Not the time or place

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens,” King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Sadly, President Trump thought the National Prayer Breakfast was the time and place for an explicitly partisan speech. He failed to meet the moment.

This has been a recurrent pattern of late with the president. After the actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered by Reiner’s son, the president thought it was an appropriate time to attack Reiner. Trump said of the murdered man that he “has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind-crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” The all-caps were the president’s.

After a dustup with NATO allies, President Trump dismissed the deaths of allied servicemen serving with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a Fox News interview, the president said of the NATO allies, “We’ve never needed them. … They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.” For every two American soldiers who died in Afghanistan, a soldier from a NATO ally also died. Per capita, Denmark suffered more than any country other than the United States.

This past week at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president labeled Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie “a moron,” after declaring that “religion is back now hotter than ever before.” The president’s speech was a laundry list of his political accomplishments, insults for his political enemies, and not much on prayer and faith. He said the word “religion” 20 times, “faith” eleven times, “prayer” nine times, and “Jesus” not at all.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gave the keynote address and spoke about faith and struggle, sharing his story of overcoming the death of his wife and how it impacted his family. It stood more in line with the messages given by prior presidents than the current president. It met the moment and the time in a way President Trump’s did not.

But that may not be President Trump’s fault.

On Friday, overshadowing the breakfast, President Trump’s TruthSocial account twice posted a video that ended with an image of Barack and Michele Obama as gorillas. While it generated some surprisingly swift criticism from other Republican leaders, many of President Trump’s supporters either rolled their eyes, excused it, or criticized those who criticized the president for allowing it on his social media account. After twelve hours, the president’s team deleted the video. The president later admitted he had a staffer post the video, which was a screen recording about the 2020 election that then went to another video, based on The Lion King, and the president had not seen how the recording ended.

The president having that video on his social media account and his messaging at the National Prayer Breakfast are related. His base has excused the president’s excesses and has given up even loving chastisement to do better. The result is a president constantly failing to meet the moment, but who gets excused because he is not of the party opposite.

Unfortunately, the problem will only get worse as Republicans head closer to midterm elections that put their power in peril. The Dispatch, an online publication, printed a piece about the president’s speech by Barack Obama’s faith advisor, Michael Wear. Wear and the Dispatch were criticized from the right as progressive or “Trump hating.” Conservative evangelical pastor John Piper voiced his criticisms on social media about the president’s social media video, only to be denounced by some Trump supporters for not having also criticized various excesses of the left.

The permission structure from President Trump’s supporters is now in place for the president’s excesses never to be reined in. It will, undoubtedly, have a metastasizing impact. The president never has to exercise self-control or correct himself because his supporters will either excuse his behavior or attack those who push back. Then, more voters will feel alienated from a president who, these voters tell pollsters, are increasingly disillusioned with the president’s performance. The president always has an opportunity to change course and meet the moment, and his supporters should hope devastating political losses in November are not the impetus for change.

President Trump missed the moment at the National Prayer Breakfast. Christian supporters of President Trump could help the president they support if they speak up and encourage him towards a better path. Many of the president’s supporters identify as evangelical but rarely attend church. Those who do and who are grounded in their faith could set a positive example by showing their support and also their disappointment. It is what the president needs to see and hear so that he might rise to the occasion.