Xiao Sanza, "Trumpism and the Future of China"

Xiao Sanza, “Trumpism and the Future of China”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
The text translated here is taken from a volume entitled American Order:  Trumpism as Understood by Chinese Conservatives, an edited volume whose authors are all mainland Chinese intellectuals, published in Taiwan in the summer of 2021.  At least two of the chapter authors—Gao Quanxi and Liu Junning—are on my radar as important Chinese liberal intellectuals, and four other chapter authors have Aisixiang pages devoted to their work, suggesting that they are reasonably well known in China.  Most of the authors are professors of either law or economics, but there is one journalist, one director of a research institute devoted to issues of religious freedom, and one independent scholar.  I include the volume’s table of contents at the end of this introduction.  I happened on the book while doing research for a chapter of a book manuscript I am currently working on; the chapter deals with how Chinese intellectuals view Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump.  A Kindle version of the book is available on Amazon for less than 10$US.
 
Although all the chapter authors are intellectuals, American Order is not a work of scholarship that purports to analyze Trumpism from a conservative Chinese perspective, but rather a work of advocacy that extols the virtues of Trumpism for the United States, for China, and for the world.  I have not read the entire volume carefully, but my impression is that in terms of content, this book differs little from the writings of American Trump supporters, and the main themes include attacks on political correctness and multiculturalism, and praise of Christian values, Anglo-Saxon culture, and Western civilization, all of which is unusual and even jarring in a Chinese context.  In other words, while there is some discussion of China, the volume as a whole is not an exercise in "Trumpism with Chinese characteristics," but simply Trumpism in Chinese.  Let's take the chapter translated here as an example, "Trumpism and the Future of China" by Xiao Sanza.  
 
Xiao Sanza (b. 1975) is an entrepreneur-turned-independent scholar who is "the head of a certain think tank," according to the thumbnail biography on his Aisixiang page.  He has "long been interested in how to bring freedom to China and how to bring about a creative transformation of China's intellectual tradition," according to the same biography.  Among other things, he has published two books of interviews with leading Chinese intellectuals, one in 2012 entitled Between a Rock and a Hard Place:  Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Intellectuals, and another in 2016 entitled Standing with the Hedgehog (presumably a reference to Isaiah Berlin's 1953 volume The Hedgehog and the Fox).  In both volumes, the intellectuals Xiao interviewed were indeed among the most important and sought-after in China at the time, so there is every reason to believe that he is a serious intellectual, or at least a serious intellectual entrepreneur.
 
In the text translated here, Xiao writes with the fervor of a recent Christian convert and defines Trumpism as “Christian conservatism in the political-philosophical sense…The opposite of Trumpism is liberalism, individualism, progressivism, pluralism, etc.… Christian conservatism is not a new trend. We are calling it Trumpism at the current moment because President Trump has taken up the banner of Christian conservatism at this crucial historical juncture. As everyone knows, Christian conservatism is being attacked on any number of fronts throughout the Western world, to the point that we see signs of decline.  As a lone hero, Trump wants to turn back the tide, which is of great practical and historical significance. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate that Trumpism serve as the name of contemporary Christian conservatism.”
 
To make his case, Xiao returns to the very beginning of Western civilization, arguing that it was the fruit of the happy marriage of Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy, the former top-down, God-centered, and grounded in revelation, the latter bottom-up, man-centered, and grounded in self-discovery (or "enlightenment").  The West has been at its best when it has embraced both strands, although for Xiao faith is more important than human reason because God is constant while rationality is fickle.  Xiao traces various phases of this back-and-forth marriage over the centuries, a key moment being the Renaissance-Reformation, when the West rejected the corrupt, oppressive Catholic Church in favor of Protestantism, which allowed the individual to find God without intermediaries (Hebrew faith) and freed the human mind to celebrate man in art and literature (Greek philosophy).
 
A few centuries later, this blossomed into the Enlightenment, or rather two Enlightenments: the French Enlightenment, based on the folly of popular will and human emancipation, and the Scottish Enlightenment, which respected the possibilities of human reason but did not reject God.    Xiao argues that “Trumpism originated in the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a conservatism that exalts the sovereignty of God while cultivating the freedom of man, meaning that Trump is the ideological successor of Edmund Burke. In other words, Trumpism is an organic blend of the Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy.”
 
Xiao also insists that the founding of the United States grew out of the Scottish Enlightenment, meaning that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.  He is less clear on exactly how America lost its way after its founding, observing that “After the Enlightenment, the authority to guide the people's hearts passed from the clergy to the intellectuals, who appointed themselves the conscience and beacon of society and unknowingly played the role of prophets and priests. Today they dominate the university lecterns and flood the mass media, focusing on their so-called independence, originality, and their never-ending need to speak out, but they are never responsible for the consequences of their words. Since each intellectual has a different agenda, it is inevitable that pluralism becomes ‘politically correct.’” To save itself, the West, and the world, America must reject pluralism and return to its original faith in the one true God and divine revelation. 

Xiao concludes that:
 
“Trumpism is a social stabilizer. Why did Trumpism emerge in the United States? Because many people recognize the importance of the spiritual foundations of the nation and they want to protect them…Trumpism is an important trend that emerged in response to the arrival of postmodern societies in the West, and it demonstrates the common sense truth that there is no freedom without order, and that stable order comes from stable hearts and minds.”
 
