Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources moved to eliminate God from the oath for witnesses who testify before the committee. Ultimately, after criticism and debate, the committee decided to retain the phrase, “So help me God.”87 When House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler omitted the phrase while swearing in a witness, he was called out by Republican congressman Mike Johnson and forced to repeat the oath including the reference to God.88 These small successes should encourage Christians to fight back and defend God in the culture.
A major exhibition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s artwork at the Morgan Library in New York conspicuously omitted references to his deeply held Christian faith.89
A federal court ruled that the University of Iowa illegally targeted religious groups, such as Business Leaders in Christ (BLC), by disallowing them from requiring their leaders to follow principles of their faith. Under the guise of “anti-discrimination,” the school had expelled BLC from campus because of its expressions of faith and had placed thirty-one other student groups—exclusively religious ones—on a watch list. The court held that the university must end its unequal treatment of religious student groups.90
Leftists attacked Judge Brian Hagedorn, a candidate for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, for opinions he expressed in blog posts during law school about litigation involving abortion and gay sex, and because he was on the board of a small Christian school. “I expected to be attacked here because that’s what’s happening all across the country—you know, ‘Are you now or have you ever been associated with the Knights of Columbus?’ ” said Hagedorn. “Interrogating people [nominated for office] if they went to a Bible study or the Knights of Columbus, that’s where we are as a country.”91
America’s university campuses are inarguably hostile to Christian students. Many of the actions targeting campus Christians stem from the Supreme Court opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which the majority ruled that public institutions such as university law schools can mandate that all student organizations, even if formed on the basis of shared beliefs such as religious and political groups, admit members and leaders irrespective of their beliefs.The case arose from students at Hastings College of Law at the University of California who applied to register as a chapter of the Christian Legal Society (CLS). The group requires all members to sign a statement of faith affirming their belief in certain fundamental Christian doctrines, including that the Bible is the inspired word of God. The national organization had adopted a resolution that unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle is inconsistent with an affirmation of the statement of faith and would disqualify students from CLS membership. A sexually immoral lifestyle under the resolution included “acts of sexual conduct outside of God’s design for marriage between one man and one woman.” Claiming these injunctions violated the school’s nondiscrimination policy, Hastings refused to register CLS, which is the first time in its history it has denied registration to any applying group. CLS then sued the school for violating its members’ freedom of speech.
The school later changed its position, claiming CLS was rejected because the school requires clubs to have an accept-all-comers policy. The Supreme Court sided with Hastings, provoking a dissent in which Justice Samuel Alito argued, “The Court arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups—groups to which, as Hastings candidly puts it, these institutions ‘do not wish to … lend their name[s]’.… I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today’s decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”92
Justice Alito was prescient, as the decision emboldened universities throughout America to target Christian student groups. For example, a Christian singing group at the University of North Carolina was prohibited from expelling a member who advocates a homosexual lifestyle. San Diego State University permits campus groups to exclude students who disagree with messages advocated by the groups—except for religious groups, based on the Martinez decision. Countless other examples abound.93
A New Jersey school suspended a substitute teacher for giving a student a copy of the Bible and talking about a scripture verse with the student.94
A Seattle-area assistant high school football coach was placed on paid leave for continuing to pray on the field following games after his school warned him against the dastardly practice.95
An Atlanta fire chief was suspended, sent to sensitivity training, and ultimately fired because of a passage about homosexuality in a book he wrote for a Bible study group at his church.96
A Marine was court-martialed for pasting a Bible verse above her desk.97
The left demonizes homeschooling (and homeschoolers), with some, such as Richard Dawkins, likening it to child abuse.98
A high school student in Ohio was threatened with suspension for posting Bible verses at school in response to gay pride flags being displayed in school hallways. The principal asked the student why she posted the verses and she responded that she wanted to spread the word of God. When the principal asked whether she had received permission to do so, she said she didn’t know it was necessary, as students often post notes on lockers.99
Leftist intolerance, of course, emanates from liberal Christians as well, as demonstrated by a group of snowflake students at the small Christian school Taylor University who were mortified that Vice President Mike Pence was invited to deliver the school’s commencement address. More than 3,300 people signed a petition for the school to rescind the invitation because Trump-Pence policies are “not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear.” One student said the school “should be ashamed.… I am physically shaking.… I feel personally attacked.” Consider the hypocrisy of this student—and the other objecting students—complaining about an ethic of love while behaving like this.100
In the next chapter, we’ll see just how devoid of the love ethic the anti-Trump left has become.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Trump Derangement Syndrome: Politicians and Entertainers
“HE PINCHED THE EDGE OF A SCAB”
Nowhere is the left’s collective insanity more prominently displayed than in its fanatical hatred of President Trump. Leftists hated Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes, and you might be surprised to review the level of vitriol they leveled at each of them, but their antipathy for Trump is radically more intense. He is their worst enemy, but they hide behind their disdain for his “crudeness” and tweets to disguise their greater outrage at his conservative policies and his counterpunching. If Trump would do their bidding, I guarantee you they wouldn’t have the slightest problem with his manners.
