One of the crucial trends in the 2016 election was the 80-plus percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump. A likely explanation is Trump’s ostensibly pro-life position, but there’s more going on here. A particularly interesting article that came across my Facebook feed this morning suggests other reasons evangelicals might continue to support the far-right.

The piece is a Christian Post editorial from the Rev. Mark H Creech, entitled “Can a Christian Be a Democrat?”. Creech lists six reasons that the Republicans are more in line with Christianity than the Democrats, quoting from a tract by Wayne Grudem entitled Politics According to the Bible. They are as follows (I paraphrase and quote for brevity):

1. Democrats want “more government control of individual lives and government-enforced equality of income” while Republicans want “smaller government and allowing people to keep the fruits of their labor” instead of giving it to “people the government believes should have it.”

2. Abortion, because the left “protecting people’s so-called sexual freedom has become a higher value than the sacredness of human life”.

3. Individual human responsibility for good and evil, because Republicans “recognize evil is something innate, which requires strong military and police forces”.

4. Beliefs about the human race and the natural world. This means promoting evolution in schools. It also means that “God created the earth and its resources to be used sensibly for man’s benefit”.

5. Beliefs about knowing right from wrong. Democrats believe “the people that should have the power in society are those which agree with them about their own subjective beliefs concerning what’s good”. Republicans, on the other hand, “believe in absolute standards of morality as found in the Bible, traditional Jewish teaching” and other Christian sources.

6. Republicans are more religious than Democrats.

Before we tackle these principles, I’d like to note that my purpose here isn’t to prove that Creech is a hypocrite or politically and historically uneducated. I also don’t endeavor to prove that Democrats are better than Creech says; I’m a socialist, not a liberal, so I feel less obligated to defend liberals. The point, rather, is to illustrate how a certain type of Christian, generally older and white, reliably vote for hard-right candidates. I put it down to the superstructure.

In Marxist thought, the “base” refers to the physical forces and relations of production in society, i.e. how employers and employees interact and how people produce what they need to survive. The “superstructure” is cultural and political customs, power relations, institutions, and ultimately, the state itself. As Marx and Engels tell it, the superstructure is largely created to justify the base. In feudal society, the concept of divine right was created to justify serfdom. In capitalist societies, more complex mechanics are at work: racism, classical economics, and power dynamics help justify why our economy is normal or Panglossian. It’s a crude distinction but it works for our purposes here.

Creech and his ilk have given religious significance to every aspect of the superstructure, not just religion. When Creech talks about how “smaller government and allowing people to keep the fruits of their labor” is Godly, he only looks at the exact distribution of wealth in this exact moment. By this logic, progressive taxation and social programs are just stealing, which violates one of the Ten Commandments. But this assumes that the economic system is natural, the product of hard work and nothing else. It might surprise Creech to know that the entire world-system on which his economic beliefs rely is the result of five hundred years of outright slavery, the exploitation of poor farmers and workers, colonialism, and a century of American-led coups against regimes that might in any way disrupt the Western wealthy. Then again, Creech might see all of this as Godly, too: America had to enslave Africans and dominate Native Americans to bring them the light of Christ (though Christianity in Africa predates America’s very existence). He would probably also explain away the tens of millions of deaths from late European colonialism, roughly 1870 – 1970. But more likely Creech didn’t even think of the historical sources of wealth. With little emphasis on history, all he can do is to protest that redistributing the wealth squeezed from the workers of the world is anti-Christian. A certain passage about a camel passing through the eye of a needle comes to mind.

In this vein, capitalist consumption becomes holy, and its end result, the destruction of global ecosystems, is only an “assumption that development of the earth’s resources will cause damage to the environment.” Never mind that the UN and David Attenborough warn us that the collapse of civilization and its natural resources are now within sight. Never mind the politics of how we get our fossil fuels. God put them there for us to consume, so go nuts.

