Former megachurch pastor John Pavlovitz has written a new piece on his Substack page that takes a distinctly Old Testament attitude toward supporters of President Donald Trump.
In his piece, Pavlovitz makes the case that Trump supporters "must be ostracized" going forward due to their complicity in what he sees as the president's ruinous second-term policies.
"The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is, as those in his Cabinet are," he writes.
Pavlovitz argues that Trump supporters have had all sorts of chances to correct course over the years despite seeing the president's cruelty and his authoritarian aspirations up close.
"They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse," he contends. "Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him."
He then goes on to advise his followers to simply cut any Trump-supporting friends or relatives out of their lives.
"If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs," he writes. "They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us."
Pavlovitz does make an exception for Trump supporters who have "come to their senses" and he advises treating them with a spirit of forgiveness and charity.
"But as far as his cheerleaders, champions, kindred spirits, sycophants, and disciples—they are proving themselves unreachable with reason, impervious to compassion, and mortally allergic to anything that reasonable human beings value," he adds.
