I had intended to comment on JVL's Triad about religion in the political and civil sphere, but by the time I got around to it, there were already 100+ comments and I didn't bother. The reason I mention this is that--as usual--Damon has said what I wanted to in a much more thoughtful and eloquent manner. I tend to be very wary of mixing religion with politics, mostly because of my increasingly cynical view of human nature (oh, how I miss my idealist college years). However, I absolutely recognize the good that religion can provide society and specifically politics. Damon's call for a humble application of one's beliefs to political ideals and actions is one that needs amplification on a national scale. The problem--which is one as old as humanity--is our tendency to warp and abuse religion for selfish (and/or nefarious) ends. It's a shame that religious people like Gerson appear to be the minority in public life, while demagogues like Marjorie Taylor Greene dominate the spotlight.
On a lighter note, and in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, I'd like to indulge a bit of kiss-assery and thank Damon for his outstanding work. I became aware of his work thanks to The Bulwark and when he announced this project, I subscribed without hesitation. Your weekly missives are a delight to read and I learn something from each one. Keep up the excellent work and I hope you have a great holiday.
I first became aware of your writings during the 2016 presidential campaign, recognizing your views as the exact opposite of mine, but expressed nonetheless by a thoughtful sincere human being. I’ve been viewing your Substack ‘Eyes on the Right’ column for several months, and your headline this morning ‘The Endless Skirmish Between Liberalism and Religion’ caught my eye more than any other. But this article was behind a paywall. It persuaded me to subscribe (your welcome).
I’m going to try to describe me in a paragraph or two to keep this comment a comment and not a book. But I’m hoping I can intrigue you enough to want to correspond and get to know me as a devout Christian, but one that is (was) frustrated to no end by the Michael Gersons and David Frenches of the world. And, for that matter, frustrated by the Damon Linkers of the world for espousing a worldview that I believe is flawed at the foundational level.
As a Christian, I believe the most important political aspiration in the United States today should be the preservation of our Constitution as it was originally written and amended. It is based upon Judeo-Christian principles, ensures religious freedom, and is the best framework ever put into practice that promotes a pluralistic society. As a Christian, I believe in a pluralistic society and have no thought whatsoever of imposing my Christian beliefs on others, although I want to have the freedom to try to persuade others that it is a worldview like none other.
I believe that Donald Trump, in 2016, was the best hope for Christians in their goal of preserving the Constitution. I believe that Donald Trump has been a net-positive influence since he walked down that famous escalator. Until his entry into the 2024 campaign and his denouncement of his more polished protégé, Ron DeSantis, I believed he was the best candidate for the Country. I no longer believe that.
Christians don’t need to, and shouldn’t, enforce a Christian character test on their political choices. Donald Trump was the favorite of Christians of most stripes and of working-class Americans (of all races) because he believed in them, and the freedoms embedded in our Constitution. And he wasn’t afraid to play the Washingtonian ‘Game of Thrones’ we call American politics. And, for the most part, he played the game better than anyone else.
If you have more interest in my thinking (which I believe is the thinking of tens of millions of Americans), I hope you might have interest in reading The Biblical Christian Worldview – 2016, by P B Turner, available at Amazon or pb-turner.com. If not, I still plan on reading your ‘Eyes on the Right’, at least until my subscription runs out. Have a blessed day.
LOL, I became a paying subscriber the same way. Finally wanting to comment on a subject I could not resist.
I'm someone who is to the left of Damon and I've always been fascinated with conservative who are passionate for preserving the Constitution. I am equally passion about our Constitution, but I'm highly skeptical of conservative interpretations of the Constitution, especially the (ironically) recent theory of Originalism (if the founders and framers believed in Originalism, would we not still be British subjects?).
My skepticism of the conservative views about the Constitution was deeply criticized by those conservatives that I expressed this to. Often I was accused of trying to undermine the very principles of the Constitution, i.e. a liberal who is ruining America. I greatly resented that implication and I've suffered these arrows for the better part of 40 years, starting in college.
Which of course brings us to Donald Trump. On the one hand, I am a very atypical person/liberal who comments on Trump. I've attended about a dozen Trump rallies and I've probably spent a total of one hour standing next to him as he talked with voters in 2015/16. On the other hand, that experience gave me only a little more insight about Trump than anyone seeing him on TV. Unlike you and millions of others, I and millions of others have a completely different reaction to Trump.
