By Erick Erickson

My second point was that I feared if he were somehow able to beat Hillary Clinton, the long term devastation he would do to the nation as a whole, and the GOP in particular, would pale in comparison to four years of Clinton. Both of these points were joined to the third: Donald Trump does not have the moral character we should want in a President and is a terrible role model for our children. If God wanted him in the White House, he did not need Christians dirtying their hands to get him there.

But dirtying their hands, many Christians did. A good number have sacrificed their witness in order to get their President. And too many are still willing to beclown themselves to serve as loyal foot soldiers and apologists for President Trump.

Everyone right of center can agree that Hillary Clinton stocking the judiciary with judges for four years would be a terrible thing. But I would submit that four years of Clinton nominating judges through a Republican Senate pales in comparison to a generational defeat of the GOP that sees decades of liberal judges approved by liberal Presidents and liberal senates. I fear that might happen.

Barack Obama was a destructive force to the Democratic Party, but he left office still highly regarded by more than half the country. Donald Trump entered office losing the popular vote and has done his damnedest to ensure everyone who did like him walks away.

President Trump’s supporters love to point out how everyone got it wrong except them, but they fail to note that President Trump lost the popular vote. In fact, he was elected because of 70,000 votes spread between Wisconsin, Michigan, an Pennsylvania.

Does anyone reasonably think he is holding on to those 70,000 voters and gaining other votes to stem the tide of organized Democrat get out the vote efforts? I dare say he is squandering any good will he had and is losing more people than he is gaining because of his antics.

On top of all that, consider this — President Trump convinced a good number of people that he was a brilliant businessman and negotiator. He convinced many that he could get much from the negotiating table. But he has gotten very little thus far and if the Democrats take back Congress, he will get even less. If he pivots left, he loses his base. If he stays where he is, he does not gain any ground.

The result? The GOP risks being devastated at the polls and not just on a temporary basis, but for years. The GOP recovered quickly from the Nixonian era troubles at the Presidential level, but it took years to get them reorganized at the congressional and state level. Even then, what helped was a GOP willing to hold President Nixon accountable.

Right now, the Washington Republicans are serving as enablers and yes men to all the worst tendencies by this President. The voters will respond and rebuke them. God help us all when that happens.

As for the Christians serving as apologists for Donald Trump, they would be wise to note that they think they saved themselves and their faith by trusting in a President. God has a funny way of turning things like that on its head and forcing them to trust in the Lord instead. And usually, such events take the form of making a victory, in hindsight, clearly pyrrhic.