The America We Used To Have

By MIKE MANNO

Michael Voris made an interesting point about President Trump and his liberal opponents the other day. Voris, if you don’t know, is the president and founder of St. Michael’s Media, which produces videos for a website apostolate, Church Militant. Voris and Church Militant are strong promoters of traditional (read: orthodox) Catholicism which does not always endear them to the Church’s bureaucracy or to some in its hierarchy.
Each morning he posts a video called The Vortex, which is a five-minute commentary on events, similar to those posted daily by radio host Dennis Prager as PragerU.
In a Vortex episode just before Holy Week, Voris turned to the question of why the left hates Mr. Trump so much. “It’s a burning uncontrolled rage consuming their very souls,” he said, noting that even when the president embraces one of the left’s goals, “their heads explode.”
He continued, “Then on the other side of the coin, you have another phenomenon that mystifies the left. Religious-minded people tend to like Trump — yes, the philandering, swashbuckling, ego-driven New York billionaire with the big mouth and bigger Twitter account is practically adored by churchgoing, quiet, humble, Bible-reading parents of families nestled all over America’s heartland country.”
Voris raises an interesting observation: Why does this man evoke such strong contradictory feelings — especially hate? The question has interested me, too. Why are the Democrats and their supporters so resistant to the least ideological president we’ve had in decades? Surely, just looking at Mr. Trump’s public record, there are obvious issues in which Democrats could have made book with him.
Parenthetically, I’ve often wondered if Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, knowing The Donald as he did, didn’t make a fatal mistake by his hardline opposition to “everything Trump” rather than working with him on issues that he should have known that the president could support or at least would not oppose.
On the other side of the question, what is it that is so endearing about the man Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput referred to before the election as “a vulgar, boorish lout, and disrespecter of women, with a serious impulse control problem” to those clinging to their bibles and guns?
Voris, I think, hits close to the mark with his answer. It’s about God; it’s about whose moral code do we follow — man’s or God’s? In referring to the left, Voris opines, “What they just don’t get is it’s never been about the man, but about his view of America, which embraces the notion that the country is founded on principles — moral principles — which say the life of a nation must be oriented toward nature’s God.”
And he’s right. Mr. Trump represents the cultural stability that the nation once enjoyed — back in the day when there was a bright line between right and wrong and where, when there was some confusion about goals, a rational, respectful conversation could take place. That has all changed. Today if you disagree with the new liberal orthodoxy you’d better keep your mouth shut — otherwise, you could be forced out of your job, your business could be destroyed, and you can be labeled a purveyor of hate just for stating your belief in traditional marriage.
Apparently it is not just Mr. Trump that they hate.
Abortion has become the high sacrament for the left and intolerance of it is itself intolerance. Across the nation, churches, schools, and other private organizations are being forced to comply with the dictates of political correctness where beliefs of conscience must bow to the gods of secularism. Nothing illustrates this more than the plight of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Founded in 1839, the order has been dedicated in its mission to care for the elderly, especially the poor elderly. However, the nuns, as well as several other Catholic and Christian colleges and entities (including EWTN), were caught up in the Obama administration’s rules that demanded they provide contraception for their employees, including abortion-inducing drugs.
Naturally they resisted, won some major court victories, and finally appeared to find a safe haven when the newly inaugurated Donald Trump issued an executive order to amend the regulations to “address conscience-based objections” to the Obamacare mandate.
But, of course, that wasn’t good enough for the high priests of the secular left. Immediately six blue states — California, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Virginia, later followed by Massachusetts — filed suit against the president seeking to overturn his order. One attorney general went so far as to announce the suit in front of a Planned Parenthood office.
In short, the left wanted the Little Sisters placed back in the original position they had been in during the Obama administration: Provide the contraception drugs or face heavy fines. In fact, when the Little Sisters tried to intervene in the lawsuit against the president, the blue states’ attorneys general resisted! Can anyone born before Roe v. Wade remember when the religious rights of nuns were so disrespected?
Of course it’s not just about the nuns; the state of California can declare that it will not abide by federal immigration rules, yet if a photographer declines to photograph a lesbian wedding, all hell will break out. Your children can be taken from you for indoctrination by the state schools: Same-sex marriage is normal, it’s okay to experiment with sex, and as one Ohio couple is finding out, if you resist allowing your child to undergo gender transition, the state can take your child. Or more recently, they can be taken to a gun control demonstration without your permission and even to an Impeach George Bush rally — as the Los Angeles school district did some years ago.
One of my first articles for The Wanderer was about a school assembly in a Massachusetts high school by something called “Hot, Sexy, and Safer Productions” wherein the students were given a presentation on safe sex and one of the students was, as part of the assembly, singled out for wearing “erection wear.” In the following lawsuit by a parent, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held for the school, stating that the parents had “no fundamental right” to direct the upbringing of their children.
And, of course, this is only a small portion of issues and government action that have infuriated the religious right. Can the trend be reversed? How do we recapture what once was? Well, into this mix walked Donald Trump.
Voris, like many other commentators, pointed out that nearly half of Trump voters said the courts (read: cultural issues) were either the top or close to the top reason for voting for him. Voris is right in identifying the culture as the trigger to Mr. Trump’s popularity among religious conservatives. It is about culture (see “It’s the Culture, Stupid,” The Wanderer, March 1, 2018, p. 4A).
And it’s time we recognized it. It’s not about hate or paranoia, that’s left for the other side to manifest. It’s about preserving the American culture, and, as Voris says, “the culture wars really are just a facet of the larger spiritual war.”
Of course there are other reasons why some folks hate Mr. Trump; after all he bested the smartest woman in the world, the high priestess of secularism, abortion, and transgender rights. There is always a sting in an election loss, but with Mr. Trump’s victory the lefties have truly lost their collective minds. The sight of millennials holding public cry-ins over it has no parallel in modern history.
We can’t look into the future so we won’t know how this chapter of history will end. But I do think I know one thing: Trump voters knew who they were getting, warts and all, and I predict they will stay with their man. On the other hand, if hate can sustain a political movement, we’ll probably see it until The Donald takes his last ride from the White House.
One thing I do know for sure, Voris is right, it’s certainly not about the man in the white shirt and cufflinks — it’s about his view of America…the one we used to have.