Where Are the Men

The party claiming to preserve traditional family values can't seem to produce any good examples.

At the time of writing this, Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of the state of Texas. He is also currently running for the Texas seat in the US Senate. If you’ve heard about Ken Paxton, it’s probably because of the numerous scandals he’s had to navigate during his time as AG. He’s previously been charged with felony securities fraud (which he settled out of court) and impeached by his fellow Republicans in the Texas House, as well as (despite posing as a Christian and a family man) cheating on his wife over a period of several years, culminating in her filing for divorce “on biblical grounds”.

Recently, Turning Point Action endorsed Ken Paxton in this Senate race. “Oh well,” you say, “at least he’s not perfect. But he’s still better than a Democrat, right?” Except Paxton isn’t yet running against a Democrat. He’s running against twenty-four-year incumbent Republican John Cornyn in the Republican primary. Cornyn’s crime? Too moderate. For TPUSA, voting with Trump 99% of the time is not good enough. While Cornyn’s been busy being a “normal, Texas conservative Republican” (his words), even confessing that Democrats are “not our enemy”, Paxton has been busy appearing at TPUSA rallies, supporting Trump’s election denial claims, (and, as mentioned, cheating on his wife).

This is a post about Trump, of course. The corruption starts at the top. But what I want to show is that his embrace by the MAGA right is a pattern, not an anomaly. For this post is no longer just about Trump. It is about him, and RFK Jr., and Paxton, and Pete Hegseth, and Tom Homan, Stephen Miller, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, Matt Gaetz, Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski. That’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s a list that immediately comes to mind. All of these have a history of seriously compromised moral integrity, whether that is (multiple) marital infidelities, accepting bribes and other pleasantly convenient kickbacks, and/or undisguised substance abuse. Countless more have lied and looked the other way to allow them to keep their power. The new right has a morality problem: Trump is not the exception, he is now the rule, and there is a pool of filth at the top. You’d be ashamed of this behavior in your sons and appalled if people this reprehensible showed up to date your daughter.

You can say the Democrats are just as bad. Go ahead. Both-sides this all you want. At least the Democrats don't pretend to be reestablishing a Christian society while they're doing it. (Except James Talarico, for some reason.¹) The hypocrisy is what makes this so intolerable. That applies to the people who support it, as well. The Christian Nationalism crowd should be all over this: if you genuinely wanted to set up a God-honoring, Christ-centered state, shouldn't you have qualms about a historically corrupt, unrepentant serial adulterer being the guy in charge? Doug Wilson is happy to lead a “worship service” at the Pentagon at the invitation of Pete Hegseth, but doesn’t seem to have an issue with Hegseth cheating on his second wife with his future third, or his concerning history of alcoholism. (Adultery would be a crime in the Christian Nationalist state Doug Wilson would like to live in, by the way.) Much of the heavy Christian Nationalists’ argument is structured around the idea that we can and should give the government the responsibility to legislate morality and establish a Christian state, because we know that the good guys (Christian men) will be in charge. Words can hardly express how quickly and thoroughly that line of reasoning repudiates itself when these are the public officials CNs endorse and celebrate.

When it gets to the point where you simply and transparently do not care; to the point where winning or owning the libs is more important than the values you claim to uphold, how can you claim to have achieved anything at all? How many times can you willingly trample your claimed ideals before you realize that it was never about the values at all? That the values were merely a convenient means to an end, a front to placate the block of evangelical voters that were the easiest means to achieving power? Not that those were ever any more than a front. This administration is not pro-life. They routinely infringe on free markets and free speech. Trump has pardoned the worst of society, while his family members enrich themselves at taxpayers’ expense. We’re asked to tolerate these flaws as a small price to pay for all the great conservative, Republican, Christian achievements we get in return, but any actual accomplishments form a pattern of happy accidents rather than thoughtful, upstanding governance. Even the Supreme Court, which is and will remain Trump’s most positive legacy, is chastised when they depart from MAGA-first results.

In fact, the regularity with which the MAGA movement casts principled men and women to the side indicates that not only are principles and virtues irrelevant to the MAGA movement, but they often are a hindrance to any sort of prominence in the movement. Mike Pence stood up for what he believed in the wake of January 6, and was discarded. Ben Sasse, one of the most admirable politicians I can remember, did the same, was called a “RINO” by the president, and eventually resigned from the Senate. Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are similar stories: principled conservatives who did not allow their party alliances to take precedence over their beliefs, and were punished for it. That courage is exactly what you should want in your politicians. It’s a rare quality. But it is unwelcome in today’s Republican Party.

