I’ve written a lot about what I feared would be the consequences of a second Trump term, both before and after his election and inauguration. Now that we’re a year in, those fears are no longer hypothetical, which makes it a good time to revisit the arguments for and against Trump’s election with some benefit of hindsight.
The typical arguments I continue to hear from Christian conservatives in rationalizing their support of Trump - even still - boil down to a few things:
Democrats are socialists, and past socialist regimes have been totalitarian nightmares that led to economic collapse and mass murder.
Democrats are for open borders, and unchecked immigration is a national emergency that is responsible for increased crime, drug overdoses, and erosion of our cultural heritage.
Democrats support an unbiblical worldview that endorses transgenderism, abortion, etc. which are contributing to a moral collapse in America.
There is an element of truth to each of these claims, but the reality is not as simple as right-wing partisans suggest. And it ignores a long list of claims one could make about the dangers of Republican leadership in the Trump era. But let’s start with these three claims.
It is true that Democratic Socialists are part of the coalition that makes up the Democratic party (though most Democrats are not socialists, as evidenced by their repeated rejection of Bernie Sanders in presidential primaries in favor of more moderate candidates). And it is true that these activists influence the broader party in a way that tilts it toward more “socialist” economic policies. They do support greater redistribution of wealth by the government (with higher taxes on the rich), single-payer health insurance, and more active government involvement in some areas of the economy through more regulation and incentives to drive investment in the areas they support. Democratic Socialists will often point to the Scandinavian countries - with their high taxes and more generous state benefits - as their model. There are a few things to say about this.
First, Democratic Socialists are wrong to think that Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc. are models of socialism. As this article from the Heritage Foundation points out, they are actually heavily capitalist countries with cultures that are more risk-averse and communal than ours, and which have chosen, through democratic means, a more redistributive model of taxes and government benefits. But if this is the “socialism” that most Democratic Socialists - by their own admission - are really advocating for, then we have less to fear. We can disagree with and oppose their more redistributive, government-heavy policy prescriptions, but what they’re ultimately proposing is a difference in degree from the system that has prevailed in America for the last hundred years, not in kind. Sure, there are activists on the fringes who may want to “seize the means of production” in certain industries, but that’s not what the mainstream figures - including self-described socialists like Bernie Sanders - are actually proposing.
The second thing is to point out that the countries that Republicans want you to think about when they accuse Democrats of being socialist - Soviet Russia, Communist China, Cambodia, Venezuela - are/were failures largely because they were illiberal, authoritarian regimes which did not honor the rule of law, democratic elections, human rights, etc. The fact that they also sought to enact socialism contributed to their failings and was a motivation for some of the evil they did, but it’s not the most relevant factor. After all, there’s another famously horrific regime not on that previous list: Nazi Germany. The Nazis were not socialist but were illiberal and authoritarian. Socialism is a common thread across many of the most awful governments of the last hundred years, but it’s not what ties them all together.
This is not to downplay the risks to socialism as an economic model, which are real. But Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not merely soft versions of Pol Pot because they don’t embrace as pure a form of socialism as he did. They are not even a little bit like him because they remain committed to democratic principles, human rights and our constitutional system. I may not agree with some of their policies, but I have zero expectation that they would end free elections or set up a secret police to go after their opponents or send unfriendly journalists to torture dungeons. At most, they might advocate for some unwise legislation (which would have to pass congress) that might incrementally move certain parts of our economy in a less efficient direction. That is not the path to mass starvation or killing fields, just as it hasn’t been in Scandinavia. It is also not substantially different than the usual push/pull between right and left in arguing over tax rates and government spending.
Now, there is a risk that a future Democratic president might try to enact temporary policy through executive orders and abuse of emergency powers that wouldn’t require congressional action, bypassing the guardrails of our system and bringing about more significant changes which could be quite harmful in the near-term. But the reason this scenario is scary has less to do with the possibility that it might be used to enact more “socialist” policies, than because it’d be an abuse of how the founding fathers intended for our system to work. The executive branch is, as its name implies, meant to execute the laws passed by the legislative branch. To bypass that process by declaring arbitrary emergencies to enact policy through executive decree is to undermine our carefully balanced constitutional system of checks and balances. I am worried that if the Democrats elect a president that is not committed to our constitutional system, they might abuse the powers of the presidency to enact worse policies than Congress was willing to pass.