Much of Xiao's essay is pure political boilerplate:  Republicans support order, Democrats support looting; Republicans support equal opportunity, Democrats discriminate on the basis of ethnicity; Republicans support legal immigration, Democrats support open borders; there are no "moderate liberals" because liberalism is based on pluralism, which inevitably deviates from the truth of the one sovereign Lord.  He concludes his essay, however, with a somewhat curious discussion of ten "myths" about America currently entertained by Chinese intellectuals, arguing that the real America is not what they think, but that it could be if Trump turned things around.  For example, he mocks them for naively believing that the American system is too "perfect" for voter fraud - his target audience here must be Chinese liberals who do not support Donald Trump.  As for Trump, Xiao is convinced that he is running not just to occupy the Oval Office once again but to save Western civilization as a whole.  Xiao was writing at the time that Trump was contesting the outcome of the 2020 election but appears not to be disturbed by this.
 
What are we to make of essays like Xiao's, which again seems to be of a piece with the other chapters in the volume?  When I first encountered these Chinese Trump supporters, I assumed that there were elements of satire or parody at play, that their embrace of Trump was a veiled attempt to criticize Xi Jinping, their dislike of political correctness a rejection of Party-speak, their lavish praise of American and Western civilization a way of challenging Xi's China Dream.  I thought they might be the rough Chinese equivalent of Tucker Carlson and his admiration for Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán. 
 
But this doesn’t quite fit.  At least part of what Carlson is doing is political theater that makes sense—and money—in the American political context.  Carlson embraces Orbán in order to make fun of Joe Biden, to further diminish Biden’s standing in the eyes of Fox viewers.  There is no upside to treating Xi Jinping in this way in China, and while Trump excited a great deal of online discussion in China both inside and outside of intellectual circles, there is no Fox News in China and thus no public culture war to fight nor money to be made.  I might note in passing that I am friends with a couple of these Chinese Trump supporters and do not find them to be opportunists or grifters.  I think we have to take them at their word.
 
One way to understand this is to note that the word "liberal" does not mean the same thing in China as it does in the United States.  Chinese liberalism in the 1980s was largely focused on political issues, but in the 1990s, as China embraced market reforms and globalization, free-market liberals emerged in China, thinkers who embraced Hayek and the Chicago School and who believed in property rights and small government.  These kinds of "classical liberals" long ago became Republicans or Tories in the Western context, but in China "conservative" generally means "against reform and opening," which of course does not describe Gao Quanxi or Liu Junning, so they remained within the broad liberal camp in China, which I think is more center-right in American terms than many of us realize.  The famous dissident Liu Xiaobo supported the American war in Iraq, after all.
 
China's rise and the West's apparent decline over the past few decades have proven to be a challenge for Chinese liberals in general, as it has become inconvenient to talk about constitutional rule and human rights, but the challenge may have been particularly difficult for conservative Chinese liberals who found themselves forced to choose between Obama's or Biden's progressivism and Xi Jinping's China Dream.  Trump's message must have looked like a miracle solution for these liberals: the choice was no longer between Obama's America and Xi's China, because Trump would make America great again.  As Lin Yao brilliantly put it, Trump became a "beacon" for these conservative Chinese liberals, leading the world back to a pre-woke America.
 
There is certainly more to the story.  I can understand how Trump and Trumpism might have aroused a certain intellectual curiosity among Chinese conservative liberals, but how Trumpism became a passionate cause among these thinkers escapes me.  I recall American conservative thinkers making a similar case for Trump at the outset, but they backed off somewhat after seeing Trump in action; a marriage of Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy he is not.  It is true that Chinese intellectuals are less exposed to Trump on a daily basis, but they are very plugged into American media and seem to be simply choosing to stay in their ideological bubble. Gao Quanxi and Liu Junning launched an e-zine devoted to Trumpism the week after Biden's inauguration, which means they were undeterred by the events of January 6.  Nor do I understand the role of Christianity in China's Trump cult.  And what is the market for American Order?  Chinese American Trump supporters?  Or have Taiwan’s liberal intellectuals fallen for Trump too?   
 
In any event, this introduction is already too long, so I will stop here.  If you want to read excellent Chinese commentary on Chinese Trump supporters, see here and here.  As for Xiao's essay, I confess to being underwhelmed.  It reminds me of op-eds in local conservative newspapers that I occasionally read when I return to the American South to visit family.  I suspect much of it was cribbed from Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order, which made quite a splash in conservative circles in China when the Chinese translation was published in 2018.
 
