This article discusses how (many, not all) evangelical types in Nevada are rallying around a notorious brothel owner who has won the GOP nomination for a seat in the state legislature.
❝ “This really is the Trump movement,” Hof, 71, told Reuters in an interview at Moonlite BunnyRanch, his brothel near Carson City in northern Nevada that was featured on the HBO reality television series “Cathouse.” “People will set aside for a moment their moral beliefs, their religious beliefs, to get somebody that is honest in office,” he said. “Trump is the trailblazer, he is the Christopher Columbus of honest politics.” ❞
The immediate reaction is to point fingers and talk about hypocrisy. This guy, like Trump, embodies all sorts of non-Christian ideals, but conservative Christians are turning out to support him. What a bunch of maroons! But I think there's more to it than that, and not necessarily a bad more-to-it.
❝ “People want to know how an evangelical can support a self-proclaimed pimp,” Fuentes said in an interview at his home in Pahrump, an unincorporated town of 36,000 people that is the largest community in the sprawling, rural district where Hof is favored to win in November’s general election.
He said the reason was simple. “We have politicians, they might speak good words, not sleep with prostitutes, be a good neighbor. But by their decisions, they have evil in their heart. Dennis Hof is not like that.” The pastor said he felt Hof would protect religious rights, among other things.
In Hof’s Republican-leaning district, seven evangelicals said they voted for him because they believed that he, who like Trump is a wealthy businessman and political outsider, would also clean up politics and not be beholden to special-interest groups and their money. ❞
Politics is about compromise. It's trying to balance the needs of multiple constituents, multiple interests. It's about being willing to take a candidate who is imperfect, but the better (or less worse) choice.
In a sense, this shift is a sign of maturity by evangelicals, an acknowledgment that no candidate is perfect, that no person is perfect, and that even a sinner can do good, can serve the public, can advance a healthy change.
Of course, I also think this particular application of this tolerance is delusional. Coupling "Trump" with "honest politics" is crazy. Assuming that wealth makes one a "political outsider" and therefore will lead to a clean-up of corruption is also myopic, to say the least. Hof sounds like a dubious candidate for change, except for change that lines his own pocket, and Trump seems to have demonstrated that his devotion to evangelical causes is solely occasional throwing of bones, whereas his central agenda strikes me as actually opposed to Christ's preaching.
But while the application is wildly misguided (and a bit desperate), the principle behind it is not altogether out of whack. Refusing to vote for your interests because a candidate imperfectly represents your ideals sounds kind of good on paper, but generally speaking means you won't be represented at all. Figuring out what level of imperfection and compromise is tolerable is a pain in the ass and an uncomfortable thing to do, but it's also a sign of growing up.
In age of Trump, evangelicals back self-styled top U.S. pimp
He styles himself as America’s best-known pimp, a strip-club owner who runs multiple brothels and looks set to win a seat as a Republican in the Nevada legislature with the blessing of many conservative Christian voters.
They’re not lying, they’re not crazy — they’re just very, very wrong.
The insular circles of Evangelical Christianity do not equip one well to evaluate fact from fiction, con games from conscience. It’s a skill Americans are bad at, and evangelicals particularly bad at.
This’ll be interesting.
"Either with us, or against us". Evidences sky-high polarization. What I miss in your charitable interpretation, +Dave Hill, is a skeptical evaluation of the respective weight of shared positive purposes (which I think fit your charitable approach) and shared negative purposes (the enemies of my enemies are my friends, not what I'd call mature thinking).
My impression for a long time has been that, in general, white Evangelicals excel at pious sounding empty words while always following whatever impulse captures their attention in the moment. Those impulses are generally of a white supremacist nature with a lot of sexual hypocrisy thrown in. They never really mean what they say instead what they really want are piety points. There are exceptions to this rule, people who walk their talk, but I've met only two or three of them and I grew up in a sea of these people.
I'm not suggesting, once again, that they are making a good or wise or moral decision. I'm not even assuming that they are acting solely out of good or wise or moral reasons. I am only suggesting that criticizing these folk that they are violating their moral beliefs in principle due to voting for compromise candidates is wrong; criticizing them in particular for the racist / sexist / classist / slimeballist choices they are supporting is completely legit.
The question of compromising on candidates in order to achieve desired ends — and how much compromise is too much compromise — is also, of course, not something merely for folk on the Right to grapple with.
I don't know any particulars about Hof, but it doesn't appear that Hof has endorsed any particular religious litmus test that would inspire the remnant (you see what I did there) of the Moral Majority. The issues appear to be secular: he "campaigned on issues including repealing Nevada’s commerce tax, protecting gun rights, improving education and protecting residents’ water rights against the federal government."
And considering his line of business, I wouldn't be surprised if he is pro-choice.
Pardon me while I strongly suspect that a guy who had the same background and similar politics to this guy, but was a Democrat, would be excoriated by these same evangelicals as being a morally corrupt scum. They're only ignoring the differences because the end result benefits them.
My personal experience points to much deeper cognitive dissonance than that…but really, to the exact same effect.
+John Bump
Yes, part of the reason it’s so painful to watch evangelicals support these people is that for anyone on the outside, their language is full of moral condemnation for the unthinkable depravity. And…their concept of depravity, which they profess is very important, has no coherence.
It means that, like talking to a preschooler, they make sounds that make you think you’re reasoning/negotiating when if you pull back a bit it’s very clear you’re not.
+John Bump
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/6184808/Group-once-linked-to-Barack-Obama-taped-giving-advice-to-brothel-owners.html
+John E. Bredehoft
This is what James O'Keefe does – makes misleading hidden gotcha videos by editing them into outlandish lies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos_controversy