An Honest Question For Christians Who Support Trump

My question to you is this: Is there anything Donald Trump could say or do that would make you stop supporting him? Genuinely… ANYTHING? Is there any act of immorality vile enough, or any biblical or civil law he could break, that he could lose your vote? Is there anything resembling a bottom for you? I’m honestly wondering…

Nearly nine years ago, Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd of people at a small Christian college in Iowa called Dordt (a college very demographically & theologically similar to my alma mater Calvin University), and there he bragged “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” Well, I’m not sure if “bragged” is the word. I think—in a rare moment of honesty—he was just expressing genuine amazement at the lack of any sort of moral standard below which he could sink for his supporters. And he was right… 81% of those same white evangelicals he was speaking to at Dordt College went on to vote for him… Ignoring him bragging about sexually assaulting women… Ignoring a lifetime of corruption & failure & adultery… Ignoring him mocking a disabled reporter… Ignoring him attacking a Gold Star family… Ignoring a MOUNTAIN of evidence that would very reasonably place this dishonest man among history’s most repulsive & corrupt villains.

Then came his presidency, where his supporters watched with indifference as the president of the United States and “leader of the free world” literally praised dictators… As he fired the government employees responsible for investigating the illegal things he did… As evidence came out that he used campaign funds to pay off a porn star… As he bumbled a pandemic response which led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths… As he withheld military support for Ukraine unless they produced information which would harm his political opponent… And finally as he incited an insurrection with his lies on January 6, watched as his supporters attacked the Capitol, and then sat in silence FOR MORE THAN THREE HOURS as his political allies pleaded with him to call off his minions.

Now we watch as he promises to be “a dictator on day one.” He has repeatedly said he would use the federal government to go after political rivals. He stands in front of cheering, sneering crowds and channels Adolf Hitler, referring to immigrants as “vermin” and accusing them of “poisoning the blood” of America. And just this past week, we watched as he stood on a debate stage, in front of an audience of nearly 70 million people, and accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of stealing & eating people’s pets.

This trope about immigrants eating pets has a long & very racist history. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve heard some “joke” about there being dog or cat meat in Chinese food. This started a LONG time ago. In the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland printed trading cards portraying Chinese immigrants eating rats in order to smear his political opponent. This stoked people’s fears that these brown people were taking the jobs, bringing disease, and even killing pets and putting them into their food. Sound familiar? Demonizing immigrants is straight out of the nazi handbook…

Many times, when Trump says something super racist or insane, the press will question J.D. Vance about it in a kind of “Hey man, your wife is the daughter of immigrants and you have biracial kids… Are you OKAY with this?” sort of way. But as you can see above, he doubles down on Trump’s virulent xenophobia. And speaking to J.D. Vance’s point about a rise in car insurance rates, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post published a story about a minor fender bender in Springfield, Ohio involving a Haitian immigrant—who, by the way, are in this country legally. Imagine a large New York paper posting a whole story about a minor traffic accident that happened over 600 miles away. Incredible.

In 2016, J.D. Vance wrote (in a tweet that he has since deleted), “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” After the release of the Access Hollywood tape (where trump bragged about kissing women without their permission and “grab[ing] them by the pussy”), Vance tweeted “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.” He even referred to trump as “America’s Hitler.” But it seems that—like so many other people who identify as “Christian”—the promise of a bit more power was enticing enough to make him abandon his beliefs and ignore his moral repulsion to trump’s constant vileness… And now he’s blaming Black & Brown folks for “communicable diseases.” This is the man on the republican ticket who’d be one 78 year old man’s heartbeat away from the presidency.

And to let you know the fruit of these lies that fan the flames of racial fear and hatred, the Haitian families living in Springfield are feeling scared to let their kids go to school as the presidential candidate most white christians support spreads false stories about their community (and not that it should matter, but a community that is LARGELY CHRISTIAN… though there have also been accusations of “voodoo”). But it turns out that actually works out well, because for a third day in a row since Trump & Vance have spread their racist lies about Haitians, people have been calling in bomb threats to schools, community & government buildings, and hospitals in Springfield. So to sum up: A largely Christian, Black immigrant community—here legally from an impoverished & largely decimated country that Christians LOVE to take mission trips to—is scared to go outside because the candidate that christians are voting for is spreading lies about them eating pets. That’s where we are.