But the likelihood of that happening is much higher thanks to the precedent set by Donald Trump, who has gone far further than any president in my lifetime to push the envelope of executive power, and who has taken greater control of private companies than any Democratic president in my memory. If a future Democratic Socialist manages to move our country in a more authoritarian or command-and-control direction, it will not be because they followed too closely in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders or AOC, but Donald Trump. His aims may not be socialist, but his methods are illiberal, and that’s what I fear more.
Republicans are right to point out the failure of the Biden administration to take illegal immigration seriously enough. The Democratic party over-corrected in response to the excesses of the first Trump administration’s immigration policies (particularly the horrible child separation policy). Progressive activists in 2019 and 2020 pushed many Democrats, including most of the presidential candidates, to take unwise and extreme positions on many issues, including immigration. The push to “decriminalize the border” is one such example. Although decriminalization is not the same thing as “open borders” - there would still be such a thing as unlawful immigration, the penalty would simply be civil rather than criminal - the messaging made it sound like the Democratic position was: “come on in!”
The Biden administration did do some effective things to bring more order to the immigration process, such as expanding the CBP One app to encourage asylum claims to be evaluated prior to crossing the border and they did not have an “open borders” policy. However, they did little to contradict the idea that immigrants (especially those claiming asylum) would have a good chance of getting to stay indefinitely. The fair assumption was that, at worst, you’d get a slap on the wrist and another chance, but more likely you’d get to stick around for years while your claim - dubious as it may be - works through the legal backlog.
As a result, immigration spiked dramatically during the early part of the Biden years, and for too long they downplayed the issue. It took stunts like Greg Abbot’s busing of migrants to cities like New York City to get many Democrats to realize how unsustainable things had become. Biden did finally see the light in 2024 and promised to sign bipartisan legislation to significantly limit asylum eligibility and accelerate the processing of asylum claims and also took executive action to crack down on illegal crossings. But it was too little, too late (even if Trump hadn’t torpedoed the aforementioned legislation for political reasons).
There are common-sense conservative arguments for a more restrictive immigration policy. Here is one from 2020, titled “Wise Welcome” which, despite some obviously partisan motivations and selective statistics, largely argues for a nuanced approach that recognizes the reality and necessity of national borders and sovereignty, along with the biblical command to treat “aliens” (defined as non-citizens legally residing within a foreign country) with love and compassion. In 2020, this might have seemed like a compelling counterpoint to leftist arguments which emphasized the “welcome” aspect but which in practice were quite “unwise.” But in 2024 and 2025, it feels quite irrelevant to the divide between Democrats and Republicans.
By mid-2024 it was conventional wisdom among many Democrats that they failed on immigration and needed to take it more seriously. Some even supported the flawed Laken Riley Act, something that would have been unheard of a few years prior. Harris was not arguing for decriminalizing the border during her 2024 campaign and advocated for stricter border enforcement and passing the aforementioned bipartisan bill. My point is not to say that Democrats suddenly became immigration hawks - they were still much less likely than Trump to treat it as one of their top priorities or aggressively pursue deportations - but they got the message that their previous stance was untenable and made some substantial pivots in both rhetoric and policy. They were still welcoming but had rediscovered the importance of being wise.
The Trump administration’s approach to immigration is neither wise nor welcoming. Stephen Miller, who Trump has given free reign over the execution of his administration’s policy in this area, is explicitly unwelcoming to immigrants, legal and illegal. He shouted “America is for Americans and Americans only!” during the campaign, and now that he’s in the White House has overseen a careless and extreme regime of detainment and deportations that has swept up American citizens and immigrants whose only crime was making a weak asylum claim and who were given permission to stay while their case was considered. Worse, they have treated those without any convictions of violence as if they are violent criminals and sent some to a horrible foreign prison without due process. It has been a lawless and cruel approach designed to instill fear in immigrant populations without care to differentiate on the basis of legal status or criminal record. Not welcoming at all.
It’s also unwise. Immigrant labor is critical for American industry from agriculture to construction to healthcare, especially at a time of falling domestic birth rates. It has also been key to America’s world-beating innovation, as foreign students have sought to learn in American universities and gone on to make valuable contributions to American research and business successes. Our attractiveness to high-skilled and entrepreneurial immigrants has been a key to our economic dynamism and strength. Yet the Trump administration is reducing legal pathways to immigrate and creating disincentives like a $100,000 fee for H1-B visas. This unwelcoming posture is encouraging foreigners to consider working or studying in other countries. The net effect will be to make America less attractive to the world’s talent and less competitive as a result. And while fewer foreign workers should increase demand for American workers, it will necessarily raise costs for American businesses and consumers.
