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As usual, @C_Stroop nails it:
"If a large, powerful body of Christians insists that backing a strongman credibly accused of sexually assaulting numerous women in order to grab power is Christian behavior, then, empirically, it is Christian behavior." https://twitter.com/Convo_ist/status/1289184424647700481
"If a large, powerful body of Christians insists that backing a strongman credibly accused of sexually assaulting numerous women in order to grab power is Christian behavior, then, empirically, it is Christian behavior." https://twitter.com/Convo_ist/status/1289184424647700481
Fundamentally, the Reagan- and Bush-supporting evangelicals are upset that Trump-supporting evangelicals aren't bothering with the "compassionate" mask of compassionate conservatism.
Of course there never has been any such thing as compassionate conservatism.
Conservatism is, in Frank Wilhoit's summation, the proposition that "there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Conservatism is, in Frank Wilhoit's summation, the proposition that "there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Read the full quote here: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288
And the truly relevant part, vis-à-vis old-school Conservative Christian pearl-clutching over Trump evangelical uncouthness, is this:
"As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny...
"the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing... All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence."
Reagan and Bush Conservative Christians were deeply invested in some of those pseudophilosophies. At the time, WASP respectability--and I think, less disingenuously, a society with firsthand memory of the horrors of fascism--demanded a mask of "compassion"...
...but the mask is off with Trump evangelicals, the core proposition itself is visible, and can only be backed up with violence, since it is indefensible by any other means.
That's deeply unsettling to those Reaganites and Bushites--while conservative Christianity has always been *willing* to back itself up with violence, it doesn't want that violence coming to the suburbs, so to speak.
It should be Over There, elsewhere, and not something that the children might see or that might cause too much noise, even on the TV, during a Nice White People Backyard BBQ.
They might take a certain satisfaction in knowing that uppity members of Those People are getting beaten, but they're civilized WASPs and so can't be seen to enjoy watching.
Of course Trump evangelicals' desire to sell tickets unnerves them.
Of course Trump evangelicals' desire to sell tickets unnerves them.
I'm being snide, of course, but what I'm getting at is what Chrissy said here, edited slightly:
"[Evangelicals'] embrace of Donald Trump is not a betrayal of [Bush- and Reagan-era Conservative Christian, and "respectable" evangelical] values, but rather a reflection of them."
"[Evangelicals'] embrace of Donald Trump is not a betrayal of [Bush- and Reagan-era Conservative Christian, and "respectable" evangelical] values, but rather a reflection of them."