That’s how economics is folded into religion: It’s only natural, not the result of human endeavor and malfeasance, and is therefore correct and Godly. But it’s not just economics: everything else gets sucked into the superstructure, which to Creech is righteous because it is simply the way things are. Take military force, which is necessary because “evil is something innate, which requires strong military and police forces”. Evil exists and must be combated. Thus, every bit of interventionist foreign policy is justified, from the Indian Wars to the Middle East.  For instance, radical Islam, especially ISIS, must be fought tooth and nail. However, the righteous Christian should definitely not think about America’s support for the source of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, or the fact that Bin Laden himself was a US puppet in the Afghan rebellion against the USSR. Because if historical context is applied, the US foreign policy and intelligence apparatus never comes out looking Godly.

Domestically, it justifies police brutality. I’ve even seen a few Christians online who think Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games was anti-Christian because “God Bless America” is sometimes played too.

In this way worship of God becomes the adoration of every aspect of currently existing society: The military, the police, the intelligence community, the uniformity of suburban life, gender roles, and on and on. It’s all holy, even if Gospel refutes it or the Jewish tradition from which evangelicals claim to take inspiration outright contradicts it. It would be amusing, for instance, to see hard-right evangelicals try to explain how the Jubilee Year promotes capitalism.

But this isn’t a Christianity with theological depth. This is a Christianity of cliché and pablum. It’s telling that in the article, Creech mentions that he told an elderly parishioner that her “use of tobacco wasn’t consistent with a better Christian walk.” Smoking is bad, he says, but I suspect his concern has less to do with lung cancer than it does with the aesthetic of smoking. Gangsters smoke. So do hippies. Therefore, the upright Christian should refrain from smoking or talking to smokers. Jesus would never stoop to associating with lepers or prostitutes.

In the same way, Creech and company say, we should vote for the normal, the traditional, the comforting, and not the foreign, the weird, the rabble-rousers. A retreat into an imagined past by making American great again; Politics as aesthetic normalcy. In this final stage, religion degenerates into the enforcement of conventional wisdom, the deployment of clichés: “socialism doesn’t work”, “Don’t worry about money”, “America is the greatest country”, “God bless our troops”, “Obama is vaguely foreign and dangerous,” and, ultimately, “Good Christians vote Republican”.

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Ever since Hillary Clinton made her “Basket of Deplorables” comment, a number of Democrats have become more sensitive to those very people. This is good because many Democrats do not need to be reminded that no one likes to be labeled in a pejorative manner. The people to whom Clinton referred have legitimate concerns about their own lives and the direction of the country.

In a less judgmental manner, the people about whom Clinton was speaking are by and large white, middle-aged or elderly, poorly educated, economically struggling and largely baffled by the world of enlightened and affluent liberals.

For many, Donald Trump became the first recent politician who seems to understand their plight and pledges to work for them. The irony is obvious because the only demographic characteristic that he shares with them is his skin color, something that is not unique among American political figures. If there had been no Trump and only “standard-issue off the shelf” Republicans running for the GOP nomination this year, it is possible that many more of these disenfranchised citizens would have hitched their wagons to the Bernie movement in the Democratic Party.

But Trump did run and it’s important to keep in mind that the path that he took was through the Republican Party. It’s possible that he could have taken the independent route, but the Republican way was such easy-going that he did not have to take on the burdens of building a whole new political infrastructure as other independents do.

As dysfunctional as the Democratic Party might be, it is at least a “Trump-free Zone.” It is impossible to imagine Donald Trump seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Democrats appreciate candidates who think rationally, who are consistent from one day to the next, who feel and express compassion towards those in need, and who view government (including taxes) as the best means to address social and economic ills. There is no way that a Trump movement could have flourished in the Democratic Party.

Since the conventions in July, the 2016 election has been far more of a battle of personalities and slogans than a dialogue or debate of different political perspectives. This makes it easier to just think of it as Trump vs. Clinton rather than a Republican vs. a Democrat.

It is important for all to remember that while Trump is not the typical Republican. He was made possible by the Republican Party. Assuming that he loses the 2016 race for the presidency, the Republican Party is going to have a huge task in trying to remake and rebrand itself. The current Trump supporters may be as close to Democrats as they are to “mainstream Republicans.”

