{"id":1372,"date":"2015-08-22T22:23:39","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T02:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1372"},"modified":"2015-08-22T22:23:39","modified_gmt":"2015-08-23T02:23:39","slug":"trump-is-no-conservative-but-neither-is-john-kasich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/08\/trump-is-no-conservative-but-neither-is-john-kasich.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump Is No Conservative, But Neither Is…John Kasich!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump may not be a conservative<\/a>. His Republican opponents, both his rivals in the presidential primary contest as well as their apologists in the media, are laboring tirelessly to discredit their party\u2019s front runner on this ground.<\/p>\n

This line of attack, however, is disingenuous, for neither are their<\/em> candidates of choice\u2014Jeb<\/a> Bush, Marco Rubio<\/a>, Carly Fiorina<\/a>\u2014particularly conservative.<\/p>\n

Another rising GOP wonder child is John Kasich.<\/p>\n

And Kasich is probably even less<\/em> \u201cconservative\u201d than his peers.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, Kasich called for repealing laws permitting birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. Last year, though, Kasich said that his views on this matter have\u2014you guessed it!\u2014\u201cevolved<\/em>.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

Kasich implored Congressional Republicans to cooperate with President Obama\u2019s Executive Order on illegal immigration in resolving this issue. \u201cThe country needs healing,\u201d he remarked. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t ever be one to tell you that I don\u2019t change my mind or that my thinking doesn\u2019t evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasich added that he is \u201ca different guy than I was years ago,\u201d and noted that \u201cthis job [of being the governor of Ohio] grows you up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read this carefully: Kasich would have us believe that his transition from opposing efforts to \u201creward\u201d illegal immigration to favoring, in effect, amnesty, is a sign of his maturity<\/em>. The implication is clear: Those who oppose amnesty are immature.<\/em><\/p>\n

But, unsurprisingly, there is more.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I look at a group of people who might be hiding, who may be afraid, who may be scared, who have children, I don\u2019t want to be in a position of where I make it worse for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasich claims that \u201cI don\u2019t want to see anybody in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for abortion, Kasich subscribes to the same conventional GOP line: It is always wrong for mothers to kill the children growing in their wombs except for when it isn\u2019t. And it isn\u2019t wrong if the child was conceived as a consequence of rape or incest, or if the child poses a threat to the mother\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

Yet this past week, Kasich caught some heat from \u201ca leading pro-life organization\u201d\u2014the Susan B. Anthony List\u2014for castigating Republicans<\/a> for focusing \u201ctoo much on this one issue.\u201d Last weekend, while on CNN\u2019s State of the Union, <\/em>Kasich said: \u201cI think that we focus too much on just one issue, and now that the issue of gay marriage is kind of off the table, we\u2019re kind of down to one social issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, according to Kasich, Republicans have but one<\/em> \u201csocial issue\u201d now, and they spend too much time obsessing over the killing of the most innocent of human beings among us. As for \u201cgay marriage,\u201d which Kasich also claims to oppose on moral grounds, the ease with which he is willing to allow the government<\/em>\u2014in this case, the Supreme Court\u2014to settle a moral issue for him speaks volumes. Imagine if the opponents of slavery had the same attitude?<\/p>\n

But back to abortion: Pro-life groups also blasted Kasich for refusing to defund<\/a> Planned Parenthood after revelations that this abortion provider had been harvesting the body parts of aborted babies.<\/p>\n

While speaking to the Urban League in May of 1999, Kasich said of (so-called) \u201cracial profiling\u201d that it \u201cshould be ended in every community in America<\/a>.\u201d This is \u201cjust not the way our justice system is supposed to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Kasich prefers to allow local authorities the chance to voluntarily end the practice, he was quick to add that it may be necessary for the federal government to intervene.<\/p>\n

Kasich, that is, is open to the prospect of nationalizing the police<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kasich also endorses \u201caffirmative action<\/a>\u201d\u2014but not \u201cquotas\u201d (as if there\u2019s a real difference).<\/p>\n

Regarding education, Kasich has argued for allotting 95%, as opposed to the current 65%, of federal monies to subsidize public education. He as well contended that federal and local governments should provide more <\/em>funding for after school and weekend programs<\/a> for children.<\/p>\n

When it comes to \u201cday care choices,\u201d Kasich insists that the federal government must relieve its \u201cmany strings and restrictions<\/a>\u201d that it attaches \u201cto the money\u201d that \u201cit gives out,\u201d for \u201cthe subsidized centers often are not responding to the needs of the local parents.\u201d \u201cIf the federal government is going to be involved in subsidizing day care,\u201d Kasich adds, \u201cthen our role should be to expand the choices of parents, not reduce them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasich also maintains that the government should insure that employers provide \u201cflex time<\/a> in the workplace to allow working parents more time with their children.\u201d And he as well urged for the redirecting of Americorps monies to teens and the elderly for purposes of mentoring<\/a> kids.<\/p>\n

In 2013, against the protestations of the members of his own party and the Tea Partiers who at one time supported him, Kasich expanded Medicaid<\/a> under Obamacare to 275,000 Ohioans.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the redistribution of income and wealth for purposes of \u201cwelfare,\u201d Kasich is all for it, and he sounds every bit as insufferable as Democrats who exploit decontextualized Biblical teachings on poverty for the sake of serving this end. Worse, he condescends to the members of his own party who disagree with him on this front.<\/p>\n

Just earlier this year, Kasich remarked: \u201cIt\u2019s really odd that the conservative movement\u2014a big chunk of which is faith-based\u2014seems to have never read Mathew 25\u201d (i.e. a chapter on helping the poor). Kasich cited the latter while justifying his decision to expand Medicaid, and he asks of conservatives: \u201cWhy don\u2019t we get into feeding the hungry and clothing of the naked and helping the imprisoned and helping the lonely?\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2014meaning, of course, the government<\/em> via the resources in time, energy, and money that the Kasichs of the world plan on confiscating from the rest of us\u2014need to comply with the Welfare State and \u201cget away from the judgment side of<\/a>\u201d this topic: \u201cWe\u201d mustn\u2019t judge those whose existence we are made to subsidize.<\/p>\n

In late 2013, Kasich charged Republicans with waging a \u201cwar on the poor!\u201d <\/a> \u201cI\u2019m concerned about the fact [that] there seems to be a war on the poor. That if you\u2019re poor, somehow you\u2019re shiftless and lazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> wrote: \u201cBut few have gone further than Mr. Kasich in critiquing his own party\u2019s views on poverty programs [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times <\/em>praises Kasich for having \u201csurprised and disarmed some former critics on the left with his championing of Ohio\u2019s disadvantaged, which he frames as a matter of Christian compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is no small amount of praise coming from the Times. <\/em>But there is more:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn his three years as governor, he has expanded programs for the mentally ill, fought the nursing home lobby to bring down Medicaid costs and backed Cleveland\u2019s Democratic<\/em> mayor, Frank Johnson, in raising local taxes<\/em> to improve schools\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, that while Trump may not be a conservative, John Kasich most definitely is not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump may not be a conservative. His Republican opponents, both his rivals in the presidential primary contest as well as their apologists in the media, are laboring tirelessly to discredit their party\u2019s front runner on this ground. This line of attack, however, is disingenuous, for neither are their candidates of choice\u2014Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Is No Conservative, But Neither Is...John Kasich!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/08\/trump-is-no-conservative-but-neither-is-john-kasich.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Is No Conservative, But Neither Is...John Kasich!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Donald Trump may not be a conservative. 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