As a former ad salesman, I immediately saw in Trump the spoiled child of a company's owner who now runs the company: they were stupid but thought they are a genius and bullied or bullshitted everyone into believing it. When you negotiate, it's never a win-win business deal. It has to be a I-win-you-lose business deal. I dealt with lots of personalities like Trump. Sure he was richer, had a New York swagger and did have the glow of charisma (like when I saw John Glenn in 1981). But he was still the same basic a-hole I dealt with many times. And I hope you can understand why millions of Americans dislike Trump for that reason. He really is not a nice person who you want in you life.
I wanted to give you all this context for my question. As someone passionate about "the preservation of our Constitution", do you feel Donald Trump upheld his oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"? I think he utterly failed in this on so many levels. Never mind his behavior (or lack of action) on Jan. 6th, Trump has continually failed to uphold the norms and traditions that has held the fabric of our Republic together for the last two centuries.
But what shocks me the most--my opinion of course--is that it is the so-called conservative defenders of the Constitution who praise Trump. Ignoring that Trump is the very opposite of honoring traditions and order, as he only wants to impose his whims and authority. That's why I'm completely baffled when people state they are passionate about preserving the Constitution on the one hand, yet are big supporters of Trump. Can you help me understand that disconnect? Thank you and how do you embed a link into text in the comments? Because that is what I'd do instead of sharing this link. https://www.democracythroughthelookingglass.com/home
Democratic-liberalism often takes the back-seat to religion as the driver of our politics, with Capitalism navigating at shotgun. So I wholeheartedly agree in investing in civic education. (Civic education on a completely different level than we do, but that is a different subject.
I haven't read your books, but as someone leery of organized religion, I also understand "secularist" like me, need spiritual enrichment and--as I suspect your Atheist book documents--much of what this secular spiritual enrichment is anything but.
So I don't see the struggle, as you do, between politics and religion pushing back and forth along a continuum.It is more dynamic, with religious, market-based and democratic-liberal values competing for our hearts and minds. In this context--and American history this bears out--religious and economic values have dominated our cultural ethos and we've never had strong civic values necessary for a true Republic. Now that technology empowers all of us to "be the media"; to express ourselves; to present our realities, we now need to infuse ourselves with the civic values needed to operate in this new age we find ourselves in.
I’m happy my short note to Damon Linker piqued your interest enough to respond. Open dialogue (free speech) is a precious gift we hopefully will never lose.
And thanks for giving me the context of your past and your thought process as it relates to your question on Donald Trump. I had to chuckle at your statement – ‘I’ve suffered these arrows [from conservatives] for the better part of 40 years, starting in college.’ I don’t know whether there is anything I can say that will differentiate me from those ‘flame throwers,’ but I’ll try, nonetheless.
Let me start with some of my thoughts on what I called the Washingtonian ‘Game of Thrones.’ The Democrat Party controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for forty years between 1954 and 1994. By today’s standards, politics back then were prim and proper. We had the majority, and we had the loyal opposition. Post-World War II optimism was shared by both parties, and the goals of each were differentiated more by ‘how swift to move forward’ than by ideology in general.
During the second half of this forty-year period, discontent among those worried about the scope and growth of the federal government began to percolate, and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, I believe, was the reaction by the majority of Americans to this accelerated growth. But even by the end of the Reagan era, despite much progress, conservatives were concerned with government growth and overreach. The federal budget continued to grow even under Republican administrations, and the Supreme Court wasn’t helping with the philosophy of ‘the Constitution is a living document’ brought on by the Warren and Burger courts and continued under Rehnquist.
Fast forward to the Obama years, and the accelerated growth of government through over regulation. A candidate like Donald Trump became a breath of fresh air to those of us watching our Constitution be shredded by both political parties. The federal bureaucracy had all but eliminated the separation of powers, where federal agencies wrote the laws and regulations, executed the laws and regulations, and adjudicated the laws and regulations.
Let me speak about the oath of our federal elected officials to ‘protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ Since 1994, and particularly since 2008, I have observed political leaders on both sides of the isle shred the Constitution, much less uphold it. Barack Obama on multiple occasions has referred to the Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights, as an impediment to progress; a list of don’ts when what we need is a list of dos. Nancy Pelosi says that Congress has to pass legislation before they can know what is in it, because bureaucrats are writing the bills’ provisions after the fact. Neither party is innocent here, but one party (the Democrats) have turned this into an art form.