This is not to say that we should just let anyone who managed to get across the border to stay. We have been too welcoming, which was unwise. But there are a right way and a wrong way to address the crisis that this posture enabled. Voters were understandably unconvinced that Kamala Harris would be the most effective at addressing a crisis that the Biden administration exacerbated, but while Donald Trump may be more effective in the short run at rolling back the influx of immigrants, I believe his extreme approach is a stain on our national conscience and harmful to the well-being of America in the long run. Hispanic voters (who must be citizens) swung toward Donald Trump in 2024 in part because they - like most of their fellow Americans - believed that immigrants should come here “the right way,” as many of them did. But they are now moving against him and his deportation regime because most see it as going too far. The 2024 bipartisan immigration bill was an example of “wise welcome” which would have resulted in stricter immigration rules and accelerated denials of asylum and thus deportations, but via a lawful and orderly process that respected the dignity of the overwhelming majority of immigrants who simply came here for a better life. Harris promised to resurrect and sign that bill. Trump rejected that approach in favor of Stephen Miller’s which involves deporting teenagers on their way home for Thanksgiving, in violation of a court order, to a country they left when they were 8.
(A related note on the fentanyl crisis: the Trump administration deserves credit for apparently getting Mexico and China to do more to restrict the flow of fentanyl and its precursors and for overseeing a reduction in fentanyl flowing through ports of entry. However, their attempt to tie the fentanyl crisis to the high levels of immigration is misleading, as most fentanyl is smuggled across the border by U.S. citizens. This does not mean that increased border enforcement in general has not helped, only that mass immigration and fentanyl are mostly separate issues despite both involving the border.)
Just like on immigration, Democrats embraced some extreme positions on gender during the 2019-2020 period but have since moderated. Conservatives were right to be alarmed by how uncritically many Democrats supported gender-affirming care for minors, among other things. As I’ve written before, I do not believe the Bible takes an obvious stand on this issue, and do not have a strong opinion about the morality of one’s gender identity not aligning with their biological sex. But I do believe that popular culture’s embrace of transgenderism led a non-trivial number of individuals - including children - to question their gender identity who otherwise would not have. In some cases, these individuals went as far as taking puberty blockers or having surgeries. Despite what some claim, these are not easily reversed decisions, and especially when involving children, need to be considered very carefully.
The left, including many left-leaning institutions like the New York Times, accepted as a given that support for transgender rights - a noble goal - meant embracing a niche ideology of gender that previously existed mostly in small academic circles. And not only embracing it as individuals but creating an atmosphere that stifled debate and threatened anyone who was even slightly out of step with their beliefs. It was effectively a form of left-wing fundamentalism that leveraged cancel culture and social media activism to silence dissent. And while this largely occurred within a cultural rather than government context, it is true that many Democrats and government entities went along with it.
But it’s also the case that a lot of this peaked around 2020, the final year of Donald Trump’s first term:
This analysis of the Cooperative Election Study shows transgender identification peaked in 2020 and fell during the Biden administration.
In 2022, the New York Times began publishing articles that questioned the progressive orthodoxy on this issue, such as this one by Emily Bazelon.
In the years since, mainstream media publications have been much more willing to publish articles that call for more restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, like this opinion article responding to the Cass Review in 2024.
(David French and Skye Jethani had a good conversation about this trend recently here.)
On the issue of abortion, Donald Trump did appoint Supreme Court justices that ultimately voted to overturn Roe. But he jettisoned calls for federal restrictions on abortion from the 2024 Republican platform, and if you are looking for evidence that pro-life policies or presidents lead to fewer abortions, you’re going to have a hard time. After a long-term decline, the rate and number of abortions rose during the first Trump administration and have continued to do so after the Dobbs decision.
My point here is not to suggest that Kamala Harris wasn’t more pro-trans or pro-choice than Trump, but simply to point out that there is no clear correlation between the position of the president on these issues and that of American society. Trump’s election in 2016 did not prevent the rise of wokeness or embrace of transgenderism that peaked at the end of his term, nor is there much evidence that it did anything to reduce the number of abortions. Why would his election in 2024 be any different? Unlike immigration and economic policy, the president just doesn’t have much influence over these issues. For this reason, even if I did believe Trump was better on these issues, they were not a significant factor in my choice of president.