As promised, the Table of Contents of American Order:
 
Cong Riyun (China University of Political Science and Law, Institute of Politics and Management, Professor), “The Post-Modern Value Revolution and Trump’s Conservatism”

丛日云，后现代主义价值革命与川普的保守主义
中国政治大学政治与管理学院教授

Gao Quanxi (Shanghai Jiaotong University, Kaiyuan Law School, Chair Professor), “The Evolution of Trumpism”

高全喜，川普主意的形成
上海交通大学凯原法学院讲席教授

Wang Jianxun (China University of Political Science and Law School of Law, Associate Professor), “Culture Wars, Conservatism, and the Future of Western Civilization”

王建勋，文化战争，保守主义与西方文明的未来
中国政治大学法学院副教授

Wang Jianxun (China University of Political Science and Law School of Law, Associate Professor), “Trumpism and the Rise of American Conservatism”

王建勋， 川普主义与美国保守主义的兴起

Xiao Han (China University of Political Science and Law School of Law, Associate Professor), “The Pillars of the Republic in the Political Mudslide:  From the Gracchi Brothers to Trump”

萧瀚，政治泥石流中的国和国砥柱：从格拉古兄弟到川普
中国政法大学法学院副教授

Liu Peng (Beijing Universal Values Social Science Institute, Dean), “Trump and the Evangelicals”

刘澎，川普与福音派
北京普世社会科学研究所所长

Liu Yejin (Capital University of Economics and Business, Professor), “Trump and the Return of Orthodox Conservatism”

刘业进，川普与正统保守主义的回归
首都经济贸易大学教授

Xu Kai (Deputy General Editor, International Finance News), “Understanding Trumpism:  American Conflicts and Realities through the Media Mirror”

许凯，理解川普主义：透过媒体镜像看美国的冲突和现实
国际金融报副总编辑

Xiao Sanza (Independent Scholar), “Trumpism and China’s Future”
萧三匝，川普主义与中国未来
独立研究学者

Liu Junning (Researcher at the Research Institute of Chinese Culture, part of the Ministry of Chinese Culture), “The Roots of the American Order as seen from the 2020 Election”

刘军宁，从大选看美国秩序的根基
中国文化部中国文化研究所研究员

Appendix: “Trumpism” Explained (it is not clear what this is—it looks to be more scholarly and objective than the rest of the volume)

复绿：“川普主义”释义
 
Translation
 
With the increasingly heated post-election dispute between the Republican and Democratic parties and the ever-growing fragmentation American society, Trumpism is becoming a common topic of concern in the global intellectual community.  Regardless of whether Trump is eventually re-elected as president of the United States, what is certain is that Trumpism will continue to exert a far-reaching influence worldwide.
 
So, what is Trumpism? To my mind, Trumpism is Christian conservatism in the political-philosophical sense (not in the theological sense, this article is not theological), and the two key words are clearly Christianity and conservatism. The opposite of Trumpism is liberalism, individualism, progressivism, pluralism, etc.
 
Christian conservatism is not a new trend. We are calling it Trumpism at the moment because President Trump has taken up the banner of Christian conservatism at this exceptional historical juncture. As everyone knows, Christian conservatism is being attacked by any number of forces throughout the Western world, to the point that we even see signs of decline.  As a lone hero, Trump wants to turn back the tide, which is of great practical and historical significance. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate that Trumpism serve as the name of contemporary Christian conservatism.
 
Since Trumpism did not appear out of thin air, what is its origin? In my opinion, to trace the origins of Trumpism is essentially to inquire into the nature of Western civilization. By exploring the history of the evolution of Western civilization, we can establish the "legitimacy" of Trumpism.
 
The origins of Trumpism
 
Western civilization has two major sources: Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy. The entire evolution of Western civilization can be traced back to these two sources. The splendor of Western civilization was made possible by the organic fusion of these two, and the decline of Western civilization has occurred when the two are in opposition to one another.
 
The core of the Hebrew faith is in divine revelation, a faith which is top-down and God-centered.  Man need only follow God's will, and provided that he loves God and loves other people he can achieve happiness, joy, and peace. God created all things in the universe, and God is sovereign throughout the universe.  Thus there is no need for earthly kings. When God's chosen people, the Israelites, envied the Gentiles for having a king and asked the prophet Samuel to give them a king as well, God saw this as a sign that the chosen people had turned away from Him. Yet out of compassion for his chosen people, God agreed to give them a king, although all the kings of Israel, beginning with Saul, were chosen by God himself. Thus God gave the Israelites a king without surrendering his limitless sovereignty:  everything in the universe is under the reign of one sovereign, and that sovereign has always been God.
 
The Hebrew faith evolved into three major forms of monotheism. The first is Judaism. Judaism, however, is the religion of the Jewish people and cannot become a universal religion. The truly universal religions are Christianity (Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and later Protestantism) and Islam; the former is a more perfect embodiment of God's justice and love (God's law and Christ's salvation). For the West, the universal religion is Christianity, and talking about Western civilization without talking about Christianity is like climbing a tree to catch a fish.
 
The core of Greek philosophy is human enlightenment, which is bottom-up and man-centered.  Later on, it gradually developed into the belief that "man is the measure of all things," meaning that that men can make laws for themselves, and that man's happiness can only be defined, pursued, and achieved by man. This is the source of various social contract theories.
 
Ancient Greece was rich in philosophers, and subsequent generations of thinkers have taken it on themselves to define man, society, institutions, and even the creation of the universe through their own efforts. The ancient Greeks also had their own gods, but the gods on Olympus were mere projections of human will, essentially man-made gods. Thus, we see that the Greek gods had all the faults of men; they were lustful, tyrannical, and jealous, and none were as omniscient, omnipotent, or perfect as the one true God, Jehovah, exalted by Judaism and Christianity. This means that the Greek gods could not provide absolute, constant values and standards for mankind. The result of the carousing of the gods could only be their eclipse, as man-made gods always fall apart.
 
