Hillary And Tom O'Halleran Were Once Republicans. So Was Robb Ryerse. I Trust Him, Though Not The First Two

We first met up with Robb Ryerse in 2017 when he was an evangelical pastor running for Congress in the reddest district in Arkansas-- and as a progressive. Not just as a progressive, as a progressive Republican. I was a little skeptical. When I spoke with him what I saw was that Ryerse really wanted to get sewer money out of politics and welcome immigrants into the country. He talked about good policies from sketchy Republican presidents like Reagan and Nixon. He talked about Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex and even referred to the far right fanatic he was running against, Steve Womack, as "a good man." Womack isn't a good man any more than Adolf Eichmann was a good man, but Ryerse saw Republicans as salvageable. I gathered he was anti-Choice and pro-gun... and Blue America didn't endorse him.

He didn't win his primary. But he was named head of Brand New Congress, political director of Vote Common Good and a year after our first conversation, he did a guest post for DWT, writing that "In Jesus, we see someone who sided with the marginalized and the oppressed. We see someone who spoke truth to people with religious and political power. We see someone who welcomed refugees and immigrants as neighbors. We see someone who offered people the healthcare they needed without blaming them for being poor. We see someone who was really quite progressive." Whew! It was Jesus... not the GOP.

This week Robb did a guest post for a bigger venue-- Time Magazine, that should help promote the book he wrote that's coming out this month, Running For Our Lives: A Story of Faith, Politics, and the Common Good. In the Time piece he wrote that Trump "made history last Friday as the first U.S. president to attend March for Life, the annual anti-abortion rally held in Washington, D.C. For that he received widespread praise from conservative political and religious leaders and voters around the country, including many, unsurprisingly, from my home state of Arkansas. Trump’s decision to attend was motivated by politics. He wasn’t against abortion until he started running for President, and yet he has heard mounting questions raised about the sturdiness of his support among evangelicals, whose backing in 2016 was key to his victory. The kerfuffle around Christianity Today’s December editorial calling for Trump’s removal sparked a reexamination of the durability of that support. Enter March for Life, an opportunity to double down on what Trump knows is the linchpin of his appeal to many religious voters. The transactional nature of Trump’s relationship with evangelicals and other religiously motivated voters is a two-way street. He doesn’t live by nor ostensibly even aspire to the values of most of these voters. They see his flaws but support him anyway because he helps advance elements of their policy agenda, namely, anti-abortion judges and legislation." Last week, Ryerse helped organize a rally for voters in Fayetteville against Trump and in support of Democrats.

When I’m not preaching, I work with a group called Vote Common Good, which aims to get evangelicals and other voters of faith to make the common good-- not political parties-- their primary voting criteria. And this year, voting for the common good means getting Trump and his enablers out of office.

Trump is an anathema to everything I was taught to love about Jesus, everything I was taught about how to live out my faith. His disdain for decency, disrespect toward basic tenets of right and wrong and complete disregard for the most vulnerable among us could not be more fundamentally un-Christian. To vote for him because he sees the political expediency of supporting restrictions on abortion is a Faustian deal with the devil that is ultimately more likely to exact greater cost than reward. Case in point: the astounding about-face in evangelical support for refugee resettlement since Trump took aim at the program.

The unholy alliance some religious voters have struck with Trump is part and parcel of the one the Republican Party as a whole has embraced. The GOP has become the party of Trump, most recently exemplified by the number of Republican senators who have expressed a willingness to abandon their responsibility as part of a co-equal branch of government and vote against allowing witnesses to appear in the president’s impeachment trial. Tribalistic, blind loyalty to Trump because of the power he is able to confer as President has led both evangelicals and the GOP to abandon previously held values.

Now more than ever, at a time of unprecedented polarization, it’s important that voters think beyond political party. Republicans don’t have to become Democrats-- they should just consider voting for one this year. Voters of faith should set aside their personal interests and predilections and instead prioritize the common good for all.

Traveling across the United States on VCG’s 50-state bus tour, which launched in Iowa at the start of January and has hit six other states since, I’ve met voters of faith who are looking for an alternative to Trump. They voted for him in 2016 but can’t bring themselves to do it again. We are working to mobilize them and train Democratic candidates to engage religious voters more effectively.

If a critical percentage-- say 5%-- of evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2016 don’t this year, he can’t win. That’s why I’ve decided to dedicate much of my time and efforts in 2020 to reaching those voters. Because a deal with Democrats is better than a deal with the devil.