I’d like to pass Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” comment off to a pneumonia moment (she uttered those words the evening after she was diagnosed with pneumonia). Win or lose, she and the Democratic Party in general are going to have to welcome back to the party those people who in many ways represented one of the key constituencies of FDR’s New Deal. Political observer Thomas Frank penned the book “Listen Liberal” in which he states that the Democratic Party has lost sight of blue collar workers and those who belong to labor unions.

Those who are currently struggling both economically and socially are far better served by the Democratic Party and the progressive policies that many support. Let’s hope that they get Trump out of their system and are willing to take a new look at a more welcoming Democratic Party.

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Imagine if Donald Trump had entered the 2016 presidential race as a Democrat. He could have; there is no law that would have prevented him from doing so.

He seems to be a natural Republican, and we’ll get to that momentarily. However, he does have a few characteristics that are more consistent with Democrats than Republicans. More accurately, he thinks that he has characteristics that are more common among Democrats. These include:

1. He claims that African-American really like him. If that were true, he would be a natural Democrat.

2. He claims that he really likes immigrants. In light of his statements about Mexicans at his candidacy announcement, that’s hard to believe. If he really liked immigrants and they liked him, then again, he would be more comfortable in the Democratic Party.

3. He claims that he really likes Hillary Clinton and she likes him. It’s true that he gave a considerable amount of money to her 2000 New York Senate run. Hillary was initially cautious in her 2015 remarks about The Donald, but not so anymore. But if they were good friends, then Trump might feel more at home in the Democratic Party.

4. With the exception of the Des Moines Register, Trump claims that he really likes the press. It is true that he has been much more accessible to the media over the past month than most or his opponents. While we would probably have to look back to find to the administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to find a Democratic president who really enjoyed the company of the press, most other Democrats have tolerated the press better than their Republican counterparts [see Richard Nixon].

5. Trump released a financial statement within weeks of announcing his candidacy. Compare that to the way the press and election authorities had to pull teeth to get Mitt Romney to release minimal information four years ago, Most Democrats are more forthcoming with financial disclosure, and in that regard The Donald is more like them than the party whose nomination he seeks.

6. Trump uses fewer platitudes than any other present candidate. He is indeed a straight-shooter. We may not like what he says; in fact we may find it very offensive, but to his credit, he doesn’t hide behind innocuous, platitudinous rhetoric like most Republicans. Yes, Democrats do that as well, particularly when they become president. However, they are generally more direct and honest than their Republican counterparts.

But then again, he has a number of Republican characteristics:

1. He does not seem to be terribly bright; he’s certainly no FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, or Obama. His level of insight seems to be more like that of Dan Quayle, George W. Busch, and Sarah Palin. The Republican Party seems to be a good repository of people who lack critical thinking skills.

2. His speech is full of venom, hatred, and animosity, both toward groups and individuals. Democrats (at least progressive Democrats) tend to be more empathetic. Many Republican seems to have an unexplainable and visceral hatred towards many people that most reasonable people find hard to understand. Trump fits well in that crowd.

3. Trump’s primary goal in life has been to accumulate wealth. He is ostentatious to such an extent that he even bought his way to a national television show to flaunt his wealth. There have been wealthy Democrats such as FDR and JFK, but they were generally modest and discreet about their wealth.

4. Trump seems to be comfortable flaunting America’s military power. While Democrats, including Barack Obama, have used military options quite frequently, they seem to be more reluctant to do so than Republicans. Just ask Trump what he thinks about the Iran nuclear deal.

5. If we could see Donald Trump’s report card from kindergarten, it’s likely that he would have a checkmark by the item, “Does not play well with others.” We know now that he certainly does not play well with the other fifteen announced Republican candidates for president. The Republican leadership in Congress certainly does not play well with others; they stymie virtually every reasonable request that President Obama and Democrats in Congress have. Most Democrats have better social skills than Republicans, and in this regard, Trump fits right in with the GOP.

Trump might be described as a bloviating enigma. He indeed has certain characteristics that fit more in the Democratic Party, but because so much of what he says comes from lack of knowledge and an underlying sense of dislike towards others, he’s a much better fit for the Republican Party. In that regard, he got it right.

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