When the Roman Empire unified the West, both Jews and Greeks became subjects of this empire. The Roman conquerors were uncivilized and admired Greek culture, which swept the empire during its first three centuries, becoming a fashion. At the time, the empire suppressed Christianity, believing it to be a backward faith. This was because the truth of God is always "offensive" to man's desires, and people do not like to be offended. During these 300 years, numerous Christians were martyred for their faith, but Christianity flourished despite the harshness of the situation.
 
What we should reflect on is why Greek culture declined, despite efforts by the government of the Roman empire to promote it, and why Christianity eventually became a religion accepted throughout the West, despite efforts by the Roman Empire to suppress and harm it. 
 
The fundamental reason is that Greek philosophy simply does not deliver on its promise to "know thyself" (the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi). There is no way for man to define himself, no way for him to find meaning in life, and no way to define a code of conduct that society will follow voluntarily. Whether as faith or philosophy, it cannot reach people's hearts through coercion but must be accepted voluntarily.  At this point, Greek philosophy had already reached its mature stage, becoming a miasma of hedonism, sophistry, and skepticism, and such a philosophy was unable to provide people with the sense of certainty they needed, and thus it was unable to conquer people's hearts.
 
The reason why Christianity was able to conquer people’s hearts is fundamentally due to two things:  first, the one true God provides the certainty people desire; and second, Christians have constantly embodied the nature of Christian love in every way, especially in the acts of the martyrs. We should not forget that Christianity developed in the context of a debate with Greek philosophy, and many of the questions the Apostle Paul answered in his letters had to do with Greek philosophy.
 
The Christian church, despite its wordly weakness, eventually won over the hearts and minds of the Roman Empire and made the Roman Emperor understand that he could not rule effectively without establishing Christianity as the state religion. How Christianity transformed the hearts and minds of the Roman Empire is the most important issue in the history of human thought, which unfortunately the intellectual world in China has largely ignored. Beginning in the late Qing period, China entered a period in which Western learning spread to the East, a phase which is not yet complete; the intellectual elite in China has always had a superficial understanding of Christianity and has even resisted the capacity of Christianity to renew the people’s hearts. This is essentially because since the fall of Adam and Eve, human beings have been born to sin, and to sin means to deviate from God.
 
How, then, should we understand the modern and contemporary West and modernity itself? In my view, the essence of the modern and contemporary West and modernity is the reembrace of the Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy.  When the two reached a state of organic fusion, the modern world flourished; by contrast, when the relationship became twisted or ruptured, the modern world inevitably fell into crisis.
 
The modern West began with the emergence from the Middle Ages. There was truly a dark side to the Middle Ages, especially the overweening domination of society by the Catholic Church, which meant that people were no longer free and society was stultified. The as yet invisible church was headed by Jesus Christ, but the visible Church was a gathering place for sinners; if the power of this Church was not constrained, it would inevitably lead to ruin. The Catholic church's overreach was a fundamental violation of Jesus’s teachings: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Furthermore, the Catholic church also violated the fundamental purpose of Christ's incarnation: to set people free, to give them liberty, and not to constrain them.
 
The Renaissance was the first movement in the modern era to return to the Christian faith. The goal of the Renaissance was to discover man and give him his freedom, and the path it chose was to return to the Christian faith. Two other movements also truly shaped the modern world: one was the Reformation and other was the Enlightenment. Both movements set out to oppose the corrupt rule of the church, but they went in different directions and produced very different results. The Reformation was less a reform than a return to the true faith, and the aim of the Reformers was to return the faith of Christian believers to the apostolic era.
 
The Reformation advocated the principles of "by faith alone" and a "universal priesthood," with the aim of bringing everyone directly and sincerely to God and realizing genuine salvation. In other words, the Reformation opposed only the corrupt Catholic church, not the sovereignty of the Lord. Rather, the purpose of the Reformers was to manifest God’s sovereignty.
 
But this did not appeal to the thinkers of the Enlightenment era; while most of them still recognized themselves as Christians, the God they believed in gradually ceased to be the Christian Jehovah.  They had opposed the power of the church all along, and gradually became further alienated and opposed even to God. Thereupon, they first slipped into natural theism, believing that although God created all things in the universe, once they were created, He let them run their natural course without intervention.  These thinkers eventually became atheists.
 
In other words, the Reformation emphasized Hebrew faith and the sovereignty of the Lord, while the Enlightenment inherited Greek philosophy, and in a revolution that kicked God out of the picture, came to preach the sovereignty of man. What the Reformation was opposed to was merely the Catholic Church, and while the Enlightenment began in opposition to the Catholic Church, it eventually moved toward opposition to God himself. 
 
