Michael Brown began his March 6 WorldNetDaily column by insisting, “This article is not intended to influence how you vote on Tuesday, Nov. 5, nor is it intended to influence how you view former President Donald Trump. Instead, it is to help you keep a godly, faith-filled and sane perspective in the months leading up to Election Day, since things could get pretty crazy before then.” He then further insisted, “That’s why neither Donald Trump nor the elections are going to be my primary focus in the months ahead.” Brown is being dishonest, of course; he has been a longtime Trump supporter, even writing two books with the explicit purpose of convincing his fellow evangelicals to overlook Trump’s amorality and support him because he delivered on right-wing agenda items. Despite some wavering, he still wants to see Trump become president again, and he is very much interested in finding a way to make that happen.
One way Brown is doing that is conceding his flaws early so he doesn’t have to discuss them closer to election time. Thus, he spent his April 12 column admitting logical reasons why Trump is “so hated”:
The first and most obvious reason is that Trump is reaping what he has sown. He has sown hatred and he is reaping hatred. He has been nasty and cruel and crude and vicious, and his detractors are responding in kind, giving him some of his own medicine.
This should occasion no surprise, even to his most dedicated followers. He punches his opponents in the face, metaphorically speaking, and they punch back. (Would a more fitting metaphor be that he hits below the belt?)
There is no fair play. The gloves are off.
Second, Trump was hardly seen as a model of Christian virtue and humility in his pre-presidential days. Instead, he was known as a proud womanizer, a man who made money on strip-club casinos, not to mention being thrice-married himself. “Narcissist” was his middle name.
That’s why his critics have wondered aloud at the widespread support Trump has received from Christian conservatives, in particular evangelicals.
Weren’t these the same people who would not vote for Bill Clinton because of his alleged sexual dalliances? Weren’t these the same people who once billed themselves “the Moral Majority”? Weren’t these the “Values Voters,” the ones who shouted, “Character counts”?
How could they then vote for Trump, let alone support him so passionately?
Those of us who did vote for him would have a ready response: To our knowledge, his immoral days were in his past. But either way, we are in an existential fight for our nation’s survival, and without question, Trump was and is a better choice than Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.
To say this, though, is to miss the point of this article, which has to do with why Trump is so hated. Instead those of us who support(ed) him need to put ourselves in the shoes of our ideological opponents, asking this question: If Donald Trump were a far-left Democrat, running against a God-fearing, highly moral Republican, how would we feel about Trump?
Put another way, if Trump were the enemy rather than the ally, would we excuse the sordid nature of his past and overlook the unsavory aspects of his character today? Wouldn’t we say, “We do not want a man like that in the White House?”
Do give this some thought. The answer should be self-evident.
Brown then tried to blame the media:
Third, Trump is deeply hated because his opponents believe the very worst things about him, in particular as peddled by major media outlets: that he is not just a bad person. He is a danger. A real danger. The devil has nothing on him.
If elected, they say, he will strike down the rule of democracy. He will empower the most foul, vicious and violent elements of society. He will remove the rule of law. He will destroy the world!
During his presidency, a childhood friend of mine unfriended me on Facebook simply because I voted for Trump, and, while never excusing his foul behavior, I defended him when he was falsely accused.
Never mind that Brown himself is guilty of believing the very worst things about President Biden, as peddled by right-wing media outlets (like, um, WND); take, for instance, his performative outrage over Biden marking a Transgender Day of Visibility on the same day as Easter while censoring the fact that the day has always been on March 31 while Easter bounces around from year to year.
Brown then tried to cut closer to his fellow evangelicals’ affinity for Trump:
Fifth, Trump has identified publicly with Christian conservatives, and to the extent we and our values are hated, he is hated. If you are pro-abortion, he is the enemy. If you sympathize with transitioning children, he is the enemy. If you don’t like the Bible, which Trump freely waves and endorses, he is the enemy.
Whether or not Trump is truly Christian or even reads the Bible is not the issue. It is that he has surrounded himself with Christian conservatives, some of whom are quite bold about their faith, and therefore, as they are hated, so also is he hated. We, on our part, are perceived as power-hungry hypocrites, willing to go to any lengths to have a seat at the table.
Trump, then, is the chief hypocrite, a fitting leader for these misguided, theocracy-minded leaders.
That is the perception of those on the “other side.”
That’s why it is so important that, if we do choose to vote for Trump, as I have said time and again, we make that the secondary matter, lest we tarnish the name of the Savior we love.
In other words, to the extent that we preach Trump rather than just vote Trump, we defile our witness.
So, let’s preach Jesus and model our lives after Him. And let’s be sure to vote.
But it’s difficult to make a vote for Trump a “secondary matter” when the vote is all that counts in an election. Notice that Brown refuses to take a stand here by unequivocally stating that Trump’s amorality and hate makes him unsuitable to be president; it’s obvious that as the election grows closer, Brown will portray Trump as the lesser of two evils by repeating right-wing hate of Biden as the real enemy of evangelicals. It’s something that Brown will portray as principled, but it’s really just a cynical move to justify supporting Trump because, again, he delivers right-wing goods and Brown ultimately doesn’t care how that actually happens.