linnposts.com

Next Tuesday’s mid-term elections are when we decide the future of our nation.

That is not being hyperbolic. It is a fact shared by most political observers.

But NY Times columnist, Frank Bruni, went a step further in his assessment of the importance of the mid-terms, writing: “The midterms aren’t just a referendum on which direction the country will go. They’re also a test of where the limits of decency and shamelessness are drawn.”

What’s at stake on November 6 could not be stated more accurately or provocatively. We are determining the future direction of America by choosing whether we stand on the side of decency or on the side of shamelessness.

This is the point to which Donald Trump’s presidency has brought us, and the only people who don’t believe it either don’t care or are not paying attention.

Ironically, the people who most clearly and shockingly don’t care are partisan evangelicals.

Talk about an enigma. It is truly baffling that evangelical Christians are in the grips of the Machiavellian philosophy that says “ends justify means” I discussed two weeks ago to the point where they give Trump a pass on everything.

It hasn’t mattered to them that Trump openly lies as if there is no truth anymore, cheated on Melania while she was giving birth to Barron, using hate speech constantly as he calls his critics names and attacks the press for telling the truth about what he says and does, and makes everything about himself in his frenzy to feed his insatiable ego needs.

Despite this track recored, though, I actually thought that taking immigrant children, including babies, away from their parents, some permanently, would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It wasn’t.

They not only gave him a pass again, some of the defended his actions.

That’s when I knew partisan evangelicals had lost all moral credibility, choosing to be loyal Republicans before everything else, including being Christians.

So come next Tuesday, we know what partisan evangelicals will do. They will choose shamelessness over decency.

I have to believe the majority of voters will do just the opposite. They will choose decency over shamelessness and take control of Congress from Republicans.

I also believe that will be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.

But here’s something else that lifts my spirits.

It’s the thought that as we hand Republicans a decisive defeat in the mid-terms, the nation will also be sending a message to partisan evangelicals that we’ve had enough of their moral hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

So next Tuesday just might be a “two-fer” for the country as we defeat the Republicans and tell evangelicals to go to hell.

If it happens, it really will be morning in America again.