Key #NeverTrump Leader Announces He's Now #MaybeTrump

Matt Barber, one of the founding members of the #NeverTrump faction, has said he's glad he attended the gathering of evangelical leaders in New York City last week to meet with Donald Trump.

The founder and editor of BarbWire.com was an early and enthusiastic supporter of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Republican presidential primary. But he recently wrote about his experience in The Big Apple for his website, noting the experience has moved him away from #NeverTrump to #MaybeTrump:

For better or worse, this election has come down to two people: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Anyone who thinks that some third-party candidate or parliamentary shenanigans at the GOP Convention in Cleveland will change this reality are fooling themselves. Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.

I believe that if Hillary Clinton is elected, America is done, the U.S. Constitution is toast, and she will finish what Obama began—the "fundamental transformation" of America into a godless, neo-Marxist Third World banana republic. We've had decades of the Clintons to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that this woman is not only the most corrupt elitist to ever seek the presidency, she's an evil ideologue hell-bent on the abolition of individual liberties and religious freedom. While Great Britain just voted to reclaim its national sovereignty, a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to completely relinquish our own.

That leaves just Donald Trump, who "remains a wild card." Barber said he remains skeptical, but saw a different side of the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting last week. Among the aspects of the likely GOP contender he likes: ◦"He displayed a level of genuine humility, I believe, and a sincere willingness to listen and understand both our concerns about him and his past, as well as our concerns about America's future." ◦"Mr. Trump was clearly out of his comfort zone, the business world, yet had the mettle to answer tough questions in a room with nearly 1,000 highly dubious evangelical and Catholic leaders." ◦"He pledged ... to always appoint strict constructionist, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and pro-religious liberty judges and justices, and further promised to do away with the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which, as most credible legal scholars agree, unconstitutionally muzzles pastors from the pulpit on issues relating to politics and political candidates." ◦"Mr. Trump gave the strongest indication yet that he intends to be an unwavering ally to Israel."

But, there's still a ways to go to completely win Barber—and likely, many others like him—over. One of the biggest issues, he said, was Trump's "roundabout answers" to questions about the "radical LGBT agenda," and how he would use his constitutional authority to protect religious liberty and the safety of women and children in bathrooms.

And while some have mocked Trump's comments about the need to "spiritize this country," Barber—who has written about the same issue in his book Hating Jesus: The American Left's War on Christianity—said he agreed with the sentiment. And, in closing, he said all Christians need to "humbly seek God's wisdom in all we do and say," as well as how they vote.

"I can't know what God's doing here. None of us can," he wrote. "If he's planning to use Donald Trump as our next president—as our King Cyrus—then the last thing I want is to stand in His way.

"Should you vote for Donald Trump? I don't have the answer. Pray about it. That's what I'm doing."

Look around you, Mr. Barber. What has happened in your lifetime?

Trump: "Yet today, 240 years after the Revolution, we have turned things completely upside-down." - Donald Trump

And it's not just about jobs and economic opportunity. It's about freedom, exercise of "Creator-endowed rights and liberties," and opportunity for each citizen, not just self-appointed elitists who fancy themselves as entitled to make decisions for all.

Thomas Jefferson wrote to Roger Weightman on June 24, 1826:

" I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. may it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."
Some time ago, I posted the following:
"Perhaps the so-called "progressive" enemies of freedom understand better than those who fancy themselves as "conservatives" that in order to reverse the Founders' ideas of "People over government," and institute "government over People," they must first marginalize and destroy the ideas from which liberty is derived.
The writings of America's Founders are replete with references which rebuke would-be tyrants and cite a Higher Source for life, liberty and rights. Early histories confirm those facts.
As so-called "progressives" have led a movement in forsaking the Founders' "reliance on Divine Providence," and belief that individuals are "endowed by their Creator," they also have forsaken the principles underlying America's Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and are systematically dismantling the greatest protections for liberty ever established for a people.
"Ideas have consequences"(Weaver).
The ideas of 1776 came out of a set of ideas consistent with liberty.
We tend to forget, or have never considered, that other world views existed then, as now.
Unless today's citizens rediscover the ideas of liberty existing in what Jefferson called "the American mind" of 1776, we risk going back to the "Old World" ideas which preceded the "Miracle of America."
There are those who call themselves "progressives," when, in fact, their ideas are regressive and enslaving, and as old as the history of civilization.
Would suggest to any who wish an authentic history of the ideas underlying American's founding a visit to this web site, at which Richard Frothingham's outstanding 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States" can be read on line.
This 600+-page history traces the ideas which gave birth to the American founding. Throughout, Richard Frothingham, the historian, develops the idea that it is "the Christian idea of man" which allowed the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to become a reality--an idea which recognizes the individual and the Source of his/her "Creator"-endowed life, liberty and law.
Is there any wonder that the enemies of freedom, the so-called "progressives," do not promote such authentic histories of America? Their philosophy puts something called "the state," or "global interests" as being superior to individuals and requires a political elitist group to decide what role individuals are to play.
In other words, they must turn the Founders' ideas upside-down in order to achieve a common mediocrity for individuals and power for themselves.

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