Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of appearing on Arthelene Rippy’s show, Homekeepers. The Christian Television Network host interviewed me about my latest book, Trump Aftershock, which you can purchase at trumpaftershock.com.
I’ve done many interviews on my media tour for Trump Aftershock, but I think Rippy’s was one of the best, so I want to share it with you in two parts. You can click here to listen to part 1 or scroll to the end of this article.
As our culture grows increasingly darker, Rippy believes Trump is the change agent we need. In fact, of all the presidents she can remember, none compare to Trump and what he’s accomplished.
“[Trump] has really been full of surprises,” Rippy says. “I remember Roosevelt. I was a very little girl, but I remember he was president. And I remember Truman, who is really an amazing guy if you look back in history. And then all of the others—they all had strengths and weaknesses—but nobody compares to this guy [Trump].”
I agree with Rippy. We’ve had some great presidents and some bad presidents, but at a very critical time in history, I believe God raised up this outsider to shake the U.S. out of its comfortable slide into globalism.
Rippy has dedicated much of her life to equipping Spirit-led mothers to discern what God is doing in our culture and how to lead their families in His will. She wants God-fearing families to know that Trump has gone beyond any president before him in promoting Christian values and pointing our nation in the right direction.
During our interview, Rippy pointed out Trump’s election was like an earthquake, just as my book’s title conveys. She recalls the night of Trump’s election and the shock she felt the following morning.
“I went to bed [that night] because I had shows the next day, and when I got up the next morning and turned on the TV, and that banner at the bottom said he was elected, I stood there stunned for quite a while,” she tells me.
I remember that night too. I was at Trump’s election party, waiting for hours for the results to come in. Finally, at 2:45 a.m., Trump came out and announced he won the presidency. People have told me he was surprised he won and didn’t even have an acceptance speech prepared! Whether that’s true or not, I can’t be sure, but I know many across the U.S. were stunned he won. For many conservative Christians, perhaps, it felt too good to be true.
In part, I think this shock came from the polls leading up to the election, which heavily favored Hillary Clinton to win. But the sad truth is that many Trump supporters were intimidated to speak out in favor of him. After all, the media lambasted the former candidate and anyone who supported his platform.
As Rippy pointed out in our interview, the evangelical vote played a huge factor in Trump’s election, which I discuss in depth in God and Donald Trump.
“We have a lot of—I’m sorry—lazy Christians who don’t get to the polls, and that is an absolute disgrace,” she says. “That ability to vote is holy to me.”
Although the upsurge in evangelical voters in the 2016 election was surprising to an extent, it also made sense. After all, the U.S. was going down a path of increasing wickedness and liberalization for years, and Trump seemed the only realistic hope of flipping that trend. Rippy agrees and says as liberals get more liberal, the differences between the left and the right become more distinct.
“We’re really getting to a place in America where the line is well-defined,” she says. “And if you are on the side of abortion, where they dismember babies’ bodies inside the mother’s womb and they sell the parts, and people who promote same-sex marriage, which trashes how many thousands of years of marriage that God set up in the Garden of Eden—those lines are pretty plain. You’re either on one side or the other.”
Having grown up in the South, Rippy has seen the effects of cultural Christianity, where almost everyone goes to church on Sunday because it’s good for business but then lives like a heathen the rest of the week. Nowadays, you can’t get away with hypocrisy that easily.
Because of this, it’s crucial that Christians vote for the policies that best match biblical values instead of focusing on the actual candidate. Jerry Falwell Jr., who wrote the foreword for Trump Aftershock, often said something that has always stuck with me: We’re not electing a pastor-in-chief; we’re electing a commander-in-chief.
“As believers, our job is to vote the most righteous platform,” Rippy says. “I tell people, ‘Can you stand on that platform? If you can’t, then they shouldn’t have your vote.'”
Although few may wish Trump were their pastor, I would say that as commander in chief, he has exceeded expectations. Instead of spouting conservative promises with no intention of keeping them—as many Republican candidates do nowadays—Trump has been true to his word. For example, unlike every president since Bill Clinton, Trump fulfilled his promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That embassy move has sparked a wave of other countries promising to do the same.
I think part of the reason Trump has been such a change agent for America is the fact that he doesn’t play according to the rules of politics. He refuses to muck around in the deep state. On the contrary, he seems as though he truly wants to make America great again. And for that, Americans can be grateful.
Be sure to listen to the entire interview to hear Rippy and I discuss the benefits of Trump’s experience in business, his and First Lady Melania Trump’s outspoken support of biblical values and more. And to order your own copy of Trump Aftershock, just visit trumpaftershock.com!
Stephen Strang