negatively affected his judgment and conduct toward his fellow white Evangelicals.
On this issue, he lacks distinguishable Christian love when addressing them but particularly when mocking them. I admit that French may be sincerely concerned with the reputation and credibility of white Evangelicals and Christian political witness. But the way he communicates his concern looks like a white Evangelical more concerned with self/moral preservation — actively trying to distance himself from the stigma of Donald Trump. In doing so, his critiques come across as if to be saying, “I’m not like those Evangelicals. I’m a real Christian because I condemn Trump and those so-called Evangelicals who support him.”
When white Evangelicals have called him out on social media for his lack of objectivity and incivility toward them, he seems reluctant to address these objections maturely. Several times, even after respectful inquiry, engagement, and push back asking him to defend or clarify his position(s), he’s un-friended them. I’ve seen it and have been disheartened by it.
In his critiques going forward, as I’m sure there will be more, I hope David French offers a bit more Christian charity as he challenges his fellow white Evangelicals.
Published in Politics
I’m surprised we got 9 pages in before all of this started. We have grown, as a community.
I appreciate that you realize the error on French’s part here, but I am surprised it took so long to get you here.
You thought, all these months, one thing, and now realize the truth is another, on this specific subject. Do you see why we don’t want French informing anyone’s opinion about Trump?
That’s getting emailed to people…
It would probably had taken a lot sooner if Trump’s Charlottesville comments were the subject here, but they weren’t.
But I didn’t “think one thing” about this all these months – this isn’t a subject I’ve given any thought to at all. Yes, I’ve been aware of the controversy, but I didn’t look into it. Why? Because I have a husband who is in the late stages of congestive heart failure. Frequent hospitalizations are a way of life for us, and months would go by before I darkened the doors of Ricochet. Add to that my husband’s traumatic brain injury (from a fall that happened, fortunately, at the main entrance of the Mayo Clinic – the best place to sustain a brain injury!), resulting in a hospital stay of a month; a washing machine malfunction that left our kitchen and laundry room gutted for six months. Last month featured a helicopter ride for my husband to the Mayo Clinic, in addition to two hospitalizations . Oh, and then I got diagnosed with breast cancer and just had a lumpectomy. I have a lot on my plate…
Got it.
Agreed – I tend to get that way when people are rude to me.
I remember reading the Jimmy Carter interview in Playboy. I think that’s where he admitted he had lust for other women at times. Oh, the scandal! I have no idea what that month’s centerfold looked like, or her name, or what she studied in college. Is that wrong? Maybe David French could tell me.
They had many interesting people in interviews. They weren’t afraid of controversial subjects. They had funny cartoons and other articles of interest. But yes, it’s an easy joke to say someone claims to buy Playboy for the articles.
I believe Playboy stopped the naked-lady thing years ago, and still remains in business. In my opinion, that’s because men saw enough naked ladies on TV and the internet. Mr. French included.
I stopped buying it – only in solidarity with the strong, talented women who missed the windfall profits and fame from being playmate of the month and missing out on all the fun at the mansion, of course.
Cosmopolitan has articles too. Mostly about pleasing men and looking good. No one talks much about that…
Here’s what makes that tougher to accept: I’m sure no one on the Right wanted Al Gore for President, but that didn’t stop criticism of Bush from the Right. Ditto with any other presidential line-up – most on the Right, even if they weren’t enthusiastic about the GOP candidate, still preferred them to anyone the Dems put up. But that didn’t stop anyone on the Right from criticizing their own candidates. But now it’s like some treasonous action to criticize Trump. I don’t like that.
Ok, and all due respect and concern to you for what you are going through with your husband and your own health stuff. I don’t mean to make light of that.
But…you do have time to come here and argue about all of this, and for some time now you’ve been arguing with at least one data point in mind that is false. Just like the who “inject yourself with bleach” is false. There are many many lies about Trump that French and media perpetrate. How many more lies inform your opinion about Trump? That’s the question you should ask yourself.
For my part, every time I hear someone say “Guess what Trump said NOW!” I think “Yeah, I’ll bet…” Because heretofore, most of the time it’s been either misquoted, mis-characterized, taken out of context, or just plain untrue.
Oh come ON! You and I both know that the criticism of Bush from the right is nothing like what is seen with Trump. AND none of those people who did criticize Bush also took after people who supported and defended him. Nobody I know, except people on the left, sneered at me the way French does when I said I was a Bush supporter.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I became a supporter of the President.
Every time I’d look up some crazy thing he supposedly said or did, it would turn out to be false, never happened, or extreme word-twisting by the media. I realized that my feelings about Candidate Trump were based on media reports about him, not because I was doing my own evaluation. Once I started listening to his speeches, I came to realize that there was a big difference between Donald Trump as he really was, and the media lies about him.
I’d sworn I would never vote for him. I changed my mind.
Of course, he has said some boneheaded stuff…but nothing that really matters.
I do now, though of course that could change. So what’s wrong with that?
If you’re referring to the Charlottesville controversy, it hasn’t been that relevant to the discussion of what French said about Evangelicals. If anything, I was even more focused on French’s criticism of Evangelical leaders, not on his more general comments, because I actually read what some of these guys said at the time of Clinton, and I thought French was right. Then Jim Beck pointed out that French should have spoken to these leaders privately – that that was more fitting for an Evangelical. So I took back my support for French’s method, though I still think those leaders were worthy of criticism.
