53percenter's Blog

The religious left is still looking down on conservative Christian peons for supporting imperfect, feisty Trump.  Throughout social media and elsewhere, the left accuses us of compromising our faith and standards.

Prof. Randall Balmer of Dartmouth University recently posted an opinion piece at the Los Angeles Times with the ironic title “God Is on Team Trump? Let’s take a quick check with the Bible.” The sarcasm is seen when God is on Trump’s team, not the other way around. Then he proceeds to dismantle — at least in his mind — evangelical support for Trump.

He starts off with more sarcasm that God put his thumb on the scale of the election, so that Trump barely won and only by the Electoral College. Some victory for God! In reply, just because we cannot figure out the details of how God works in an ocean of humanity does not mean God does not have his purposes and works them out. Prof. Balmer seems to assume that if a victory is not a landslide, then God was not at work. Since he wrote a book about evangelicals, he must know that some of them with a more prophetic gifting predicted long before the November 2016 elections that Trump’s victory would stun the world. It did.  

Next, Prof. Balmer tackles immigration and summarized some verses in Leviticus and one in the epistle to the Hebrews (since Heb. 13:2 is talking about household hospitality — not on a national scale — and the possibility that an angel could be a guest without our knowledge, let’s skip past his wrenching that verse out of context). It is difficult to find mass migration in the ancient world, but let’s assume that millions and millions of immigrants moved into ancient Israel in 20-30 years. And let’s assume that a certain percentage of them raped and assaulted women and children at the border and transported some sort of ancient, mind-altering drugs. Yes, protect the innocent, but there would be nothing wrong with building a wall back then, much as Israel has done today, to good effect. Obama and other Democrats in the past have said there was a crisis at the border. And there is nothing immoral with securing our borders today with a wall or updating the one that is already there. In any case, these are two different contexts, so let’s move on.

Then Balmer brings up separating children from their parents at the border. Yes, it happened, but it is a sure thing that he knew that under the Obama administration, the border authorities did the same thing. It is also a certainty that Balmer wrote at least a dozen opinion pieces denouncing Obama’s same policies, since the professor was concerned back then about human rights and not just scoring political points against Trump today.

Balmer turns his attention to the environment. Yes, God cares for his creation and called it good, but alarmism from faithless, panicky humans is a concern too. Neither he nor I is an expert here, but surely Balmer has read outside his Dartmouth blue bubble and found a huge number of credentialed climate scientists who are skeptical about all the alarmism from the left, as embodied nowadays in Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s recent prediction of earth-shattering disasters by 2030 and her recent green new deal, which would slam the American economy so hard that Dartmouth might lose its big funding and lay off some of the faculty.

Then the professor goes on to the standard leftist notions about tax cuts for the rich and quasi-socialism or its full-scale version as the only expression of justice, and quotes Isaiah. However, taxes were cut for a large number of people on a variety of social levels, including the middle class. When “we the people” keep our own money through lower taxes, then the economy grows and jobs become plentiful because we can spend or invest or give away our new wealth, as we see fit. Businesses can reinvest their capital in their own companies, upgrade, and expand. When businesses expand, they hire new people. And sure enough, this explains, to a large degree, why the economy is booming right now, with record low unemployment for everyone, including an historical low for black Americans.

So the best biblical justice is not rapacious taxes on the producers in society — the ones who started businesses that grew into major corporations that then fund universities like Dartmouth — but limited government, lower taxes and financial liberty for the people.

Here’s an easy-to-remember formula for biblical economic justice:

Leftist economic policy = slow economy = injustice

Conservative economic policy = growing economy = justice.

It was especially reassuring for us believers when in his recent SOTU address Pres. Trump denounced socialism as contrary to America’s founding in liberty. So true. So magnificent. It is gratifying to see that 76% approved of the speech and 72% liked his proposals on immigration, showing once again how anti-commonsense leftist professors are out of step with commonsense Americans.

