The Man on a White Horse
Evangelicals and Donald Trump
Election Reflections … Before and After
Nov 4, 2024….. Feb 20, 2025
Here are some of the factors that have informed my thinking about the 2024 Election. I am speaking as an Evangelical and a cultural conservative who has been less than enamored by the leadership style of Donald Trump.
As a preliminary aside for the secular reader, when you use the term “Evangelical,” if you don’t know the intramural difference between Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Charismatics (just to mention some major subgroupings), then you will not be able to appreciate the nuances of this religious and political conversation. Read sociologist James Davison Hunter’s book Evangelicalism. Not appreciating these distinctions, you might as well try to solve the problems of the Mideast without acknowledging the differences between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. We see how well that worked out in Iraq. Back to the Election.
Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal expressed a version of my election dilemma a few weeks ago. She is a Reagan conservative and a Catholic sort of cultural conservative. Noonan said the choice between Harris and Trump looked like a choice between Empty and Awful. She was being kind to Harris I think, in merely relegating her to lightweight status. But I remember Harris’ hostile Senate grilling of Brett Kavanaugh and, earlier of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In both cases she focused on putting them on the spot with “gotcha” Yes/No questions. For me, her meanness was worse than “empty.” Her “word salad” interviews, I think, are deliberate obfuscation.
Trump on the other hand doesn’t really in his heart share the Biblical values of Evangelicals, although he has associated with a form of them for his own purposes. Rather, his ultimate value is self-interest. He cannot be trusted in the end to be more than that. And we are now seeing him drifting away from his earlier pro-life stand. However, if elected again, there just might be a point in which he would settle down in office, and “act like he has been in the end zone before,” to use a football saying (about hot dogging after a touchdown). But as my hero Samuel Johnson said (talking about second marriages), this represents the “triumph of hope over experience.”
I know some “never-Trump” evangelicals who I respect who are willing to vote for Harris. Others who will “hold their noses” and vote for Trump. I could never vote for Harris, but beyond that I will not say.
One of the Never-Trump friends of mine who I respect has a novel position: he would rather have an Enemy in the White House that he can oppose with clear lines of difference than someone supposedly closer to his views but who he views as untrustworthy and possibly unstable. So he is hoping for a Republican Congress and a Trump defeat. I can not quite get there, but there is a certain logic to his position, at least in the abstract. I even saw an Alexander Hamilton quote that expressed the same sentiment in his day, preferring Thomas Jefferson to Aaron Burr.
Now I do think we have a real problem with the overly-sanguine support of Trump in many quarters of the Evangelical world, which leads to a caution:
The Man on a White Horse
In the early 80s I heard the Christian apologist Francis Schaefer issue a warning about the future of the Church in the political arena. He warned that when hostility to evangelicals reached a certain point, and feeling the scorn of their “cultural despisers,” there would develop a temptation for the Church: to turn to the proverbial “Man on a White Horse,” to turn to a Champion. But he warned that this would not turn out well for the Church, any more than for France with Napoleon, a military genius but one whose ego led to the death of hundreds of thousands of French soldiers marching back from Moscow in the snow. The Cult of Personality can lead to very bad things.
Many in the Evangelical culture have tried to see Donald Trump as such a champion, with some leaders even likening him to the Persian King Cyrus in the Bible. But there are differences. For one, the Jewish people did not select Cyrus to lead them going forward, but only recognized God’s use of Cyrus in helping them leave their exile and return to Jerusalem.
As with the law of unintended consequences, you have to be careful what you wish for. There is no indication that Donald Trump really shares our principles on the cultural issues that place us at such tension with the hostile culture. It is a utilitarian marriage of convenience: the “Enemy of my Enemy” sort of thing. But to the general culture, we have become associated with his Persona. We become tainted with those attributes in the mind of those who are outside of the Kingdom and don’t share our concerns. So we have arrived at the point shared by theologian Michael Horton, who invokes the Apostle Paul in Romans:
“… the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. ” - Romans 2:24
We gain some things but lose others, maybe some which are even more important. In his first term Trump was able to provide three Justices all of who appear to be sympathetic to Biblical values. And this is a net improvement for, say, twenty years. Something to be grateful for. But if the attitudes of our millennial children are indicative, including their thoughts about the Faith that we are trying to share with them, we could lose an entire generation for the Gospel, a period much longer than the tenure of the present Justices of the Supreme Court.
This is not to say that turning to the other side is any improvement, so there is no clear answer other than to vote (maybe even write in, and I’m very aware of the arguments against that) and pray for God to work through the outcome.
As to the outcome, I have some final thoughts. I am starting this essay on the day before the election, and reserve the right to heavily edit this essay once reality sets in over the next (hopefully few) weeks. [See appended thoughts below]. It would not surprise me if Donald Trump wins. All the polls suggest a narrow finish. But who can predict the number of “undeclared” Trump voters who don’t want to show their hand, especially in non-Trump country.
To appreciate this, just read the online comments in the Washington Post in response to OpEd pieces by conservative writers. Even a conservative (never-Trump) writer like George Will is treated to hateful personal attacks. Someone like Hugh Hewett is called a “Christofascist,” and so it goes. Hate clearly has a home on the Left, not just over with the hard Right. One thoughtful never-Trump friend of mine took a look at the Post comment section and pronounced it “grotesque.”
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I actually could see things get off dead center and go hard one way or the other, each hoping to purge the other side. If Trump does win with a significant margin, we might see a purging of the “Woke” caucus of the Democratic Party. If the extreme hatred toward Donald Trump does rise up in numbers not now evident, we might see the purging of the Trump Personality Cult within the GOP that has so seized the party machinery of late. If so, the Party will have avoided becoming like France did with it’s Gaullist Party, or like the Peronist Party of Juan Peron (“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”). Whoever becomes the winner in this Election could see a purgation if their policies prove to be, shall we say, disappointing. We will see.
