Confessions of a Catholic Anarchist in Trump’s America

Last updated on: November 12, 2016 at 6:24 pm by Chase Padusniak

Confessions of a Catholic Anarchist in Trump’s America 2016-11-12T18:24:16-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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This, strangely enough, provides an unexpected hope. The collapse of both parties during this election leaves room for substantive changes of ideology, of belief. The Trumpists have clearly won the day in the Republican Party; Hillary Clinton’s milquetoast neoliberalism has clearly lost Democratic dominance. As Charles Camosy clarifies:

Twenty-nine percent of Latinos voted for Trump, per exit polls. Remarkably, despite the near-ubiquitous narrative that Trump would have deep problems with this demographic given his comments and position on immigration, this was a higher percentage of those who voted for GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Meanwhile, African Americans did not turn out to vote against Trump. In fact, Trump received a higher percentage of African American votes than Romney did.

And while many white voters deeply disliked Trump, they disliked Democrat Hillary Clinton even more. Of those who had negative feelings about both Trump and Clinton, Trump got their votes by a margin of 2 to 1. Votes for Trump seemed to signal a rejection of the norms and values for which Clinton stood more than an outright embrace of Trump. He was viewed unfavorably, for instance, by 61 percent of Wisconsinites, but 1 in 5 in that group voted for him anyway.

The demographic game is changing, and the sides must shuffle. This being the case, we may see a Democratic Party with a more Sanderian bent: one overtly concerned with corruption intrinsic to our economic system, the one Dorothy Day once called “filthy, rotten.” I have my doubts, but there is some hope that this will open space for Pro-Life Democrats. The “New Pro-Life Movement” is, although somewhat non-partisanly, attempting to do just that.

This, of course, brings me to my concerns about the old pro-life movement. The deed is done; Trumpissimo has won. A victory for anti-abortion work? Perhaps. But Marc Barnes gets the truth of the matter:

Despite the general disappointment that the United States has just elected an incompetent, immoral buffoon to embarrass us before the nations, there are several reasons for American Catholics to celebrate a Trump victory. By “celebrate”, I mean “to quietly, timidly, and ironically shrug thy shoulders skyward”, for these are not victories guaranteed or even strongly assured. They are the campaign promises of a business mogul with no reputation for heartfelt sympathy with the moral concerns of Catholics. Nevertheless, we’ve been promised a conservative Supreme Court nominee, a pro-life leader, and the protection of religious freedoms. Insofar as we can genuinely hope to get them, we can allow ourselves a smile.

There. We smiled. Now it is time to frown. The main argument made by conservative Catholics pulling their eyebrows out over who to vote for was that, in comparison with Clinton, “Trump is the lesser of two evils.” Very well: We have elected an evil. If we have an elected an evil then an active Catholic celebration of Donald Trump would be disingenuous in the extreme. At the very least, it would show that all this “lesser of two evils” talk was just that – talk – and that conservative Catholics who so argued are wedded to conservatism; flirting with Catholicism.

Be happy; go ahead. But it is clear enough that Trump represents the moneyed class in his own life, represents ideas (adultery, usury, misogyny, to name three) that Catholics cannot and must not support. It is in this sense that I see less hope for the Republican Party, at least for a Republican Party Catholics can have anything to do with. Time will tell if the pro-life movement has sold its soul, or whether their gamble pays off, whether their aims are achieved without the enduring ire of the world. Because, if Trump doesn’t get anything done on abortion, does it really seem likely there will be much support for pro-life policies in the future? When priests put dead babies on altars, when you have priests arguing that adulterers represent Catholic values, when the president-elect might as well be burning Laudato Si’, who will remain to wave the banner of a politically-robust Catholicism if the “god emperor” fails?

But I am thankful, because my hope is in people and solidarity, not in politics; my faith lies in God and His Church, not in the foibles of electoral victories. Sign petitions; stand up to pride and prejudice: live the Gospel.

To quote the God-loving, God-fearing Dorothy Day: “Often we comfort ourselves only with words, but if we pray enough, the conviction will come too that Christ is our King, not Stalin, Bevins, or Truman. That He has all things in His hands, that ‘all things work together for good for those that love Him.’” These words must be our truth as we organize, stand up for the forgotten (the poor and the marginalized: from the unborn baby to the elderly invalid, from the broken migrant to the Rust Belt voter).

I leave you with my prayers and beg for yours; I sign off with the words of Marc Barnes on my lips:

Without a Catholic counterstrike of charity, the Trump years will paint a veneer of conservatism and family values over an unchanged, unrepentant culture of greed, which, to no one’s surprise, will end with a greater hostility to the vulnerable and the unborn. The evils we decapitate by legal means will rise, two-headed, because of our inability to couple our victories with a culture and an economy of justice that roots these moral gains in the actual lives, hearts, and minds of the American people. After Trump, without the Catholics – the deluge.

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