Trump, versus Biden or any Democrat, is precisely the lessor evil. By my calculus, Hilary was five times worse; Biden ten times worse. No moral equivalence here! But the operative word is evil. A Catholic cannot participate in a real evil, even to avoid a far greater evil.
I cannot kill one innocent person, even to save a million. If I were an Israeli soldier in Gaza today with my Catholic conscience, could I bomb buildings knowing what I know? In 1937, could I have bombed Guernica for Franco's forces? Berlin or Hiroshima for the Allies in 1945? The napalmed fields of South Vietnam in the late 1960s? No! No! No! No! (Aside: I do not judge Netanyahu, FDR, Truman or Johnson who do not live in my more demanding moral Catholic universe. Franco is another story!)
The question: Is Trump a substantial, formal evil? Or is he merely an imperfect, crude and vulgar man but a prudent choice in the circumstances? Am I unrealistic, possibly looking for the purity of a saint in the messy, rough arena of politics? This essay will argue that The Donald is gravely, essentially an evil political force. This is not to judge his heart; we leave that to God; but to objectively evaluate his influence.
Full disclosure: psychiatrically I have been diagnosed with a severe Biden-Aversion-Complex but am entirely free of Trump-Derangement-Syndrome so the analysis that follows is entirely sober, critical but appreciative, objective, fair, balanced and unafraid (just like Bret Baer at 6 PM on Fox). LOL!
Credit Where Credit is Due
His Supreme Court appointments make him, from the viewpoint of the unborn, the greatest pro-life President in history. He gets A+ for that and for his general forcefulness on the Culture War. Trump-haters say he could care less about the unborn but merely played to his base. I think he does care; I do not see him as a sociopath, bereft of empathy and conscience. But the correct response is that only God can see his soul and judge him. What we must judge, politically, is the objective value and consequence of his actions. He gets very high grades here, however impure his motives may be.
He is basically a celebrity and an entertainer. I never cared for him; but in the political arena, harassing the progressive elites, he is relieving, refreshing and sometimes comical.
As a severe narcissist he has no real interest in governance or policy so he did little real damage to our institutions, restrained as he was by competent advisors and resilient national institutions.
He presided over a world order of remarkable tranquility. This is undeniable, especially compared with the Obama and Bush years. I give him credit for: the Abrahamic Accords and forcing NATO to pay their due. I believe his unpredictability was a deterrent to aggressors. That worked well for that time but is not good policy in the long term. His good fortune was due (in my view) less to his policy than to events beyond his control. He needlessly weakened the trust of our allies; he despicably idolized tyrants like Putin; and he advocated isolation and abandonment of our proper role in deterring bad actors across the globe. On foreign affairs, I give him fair grades; better than Obama and far, far better than the Biden train wreck.
He presided over a robust economy, especially contrasted with the inflation of the Biden years. Here again I give his policy partial credit as the economy is so complex that federal policy has (in my view) limited influence. This tax cuts surely energized the economy. But it also favored the rich, increased the deficit/debt, and contributed to long term inflation. I do not give him good grades on economics.
What's So Evil About Trump From a Catholic Perspective?
1. The Dignity of the Person. This is the foundation of all political life. In policy Trump is generally satisfactory, in some ways exemplary, and superior to the Democrats. But his personal language, behavior, and attitude convey raw contempt: of women, immigrants, anyone who opposes him. This is not just vulgarity or bad manners. This is moral decadence.
2. Moral Exemplar. For all of us, but especially our young, he is an force for evil. He is a strong man and a powerful influence. He springs from but intensifies the deepening decadence of our society. In addition to his contempt for the person, his indifference to truth and fact is simply breathtaking. He presents as populist but is in fact an indulgent, selfish child of privilege who shows no sign of compassion for the poor and suffering. We are all of us, always under mimetic influence. Everyone, but especially one in authority and the limelight, is a role model. As such, he is a catastrophe. This is not incidental, but essential to presidential leadership.
In a position of leadership we seek three qualities: competence in the task, a sound policy vision, and a personal (less than perfect) exemplar of the values of the community. My own view is that a resilient, stable institution (like the Church and the USA) can more easily endure weakness in competence or ideology than in moral character.
