Trump wins the election, Christians curb their nationalism, and the New York Times forgets how to do journalism
Three thoughts on the 2024 election
Trump won. With that in mind, here are some random election thoughts.
Christians need to adjust their politics to make the most of Trump’s second term
With the phrase “Trump won”, comes many caveats. First, Christians who expect his term to herald a new era of national prosperity and virtue may end up disappointed, or at least disillusioned. Many Christians who voted for Trump in 2016 felt that way in 2020, when three years of booming economic growth and international security were capped off by a fourth year of COVID-19 lockdowns (which included patently stupid decisions like masking up kids and forcing them to do school online, stunting their social-emotional development), “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, and finally, January 6th, when Trump excited his supporters into a riotous state, then sat back and did nothing for three hours as they ransacked the capitol.
Second, Christians must be aware that there are three ways to go about politics as a follower of Christ, and not all are created equal. First, there is the option of remaining ambivalent; of not voting, not paying attention to politics, and sticking one’s head in the sand as the world burns because, after all, “We’re in the end times… if all hell breaks loose, that’s just a sign Jesus is coming back!” True, but Jesus never said he should come back to a flat-footed, disengaged church. Satan is intimately involved in the workings of politics–from abortion and transition therapy to racial animosity and the state replacing God as the alpha and omega of human life. How can Christians not be involved?
The second option is to blend Christianity with nationalism, such as is common in the modern G.O.P. (and which was on naked display at this year’s Republican National Convention). I once saw a pickup truck covered with homemade signs that perfectly captured the sneering, roast-the-libs, turn-or-burn attitude that effuses from such Christians like bad cologne. While progressives are pushing abominable policies that should anger every Christian, the way we persuade others as to their abominableness is crucial, lest they believe the progressive caricature of Christians as bigoted, rancorous individuals who want to establish a theocratic dictatorship.
Thankfully, Democrats’ attempt to scare voters away from voting Republican failed miserably, as Trump won 295 electoral votes to Harris’s 26, and is on track to win the popular vote (which no Republican has done in 20 years). However, if politically-minded Christians (and Trump) had toned down their rhetoric during the final stretch of the campaign, the election would no doubt have been a landslide. Trump wasted a huge opportunity when he followed up his assassination attempt–when the entire country was on the edge of their seat waiting to see whether or not the experience had changed him–with a divisive nomination speech on night five of the RNC.
The New York Times needs to repent… or stop calling itself a newspaper
Another thing that struck me during this election was the baldfaced bias of the New York Times, which has brought the paper crashing to a new low of journalistic malpractice. Their coverage of the election results, once they were out, was particularly abysmal.
Before the election was decided, they published a battery of “news” articles dedicated to undermining Trump’s electoral chances. The articles were published under the banner “What’s at Stake In the 2024 Election.” The problem is that Trump was the only candidate for whom the stakes were being measured; there was no corresponding series on Kamala (the series included just two articles on her presidency, both of which were far more charitable than Trump’s).
The biggest problem was that these articles appeared in the news section of the paper, when they were no more than well-researched opinion essays written by veteran reporters let off their leash. Here are a few headlines from that series: “Trump’s Tariffs Would Rock Global Businesses and Shake Alliances” (so, the Times is in the business of telling the future now); “Trump’s America First Foreign Policy Was a Breakdown in American Policy-Making” (according to who, the author?); “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgement” (except that few people still believe his recent trials were prosecuted in good faith–nor was the article written in good faith: Maggie Haberman is a Trump-critical tabloid reporter, not a journalist). All the articles were dubbed “news analysis”, a favorite loophole of reporters who want to editorialize the news without losing their credibility.
I can disagree with such headlines in the comments section of Times opinion. I should not have to abide them in the news section–especially not when Kamala Harris received a tongue-bath in comparison. If a headline or characterization can be rightly and thoroughly contested–if, in other words, it is anything more or less than the facts–it does not belong in the news section. Period. The New York Times, being a so-called “paper of record”, should know this.
It was sad to see how far Times coverage has fallen from its pre-2010 heights: instead of holding up a mirror to the world, it is now just a reflection of the values of Times journalists, who have soiled the name of their profession.
After Trump won the election, the New York Times chose to frame it this way, as only they could:
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal chose the classier (and journalistic) headline “Donald Trump Is Elected 47th U.S. President, Harris Concedes.”
Soon, the coverage bomb enveloping the Times newsroom sent out another shockwave–Trump won the election because voters are depraved! From an article by Peter Baker (note, this was another “news analysis” piece, and all the linked articles are news analysis pieces):
Rather than be offended by his brazen lies and wild conspiracy theories, many [voters] found [Trump] authentic. Rather than dismiss him as a felon found by various courts to be a fraudster, cheater, sexual abuser and defamer, many embraced his assertion that he has been the victim of persecution”.
And then Peter Baker hides behind a source to say what he really thinks:
This election was a CAT scan on the American people, and as difficult as it is to say, as hard as it is to name, what it revealed, at least in part, is a frightening affinity for a man of borderless corruption,” said Peter H. Wehner, a former strategic adviser to President George W. Bush and vocal critic of Mr. Trump. “Donald Trump is no longer an aberration; he is normative.”
Of course, what Peter Baker and others fail to realize is that Donald Trump is only “normative” to the extent he opposes so many progressive luxury-beliefs that are anything but normal, such as letting boys play in girl’s sports, or not having kids because of climate change, or casting Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, as a victim of Israeli “imperialism”.
If the New York Times wants to broaden their appeal beyond a pampered coterie of technocrats, politicians, Fabian socialists, hipsters, and academics, they would do well to treat the American people with a measure of respect–especially when considering Trump won 52% of the popular vote (as of November 6).
The American people have more sense than I gave them credit for
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the election was by how wide of a margin Trump won. He expanded his support among black and hispanic men, notched victory after victory in counties and states that previously opposed him or hadn’t voted Republican in years, and took more than half of the popular vote, stunning Democrats and Harris strategists who were sure the election would drag out for days, the outcome determined by a few thousand votes.
No. What Trump showed, and what Times journalists are struggling to understand, is that the American people have not been taken in by the media echo chambers, by those who tell them that the way forward is one paved in government subsidies, stimulus, free college, and European socialist policy.
It shows that this nation is not so post-Christian as to compel a majority of the population to vote a candidate in office who would unhesitatingly throw her support behind transgender-therapy for minors, race-based income redistribution, and reading rights into the Constitution that simply aren’t there–abortion chief among them. It shows that they trust their own good sense more than some Harvard-educated journalist’s version of events: inflation is real, war is breaking out across the globe, and the government is overstepping its mandate to keep the peace, provide for the national defense, raise revenue, and establish justice.
It shows that minorities have refused to buy what progressives are selling, namely, that they are victims of institutionalized oppression. Rather, as many have seemed to realize, it is rather suspicious that the government should want to keep a dependent underclass hooked on welfare and government benefits, which they claim is “for their own good.” After four years, all those assumptions are coming under harsh scrutiny.
Finally, it shows that Americans still don’t see the government as a super-state, as their long-lost redeemer, come to rescue them from the perils of disease, ignorance, and war. Some of them even believe Jesus is the only one with that authority. And as long as that remains the case, we can have hope.