The left particularly loathes Trump’s unapologetic bullishness on America. “Trump rides a populist nationalist wave to make explicit a fundamental clash of narratives between the left and the right,” writes Forbes contributor Ralph Benko. “The hard left holds America to be Evil while the ‘globalist’ elites hold America to be an atavistic, irrelevant artifact. Trump, his followers, and the right, take an unflinching stand that America is Beautiful. Not perfect. But Beautiful. This is a clash of worldviews and a kind of civil war.”1
As if to prove Benko’s point, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, in a piece titled, “Donald Trump’s Phony America,” vents his contempt for America under Trump and for Trump’s supporters. “This isn’t just the land of the fraud but the home of the knave,” writes Bruni. “… I sometimes think that when Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower, he didn’t just begin a presidential campaign. He pinched the edge of a scab on our body politic and began to tug, revealing all the racism, resentments and partisan fury beneath it. He gave us a fresh, jolting glimpse of just how much depravity and even criminality exists among the powerful (and the power-mad).… Trump’s amorality play contradicts our paeans to the Puritan work ethic. It’s not the script that we teach our children. But with Trump in the White House, validated by millions of votes, it may well be what some of them are learning.�
��2 In light of leftist policies discouraging work, it’s unclear why Bruni would fret about the work ethic.
Trump doesn’t just vigorously pursue a conservative political agenda; he flouts political correctness and dishes back to the left in direct proportion to its attacks. A perpetual outsider despite his billionaire status, Trump openly rejects leftists’ smug elitism and defies their moral authority to condemn him. Unused to this insubordination, his opponents are reacting with malicious indignation. Trump doesn’t usually initiate attacks—he’s a counterpuncher who mostly leaves his opponents alone if they treat him fairly. But that rarely happens. They viciously and relentlessly attack him, his family, and his supporters, and their shrillness and incivility expose their hypocrisy in attacking him for his alleged rudeness and vulgarity.
As always, leftists exempt themselves from the standards they impose on others, and so they—Democratic politicians, narcissistic Hollywood scolds, and the liberal media—feel free to savage Trump in ways we never see from him. Even if Trump devoted his entire presidency to denouncing his detractors, he could never approach the quantity and nastiness of attacks they hurl at him on a daily basis.
“BADASS GLEE”
Trump Derangement Syndrome is acute among Democratic politicians. From the leadership down, Democrats show contempt for Trump, according him—and the office of the presidency—zero respect. They depict him as the personification of evil and an enemy of democracy, even though there is nothing remotely extreme about his policies.
Their opposition goes beyond mere personal insults—it’s an orchestrated attempt to obstruct every aspect of his agenda. In the first two years of the Trump presidency, Trump’s district court appointees got 64 percent more negative confirmation votes than such appointees during the first two terms of all newly elected presidents combined. Leftists were incensed over the “vacancy crisis” in federal courts during Obama’s presidency. But under Trump, the vacancies are some 80 percent higher, while leftist groups such as Alliance for Justice lead the obstruction rather than sound more alarm bells over the “crisis.”
Another telling statistic involves Senate Rule 22, which details a formal process to end debate. The Heritage Foundation’s Thomas Jipping notes that from 1949 to 2016, the Senate used Rule 22 to end debate only six times during newly elected presidents’ first two years. Democrats used it forty-eight times in Trump’s first two years.3
The left simply doesn’t care about any harm that befalls everyday Americans as a consequence of its attempts to paralyze the government. HBO’s Bill Maher declared he’s “been hoping for a recession” because it would help “get rid of Trump.” When a guest noted that people lose their jobs and homes during a recession, Maher replied, “I know. It’s worth it.”4 There is the left’s compassion in a nutshell.
