Trump 2024?

The Presidential election still several months off, but already many Reformed/evangelical influencers (such as Wilson, Brito, Mattson, Leithart, and Devine — you can easily google their articles so I will not take time to link them) are giving their counsel about how Christians should approach voting this time around. Frankly, I do not think we need any more think-pieces on why evangelicals should not vote for Trump. Unless they make a case for an alternative, what good do they do? Everyone already knows that Trump is a scoundrel at a personal level. His sexual sins are widely publicized. His brashness has already been priced into any calculations. Why rehearse what everyone already knows?

For those in the anti-Trump column, my question its simple: If we do not vote for Trump, what should we do? When pseudo-evangelical shills for the left like David French and Russell Moore made their case against Trump in the past, it was implicitly obvious what they wanted you to do: Vote Democrat. And sadly, French and Moore have made it at least somewhat more acceptable for evangelicals to vote for the progressive candidate in some contexts. They stretched the Overton Window towards the left in several denominations, such as the PCA and SBC. But I am quite confident that the likes of Mattson and Leithart are not suggesting that evangelicals turn their votes blue in 2024. So what are they suggesting? If they succeeded in hollowing out evangelical support for Trump, what would they want to fill that void?

I can sympathize with where they are coming from. There is a lot about Trump to not like. I think the Christian case for Trump is weaker and more tenuous in 2024 than it was in 2020. In the run up to the 2020 election, Trump stumbled badly in how he handled Covid (e.g., the vaccine push, keeping Fauci in charge, etc.), but he also had the momentum of getting relatively conservative justices appointed, which paid off big time with the Dobbs ruling in 2022. In 2024, it’s pretty obvious that Trump was never as serious about being pro-life as he once appeared. He’s certainly not interested in overturning Obergefell or pushing back against the worst features of the sexual revolution. Further, one of the best things about Trump’s 2016 administration was his appointment of many good, conservative people to positions of power. I am not convinced Trump will find many competent folks willing to staff his administration should he win this time. Trump did not succeed in draining the swamp the first time he got elected, and I think he’ll find it even more difficult the next time (should he get that chance). Whatever one thinks of the “most secure election in history,” there is no question that the way Trump handled the perceived cheating did far more harm than good. We don’t yet know who his running mate will be, but I was disappointed with the ways in which he attacked his primary challengers, particularly DeSantis, since it seemed to burn a lot of bridges unnecessarily. Speaking of DeSantis, he certainly would have been my choice in 2024 — he has experience as a civil executive pushing back on wokeness; he has a much better understanding of the American system than Trump; and he is widely regarded as a man of genuine Christian faith and conviction. It’s unfortunate that his candidacy never really got momentum at a national level. Our loss at a national level is Florida’s gain at a state level.

But back to the question I raised: What do anti-Trump Reformed/evangelical influencers want us to do? Thus far, I cannot see that they have made a persuasive case for anything positive. Presumably they don’t want us voting Democrat. So where is the pragmatic, prudential case for going third party? Or writing a name in? Or sitting the election out altogether? No case for a positive course of action has been made to my knowledge. It is rather obvious that Trump is the lesser of the two main evils on the ballot, and by a rather wide margin. Biden has all the same personal flaws that Trump does (anyone who is pro-abortion is amazingly arrogant — far more so than someone who posts mean tweets; Biden is a notorious liar and sexual pervert; both are too old, but Biden’s age shows far, far more than Trump’s, rendering him completely incapable of truly presiding over the country; etc.). Biden has made every cultural crisis worse. He has degraded our military, not only with the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, but with woke policies that have crushed military recruitment. His obvious incompetence and dementia have given the green light for tyrants — who were held in check during Trump’s administration — to start wars, making the world a far more dangerous place. Trump cares about the border and the immigration crisis whereas Biden makes it far, far worse (the idea that Democrats want open borders out of compassion is absurd; they are looking for voters, thus subverting our laws and our “democracy”). Trump would appoint far more conservatives and Christians to positions of influence (assuming he can find some who are willing). Trump is on the sexual revolution train, but he is not as extreme or as crazy as the Democrats are at this point, especially when it comes to transgenderism. Trump has strengths, some of which I noted in my post on the 2020 election. There is no question: The Democrat party is the embodiment of evil and must be stopped if at all possible. Trump is the only one who can do that right now.

