Deals with the Devil don’t ever turn out well.
This is a story about selling one’s soul.
Specifically, it is a story about those who would trade away their political, moral, and ethical souls and support Donald Trump—against their own better judgment—for the believed benefit of halting the abortion holocaust. Or, at least, who feel they should back Trump out of the perceived need to remain loyal to the pro-life cause. I write to urge you to reconsider.
Because I strongly believe that committed pro-lifers can and should vote against Donald Trump’s reelection.
No one is more committed than I to the pro-life legal and moral position. And if ever there were an issue worth selling one’s soul for, it’s abortion. I am serious about that: If you could trade your own life—your soul, even—to save the lives of millions of human beings, well, a case can be made for doing just that.
But like most deals with the Devil, this one—supporting Trump against your conscience, solely for the sake of abortion—doesn’t really get you anywhere. Whatever benefits it might produce are short-term and, for the most part, illusory and ephemeral. Worse, such a bargain is ultimately counter-productive, undermining the integrity of pro-life people and diminishing the persuasiveness of the pro-life position. This bargain forfeits the very values of compassion, justice, and respect for the lives and well-being of others on which the success of the pro-life movement ultimately depends.
Worst of all, selling your soul for short-term gain—even for a noble and worthy cause—is still selling your soul. Deals with the Devil always backfire in the end. From the unfortunate afternoon in the Garden to Doctor Faustus to Dorian Gray, these things always end badly.
They not only fail to achieve their goals, but destroy those who enter into them.
“Yes, But”—The (Reluctant) Pro-life Case For Trump
One of the arguments I hear from pro-lifers to justify supporting Trump goes something like this:
Yes, there is abundant evidence that Trump is a racist, given what he has said and what he has refused to say: “the Mexican judge” (from Indiana), the “Muslim ban,” restricting immigration from “shithole countries” like “Africa” (!), there being good people on both sides of white supremacist rallies, refusing to condemn identified white supremacist groups.
Yes, Trump is also a misogynist and likely serial sexual abuser/harasser.
Yes, Trump is heedless, arrogant, dangerously incompetent, and concerned only with himself.
Yes, in large part because of these traits, Trump responded incompetently and dismissively to the coronavirus, almost certainly resulting in the avoidable deaths of scores of thousands of people.
Yes, Trump is corrupt, almost pathologically dishonest, abusive, and utterly lacking in public (or private) integrity. He almost certainly attempted to obstruct justice in connection with the Mueller investigation. He solicited (or at least encouragingly winked at) Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election. He corruptly bartered vital military and security assistance to Ukraine for its pledge to investigate a U.S. domestic political rival for the presidency.
And yes, Trump has disturbingly authoritarian instincts: mindlessly claiming “total authority” over laws, hinting at canceling or postponing elections (if he thinks it necessary) and refusing to agree that he will abide by election results or to call on his supporters not to engage in election violence. (Proud Boys: “Stand back and stand by.”)
In short, Trump is a terrible person and a terrible president . . .
But he’s good for the pro-life movement and that overrides everything else.
Because although he is not a true believer, he knows which side his political bread is buttered on and has adopted a pro-life stance out of transactional convenience. Even though done for purposes of political gain, Trump has agreed to the appointment of solid, conservative justices and judges. And his administration has rescinded and replaced pro-abortion and anti-conscience regulations and policies with much better ones.
Trump, whatever his many sins, is good for the pro-life cause.
Or at least he’s better than the alternative.
He may be a disaster. But he’s our disaster.
Or so the argument goes.
The Drawbacks, Delusions, and Dangers of Deals with the Devil
I concede the force of that argument, at least in its premise. But there are at least four things wrong with it.
First, it is wrong in principle—a betrayal of the moral integrity that must underly the pro-life movement.
Second, it is for that reason discrediting and, ultimately, counterproductive. Trump undermines the values on which the success of the pro-life position ultimately depends and support of Trump likewise undermines those values and tars the position. If one is playing the pro-life long game—which is the only game in town when it comes to changing both the culture and the law on abortion—support of Trump kills our own cause.