The obligatory mention of adultery and the seventh commandment: everyone who voted for Trump knew about his multiple affairs and marriages. No one saw him as a saint. But we also know, as does Balmer, that the sweep of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is about salvation, redemption, and forgiveness, and God helping broken humanity to live better lives. There is no evidence that Trump has turned the White House into a Pleasure Palace, much like JFK and Bill Clinton did. Just the opposite. The president often invites numerous evangelical leaders into the White House, and prayer meetings happen often enough.

Revealingly, one area that Balmer overlooked is the snuffing out of prenatal life. He knows that New York now has a bloodthirsty law that allows third trimester abortions. HillaryHillary  Clinton had won, the court system would have been stockpiled with judges and justices who would gladly reinforce the bloodguilt in America. The courts and abortion are the major reasons evangelicals voted for Trump.

And they are amply satisfied with his support for Israel; his picks of judges and justices who may give the innocents a chance for life and protect religious freedom; his willingness to negotiate with dictators like Kim Jung Un (Balmer would have applauded Obama had he done this, since leftists value dialogues, trialogues, tetralogues, pentalogues, and so on); Trump’s economic policies; and his support for churches against legalistic attacks from leftists.

I used to be a NeverTrumper and even wrote articles against him (I won’t link to them), until I set aside my Pharisaical self-righteousness and gave the man a chance. No more condescension.

So, a look over the past two years makes it is easy to believe that God indeed chose Trump, and believers are genuinely grateful to God that Hillary Clinton is not in the White House.

James Arlandson’s website is Live as Free People, where he has posted Leftwing NY Hillsong Pastor Carl Lentz Misses Facts on Race, and William Penn Proclaims Pennsylvania’s Charter of Privileges.

The religious left is still looking down on conservative Christian peons for supporting imperfect, feisty Trump.  Throughout social media and elsewhere, the left accuses us of compromising our faith and standards.

Prof. Randall Balmer of Dartmouth University recently posted an opinion piece at the Los Angeles Times with the ironic title “God Is on Team Trump? Let’s take a quick check with the Bible.” The sarcasm is seen when God is on Trump’s team, not the other way around. Then he proceeds to dismantle — at least in his mind — evangelical support for Trump.

He starts off with more sarcasm that God put his thumb on the scale of the election, so that Trump barely won and only by the Electoral College. Some victory for God! In reply, just because we cannot figure out the details of how God works in an ocean of humanity does not mean God does not have his purposes and works them out. Prof. Balmer seems to assume that if a victory is not a landslide, then God was not at work. Since he wrote a book about evangelicals, he must know that some of them with a more prophetic gifting predicted long before the November 2016 elections that Trump’s victory would stun the world. It did.  

Next, Prof. Balmer tackles immigration and summarized some verses in Leviticus and one in the epistle to the Hebrews (since Heb. 13:2 is talking about household hospitality — not on a national scale — and the possibility that an angel could be a guest without our knowledge, let’s skip past his wrenching that verse out of context). It is difficult to find mass migration in the ancient world, but let’s assume that millions and millions of immigrants moved into ancient Israel in 20-30 years. And let’s assume that a certain percentage of them raped and assaulted women and children at the border and transported some sort of ancient, mind-altering drugs. Yes, protect the innocent, but there would be nothing wrong with building a wall back then, much as Israel has done today, to good effect. Obama and other Democrats in the past have said there was a crisis at the border. And there is nothing immoral with securing our borders today with a wall or updating the one that is already there. In any case, these are two different contexts, so let’s move on.

Then Balmer brings up separating children from their parents at the border. Yes, it happened, but it is a sure thing that he knew that under the Obama administration, the border authorities did the same thing. It is also a certainty that Balmer wrote at least a dozen opinion pieces denouncing Obama’s same policies, since the professor was concerned back then about human rights and not just scoring political points against Trump today.