The problem is that when Nietzsche, as a man, proclaimed that "God is dead," he was in fact insane.  Nietzsche replaced God with a "will to power" and the concept of an "Übermensch," expanding man’s free will in a stunning way. Moreover, his "Übermensch" philosophy led him to imagine, toward the end of his life, that he was Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind—what a naked assertion of his own godliness! What is the result of the infinite expansion of the ego? An explosion that ends in self-destruction.
 
Nietzsche's madness has a profound symbolic meaning. Whenever a person abandons God and engages in wild speculation, he is extremely prone to madness. From this perspective, we can understand the modern world at a glance. The French Revolution, the two World Wars, and nuclear war can all be seen as the result of man's abandonment of God and his descent into madness, while the decline and Islamification of Europe are also essentially the result of man's abandonment of God.
 
Human reason is a gift from God, so the Hebrew faith has never rejected Greek philosophy and rationality; instead, faith makes reason whole. Reason-based faith is a good thing for mankind, but the exaltation of reason apart from faith is bound to lead to overconfidence in rationality and ultimately to extinction.
 
The Reformation and the Enlightenment together gave birth to the modern West and the modern world; politically speaking, the universal values of constitutionalism, freedom, democracy, and the rule of law all originated in these two movements. Of course, there were in fact two separate Enlightenments: one was the Enlightenment that recognized the spirit of the Reformation, meaning an Enlightenment grounded in revelation, which was the Scottish Enlightenment; the other was an Enlightenment that turned its back on the spirit of the Reformation, that is, an Enlightenment that opposed revelation, which was the French Enlightenment. The former led to the prosperity of England and America, while the latter led to a long period of chaos on the European continent.
 
Christian conservatism is a political ideology that defends the sovereignty of God, emphasizes freedom under order, respects tradition, and promotes gradual reform. It was the fruit of the Scottish Enlightenment and took the form of a resistance to the French Enlightenment. The originator of conservatism is recognized as the British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, whose famous book is a criticism of and reflection on the French Revolution.
 
Following these threads, we can readily discover that Trumpism in fact originated in the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a conservatism that exalts the sovereignty of God while cultivating the freedom of man, meaning that Trump is the very ideological successor of Burke. In other words, Trumpism is an organic blend of the Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy.
 
The Essence of the American Election
 
Based on the above analysis, we can understand the essence of the presidential election in the United States. The 2020 election is not an ordinary presidential election in which the voters choose a new president—the American voters are instead choosing their country’s future path. Because America belongs not only to the Americans, and not only to the West, but instead is the leader of the world, it is not an exaggeration to say that the American election is an election about the future of mankind.
 
What is the essence of the debate between the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States? It is a dispute over the foundations of the United States. In other words, the two parties are arguing about what America is and where its greatness truly lies.
 
The Republican Party, represented by Trump, (there are factions in the Republican Party, and this is my general summary), believes that the United States is a country founded by the Puritans, meaning that the very founding of the country is grounded in the Christian faith. Although the U.S. Constitution did not establish Christianity as the state religion, the spirit of Christianity pervades the text of the Constitution, for example in its distrust of human nature and the nature of power. Although the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not all share the same religious beliefs, we can affirm that most of them were Christians, broadly understood. The United States is a "city upon a hill" and developed its capacity as a "great melting pot" essentially because it was founded on the Christian faith. This does call into question the notion that the founding of country drew on Enlightenment, but rather to insist that divine revelation was seen as superior to human enlightenment, and faith superior to reason; revelation completes enlightenment, and faith completes reason.
 
As America’s Christian faith has eroded over the years, public discussion of religion has even become politically incorrect, which constitutes a huge challenge to America’s founding principles.   Therefore, Trump is doing his utmost to defend what he and the Republican Party recognize as the very foundation of the United States, which in their view means defending the U.S. Constitution.
 
The Democratic Party, by contrast, represented by Joe Biden, believes that the foundation of the United States is found in the so-called universal values created during the Enlightenment:  freedom, democracy, constitutionalism, and the rule of law.  Although they do not explicitly oppose Christianity, it is clear from the Democratic Party platform, which supports abortion, homosexuality, minority rights, identity politics, and open borders, that Democrats do not see the Christian faith as the foundation of the United States.  Many of the Democratic Party's ideas are pluralistic in nature, and the essence of pluralism is opposition to the idea that God as the sole sovereign, which is clearly contrary to the Bible’s teachings. The Democratic Party has inherited from Greek philosophy the idea man can define himself, that man can design social institutions.
 
If we say that exalting God’s sovereignty is "right-wing," then the Democrats are clearly “left-wing” when they exalt the sovereignty of man. Therefore, some scholars believe that all the leftists in the world are all the same, their common characteristic being that they have turned away from God, believing that they are right, that they themselves are God. Trumpism reminds us that while the Democratic Party claims to be liberal, liberals who do not believe in God are leftists. Since moderate leftists and extreme leftists belong to the same family, they can easily develop into extreme leftists, which means that there is great danger:  if Americans allow the Democrats to hold power for a long time, it will descend to the level of a third-world country and will no longer shine forth like "a city atop a hill.”
 
Next, let's compare the Republican and Democratic platforms in the 2020 U.S. election and their relationship to Christian ideals.
 
Republicans are against the legalization of marijuana, Democrats support it, and Christian ideals say that the body is the temple of the holy spirit, whose purity should be upheld.
 