Third, the believed gains to the pro-life movement from Trump—mainly judges—are short-term, ephemeral, illusory. They are nowhere near worth the price.
Fourth, support of Trump grossly underestimates the dangers he poses to democracy, stability, and the security of a free republic, which are the foundations upon which everything else depends. Including the effective protection of the right to life.
A word about each of these points, taken in somewhat reverse order, starting with the last.
First: A stable, secure, properly functioning constitutional republic is an essential precondition of effective protection of the right to life of the unborn.
If there are any who would trade away democracy and republican institutions—who would risk authoritarianism or countenance proto-despotism to any degree—for the sake of real or imagined short-term marginal gains to the pro-life political and legal position, I do not agree with them.
The destruction of our political institutions would leave any pro-life gains without a foundation on which to stand. The state exists to protect life and liberty. Undermine the republic and you undermine the ability of a just community to maintain these basic human rights—and ever to include the right to life among them. Risk democracy and you risk everything; all minor and major political achievements are drowned by the loss of the institutions that enable and undergird them.
Everybody agrees with this precept at some level. I take it for granted that no one would knowingly vote into office an Orbán or a Putin, just because he purported to be pro-life or would appoint pro-life judges. (Though, to be candid, there have been some on American right who seem enamored with such figures.) Most pro-lifers understand that the danger is too great, the harm threatened too irreparable, the perceived gains too illusory and contingent on the very values that such a man would repudiate.
Trump is not, as of now, in the same class as Putin or Orbán. But he does have marked authoritarian instincts and tendencies, is heedless of constitutional and moral restraints on his own power, and has a disturbing cult of followers.
Undermining Pro-Life Values, Discrediting the Pro-Life Message
Second: Trump affirmatively undermines and discredits the pro-life cause and the pro-life ethical position.
He does this in two related ways.
He undercuts the values on which the success of the pro-life position ultimately depends: compassion, respect for others, valuing all human life, and the Golden Rule of do-unto-others. If we lose these values, then the pro-life movement loses. It’s as simple as that. Abandon these principles and you abandon the long-run objective.
To embrace Trump is to embrace the opposite of the values the pro-life cause needs to succeed. And because of that, embracing Trump discredits the pro-life message. Nothing persuades negatively quite like the demonstration of hypocrisy.
The Short-Term Gains are Slight and Overstated
Third point: The purported pro-life benefits from Trump’s presidency are not all that great because the political and legal gains on abortion are likely to be short-term, ephemeral, and largely illusory.
The primary benefit of a Trump administration is judicial appointments. But important as judges are, success in judicial appointments will not sufficient to accomplish the goals of the pro-life cause. At most they will produce short-run, marginal gains in abortion jurisprudence.
I hate to say it, but without public sentiment on the pro-life side I doubt that even a “solid” conservative majority on the Court will overrule Roe—particularly if the votes of Trump appointees are needed to supply the margin of victory. Most justices embrace—or hide behind the skirt of, depending on your point of view—the doctrine of stare decisis, at least to some degree or in some forms. Remember Planned Parenthood v. Casey? A majority thought Roe wrong; a majority reaffirmed it nonetheless, including “conservative” Republican appointees.
Point of Principle
My final point is actually the first one: A deal with the Devil is still a deal with the Devil. And such bargains are wrong in principle.
I know what you’re thinking: All politics is compromise, a choice among lesser evils. The alternative is worse.
No, it isn’t. The alternative is bad, but only ordinarily bad. Donald Trump is extraordinarily bad—a dagger pointed at the heart of American democracy, American integrity, and American unity. He is dishonest and corrupt to the core, incompetent, and reckless. He is a true threat to the American order, even if his policy preferences align with yours.
Joe Biden is not. Biden’s politics and policies are largely contrary to my own. He is hugely unsound on abortion. But I have voted for him in order to save the republic.