Balmer turns his attention to the environment. Yes, God cares for his creation and called it good, but alarmism from faithless, panicky humans is a concern too. Neither he nor I is an expert here, but surely Balmer has read outside his Dartmouth blue bubble and found a huge number of credentialed climate scientists who are skeptical about all the alarmism from the left, as embodied nowadays in Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s recent prediction of earth-shattering disasters by 2030 and her recent green new deal, which would slam the American economy so hard that Dartmouth might lose its big funding and lay off some of the faculty.

Then the professor goes on to the standard leftist notions about tax cuts for the rich and quasi-socialism or its full-scale version as the only expression of justice, and quotes Isaiah. However, taxes were cut for a large number of people on a variety of social levels, including the middle class. When “we the people” keep our own money through lower taxes, then the economy grows and jobs become plentiful because we can spend or invest or give away our new wealth, as we see fit. Businesses can reinvest their capital in their own companies, upgrade, and expand. When businesses expand, they hire new people. And sure enough, this explains, to a large degree, why the economy is booming right now, with record low unemployment for everyone, including an historical low for black Americans.

So the best biblical justice is not rapacious taxes on the producers in society — the ones who started businesses that grew into major corporations that then fund universities like Dartmouth — but limited government, lower taxes and financial liberty for the people.

Here’s an easy-to-remember formula for biblical economic justice:

Leftist economic policy = slow economy = injustice

Conservative economic policy = growing economy = justice.

It was especially reassuring for us believers when in his recent SOTU address Pres. Trump denounced socialism as contrary to America’s founding in liberty. So true. So magnificent. It is gratifying to see that 76% approved of the speech and 72% liked his proposals on immigration, showing once again how anti-commonsense leftist professors are out of step with commonsense Americans.

The obligatory mention of adultery and the seventh commandment: everyone who voted for Trump knew about his multiple affairs and marriages. No one saw him as a saint. But we also know, as does Balmer, that the sweep of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is about salvation, redemption, and forgiveness, and God helping broken humanity to live better lives. There is no evidence that Trump has turned the White House into a Pleasure Palace, much like JFK and Bill Clinton did. Just the opposite. The president often invites numerous evangelical leaders into the White House, and prayer meetings happen often enough.

Revealingly, one area that Balmer overlooked is the snuffing out of prenatal life. He knows that New York now has a bloodthirsty law that allows third trimester abortions. HillaryHillary  Clinton had won, the court system would have been stockpiled with judges and justices who would gladly reinforce the bloodguilt in America. The courts and abortion are the major reasons evangelicals voted for Trump.

And they are amply satisfied with his support for Israel; his picks of judges and justices who may give the innocents a chance for life and protect religious freedom; his willingness to negotiate with dictators like Kim Jung Un (Balmer would have applauded Obama had he done this, since leftists value dialogues, trialogues, tetralogues, pentalogues, and so on); Trump’s economic policies; and his support for churches against legalistic attacks from leftists.

I used to be a NeverTrumper and even wrote articles against him (I won’t link to them), until I set aside my Pharisaical self-righteousness and gave the man a chance. No more condescension.

So, a look over the past two years makes it is easy to believe that God indeed chose Trump, and believers are genuinely grateful to God that Hillary Clinton is not in the White House.

James Arlandson’s website is Live as Free People, where he has posted Leftwing NY Hillsong Pastor Carl Lentz Misses Facts on Race, and William Penn Proclaims Pennsylvania’s Charter of Privileges.

Masks are slipping away on the progressive left, as the 2020 election comes into focus. Not only do we know that a “coup” was planned by foes of President Trump, we now can openly and unreservedly speak of another unpleasant but inescapable truth that was revealed during the past year. Prior to the surprise victory of Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) last June 26 in her primary race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, it was largely frowned upon to describe the Democratic Party as “socialist.” Over the summer, the rag tag far left Occupy ICE movement gained support among elected local Democrat politicians in many cities around the country. By the fall, Democrat candidates for governor  in Florida and Georgia, and for the U.S. Senate in Texas, were echoing the abolish ICE/Open Borders theme of the Occupy radicals.

