I have a confession to make. I’m a bit of a political junkie. For decades now I have a folder of bookmarks in my web browser labeled Propaganda with links to all my favorite political websites. Most days I indulge in at least an article or two.

I even seriously considered going into politics myself at one point. However it seems to me the best way to have the biggest positive impact in the world is to help set hearts free by teaching them about the love of God.

So I mostly stay out of political discussions online. Or at least I try to mostly stay out of them anyway. But since the recent events in my home state of Colorado I’ve come to a point where this whole Trump thing should be addressed.

Biblical Perspective

Let me also say that this article is addressed to Bible believing Christians. For those who don’t believe what the Bible says, or aren’t followers of Jesus, what I have to say here likely won’t relate. I get that y’all have your reasons for thinking Trump is the right guy.

However I sincerely believe that Trump is completely conning Christians and is not the man some believe he is. Either that or believers are simply turning a blind eye to his striking character flaws.

Character Matters

The Bible has much to say about the importance of character in a nation’s leaders and the effect that has on the people. Even a cursory trip through Judges, Kings, and Chronicles should make that obvious, not to mention all the wisdom in Proverbs on the subject.

As a believer I have a responsibility to weigh out the qualification of the person I am voting into office. Character necessarily must be a very significant factor in that decision. I believe as Christians we have a responsibility to support the person with the best character available, wherever possible.

Notice I didn’t say “perfect” character. We are talking about human beings after all, and politicians at that. Even the best among us has issues. I fully recognize that.

Historical Trump

I grew up in New York and when to college in the Bronx. I remember Trump from back in the 80’s, long before I was a believer. Back then I thought he was a blowhard and a bully. I haven’t really seen anything to change that perspective now 30 years later.

Trump uses bluster to get what he wants. When that doesn’t work his default position is to file a lawsuit to bully whomever into giving him what he’s after. He’s got a long track record of going into business with a stack of investors only to run the business into the ground and then file bankruptcy in order to protect his own piece of the pie and avoid having to meet his financial responsibilities to his investors. That’s a polite way of saying he uses the system to cheat folks out of their money.

That tendency to promise big things that he fails to deliver without concern for the “suckers” who paid him big money is exactly why he will likely be required to testify in court this summer in the Trump University fraud case to explain why his company stole tens of thousands of dollars each from middle class Americans based on false promises (AKA lies).

I could go on about how he tried to use eminent domain to steal a window’s home from her so he could tear it down for a parking lot for his casino in Atlantic City, which by the way is now yet another of his bankrupted failed businesses.

Or I could mention his long-time pro-abortion stance, or how he brags about making big donations to politicians so they’ll take his calls when he needs something. If he’s so quick to give bribes, it stands to reason that he’ll expect the same when he’s on the other side of the equation.

Then there’s the atrocious things he keeps saying about women whom he happens to disagree with.

The guy spins everything that doesn’t go his way as unfair. I don’t see him ever take responsibility for his own actions.

What About Lying Ted?

Trump started calling Cruz “lying Ted,” which to me seems like a classic bit of projection. Still it’s worth looking at for a moment to compare the two campaigns.

That started after the Cruz campaign actively spread the rumor in Iowa that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race. Cruz’s campaign manager misinterpreted a single arguably ambiguous news report without verifying the info and ran with his misinterpretation as fact.

That was obviously wrong. It is a mistake hurt both the Carson and Cruz campaigns. Cruz responded by firing his campaign manager and personally apologizing to Carson on national television.

It turns out Trump’s campaign manager also displayed a significant lack of judgement too. In Trump’s case his campaign manager was actually arrested for assaulting a female reporter from a friendly news outlet. (Brietbart has been so far in the tank for Trump that several of its staff have quit over the bias of the organization since the assault.)

But instead of firing his campaign manager or apologizing to the reporter who was assaulted, both Trump and his campaign manager took to Twitter to malign and attack the victim in an attempt to spin a potential crime as purely invented by her. They have yet to acknowledge that anything was wrong even though a simple apology would have resolved the issue immediately and we never would have heard about it. But the common decency of apologizing for an obvious wrongdoing doesn’t seem to be something Trump is capable of delivering.