America has been at a crossroads for quite some time. I will not bore you with claims that “this is the most important election in our history.” I don’t think it makes sense to claim that. But what I do know is that there is an evil coalition of forces that think they stand to gain if they can destroy whatever is left of America. They see the old America as the last bastion of Christendom and want to tear it down for good (let’s be honest, all the attacks on America are really attacks on Christian faith and heritage). This is why queers and Hamas, transgenders and radical feminists, and other assorted perverts join together in supporting the Democrats: They think they will benefit from destroying our country. If we can stop them from doing so, we should. We owe that to both our ancestors and our descendants. Getting Republicans elected will not exactly turn our country around, but it at least taps the brakes as we race towards the abyss of progressivism. This is the bottom line: Trump is not hell-bent on destroying our country the way the Biden regime has been. Trump’s policies are undoubtedly better for the economy. Trump, for all his flaws, loves America and likes his fellow Americans. The positive case for Trump might seem slender, until one compares him to the alternative. Trump would be far less damaging to the country. And so as of right now, I’d advocate Christians hold their noses and vote for Trump. What else can we do? If Trump is the Republican candidate this November, we should turn out for him in record numbers. Think of voting for Trump as an act of self-defense. Or as I’ve put it elsewhere, vote for the candidate who hates you the least.

Some might say that voting for Trump just rewards Republicans for running a bad candidate and the only way to get better candidates is to refuse to support the likes of Trump. I’d certainly like better candidates. But I am not convinced that refusing to vote for Trump is actually going to accomplish that. The Republican elites obviously didn’t want Trump; he has dominated the Republican Party because the people support him, not the party. And certainly Trump is in some ways an improvement over the spinless and worthless RINOs that the Republican party all too often trots out. Besides, Trump is a unique phenomenon. Once he is gone from the political scene, I do not expect it to be back to “business as usual” for either party, but I do expect us to get more “normal” candidates on the right (e.g., DeSantis). But any genuine conservative fighter the Republicans put forward is not going to come through unscathed, given the media blitz that will be arrayed against him. We are not in fair fight and there is no level playing field. Anyone we vote for is going to be scarred by the time it gets to Election Day.

Besides this kind of strategy can backfire. Under normal circumstances, conservative voters refusing to show up for Trump might get us better candidates in the future since perceived electability is a huge factor in generating support. On the other hand, refusing to back Trump could telegraph to the left that their ridiculous lawfare and mediafare campaign against Trump worked and so they ought to try it again with the next threat to their stronghold on cultural and political power. Why wouldn’t they?

Using your vote to “send a message” generally does not work. If you decide to not show up and vote for Trump because you don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, you really will not accomplish anything positive. No one will know why you didn’t show up. They will put their own interpretation on your action. It won’t help.

There are still several months between now and the election. A lot could happen. A lot could change. It’s not even certain Biden will be the candidate for the Democrats, since he is obviously not fit to do much of anything these days. Trump might be in jail. But assuming Trump is still on the ballot, I don’t see any viable alternative but to cast a vote for him, however unenthusiastically. Come the first Tuesday of November, I will vote for Trump and I will do so without any sense of guilt. Oh sure, I’ll feel other emotions. I will feel some twinge of sadness that a once great country is falling apart. I will have nostalgia for days when we had candidtates who at least appeared to be publicly respectable. I will have a sense of frustration that we could’ve had DeSantis on the top of the ballot. I will feel a lot of things as I vote for Trump. But guilt will not be one of them.