Cheerfully Taking on the Left
Evangelicals, Trump, and the self-hating progressives who miss the point
I stopped posting to Facebook during the Covid era because of all the censorship, and during the Biden term I didn’t feel like arguing from a defensive/pessimistic posture. But now that Trump 2.0 is in full swing, and I’m feeling ebullient about the future of America, I’ve started to enjoy getting back into the swing of cheerful rhetorical battle with some of my progressives friends.
I got into an argument with one of those “friends” last week. He’s a classic shitlib, works as an sociology professor (ugh) at a supposedly evangelical Christian college, and loves to deliver up self-flagellating concern poasts about his whiteness, privilege, and—of course—his moral superiority over Trump voters. The pearl-clutching is as cringe as it is banal, but I will say this positive thing about him: he engages in the back and forth without descending into retarded flame-throwing. He can be blind and obtuse, but he’s certainly not stupid, and for that I give him great credit.
The other day he commented on one of scumbag Andrew Tate’s typically idiotic attempts at a masculine thought:
“A lot of evangelicals are critiquing this comment from Andrew Tate. These same evangelicals put Trump (and Musk) in office. Trump had 5 kids by 3 women, and Musk had a dozen kids (or so) by 3 women (or so).”
What follows is a lightly-edited version of our back and forth. Enjoy.
Me:
Tate is a loser and his personal life should not be emulated. I also don't want my kids emulating Trump or Musk's escapades. What exactly is your point?
Sociology Prof:
It does apply to every other politician. Have I signaled otherwise?
Me:
Then how can you justify voting for anyone?
Sociology Prof:
There is a difference between policy disagreements and personal conduct. Policy disagreements can be adjudicated through our various procedures. Ironically, elevation of Trump has not only dramatically weakened our expectation of moral conduct, it has dramatically weakened our legal procedures. The ludicrous nonsense we are seeing now (and saw in the "big lie", etc.) can only be justified or supported by people who are in the "in-group." But, my contention is it damages them as well.
Me:
"elevation of Trump has [...] dramatically weakened our expectation of moral conduct"
No, it's merely revealed the hypocrisy of the regime political class (which spans both parties).
"There is a difference between policy disagreements and personal conduct."
Congrats, you have now put your finger on why many people voted for Trump.
Sociology Prof:
Hard disagree. Many nationally prominent pastors pastors from the SBC to the NAR have had to become apologists for racism, xenophobia, etc. They undermine their own moral clarity and are reshaping the moral lives and expectations of their flocks. If you're not willing to acknowledge these patterns, that it's only a problem of the "regime political class" and not millions of rank and file religious conservatives, I just don't know what to say.
I'm not sure the second comment is quite the gotcha on the policy/personal conduct you're looking for. I'm very much aware that there are trade offs, oftentimes in opposite directions when considering political identity (you're okay with personal moral deficiency as long as you get your policy preferences, I'm okay with using the legislative process to fight for policy while elevating personal moral competence among leaders). What strikes me as shocking is you don't seem to be willing to acknowledge the very real collective damage Trump's personal moral deficiency is causing, as if it stays just within his personal circle and doesn't ripple out in all kinds of damaging ways in our society and churches. It does. We are worse off, in so many ways. Public discourse. Civil engagement. Elevating the needs of the poor above the rich. Respect. Love of truth. Competence. Diversity. These have all been thrown out the window in a rush towards nihilism and raw power. Is this clip from Dan Bongino what you voted for? It's just one of a hundred clips of people in Trump's orbit. What does this have to do with your spiritual values? [bad URL provided]
Me:
(That Bongino link didn't work for me--can you repost?)
Oh, I affirm many (but definitely not all) of your list of social ills, but I reject your attribution to Trump. You've conflated the symptoms with the cause, the fever with the disease.
A rush to nihilism and raw power? Were you even conscious through the last 8 years? You are utterly blind to the wreckage that the progressive left has deployed against Civilization. We are starting to beat it back, but if they gain power again I am not optimistic about the future of America or the ability to raise my children in peace.