When the Democrats captured the House in the November Midterm elections, what was left of a moderate mask was finally torn off as Democrat leaders and newbie members of Congress alike jumped on the socialist bandwagon. In the three and a half months since the election, with full-blown socialist AOC having emerged as the most prominent and arguably the most influential Democrat politician in the country, the definition of Democrats as “socialists” can no longer be denied.

This is happening at the same time that socialism’s disastrous failure in Venezuela is utterly undeniable. Millions of starving Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries like Colombia, and the Maduro dictatorship survives solely on the basis of support from senior military officials who have been bribed and fear retribution when the “socialist paradise” they have fashioned collapses.

Mass demonstration against socialist Maduro regime in Caracas, January 23, 2019

(Photo credit: Voice of America)

Yet virtually every Democrat to date who has declared his or her intention to run for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination has outright endorsed or made positive comments about AOC’s mind-boggling authoritarian socialist proposals for a Green New Deal and abolishing I.C.E., in addition to echoing party leaders’ calls for government-run socialized medicine, open borders, free college education, and so on. Any claims by the diminishing number of moderate Democrats, or by a chameleon presidential wannabe like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who is trying to thread the needle between her party’s far left base and more moderate Americans, that the party is not in fact “socialist” now seem increasingly ridiculous.

Peter Barry Chowka writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications.  Follow him on Twitter at @pchowka.

Masks are slipping away on the progressive left, as the 2020 election comes into focus. Not only do we know that a “coup” was planned by foes of President Trump, we now can openly and unreservedly speak of another unpleasant but inescapable truth that was revealed during the past year. Prior to the surprise victory of Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) last June 26 in her primary race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, it was largely frowned upon to describe the Democratic Party as “socialist.” Over the summer, the rag tag far left Occupy ICE movement gained support among elected local Democrat politicians in many cities around the country. By the fall, Democrat candidates for governor  in Florida and Georgia, and for the U.S. Senate in Texas, were echoing the abolish ICE/Open Borders theme of the Occupy radicals.

When the Democrats captured the House in the November Midterm elections, what was left of a moderate mask was finally torn off as Democrat leaders and newbie members of Congress alike jumped on the socialist bandwagon. In the three and a half months since the election, with full-blown socialist AOC having emerged as the most prominent and arguably the most influential Democrat politician in the country, the definition of Democrats as “socialists” can no longer be denied.

This is happening at the same time that socialism’s disastrous failure in Venezuela is utterly undeniable. Millions of starving Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries like Colombia, and the Maduro dictatorship survives solely on the basis of support from senior military officials who have been bribed and fear retribution when the “socialist paradise” they have fashioned collapses.

Mass demonstration against socialist Maduro regime in Caracas, January 23, 2019

(Photo credit: Voice of America)

Yet virtually every Democrat to date who has declared his or her intention to run for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination has outright endorsed or made positive comments about AOC’s mind-boggling authoritarian socialist proposals for a Green New Deal and abolishing I.C.E., in addition to echoing party leaders’ calls for government-run socialized medicine, open borders, free college education, and so on. Any claims by the diminishing number of moderate Democrats, or by a chameleon presidential wannabe like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who is trying to thread the needle between her party’s far left base and more moderate Americans, that the party is not in fact “socialist” now seem increasingly ridiculous.

Peter Barry Chowka writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications.  Follow him on Twitter at @pchowka.

Pat Caddell, the pollster who was credited for the strategy that vaulted Jimmy Carter from an obscure Southern governor to the Oval Office, died too young yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina, at the age of 68. The nation’s political discourse is much poorer as a result. A self-taught pollster, Caddell used his brilliant mind and changed the nation’s history, as his New York Times obituary acknowledged:

Campaign staffs are not known for sharing credit, but in June 1976, when Mr. Carter had secured the Democratic nomination, his campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan, confidently told a reporter: “You know why Jimmy Carter is going to be president? Because of Pat Caddell — it’s all because of Pat Caddell.”

