Paul Prather: We’re watching our political world go nuts

I’ve observed more U.S. presidential races than I care to count, but this one already is the dangedest, and Lord only knows where it will wind up.

I try not to to despair during or immediately after any election season, because things rarely turn out afterward to have been as dire as they seemed during the heat of the race.

The first presidential contest I remember firsthand was Kennedy vs. Nixon.

Down in Somerset, my dear Landmark Baptist, Republican grandmother fell into a funk when Kennedy won. She parked herself glumly in her easy chair, her chin resting on a tiny balled fist, convinced the nation was doomed.

“Cheer up, Mother, it could be worse,” my dad suggested brightly. (The problem child, he’d recently committed the dual apostasies of going over to the Southern Baptists and the Democrats, sins that gnawed Granny’s craw.)

“At least they didn’t elect a Communist,” Dad reminded her.

“(Expletive),” Granny replied. “Better a Communist than a Catholic.”

As it turned out, Kennedy wasn’t the Vatican’s Manchurian candidate after all, and the nation survived his brief, tragically ended tenure.

But despite my best efforts, as I survey the field of 2016, I’m beginning to feel as glum as Granny in 1960.

I’m writing this piece before Super Tuesday, so I don’t know what impact those primaries will have.

To this point, though, the most puzzling development has been Donald Trump’s intractable popularity.

I’ve mentioned this before. He’s a juggernaut among rank-and-file religious conservatives, even though it’s hard to imagine a candidate more odious to serious, thinking Christian leaders.

The usually gracious Pope Francis described Trump as “not Christian.”

More stunning, best-selling author Max Lucado, a former minister of the ultra-conservative Church of Christ and a prominent evangelical, broke his longstanding silence on politics to blast Trump in a Washington Post op-ed.

Lucado argued that Trump lacks even basic human decency.

“He ridiculed a war hero,” Lucado wrote. “He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to a former first lady, Barbara Bush as ‘mommy’ and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people ‘stupid’ and ‘dummy.’ One writer cataloged 64 occasions that he called someone ‘loser.’ These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded and presented.

“Such insensitivities wouldn’t be acceptable even for a middle school student body election,” Lucado continued. “But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith?”

Yet many Christians worship at Trump’s altar.

Last month, I cited a social science scholar, Matthew MacWilliams, whose research suggests that those evangelicals’ support for Trump might have more to do with their desire for an authoritarian leader, and with their fear of terrorism, than with their faith.

Similarly, Lucado said Trump’s support might be the result of some deep-seated, undefinable anger: “As one man said, ‘We are voting with our middle finger.’”

Yikes. That’s no recipe for installing sound government. Or even sane government.

Who else do the Republicans offer?

Sen. Ted Cruz, who might be scarier than Trump.

I’ll let Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican — which is to say, a man to the right of, oh, Barry “In-Your-Guts-You-Know-He’s-Nuts” Goldwater — characterize the profoundly loathed Cruz.

“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate,” Graham said, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, “nobody could convict you.”

Then there’s a third GOP candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, who at 44 is such a nonentity I don’t know what to say about him, good or bad.

Graham said his beloved party has basically gone “bat**** crazy.”

Who could argue with that?

Now, let’s consider the Democrats.

The most entertaining, and in an odd way, Christian, candidate in either party is Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yes, he’s a secular Jew, but his social positions sound more like those of Jesus — feed the poor, love your neighbor, elevate the downtrodden — than those of any other candidate. I like the guy.

However, Sanders is 74 years old. And a socialist, for crying out loud.

Assuming he could survive a term in office while dodging dementia — and who knows? — can you imagine our current Congress working with him? Talk about more gridlock.

The most experienced candidate is Hillary Clinton: former first lady, former U.S. senator, former U.S. secretary of state.

But Clinton is so combative and dour and secretive and didactic that she’s having trouble winning loyalty even from young feminists, who should be her natural constituency, given that’s she’s potentially the first female president. Instead, young liberal women are feeling the Bern.

It’s not just the Republican Party that’s gone crazy, then. It’s the whole republic.

I’ve been around since the black-and-white TV days, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

It makes me glad to be a Christian. If we Americans manage to immolate ourselves in a giant bonfire of rage and silliness — which looks to be where we’re headed — at least I hope to find heavenly bliss, and perhaps some common sense, beyond the veil.

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Paul Prather: We’re watching our political world go nuts."