A "Federalist" contributor wants you to know that God supports Roy Moore

In one of the more poorly written, logically deficient essays I've ever read — "Why It’s Justified To Vote For A Morally Questionable Politician" — Federalist contributor Denise McAllister argues indirectly in defense of Roy Moore that "God uses, in this secular sphere, all kinds of 'immoral' men and women to bring about his purposes for his church.... He is actually rather utilitarian and pragmatic regarding the secular world."

This pronunciamento is meant to be provocative and profound; it is meant to bolster McAllister's thesis that "to vote for … a person [that would be Mr. Moore] working in the secular arena who will bring about the 'greater good' despite being personally immoral … is justified."

Of course it is, in fact it has to be, since in Christian theology we are all immoral in some ways — humankind's perfection lay only in Christ. George Washington was prideful, Abraham Lincoln pondered the mortal sin of suicide, FDR slept around on Eleanor, yet therein sits the radiant trinity of American politics. That it never occurs to McAllister that the "sins" of these pols or others similar to them were and remain far less sinister than preying on teenage girls is merely one of her logical lapses.

Her greatest lapse is in declaring God — who, "utilitarian" that he is, is obviously in Moore's corner — to be a crackerjack political strategist. For it also never occurs to McAllister that the long-term harm to the GOP stemming from Moore's election is incalculable. In the short term, yes, Moore would be a vote for Donald Trump's cruel, unChristian tax bill, and he would prevent a Democrat from taking a Republican Senate seat. But the Democratic electoral profits to be made from having Moore as a 2018 avatar of GOP "principles" are incalculable as well. McAllister and her God can't see this, though, since they're both so anguished at the thought of a Democrat from Alabama.

Another peculiarity mushrooming from McCallister's mind is her assertion that "Unfortunately, many social conservatives, and Christians in particular, treat secular leaders … as if any stain on their character, fault from their distant past, or even theological apostasy disqualifies them from political leadership." What she staggeringly omits is twofold: It is many social conservatives, and Christians in particular, who comprise Moore's base, and their scolding judgment as formulated by the author applies only to Democratic pols.

Yet another chuckle-worthy peculiarity begins with McAllister's shocking confession that "I [voted for Trump] in the general," to be followed, several disjointed paragraphs later, by: "Will a serial liar deceive those who put him in office? Most likely."

I don't ordinarily read The Federalist. Today I rediscovered why.

 

Comments

[Winston]

With luck Denise McAllister's argument, in all its forms, will convince Alabama voters. Roy Moore should give Mitch McConnell more severe heartburn and put an indelible stamp on the GOP.

[Peter G]

Basically Moore is all they've got right now. If he wins they can take him out or use him. But the consequences of the latter are dire. If they take him out to show their moral uprightness they can run some other goon in a special election or whatever is the procedure in Alabama. Which they will win.

[JTL]

Why is it the GOP never seem to pay a price for their cynicism?

[Peter G]

Or their hypocrisy for that matter. Damned if I know.

[Peter G]

Apropos of nothing, it seems that at a rather young age Eric Trump is as stupid as his dad is now.

[Max]

Take of the day:

1. They have more money.

2. The definition of a liberal as one who won't take his own side in an argument; a variation of the whimp factor.

3. In any democracy, certain, well, democratic norms must be observed, honored and preserved; when a faction back by enormous sums of money discard these norms, in the service of power without regard to consequences, well, you know . . .

[Anne J]

The author now has forfeited her right to wag her finger at any democrat now. Even if you take his cruising for jail bait out of the equation, he is still the same judge who puts the bible before the constitution and refused to remove a religious graven image from the front of what is supposed to be a secular court house.

[Peter G]

Seeing as you have given me this piece of humor it is only fair that I reciprocate. Right this very minute at Duff home base he is holding forth on how everyone better educated than himself has been failed by a higher educational system. As evidence he cites a work he is vaguely sure he has read, The Closing of the American Mind. By Harold Bloom.

[jsrtheta]

This is exactly what they said to justify electing Trump. Didn't pass the laugh test then, doesn't pass it now.

[The Dark Avenger]

I just posted a comment there pointing out his mistake.

[shssvage]

The fact that you pointed out his mistake is all the evidence he needs to prove to himself that " everyone better educated than himself has been failed by a higher educational system." It's a closed system spinning in the broken down hamster wheel of a closed mind. And it apes Jehovah's Witness indoctrination that basically convinces its acolytes that if you disagree with them they are being persecuted. There's no epistemological entrance.

[Max]

Ha. Beautiful.

[Peter G]

So did I but he made them disappear. What was interesting to me was his assertion that he had the work in question within arm’s reach. Usually the authors name is on the spine. Where you can read it.

[The Dark Avenger]

I doubt that he ever wrote anything by Harold Bloom. Bloom has proposed that some portions of the Hebrew Bible were written by a woman, certainly not a conservative position:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/bloom-j.html

“In "The Book of J" bright ideas gleam, vanish and are replaced by more. It pains a reviewer to be able to discuss so few of them. Believers, fundamentalists, may be shocked, but the effect on others will surely be refreshing, with just a little of the jolt that one sometimes gets from looking at a familiar painting newly cleaned. And even those who doubt whether Bloom has truly identified and fairly described his 3,000-year-old genius will surely not withhold a tribute to this author. Prolific and gifted though he has always been, this is his best book.”

[Peter G]

The problem with Harold is that you can always find an argument over what is his best book. Here be fightin' words with PM: I read, the other day, a review that asserted that Harold bloom is the world's foremost literary critic. And he is, now that Northrop Frye is dead.