The reason Trump is appealing to so many is precisely because the left is so evil, and so even a crass and wealthy real estate tycoon is appealing by comparison, especially when he takes up the mantle of millions of voters previously ignored. Your "team" overplayed their hand in the last few years, and now the pendulum is swinging back to sanity (thank God). They pose an existential threat to peace, prosperity, and any sense of social morality grounded in Biblical truth. Not that I expect you to see that; your problem is that you celebrate and support many of the things that millions of us see as evil, calling them good. Ultimately, we are operating with different definitions of some of these big words being thrown around.
Also, I still haven't heard a good argument for why Trump's moral failing are unique vs pretty much every other politician out there. If you're going to argue that character is more than a nice-to-have, and should instead be upgraded to a status of "dealbreaker", then the burden of proof is on you to explain why you can't justify a theoretical vote for Trump on character grounds but you can for Biden or Harris (or most of Congress, for that matter). I've seen you publicly trash your spiritual elders over a difference of opinion about what a politician's moral failings requires of a voter, and I find it shameful.
Sociology Prof:
It's a bummer because I don't think our back and forths are very productive. Sometimes you sound very reasonable and I think understand where you're coming from, sometimes not so much. I'd like to be clear that I do not consider the democratic party "my team." I am highly critical of republicans precisely because many evangelicals consider the republican party "their team" and I find that deeply troubling. Of course many public leaders have failings, but Seth, are you seriously wanting to say Trump's personal character is equivalent to Biden, Harris, or many others in DC? This is so far from comprehensible to me that I find it hard to take you seriously. "Grab them by the pussy." "I can shoot someone on 5th avenue no one will stop me." Rape conviction. 34 felony convictions. Constantly winking and cozying up to white nationalists. "There are very good people on both sides." Seth, just today Trump's influence brought Andrew Tate back. WTH? You're into that? I read almost every tweet Trump put out for YEARS and it was a constant avalanche of greed, narcissism, cronyism, lies, deceit, hate, distaste, and dehumanization. The man has absolutely no filter. And to be clear, the problem is not just that I find his moral character poor. One of my biggest issues is that evangelicals USED to say the very same thing. Character used to be paramount. Then they systematically backed away from that conviction and replaced it with "might makes right" - something it seems like you are comfortable with. But every evangelical pastor was preaching the exact opposite back in the 80's and 90's. Character was everything back then. Now, most of the evangelicals have anointed Trump as God's man for the office. Have you paid any attention to the NAR? Jonathan Cahn? Lance Wallnau? They have literally set up Trump as a quasi messiah, confirmed by all their prophetic utterances. So yeah, I absolutely will call out my spiritual elders who are blind enough to fall into that deceit. Have I ever said the democrats are ideal? Never. In a typical election I would actually waffle a bit depending on who was on the republican ticket. It's this insane toss-out of principles, values, commitments, and frankly, common decency that I find abhorrent. You and I actually probably agree on many biblical principles we'd like to see promoted, and we probably have a lot of the same desires for our children (I'm not sure what you mean when you say I "celebrate many things millions see as evil." You'd have to be more specific). What I WILL say is that I have no interest in the church using raw power to press its desires into the cultural sphere. That might be our biggest difference. In my view, churches must lead from vulnerability and weakness. Not strength. Not power. Not force. Why? Because the "church" that emerges from this type of Trumpian power grab is not the church. It's an apostate church that has given up its inheritance for "comfort," "ease," "legal protection," whatever. It literally turns the church from a counter-cultural otherworldly institution into the very thing Judas Iscariot wanted Jesus to be about, and which Jesus actually was not interested in. I would much rather the church be out of favor with the political class, because every time it has embraced power and rulership, it has lost its identity. You're likely to reply that laws set up norms to protect people and families, etc. etc. and that is correct. I'm not against laws. But I am against these disturbing means of achieving those ends. Ok. I'm out of steam on this for now. I'm happy to read any reply you offer, but I will probably make this my last message on this thread. Peace.
Me:
Let me clarify also that I am not a Republican.
