The importance of a candidates candidate's character to a Presidential election can be similar to the practice of not nominating a Supreme Court Justice during an election year. In both cases, Republicans have shown themselves to be opportunistic rather than principled. When Obama tried to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court, the Republicans said that it was not right to do so during an election year. However, when Trump did the same thing as Obama, all of the sudden, the Republicans pulled a 180.
Something similar happened when it came to determining whether character counted in voting for a Presidential candidate. When the bad parts of then President Clinton's character became evident via his sexual scandals, Republicans wanted him out on the street because, they claimed, 'character counts.' But when we saw the ugliness of Trump's character for similar offenses, the Republican tune changed to singing 'nice guys finish last.'
How sad it is for Christians and the reputation of the Gospel that the vast majority of religiously conservative Christians have bound themselves to the current Republican Party under Trump. For the Gospel, because of the support of given by conservative Evangelicals to the Republican Party, has been implicated in that Party's hypocrisy and current attempts to grab more and more power.
At least more conservative Christian leaders are speaking out against electing Trump than in 2016. And an example of such a leader is John Piper (click here for a brief bio and description of his website). Piper recently wrote an article for his blog that questioned Christians on voting for Trump. He didn't say whom we should vote for, but he spoke strongly on why Trump doesn't deserve to be President. And one of the why he believes Trump should not be President is because of Trump's character (click here for the article).
According to Piper, and many others, Trump's character is sorely lacking in virtue. That was clear during the 2016 campaign when certain details of his sex life and views of women were revealed. But now, we have even more revelations of Trump's character through his speeches and tweets. And one trait strongly comes across when Trump speaks publicly: arrogance. Note the following from Piper's article:
When a leader models self-absorbed, self-exalting boastfulness, he models the most deadly behavior in the world. He points his nation to destruction. Destruction of more kinds than we can imagine.
It isn't that Piper didn't list some of Trump's other faults. It is that of all of the faults, Piper mentions this one as a fatal flaw. And it isn't just a fatal flaw for Trump alone; it is fatal to his followers who imitate him out of hero worship. Thus, and Piper says this in other places to, because of Trump's position, many of his flaws become the flaws of those who support or follow him. And that has been made all too obvious by the deepest political divide America has for as long as I have been alive. For arrogance makes us deaf to others. And that deafness is a driving force behind America's political divide.
Trump's arrogance has even inspired racist groups to speak out. And some are going to be self-designated poll watchers and thus possibly, however inadvertently, engage in voter suppression.
Trump's arrogance extends to official documents. Please note the White House Briefing, linked to below, claimed about the accomplishments of Trump'a Presidency as it pertains to the pandemic (click here for the source):
The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country
According to the best estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 99.997 percent of individuals aged 19 and younger who contract coronavirus make a full recovery, 99.98 percent of those aged 20 to 49 make a full recovery, and 99.5 percent aged 50 to 69 fully recover.
Of those under the age of 70 who become infected, over 99 percent recover from the disease.
The problem with the first claim is that it is false. Using the ncov2019.live/data website statistics on October 29, 2020, which, for as long as I have checked, is a little over 3% within the Johns Hopkins statistics, America's case fatality rate is 2.55%. But the case fatality rate of Germany and Poland were lower than that at 2.11% and 1.61% respectively speaking. The case fatality rate for Japan was 1.75% and for South Korea it was 1.76%. So it is clear that the US does not have the lowest fatality rates among major nations. We could add to that that the US death rate per 1,000,000 people is the 8th highest in the world.
As for fatality rates by age, if the above stats are true, then America's case fatality rate should be 1% or less. But if that is true and roughly 234,000 Americans have died because of Covid-19, then America should have roughly 23,400,000 cases of Covid-19. But it doesn't. as stated before.
Trump's arrogance and boisterous claims are injecting his followers with similar traits while making similar claims. And they are not only making voting decisions based on faulty statistics, they are using that fake data to try to convince others of Trump's accomplishments that never took place.
We should only note that Trump's unofficial army of militias are now beginning to boldly make their presence known. Add to that that they are often armed when appearing in public with some looking for confrontations. Such practices provides ominous historical reminders of pre-Nazi Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s especially since Trump has described his political opponents as "socialists."
Piper's article is well worth reading. And though we only took a couple of points from it here, evidence for his claims about what Trump's arrogance and other traits are doing to the nation can be seen almost daily in the news.
Piper makes an excellent point about the poison that a candidate's character can infect the nation. Hopefully, both Trump and our nation will change before it becomes too late.
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