So what about Donald Trump? As you so correctly stated, he is not a nice person when he conducts business, whether in the New York real estate market or in the arena I call the Washington Game of Thrones. Conservatives were tired of Republicans putting up nice guys (witness Mitt Romney) and graciously losing. Our country was slipping away. The sovereignty of the American citizen was disappearing. Elected officials (both Ds and Rs) think they are the sovereign.
You state that you think that Donald Trump has failed to uphold his oath on so many levels. I grant you that this is a debatable issue but compared to the rest of the Washington swamp Trump is a breath of fresh air, because he doesn’t try to hide his thinking. He says it like it is, no matter how crude it sometimes sounds. And in his four years in office, despite the Covid tragedy, he has steered the course of our country back in the right direction.
It is not a disconnect for one to say that he is a defender of the Constitution and a supporter of Donald Trump. In Washington, Trump is the only one defending it. Is he always politically astute? No. Was the strategy of using an obscure 19th century electoral college law to try to stall and reevaluate certain states electoral votes a good idea? No. But I think that many Democrats wish they had thought of it first.
I could go on and on, but you can catch my thinking from the above. As I stated in my letter to Damon, I believe Christians (like Michael Gerson) are wrong to use a Christian character test to vet their political choices. The preservation of our liberties and freedoms (including the freedom to live a Biblical worldview lifestyle) is what Christians need to think about when choosing candidates.
You say that ‘Trump has continually failed to uphold the norms and traditions that has held the fabric of our Republic together for the last two centuries.’ I respectfully agree that he has failed to uphold the norms and traditions of our Republic on many occasions, but I respectfully disagree that this matters; what matters is his upholding the Constitution and the laws of our Republic, not the norms and traditions of our culture. Norms and traditions, in the secular world and in the Christian world, lull people to sleep. We from time to time need a ‘bull in the China shop’ to wake us up.
I hope you don’t think my worldview represents arrows coming at you, or for you, but more a worldview that just wants to preserve a government that can accommodate us both.
I had intended to comment on JVL's Triad about religion in the political and civil sphere, but by the time I got around to it, there were already 100+ comments and I didn't bother. The reason I mention this is that--as usual--Damon has said what I wanted to in a much more thoughtful and eloquent manner. I tend to be very wary of mixing religion with politics, mostly because of my increasingly cynical view of human nature (oh, how I miss my idealist college years). However, I absolutely recognize the good that religion can provide society and specifically politics. Damon's call for a humble application of one's beliefs to political ideals and actions is one that needs amplification on a national scale. The problem--which is one as old as humanity--is our tendency to warp and abuse religion for selfish (and/or nefarious) ends. It's a shame that religious people like Gerson appear to be the minority in public life, while demagogues like Marjorie Taylor Greene dominate the spotlight.
On a lighter note, and in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, I'd like to indulge a bit of kiss-assery and thank Damon for his outstanding work. I became aware of his work thanks to The Bulwark and when he announced this project, I subscribed without hesitation. Your weekly missives are a delight to read and I learn something from each one. Keep up the excellent work and I hope you have a great holiday.
Good morning Mr. Linker.
I first became aware of your writings during the 2016 presidential campaign, recognizing your views as the exact opposite of mine, but expressed nonetheless by a thoughtful sincere human being. I’ve been viewing your Substack ‘Eyes on the Right’ column for several months, and your headline this morning ‘The Endless Skirmish Between Liberalism and Religion’ caught my eye more than any other. But this article was behind a paywall. It persuaded me to subscribe (your welcome).
I’m going to try to describe me in a paragraph or two to keep this comment a comment and not a book. But I’m hoping I can intrigue you enough to want to correspond and get to know me as a devout Christian, but one that is (was) frustrated to no end by the Michael Gersons and David Frenches of the world. And, for that matter, frustrated by the Damon Linkers of the world for espousing a worldview that I believe is flawed at the foundational level.
As a Christian, I believe the most important political aspiration in the United States today should be the preservation of our Constitution as it was originally written and amended. It is based upon Judeo-Christian principles, ensures religious freedom, and is the best framework ever put into practice that promotes a pluralistic society. As a Christian, I believe in a pluralistic society and have no thought whatsoever of imposing my Christian beliefs on others, although I want to have the freedom to try to persuade others that it is a worldview like none other.