The problem here is that you're conflating a ton of things--both personal and political/philosophical--and smearing a lot of people as a result. I will point out some of your fallacies below, but let me just draw attention to this monster of a lie you just perpetuated: "There are very good people on both sides." The fact that you repeated that absurd, debunked slander in 2025 reflects so poorly on you that I almost want to delete everything else below. Take 5 minutes and google it. Unbelievable.
Anyway, here are your fallacies:
Assuming that political support for Trump is an endorsement of his every action (whether personal or policy). Stop trying to get me to defend what I'm not defending.
Conflating the institutional church and individual Christians bringing their faith to bear on the government. It's perfectly acceptable for clergy to call the state to its scripture-defined role in civil society, and this poses no threat to the much-vaunted (and much misunderstood) "separation of church and state." The real challenge is Biblically defining those roles, because all application flows from there. Ironically, I don't see progressives blanche when liberal churches call the state to support liberal social policies and use Scripture to support it, but they sure do freak out when conservative evangelicals do.
Second, where is the church "using raw political power to press its desires into the political sphere"? Is your claim that the formal institution of the church is trying to acquire and wield coercive power in the civil realm? I see no evidence of that, nor do I see anyone arguing for it. What I do see is individual Christians exercising their rights to support a government that uses its civil authority in a particular way, to further a particular moral vision of society. Funny, isn't that what progressive evangelicals do also? Are you objecting to the principle that people can make their voices heard through government, or just that people you disagree with are doing it?
I don't think "might makes [defines] right," but I do think that "right requires might." You appear to support a variety of progressive social policies that you justify as moral and important for creating the kind of society you want to see, so you believe that "right requires might" whether you realize it or not. You obviously want the state to use its power to fight "racism" (whatever that junk drawer of a word means anymore) or economic inequality; to promote state-run education, or LGBT+ "rights", or set certain public health policy, or "defend democracy around the world," etc. It seems like what you really object to is not using power, but how its used. In that concept we are aligned.
(There is a very deep and complex discussion going on right now about the role of government, the acquisition and wielding of power, of patronage networks and nobless oblige, etc. That is way beyond the scope of this conversation, but it's one I am intensely interested in. Here's a very thoughtful clip (4 min) of a recent podcast episode discussing this very thing.)
On to more fallacies:
You are also lumping into one bucket a TON of Trump-supporting Christians who have very different interpretations of scripture, prophesy, anointing, etc. I am vaguely aware of NAR, Cahn and Wallnau, but don't buy into ANY of that garbage about prophecies or quasi-Messiah lunacy. I do not swim in those streams (theological or political), and they have no bearing whatsoever on my views about Trump. But then again, I don't live in the nauseating progressive academic world that you do, where conservative bogymen patriarchists (oh my!) hide behind every corner.
You're mixing character issues that nobody denies (crass language, shady business dealings, mean tweets, etc) with other claims that millions of people reject (felonies, rape, etc). If you cannot see that the entire deep state and corporate press mobilized for YEARS to gin up bogus conspiracies, faked charges, changed laws to support their lawfare campaigns, converted bookkeeping entries into felonies, and pulled out all the stops in a cynical effort to destroy democracy by trying to prevent people from even having the option to voluntarily vote for or against an enormously popular candidate, then I don't know what to say. You are so blinded by your TDS, living in your progressive bubble, that's its flabbergasting. If you support democracy (TM), then you should be utterly shocked at the behavior of Trump's enemies.
You also forget that Trump was not the preferred candidate in 2015 by evangelicals--heck, even conservatives in general--but he won a plurality by splitting a huge field of candidates. I voted against him in 2015 for reasons both moral (I bought into the elevation of moral-character-as-ultimate-criteria argument before I realized it was a cynical manipulation) and practical (I simply didn't trust that he would keep his word). I have never been so happy to be proven wrong.
At the broadest level, there are only two categories when picking political leaders: you either require total purity (ideological, moral, execution competence, etc) or you inherently settle for less than perfect, and then it's a matter of strategy and discernment. Sometimes it seems you obviously accept the latter as realistic, but then you turn around and hold others to the former.
