Ever since his coming down that escalator, Mr. Trump has been blessed by his enemies. His singular ability to cause people to hate him and do insane things in opposition to him make him appear to be the sane one. No, Mr. Trump is not normal. He doesn’t intend to be. And he certainly doesn’t want to be. And the American people knew they were voting for a disrupter. Yet to many Americans, he appears more normal than his opponents, who to this day think it is perfectly normal to have biological males compete against women in women’s sports. And they think it is immoral for the rest of the country to deny these “transwomen” their inalienable right to be in womens’ locker rooms and bathrooms. Or to be assigned in the same prison cell with females–females that in some cases have histories of being the victim of sexual abuse who are then victimized by a “transwoman” inmate. Most of the American people have a different vision of what is normal, and they don’t need “to be a biologist” to know what a woman is. Yet Democrats cannot leave behind their radical commitment to “transgender” rights, and the sulleness of the Democrats in the chamber revealed a party that is deeply out of touch with America, and one that refuses (so far) to learn the obvious lessons of the 2024 election. Trump 1, Democrats 0.

In his address to Congress Tuesday night, Mr. Trump highlighted these victories, and outlined the dizzying pace of his energetic prosecution of his agenda, Mr. Trump also highlighted his effort to eliminate DEI, CRT and other woke policies that judge people not on merit, but on some identity affinity, which both the Supreme Court and the public (even in far-left California!) reject.

How we went from overcoming blind prejudice that suggested some races are inferior to others, which justified harmful disparate treatment, to a view that we must discriminate to rectify prior discrimination is a question for serious reflection. I didn’t realize how badly we were off track until a few years ago when I saw a protest group of young black women protesting MLK Jr’s hope of a color-blind society, saying if we followed his pathway “we’d still be dreaming.” The toxicity of this approach is seen in a drastic reduction in the view of race relations over the last decade.* Nowhere is this more detrimental to our country than our military service, where SecDef Pete Hegseth is relentlessly working to eliminate this scourge. It should go without saying, but unfortunately it must be said, that the Christian worldview completely repudiates any idea of intrinsic differences between the races, and there is no difference in inherent dignity between the sexes. We are all equally created in God’s image, and we are all equally fallen creatures who rebel against a Holy God and are desperately in need of His grace and forgiveness. To set in policy any legal distinction between the races is repugnant. This doesn’t mean we as individuals should not go the extra mile to support and encourage minorities and those who have had all kinds of adversity in their backgrounds (well beyond the category of simply race). As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor 12:

²⁰ But now there are many members, but one body. ²¹ And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; ²³ and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, ²⁴ whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, ²⁵ so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

But rendering more honor to one cannot mean rendering less honor to others–and that is the direction that CRT takes us, with its anti-biblical view of categorizing people as oppressors or oppressed. This became more poignant for me after reading about what had been happening at the Air Force Academy over the Christmas break. In the Department of Economics and Geosciences (where I used to teach) there is a civilian professor who is alleged to have called cadets as they entered the room Cadet Smith, Cadet Jones and then the first white male that comes in she calls “White boy #1” and the second “White boy #2” since “you all look alike.” According to this report, there was some level of discipline (she met with the Dept Head and the student) but she still teaches at the Academy. But unfortunately, the Dean of Faculty (Brig Gen Letendre) is deeply committed to DEI and needs to go–there are still more general officers that are part of the problem. But SecDef’s meeting with each of the Academy’s superintendents is a good start. As he tries to inculcate a warrior’s ethos at the Service Academies, I hope he’ll consider looking at the military/civilian mix, and we should not have “transwomen” economics professors as the role models for our future military leaders.** Trump 2, Democrats 0.

Finally, Mr. Trump could rightly crow about ending the border insanity. His best line of the night: (responding to Democrat’s view that we needed legislation to fix the border, Mr. Trump replied “it turned out that all we needed is a new president.” Well done, Mr. President, well done. There is of course more to do here, but what a great start. Trump 3, Democrats 0.

As we predicted, there is going to much to criticize Mr. Trump for, and much to praise. For this post, I have nothing but praise.

* This is not to assert that CRT/DEI training is causal, as there were multiple factors at play here–especially highly publicized police shootings and associated riots, but this was part of the witches brew.

** I’m not calling for people that suffer from gender dysphoria being denied employment generally, but teaching at a Service Academy is not a fundamental human right and the overarching requirement must be how do we effectively train warriors who are prepared to lead and potentially die for their country. A key requirement for the faculty there is to be a role model for students, which is why there needs to be a significant reduction in civilians generally. There are many other institutions that would have appropriate employment possibilities for this individual–find one of them. It’s similar to what we see at Cedarville–there are many fine people that may want to teach at our university that are not fit for our particular mission because of their religious beliefs. If you’re not a mission fit, you’re not a mission fit, either at Cedarville or a military academy.