Trump 2020 - I Think I'm In

The video you're about to watch I actually recorded and edited a couple hours ago. And so I wanted to add this to the beginning because I remembered a conversation I had with one of my friends back in 2015.

He was a vocal Trump supporter and I was a vocal non-Trump supporter or anti-Trump person, whatever. And so at the time, he was very honest. I mean, this is the kind of friends I like to have, people that are honest, that'll speak to you directly, and especially in cases where they think you're wrong.

He told me that my position was kind of projecting a sort of false piety. He said that I wasn't engaging with the world as it really is. I mean, things aren't always neat and clean. People are messy and we have to engage with reality.

We can't have our eyes, our head in the clouds only willing to act when things are perfect and things were completely clean or things like that. And at the time I said, ah, you're crazy. You know what I mean?

And we're still friends. Again, this is the kind of friend I like. And I never really understood why he was saying that about my positions, but I've had a lot of time to think. And over the last couple of years, I've kind of come to realize that my friend was exactly right.

I did have some good reasons to not vote for Trump. So don't hear me recanting on all of that. But there were some reasons why I was not supporting Trump that I used to tell people back in 2015 that were falsely pious.

It wasn't a real piety, it was a false piety. It made me look real good, but it really wasn't good. So it was a mix. I had some good reasons to not vote for Trump and some that were false. And so I was wrong about that stuff.

I was wrong about that stuff. And so I hope that you enjoy this video and we're gonna talk a lot more about this. And I hope that if you disagree with my conclusions that you would put a comment in the comment section.

I'd be glad to think more about this and address all of this stuff. My position on this is tentative, but this is kind of where I'm at. And I just thought I'd do a video about it and all of that. And of course I reserve the right to change my support in case Trump ever does shoot someone in the middle of 52nd Street, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, but yeah, this isn't gonna be a deep dive on that Christianity Today article, but I will reference it. The commentary on this article is mostly laughter, which I think is exactly what the article deserves because it is a joke.

The article is a joke. But there are some good articles that are coming out that flesh this out a lot more. So I will put those in the description of this video as well and I'll share them on Twitter.

So keep an eye out on my Twitter feed for that. But it certainly seems like my initial impressions of laughter and some commentary of inconsistency was exactly right, even without knowing a lot of the details.

I hope you enjoy this video. Here it is. Put that out, man, I'm the pastor. That too?

How you doing, brother Craig? How you doing? Excuse me, brother. What we call Weasel words. 74th Street Baptist Church, we call us CNCNCN. We're around here between Normandy and Weston. We call this here a little Virtue, virtue, virtue signal.

Brothers and white allies.

Christianity Today, Trump, and the “Virtue Signal” Reaction

Oh, well this video is gonna be about the Christianity Today editorial, letter from the editor or whatever. But before I get into it, a friend sent me this article and I just, I can't even, I can't even imagine.

I can't even imagine the audience for this kind of thing. I was, listen, listen, the last couple weeks I've been talking about the formula that Gospel Coalition, you know, ERLC, Big Eva uses to have an endless amount of articles and blog posts that make you sound oh so thoughtful, but take no effort and you can make everything up in it and it doesn't matter.

Like you don't have to really put too much effort into it at all. And basically what you do is you say the church needs to learn something from something in secular culture that's unexpected. So it's like, well, you could learn something from Miss America pageant or you could learn something from this or that or this or that.

And like, you can just put anything in there as long as it's unexpected and you can write an article about it and people will be like, hmm, interesting. And I've done this myself. I've made everything up.

I did a video, what the church can learn from daytime judge shows like, you know, Judge Mathis and People's Court. And then I did what, how to talk to your kids about Willy Wonka. I made it all up. I had multiple points, but it sounded exactly like one of these articles that I'm talking about.

And my plan was that this week I was going to do a parody of, again, one of these kinds of articles about what the church can learn from Baby Yoda because Baby Yoda is a popular meme and all of that. So I was gonna do a parody video about it.

But before I could get to it, I can't even believe this. Before I could get to my parody video, somebody wrote a serious article about it. Uniting around a baby, what Baby Yoda can teach us about Christmas?