My vote for Harris was more a vote against Trump than anything else. I can think of some Republicans I probably would have voted for instead if they were the nominee, such as Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney. Harris did impress me during her brief 2024 campaign, but I was not a fan of her primary run in 2019 and did not want her to be the 2024 nominee. I found her shallow on policy and too willing to adopt whatever argument or position seemed to be most politically expedient at that moment, which meant she was a poor advocate for her positions and too willing to embrace bad ideas. This did mean that she was quick to abandon her more unpopular stances from 2019, which was good, but also made it hard to feel confident about what you’d get with her, policy-wise.
Since the president is supposed to execute the laws rather than write them, these weaknesses could be overshadowed by strength as an executive. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of evidence she’d be great at this either, as she was an ineffectual vice president and had a reputation for not being a great boss. That said, she had some strengths. For one, her qualifications were solid. As an attorney general, she had a deep understanding of and respect for the rule of law. As a U.S. Senator, she had a deep understanding and respect for the role of Congress in our constitutional system. And she learned about the job of President from Joe Biden, who generally adhered to the norms and limitations of the presidency that past presidents of both parties have respected. Finally, in her personal life, she seemed to be a decent person - ambitious and political, yes, but also a loving wife and mother and motivated by public service. Ultimately, I believed she’d respect the Constitution, represent us well on the world stage, and exhibit the personal character we (should) expect in the highest officeholder of our government. In other words, she’d be fine.
More importantly, I believed Trump would be very not fine. I voted for Harris because I did not expect her to do things like:
Pardon cop-beaters, drug traffickers, crypto money-launderers, corporate fraudsters, election interferers or intervene on behalf of sex traffickers.
Let a private citizen run roughshod through the federal government in the name of “efficiency,” to the great detriment of government agencies and international aid recipients, with almost nothing to show for it.
Remain silent while their movement argues over insane conspiracy theories and whether to welcome neo-Nazis into the coalition.
Close critical scientific offices because of culture-war grievances.
Post sacrilegious and cruel content on official government social media accounts.
Use dehumanizing language to describe their political opponents and entire minority communities.
Post appallingly insensitive social media reactions to the murder of political opponents.
Abandon efforts to regulate crypto because their family is heavily invested in the industry.
Appoint unfit leaders like Pete Hegseth who conduct operations which involve war crimes while justifying them with lies about their connection to fentanyl overdoses.
Abuse emergency powers and designations of terrorism and WMD to make major policy changes on everything from tariffs to the use of the national guard in U.S. cities to unprovoked military operations against Venezuela.
Use government influence to attack free speech on campus to a far greater degree than the Biden administration ever did.
Refrain from leading an effort to regulate AI before it becomes another disaster for our children like social media was.
Treat government property as their own by demolishing a wing of the White House without warning or appropriate reviews.
Kick out and revoke retirement benefits from people who honorably served in our military, just because of their gender identity.
Fire an accomplished prosecutor of sex criminals because of a personal grievance with their father.
Browbeat and threaten to abandon our European allies as they try to fend off an authoritarian butcher who kills civilians on a daily basis while we treat him as a good faith peace negotiator.
Deport hardworking immigrants who have lived here peacefully for years, while welcoming Russian propagandists back.
etc.
Now, every presidency is going to have failures or actions I disagree with. Biden failed to enforce the border, botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, didn’t take inflation seriously enough, attempted to unconstitutionally cancel student debt, pardoned family members and had the hubris to run for a second term despite obvious signs of mental decline. Harris would have had her own list. But there’s a difference between most of Biden’s failings and the list above.
With a few exceptions, Biden generally abided by the separation of powers and stayed within his lane, even when it came to the independence of executive branch agencies like the DOJ. He didn’t fire the prosecutor that was appointed by Trump to investigate his son (he did wrongly pardon his son after Trump won, however, out of a well-founded fear of what Trump loyalists at the DOJ would do to him). He didn’t pressure Garland to go after Trump for his actions around the 2020 election or his theft of classified documents - the DOJ took these steps independently and only after the evidence became so overwhelming as to demand action. Biden didn’t degrade the character of the office through constant lies and vitriol. He was far from perfect, but he was a pretty normal president with normal successes and failures.
