Why Would an Intelligent Christian Vote for Trump?

Respectable? No, it hasn’t. He has been other criminal investigation his entire time in office. He has seen some of his closest advisers get charged with felonies. He has had constant battles with his own people. He has been embroiled in a sex scandal and has been exposed as the least truthful President in US history. At last polling only 1/4 of Americans viewed him as truthful and the same amount viewed him as a positive role model.

He has by no measure been more successful than the previous two US Presidents. At least the vast majority of Americans did not question the decency of them.

 

Some people on both sides of the aisle need to remember country comes before politics. Rooting for Trump to fail at the expense of the country failing is foolish. Having said that there need to be consequences to what the President has done if it is illegal.

 

I think events have gone far beyond what you rightly describe as a "good tradition." It isn't business as usual, not by a long shot, and leaders from both parties, in or out of office, need to speak up. Like yesterday. Loudly.

 

Men who are single issue voters on abortion are weirdos. I would want to avoid going down that road at all costs, but I could never tell a woman what to do with her body.

 

So basically you want the Democrats to move even farther to the left? It is hard to see how that is even possible.

 

sorry I didn't see this earlier. here's a piece from 2016 from a former colleague of mine:

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/6/sometimes-a-christian-has-to-make-an-unholy-choice/

 

I think this answer a lot of your curiosity

 

I can understand this as a reason for voting for him, but more than a year in, his support among evangelicals is still high.

If anything, it would've been more consistent if they took a stand for his corrosive behavior and engineer some pact to get Pence in, who is even more aligned and passionate to their platform.

There's no intellectual basis to this, especially from what underpins the article you posted. If it's truly loving your neighbor, which neighbor is it? I don't that should matter. I suppose it's good to love at least someone.

Instead all Americans are being torn in different emotional directions under the basis of fear and distrust. This is not something unique to one side or platform and their approaches are tailored to the mindsets of their bases.

But it doesn't take a genius to see that the President is not a paragon or touch point towards working beyond indecency and poor values.

 

Evangelicals don't apply their principles to themselves, only to other people they don't like. They can lie, but their enemies can not.

So Trump is in the clear, because Trump supports their political views, and that's enough for them to suspend any kind of moral judgment.

 

Interesting article. A lot of the theological talk is very familiar -- that leaders are placed by God, that God uses broken and evil people to advance His purpose, that there is a war between God and Satan. Some of it is just a dumb misapplication of scripture, like saying "the least of these" somehow excludes illegals. But it seems like the most problematic part come from a church culture that runs alongside the theology. Like the perception that American Christianity is under siege, and most importantly that abortion must be stopped. Another congregation could take the same fixation on God's plan, drop the idea that America is or should be a Christian nation, and different things would come out of their mouths.

 

It doesn't matter what the verbage is, these people are a small minority but do honest, clean work that is necessary for the economy. I'm talking about farmers, the forestry industry, factory workers, the unglamorous positions that make very little but add NECESSARY value to the economy. Alot of these professions like sustainable farmers should be subsidized, but it's hard to convince politicians to do the right thing in a capitalist free market. People under 40 don't take the verbage seriously, they attend for social reasons. Yet democrats and the media repeatedly pander to inner city poor, while ignoring those that live in rural areas and the midwest as if they have enough fortune due to white privilege. That's why Trump won... the democrats and Hilary in particular are ridiculously out of touch with people who don't live in big cities.

 

And none of that matters in politics. He's impressed with job creation , especially for those rural Americans the democrats feel are beneath them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-were-very-very-good/?utm_term=.dd49341a1c07

This isn't a morality issue when you don't have food on the table for your family.

 

I'm in my mid-20s, no children yet. I expect to have some within the 5-8 years. My grandchildren's generation will know very few Christians..I believe this as soundly as I believe that Golden State will be a top 2 seed in the West next season. Christianity began to die with the Internet boom. Red voters rallying behind Trump are the siren song of a foregone era. Fear of "liberalism" is what drives these voters

 

If the Democrats don't then who will? Certainly not the GOP.

Also, what is wrong with 'pandering'?

It feels like it's okay for the GOP to pander to its Christian base but it's not okay for Democrats to pander to poor inner city people. Why can't both parties pander to all Americans?

 

I'm pointing out the divide here... the dems see no problem in only being inclusive to people who vote for them while forgetting rural America exists. Trump atleast addresses and somewhat targets the inner city, and the WaPo article points that out in relation to job creation. These are simple changes the left could have made but with Trump's short term success from an economic standpoint, he will probably get re-elected in 2020. Don't be afraid to truly be inclusive instead of the attack oriented philosophy the media has taken up for anyone who isn't a trendy city dweller.

Yeah, a small town goes to church and uses God/Devil rhetoric... so what? Do they have opportunities to put food on the table? That's what matters.

 

Cause eff abortion, women's rights and brown people. They care about such singular issues that they allow Trump to bend them over and screw them in emloyment, taxes, and benefits. You know issues that actually affect them.

 

Trump continued a trend that Obama started when it comes to that, regardless, it is not all about job creation.

If the jobs suck and you must work two jobs then really what is the point? Being grateful that the economy allows you to be a wage slave while you are more likely to be pulled over or imprisoned for mar1juana? One party actually seeks to address these issues, one party continues to ignore them and pretend that they do not exist. If you are truly inclusive you would acknowledge that these problems exist. Clinton actually did run on helping rural voters, it got lost in all the hoopla about walls and Mexicans being rapists and whatnot, but she did. You have people like Biden and Sanders also talking about the plight of rural America.

Honestly, it isn't even close for me, the GOP has outright been combative towards certain demographics, seeming to want to exclude them and silence their votes as much as possible.

Trump says some things but it doesn't mean he does things, he's been trying to cut HUD funds since coming into office, he wouldn't even blink if it were gone. I'm sure he'd say "We'll be replacing it with something much better, trust me folks. Something much better! I have the best people working on it, the very best!" Doesn't mean it **** will get done.

 

People don't care as much about social issues and other hot button democrat issues when their local plant/factory shut down, they had to train their replacement from Mexico/Taiwan/Indonesia, their house is worth half what it was, and they are competing with their former co-workers for sub $10 dollar an hour jobs at Wal-Mart when they used to make 60k plus benefits at the factory. Trump won because he targeted what used to be the democrat base. He went hard for blue collar workers. He put the blame for their economic misery on illegal immigration, "terrible" trade deals, and tax rates that didn't allow corporations in the US to compete globally. Basically, he put the blame for their lives being worse square on the democrats. It worked. Look at the states he flipped. His message resonated with a lot of people that don't normally vote republican.

People saw Hillary as 4 more years of Obama. If your life sucked under Obama why vote for more suck?

Everyone knows Trump is a goon, but for a lot of people, they believe he is standing up for them so they roll with it.