On the other hand, we have men like JD Vance. On the surface, perhaps, Vance is one of the admirable statesmen we’re searching for. He’s married with a cute young family, scandal-free, and a professing Catholic. But what, we wonder, does Vance actually believe? What principled constants undergird his worldview? Once upon a time, it was convenient for the young Mr. Vance to criticize the emerging presence of Donald Trump, and Vance was more than willing to.² Some years later, the only paths to power in the Republican Party lay through Trump himself. Not to worry! Vance was more than willing to seize the day. What changed? Not the president. Only a couple of years ago, Vance was calling for the release of the Epstein files. What changed? He has now been relegated to carrying out the administration’s dirty work, tanking much of the bad press from unpopular decisions. At the same time, precious few of his own new postliberal policy positions are implemented. Instead, he gets to lie to his machiavellian heart’s content about tariffs, ICE, or his own church, while accusing the (admirably conservative) Supreme Court of “lawlessness”. Vance’s principles had to stand up against MAGA, and MAGA won.

Perhaps you think this is too high a standard, that this behavior is run-of-the-mill for politicians. (You’re not incorrect.) But that, my dear reader, is my entire point. Because these guys cannot go five full minutes without telling us how they are saving America, how they are reestablishing the forgotten virtues of peace, patriotism, and justice, saving us from the Left, the Deep State, government waste, illegal immigrants, free trade, or whatever else the day’s flavor happens to be. (They named their latest bloated legislation the “SAVE America Act”: frankly, a little on the nose.) Even the “Make America Great Again” slogan from Trump’s insurgence ten years ago necessitates two things: (inimically) that America is no longer great, and (implausibly) that Trump and his coalition are the ones who will restore its greatness. Here’s the thing: I can complain till I’m blue in the face about how this administration isn’t Constitutional enough, how they don’t respect the rule of law, etc. They know that. The Constitution was never the point, simply for the fact that they do not care. “He who saves his country does not violate any law”, etc. Trump is probably the most lawless president America has ever had (not that that’s a measurable metric). However, since they wish to discard the Constitutional structure, the entire justification rests on the premise that what Trump and the administration are doing is “good”: that they are actually saving the country, as they claim.

Even if they were doing some good, that small gain is not worth scrapping the entire Constitutional structure. But the point of this article is to prove that they are not. More precisely, the small goods that are achieved are thoroughly outweighed by the scope of moral corruption that riddles the current right, both in the administration and its influencer class. This is not a “everyone has good days and bad days” situation. This is not a “King David was a good man despite the faults” situation. Rather, the decade-long pattern is a morally bankrupt, self-centered man in charge of a morally bankrupt, self-centered administration. If they're the good guys, as they desperately want you to believe, why don't they do good?

1. I probably won’t write at length on Talarico, so I’ll address some things here. We could talk at length (justifiedly) about the dangers of higher criticism and the destructive state of the PCUSA. That’s a century-old conversation. And sure, none of us truly love our neighbors as we ought. What’s more telling is how perfectly Talarico’s spin on Christianity conveniently supports all of the major positions of the Democratic platform, whether that’s access to abortion, trans rights, or anything else. There is no conviction in his beliefs; they have not defined him. His religion appears carefully tailored to 1) back up whatever he needs to believe politically and 2) package it in a manner palatable to Christian voters. We shall see if he succeeds. And frankly, the same could be said of Ken Paxton.

Tangentially, this is an example of the prima facie argument against Christian Nationalism ever being possible, since the term “Christian” is so broadly claimed as to make a coherent government self-defeating. My Christianity, Talarico’s, and Vance’s are all extremely different, both in belief and practice, but who on our unglorified Earth is going to pass judgment on which is correct? (Yes, the Bible, but it’s not really that simple. Understand what I’m saying here.) Same for kooks like Paula White, etc. When we establish our Christian nation, are we suddenly going to agree on the issues we’ve been (legitimately and otherwise) debating for two millennia? I submit that any sort of broadly, neutrally “Christian” government would be impossible. (I furthermore submit that a lot of professed Christian Nationalists also realize this, and don’t truly want a Christian government as much as they want themselves in power.)

2. He was certainly not the first nor the only one to pull a full 180 in the years since. Ten years is such a long time to hold a principle. I hypothesize that Vance much enjoys fancying himself the “bad boy” of whatever political movement he finds himself a part of, leading him to do things like call Trump “Hitler” in 2016 or open a welcoming door to Nick Fuentes and adjacent elements in 2026. However, just because he enjoyed being right back then does not mean he wasn’t right.