Republicans are for equality of opportunity and opposed to special privileges, Democrats support redistribution on ethnic grounds and identity politics, and Christian ideals say that all people are created equal.
 
Republicans support marriage between a man and a woman, Democrats support free marriage between any number of genders, and Christian ideals say that God created man and woman as the only two sexes, and God ordered that man and woman come together as one.
 
Republicans support lower taxes and pay according to work, Democrats support high taxes, the welfare state, and egalitarianism, Christian ideals say that he who does not work does not eat, and that the world created by God has always had rich and poor.
 
Republicans oppose abortion, as well as using taxpayers’ money to pay for abortions, Democrats support using taxpayers’ money to fund abortions, Christian ideals say that human life comes from God, that part of man is God, and that no one has the right to take another’s life, which goes against God.
 
Republicans want to increase the power of the police to protect the people, Democrats want to weaken police power, Christian ideals say that the rulers have the duty to protect the people.
 
Republicans oppose looting and burning and seek to control violence, Democrats sympathize with looting and burning, and sympathize with violence, Christian ideals are “1.  Thou shalt not kill.  Thou shalt not commit adultery.  Thou shalt not steal.  Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s house.  Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s wife, or his slaves, or his animals, or anything of thy neighbor.”  2. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
 
From this comparison, we can see that the fundamental difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party lies in whether the United States should let God take power or let the people take power. The former will continue the glory of the United States and consolidate its position as the world leader; the latter will certainly lead to the rapid decline and even disintegration of the United States. The reason is simple: the universal values advocated by the Democratic Party lack a solid foundation.
 
First, by failing to recognize that freedom was originally the gift of God, and by leaving it up to man to determine the limits of his freedom, freedom inevitably ends in self-indulgence.
 
Second, in the absence of the necessary supervision of and restraint on public opinion, democracy inevitably leads to the tyranny of the majority.
 
Third, constitutional rule is meaningless due to over-confidence in human nature and the failure to recognize the sinfulness of human nature. This is because the very foundation of constitutionalism is the understanding of the corrupt nature of man; if human nature is good, there is no need for checks and balances. The essence of constitutionalism is "limited government," meaning to limit the power of all rights-bearing agents.
 
Fourth, since human law is not grounded in God's law, the rule of law lacks a foundation promoting reverence and active compliance, and thus the rule of law may degenerate into the rule of man.
 
More to the point, if we abandon God, that is, if we abandon the absolute values given to us by God, no community will be able to reach a consensus, let alone rule the country effectively. Imagine if the United States were open to Muslim immigration, and if Muslims and other non-Christians made up more than half of the American population, could the American constitutional system continue to function properly? At that point, would not the existing constitutional system elect someone like Khomeini, who would amend or even abolish the constitution by various means once elected?
 
If revelation can complete enlightenment, then the Reformation and the Enlightenment can complete each other, and God can establish a foundation for universal values.
 
Of course, politics is quite complex and no political party can base its policies entirely on God's teachings. Politics cannot be dogmatic. The preceding comments on the Republican and Democratic platforms are only a general statement of which is more in line with Christian ideals, and this is only one perspective on the platforms of the two parties.
 
The 2020 U.S. election has highlighted the depth of the rupture in American society. This rupture has existed for a long time, but it has become all the more pronounced today. How is it that the values represented by the Democratic Party have won the hearts and minds of so many supporters? I think the reasons can be broadly listed as follows.
 
The sinfulness of human nature determines that man is naturally prone to turn away from God.
 
After the Enlightenment, the authority to guide people's hearts passed from the clergy to the intellectuals, who appointed themselves as the conscience and beacon of society and unknowingly played the role of prophets and priests. They dominate the university lecterns and flood the mass media, valuing their so-called independence, originality, and their unending need to speak out, but they are never responsible for the consequences of what they say. Since each intellectual has a different agenda, it is inevitable that pluralism will become "politically correct".
 
The liberalism and pluralism of universities and the media inevitably lead to most of society being captured by their proposals.
 
The problem, however, is that, in the absence of monism, pluralism can only lead to disintegration.
 
From this point of view, Trump's "pro-faith movement" is not so much a revolution as it is a movement to set things right, and this movement points not only to faith but also to politics, economics, society, culture and other aspects of life. What Trump is worried about is not the presidency, but the future of the United States and even the future of humanity.
 
Thoughts about China
 
The United States election in 2020 is a major event and has become a focus of attention throughout the world, and therefore naturally for the Chinese as well. The Chinese have heard of constitutionalism before, and this election has provided a good opportunity to observe the workings of the U.S. Constitution and its limitations, which is undoubtedly good for the Chinese. So, what inspiration does Trumpism bring to the Chinese?
 
In my opinion, the greatest inspiration is threefold.
 
Both systems and human nature are unreliable. Politics is determined by the popular will, if the popular will changes, the political landscape will naturally change. Therefore, there is no system that remains forever unchanged, and there is no perfect system. The American system is also imperfect, it is only the least bad system. The imperfection of the human system is determined by the defects of human nature, that is, original sin. The most impressive thing about the chaos of the U.S. election is the corruption of human nature. To think that nothing truly bad can happen with the U.S. system and that there can be no vote manipulation is to put too much faith both in human nature and the U.S. system. One might even say that believing that rigged elections are not possible in the American system in fact negates the reality that it is only the least bad system (and not a perfect system).
 
