My father was a lifelong Democrat and a committed union member who—although he rarely expressed it in explicit terms—truly cared about social justice. In my youth, I agreed with him. I still vividly remember proudly helping him distribute fliers for Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign. Richard Nixon defeated Humphrey and went on to become most famous for the appalling, disgraceful Watergate scandal and his humiliating 1974 resignation. For fifty years, Nixon reigned as the most corrupt President of the modern era—although he had a few prominent challengers for that dubious distinction.
From Democrat to Republican
Despite Nixon’s shameful behavior, I remained steadfast in my support of the Republican Party I’d joined one year before his resignation. Yes, 1973 was the year that changed the trajectory of my life for the next 43 years. On the night of September 23, 1973, I was “born again” at a little church in Eureka, California. And, as was expected of all evangelicals—at least those of the pale-hue class—I left the Democratic Party and became a Republican.
A little more than nine months before my “new birth,” the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling made abortion legal—and that issue quickly became the sundering subject in American religious and political spheres, domains that increasingly became entwined, particularly on the conservative side. Before long, it was axiomatic that if you were a white Republican, you should be an evangelical, and if you were a white evangelical, you must be a Republican. Evangelical Democrat was considered an oxymoron.
A Devoted Evangelical Republican
So, for the next four-plus decades, I was a devoted evangelical Republican. I enthusiastically participated in evangelical church activities—often in leadership roles—and I also zealously worked for conservative political causes, sometimes in prominent positions. At the turn of the millennium, my participation in these connubial conservative spheres reached its pinnacle when I moved my family to Colorado Springs where, for the next five years, I worked in Focus on the Family’s public policy division.
My most noteworthy deed during that half-decade was the key role I played in a major shake-up at USAID. In the spring of 2004, I wrote what became the first of two inflammatory articles for the Focus on Social Issues segment of Focus on the Family’s website. That first article took issue with the International Aids Society’s choice of Bangkok, Thailand, as the site for that year’s International AIDS conference. Thailand was infamous for its laser-focus on mass distribution of condoms as the primary weapon in the fight against AIDS—and USAID supported the Bangkok AIDS conference.
My USAID Saga
A few days after the publication of that first article, my desk phone at Focus rang and the person on the other line—who at the time insisted on anonymity—said he worked for a major USAID contractor and that he had direct evidence that USAID was misspending PEPFAR funds. (PEPFAR is the acronym for President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and it was a major initiative of the Bush administration.)
From its inception, PEPFAR has championed—and largely been based on—the ABC AIDS-prevention model pioneered in Uganda. ABC stands for Abstinence (before marriage) Be faithful (during marriage) and Condoms (for those who refuse to follow A and B). In that ABC model, the condoms component was seen as the last resort; the focus was meant to be on A and B. But the 2004 International AIDS Conference focused on C with A and B largely ignored.
So, armed with the inside information provided by my confidential source—who eventually identified himself—I wrote my second article, this one aimed more directly at USAID’s Global Health Division, which provided funds and logistical support to contractors that, for example, sent grown men disguised as giant penises covered by giant condoms to promote condom use to young children in developing countries.
Anne Peterson, the director of USAID’s Global Health Division, was not pleased when she learned of my article. She called my boss, Peter Brandt, to express her displeasure. Brandt then invited Peterson to come to Focus on the Family’s headquarters to discuss the matter. Peterson accepted the invitation, and a few weeks later, she and her assistant were seated at the massive desk in Focus’s executive meeting room. Brandt; Focus’s founder, Dr. James Dobson; Public Policy Director, Tom Minnery, and a handful of other Focus employees—including me—joined Peterson at the table. In front of every participant was a dossier containing the information I’d compiled over the previous months.
During the hours-long discussion, Peterson was unable to cite any errors or misrepresentations in my article or in the dossier. Ultimately, Peterson and Focus agreed to disagree amicably. (But the amicability didn’t last.) Following the discussion, Peterson, her assistant, and the Focus delegation drove to the nearby P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch. It was a rather awkward gathering.
Over the next few months, I developed a PowerPoint presentation based on my dossier. Then, in January of 2005, Peter Brandt and I flew to DC, where we presented the production to a room full of congressional aides at the Cannon House Office building. A few weeks later, an assistant to Congressman Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, called to ask me to send a copy of my PowerPoint presentation for use at a House Oversight Committee meeting. I did as asked. A few weeks after that, Anne Peterson resigned her position at USAID.
Back to Democrat
I included that account to document my conservative bona fides. But my ultra-conservative dogmas began to unravel when a contemptible, imprudent, self-centered, reality-TV celebrity became the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2016. And it was my people—white evangelicals—who were becoming the vile nominee’s most ardent supporters. I was aghast. I left the GOP and soon reunited with the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, this TV-celebrity-turned-politician became evangelicals’ reluctantly accepted candidate—based largely on his reputation as a successful, no-nonsense businessman. (His reputation was completely divorced from reality: six bankruptcies and countless failed business ventures), but his enamored followers could not be budged by even the clearest evidence.
So, before long, Donald Trump was elevated from faux tycoon to America’s savior. Donald Trump—a proud serial adulterer, serial liar, and devious conman—engineered a semi-hostile takeover of the Republican Party and a bizarre marriage to the white, conservative faction of evangelical Christianity. Now, numerous scandals later—including inciting a crowd to riot at the U.S. Capitol Building—Trump is back in the White House. And, led by the white, South African billionaire, Elon Musk, he is dismantling virtually every agency that protects average Americans from predatory oligarchs like themselves. And America’s white evangelicals couldn’t be happier—so far.
Musk and Trump also targeted USAID for massive defunding—no doubt aiming to eliminate the agency. Despite my history with the agency, I grieve over this loss. Like any large agency or company, USAID is and has been imperfect, but defunding it will cost thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of lives. And I know that if I were to find a way to get my Republican, evangelical family members and friends to listen to me about this tragedy, their response would be akin to this: “Well, I donate to Christian charities that help kids overseas. What more can I do?”
My answer: Do some deep soul-searching.
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