Compromising Our Morals, Ourselves

YOU'LL RECALL, unless you're a Trump supporter and prefer not to, that one month before Trump was elected, he revealed himself to be a serial sexual predator, and proud of it. It suddenly appeared that although Hillary Clinton was only slightly ahead in the polls, that her election was certain. How could Trump possibly win? Millions of Americans would refuse to vote, or switch their vote. In fact the Republican national committee wanted him to withdraw, but he refused. Amazingly, he was elected, largely because of the vicissitudes of the electoral college; Clinton got three million more votes than he. Trump's primary support base consisted, and still consists, of white evangelical Christians, and working class white men with limited educations. These same people would undoubtedly have lambasted a Clinton or an Obama under similar circumstances. A great deal of research has gone into figuring all this out. Angry, alienated people looking for an authority figure, a savior of sorts. The year of the outsider, in which Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump stole the show. America, moving in a progressive direction, with increasing cultural diversity, acceptance of gay and transgender people, and increasingly dissatisfied with corporate economic hegemony and grotesque inequality of wealth and income, spurring conservatives to long for and seek to revive a long gone America with white male patriarchy and Christian dominance. Maybe it all adds up, maybe it all makes sense, and yet, somehow, it doesn't. A man with three divorces, numerous extramarital affairs, and dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct, being elected by the support of the Christian community. It turns out that America's conservative Christian community has more than a selective memory; it has selective morality. Since the late nineteen seventies, when evangelical participation in politics became prominent, the two issues upon which politically active Christians have hung their hats have been abortion, and homosexuality, the twin sins of Christian conservatism. And on those accounts, Trump fills the bill, or at least pays lip service to it. Marital infidelity, divorce, and heterosexual misbehavior have taken a sinful back seat. Our right wing evangelical Christians place great emphasis upon those sins in which they have no personal interest, and show little or no concern for those in which they already have, or might be tempted in the future to indulge in themselves. If only Hillary had been stridently anti-choice. Even that might not have been sufficient to break the magic of Trump. White supremacy has a long history within American conservatism. Racism, after all, is a traditional American value, conservative, not liberal. The Christian American right is strongly pro capitalism; sharing wealth through government action is taboo for those who profess to follow a man who told us to render unto Caesar and give unto the poor. Mega churches and larger than life ministers spewing these values satisfy America's longing for celebrity. Trump, the glitzy celebrity with an angry, reactionary message of a better America lost to progress is the perfect match for religious, money seeking conservatives, what Gore Vidal called the "Jesus, guns, and money" crowd. As the baby boomers age out and the much more progressive millennials take over, this will change, but it hasn't yet, and until it does, we will be stuck with Trump, his followers, and all the unpleasantness inherent therein.