So … there might be a tape of Donald Trump telling his lawyer to cover up a sex scandal. And there’s a BBC documentary which alleges that back in the 80s, Trump was present at … 1980s parties in New York City.

In-Box: BBC: New Misconduct Allegations President Trump. pic.twitter.com/qVfcvRwQzb

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 20, 2018

Rich, old men were there, hitting on young models. Trump, it’s alleged, may have hit on a 17-year-old (legal, but barely). It doesn’t sound like anyone’s accusing him of a crime, but perhaps he witnessed crimes. And didn’t call the cops.

Sordid. Depressing. Sobering.

But should it matter politically? Not in the abstract, in a perfect world. In the present, in 2018 America, with the dangers we face today, though? That’s a conversation we need to have.

Let’s Talk About the Fall of Man

So let’s have it. Whom should we talk to? To some Progressive Christian who already claims that supporting Donald Trump implicates any voter in “racism” and “xenophobia”? Nope. Not wasting words on people who think that they’re the best Christians in history.

To a democratic socialist who makes excuses for Hugo Chavez? Please. You and I will have to answer for every squandered moment on Judgment Day.  

But there’s one kind of person whom we actually do need to talk to. A serious Christian who’s genuinely troubled by such ugly revelations. Not a preening NeverTrumper, who blithely ignored the sins of previous Republicans — such as the genocide of Christians in Iraq that George W. Bush wouldn’t lift a finger to prevent. No, but a believer who’s actually wounded, shocked and depressed by these revelations.

Maybe I’m not the best person to do that. The drip-drip-drip of gay sex scandals among high-ranking prelates in my own (Catholic) church has left me kind of jaded. When I hear that a prominent bishop or priest has been messing around with an adult woman, I almost find myself saying, “Yippee! We found a straight one.”

But God uses broken instruments. So I’m sure He can make use of me. Here’s the conversation I’d have with such a person. Call her “Rita.” She’s a 40-something mother of a 25-year-old son who serves in the Army, and a 17-year-old daughter preparing for college. A regular fixture at her evangelical church. She voted for Trump.

Will she vote for him again? Will she turn out to vote this fall, in the coming referendum on President Trump’s impeachment? The fate of our country could well rest on such decisions. So this conversation matters.

A Sour Feeling

RITA: I just feel kind of sick right now. I knew Trump had a past, but all these details. …

ZMIRAK: Tell me about it. It’s a re-run of all the most sordid side of the 1970s and 80s, the seamy underside of the glitz, which most of us never heard about.

RITA: I don’t expect a pastor-in-chief. But we want our leaders to have some kind of basic moral character, don’t we?

ZMIRAK: We do.

RITA: I suppose it’s not essential that a president actually be a serious Christian, to defend our rights and govern our country.

ZMIRAK: Lincoln wasn’t. More of a Unitarian, from what I’ve read. Churchill was an agnostic who drank like a fish. JFK slept with college interns and Mafia mistresses in the White House.

RITA: But we see the president as the embodiment of law, the public face of our country.

ZMIRAK: That might be too heavy a burden for any man. We probably ought to think of the Constitution instead.

RITA: It’s hard to see a piece of paper as your leader. Especially one that judges have perverted so comprehensively.

The Democrats have gone … just crazy.

ZMIRAK: Exactly. Legally, the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it does. Insofar as that’s true, the current reading of the Constitution isn’t just neutral. Parts of it are positively evil. It grounds a right to abortion in the fundamental liberty right we all cherish. It dismantles marriage in the name of “human dignity.” Its protection of religious freedom is even kind of shaky.

RITA: Well, that’s why we need to appoint better judges, up and down the line.

ZMIRAK: Which Trump, for all his sordid past, is doing.

RITA: But at what price? To our credibility as witnesses for Jesus. …

Did Constantine Discredit Us?

ZMIRAK: I don’t know. Do you think that the Church lost credibility when it praised the sinful, still pagan Constantine for ending persecution? When Christians flocked into the Roman army and civil service after that?

RITA: No. I don’t.

ZMIRAK: Do you see any parallels today?

RITA: I suppose so. The Democrats have gone … just crazy. I remember Jimmy Carter… he was clueless and kind of wobbly, but he was a patriot.

ZMIRAK:  The Democrats aiming to take over the House this fall, they’re not the party of Carter, or Scoop Jackson, or Hubert Humphrey. They want to abolish ICE so criminal gangs like MS-13 can run rampant in America. To let illegal immigrants vote in our elections. And keep pouring government funds into Planned Parenthood, which sells little parts of unborn babies in Styrofoam coolers.

RITA: I can’t believe that things have become so … sordid and crazy.

ZMIRAK: Well, maybe they already were, back in the 80s when Trump was going to all those parties. We were all watching Woody Allen movies where characters snorted cocaine and Woody went after teenage girls, and we all thought, “How funny!”

RITA: I wasn’t watching those movies.

ZMIRAK: Fair point. But a lot of us were. And we chose not to think about the human cost, the attack on human dignity that lay behind all the glamour. In other words, the sin.

RITA: And now we’re all having to see it. Exposed on a slab. All those “art” movies that came out in the 90s. It turned out that Harvey Weinstein was extorting actresses not much older than my daughter.

ZMIRAK: Who’s the same age as the girls at those parties we’re learning about.

RITA: Exactly. I imagine her precious self, getting pawed at by those predators. …

ZMIRAK: I won’t try to justify or explain anything away. This is sobering. We need to step back for a minute. To reflect on our own sins and shortcomings. This much-blessed nation has squandered so many graces God rained down on us. You have to wonder if He’ll just start withholding them.

RITA: I certainly hope not. For my children’s sake.

ZMIRAK: You’re right. We’re not deciding in the voting booth which men we’d send our daughters to associate with. To be honest, if I had kids I’d keep them far away from modeling. And from most politicians. Hunger for power is usually a very bad sign about a person. With rare exceptions.

RITA: Isn’t that the truth. …

Wielders of the Blunt, Bloody Instruments

ZMIRAK: We’re deciding which party of deeply imperfect people will better wield the blunt, bloody instruments of the State. Which one is less likely to use them to harm us, and might even wield them (most of the time) to protect us. That’s the best we can ask for, in our fallenness.

RITA: The world was redeemed, and it will be renewed. …

ZMIRAK: But not through politics. That’s more like bailing out a leaky canoe, while fending off the piranhas. …