{"id":1556,"date":"2016-08-22T10:49:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T14:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2016-08-22T22:27:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T02:27:55","slug":"why-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s true that on some of the most pressing of issues\u2014immigration, trade, and foreign policy\u2014Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica <\/em>First\u201d positions are more align with traditional conservatism than are those of any other candidate. That is, they clash with the neoconservatism, the faux \u201cconservatism,\u201d that the GOP Establishment and its media apologists have promoted for decades as the genuine article.<\/p>\n

Yet this being said, in Trump\u2019s nearly 70 years, until very recently, he has done little to nothing to indicate that he has so much as an awareness of the classical conservative tradition, much less a commitment to it. Even if<\/em> he really believes all that he is now saying, the inability of one person, even if he is the President, to accomplish what Trump vows to achieve supplies grounds for skepticism.<\/p>\n

Nor is the Supreme Court, as so many Republicans would have us think, necessarily a sufficient reason to vote for Trump. Republicans play the Democrats\u2019 game when they attempt to scare voters into thinking that, unless the latter reward them with political offices, the opposition party, by way of its<\/em> Supreme Court Justice nominees, will deprive them of their guns, speech, borders, etc. However, Article Three, Section II of the US Constitution explicitly states that \u201cthe Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

In short, Republicans could\u2019ve ended years ago judicial tyranny by simply exercising their Congressional authority to determine which topics would fall within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Had Republicans done so, however, they would\u2019ve imperiled their political fortunes. Thus, in this era of Big Government, \u201cConstitutional conservatives\u201d (and Trump as well) drone on as if the Constitution doesn\u2019t permit the people\u2019s elected representatives to prohibit nine lawyers from running roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.<\/p>\n

The final reason that\u2019s given for supporting Trump, that it\u2019s necessary in order to defeat Hillary Clinton, fares no better than the preceding two.<\/p>\n

If the choice between Trump and Clinton really is, or is plausibly perceived to be, a choice between two evils, then the only conscionable course of action is to abstain from voting for either: As Saint Paul says, we must never do evil so that good may come from it. Or, wishing to refrain from using the language of evil, we instead regard one as being \u201cnot as bad\u201d as the other, the question then arises as to what this <\/em>can mean? It\u2019s conceivable that a candidate who is worse in the short-term may prove to be better, for one\u2019s party and one\u2019s nation, in the long-term. Or perhaps the differences between the two candidates simply aren\u2019t sufficiently substantial to justify a vote for one over the other.<\/p>\n

I believe that Trump qua the man<\/em> is not as bad as Clinton. I also believe the same about many other Republicans\u2014and<\/em> Democrats, and<\/em> third party candidates\u2014who I wouldn\u2019t vote for on this account.<\/p>\n

There is one decisive reason for conservatives and libertarians to vote for Trump, but it has more to do with the Trump candidacy, or what Ilana Mercer calls \u201cthe Trump process,\u201d than Trump the person.<\/p>\n

For decades, there has been a virtual consensus across the political spectrum that \u201cWashington,\u201d or \u201cthe System,\u201d is \u201cbroken.\u201d At any rate, that Americans share this intuition explains why those politicians running for office every election cycle repeatedly assure us that they <\/em>are the candidates to \u201cfix\u201d the mess\u2014even though they never do anything but further grease the wheels of the Government-Media apparatus.<\/p>\n

Trump, in stark contrast, and in as little as 14 or so months, has ripped the System asunder. He hasn\u2019t just talked about the cancer. He has vindicated in spades the suspicions of citizens by revealing just how advanced it is. Beyond this, Trump, through his \u201ccreative destruction,\u201d as Ilana Mercer describes the Trump phenomenon in her latest book<\/a>, has spared no occasion to administer heavy-duty blasts of chemo. Whether he recognizes it or not, Trump seems to instinctively know that before the patient can get better, he must get worse. He seems to know that the treatment is sometimes worse than the illness.<\/p>\n

Notice, I\u2019m not backing Trump because of what he promises to do in the future<\/em>. I\u2019m backing him because of what he\u2019s done already. <\/em> Trump has been a one-man wrecking crew, shattering the sacred cows of both the Democrat and Republican wings of the Establishment. He has driven those in the \u201cmainstream\u201d media to relinquish the remaining vestiges of their authority<\/a> by abandoning so much as the pretense of \u201cobjectivity\u201d in their coverage of him even as he has unveiled the hypocrisy, opportunism, and pseudo-conservatism of their counterparts in the \u201cconservative\u201d media.<\/p>\n

If things are ever to change for the better, this shaking up is necessary. There is another respect in which Trump is carving the time continuum of our political universe into two epochs, B.T. (Before Trump) and A.T. (After Trump):<\/p>\n

In serving as the voice of tens of millions of previously voiceless Americans\u2014the early 20th<\/sup> century political theorist William Graham Sumner referred to them (collectively) as \u201cthe Forgotten Man\u201d\u2014the very person of this unapologetically wealthy, white, heterosexual man symbolizes at once a resounding repudiation of the Politically Correct Zeitgeist propping up the Establishment and a profound psychological<\/em> victory for millions over the cultural powers that have demonized them for far too long.<\/p>\n

Whether he wins or loses in November, Trump has already won, for he\u2019s succeeded in emboldening scores of Americans who would have otherwise remained disengaged, Americans who will not go quietly away or back to voting for Bushes, Kasichs, and Romneys. He has made it acceptable, indeed, necessary, to talk aloud about issues that had long been neglected by partisans of both parties.<\/p>\n

Trump is no traditional conservative. He\u2019s no libertarian. Yet he has taken a crucial first step, a step that no one else had proven willing to take.<\/p>\n

And for this<\/em>, he has got my vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s true that on some of the most pressing of issues\u2014immigration, trade, and foreign policy\u2014Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d positions are more align with traditional conservatism than are those of any other candidate. That is, they clash with the neoconservatism, the faux \u201cconservatism,\u201d that the GOP Establishment and its media apologists have promoted for decades as…<\/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-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Trump?<\/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\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Trump?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s true that on some of the most pressing of issues\u2014immigration, trade, and foreign policy\u2014Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d positions are more align with traditional conservatism than are those of any other candidate. That is, they clash with the neoconservatism, the faux \u201cconservatism,\u201d that the GOP Establishment and its media apologists have promoted for decades as…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-22T14:49:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-23T02:27:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Trump?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Trump?","og_description":"It\u2019s true that on some of the most pressing of issues\u2014immigration, trade, and foreign policy\u2014Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d positions are more align with traditional conservatism than are those of any other candidate. That is, they clash with the neoconservatism, the faux \u201cconservatism,\u201d that the GOP Establishment and its media apologists have promoted for decades as…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2016-08-22T14:49:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-08-23T02:27:55+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html","name":"Why Trump?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-08-22T14:49:44+00:00","dateModified":"2016-08-23T02:27:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/08\/why-trump.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Trump?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}