After discussing government spending with Trump at the White House, then–House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told her aides, “I was trying to be the mom. It goes to show you: You get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you. It’s like a manhood thing with him—as if manhood can be associated with him.” Well, if anyone supports one gender over the other, it’s not Trump but Pelosi. In an interview with CNN, she said, “I take some, for lack of a better term, badass glee, in just saying, ‘Women, you know how to get it done. Know your power.’… I want women to see that you do not get pushed around.” She said her pursuit of the speakership was partially inspired to empower women who felt dejected after Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.5 Incoming congresswoman Veronica Escobar also trashed Trump on gender grounds, labeling him “a misogynist, a president who has been antagonistic to women’s issues.”6
Congresswoman Maxine Waters has a particularly acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, discouraging people from even listening to him. “I don’t even know why he wants to come and give the State of the Union,” she complained. “The state of the union under him is not good. And he has been divisive, and I think he’s putting us all in harm’s way. And so he is not worthy of being listened to.… And so, I’m not looking forward to his State of the Union, and I hope people will turn the television off!”7 A month later Waters launched a bizarre Twitter tirade against Trump. “Lying Trump came away from the fake summit with terrorist & killer Kim Jong-un with nothing because Kim never intended to offer anything,” she exclaimed. “Don the con man got conned! Hey number 45, are you still in love w/ Kim?” Another Waters tweet informed Trump that “God will never forgive you” for allegedly supporting Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman following the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Yet another Waters outburst tried to advance the Russia collusion hoax: “Trump, you have screamed no collusion and no obstruction of justice so many times, trying to influence others, that I think you really believe your own lies. Just stop it. No honesty. No truth. No trust. No patriotism.”8
Attempting to leverage her prosecutorial experience and her party’s raw hatred for Trump, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris argued that the next president should be capable of prosecuting Trump. “We’re gonna need a fighter, and we’re going to need somebody who knows how to prosecute the case against this president,” said Harris.9
Not to be outdone, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar described Trump as subhuman. Asked to compare Presidents Obama and Trump, Omar replied, “That is silly to even think and even equate to. One is human, the other is really not.”10 Similarly, Alabama state representative John Rogers said Trump’s mother “should have aborted him.”11 And for anyone who thought Trump Derangement Syndrome stops at our borders, former Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell will prove you wrong. As Hurricane Dorian bore down on Florida, Campbell tweeted gleefully, “I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar-a-Lago!”12
“THEY DIDN’T WANT TRUMP TO HAVE A VICTORY”
When DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified before the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Luis Gutierrez denounced her, the entire Trump administration, and American Christians en masse. “It is repugnant to me, and astonishing to me, that during Christmas… a time in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jesus Christ who had to flee for his life with Mary and Joseph, thank God there wasn’t a wall that stopped him from seeking refuge in Egypt,” said Gutierrez. “Thank God that wall wasn’t there, thank God there wasn’t any administration like this, or he would have to have perished on the 28th, on the Day of the Innocents, when Herod ordered the murder of every child under two years of age.” Condemning the separation of illegal immigrant families at the border, he proclaimed, “Shame on us for wearing a badge of Christianity during Christmas and allow the secretary to come here and lie.” In response, Nielsen calmly reiterated that the administration had no separation policy independent of what was mandated by Congress.13
Several commentators note how embarrassingly wrong Gutierrez was in his biblical analogy. “No—baby Jesus is not comparable to the illegal migrants being trafficked by globalists,” writes Bethany Blankley. “No—the biblical story of Jesus’s birth, which Christians celebrate at Christmas and year round, has nothing to do with the Border Wall. (By the way, the Roman Empire built walls—many of which are still standing today.)”14 Even more pointedly, Blankley observed, “This is coming from a man who advocates that federal dollars be used to kill babies in the exact same way King Herod ordered. They killed live babies, either with a knife, sword, chopped their heads off or crushed their heads with stones. The Clintons, Obamas, and Democrats like Gutierrez have publicly supported the similar procedure called partial-birth abortion. This is why the procedure is called partial-birth—because a living baby is killed.”15
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, CNBC’s Tania Bryer interviewed former secretary of state John Kerry, who slammed Trump for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement that Kerry helped negotiate for the Obama administration. When Bryer asked Kerry what advice he would give Trump, he said that Trump “doesn’t have an ability to have that kind of conversation.” Bryer then pressed, “What wo
uld your message be?” “Resign,” demanded Kerry, earning loud applause from the Davos mandarins.16
The Democrats’ antipathy to Trump is so all-consuming that they even oppose him when he’s advancing policies they support. When Trump proposed the First Step Act in an effort at criminal justice reform, some Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to back it, even though they had long advocated such legislation. Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Dick Durbin and Representatives John Lewis and Sheila Jackson Lee sent a letter to their colleagues in May 2017 opposing the reform. CNN liberal commentator Van Jones observed, “I think publicly they were saying it doesn’t go far enough. I think privately, they just didn’t want Trump to have a victory.”17
“ROMNEY DIDN’T WIN, DID HE?”
In an interview with New York Times Magazine, retired Nevada senator Harry Reid oddly compared Trump with organized crime, which does “not do well with chaos. And that’s what we have going with Trump. Trump is an interesting person. He is not immoral but is amoral. Amoral is when you shoot someone in the head, it doesn’t make a difference. No conscience.”18 Speaking of amoral, remember when Reid falsely claimed, on the Senate floor, that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had paid no taxes over the past decade? When later asked if he regretted that lie, he responded cynically, “Romney didn’t win, did he?” Consider also Reid’s response to the Washington Post’s Ben Terris, who asked him whether there is a line he wouldn’t cross when it comes to political warfare. “I don’t know what that line would be,” Reid admitted.19
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