It’s hard to know what to say about Donald Trump. Well, maybe it’s easy enough if you’re a fan, or if you are an opponent who’s very sure that the liberal case just needs to be reiterated more forcefully. But for the rest of us it’s difficult. It’s a special sort of difficulty, a difficulty of tone.
As a liberal Christian, my main response is to be aghast that most Christians voted for him – the ratio was almost two-to-one. Why don’t these people have more respect for liberal democracy, and common decency, I am tempted to ask. Why don’t they have more fear of crude bullying and authoritarianism?
The Democrats do not understand that politics retains its old religious dimension
But I am aware that this response is tone-deaf. Finger-wagging earnestness feels inadequate, indeed positively unhelpful.
The evangelicals hail Trump as a new Cyrus. They refer to the Persian king who liberated the Jews by smashing their Babylonian oppressors – he wasn’t a holy leader, but God used him in a crucial way. Obviously most liberal Christians scoff at this use of the Bible and note that it could be used to condone any sort of tyrant, if one happens to benefit from his tyranny.
But on one level we should take it seriously. The fact is that Trump’s punkish energy, his ability to throw liberal political culture sky-high, is attractive to most Christians. And we should ponder that attraction carefully instead of just condemning it.
Why do so many Christians dislike political liberalism so much? So much that they are willing to risk endorsing a sort of cartoon baddie? (He reminds me of Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazard.) Perhaps because it makes them feel irrelevant. But also because they smell idolatry in the liberal ethos.
Though I can’t condone a vote for Trump, I slightly sympathise with their dislike of the alternative. Though I’m a pretty robust believer in liberal values, I find its American party-political expression unattractive.
Like most Brits I was wowed by Obama. But I gradually sensed that he was a sunset, not a dawn. He was a throwback to the vibes of the sixties – a cross between Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He somehow tapped in to that old-style big-vision liberalism, with a big liberal Christian element. What was not to like? But there was no wider movement: the average Democrat didn’t understand the need for this broad liberal style, with its religious aura. A more partisan secular liberalism took over.
I’m in dire danger of sounding sexist now, but this narrower liberalism defined Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris. I know that Michelle Obama was never a candidate, but her presence on various stages has been a big part of the Democrat brand. For me she embodies identity politics – this might be unfair, for she has doubtless tried to offer the same sort of broadly liberal vision that her husband did, but that’s how it is. And I’m guessing a lot of American men felt the same way.
My point is that I can see why the average Christian might vote for Trump: out of irritation with the liberal political elite. There was a smug triumphalism in the campaigning of the Hollywood stars and pop stars. Secular liberalism seemed to be presenting itself as the true religion. If I was exposed to this I’d be tempted to vote for theocracy, just to wipe the expensive smiles off their famous faces.
The people in charge of the Democrats are doubtless very brainy in a policy-wonk Moneyball sort of way. But on a deeper level they are clearly rather thick. They do not understand that politics retains its old religious dimension. They do not understand that America’s core ideology is not secular liberalism, but Christian-based secular liberalism. And if you forget or disrespect the first part of that, you drift into an idolatrous over-valuation of certain secular causes, and identity politics. And provoke reaction.
So let’s hope that liberal America does some intelligent soul-searching at last – which means drawing on its liberal Christian roots.
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