It is not that we expect a pure, innocent saint, but a man who personally represents in his person what our country stands for. This is the role of anyone in leadership at whatever level: not holiness, not perfection, but basic moral integrity and dignity. In my own lifetime, of 14 presidents, 11 from both parties have provided that. Even Nixon whom I never admired was publicly honorable; Kennedy, whose personal failings were largely unknown at the time, was an icon of dignity. The three exceptions: Clinton, with the Lewinsky scandal, opened the door to public acceptance of depravity. After that incident, a high school counselor told me that there was a new contagion of adolescent boys pressuring their girl friends for oral sex. Bill Clinton, if he does not burn eternally in hell, is looking at heavy purgatory time. Through that open door, fellow sexually-liberated Boomer-Trump shamelessly strolled. Even worse, Biden with his faux working-class-Catholic demeanor hypocritically betrayed his Church, abandoned his granddaughter, and leads the genocide of the unborn and the woke parade. As far as moral, mimetic contagion, we have in Clinton/Trump/Biden a genuine Axis of Evil.
3. Hatred, Anxiety, Polarization. The role of leadership at any level is to unite participants around shared values. Trump is the mastermind in arousing populist fear, rage, suspicion and hatred. Likewise, in the opposition he elicits actual derangement: hysteria, irrationality, desperation, and contempt of the privileged for the lower class. This is not bad manners! This is, in the specific etymological meaning, diabolical: the "dia-bolic" or "tearing apart" of the body politic, into rage, hatred, anxiety and confusion.
4. Common Good vs. Individualism. Politics is "morality applied to society": it is about the common good, justice, rule of law, and solidarity with those afflicted and vulnerable. Even as they promote special interests and their own personal advancement, politicians appeal always to these primary values. Donald Trump is, by contrast, a cartoon caricature of the self-centered, indifferent, rich, powerful, privileged, arrogant, deceitful celebrity-narcissist. He vents hatred, rage, fear and contempt. Perhaps part of his appeal is that he is refreshingly free of hypocrisy: his amorality is blatant, uncamouflaged, and histrionic. His political vision is a vulgar, resentful nationalism, which is far from a wholesome patriotism. He is contemptuous of civil virtues of truthfulness, justice, humility, receptivity, care for the poor, reconciliation, and peace through contrition and forgiveness.
My personal beef with Trump is his affect upon my older grandchildren: coming of age in his era in pure-blue NJ/NYC, they are nauseated by his moral stench and so pushed away from conservatism and towards progressivism. They already have a wholesome, understandable adolescent sympathy for liberal concerns like the environment, gun control, care of the poor/marginalized, and the dignity of women. Trump has placed a severe impediment in our intention to pass on our countercultural understanding of sexuality, gender, family, religious freedom and the unborn. In my primary concern of passing on my faith, Trump is my worst enemy. By a contrarian logic, I suspect that the more they see of Biden, the more they may be open to traditional moral values; the more they see of Trump the more they are repulsed by the same.
Defect in Judgement by the Catholic Trump Voter
Three dynamics are evident in the Catholic vote for Trump:
1. An exaggerated fear of the the progressive opposition along with an underestimation of our own conservative strength and resiliency. Yuval Levin accurately observes that both sides of the Culture War are prone to an hysteria that their side is losing and society is on the brink of collapse. Many smart liberals really think that democracy will be destroyed by a second Trump administration, even as his first did no real institutional damage. They bemoan an alleged "insurrection" as if we just had another civil war when a few hours after the riot Pence and the entire Republican establishment serenely ratified the election. Conservatives mirror this overreaction: a moronic memo by a handful of DOJ personnel is inflated into a systemic assault on traditional Catholicism. Conservatism is well served by sobriety, calm, a realistic evaluation of the internal incoherence and weakness of progressivism, and long-game confidence in the heavenly/earthly resources we have inherited.
2. An underestimation of the "Trump Effect": a view of him as a vulgar, crude man but overall a force for good in the context of the liberal threat. This fails to see the moral infection which he himself brings to the body politic. This is not a judgement about the state of his heart and soul; we leave that to God. It is a serene evaluation of his overall influence, culturally/morally/spiritually, for the heart of our country, more than economic and power dynamics.
3. An unwillingness or inability to see any good in the liberals who are demonized into perverse cartoon figures. As a fierce moral conservative myself, I am sympathetic to their concerns about childhood poverty and hunger, gun control, the environment, a balanced regulatory environment, heavier taxation on the rich and hyper-rich, strong alliances across the globe, international cooperation including aid to the Ukraine. The "libs" are not as good as they think they are; but they are not as bad as the conservatives think they are.
Conclusion
This coming November I cannot vote for a Democrat and will not vote for Trump. I will stay up late, rooting for the defeat of the Left. Should Trump prevail, I will delight in the downfall of my enemy. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. I will grieve the continued descent of our society into depravity. I will hope that the Republicans finally renounce the person of The Donald but retain what is best in his politics. I will hope that the Democrats succeed in the genuinely good they intend; and are restrained from the evil. I will pray for a moral/spiritual revival in our nation and our reconciliation/unification around all that is true, good, just.
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