Month: June 2016

Donald Trump's Meeting With Evangelicals #ConversationwithTrump Merry Christmas!!!

You can follow along with Donald Trump’s meeting with evangelicals via Twitter by following #conversationwithtrump.
Here are some video tweets from E.W. Jackson:

Eric Metaxas and Ann Coulter Agree: #Nevertrumpers Don't Want Trump Because He is Too Common

Of all the rationalizations for Trump I have heard, the conversation between Eric Metaxas and Ann Coulter is the most scandaleux.
Today, Ann Coulter was on Metaxas’ show and the conversation got around to Donald Trump. Metaxas tripled down on his support for Trump. For her part, Coulter again referred to the 1965 immigration reform as the source of our current immigration problems. In the process, Metaxas told the audience his parents came from Greece in the 1950s. Lucky them. Prior to the 1965 immigration bill, immigration from Greece was restricted. The 1965 immigration reform demonized by Coulter expanded immigration from Greece as well as other eastern and southern European nations.
Trump, the Poor Man’s Rich Guy
At 32:56 into hour one with Ann Coulter, Metaxas talked about Trump’s appeal to working people. Metaxas told Coulter that Trump doesn’t seem like a plutocrat and is comfortable spending time on construction sites because that where he has spent most of his time. Coulter then said that Trump has always been like that. She said in 1988 Trump said he didn’t get along with “the fancy rich people.” The strangeness continued:

Metaxas: Trump is the classic nouveau riche in the sense that the elite want to sneer at people like that. And people like that are so disturbing to the cultural elites that the ideal that someone like this could be potentially president, it’s very upsetting. You see that on the left and on the right and again this is independent of policy stuff.
Coulter: You are absolutely 100% right about that. That’s a lot of what the “never trump” animus comes from.
Metaxas: Yeah
Coulter: …because it isn’t logical. Whenever people aren’t giving you logical arguments, I’m mean I’m not one to go around looking for motives, but they’re perfectly clear in this case with the sneering and the spluttering and the sighing. They aren’t trying to make a factual argument, it’s just, ‘he’s so déclassé’.
Metaxas: Right, right.

Of course. How could I have missed that in myself?
Probably, that is what is going on with the hundreds (and growing) of delegates who want to vote their conscience at the GOP convention. They feel so above the Donald.
What Metaxas said might be more accurate about Trump’s father, but not Trump. Trump had quite a significant head start on his current wealth. Given the lavish lifestyle Trump has lived, it seems impossible to believe that anyone has ever complained about having a “déclassé'” president. If anything, Trump has been part of the cultural elite class. He has bragged about using his money to buy politicians, including the attorney general of Florida.
I suspect Trump has spent time on construction sites. Probably though, he should have spent more time on them. According to past building contractors with the Trump organization, he hasn’t paid many of his construction contractors. In Atlantic City, Trump is known for failure to pay on time and full price. USA Today found hundreds of liens and lawsuits where prompt and full payment was an issue. While Trump hasn’t lost them all, he has lost plenty. According to USA Today’s, New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission records in 1990 demonstrate that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or in a timely manner.
If anything is classic about the exchange on Metaxas’ show, it is an illustration of rationalization and confirmation bias.
Au contraire Metaxas and Coulter, the factual arguments have been made (many times, e.g. here). Neither of you like them. That is fine, but one of you is out hawking a book that claims America is screwed if we don’t return to virtue. So let’s drop the silly notion that Trump’s opponents are snooty old moneyed rich people who look down on Trump the rich common man.
To paraphrase Coulter, using French words is not an argument.

Evangelicals Meeting with Trump: Brothers and Sisters, What Else Do You Need to Know?