Trump’s failings are different because they stem from the kind of person he is. Trump was a New York City playboy who hung out with abusers of women like Jeffrey Epstein (and engaged in sexual abuse himself). He was a crude and mean bully who serially took advantage of those weaker than him, through cheating in business, abuse of the legal system, and dishonest scams. Those who have worked for him in government describe him as dangerous. He is driven by self-interest and ego and in his second term has surrounded himself with sycophantic loyalists who rarely contradict him. He shows little concern for the constraints of the Constitution or law and, unlike past presidents, operates as if only the courts are responsible for abiding by the Constitution and stopping him if he violates it. Presidents aren’t supposed to just do whatever they want until the Supreme Court eventually tells them not to, and while previous presidents have sometimes tiptoed past this line with dubious constitutional justifications (as Biden did with his student loan forgiveness), rarely have they pushed past it with such aggression.
Matthew 7:20 reminds us that we can judge a person by their fruits. Trump’s fruits have been obviously rotten his whole life. It should come as no surprise, then, that this rot has spread to leading “conservative” institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute as they struggle to adapt to a movement that is defined more by its allegiance to this leader than to any principles. Or to the Christian church as it wrestles with its loyalty to a party that is increasingly at odds with its values.
While I don’t think Kamala Harris was likely to be a great president, the fruit of her life was not an exaggerated version of everything I was taught not to be. Policy is important, but character and wisdom are ultimately more critical traits in a leader. In 2012, I voted for Gary Johnson over Mitt Romney because I felt Romney was too flexible and “weak” on policy issues I cared about. But looking at Romney’s career since, I failed to appreciate something more important - his character. A person of good character can be counted on to do the right thing when it matters most. This is also why I support James Talarico for Texas Senator - I may not agree with all of his policies, but I believe his motivations are pure and his moral judgement sound, which should lead him to generally make good decisions.
Compared to Donald Trump, it seemed quite safe to assume that Kamala Harris was a person of stronger character and moral fiber. Her policy positions may have been a mixed bag, but I had far greater confidence that she would try to do right by America, respect the Constitution, and lead with integrity. My vote for her was not a hard choice a year ago, and nothing I’ve seen since has made me regret it.
I realize much of this post has read like a post-mortem on my vote for Kamala Harris and why I saw Donald Trump as a uniquely illiberal threat. But I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I’ve simply traded a red jersey for a blue one.
In the year ahead, I’m trying to sit with a concept I heard on a recent Holy Post podcast episode (linked at the end of this post): the “second slap.”
For many of us who grew up in conservative or evangelical spaces, the “first slap” was the realization that our side got a lot of things wrong. We saw the hypocrisy, the moral compromises of the Trump era, and the harm done in the name of our values. The scales fell from our eyes. In response, many of us swung hard to the left, relieved to find a community that didn’t have those specific hang-ups.
The “second slap” refers to the realization that your new home is also susceptible to the gravity of human failing: be it illiberal tendencies, echo chambers, policy blind spots, or the temptation to abuse power.
I’ll admit that I had some blinders on in 2020. While I still believe Biden and Harris were the best choice, I underestimated how much the Biden administration would be pulled toward a brand of progressivism that alienated the middle and, frankly, paved the way for the very political force they were trying to defeat.
My goal is to remain clear-eyed in a way that is intentionally uncomfortable. If a Democrat eventually uses the same unilateral executive overreach that I condemned under Trump, I want to be just as full-throated in my opposition - even if I happen to agree with some of their policy goals. We need to demand that Congress actually does its job instead of outsourcing its authority to whoever happens to be sitting in the Oval Office. Nor can we allow the use of political power as an outlet for partisan score-settling, self-promotion and personal enrichment to become the norm.
I know this feels idealistic, perhaps even naive, after the year we’ve had. But I still believe this country can get through this. I believe that the American people will eventually tire of the chaos, corruption and carelessness and look for a candidate - from any party - who appeals to our better angels and treats the “other side” not as an existential threat to be crushed, but as fellow citizens to be understood.
I highly recommend listening to the aforementioned Holy Post podcast episode embedded below (especially the second half). It’s an excellent articulation of the mindset I’m trying to adopt: one that prioritizes the teachings of Jesus and the health of our constitutional order over the fleeting victories of a political team.
In 2026, let’s try to be a bit less certain of our own positions, a little more appreciative of the complexity of the world, and a lot more vigilant about the health of the system itself. The goal isn’t to win the argument. The goal is to preserve a country where the argument can still happen.
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