David French, Rod Dreher, and other Never Trump Christians have been quite vocal of late bemoaning Donald Trump and those Christians tacky enough to have voted for him and insensitive enough not to have repented of being a “Trumpist.” Being an unapologetic supporter of Trump is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of both the secular left and the Never Trump right. It also precludes an invitation to be part of the “conversation,” the contours of which are set by the left and are elastic enough to encompass “conservatives” who denounce Trumpism, and all its works, and all its empty promises.
So, the Christian Never Trumpers are denouncing away, declaiming that Trump accomplished nothing and indeed made things worse, ushering in a leftist persecution that never would have come otherwise. Let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that the secular left had already begun using state power to attack the autonomy of Christian organizations under Obama, and also all the positive developments made possible because Trump controlled, however fitfully, the levers of power of the administrative state for four years.
The incontestable fact remains: Trump appointed one third of the Supreme Court and a roughly comparable percentage of the federal judiciary as a whole. If the Never Trumpers had had their way, those positions would have been filled by Hillary Clinton. Those judges, and their support of the Constitution, are the strongest barrier there is to leftist tyranny.
So, fair is fair: if Trump voters are to be damned for all they’ve done, Never Trump Christians should act as if they had their way and Democrats had the opportunity to fill all the judicial vacancies filled by Donald Trump. They should voluntarily submit to any edict advancing secularism without recourse to the federal judiciary or reliance upon its decisions.
If they aren’t willing to do this, they should shut up. Or at least have the decency to stop all the virtue signaling at the expense of their co-religionists who were, and are, more clear-headed about the realities of political power than they are.
