WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown may hate LGBT people, and he may have labored to find excuses for right-wing evangelicals like himself to love Donald Trump as president, but credit where it’s due — he has largely rejected going full MAGA by pushing bogus election fraud claims and admitting the Capitol riot was a bad thing. He has also largely been alone among WND columnists in doing so. Brown wrote in his Nov. 15 column:
The purpose of this article is not to mock, ridicule, or insult. Nor am I here to gloat or say, “I told you so.” Instead, I want to make a simple, two-fold appeal: First, can we be realistic and recognize that Trump will not be restored to the White House by some kind of military act or miraculous event (other than simply running again in 2024)? Second, can we be mature enough to acknowledge our errors, learn from our mistakes and move on? In short, can we make this a teachable moment?
When I announced on radio on Jan. 6 that Trump would not be returning to the White House (meaning, without being reelected in the future), the response from many was outrage. I was a traitor. I had given up the cause. I was like one of the ten Israelite spies who brought back an evil report (in contrast with Joshua and Caleb, who believed God’s report). I was a Never Trumper. I was bought out by the Deep State. I was a Communist infiltrator.
You get the drift.
[…]The fact is that, whether there was fraud or not, Joe Biden is our president, as recognized by our Congress and courts.
As for Trump, he is not our president, and he is not going to be miraculously restored to the White House any time soon. (Again, this is apart from him potentially running in 2024.)
Can we finally admit that this is the case and move on? Or will we be setting dates for the military to remove Biden in 2022 (or 2023), in keeping with yet another conspiratorial fantasy? I certainly hope we will not.
[…]To the contrary, as the risk of alienating some readers, my only concern is that those who were deceived or misled or misinformed would come to grips with reality, learn from their mistakes, and come out as better men and women for it. As for those leaders who misled or misinformed others, now would be a good time to say, “It looks like I was wrong, and I apologize for speaking falsely and getting your hopes up for nothing. I intend to learn from this and not repeat such errors.”
Brown even advoacted that Trump not run in his Dec. 13 column, blaming the “collateral damage” he has:
Donald Trump’s greatest accomplishment as president may not have been the policies he enacted or the justices he appointed. Instead, as important as those accomplishments were and are, it is possible that the most important thing he did as president was to say to the political world, “I will not play your games. I am the champion of the people, not a member of the good old boys club.”
But now that he has broken the mold, thrown out the old rule book and forged a new path of leadership, it will be best in 2024 for another conservative leader with backbone and conviction to take the lead. Trump simply brings too much collateral damage with him (and, I remind you, I voted for him in 2016 and 2020).
the prompt for this, thought, is an odd one: Trump rejecting corrupt former Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his election. Brown continued to ask people not to pursue the election-fraud stuff because it may keep right-wingers from getting elected:
But this is not the primary political battle we need to be fighting now, even if you feel 100% sure the election was stolen.
The primary political battle is to get the right people in office, first in the midterms, then in 2024, all while continuing to push for election integrity on every front. (For the record, our electoral system seemed to work pretty well last month, didn’t it?)
And we certainly don’t need to reelect someone who will make loyalty to himself, demonstrated by the public affirmation that the election was stolen, cloud his judgment as president.
Brown criticized election truthers again in his Dec. 15 column:
Some of my most respected ministry colleagues are absolutely convinced that the 2020 presidential elections were stolen. Some of them, including scholars with advanced degrees in statistics and a long list of bona fides, feel sure that the evidence for election fraud is overwhelming. But that doesn’t mean that I am convinced and am denying the truth, let alone that “everyone” is convinced and living in open and willful denial. Perish the thought.
[…]But, to repeat, I do not know that the election was stolen, despite waiting in vain for the great smoking gun.
Attorney Sidney Powell has still not delivered the promised Kraken. (Trust me. I was really hoping to see it.)
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell failed to deliver the promised bombshell revelations in August. (Feels like a long time ago now, doesn’t it?)
None of the audits or court cases have produced anything that would conclusively demonstrate fraud on a national level.
Even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the most consistent and respected conservative voices in America, does not seem to believe there is evidence that the elections were stolen.
Brown hasn’t completely rejected Trump, though. In his Dec. 22 column, Brown praised Trump’s religious lip service (though surely he understands Trump didn’t mean a word of it); he did concede that “the distance between Donald Trump on his very best day (or, any of us on our very best day) and Jesus Himself is the distance of infinity.”
In his Jan. 6 column on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Brown tried to split the difference, admitting that Trump “is to blame for inciting the crowds with his irresponsible rhetoric, even if he never wanted to see the Capitol stormed.” But he sought to somewhat downplay the riot itself: “So, what took place one year ago was not an insurrection. But it was a day of shame and infamy. Let’s learn our lessons well.”