Age of Trump Sagely, my oldest granddaughter Brigid observed a few years ago that the only political world she had known is that dominated by Trump. She realized this is not a blessing. He has been at once a symptom of, an aggravation of, and a reaction against the pathologies of our time. In this essay we will ignore this person to consider the political terrain independent of him.
Protestant Background. The USA has always been, and remains in many ways, a Protestant Christian Nation. The Protestant Reformation (along with the Enlightenment, Freemasonry, etc.) informs the entire social network of our nation in its: idolatry of the Individual in solitary intimacy with Christ and rejection of ecclesial authority, sacramentality of marriage and orders, infallibility of the apostolic hierarchy, confession of sins, the religious life, devotion to Mary and the saints, This legacy and its long, complex historical trajectory has isolated the autonomous, rootless, lonely Self and inexorably destroyed bonds of filial loyalty, fidelity, obedience, authority, family and community at every level. The core social value becomes liberty as isolated individualism, freedom of choice and release from any bond or connection prior to choice. We see this in the economic liberalism of the Right and the sexual freedom of the Left. We see this trend intensified with increasing dependence on the mega-state and global corporations as intermediate, local institutions diminish and disappear. The war of "all against all" that results can only be mitigated by a controlling state; so that the individualism is countervailed by collectivism. The Catholic vision of the person intrinsically, interiorly connected (prior to choice) to family, God, community and the moral order is replaced by the absolute centrality and sovereignty of the Autonomous, Lonely Self,
Prehistory: 1945-65 The American into which I was born and raised was amazingly harmonious and uniform: economic prosperity, a pervasive Protestant/Catholic religious revival, relief at victory in war and the end of the Depression, unity in the Cold War and national confidence that verged on arrogance. There was no real Culture War; no dispute about abortion, gender, or sex. The contest between the two parties was mostly between capital and labor about how to share the expanding pie of economic affluence, This competition was not a war, but more like a congenial picnic volleyball game. This exuberant period culminated with the triumph of the Civil Rights Movements which elicited the support of all major cultural institutions, excepting racism local to the South.
Cultural Revolution Post 1965 As we boomers entered adulthood, the American Camelot of our childhood/youth was destroyed by the eruption of the multifaceted Revolution: the pill, anti-establishment animus (especially the Vietnam War), rejection of tradition and authority, sterilization and liberation of sex, deconstruction of gender, scientific arrogance, rampant consumerism, the demise of religion, corruption of the family, and triumph of the therapeutic. Politically, the Democratic Party became the vehicle for this revolution; while moral conservatives found shelter with the Republicans. It has been observed that if this revolution were prophesized in 1960, most would assume that the party of change would be the affluent, indulged, selfish, individualistic, powerful Republicans. History is indeed surprising!
Let us consider six major, and then some minor divides between the parties in our age.
1. Abortion is unquestionably the most defining, substantial difference. This is a binary opposition of absolutes: the reproductive right of the woman and the life of the embryo. There really is no coherent compromise here: the contradiction is unconditional. The rights mutually annihilate each other. Perhaps 60 % or more Americans favor some pragmatic compromise: exceptions, a moderate but random period of time, etc. This is what is happening of course and will prevail in most states. But morally, conceptually this makes no sense: why may a woman kill the fetus at one day less than (say) three months but not one day after? In both cases, the abortion is either a killing of a human or a morally acceptable option: the nature of the act cannot change on that particular calendar date. We see now in the hysteria and passion of the progressive reaction to Dobbs that for them reproductive is an absolute and sacred right, a matter of "life or death."
2. Sterilization of sexuality is the deeper divide and the actual root cause of the addiction to abortion. The development of contraception was the most revolutionary technological event in human history: it redefined sexuality, gender, family, the nature of the person and the value of (incompetent, defenseless) human life. The integrity, harmony and profundity of God's design for sex, gender, marriage, family, fruitfulness, chastity, and fidelity is replaced by engineered sterility, contraception/cohabitation, pornography/masturbation, abortion-as-backup-contraception, homosexuality and transgenderism. The Democratic Party became "transubstantiated" immediately, in the early 1970s, as it became...interiorly, formally, structurally, substantially, systemically...the party of sexual decadence. This is the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers": looks like the same party, but it has a different heart and soul. Pro-lifers (Casey, Shriver, Flynn) were purged while the Kennedys-Cuomos-Bidens-Pelosis fervently embraced the new Progressive Religion and betrayed their Catholic legacy. About 50% of Catholics remain indifferent, in denial, or addicted to antiquated tribal loyalties. The Republican Party, a coalition of often contradictory forces (libertarian, neo-liberal economics, the moneyed class) welcomed cultural conservatives.
3. Religious Faith vs. Secularism. To be sure, many Democrats have faith and many Republicans lack it. But on the institutional, systemic level, the DNC became the vehicle of Progressivism as hostile to religious faith, tradition, and authority. Religion is privatized and deferential to the the alleged infallibility of science, sexual liberation, the inexorable "arc of history," and identity politics.
