"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
-- Mark 8:36
Many people who detested Donald Trump voted for him anyway. The U.S. Supreme Court vacancy he will now fill is the biggest single reason why.
When then-candidate Trump's notorious "grab 'em by the" privates recording came out, I called some Republicans. What would they do, I asked. I received the same answer from each: Stress to voters that the Supreme Court was at stake.
I never shared their belief that only one branch of government matters. Still, they stuck by this man. Their reason was his appointment power over one branch of government. The control he would exert over his own almost did not matter. Now those voters will get what they bargained for.
The president will confirm some well-qualified conservative. For the president, it is the best deal he ever made. Give the social conservatives the one thing they really want. Then he gets to ignore their stated principles on everything else.
Picks for the Supreme Court were supposed to make voting for Trump worth it. It will not be.
Holding your nose and voting for an objectionable candidate is something I can understand. At some level, I can even respect that. What we know now and did not know in November 2016 is that abject surrender of practically every good thing the Republican Party in general and its religious wing in particular ever stood for was also part of the bargain.
Two thousand children are headed to internment camps while the "family values" voters celebrate the appointment of one Supreme Court justice.
A "principle" that is sacrificed to gain another "principle" is not a principle at all. It is a bargaining chip.
"You shall not murder" is the sixth commandment. Conservatives apply that to allowing abortion. It has become the commandment that trumps -- pun intended -- all the others.
"You shall not commit adultery." The president had a porn star paid $130,000 in hush money for a tryst that took place while his wife was recovering from childbirth.
"You shall not steal." The president's cabinet is a den of thieves. His charitable foundation is a swindle.
"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." The president is the most flamboyant liar in the nation.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." The president is the personification of grasping greed. On his inauguration day, his very first day in office, he coveted his predecessor's audience. He still covets his rival's popular vote majority and the snap-to attention Kim Jong Un gets from his subordinates.
The president is what he is. What shocks me is how his supporters have become such enthusiastic enablers.
As I have said before, granting the president free reign does him no favors. The GOP majority did not adequately check and balance George W. Bush, as I wrote in March of last year.
"You were either for the president or against him, and they were for him. The result was disaster followed by severe political defeat for the GOP. Yet as misguided as Bush was, I still see him as a decent person who had what he thought was the interest of his country at heart.
"Trump does not have Bush's personal qualities, and his worldview is even more misguided," I wrote. "If there was ever a president who needed a healthy dose of skepticism from even his friends, it is President Donald J. Trump."
There will be no conservative Christian revival in this country. The would-be redeemers bargained everything away for a couple of court appointments. Like Esau, conservative Christians have traded their birthright for a bowl of hot stew.
This is why the cry of "Bill and Hillary Clinton are worse" never stuck. No one every looked to the Clintons for moral guidance. The social conservatives were supposed to be the alternative, the guides to redemption.
I understand Christians feel persecuted. The first Christians faced lions. The cross, the very symbol of this religion, is a memorial to the founder's willingness to die rather than bend. Today, his followers happily crown a Caesar and bargain with him so their bakers can choose which wedding cakes to make.
They won the appointment battle. The culture war, already a defeat for conservatives, has become a rout.
Commentary on 06/30/2018