Please don’t vote for Donald Trump. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for the Democrats.
By and large, Democrats have stayed out of his way, so far, because they would prefer him as the republican candidate. He legitamizes their most outlandish caricatures of conservative ideology. He is what republicans look like to democrats. Speaking as a republican voter, I abhor that association.
I’ve overheard democrats telling other democrats to rock the vote in the republican primaries and vote for Trump. This ploy is a powerful one. It inflates his popularity in primary season–and potent plan when dealing with egomaniacs(!)–preparing for a swift and violent turn around in election season. When the primaries are over, Trump’s campaign will sink like a miniature replica of the Titanic, only there are far more glaciers in Trump’s path: megolomania, political inexperience, impossible promises, misogyny, bigotry, shallowness, and scores of damning sound bytes.
Democrats know that he’s not socially conservative enough to win the loyalty of tea partiers. For example, he has shown no strong concern for the defenseless children-in-utero. He’s a misogynist who objectifies women. He’s utterly dull and unrefined on racial and ethical issues, bounding toward foolhardy claims about “the blacks” or “the mexicans” with every speech. Any one of those claims, circulated enough, would be a gaping hole in his campaign once democrats decide to turn on him.
Moderates and libertarians who shied away from Obama because of his overreach should be wary that Trump is clinically narcisistic at or beyond the level of Obama. If he thinks he’s untouchable, he’s going to act like he’s untouchable, and that’s not too promising for moderate and libertarian interests broadly.
Trump isn’t ethical enough to earn the “character vote” from Christian conservatives and the moral majority. He has enough skeletons in the closet to populate a Tim Burton movie.
His most persuasive talking point is immigration, but recent history shows that his promises are empty, and republicans are too divided on the issue to stand behind him on this. I take the immigration issue very seriously, but republicans just don’t have a single unified stance on it; hence moderate reforms, and gradualism are far more promising than bombastic claims about making Mexico build a wall. [How do you propose to keep thousands of businesses running when a Trump-esque deportation of 30 million immigrants skyrockets their cost of operation overnight?]. Unfortunately, he’s just cocky enough that he’s liable to pull an unconstitutional stunt like Obama and force his immigration policy on America even if he has to sidestep congress to do it. Conservatives who are willing to ditch the constitution or the bill of rights for want of a strong military, or safety concerns at home are NOT CONSERVATIVES. There’s a real tension here between safety and freedom, and Trump just doesn’t seem to realize or care how delicate that balance is. Delicacy is not Trumps forte.
I grant that Trump has useful CEO experience, and he will probably be an above-average negotiator. But the position of President doesn’t operate like the CEO of a business. A CEO has far more latitude, fewer checks and balances (i.e., fiat, not democracy), and could be a megolomaniacal tyrant so long as the business is profitable–even if the product they sold was morally bankrupt.
In short, Trump is validating most every Democratic stereotype of capitalists. He’s Lex Luthor. And he makes sincere conservatives like me look bad. He makes my job harder because I’m trying to defend conservative principles while this bombastic toupee is shooting off at the mouth, fear-mongering, oversimplifying, and misleading the masses. True conservatism takes character, because we can never be great if we won’t first be good. Free markets–whether in speech, academia, religion, in trade, etc.–collapses in selfish skepticism when people aren’t modeling honesty and good faith in their dealings. Trump would set back true conservatism 30 years, literally. He embodies the villainous traders in the movie WALL STREET.
Intelligent Christian Faith 
Conservatism is currently bound to the greed of capitalism ( I am one of those greedy capitalist btw LOL) . It is amazing to me from the get-go that you have pinned your Christian Apologetic to political and economic greed. And both of those by the way rule ALL PARTIES. There is NO power without MONEY. There is no MONEY WITHOUT POWER. And to my knowledge the old dictum of POWER CORRUPTS has not changed since governments began. By Christ’s and Paul’s definition Christianity is not of politics but aside from politics. The very definition of the power of the state is corrosive and corrupting. Do you really think that the cause of Christ is concerned with conservative political thought??????????????? Did Jesus side with ANY political faction? Did Paul, did Peter? How can you reconcile the action of the past where the cause of Christ was corrupted and destroyed by the advocation of slavery, the extermination of the indigenous cultures. The conservative movements to suppress politically and economically the racial minorities and now the sexual minorities. Once the advocates of Jesus as Savior depart from that central message it ventures into the territories that marginalize the spiritual aspect and trades it in for lust of worldly power. It is the most base form of lack of faith. You and all state religions then fall to the same venal lust for power to control worldly lives. How can you claim to be any different than a money changer in the Temple ? The money changers were linked to the corruption of the rulers of the Temple who in turn were linked to the political (and somewhat) theocratic government. How did that turn out? Your political views as an American citizen are definitely a right in the political sphere. But to link your political views to your service to Christ only cheapens and denigrates your ministry.
