Would Satan and Jesus vote for different candidates?

‘What would Jesus do?’ became a powerful catch phrase with Christians in the 1990s. The question easily morphs into ‘who would Jesus vote for?’ during each election cycle, each side convinced that the Son of God is on their side. Just as interesting a question is, who would Satan vote for?

Jesus is the Word made flesh, and the Word is Truth. By contrast, Satan is the great Deceiver, the prince of lies.

Truth vs. deceit

The clash between Christ and Satan pits Truth against deceit. It’s a fool’s errand to claim to know the mind of God or the depth of the devil’s deviousness. And yet if Jesus and Satan are theoretically polar opposites, their respective votes should cancel each other out, right?

Let’s look at the qualifications of each presidential contender through the prism of the character qualities modeled by Christ the King in contrast to those encouraged by the King of Hell.

Donald Trump’s character

Donald Trump has much going for him in Satan’s eyes. It often seems as if our president’s god is wealth and fame. He wears pride and narcissism on his shirt sleeve almost as a badge of honor. He is a serial adulterer who has been a boor in his relationships with the opposite sex throughout his storied career.

Mr. Trump’s effusive bombast is a stark contrast to the virtue of humility preached by Christ at the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

Satan finds much to admire in Donald Trump.

Joe Biden’s character

Although Joe Biden’s character shortcomings have been aggressively downplayed by the press, the former vice president has some. Satan would love Mr. Biden’s serial thievery, as demonstrated by his comfort at plagiarizing (stealing) other people’s work.

Biden’s theft was put on full display at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 23, 1987, when he shamelessly pilfered a speech by English politician, Nile Kinnock.

Biden’s theft went beyond mere words, he stole Mr. Kinnock’s life story. Kinnock’s father was a coal miner, Biden’s sold cars. In fact, even though Biden lived in coal country, none of his immediate forebears were actually miners.

Satan surely would have admired that this wasn’t just theft, it was a lie. Biden even lied about him being the first in his family to get a college degree. In fact, a number of his relatives on his mother’s side had earned such degrees.

Theft was nothing new to Biden. He was disciplined in the 1960s during law school in another plagiarism incident. Just last year, his climate plan cut and pasted from work done by climate activists without attribution.

In another fabrication, Biden said he attempted to visit Nelson Mandela when the future South African president was still in prison (a lie), that Biden was arrested making the attempt (a lie), and that subsequently, Mandela later thanked him for making the attempt (a lie, because the former never occurred).

Beyond plagiarism, Mr. Biden has been accused by eight women for inappropriately touching them or violating their personal space. One woman, Tara Reade, graphically describes the incident as a sexual assault.

A Biden tragedy

Biden experienced profound tragedy when his first wife and baby daughter were killed in a traffic accident in 1972. Police said Mrs. Biden drove into the path of the truck. Mr. Biden told a different story on many occasions over the years:

“I got elected when I was 29, and I got elected November the 7th. And on Dec. 18 of that year, my wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly — and I never pursued it — drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly, and killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons, with what were thought to be at the time permanent, fundamental injuries.”

The chief prosecutor on the case, Jerome O. Herlihy, shot down that claim:

“The rumor about alcohol being involved by either party, especially the truck driver (Dunn), is incorrect.”

The truck driver, Curtis C. Dunn, went to his grave in 1999, having been publicly … and dishonestly … vilified by Joe Biden for 27 years.

Again, there is much for Satan to find admirable in Joe Biden’s character deficiencies. Would he find Trump or Biden the better pick?

How about Jesus? He sees in Mssrs. Trump and Biden two seriously impaired men in the character department.

The tipping point

The tipping point most likely lies with public policy. For Christ, He wants to vote for the candidate who best upholds Catholic social justice teachings, with its deference towards the care of the weak and the poor.

The two candidates disagree on which policies to pursue in fulfilling social justice goals. But most of these are legitimate disagreements, as they depend on prudential judgement. A writer for The American Catholic defined the term like this:

“A prudential judgement is the application of moral principles to a particular case in order to achieve good and avoid evil.”

Honorable people can disagree on the size of the welfare state, on the size of the minimum wage, and on which approach to immigration balances the needs of our country while respecting the dignity of the immigrant.

The problem of abortion

It is the first social justice teaching that presents a problem:

“The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. This belief is the foundation of all the principles of our social teaching.”

Biden and Trump have no common ground on this front. Trump opposes abortion; he opposes public funding of abortion; and he believes in conscience protections for people of faith who believe abortion to be a grave sin.

Candidate Biden disagrees on each front, but the Church doesn’t allow prudential judgement on abortion.

Jesus talked often about His ‘little ones’

Jesus expressed strong feelings for His little ones, and spoke about them often:

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [Matthew 18:10]

“If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” [Matthew 18:6]

“In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” [Matthew 18:14]

“But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” [Luke 18:16]

Biden won’t stand up for the ‘little ones’

Mr. Biden says he accepts his church’s teachings on when life begins for these little ones and their opposition to abortion, but that he can’t impose it on anyone else. In other words, he won’t stand up for Christ’s ‘little ones’, 60 million of whom have perished under the policy Mr. Biden embraces.

So to the question: Would Satan and Jesus vote for different candidates? And if yes, why? What do you think?

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