The operation of a constitutional system requires a shared foundation of beliefs, otherwise no good system can work. This is because the law is not enough to enforce compliance with the system.  The people must approve of the law (the system) in their hearts, and the prerequisite for this approval is that a majority of the people share a common faith. As John Adams, the second president of the United States, said, "Our government is not equipped to deal with human emotions that are not bound by ethics and religion. This constitution is only for a moral, religious people."
 
Since the Chinese do not possess the true faith (as manifested in their lack of fear of God), it is imperative that instead of transplanting the systems of the advanced nations, we begin to welcome the one true God. Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible to borrow from other countries' systems at the same time. Any discussion of which comes first is meaningless, because it is essentially a chicken-and-egg question, and history evolves independently of man’s will.
 
Drafting a constitution is an extremely difficult undertaking, and drafting a truly great constitution means taking man’s sinful nature seriously, and any subconscious overestimation of human nature (e.g., believing that man is born good) inevitably makes the constitution a dead letter. The American Founding Fathers devised ways to avoid the corruption of power and to achieve the separation of powers, but even so, the exploitation of constitutional loopholes has been going on since the birth of the constitution. If premodern countries want to modernize their politics without fully benefitting from the constitutional experience of advanced countries and avoiding the lessons of the failed countries, this will be courting disaster (literally, “a blind man riding a blind horse, approaching a deep pool in the middle of the night 盲人騎瞎馬，夜半臨深池). Moreover, since intellectuals are naturally inclined to idealism, those who draft the constitution must not be so-called experts and literati.
 
In short, since power inevitably corrupts, the key is putting checks and balances on power; and since human nature is inherently corrupt, the key is saving hearts through faith.
 
In light of this, I would like to discuss certain myths entertained by Chinese intellectuals. In fact, Trumpism and the current U.S. election have already shattered these myths.
 
Belief in the American system. Although some people profess to believe that the U.S. system is merely the least bad among many, in fact, they believe that the U.S. system is perfect, meaning that corruption of the system is impossible. But since the system is based on the popular will and human nature, if human nature is already corrupt, how can we think that the system can be completely reliable? Where does the system come from? Is the system not the manifestation of the popular will? If the system is reliable, why were there so many corrupt politicians 豬仔議員 in the early years of the Republic of China?
 
The belief that universal values are sacred. Some people hold up universal values as sacred and inviolable and argue that all we have to do is to realize these universal values in real life. This is inappropriate, because if we abandon God, universal values are not sacred, because sacredness can only come from God. Are universal values good? Of course they are, because they embody the respect for mankind. However, are universal values the ultimate pursuit of mankind? No, they are not, because although everyone identifies with universal values, there are different interpretations of universal values, and some of the differences are important.
 
Both Trump and Biden support universal values, but do they mean the same thing? Is Pence's understanding of freedom the same thing as Kamala Harris's understanding of freedom? Is freedom as Christians understand it the same thing as freedom as marijuana smokers understand it? More importantly, what about conflicts within universal values (such as between freedom and democracy)? Who and what criteria are used to determine what is right and wrong? Any serious political philosopher would admit that there are tensions between universal values, so what is the point of defending them in general terms?
 
Further, even if people share the same definition of universal values, does this intellectual understanding mean we should strive to put them in action? Therefore, if universal values lack a sacred source, they remain necessarily weak. If we recognize the existence of universal values, we should recognize "faith" as the first universal value.  In the absence of God’s judgment, conflicts between universal values will never be resolved.
 
Belief in history. Just because the United States overcame a constitutional crisis at one historical moment is no guarantee that it will overcome the current crisis. History never determines the future, and historians have never been able to predict the future. The future is determined by the will of the people. So instead of digging through ancient texts, we need to get to the heart of what the American voters think and what makes them think that way. It is easy for historians to be stick-in-the-muds; they claim to be able to understand the present by studying the past, but their stance is often static.
 
In fact, while the institutional framework of the United States has remained largely unchanged for two hundred years, the specific composition of the system has changed dramatically. For example, it is clear that the U.S. president has far more power today than he did at the time of the nation’s founding. The American constitution was drafted in an agrarian era and revised in an industrial era, but now it is the information age—can an agrarian constitution be perfectly adapted to the social realities of the information age? Are there no loopholes?
 
The theory of the melting pot. Some say that the United States is a melting pot, that it has always been a country of immigrants, and that pluralism is therefore inherently legitimate. But what is the fuel that drives the flame? If the heat of the flame is insufficient, or if the flame itself is waning, is not the pot broken?  Can it still melt anything? If such is the case, what is the attractiveness of American society?
 
It is worth mentioning that Professor Wang Jianxun believes that the United States was originally a country of immigrants, and that the first generations of Americans were instead colonizers. These colonizers dominated America at the time, because they brought their values with them; the immigrants were those who arrived later and took on American citizenship by accepting and pledging allegiance to the American constitution, meaning American values.
 
