A powerful new book by two former Democrats urges Catholics of all parties to vote for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election, insisting that he is the “only choice” for president.
A Catholic Vote for Trump: The Only Choice in 2020 for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents Alike by active Catholics Jesse Romero and John McCullough makes the case that Donald Trump has proved himself to be the greatest ally to Catholics to occupy the White House in many years.
Part of the argument for Trump stems from the way the Democrat Party has steadily and unapologetically alienated itself from Catholics, trampling and spitting on their most cherished principles and beliefs, from the right to life to religious freedom to the complementarity of men and women.
“This is no longer your daddy’s Democratic Party. Catholic Democrats have to decide if they are leaving the party or if the party left them,” the book argues.
“Sadly, over the course of time, many people came to prioritize their ‘identity’ as Democrats over their identity as Catholics,” the authors state. “Tragically, that loyalty to the Democratic Party has been the solvent in which the faith lives of innumerable Catholics, many prominent politicians among them, have dissolved.”
The 2016 election was a true “tipping point in the moral direction of our country,” an event that gave Democrats the “permission” they needed to leave their party and vote Republican. And President Trump has proven a greater ally to Catholics than anyone imagined he would be, the book contends.
To take just one example, that of abortion, Donald Trump “has been the best friend the unborn around the world have had in the Oval Office since Roe v. Wade. He pledged to name pro-life justices, and he has done so,” the authors note.
But the pro-life cause, as central as it is, is far from the only area where Trump’s policies align with Catholic concerns, the book asserts. In everything from foreign policy, to job creation, to immigration, to honesty regarding radical Islam, to school choice, to marriage, to religious liberty and more, Mr. Trump has shown himself to be a true friend to Catholics.
The book is not blind to Mr. Trump’s many flaws and readily acknowledges points where his position on various issues differs from Catholic Church teaching, but the convergence between them on so many core issues, combined with the enormous gulf separating the new Democrats from the Catholic Church, makes the election choice a no-brainer, the authors insist.
One of the two authors, Mexican-American Jesse Romero, even offers a personal take on immigration and President Trump’s insistence on the importance of non-porous borders:
The two main categories in this debate are legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. Those that believe in the rule of law and lawbreakers.
The government has a moral and legal obligation to protect the due process rights of the people who immigrate here legally, and, on the flipside, they have the right to prevent the immigration of those who cross our borders illegally. This is not anti-immigration; in fact, it’s very pro-immigration.
It is not Catholic or Christian to advocate for irresponsible immigration. Immigration, to truly be a win-win for immigrants and the host country, requires order, knowledge, and balance.
The book closes with an afterword that examines the coronavirus crisis and the president’s response to it, concluding that “we would want nobody other than Donald John Trump in the White House during a difficult time.”
“For it is not only through his successes that you gauge the mettle of a man or the merit of a president,” the authors continue. “No, quite often you can take the measure of a man much more accurately by observing him during the trials and vicissitudes of life. And either metric, judged by his successes or how he handles adversity, Donald Trump is a man and president to be admired, even marveled at.”
“Before and throughout his presidency,” they observe, “his opponents have stopped at nothing in their efforts to destroy him, but he soldiers on, doing great things for the country, with his good humor intact.”