Jesus isn’t coming to save them
“The lady doth protest too much,” that famous line from Act III of Hamlet, may have had movement conservatism’s number long before Donald Trump and MAGA trampled it. Republicans wore American flag pins on their lapels and condemned those who did not. They performed patriotism with misty-eyed, Lee Greenwood gusto. They wrapped themselves in the flag and broadcast to the world that not only were they Real Americans™, but more American than political rivals. They were the true defenders of the American faith.
Jesus warned against praying in public “as the hypocrites” do long before Shakespeare warned not to take overactors seriously. Republicans not only didn’t get Christ’s memo. They didn’t grasp its meaning.
Peter Wehner in The Atlantic (gift link):
Not too long ago, many Republicans proudly referred to themselves as “constitutional conservatives.” They believed in the rule of law; in limiting the power of government, especially the federal government; in protecting individual liberty; and in checks and balances and the separation of powers. They opposed central planning and warned about emotions stirred up by the mob and the moment, believing, as the Founders did, that the role of government was to mediate rather than mirror popular passions. They recognized the importance of self-restraint and the need to cultivate public and private virtues. And they had reverence for the Constitution, less as a philosophical document than a procedural one, which articulated the rules of the road for American democracy.
Then along came Trump. Republicans dumped the Constitution for a “blonde” as though having a mid-life crisis.
It is “hard to think of a more anti-conservative figure than President Donald Trump or a more anti-conservative movement than MAGA,” Wehner continues. Nearly half the country reelected a convicted felon who incited a violent mob to sack the U.S. Capitol to attempt to overthrow a presidential election, for godsakes. “They want to empower the federal government in order to turn it into an instrument of brute force that can be used to reward allies and destroy opponents.”
Wehner continues with a litany of antidemocratic actions Trump 2.0 has taken in the few short months since recoccupying the Oval Office. And deadly ones for hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable around the world.
The Trump administration is a thugocracy, and the Republican Party he controls supports him each step of the way. Almost every principle to which Republicans once professed fealty has been jettisoned. The party is now devoted to the abuse of power and to vengeance.
Political theorists recognize that the governing approach of Trump and the GOP embodies the philosophy of Nietzsche and Machiavelli. It’s all about the world of “Anything goes” and “Might makes right.” Laws and the Constitution are as malleable as hot wax; they can be reshaped as needed. Limited government has been traded for the Leviathan, and there are no constraints. The state has become a blunt-force instrument.
While in public they waved their flags, in private they were gazing into an abyss and becoming monsters.
Trump’s evangelical supporters are trained from their earliest Sunday school lessons to want a king. They search scriptures for a sign of his return, write fan fiction about it, and make movies. But after 2,000 years of impatient waiting, they gave up on a heavenly one and settled for a golden calf. The original golden calf was another cautionary tale they didn’t take to heart. Nor did more cynical Republican operatives. All that freedom talk concealed subjects awaiting the return of a king.
“The Republican Party now stands for everything it once loathed,” writes Wehner. Where it all leads is not written. “The flame of liberty hasn’t been extinguished quite yet.”
What once was the GOP needs an intervention. Jesus isn’t coming to issue an altar call. It’s up to us, Wehner concludes. “And love of country demands that those who love America and her ideals stand up against a man and a party intent on destroying them.”
And that’s my sermon.
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