The idea that the media is above the fray. It is an indisputable fact that the media is an interest-group and is partisan. When media outlets engage in selective reporting while avoiding certain facts, they are doing so for their own benefit. Of course, to say that the media engages in manipulation does not mean that all media is manipulated and that no one hears Trump’s message.  But the so-called mainstream media is an interest-group and is partisan. This does not mean that they are necessarily taking money from the Democratic Party, but it could well be that the Democratic Party's policies are conducive to their making money, and therefore they are naturally "partisan."
 
It is true that in a democratic society, anyone can set up a media outlet, but the problem is that the mainstream media is too powerful and greatly overshadows the non-mainstream media, which leads to a certain degree of information distortion, and information is how people learn about the world. How the media, as the fourth estate, represents the voice of the people is not an idle topic for discussion, as the current approval ratings show that Trump's approval ratings and media accounts of Trump are clearly out of sync.   There are many explanations for this, but media bias is widespread.  For example, many people say that American university education is biased in favor of "pluralism" and "political correctness," which means that the problem goes beyond the media and affects all of society.  This is not an easy problem to solve.
 
Belief in “rationality, neutrality and objectivity.”  This is an impossible objective.  First of all, politics itself is not purely rational; second, to say you are neutral does not mean that you are interested in the truth, but instead that you are holding yourself above the fray in the hopes that those who are against you will take one another out; finally, objectivity is difficult because things look different from different perspectives, meaning that everyone has his own objectivity. In other words, there is a subjective component to any judgment, because we are influenced by the books we read, our life experiences, the information we have on hand, and our preference for certain scholars. Any overall judgment is bound to be subjective.
 
Utilitarianism. First of all, utilitarians believe that anyone can be bought and paid for. Some people think that politics is only about profit, but if this is the case, Trump, the former businessman, should be the easiest to buy, so why is he butting heads with Wall Street and Silicon Valley? And any country that wants to have a good relationship with the U.S. should just send Trump a few billion dollars, right?
 
On the other hand, utilitarians tend to judge right and wrong by success or failure, believing that the person who wins an election is the one who was right all along. So some people say, "I’m a Trump supporter, so if Trump loses the election that makes me a loser, too.”  But support for Trump has nothing to do with his election chances.  And whether he wins or loses has nothing to do with your being right or wrong, and you can continue to support him even if he loses.   What many people do not understand is that those who support Trump are actually supporting Trumpism.  It is philistinism to say that the election results decide whether a standpoint is right or wrong. If that were the case, we would just avoid politics, but what good does that do?
 
The theory of personal qualities. Some people say that Trump talks non-stop, pushes people around to get what he wants, has a big pot-belly, has been divorced several times, and that even his hair is hard to look at, so we cannot elect this kind of person as president. This is like the question I just asked—are you electing a president or a saint? Isn't electing a president about choosing a candidate's platform? Do you like Trump's platform or Biden's platform? If you are a liberal and support Biden, please explain how Biden's big government ideas are related to your liberalism.
 
The theory that the polarization of Chinese intellectuals is a bad thing. The U.S. election has led to a polarization of China's intellectual community. This polarization was going to happen in any event, and it is just that the U.S. election brought it about in a timely manner.  The real question is how to view this polarization. In my view, the advantages of the polarization outweigh the disadvantages, because it is the inevitable result of free competition in the marketplace of ideas, meaning that this is bound to happen in China, and it is better that it happens early rather than late. Some people who were originally liberal now realize the limitations of liberalism and have decided to take it a step further—what’s the harm in that? 
 
My friends who think the polarization is a bad thing say that Chinese Liberals’ strength in a general sense was already quite limited, and now we are even weaker.  But what we should reflect on is: what is the reason for the original weakness? After the polarization, are we not in some sense more vital, now that we are no longer trying so hard to achieve “harmony?”   What’s more, although it might be a smaller point, investing hope and strength in intellectuals in fact speaks to their own arrogance and self-deception—when did intellectuals ever have any power? 
 
Of course, polarization does not mean that the two sides no longer share any basic presuppositions, nor does it mean denying the possibility of making common cause on any issue, and it certainly does not mean emotional confrontation or ill will. Unity in the intellectual community is necessary, but unity can only be based on relative consensus, and cannot be achieved without consensus. For the Chinese intellectual community, the most important consensus is on the rules of discussion (procedural justice), and not a consensus on values.
 
Psalm 33:12 says, " Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”

Trumpism is a social stabilizer. Why did Trumpism emerge in the United States? Because many people have understood the importance of spiritual resources connected to the nation’s founding and they want to protect them. But for many pre-modern countries, there is no foundation at all, so there is a high degree of uncertainty in their regimes. Trumpism is an important trend that has emerged in response to the arrival of post-modernism in the West, and it demonstrates the common-sense wisdom that there is no freedom without order, and that stable order comes from stable hearts and minds.
 
May the whole world recognize the value of Trumpism.
 
 Notes

[1]萧三匝，”川普主意与中国未来,” in 洪源鸿, ed., 美国秩序:  保守主义华人眼中的川普注意 (Xinbei:  Gusa Publishing, 2021), pp. 227-243 (Kindle edition).