A Christian Right post-election repositioning on Trump. Kinda, sorta.

Traditions are important in politics. One of the best-established ones for the Democrats is that every Presidential election year, they fantasize that voters who identify with the Christian Right will start seeing the light and see that there's "Christian" stuff about Democratic policies, too.

Since it never actually happens, we get to rinse-and-repeat every four years. But rituals are important, you know.

Here's an example of a Christian Right true believer engaging in a beloved Republican political ritual: Hunter Baker, When Pragmatic Politics Goes Bad: An Apology to the Never-Trumpers Public Discourse 01/15/2021

After Bush I and especially after Bush II, the latter of whom Republicans including the Christian Right treated with quasi-religious and nationalist devotion while President, they immediately tried to distance themselves from them. Digby Parton calls it the principle that conservatism cannot fail, it can only *be* failed. The same happens when Republican Presidential candidates lose.

But Baker sticks to two notions that for the Christian Right are essentially infallible reasons to support Republicans over Democrats: opposition to abortion (main symbol for their hostility to women's rights more generally), and fear of the imaginary war on Christianity, a deeply dishonest pretense. And with the notion of Republican Presidents as "King Cyruses" or "Queen Esthers" who are chosen by God to save His people, they can easily justify supporting the next Trump, or even a 2024 Trump candidacy. After earnest prayer, of course!

That said, this kind of dubious "testimony" of repentance may create some emotional opening for people who are losing their emotional commitment to the Christian Right cause to rethink their approach.

And it's not exactly a full-blown repentance. I mean, isn't the idea that you repent of sins before you ask forgiveness? He writes:

When I voted for Donald Trump the second time, it was easier to do. I felt largely vindicated by his judicial appointments and much of the policy record, despite my strong disagreement with his tone and approach regarding immigration (including illegal immigration). The left’s treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh also bolstered my sense that Trump was the only choice. From my perspective, he had also taken necessary steps to confront China on trade and intellectual property, had begun to roll back some of the power of the administrative state, and had repatriated offshore corporate profits by making the American tax rate more competitive.

Because Jesus was all about repatriating corporate profits, I get it. (The actual effect of Trump's tax cuts on repatriation of funds was much less that advertised, if it can be said to have happened at all in any meaningful sense.)

If you read Baker's statement all the way to the end, he tailors his repentance very specifically to apologize to the NeverTrumpers for not heeded their warning that Trump might at some time go too far. ("I find it entirely plausible [sic!] that Joe Biden won.") Baker thinks he finally did go too far by denying that Biden won the election. Note the date of his piece, a week and a half after Trump literally sent a murderous lynch mob to occupy the US Capitol. "The reason for this apology, then, is because the never-Trumpers were right about the president in a very precise kind of way."

But he doesn't exactly offer a ringing condemnation of the Trumpista lynch mob that stormed the Capitol with literally fatal results for five p0eople:

I knew I was wrong as January 6 approached and the president started calling for Vice President Mike Pence to reject certification of the electoral college results. This, of course, was on top of his disturbing phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State urging him to “find” additional votes. At the same time, he encouraged Americans to mass at the Capitol to support his cause.

I do not suggest that the Americans who went to the Capitol, the great majority of them peaceful, bore ill intent, but I do think that the president intended to create a spectacle that would put pressure on Mike Pence to take a dramatic and extra-legal step that would fundamentally betray the American political order and its traditions.

In fact, that doesn't sound like a condemnation at all to me!

So, being able to avoid paying taxes on corporate profits is the Lord's will? But it would be Christ-like to CONDEMN A MURDEROUS LYNCH MOB?!?

If you need something to bore you to sleep, you can check out Baker's pre-election endorsement of Trump, How Trump Has Transformed the GOP—and Why Conservatives Should Vote for Him Anyway 09/27/2020