You seem fixated on Trump's tweets, on some of his coarse language, his pettiness, etc. I simply don't believe that you really are offended by it. You find it incomprehensible that I could view Trump's character as "equivalent to Biden, Harris, or many others in DC." Actually, I don't find them equivalent. I find all the others to be far worse--especially once you measure the impact of the ped0s and power-hungry grifters infesting our elite leadership class. They have wreaked exponentially more economic, social and spiritual havoc on society than Trump's divorces or his locker-room talk. (Do not take that as a *defense of any of it.) In fact, the very reason millions of people overlooked Trump's crassness and obvious excesses is precisely they saw what you apparently cannot, and they made a strategic choice. You can disagree with it, but you need to stop smearing people who took a look at the state of our society and decided it was worth the risk to throw a Hail Mary pass.
Here's a fundamental disconnect between us. You are insufficiently cynical about the current Regime. Once one realizes that the entire system needs to be destroyed, Trump's appeal suddenly becomes understandable. I remain unconvinced that the chemotherapy is worse than the cancer.
Sociology Prof:
"Deep state." "Pedos." "Entire system needs to be destroyed." You may want to consider that these do not sound like the signal words and phrases of a brave man possessing greater moral clarity or intellectual rigor than his peers. They sound like the words of someone who believes he's accessed the secret knowledge, the gnostic wisdom, that the rest of us are too feeble to discover. Here's what seems obvious to me, but for which I have no doubt you'll find a clever reply to deflect: Trump is interested in building a white America with a preference for European Christian heritage. It's why white nationalist Stephen Miller has a powerful seat at the table, white "cultural Christian" Musk has a seat at the table, why Musk and Bannon and others can get away with "Roman salutes" and why Trump's cabinets are always overwhelmingly white. Perhaps if the "chemotherapy" purged this racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism I could be more supportive. But it feeds off of it. And please don't @ me with the increased minority vote; Trump didn't win among Blacks, Asians, or Latinos. He did gain, yes, but since you're an expert in power you know how ideology manipulating power works. And you know about the price of eggs. If Trump was serious about "loving all the people" and "condemning white nationalism" (yes, I'm aware he "clarified" his Charlottesville remarks, unconvincingly) then it wouldn't take a strike force of mostly white operatives to pull it off. Those are your bedfellows.
On another note, I will do my best to evaluate your "list of fallacies" and try to learn from your observations. I think you make a fundamental error, though, in that you seem to believe most people think critically about issues and arrive at conclusions based on a thoroughly reasoned process. That's simply not true. Most knowledge, beliefs, etc. is absorbed unconsciously through socialization and similar processes. This is why I think the church is in trouble. You are rare. People who just go along with what they're told and causes the least friction in their particular social circles and institutional affiliations are common. Ironically, you see my position as compromised because I'm in some kind of liberal nightmare in the academy. Have you ever stopped to consider that these circles I'm in represent a mission field that I have to navigate carefully, so I'm able to address Christian concerns while maintaining credibility? Your deep state nonsense would be laughed out of the rooms I inhabit. I make that observation not to insult you, but to point to a reality. Whatever happened to "becoming like a Greek to the Greeks"? I love diversity and I love interacting with all kinds of people. My impression is that you prefer the opposite. Perhaps you have a different mission field?
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I didn’t feel the need to respond further. I’d processed, formulated and communicated what I wanted to, and I intentionally used some terms in the last round that I suspected he would trip over (academics and progressives are VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE and do not engage with concepts like the so-called “deep state” or even acknowledge the existence of elite pedophile rings, despite reams of evidence for both).
So what it even worth it? I don’t know. Here are a few reasons I write these soliloquies:
For the intellectual fun of it
I like mapping out my thoughts in writing; it forces me to try and think clearly and methodically
For the unseen audience whom I am aware is silently reading but not engaging. I don’t expect to convince Sociology Prof of much of anything; he’s too far deep into his self-hating progressivism. But plenty of others who don’t post themselves, but agree (or need permission to agree) with everything I observe, certainly benefit from hearing it expressed. I’ve been told so many times.