The answer is nothing. The answer is literally nothing. Baby Yoda can teach us nothing. Baby Yoda, calm down, calm down. Look at this, the story of Baby Yoda. In a time of dissension, social media rage and ideological anger, a baby does unite us.

Baby Yoda, are you kidding me? I'm not gonna read this thing, but wait. No, South, this is a, wait, wait, this is a publication from a seminary. No, Intersect, hold on, this is real time. I did not look into this very much.

About Intersect, where faith meets culture. In the early ages, we put our faith in a box. Put our faith in a box. South, Ethern Baptist, this came from a seminary. What the church? It's gotten so crazy, you can't even parody this stuff.

You can't even meme on it anymore because the minute you parody something, someone's gonna unironically say the same thing. This is pretty unbelievable. Anyway, this is what the article, or this is what the video is about today.

This is what is the virtue, virtue, virtue signal, if you know what I mean. Christianity Today, Christianity Today. I've heard of that. I've heard of that article, that magazine. They put out a editorial titled, Trump should be removed from office.

Way to go out on a limb. I saw this first from Jamar Tisby. He posted this. I just couldn't help but laugh. I thought it was hilarious, especially the way he presented it. Take a look at this. This is such an important statement from one of today's most prominent evangelical publications.

Historians will cite this article for decades. Oh man, I thought that was pretty funny. So this is a very important article, obviously, but I will say that maybe it is because Donald Trump also retweeted it and said a far left magazine, or very progressive as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn't been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather, let's go on to the next tweet, have radical left non-believers who want to take your religion and your guns than Donald Trump as your president.

No president has done more for the evangelical community and it's not even close. You'll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won't be reading ET again. I could just imagine Donald Trump reading Christianity Today every day and then finally seeing this and be like, well, that's it.

Well, I'll tell you right now, I for one will likely never read a Christianity Today article ever again, but I never did in the first place. But let's read this. Let's read this article from Mark Galley.

You might be saying, who's that? That's what I'm saying. I don't know. But apparently he's the editor in chief of Christianity Today. Who cares? Now, here's what he says. In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith.

The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment. The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible.

We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across this political spectrum and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

So it's setting up all the bona fides, right? Well, we're not really political. We stay above the fray. Now, I don't know if this is true or not. I highly, I'm very suspicious. Let's just say this. I'm highly suspicious that this is actually accurate, that they stay above the fray, because let's just be honest.

If Christianity Today is, quote, helping Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith, how can you stay above the fray? That doesn't seem like a possibility to me. Furthermore, why should you want to stay above the fray?

Because the gospel is a political message. When you say Christ is king, unless you're just saying it in kind of an esoteric, weird, kind of floating in space, sort of woo-hoo, you know, weird, like, what's it called?

I don't know, mystical kind of way, then it's political, obviously. I think what they mean, of course, it's not partisan, but that's fine. But anyway, he goes on. I'm not gonna read this whole thing. It's kind of a boring article.

This is what had me interested, though. This is what had me interested. He said, unfortunately, the words we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election, that is not a matter of prudential judgment.

Now, let me say something here. I've gotten in trouble for doing this in the past, and so I know this is a thing. Now, I did it unintentionally, so I'll be charitable and say that Christianity today might have done this unintentionally as well.

But I'm suspicious. Let's just say I'm suspicious. Mr. Trump, as far as Christianity today is concerned, he's not even the president anymore. Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election.

That's a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, this is the quote that I wanna talk about, that he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties, but loyalty to the creator of the 10 Commandments.

Wow, that sounds pretty good. That sounds pretty good. But I think this is a virtue signal. I mean, call me crazy. I think this is a virtue, virtue, virtue signal. Wow. Because this is the thing, this is how I know that Christians have kind of lost our way a little bit, at least a certain strand of Christianity, let's say that.

Because it's not the fact that babies are murdered at ridiculous rates in our country and our president supports it. It's no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the problem, nope. It's not the fact that perversion is being promoted and defended.

Did you guys see that article, or that sentence from the guy who burned the rainbow flag? Like he got like 15 years for burning the rainbow flag. That is an injustice of unbelievable proportions. And the president, and this president isn't stopping it.

