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Kenneth A. Carlson ScheerPost
I was raised in Ohio, where scarlet red means two things. It means loyalty to the Ohio State Buckeyes, whose fans wear scarlet and gray with devout fervor. But it also means politics: a deep, durable red of grievance, conservatism and now Trumpism. In many towns, support for Donald Trump became less a preference than a sacrament.
I know this culture because I was raised in it. I’m a preacher’s kid — though perhaps we need an updated term for our therapeutic age: a Theological Offspring. My father was an evangelical, born-again, charismatic minister. I grew up around altar calls, prophecy charts and warnings about false idols. Which is why the last decade has felt like watching people who once denounced golden calves line up to polish one.
At a recent family wedding in Phoenix, a relative — whose name I’ll protect because I still hope to be invited to Thanksgiving — confided that he had finally broken with Trump. This was no casual supporter. He attended Stop the Steal rallies. He kept protest signs in the bed of his pickup truck like holy relics. If Trump had marketed commemorative anointing oil, he might have bought a gallon.
So what changed?
The war on Iran.
Bombs dropped overseas. Billions spent abroad. Promises broken at home. Trump, my relative said, was supposed to put America first, lower prices, tame inflation and focus on citizens rather than foreign entanglements.
In short: the betrayal was not moral. It was transactional.
I asked why this was the breaking point. Why not the war on women’s reproductive rights? Why not the war on environmental safeguards? Why not the attacks on democratic institutions? Why not the tariffs that economists across the spectrum warned would function as taxes on American consumers? Why not the cruelty elevated to governing style? Why not the corruption so brazen it barely bothered to wear a disguise? Why not when character itself was declared irrelevant?
Many evangelicals are now uttering a phrase with increasing frequency: I didn’t vote for this. But yes, many of them did. And more important, they were warned.
They were warned in 2015 when Trump descended that golden escalator and launched a political career through nativism and spectacle. They were warned when mockery became rhetoric, when lies became routine, when women became targets, when immigrants became props, when violence became flirtation and when faith became branding. Some of us said so in sermons, in family texts, on social media and over dinner tables where the mashed potatoes grew cold while tempers grew hot.
We said this is not the way of Jesus.
We said Christian nationalism is not Christianity.
We said a man who worships only himself will never defend the faith — only use it.
We were told we had Trump Derangement Syndrome. We were called traitors, liberals, naïve idealists, bad Christians.
Now consequences have arrived, and suddenly amnesia is fashionable. But voting for someone does not mean endorsing everything he does, I’m told. True enough in ordinary politics. But Donald Trump was never coy about who he was. The packaging was transparent. The contents were labeled. If you buy fireworks, you do not get to act stunned by the explosion, surprised when you get burned.
Then some say it was about policy, not character. That argument has always been nonsense. Policy comes from character. Governance flows from temperament. A leader who delights in humiliation will govern through humiliation. A leader who rejects truth will govern through deceit. A leader who prizes loyalty above law will test whether the law can survive him.
This is not hindsight. It was a preview. My childhood friend’s mother, who had little patience for self-pity disguised as wisdom, had a phrase for moments like this: You made your bed. Now you gotta lie in it.
Yet there is another option: Repentance. Not performative regret because tariffs raised prices or war reached the wrong continent or chaos dented a retirement portfolio. Real repentance begins not with I didn’t vote for this, but with I was wrong. It means admitting that cruelty was not a side effect but a feature. That power was preferred to principle. That many churches traded the Sermon on the Mount for a seat near the throne.
This week, Trump is reportedly set to livestream from the White House a reading from 2 Chronicles: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray … then I will heal their land. This is the same Donald Trump who, when once asked to name his favorite Bible passage, said the question was “too personal,” and when pressed on whether he preferred the Old or New Testament, replied that he liked them both equally — the theological equivalent of saying your favorite book is “the library.”
This is the man who posed outside a church he did not attend, holding a Bible as a prop after peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square were cleared with tear gas and rubber bullets for a photo op. This is the same man who picked a public fight with the Pope, posted an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ, and recently declared online, “Open the f—in’ strait, you crazy b——s, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” before signing off with “Praise be to Allah.” And now, suddenly, he has discovered a favorite Bible verse to share with the nation. The irony is truly biblical, because humility is not a photo op. Prayer is not branding. Healing does not begin with demanding obedience from others, but with confession from ourselves.
America does not need more civil religion wrapped around political vanity. It needs citizens willing to tell the truth — especially when that truth implicates their own tribe. The prophets of old understood something we prefer to forget: Warnings ignored do not disappear. They mature into consequences.
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