In general, I don’t bother with the mainstream media at all. I assume their “reporting” isn’t reporting at all. Their goal, as far as I can see, is to play “gotcha” with Trump. They are advocates for progressives, not reporters. I should also mention that we don’t get cable or broadcast TV. My news sources are online: I frequent National Review, Powerline, and Fox websites. We get print magazines: National Review, Washington Examiner, and soon we’ll pick up Commentary. So no, I don’t get my undies in a bunch anytime I hear that Trump said something stupid. Though I think he does say stupid things – he has a singular gift for shooting himself in the foot.
Nothing, I’m just saying that you can come and fence with us, but you should make sure you are armed with facts, not fiction.
It’s relevant because it is one of the lies upon which French bases his opinion of Trump and Trump supporters.
In some cases (Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin), you are right. But part of the reason Trump has been uniquely criticized at times from the Right is because Trump has said some things that no other Republican president would say. For example, when Bill O’Reilly said of Putin, “But he’s a killer”, Trump responded with, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” We’ve never had a Republican president, as far as I can recall, that has said anything like that, basically something a Lefty would say. Now, what’s more important to me is how he treats Russia, regardless of what stupid things he might say, so I don’t dwell on it – but yes, he’s going to be criticized from the Right when he says things like that. For a more recent example: Trump saying, “I have the ultimate authority. When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be . . . It’s total. The governors know that.” What nonsense! Of course the mainstream media criticize him no matter what he says, but the Right is correct to criticize statements like that.
I don’t recall there being people so passionate about a Republican president before. The last time I saw this kind of fandom was with Obama’s supporters. I didn’t like it then, don’t like it now. I think it’s kind of odd to put that much stock in one man. The Founders didn’t.
It might not have been passionate, and maybe it was related to patriotism, but there was a lot of defense for Bush, especially the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This lasted until about 2006 when people got tired of defending a guy who wouldn’t stick up for himself. Some passion for Trump is “because he fights”. He takes on the liars in the press.
I was young in the 1980s and don’t remember a lot of details about Reagan’s presidency, but there’s a lot of passion for his terms. It seems he had a similar style as Trump. He would go around the press and get his message to the people.
I don’t think the support for Bush or for Reagan was anything like the fandom that Obama and Trump enjoy. Though I think patriotism following 9/11 had a role in Bush’s support (plus the usual rally-behind-our-leader in a crisis), one never got the vibe from his supporters that he was the only one who could lead them, whereas, for a certain type of Trump supporter, that vibe is loud and strong. Bush could never (and would never) say, as Trump has said, that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” I think Trump was right – some of his loyal fans will love him no matter what. I find that distasteful for a country such as ours – we’re not a monarchy. Dittos with Reagan: I think there was enthusiasm for his kind of communicating, enthusiasm for at least some of his policies, but there wasn’t this kind of knee-jerk defense of almost everything he did. Nor do I recall anyone suggesting at the time that criticism from the Right was akin to treason as it enabled the Left.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember any critics of Bush claiming that they had some kind of ethical requirement to vote for Gore instead. Or to vote for John Kerry instead, in 2004. Yes, there was Bush Derangement Syndrome too, but it seemed to be far more exclusive to the left, and didn’t include many – none that I can think of, anyway – who were at least supposedly conservative the way Trump Derangement Syndrome does now.
Maybe I missed it, but neither Bush – or any other of the other GOP candidates since – had the personal baggage that Trump has. They didn’t have very public affairs that they bragged about, shady deals, etc. That should be obvious.
Pu-lease – Romney put a dog on his roof. And had binders full of women.
W was bushitler fer gawds’ sake.
Trump schtuped a porn star? no comparison to bushitler or putting a dog on the roof.
Not to mention “Read My Lips, No New Taxes,” and David Souter, and…
Let’s be serious, Romney was Hitler too.
Oh, and McCain was nothing to be real happy about… He married for money like John Kerry did, although just once…
You’re making my point for me, thank you – to the Left, every Republican is racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, and so of course their presidential candidates turn out to be Hitler!
But as for ethical objections from the Right? No, there weren’t any (or very few…), because those other candidates weren’t blatantly unethical. No one on the Right thought that Romney’s “binders” comment indicated a loathing for women. None of these candidates bragged of their infidelity. So of course you’re going to have ethical objections to Trump from the Right that weren’t directed at the others.
As for McCain marrying for money – that’s the first I’ve heard of it. How do you know? Did he tell you, or brag about it in public?
CNN Headline:
Okay, that’s funny.
“In today’s nightmare America, even respected, trusted churchmen are compelled to sin…”
I was just thinking about this, having a conversation on Facebook with KingPrawn: the federal government spends close to $5T dollars every year.
That’s
$5,000,000,000,000
Said another way, if you had $5T, and you lived off a mere $1M each year, you could live for 5 million years.
Just exactly what sort of man are woman are we expecting to attract to that sort of power and wealth? Hmm? You don’t like guys like Trump in the White House? Then cut the size and scope of the federal government by 95%.
I’d like that.
I heard another stat today that blew my mind. If the current national debt ($24 trillion or so) were to be paid off at the rate of $1 per second (that’s $86,400 every day), it would take 762,000 YEARS to pay it off.
Yeah, and guys like Drew, too. And me.
I wouldn’t. Too much disruption, unfortunately. I’d just like to see it cut by 5% a year. Let’s try that for 10 years, and then see how we’re doing.
Hey, I’d settle for that.