Post-Election Postscript
Basically a landslide, and the Harris campaign is in shock, her Campaign Manager saying that “it will take a long time to process,” that “the pain is unfathomable.” This confirms my earlier stated view that we truly might see a “purging” of the “woke caucus” of the Democratic Party. I did say that I wasn’t really sure which way it would break, and could have seen it going symmetrically the other way, given such deep seated emotions on both sides. The reticence to admit support publicly on the part of many of Trump’s voters clearly skewed the predictions.
Harris underperformed in all of the historical minorities that the Democratic Party has built strategy around. She even underperformed Joe Biden’s 2020 results among black women, if I remember correctly; these analyses are coming at us fast and furious. So any purging that will result will likely be of the leftmost elements of the Democratic Party. Trumpism with it’s cult level of devotion will continue to dominate the Republican Party as his campaign staffs up his administration. It will take a huge performance disappointment for that devotion to be displaced and for us to see a return to Reagan style conservative politics.
Now that Donald Trump is securely astride a White Horse, ready to take on the Deep State and do battle with the Social Elites, my concern about his style of leadership remains. It largely depends on the quality of staff that he brings on board, especially if he elevates loyalty to such a level that he never hears diversity of analysis. If he just trusts his gut in areas that really would benefit from expert knowledge, then the downside of the solo leader may catch his administration unaware. (I say that as someone who actually did read Intelligence Community briefings in my younger days.)
It is reported by former Trump administration staffers (who did not stay loyal; you will remember them) that Trump was impatient with much of his briefing material. This can get you in trouble, but I must admit that, even in the intelligence analysis community, getting a “fresh set of eyes” on the problem, often from outside the community can result in fresh insight. See my Medium essay on The Proteus Prediction Study for an example of such an outside the box approach. Sometimes this is fruitful, sometimes not. Let us hope that his instincts are good during this go-round. We know some of them already (tendency to isolationism for example) but the voters have chosen, with eyes wide open. Trust in “expertise” sometimes has resulted in Best and the Brightest problems (e.g. Viet Nam, see the David Halberstam book by that title). Let’s hope the staff that surrounds him will include both knowledge and fresh eyes, that their loyalty will be authentic, but not blind.
I am not sorry for the decisive defeat of Harris, but I do maintain my concern about the Trump leadership style. If he is to expand his landslide into actual broad based support, so that we experience some healing, he will need to develop more of an ability to persuade, not merely to flex his power.
I started this essay with a focus on his Evangelical supporters, so let me hazard a Biblical admonishment: “Come let us reason together says the Lord.” Surely the author of The Art of the Deal can rise above How to Win Through Intimidation (another author) and take that Biblical advice. The rules of the game in New York real estate may have given him toughness that has served him well under attack, but there is more to steering this divided country forward than mere toughness. Wisdom and Prudence are important.
Not all of my fellow Evangelicals have been Trump followers, as anyone who reads the New York Times or The Atlantic knows; writers Pete Wehner and David French have been “Never Trump” from the beginning. But anyone with a knowledge of the New Testament is familiar with the admonitions of both Paul and Peter that we should, in general, support the governing authorities. “Love God, honor the Emperor” [1 Peter 2:17]. This has been a stumbling block for many. But this advice was given during a time when the Emperor was evil: Nero. Perhaps the intent behind this advice was to teach that even a harsh ruler is better than anarchy, better than Mad Max: Fury Road. The early church recognized limits to this support. They would not burn incense to Caesar, and were killed in the arena for that. I don’t think we are anywhere near that point with our next President, despite the hyperventilation of his harshest critics.
A hopeful note: maybe this victory will give Trump the affirmation that he so clearly craves. Maybe enough that he will actually “act like he has been in the end zone before” (which he has). My prayers are that this victory will settle his (tortured) persona down so he can be an effective and persuasive leader, and not merely divisive.
January and February 2025
Observation (last week in January) on the White Horse Theme. David Ignatius, commented in The Washington Post about Trump’s address to the World Economic Forum in Davos under the headline:
“On a global stage, an imperial Trump offers some positive surprises”.
Ignatius observes that
“Trump’s clamorous reentry onto the global stage reminded one European here of Napoleon Bonaparte’s return from exile on the island of Elba in 1815 — and his manic bid for European supremacy known as “the 100 days.” Beware, Mr. President: That hubristic campaign ended in Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, and a second exile.”
Now February, Ukraine again. Never shy to shake things up, the President comes out swinging. Riding onto the field of battle, essentially declaring that the war had been started by Ukraine (surprise to them and all the rest of us), that it must now end, and more or less on Vladimir Putin’s terms. Snatching the negotiating initiative out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s mouth before he has a chance to engage in serious negotiations. Sending European leaders scurrying.
So David Ignatius comes back again:
“Trump has it right that the time has come to end this terrible war. He put the pieces in place and began the process. But then his monstrous ego got involved, and the peacemaking became bogged down in nonsense. This president, it must be said, is his own worst enemy. If he truly wants peace in Ukraine, he should follow the first rule for negotiators: In public, just shut up.” [Washington Post, Feb 19]
And Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal [Feb 20] grasping at straws, with maybe a bit of sardonic wit:
“Still it’s possible the author of “The Art of the Deal” is lulling Mr. Putin while setting him up for a great fall. Maybe Mr. Trump has thought a dozen moves ahead and has Mr. Putin right where he wants him.”
We can only hope. But I return to Samuel Johnson’s warning about “the triumph of hope over experience.” Dr. Johnson was speaking about second marriages; maybe we should apply to second presidential terms.
The “Man on a White Horse” image continues, with it’s mixture of hopes and apprehension.