So I repeat my question to you, Christian: Is there NOTHING he could do that is despicable enough, demented enough, vile enough, to lose your support?

Though, again—to be fair—it is really almost exclusively only WHITE Christians who support him. Pew Research recently came out with a poll showing 82% of white evangelicals support Trump in this coming election. That’s slightly up from the 81% of white evangelicals who voted for trump in 2016. Perhaps it’s not that there are even more white evangelicals who support trump… Perhaps there are so many people whose disgust with the Christian support of this vile man has resulted in enough people leaving evangelicalism that those who remain simply account for a bigger percentage. One can hope…

In the Bible, there is a story of a Faustian bargain of sorts—before Jesus starts his ministry—where the devil tempts or “tests” Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus is hungry, and the devil suggests that he turns a stone into bread. He then tempts him to throw himself off the top of the temple, because supposedly angels will catch him & keep him from getting hurt. In the third temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain, shows him “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (must have been a REALLY tall mountain to see the kingdoms on the other side of the planet), and the devil tells him that it’s all his if he just bows down and worships him. Jesus passes this third test, and he goes on to start his ministry.

I grew up being taught these stories… Both in Sunday school AND in the Christian schools I attended. These stories MEANT SOMETHING to me—I was TAUGHT the story about Jesus being offered all this power, but him turning it down to be a servant. I was TAUGHT the story of a people who desperately wanted a king, holding a sword, riding on a horse… But God deciding to show up as a carpenter, healing his enemy’s ear, riding on a donkey. I was TAUGHT the story of a man who loved sinners, who welcomed the outcast, who healed the sick… And then I watched as roughly 81% of the people who taught me those stories—at the first opportunity for a little bit more power—bowed down at the feet of a man who couldn’t be more totally opposite of the Jesus of those stories if he had tried.

So was he right? When he said he could murder someone in the street and not lose a voter, was he talking about you? The only reason a vile lying ghoul like trump has a chance in hell of winning is because white Christians in America love power more than they love Jesus. That’s it. Otherwise, the only ones voting for him would be a smattering of incels & dropouts & people who spend time in white supremacist chat rooms. White Christians are the only reason it’s even close. And if that’s you and you’re reading this, YOU are the only reason it’s close. You watch in silence as “America’s Hitler” equates immigrants from “shithole countries” with crime, disease, and missing pets… stirring hateful, stupid people into actions that do VERY REAL HARM. Every day you keep supporting this racist, sexist, adjudicated rapist conman is another day the devil in that Bible story offers you power if you just bow down, and you fail the test. Miserably.

But if you still support trump and you call yourself a Christian, I’ve got some good news for you… Some “Gospel,” if you will: This test you keep failing is not a test that you only get to take once. It’s a test that is going to be there tomorrow as well. It’s a test that you get another chance at passing every day… Particularly on November 5th. I mean, come on—Something inside of you instinctively has to be feeling weird about the fact that you keep ending up on the same side as nazis. When Rach, Shack, & Benny were threatened with the furnace if they didn’t bow down to the Chocolate Bunny in that VeggieTales episode, even vegetables knew that their integrity meant more. When the devil offered power to Jesus if he’d bow down, he said, “Away from me, Satan!” It never works out well for the people in those faustian tales who sell their integrity… their most deeply-held beliefs… Their SOUL in exchange for a little more power. If you call yourself a christian, it’s time to consider choosing to love Jesus more than you love power.

Thank you very much for reading. I must confess that part of the reason I want/need so badly for trump to lose is out of a place of selfishness. I feel like I need trump to lose for the sake of my own soul. I don’t know that my belief in goodness could survive another election night where the results leave me reevaluating my beliefs about human nature, or could sustain another presidential term that leaves me looking at the people around me with suspicion & disgust. Please, PLEASE vote. And if you’re interested, you can follow me ON FACEBOOK or ON TWITTER. Also, if you value the things I write, you can also BECOME A PATRON or leave me a tip either ON PAYPAL or Venmo me at chris-boeskool