I believe that Donald Trump, in 2016, was the best hope for Christians in their goal of preserving the Constitution. I believe that Donald Trump has been a net-positive influence since he walked down that famous escalator. Until his entry into the 2024 campaign and his denouncement of his more polished protégé, Ron DeSantis, I believed he was the best candidate for the Country. I no longer believe that.
Christians don’t need to, and shouldn’t, enforce a Christian character test on their political choices. Donald Trump was the favorite of Christians of most stripes and of working-class Americans (of all races) because he believed in them, and the freedoms embedded in our Constitution. And he wasn’t afraid to play the Washingtonian ‘Game of Thrones’ we call American politics. And, for the most part, he played the game better than anyone else.
If you have more interest in my thinking (which I believe is the thinking of tens of millions of Americans), I hope you might have interest in reading The Biblical Christian Worldview – 2016, by P B Turner, available at Amazon or pb-turner.com. If not, I still plan on reading your ‘Eyes on the Right’, at least until my subscription runs out. Have a blessed day.
LOL, I became a paying subscriber the same way. Finally wanting to comment on a subject I could not resist.
I'm someone who is to the left of Damon and I've always been fascinated with conservative who are passionate for preserving the Constitution. I am equally passion about our Constitution, but I'm highly skeptical of conservative interpretations of the Constitution, especially the (ironically) recent theory of Originalism (if the founders and framers believed in Originalism, would we not still be British subjects?).
My skepticism of the conservative views about the Constitution was deeply criticized by those conservatives that I expressed this to. Often I was accused of trying to undermine the very principles of the Constitution, i.e. a liberal who is ruining America. I greatly resented that implication and I've suffered these arrows for the better part of 40 years, starting in college.
Which of course brings us to Donald Trump. On the one hand, I am a very atypical person/liberal who comments on Trump. I've attended about a dozen Trump rallies and I've probably spent a total of one hour standing next to him as he talked with voters in 2015/16. On the other hand, that experience gave me only a little more insight about Trump than anyone seeing him on TV. Unlike you and millions of others, I and millions of others have a completely different reaction to Trump.
As a former ad salesman, I immediately saw in Trump the spoiled child of a company's owner who now runs the company: they were stupid but thought they are a genius and bullied or bullshitted everyone into believing it. When you negotiate, it's never a win-win business deal. It has to be a I-win-you-lose business deal. I dealt with lots of personalities like Trump. Sure he was richer, had a New York swagger and did have the glow of charisma (like when I saw John Glenn in 1981). But he was still the same basic a-hole I dealt with many times. And I hope you can understand why millions of Americans dislike Trump for that reason. He really is not a nice person who you want in you life.
I wanted to give you all this context for my question. As someone passionate about "the preservation of our Constitution", do you feel Donald Trump upheld his oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"? I think he utterly failed in this on so many levels. Never mind his behavior (or lack of action) on Jan. 6th, Trump has continually failed to uphold the norms and traditions that has held the fabric of our Republic together for the last two centuries.
But what shocks me the most--my opinion of course--is that it is the so-called conservative defenders of the Constitution who praise Trump. Ignoring that Trump is the very opposite of honoring traditions and order, as he only wants to impose his whims and authority. That's why I'm completely baffled when people state they are passionate about preserving the Constitution on the one hand, yet are big supporters of Trump. Can you help me understand that disconnect? Thank you and how do you embed a link into text in the comments? Because that is what I'd do instead of sharing this link. https://www.democracythroughthelookingglass.com/home
Well done Damon. I appreciate these thoughtful essays. Carry on and all the best to you and yours.
Democratic-liberalism often takes the back-seat to religion as the driver of our politics, with Capitalism navigating at shotgun. So I wholeheartedly agree in investing in civic education. (Civic education on a completely different level than we do, but that is a different subject.
I haven't read your books, but as someone leery of organized religion, I also understand "secularist" like me, need spiritual enrichment and--as I suspect your Atheist book documents--much of what this secular spiritual enrichment is anything but.
So I don't see the struggle, as you do, between politics and religion pushing back and forth along a continuum.It is more dynamic, with religious, market-based and democratic-liberal values competing for our hearts and minds. In this context--and American history this bears out--religious and economic values have dominated our cultural ethos and we've never had strong civic values necessary for a true Republic. Now that technology empowers all of us to "be the media"; to express ourselves; to present our realities, we now need to infuse ourselves with the civic values needed to operate in this new age we find ourselves in.
