By Davis Carlton

The conclusion of Donald Trump’s tenure as President of the United States has given me an opportunity to contemplate God’s purposes in providentially bringing recent events to pass. By way of personal background I was enthused by Donald Trump’s success in overturning the GOP establishment during the 2016 primaries and Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election. Many of Donald Trump’s positions were untenable: chiefly his endorsement of homosexual “rights” and his promotion of the gay agenda abroad. Nevertheless, these were not the issues that made him successful during the 2016 campaign. Donald Trump, for all of his many personal flaws, demonstrated that the populist platform that he borrowed (or pilfered) from Pat Buchanan could motivate tremendous loyalty and support from many in the American heartland.

Of course the poetry of Trump’s campaign quickly met with the prose of Trump’s presidency. Donald Trump has clearly failed to deliver on his most important campaign promises. Some of this is due to sabotage within his administration as well as opposition from congressional Republicans. However, much of Trump’s failure during his time in office as well as during his 2020 reelection campaign was self-inflicted. This was predictable. Donald Trump’s lack of a Christian worldview makes it entirely likely that he saw himself as a political savior who truly did not understand just how deeply entrenched “the swamp” had become embedded into Washington political culture. Many on board the “Trump train” were far too optimistic about what his presidency could accomplish. Roger Devlin’s cautionary tale comparing Trump’s political rise to that of Ronald Reagan has certainly proved to be on target. While Trump’s election was celebrated by many decent Americans, like Reagan he failed to accomplish his major political goals and keep his campaign promises. Meanwhile the globalist agenda continues apace.

I have been wondering in recent days about what is in store for us in the future as we are left to deal with the failure of the Trump administration. Speculation abounds, but it’s wise to be cautious about thinking that we fully understand God’s secret counsel (Deut. 29:29; Rom. 11:33-36). Nevertheless, I also believe that we can reasonably ask what God’s purpose was in bringing about the Trump presidency and what it means going forward. Here are my thoughts.

Donald Trump was polarizing in a way that tended to separate the wheat from the chaff. The policies that propelled his campaign in 2016 made him hated by all of the right people. Trump was and will continue to be reviled as a “racist” and “xenophobe” for his proposals to restrict immigration. Trump’s political enemies have revealed the full extent to which they consider white Americans to be their enemies slated for destruction. Following the capitol demonstration that was labelled an “insurrection” by the mainstream media, Nancy Pelosi said that the demonstrators chose “their whiteness over democracy.” This is in spite of the fact that the demonstrators said nothing about defending their white identity and were instead assembled in a protest over election integrity which is supposed to be fundamental to democracy. It doesn’t matter. White people gathered together and that makes them “white supremacists” in the mind of Pelosi and those like her.

Others have called on whites to be “deprogrammed” employing the language of the Stalinist gulag. Black columnist Eugene Robinson stated during an interview: “There are millions of Americans, almost all white, almost all Republicans, who somehow need to be deprogrammed. It’s as if they are members of a cult, the Trumpist cult, and they have to be deprogrammed. Do you have any idea how we start that process, much less complete it?”

In a similar vein AOC stated after the January 6 demonstration that “The White supremacist cause is futile, it’s nihilist…Their world will never exist. That’s why we’re seeing violence right now.” AOC proposes programs to “de-radicalize” those who she labels as “white supremacist” Trump supporters. Trump’s presidency is being denounced as “white supremacist” in order to de-legitimize even mildly pro-American policies. Already the Biden administration has ordered ICE to release all illegal aliens in their custody. This has only become tenable because the Left has successfully demonized any immigration enforcement as “white supremacy” by associating it with Donald Trump. This is in spite of the fact that Leftist heroes like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and even Joe Biden have taken positions at least as robust as Donald Trump in the past.

The popular condemnation of basic patriotism and even mild nationalism has rendered the opinion that race doesn’t matter utterly obsolete. There are decent Christians who have tried to articulate this position in the past, but it is clear that this will no longer be effective as the Left has asserted the reality of race precisely so that the white race can be identified as the source of the world’s problems. To give the devil his due, James White occasionally provides decent analysis of many contemporary social problems, but he has tried to critique left-wing critical theory from the standpoint that race doesn’t matter. In a Twitter thread responding to Duke Kwon, White stated: “Concepts of ‘whiteness’ or ‘blackness’ are DESTROYED by the radical equality of every sinner’s need and Christ’s perfect provision. Our identity is NOT determined by our ancestors—we have been transferred out of the kingdom where such relationships rule and divide.”

White is a better thinker than this. If our identity has nothing to do with our ancestors, then even our identity as individuals who are the children of our immediate parents is nullified. White’s racial indifference is opposed to traditional Christian thinking which recognizes racial and ethnic distinctions as integral to our God-given identity. The approach of James White, Jeff Durbin, and others cannot withstand the new Left that is now openly teaching with increasing boldness that once “whiteness” can be deconstructed and that the “white patriarchal power structure” must be pulled down in order for the world to finally enjoy paradise.

The line in the sand has helped to reveal the wicked intentions and upside-down priorities of modern Christian leaders who have condemned basic patriotism and even mild nationalism. For some time the evangelical Christian establishment has lent mild support for the standard “stupid party” politics of the GOP. Trump’s presidency demonstrated that the fake leadership of evangelical churches (to say nothing of Catholic and Orthodox clergy) never was particularly concerned with actually winning the culture war over issues like abortion and homosexuality, but are consumed with fear of “Christian nationalism” even though this is little more than civic nationalism.

Beth Moore actually stated that she has “never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it.” It is amazing to consider the utterly godless nature of the DNC platform being advanced at the time that and her statement becomes an astounding admission that she doesn’t understand history or politics, much less morals or theology at all.

Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has given his full support to the media narrative of the ubiquitous “white supremacist” boogeyman, and in doing so demonstrates either unbelievable credulity or that he’s the willing tool of his globalist handlers. Not to be outdone, Jemar Tisby has praised the election of Raphael Warnock who is completely in line with the Democratic agenda on issues like abortion and homosexuality because it supposedly demonstrates the influence of the black church. Warnock’s radical agenda demonstrates that the black church has almost nothing in common with historic orthodox Christianity.

It’s also worth noting Trump is hardly worthy of the fear and disdain heaped upon him by the Left or the loyalty that many have given him on the Right. I doubt many of the key players on the Left are genuinely as afraid of Trump as their rhetoric suggests, but Trump has become a convenient symbol for the kind of civic nationalism that the globalist Left seeks to defeat. The revulsion of aimed at Trump by the Left brings to mind Two Minute Hate from George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984. Donald Trump was never the savior that some hoped he would be, but the Trump presidency has forced globalists to reveal the true nature of their wicked agenda. The battle lines have been drawn and everyday it becomes clearer who is on the side of Christian truth and justice.