Trump Soft Soaps American Evangelicals

 soft-soap

 verb

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\ ˈsȯf(t)-ˈsōp  \

soft-soaped; soft-soaping; soft-soaps

Definition of soft-soap

 (Entry 1 of 2)

transitive verb

: to soothe or persuade with flattery or blarney

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Judging from the following article taken from Premier Christian News Donald Trump is soft-soaping American evangelicalism and in some quarters it appears to be working:

Former US president, Donald Trump has spoken of the importance of Jesus Christ to the American people, as part of a Christmas message to Christians in Dallas.

 The 45th President addressed the 4,000 strong crowd at First Baptist Church, Dallas on 19th December.

 Speaking as part of the church's Christmas worship service, Trump said:

 "More than 2,000 years ago, an angel of the Lord appeared to humble shepherds and proclaimed the reason for our Christmas joy. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

"Our country needs a Saviour right now. And our country has a Saviour - and it's not me," he continued.

 "That's somebody else much higher up than me. Much higher."

 In the ten-minute 'Christmas greeting' Trump also aired his political concerns on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, immigration and inflation as he warned that the United States was "in great trouble" under it's current "dark cloud" of leadership.

 Trump went on credit key moments in history to the Church and Jesus' example:

 "The life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ forever changed the world," he declared.

 "And it's impossible to think of the life of our own country without the influence of His example and of His teachings.

 "Our miraculous founding, overcoming civil war, abolishing slavery, defeating communism and fascism, reaching boundless heights of science and discovery, so many incredible things.

 "None of this could have ever happened without Jesus Christ and his followers and his Church. None of it.

 "And we have to remember that Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of our strength and of our hope and here and everywhere and for all time."

 Following his speech, Trump was met with a standing ovation by members of the evangelical congregation, while lead pastor Robert Jeffress referred to Trump as one of his "closest friends" and "a great friend to Christians everywhere" as he praised the former president for his "pro-life, pro-religious liberty and pro-Israel" political stances.

 Many social media users have criticised Trump for using his Christmas message to 'push his politics'.

 One Twitter user said: "The evangelicals can open up the churches so Trump and others can go and deliver speeches instead of worshipping our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ."

 Another commented: "There was flagrant political content. Church should lose its tax-exempt status."

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I don't buy any of that from Trump; in my opinion it's likely to be a counterfeit expression. Given what I've seen of Trump-evangelicalism Trump's primary aim is to secure the votes and support of his right-wing evangelical constituency. The probable long term effect of getting Trump or his ultra-right successor into power is that of destabilizing the democratic status quo & turning America into a right-wing dictatorship. 

It looks as though many evangelicals are swallowing Trumpism because Trump knows what they want to hear. But they are not the only ones Trump has soft soaped: He also gave positive signals to professional Christian conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the QAnon theorists, many of whom are Christians. (See here and here). Although to be fair to Alex Jones he eventually twigged that he had be sold down the river by Trump. 

Left and Right Extremism

The Trump inspired  attack on American Democracy 6/1/2021

US Republican Margorie Taylor Greene is currently a member of the house of representatives and an avid Trump supporter. According to Wikipedia Greene promotes a profusion of bizarre notions related to conspiracy theorism and the far right. For example: The Stolen 2021 election theory, White supremacism, QAnon, The white genocide conspiracy, Pizzagate, and Covid vaccination as Biden's Mark of the Beast, among others. She's rich pickings for every crackpot idea peddled by the far-right and fundamentalist Christianity.

Now, I'm sure that Barry Arrington, supremo of the de facto Intelligent Design web site Uncommon Descent, can't be anywhere near as crazy Greene and yet such is the political polarization in America it is likely that he identifies himself with the same far-right political interest group that Greene identifies with. This is made clear in a post on Uncommon Descent with title "Can we Endure?".  Like Greene Arrington depicts America as in a pitched battle against those Marxist ogres under the bed, or not so under the bed given that the far right points the finger at movements like Black Lives Matter and even the very mildly liberal conservative and Catholic Joe Biden as uncompromising agents of the far left, perhaps even emissaries of Satan. 

Shades of grey appear not to exist in US right-wing perceptions.  In casting the current strife very much as a dark vs light battle against those neo-reds-under-bed (nowadays more like reds-on-the-bed) Arrington believes the opposition's values are irreconcilable with what he portrays as the banner holders of true American freedom. He traces cancel culture back to far-left commentators like the Frankfurt school's neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse.

It is true, however, that the far left has it's own clutch of extremists who would want to overthrow society in favour of their vision of a socialist "dictatorship of the proletariat". But we know where that would end up - a shift to an old fashioned dictatorship; the far left status quo would then stop just there with no further evolution to the idyllic government-less libertarian communism of their fantasy world - that's a pipe dream given what we know about human nature (the constraints of human nature on the social dynamic is a concept which the critical theory of the Frankfurt school is unlikely to accept). 

It is ironic that both the far left and the far right have the aim of overthrowing the established order and its government in the name of a similar vision of liberty. Both  perceive the status quo as malign & evil  and deserving of merciless destruction. They also have a comparable end game goal of a libertarian small-government society (envisaged as "free trade" by the right wing and "communism" by Marxists). It's no surprise that left winger Nikole Hannah Jones (who Arrington mentions) has also been tempted to see the world through conspiracy theorism as a way of besmirching the establishment and enhancing dissent. 

Given human nature's blend of good & bad the actual situation is far more complex than either the far right or the far left libertarians imagine in their simplistic fairy-tale fantasy of a goodies vs. baddies battle*. In this connection Arrington needs to look at some of the extremists that he is effectively aligning himself with - for example Margorie Taylor Greene: As with the extreme left the extreme right, after trying to promote disaffection from the establishment of Western democracies, will then seek to install a "libertarian" dictatorship. The current God-father who demands allegiance & sows disaffection toward American democracy, a move which conveniently enhances his chances of absolute power, is Donald Trump and his far right followers. Even Republicans who don't support Trump's bid for power (like Mike Pence) are branded as traitors to the cause. In such a politically polarized environment it's not so far fetched to imagine that if that bid was successful opponents and traitors, who are perceived as uncompromisingly evil, will be jailed, perhaps even executed by Trump's successors.**

There is something about idealists, whether of the left or right. Christian or non-Christian, that makes them potentially dangerous. As Sir Kenneth Clarke commented on the leaders of the French republic, they "...suffered from the most terrible of all delusions; they believed themselves to be virtuous" As one of the leaders of the republic said: "In a republic which can only be based on virtue any pity shown toward crime is flagrant proof of treason".  The extremes of left and right will show no mercy to their antagonists.

Footnotes

* This "goodies vs. baddies" vision of reality is even true of "critical theory" which attempts to  get away from it with the emphasis being on socio-political structures and conditions. Because, of course, real humans have to populate those structures thus casting some as oppressed and others as oppressors. Even if "the system" is cast as the chief oppressor this still leads to a contingent of human beings who, like the right-wing conspiracy theorists, will by implication claim to be politically enlightened and thus effectively be the children of light.  But critical theory misses the elephant in the room: Namely, the first person conscious perspective which inevitably is always tempted to prioritize the order of its own private house of experience over and above that of others.

** This is what the God-father does to you if he thinks you've been disloyal to his protection racketeering: 

Donald Trump uses expletive to attack ex-ally Benjamin Netanyahu - BBC News