Are you commenting on the Trump post? I can’t tell from your speil here. I don’t have time to comment on everything in your rant, but I would ask why you think I have “pinned my Christian apologetic to political and economic greed”. There are several ways to take that and I’m not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. I have political views but I don’t bet the whole Christian farm, so to speak, on particular candidates or a political party or political ideology. Yet with your assertions largely lacking an argument, or any context from which to fill in the argument, I don’t know that your assessment is reached reasonably and without hasty generalization. I don’t claim to be innocent of all greed nor that conservatives are entirely innocent. But I don’t know how or whether you distinguish between self-interest and greed–a critical difference in understanding conservative (ie, classically liberal) economics. And I’m not confident that political liberals or progressives or Democrats are any less greedy on average than conservatives. Maybe they are less greedy, but I see no great ideological or political reason to think so.
On a page that you have titled “Intelligent Christian Faith” you have added political commentary. The short of my “rant” was if Jesus/Paul/Peter et. al. chose to ignore the political currents of their time to devote to the gospel then why would any Christian Minister (of any stripe) choose to become allied/endorse any political party or platform? Jesus did not choose Sadducees or Pharisees, Paul abandoned his theocratic Pharisee foundation, Peter never seemed to comment on it. Yet sections of Christianity has chosen another path: Political alliances/associations/endorsements. Even when I was a Christian I attended a Southern Baptist Church that strove to keep the state/politics separated from the cause of Christ. It was definitely NOT preached from the pulpit (tax laws anyone???). How do you justify, from the gospels, proclaiming who is vs who is not the representation of the cause of Christ in the secular political realm? I can understand you doing it from a forum that does not have a header claiming “Intelligent Christian Faith”. If it just had John D. Ferrer as the banner there is no question. As far as the greed thing goes …everyone is greedy (all have sinned LOL). What i was driving at is that the primary cause of business IS based on greed. So the cause of Christ is dramatically diminished when linked in any way to economic models. The political realm is based on the exercise of POWER. Again that would be antithetical to the cause of Christ. The last time I checked Jesus said his kingdom was “not of this world”. Of course as a citizen of the USA we have the right and the obligation to be active in support of legislation and candidates that we believe will be best for ALL if not most of our fellow Americans. It has not been that many years since many Christians in the USA proclaimed it was God ordained that the races be separated. How did that work out for the church in the long run? Before that it was proclaimed from the pulpits and the statehouse that GOD had ordained the black man to be subservient to white men. That it was God who eliminated/reduced the red man for Christians to take domain over the Americas? Now the Church proclaims that LGBT should be politically and economically discriminated against. That Christians should have special exemptions to pick and choose based on one particular “sin” in the secular world. Tell me again how INTELLIGENT CHRISTIAN FAITH has a secular political/economic commentary? J.D.Ferrer can as J.D.Ferrer …but can he as a follower/minister/theologian of Jesus?
“If Jesus/Paul/Peter et. al. chose to ignore the political currents of their time to devote to the gospel then why would any Christian Minister (of any stripe) choose to become allied/endorse any political party or platform?”
That’s a big ‘if’. Ideas have consequences and most every idea built into the Gospel has societal and even political consequences. I don’t know how it would be possible to be a devout Christian without having that fact affect one’s politics or understanding of the poltical world. As such, your rant has a lot of assumptions which I don’t grant, and which reflect an apparently skewed perception. Rather than address all of it in an even longer rant myself, how about I offer one critical difference.
Social ethics is a normal part of Christianity, and is often quite political, incidentally, whether one is trying to be “political” or not. For example, Christian clergy and monastics helped abolish the gladiatorial games in part, by using the relatively constrained freedom of speech, to verbally protest that barbaric practice. That was not a broadly “humanistic culture,” with modern notions of “human rights,” or even a free and equal sense of democratic elections. Yet the Christians flexed their moral and verbal muscles in a way that sent shockwaves across the political world of the Roman Empire.
I have no qualms against actively and passionately speaking out for the good, the beautiful, and the true because, as a Christian, every domain in society is even MORE important to me, not less important. Political parties, for example, are not just passing trends that will one day die out. Political parties are societal institutions which have eternal consequences, such as killing Jews, or oppressing women, or slaughtering children-in-utero, or promoting heresies, or fortifying religious freedom, etc. My freedom of religion and freedom of speech empower me to speak out on these issues, and my love of God motivates me to care MORE, not less, about these things.
While I respect the need for pastors, to honor the pulpit by not using it for political skreeds or one-sided political talks, I don’t think Christians ministers and pastors should be ignorant and voiceless on matters bearing upon social ethics, Church freedoms, or the health and well being of other people. If the church just “stayed out of it” it’s doubtful that slavery would have been abolished, or that the civil rights movement would have succeeded, or that women would have achieved the right to vote. Of course, many Christians have been very wrong before, but that’s not unique to Christians either. Nor is it the case that, “Just because Christians said it/did it, then it must be ‘Christian.'” Christianity has foundational reference points to judge when a christian is acting consistently or inconsistently with Christianity. I should think that Atheists and skeptics exercise the same privilege to distance themselves from atypical atheists/skeptics who do or say something objectionable.
Overall, I think you might be working from a notion of “separation of church and state” which I’m not granting under my notion of “Freedom of Religion.” Also, you might be mistaking my blogging with sermonizing on gathered church setting. Nah, these are just blog posts. And I would approach a Sunday morning pulpit very differently than I do these posts.