I will admit, I am very disappointed with evangelical so-called leaders who are going to meet with Donald Trump tomorrow. I just can’t imagine what else they need to hear from Trump. His statements and actions aren’t subtle and he has subjected us to them for over a year.
At the top of the disappointment list is Eric Metaxas who just released a book calling for public virtue to help save the nation. He also has declared Donald Trump the only hope for the nation. Today’s Washington Post previews the meeting with quotes from several evangelicals including a lengthy interview of Metaxas.  According to the Post reporter, Metaxas wants “a glimpse of Trump’s soul.”
But really, Eric Metaxas, what else do you need to see?
Trump has said he doesn’t ask forgiveness (Metaxas already knows that), judged a judge on his heritage, said he plans to deport 11 million people, he sadistically mocked a disabled reporter (fact checked here), he said war crimes and torture should be permitted, he claimed service members should engage in war crimes and torture to follow his orders, he has limited the freedom of the press while giving press credentials to white supremacists, ridiculed John McCain for being a prisoner of war, and he has mocked women, his opponents and anybody else who gets in his way. We had to deal with nicknames like “Lying Ted” and “Little Marco” during the primaries. Tattooed on Donald Trump’s soul is the phrase: “Win at all costs.” I haven’t even covered the falsehoods and business dealings. Just spend some time reading through Trump University sales manuals. Honesty and respect for customers are not high on the list of virtues.
Instead of speaking truth to power, I think many of my evangelical brethren just want to be close to power. However, at least one evangelical who got an invitation isn’t going — Robert George — and his response to it is worth reading.

I respectfully decline. I have been a severe critic of Mr. Trump and there is nothing he could say at a meeting in which he is courting conservatives that would alter my low opinion of him. I trust that I do not need to go into detail about the words and actions that have caused me to form that opinion. Perhaps the only politician in America of whom I have an even lower opinion is Hillary Clinton, so I certainly understand why some are urging us to hold our noses and support for Mr. Trump. But I fear that he will, in the end, bring disgrace upon those individuals and organizations who publicly embrace him. For those of us who believe in limited government, the Rule of Law, flourishing institutions of civil society, and traditional Judeo-Christian moral principles, and who believe that our leaders must be persons of integrity and good character, this election is presenting a horrible choice. May God help us.

Like George, I don’t think there is anything Trump could say in a meeting that could undo what he has already done and said. Here’s hoping that these evangelicals will become the leaders they are portrayed to be and respond to Trump on principle not pragmatism after their meeting tomorrow.

Mark Driscoll Files Motion to Dismiss Racketeering Lawsuit

DriscollBuildingClaiming he has not been served, Mark Driscoll filed a motion to dismiss the racketeering lawsuit against him and former Mars Hill executive pastor Sutton Turner brought by former members of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Two couples from the church allege misuse of funds.
Like Turner’s motion to dismiss, Driscoll appeals to rules of procedure requiring service of a lawsuit in 90 days. The essential claim of the motion is that the Jacobsens and Kildeas have abandoned the suit.
Driscoll claims his whereabouts are well known.
After Turner filed his motion, I asked attorney Brian Fahling for a comment with no reply.
Driscoll plans to launch his new church The Trinity Church in Scottsdale on August 7.
 

Eric Metaxas Doubles Down on Claim That Donald Trump is Our Only Hope

In an interview about his new book with John Zmirak  for the online publication, The Stream, Eric Metaxas doubled down on his support for Donald Trump. After much talk implying that evangelical Christianity is the only foundation for virtue, he claims Trump is “our only hope.”

John: This current election is deeply dissatisfying to many Christian voters. How would you answer those who see Hillary Clinton as a grave threat, but fear that Trump lacks the virtue (much less the religion) to lead a free people? Even if he’s the lesser of two evils, is his rise a symptom of our fading virtue and faith?
Eric: Yes, Donald Trump’s rise is certainly a symptom of our fading virtue and faith, but ironically he may well be our only hope for finding our way back to bolder expressions of them. The eerie waxworks automaton formerly known as Hillary Rodham Clinton will no doubt double down on President Obama’s two-term repulsion to Constitutional government, in which unutterably sad case we simply wouldn’t ever be able to claw our way back up the abyss into which we shall have been thrust. If two more anti-Constitutionalist judges are shoehorned onto the Supreme Court we will have a Constitutional crisis — actually a cataclysm — in which the last Justices of that hoary institution will take that thing once described by a Constitutionalist Executive as the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and place it into a coffin gaily decorated with smiley face and rainbow stickers.

It is uncanny to me that Metaxas puts his trust in one man and a deeply flawed man at that.
I say again that his book is pointless if at the end of the day Trump is our best hope.* In fact, based on his reasoning for supporting Trump, he really doesn’t believe in the value of virtue and faith. He fully trusts in a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. If we can get that, then all is well. If we can’t, then who cares about a virtuous people, the cataclysm cometh.
In response to Metaxas’ Trump endorsement, some folks expressed disbelief and disappointment on Twitter.


*If You Can Keep It is also plagued by historical errors which I pointed out here, here and here.