Good Morning Mr. Bowe.
I’m happy my short note to Damon Linker piqued your interest enough to respond. Open dialogue (free speech) is a precious gift we hopefully will never lose.
And thanks for giving me the context of your past and your thought process as it relates to your question on Donald Trump. I had to chuckle at your statement – ‘I’ve suffered these arrows [from conservatives] for the better part of 40 years, starting in college.’ I don’t know whether there is anything I can say that will differentiate me from those ‘flame throwers,’ but I’ll try, nonetheless.
Let me start with some of my thoughts on what I called the Washingtonian ‘Game of Thrones.’ The Democrat Party controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for forty years between 1954 and 1994. By today’s standards, politics back then were prim and proper. We had the majority, and we had the loyal opposition. Post-World War II optimism was shared by both parties, and the goals of each were differentiated more by ‘how swift to move forward’ than by ideology in general.
During the second half of this forty-year period, discontent among those worried about the scope and growth of the federal government began to percolate, and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, I believe, was the reaction by the majority of Americans to this accelerated growth. But even by the end of the Reagan era, despite much progress, conservatives were concerned with government growth and overreach. The federal budget continued to grow even under Republican administrations, and the Supreme Court wasn’t helping with the philosophy of ‘the Constitution is a living document’ brought on by the Warren and Burger courts and continued under Rehnquist.
Fast forward to the Obama years, and the accelerated growth of government through over regulation. A candidate like Donald Trump became a breath of fresh air to those of us watching our Constitution be shredded by both political parties. The federal bureaucracy had all but eliminated the separation of powers, where federal agencies wrote the laws and regulations, executed the laws and regulations, and adjudicated the laws and regulations.
Let me speak about the oath of our federal elected officials to ‘protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ Since 1994, and particularly since 2008, I have observed political leaders on both sides of the isle shred the Constitution, much less uphold it. Barack Obama on multiple occasions has referred to the Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights, as an impediment to progress; a list of don’ts when what we need is a list of dos. Nancy Pelosi says that Congress has to pass legislation before they can know what is in it, because bureaucrats are writing the bills’ provisions after the fact. Neither party is innocent here, but one party (the Democrats) have turned this into an art form.
So what about Donald Trump? As you so correctly stated, he is not a nice person when he conducts business, whether in the New York real estate market or in the arena I call the Washington Game of Thrones. Conservatives were tired of Republicans putting up nice guys (witness Mitt Romney) and graciously losing. Our country was slipping away. The sovereignty of the American citizen was disappearing. Elected officials (both Ds and Rs) think they are the sovereign.
You state that you think that Donald Trump has failed to uphold his oath on so many levels. I grant you that this is a debatable issue but compared to the rest of the Washington swamp Trump is a breath of fresh air, because he doesn’t try to hide his thinking. He says it like it is, no matter how crude it sometimes sounds. And in his four years in office, despite the Covid tragedy, he has steered the course of our country back in the right direction.
It is not a disconnect for one to say that he is a defender of the Constitution and a supporter of Donald Trump. In Washington, Trump is the only one defending it. Is he always politically astute? No. Was the strategy of using an obscure 19th century electoral college law to try to stall and reevaluate certain states electoral votes a good idea? No. But I think that many Democrats wish they had thought of it first.
I could go on and on, but you can catch my thinking from the above. As I stated in my letter to Damon, I believe Christians (like Michael Gerson) are wrong to use a Christian character test to vet their political choices. The preservation of our liberties and freedoms (including the freedom to live a Biblical worldview lifestyle) is what Christians need to think about when choosing candidates.
You say that ‘Trump has continually failed to uphold the norms and traditions that has held the fabric of our Republic together for the last two centuries.’ I respectfully agree that he has failed to uphold the norms and traditions of our Republic on many occasions, but I respectfully disagree that this matters; what matters is his upholding the Constitution and the laws of our Republic, not the norms and traditions of our culture. Norms and traditions, in the secular world and in the Christian world, lull people to sleep. We from time to time need a ‘bull in the China shop’ to wake us up.
I hope you don’t think my worldview represents arrows coming at you, or for you, but more a worldview that just wants to preserve a government that can accommodate us both.
Have a great day!