Commentary

What Game of Thrones can teach you about Donald Trump

What Game of Thrones can teach you about Donald Trump
A lot of publications, both on the left and on the right, have questioned why evangelicals (and to a lesser extent Mormons) would support Donald Trump for president. Trump’s religious bona fides are weak, he’s a boor and an unrepentant philanderer. Yet somehow, on June 21, he will be meeting with 500 of the top evangelical leaders in the US to more or less accept their endorsement.

The answer to this question has been brilliantly illustrated on the popular HBO series Game of Thrones, (which in turn draws on late medieval European politics for inspiration.) In Game of Thrones the egotistical, sexually immoral, unpopular, and (mostly) incompetent house Lannister has a precarious hold on the throne of Westeros. They’re desperate for money and support. As a result, they turn to The Church.

The Church has no great love of the corrupt Lannisters, but they agree to support the Lannister claims to the throne and forgive outstanding debts with one condition: The Church will be allowed to re-form its militant order, which is in effect an independent army and police force controlled by the Church and not the king. The desperate Lannisters agree, without really considering the potential consequences.

Here, in the real world in 2016, the egotistical, sexually immoral, unpopular, and (mostly) incompetent Donald Trump is desperate to solidify his base as he pursues a strategy of maximizing his demographic advantages with white people. This strategy doesn’t appear to be viable without evangelicals, so a desperate Trump has turned to church leaders for their support.

Evangelical leaders made two demands: appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court who will give broad latitude to religious freedom claims, and lifting the laws and regulations preventing churches from directly engaging in politics. Trump, much like the Lannisters, has agreed to these demands without really considering the consequences.

Should Trump get elected, and enact his promises, we will have our own Faith Militant order in America.

Churches have been champing at the bit to have the ban on political activism lifted. In 2012 many church leaders dared the federal government to step in when they openly endorsed (conservative) candidates from the pulpit. They campaigned against Proposition 8 in 2008 and HERO in 2015, and have been lobbying to have the ban lifted in recent years.

Take a step back for a moment to consider an environment where federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act protections have been ridiculously expanded by the Hobby Lobby decision, any political activity can be a protected form of religious expression, and the First Amendment Defense Act makes any government intervention in “religious” matters nearly impossible.  Now imagine this combined with all the IRS rules against churches engaging in political activity being lifted, or simply refused to be enforced, by a Trump administration.

The result would be that the government would have almost no ability to limit, regulate, or audit church activities including fundraising, donor bundling, donations to campaigns, and acting in direct support and collaboration with campaigns (unlike PACs, which are forbidden from coordinating with campaigns).  Indeed, existing IRS policy  results in churches almost never being audited now.

Churches would be able to take a cut off the top of these donations, and distribute money into the political system however they wished as a form of “religious expression.”

The result would likely be churches becoming Super-Super PACs, playing king maker across the political spectrum. These religious entities would function as money launderers for billionaires and special interest groups looking to influence the political system without interference from normal campaign laws, IRS audits, and government oversight.

In short, evangelicals are looking for a way to increase their power in politics greatly. The end state goal is a one-way street of power and influence wherein the church can exert influence on the state, but the state has no mechanism to regulate or insulate itself from church influence and activities. Indeed, the state would not even be legally allowed to look at what churches are doing.

In Game of Thrones, the Lannisters are realizing way too late that they never should have struck this deal. The Church has used their influence and the Faith Militant to humiliate the Lannister family and further erode their power, while controlling the King via leverage in the form of hostages.

So too would Trump likely learn (way too late) if he won the election and carried out his end of the bargain afterwards. If he managed to do so, it is only a matter of time (or most likely the 2020 election at the latest) before he realizes that he’s not the one calling the shots anymore.

If you thought the political system was corrupt now, imagine one in the 2020 presidential election where completely opaque Super-Super PACs protected by the First Amendment are skimming off the top of the money they’re laundering for billionaires and special interest groups. The flow of money would be a black hole of information: there would be absolutely no legal mechanism to determine who gave how much money or how it was used. This massive unaccountable amount of money would then be used to directly support campaigns without any oversight or reporting requirements, and be tax deductible as a “charitable” contribution.

Church leaders would play king-maker and ideological gatekeeper to nearly every politician who wants to actually win an election. This could easily devolve into a farce too, where both left and right wing organizations declare themselves religions the same way John Oliver created the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, in order for either political party to remain relevant.

Still, one key difference between Game of Thrones and real life sticks out. While audiences are supposed to pity poor, innocent, and not-so-bright King Tommen, Donald Trump deserves only our scorn for being an adult who claims to be the master of the deal, yet agreeing to one so brutally stupid.

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