Which candidate has been more honest in these situations?

Height of Immorality

Trump says that the only way to deal with terrorists is to illegally (and immorally) target to kill non-combatant women and children of the families of terrorists. He insists that the military will follow his illegal orders to do that in violation of their oaths.

I was an officer in the US Navy and I’m here to tell you that Trump is sadly mistaken in his belief here. The military is bound by law to refuse to obey illegal orders. If they submit and carry out illegal orders to intentionally murder innocent women and children they are just as guilty as the person who gave the illegal order. The military will flatly refuse.

Not to mention that the Bible is very clear that children are not to be held accountable for the sins of their fathers and vice-versa. Even in the Old Testament, every person was responsible for their own sin, not those of their family members.

Trump’s moral compass is completely defective. Of course that is probably related to the fact that he claims he’s never done anything in his life that he might need to seek God’s forgiveness about. A life separate from God leads to moral confusion.

Wining About Colorado

That brings us to my home state of Colorado. Trump got shut out of Colorado’s delegates so now he’s wining about how our system is unfair because it didn’t go his way.

Colorado did not in anyway disenfranchise anyone. The Colorado Republican party established back last summer exactly how the process would work. We have a caucus here just like they have in 6 other states. There were multiple votes throughout the state within the party culminating in a one-day state convention in Colorado Springs with over 600 party members represented. The far from unusual process was clearly spelled out for anyone who cared enough to find out how it worked.

Don’t believe Trump’s whining about how it isn’t “fair.” He had absolutely no problem using the same system to scoop up the most delegates in Nevada. He’s just upset because we don’t have an open primary where anyone can vote even if they are not part of the Republican party. In Colorado, Republican party members actually are the ones who decide who they will send as delegates to support to the national convention, as it should be.

Trump’s campaign has been nothing but incompetent here in Colorado. The Cruz campaign has had campaign staff working in the state for over a year. Trump didn’t hire someone to head up his campaign in Colorado until just last month. And then the campaign fired the guy less than a week later because of some childish internal campaign power struggle.

One of the key people supporting Trump at the state convention bragged about only being politically active for the first time as of 37 days prior when she realized Trump’s campaign had no actual presence in the state. So she stepped up to help out. Unfortunately for the campaign, because there were no real experienced people on the ground working on their behalf it was amateur hour with a slew of unforced mistakes.

For example, the slate (the list of the Trump delegates to vote for) that Trump’s campaign printed up and handed out at the state convention had names of the Trump delegates spelled wrong and the numbers they were paired with were wrong too. Some of them listed on Trump’s slate were paired with numbers for Cruz’s delegates!! With over 600 party members to vote for, the ballots were necessarily simply a list of numbers. So Trump’s campaign told their people to vote for some Cruz delegates. When the Trump campaign realized their mistake they scrambled to print a new slate, which also had serious mistakes on it. Yet somehow neither the Cruz nor Kasish campaigns had any errors on their slates.

Then to top it off Trump backed out of speaking at the state convention at the last minute.

You know what I think? I think Trump found out what a debacle his campaign created in Colorado and figured he would be better off whining about it being unfair afterwards and trying to spin the damage than actually trying to gain a delegate or two by putting some effort in or even showing up.

Being Played

Christian, I sincerely believe Trump is playing you for a sucker. Just like the people who paid Trump University tens of thousands of dollars to learn his real estate secrets, he is taking what he needs from you right now and will completely abandon you as soon as he no longer feels he needs you. And just like with Trump University I expect he will do that without delivering a single thing he is promising you today.

At the same time I freely admit that I cannot see the future. Trump may yet have some Damascus Road experience that completely overhauls his character. I truly hope he does.

But I’m not willing to risk my vote on the remote chance of that happening. Christian, I urge you to prayerfully seek God’s wisdom here and consider your vote carefully.

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