And presidents in the past have promoted it. So it's no, no, it's not that. It's not getting 15 years in a cage for burning a rainbow flag, right? Nope, that's not why we owe allegiance to God to remove our president.

Nope, nope, nope. It's not the wars, it's not the endless wars. It's not the stealing, the massive amounts of stealing that happens when you get your paycheck. It's like half what it should be because the government has taken their share first, which by the way, is more than the share that God demands of his people.

So the government thinks that they are owed more than what God says he's owed. What does that say about what the government thinks it is? It thinks it's God. This is not controversial. I mean, in the Bible, it talks about like a domineering king.

It talks about like a dictator type of a king. And it says in the Bible that one of the ways you'll know it's a curse to you is that he'll take 10%. And it chose that number intentionally because that's the same number that God says that he should get.

And so what it's saying is, it's going to set itself up as God. It thinks it's at the same level as God is. That's what the government, that's how you know it's a despot. And we're way beyond that point at this point, right?

We're way beyond that. That's not why we should be removed. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. That's not it. That's not it. So it's not killing babies. It's not ridiculous prison sentences. It's not wars.

It's not all the stealing. Nope, it's none of those things. You know what it is? This is how we know the president should be removed. Ready, ready? He talks to the president of Ukraine and says some things and does a negotiation and that's treason.

It's treason. That's the big one. That's the big one. There it is. I don't believe you. I don't believe you, you psychopath. This is the most preposterous thing ever. I mean, I can't even imagine having an opinion like this.

Well, you know, killing babies, totally fine. As long as you're respectable. As long as you've got manners. As long as you don't negotiate with foreign presidents. Oh, wait, but you do do that, don't you?

Yeah, yeah, you do. You do. Man, this is just crazy. I think that this article is a joke. And to think that people would seriously say, this is such an important statement and it will be cited for decades because of how good it is.

You guys are out of your minds. Okay, out of your minds. You're out of your ever loving minds. I know you don't see it. And I know you think that I'm out of my mind. Hey, that is what it is. That's just how it's gonna have to be.

And we're gonna have to let the truth prevail. That's what we're gonna have to do. Now, here's the thing. Today, I'm gonna announce something for 2020. I have been thinking about this for a very long time and the impeachment kind of was the last straw, but I still kind of hesitated a little bit, but this is the reality.

This is the reality. This impeachment is an obvious tactic, obvious. This is a non-issue, but they made it an issue because they just had to, they felt like they had to. And this is gonna be the new strategy.

If you think that this is gonna end with Trump, you're wrong, you're wrong. The Republicans are gonna be impeached because they're Republicans. Okay, it's just that simple. That's the reality. You're going to have, if you ever elect another Republican president again, they're going to be impeached again because they're Republicans.

They need to be canceled. It's just that simple. It's just that simple. And so I don't want this to be a tactic that works. I don't want this to be a tactic that we encourage. And I think that if Trump doesn't win in 2020, this will be a tactic that's encouraged.

And so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm not a voter and I'm still thinking about that. Right now, I still have the conviction that I'm not going to vote, but I am gonna support Donald Trump in 2020. And so I hope he wins.

And I'm gonna do videos about his candidacy. I'm gonna do videos about his opponents and all of that kind of stuff in support of a successful campaign in 2020. Now you might say, well, that's inconsistent.

If you're not gonna vote for him, then why would you support that he wins? I can understand that you could say that's inconsistent, but I don't care. I don't care. I want him to win. I was glad when he won in 2016.

I didn't think he was gonna be that great of a president. He's been way better than I thought he was gonna be. Way better than I thought he was gonna be. And so I hope he wins again. I hope he wins again.

I look at the field on the left and I say, absolutely not. I look at the field on the left and I look at the third party options and I say, you know what? For this moment in time, Donald Trump is probably the best that we can hope for.

I mean, it's just that simple. It's just that simple. So I will be supporting Donald Trump in 2020 and I'm looking forward to making content to that effect. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless. You know, one of the things about Trump that I really do like as well is that he has got all the right enemies.

Put it that way. All the right enemies. All the right people hate him, which makes me think I might be missing something with Donald Trump. And so I hope he wins and I'm looking forward to finding out more and talking about it much more.

And that's that. Not sorry.