Social conservatives have a long tradition of talking about sex and supporting politicians who will betray them, but I’m still surprised that so many are ready to say f*** it and throw their support behind Donald Trump.
Not all social conservatives, to be sure, not even most, but more and more are inclined to view Trump as a good alternative to an elite that has excluded them. After years of playing by the rules and losing, they are ready for something different. Rod Dreher, who isn't quite ready to endorse Trump, explains:
Every single one of the GOP candidates will say the right thing (from a social conservative point of view) on religious liberty. But will they deliver? Don’t you believe it. The Indiana RFRA fight was the Waterloo of social conservatives. Big Business has come down decisively on the side of gay rights, and forced Gov. Mike Pence and the state GOP lawmakers to back down. They forced Gov. Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas to back down. As I cannot repeat often enough, I was told last fall by multiple sources in a position to know that the Congressional Republicans have no intention of making religious liberty an issue going forward. For one thing, they don’t want to be called bigots, and for another, the donor class is against it. I don’t doubt that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz (at least) would like to protect religious liberty, but I am convinced that they are too beholden to the donor class to do anything more than make speeches.
That brings us to Donald Trump. He has said publicly that he will make protecting religious liberty a priority. Does he mean it? I have no idea, and you don’t either. He is no religious conservative. But he is a populist who doesn’t care what the donor class thinks, because he is not indebted to them. It is reasonable to think that religious liberty stands a better chance with Trump in the White House than any other Republican. Mind you, that’s the soft bigotry of low expectations, but that just goes to show you how weak the position of us religious and social conservatives has become within the Republican Party.
If the Benedict Option is like taking one’s marbles and walking away from the political game (a charge its advocates deny), a vote for Trump is like scattering everyone else’s. Politically engaged evangelicals have fared far better economically than other groups that are supporting Trump, but like those groups they feel themselves to be losers under the current system . . . Obergefell, Roe, media bias that is too pervasive for one even to bother pointing out. Blowing up the whole thing looks like the best way to win again.
I have my doubts. There have been real advances in combatting the evil of abortion (especially at the state level) and there are live efforts to defend religious liberty at the federal level that I think have a chance of succeeding. Social conservatives should keep in mind the way that almost everyone today—gay people and social conservatives, feminists and “men's rights activists,” Wall Street’s occupiers and its billionaires(!)—feels cornered and besieged. Social conservatives may have a better claim to that feeling than most, but I don’t see how even an intense pessimism could justify supporting Trump. Better dignity in defeat than a desperate gambling with the common good.
Matthew Schmitz is literary editor of First Things.
