For Christians, the two greatest commandments are to love God with all of your being, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God requires doing what’s right. A God-given conscience guides us to do right and the “Good Samaritan” parable shows anyone encountered is our neighbor.
Donald Trump’s rise to power reveals an erosion and finally a loss of conscience for many. When Trump began his presidential campaign and polled in the single digits, most Christians rejected him as unfit, but as he decimated opponents with lies, verbal assaults and Russian assistance, his polling rose and many changed from morally rejecting him to waffling, then rationalizing, and finally jettisoning conscience and embracing Trump and his lies.
The rationalization that Trump is pro-life can be quickly dismissed by examining his policies. Trump’s anti-immigrant deportations of asylum-seekers and abandonment of Kurdish allies have resulted in the deaths, rapes and assaults of thousands. Anti-environmental safeguards, anti-climate change mitigation, health care undermining, and delayed COVID-19 pandemic response are slowly displacing and killing untold numbers. Sadly, for Donald Trump, no one is a neighbor.
Conscience and the two greatest commandments require that we vote Trump out of office.
