What John Oliver doesn’t understand about Donald Trump

By Jonathon Van Maren

As the unnatural disaster that is the 2016 election period proceeds, the media is starting to get a bit panicky about the very real possibility that Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States. This has forced them to start asking questions they generally avoid like vampires avoid mirrors: Why have Americans become so polarized? Why in the world wouldn’t Republicans just vote for Hillary Clinton instead?

Interestingly, the very question reveals just how disconnected the media elites are from their rapidly dwindling audiences. The fact that many conservatives will hold their nose and vote for the genuinely repugnant Donald Trump says nothing about conservatives and everything about Hillary Clinton and the worldview she represents. The media elites, huddled safely in their progressive cocoon, simply don’t understand how radical they are.

For example, I recently watched John Oliver’s incredulous takedown of Donald Trump. For the life of him, Oliver just could not grasp how anyone could be so stupid as to support such a man, reluctantly or not. But I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. This is the same John Oliver who has loudly backed the transgender movement, contemptuously insisting that anyone who didn’t think men could morph into women or women morph into men was a slope-headed Neanderthal. This is the same John Oliver who couldn’t believe the Supreme Court upheld religious liberty in the Hobby Lobby case. This is the same John Oliver who is astounded at the fact that anyone could care so much about babies in the womb that they might want to restrict abortion. That’s the John Oliver who can’t believe that anyone would refuse to vote for a woman who believes all of the same things that he does.

Worded a different way, an alternative headline to one of the many articles gleefully celebrating Oliver’s Trump rants could say this: “TV host who believes that a biological man can become a woman says Trump is ridiculous.” Or: “Man who believes destroying babies as they develop in the womb is a human right thinks Trump is repulsive.” Or perhaps: “Comedian who believes Christians should be forced to pay for the birth control of others thinks Trump is a fascist.”

What Oliver is and his media friends don’t understand is that the reason many conservatives feel obligated to vote for Donald Trump is that they believe Hillary Clinton is genuinely dangerous for those who are not on board with the progressive experiment. Personal corruption and habitual lying aside, Clinton has promised to stand with Planned Parenthood, the abortion giant that got caught selling the body parts of butchered babies last year. She has stated that Christians are going to have to change their beliefs where they are incompatible with the Sexual Revolution. She does not believe in religious liberty.

In short, she poses an enormous threat to Christians. The case conservatives who are struggling with whether or not they can vote for Donald Trump are making is not that he is not repulsive. The case they are making is that she is far worse. She is not the “sane and reasonable” candidate in this election. She is not the harmless Grandma Policy Wonk the affectionate scribblers of the chattering classes like to say she is. She represents an America that would be genuinely hostile to Christians and destructive and lethal for those human beings who have not yet had the good fortune to be born.

John Oliver can occasionally be a funny guy, even though his sanctimonious liberalism can often be nauseating. But what he doesn’t understand is that his incredulousness is actually just an indication that he has no clue what conservatives care about, and no idea what Christians believe. If Oliver has even bothered to think this through at all, he must believe that the concerns Christians have about Hillary Clinton are so inconsequential that they can simply dismiss them out of sheer distaste for Donald Trump. There are plenty of Christians who have already stated that they cannot vote for Donald Trump come Election Day. There are plenty of others who believe that they must vote for Donald Trump in order to stop Hillary Clinton. The fact that Oliver and his media cronies cannot understand that is simply one more indication that the chasm between the progressive elites and conservative Christians is now so wide they cannot hear us anymore.

4 thoughts on “What John Oliver doesn’t understand about Donald Trump

  1. John says:

    Johnathon, I agree with every thing you say except one thing: that Clinton “poses an enormous threat to Christians.” Sure, she will do everything she can to do our faith down: supporting PP, pushing the LGBTQWERTY agenda, etc. However, the fact is that no politician or earthly force can rob us of our faith if we are determined not to lose it. Like everyone else, I’d much prefer not to be persecuted, but if it comes to that, then it’s good to remember how Christianity has flourished Under such persecution. HRC is so stupid, she probably will go down that path – and Christianity will flourish.

  2. Andre says:

    There are two problems with this. First, it is disturbing that some Christians would respond to persecution – something Jesus said we should expect for our faithfulness – by electing a man who is equal parts bully, con man, and fool. Instead of praying for their enemy they are looking for revenge through human institutions. Whatever happened to the proverb that we should “Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes”? We do not need to turn to a self-promoting bully to respond to the dangers of progressivism.

    Second, it’s borderline absurd to consider what Christians have experienced over the last 8 years as “persecution.” Christians have historically been jailed, beaten, and killed for their beliefs, but American Christians are upset because they get called names? Christians lost credibility by supporting Trump, and we will continue to lose it if we go on justifying that vote.

    • Paul Boire says:

      I am a Canadian liberal, but I know what a liberal actually is and where human rights originate in the very ground of being itself… rather Himself. There is no way on God’s green earth that I could vote for ANY liberal party in the foreseeable future. I quite often find conservatives and republicans stupid and narrow in focus; too individualistic and small minded. But I don’t usually find them insane. The left is now insane and they are infecting the young or the west with their blatant insanity as U of Toronto’s Dr Jordan Peterson has so ably shown in his excellent online videos. Human life, life itself is the foundation of ALL other rights and is not negotiable. What if the grossly sexist Clinton was advocating the funding of killing children in the streets. Would this make it clearer for you? Modern history provides enough evidence of mass insanity and slaughter to hopefully trigger some non-media induced thinking. A Clinton presidency was utterly unthinkable.

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