The Tragedy and Travesty of the Trumpite Youth

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/19/1239344999/young-voters-conservative-donald-trump-republican-party

My oldest memories of Trump are from the 1980's, The Art of the Deal, and the many scandals surrounding him concerning his marriage and business activities. Trump was off my radar when he re-emerged in the early 2000's as a reality television celebrity - I was no longer watching television by then and high speed internet and streaming were not yet on the scene.

The NPR story drove me to consider this and think about young people that are turning eighteen (or the voting eligibility age in the US) and may have seen a bit of Trump on television while young, but were really only just becoming engaged with the outside world around 2015 or so - near the end of Trump's run on the TV show and entrance into presidential politics. For my part the 'Trump coming down the escalator' bit seems like something rather recent but I guess it was nine years ago (I am getting old it would seem) and thus for an eighteen year old that's a huge portion of his cognizant life. And so the young man in the story can say that he's literally grown up with Trump - what an unhappy thought!

And sadly, this young man looks up to Trump and wants to emulate him. Only later in the story does the really sickening and disturbing angle emerge - he's off to Liberty University this fall. In other words, these are Evangelicals. What an indictment of his parents, what a failure on their part to teach their son the difference between right and wrong and what being a Christian is all about.

But then it dawns on you - there are probably more young men like this then can be counted. They are now entering adulthood and will in the coming years find their place in the Church.

This is not a happy thought and while this young man is to be pitied, his tale is one of warning - or at least that's how I see it. They know of no world in which Trump would be viewed as obscene, indecent, and wholly out of bounds with what a social conservative would stand for - let alone a Christian! This is serious and something we need to understand and grapple with. A new generation is rising and they've grown up in a very different world. This is true of the secular world to be sure but we would do well to understand it is no less true when it comes to the Church.