God and man in Trumpland

This week, the National Review published a statement to Catholics opposing Donald Trump’s campaign for president. Authored by right-wing eminences George Weigel and Robert George, and cosigned by an impressive list of Catholic intellectuals and leaders, the document joins a body of anti-Trump literature that is coming into its own stentorian rhetorical conventions. The celebrity candidate is “manifestly unfit” to be president, the authors say, especially when there are Republican candidates “who do not exhibit his vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and—we do not hesitate to use the word—demagoguery.”

It’s an honorable effort, however doomed to irrelevance. The writerly war paint of demagoguery accusations and the spears of em-dashed unhesitancy did not reach Michigan voters in time or force to prevent the vulgar oaf from claiming a comfortable plurality in that state’s primary. Whatever their effect or lack thereof, however, the Republican-aligned Christian intellectuals who are publicly opposing Trump are revealing a great deal in the arguments they choose to make. 

Weigel and George start by praising the Republican Party’s service to what they understand as four key Catholic social principles. The first three are debatable in detail but reasonably clear: opposition to abortion and euthanasia, defense of religiously affiliated organizations with conscientious objections to certain laws, and “rebuilding our marriage culture.”