He followed Carter to the White House, but in the years after, observed the decline and fall of his beloved political party into progressive extremism, racialist identity politics, and the other dishonesties that have come to characterize its pursuit of power and refused to stay silent. Born into a family of Southern Democrats, he refused to hand over control of his party to failed ideas and dishonest politicians, he became a prominent dissident, a de facto conservative who still identified as a Democrat.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

I had the good fortune to meet Pat many years ago at what was then called the “Dark Ages Weekend” (Today, it is the Restoration Weekend), and was shocked at his openness to me and friendliness.  We attended an event where we shot automatic weapons and his utter joy was infectious, as he told stories of growing up with firearms a part of his life. He lamented the decline of the Democrats into hostility toward the SecondSAmendment. As we talked afterward, he offered me his home phone number, and remained over the years completely forthcoming about his views, his family, and his anger at the hijacking of his party. The last time I saw him, about 3 years ago in Charleston, SC, where he had moved to be close to his grandchildren, he remained indignant at the charlatans in what he still called “his” party, but was happy to be back to his roots and focused on what matters, his family.

I am not claiming that we were close or even properly termed as friends. I only saw him and spoke to him a few times, but he remembered me, and was honest, open, and not in the least full of himself. The point is that when I first met him, he was open to someone who, at the time, had zero ability to give him media exposure or offer any access to power, and treated me as a peer, even though I wasn’t. He was, in the Yiddish term, a “mensch” — a person who is genuinely human and does the right thing as he sees it.

There never are enough people like Pat Caddell, even in periods of historic calm and comity. In times of political strife and rampant dishonesty, his loss is a blow to our politics.

May he rest in peace. He is missed.

Pat Caddell, the pollster who was credited for the strategy that vaulted Jimmy Carter from an obscure Southern governor to the Oval Office, died too young yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina, at the age of 68. The nation’s political discourse is much poorer as a result. A self-taught pollster, Caddell used his brilliant mind and changed the nation’s history, as his New York Times obituary acknowledged:

Campaign staffs are not known for sharing credit, but in June 1976, when Mr. Carter had secured the Democratic nomination, his campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan, confidently told a reporter: “You know why Jimmy Carter is going to be president? Because of Pat Caddell — it’s all because of Pat Caddell.”

He followed Carter to the White House, but in the years after, observed the decline and fall of his beloved political party into progressive extremism, racialist identity politics, and the other dishonesties that have come to characterize its pursuit of power and refused to stay silent. Born into a family of Southern Democrats, he refused to hand over control of his party to failed ideas and dishonest politicians, he became a prominent dissident, a de facto conservative who still identified as a Democrat.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

I had the good fortune to meet Pat many years ago at what was then called the “Dark Ages Weekend” (Today, it is the Restoration Weekend), and was shocked at his openness to me and friendliness.  We attended an event where we shot automatic weapons and his utter joy was infectious, as he told stories of growing up with firearms a part of his life. He lamented the decline of the Democrats into hostility toward the SecondSAmendment. As we talked afterward, he offered me his home phone number, and remained over the years completely forthcoming about his views, his family, and his anger at the hijacking of his party. The last time I saw him, about 3 years ago in Charleston, SC, where he had moved to be close to his grandchildren, he remained indignant at the charlatans in what he still called “his” party, but was happy to be back to his roots and focused on what matters, his family.

I am not claiming that we were close or even properly termed as friends. I only saw him and spoke to him a few times, but he remembered me, and was honest, open, and not in the least full of himself. The point is that when I first met him, he was open to someone who, at the time, had zero ability to give him media exposure or offer any access to power, and treated me as a peer, even though I wasn’t. He was, in the Yiddish term, a “mensch” — a person who is genuinely human and does the right thing as he sees it.

There never are enough people like Pat Caddell, even in periods of historic calm and comity. In times of political strife and rampant dishonesty, his loss is a blow to our politics.

May he rest in peace. He is missed.