4. Government: Big or Small? Progressives look trustingly to the expansive, centralized State to countervail the rich/powerful, to lift up the underprivileged, and to ensure the common good. In this narrative, the villain is the rich, powerful, arrogant, selfish Republican and his corporate wealth. By contrast, the Republican is suspicious of big government as tyrannical, inefficient, repressive of entrepreneurial energy and eventually of freedoms of religion, speech and others. The one side wants to expand government with messianic hopes; the other seeks to shrink it with suspicions of the diabolical.
5. Class Divide. In the age of Trump, we see the culmination of a gradual political inversion: the Democratic Party, formerly defender of the underdog against the wealthy, has become the province of the affluent, educated, sexually liberated elites. Trump channels the rage of the underclass, of poor and broken families, of the less-schooled, of the traditionally religious. With the emergence of J.D. Vance and his partners we see the promise of a Catholic friendly populism that weds the economics of the postwar labor movement and the cultural conservatism after 1970.
6. Masculine and Feminine. Men, especially those of the underclass, are strongly drawn to the masculine image of Trump and his party: angry, aggressive, decisive, indignant at being victims, macho in style and image. Women more often favor the party of reproductive rights, defensive in a feminism of private, individual rights untethered by bonds of family, marriage, maternity.
The above are the more profound, defining differences. What follows are important but less essential.
7. Global Warming.
Why is this reality, which is of great concern to our youth, so important to the Left but not the Right?
First, the former is more secular, less aware of the supernatural, and therefore more urgent about earthly affairs as there is no eternity in the future. Progressive spirituality tends to an immanentism that finds the true-good-beautiful in the natural realm without reference to the Transcendent. There is a feminist sense of Mother Earth void of a Creator Father.
Second, the diminishment of paternal religion and wholesome virility leaves a fragile feminism, vulnerable to hysteria and desperate for a a controlling, mother state. On the other side, a confident, aggressive machismo on the Right tends to instrumentalize and disenchant Creation.
Thirdly, the Left trusts the expansive State and looks to it for protection. By contrast, the Right distrusts the State and leans into its own libertarian individualism and exaltation of the competent agency of the isolated Self.
8. Gun Control. This issue pits a rural, individualistic traditionalism against an urban collectivism that trusts the State (including the police) for protection from violence. It is in part the big/small government debate; but also a question of lifestyle enjoyments.
9. Law and Order. Since perhaps the 1968 riots in Chicago, the Left has advocated a freedom from authority and law and a resentment of the masculine posture of tradition, police and the rule of law. The hippy movement is long gone, but we now have open borders and "defund the police." On this issue the Right favors vigorous government, in a role of protection and authority, while the Left is suspicious of the masculine imagery. The male/female binary is prominent here. The Right sees the state in the masculine role of protection as in the police and military; the Left wants to diminish the need for force and develop a nurturing, maternal state.
10. International Relations. In the post-War era, there was largely bi-partisan consensus regarding the Soviet Union: the policy positions of Nixon and Kennedy were very close. More recently, Progressives favor a soft internationalism: confidence in a global order of free trade and democracy, reliance on alliances (NATO, UN), credulity in negotiating with opponents. So, we have seen that Obama/Biden are eager to appease Iran, compromise with China, and call for a cease fire in Gaza. At the core is a mild pacifism that trusts that force can be avoided by the power of reason and good will. This is a striking naivite and optimism and rejection of Realpolitik. Our assistance to Ukraine has been forceful and multilateral but arguably too little too late to ensure that they prevail.
On the Right we find two contradictory trends: the predominant one is a vigorous internationalism (neoconservative?) that insists that only a muscular Americanism can deter evil actors. The secondary trend is isolationism, a retreat from our role as global power to attend to our own concerns. (Vance). Strangely, Trump represents both these contraries: he makes America first and disparages adventurism overseas even as he instinctively projects power and force. There is no coherence here. But it cannot be denied that he presided over a world at peace: pure luck?
Catholic Values. In light of our faith, both parties have pros and cons; but there is no moral equivalence. Since 1970, the DNC is deeply and viciously anti-Catholic in its essential structure or form: abortion, sterilized sexuality, secularism and privatization of religion. The big government it advocates would, obviously, advance these values and repress Catholic practice. It is the religion of a cosmopolitan, secular elite that despises populist religious practices and beliefs. It is a decadent feminism, individualistic, resentful of the paternal and the maternal, and all the natural/spiritual bonds that infuse chaste, Marian Catholicism.
Can a Catholic Vote Democratic? Possible, but unlikely.
It is like a Jew voting for the Nazi party. We might imagine a mayoral race in Germany in 1932 between two Nazis: one a competent, otherwise decent individual; the other a vicious racist. In that case a Jew would choose the lessor evil of the two. On issues like climate, guns, taxes, immigration, health care and others Catholics of good will and intelligence may well differ in prudential judgment.
There is about the Democratic Party in 2024 a striking simplicity: absolute demand for abortion on demand, desecration of sex and gender, aversion to the paternal and maternal, privatization of religion, inflation of the Marxist oppressor paradigm for identity politics, science as religion, cosmopolitanism, and a foreign policy of appeasement that mimics Chamberlain at Munich.
By contrast, the Republican Party today is a mixed bag: crude Trumpian populism, traditional neo-liberalism, libertarianism, moral traditionalism, wall street and main street, isolationism and neoconservatism. There is much here for the Catholic to fight for and against.
