Dear future President Trump,
Congratulations on your election as President of the United States. As an American fellow-citizen, I accept my responsibility to support you in your work and to honor the office of President. As a Christian, I will pray for you, for your family, and for your administration. I hope and pray that God will give you wisdom and strength for the task you have been called to, and that He will protect you in it.
I appreciate the tone of your acceptance speech. I am glad to hear you promise that you will be a president to all Americans and that you will listen to all Americans, including those who did not vote for you. I appreciate your acknowledgement of the division so evident during this campaign season and your expression of commitment to "bind the wounds of division." I respect your pledge to deal fairly with other nations while putting our nation first.
As someone who chose not to support you in your presidential campaign, I accept your request for "guidance and help" to unify the country. I will be frank regarding what I believe you should do as President, and I will do my best to give you respectful and fair feedback on your performance. If you ever call on me to serve our nation in any particular way, I will accept that call with gratitude.
In response to your call for guidance, here is my advice to you as you prepare to serve as President:
1. Decision making and leadership
As I have followed your campaign, I have noted that a recurring theme is an agenda that comes from "we the people." For one seeking office in a nation that is explicitly founded on the principle of government by the consent of the governed, this is appropriate. However, government by consent is not a simple matter of majority rule--and certainly not a matter of rule by the majority of the President's party. Rather, it is a faithful and intelligent commitment to the interests of the entire nation. You will need to actively consult the wishes of the citizens. You will need to make good use of the advice of qualified staff and administrators. Yet the ultimate responsibility for every decision by you and by those serving under you rests with you.
There are many decisions that should not be put to a majority vote. You should make decisions carefully and stick to them unless you are convinced that they need to change. You should keep your pledge of loyalty to the Constitution no matter what the majority opinion of the moment happens to be. The Constitution is the best safeguard of the sovereignty of the people. If the people's mind changes about some issue, the people's government has the ability to change the Constitution. If the people oppose some law that is permitted by but not included in the Constitution, the legislative branch has the power to change that law. John Adams stressed that a nation needs "a government of laws and not of men." If we lose that, we lose representative government, and we lose freedom.
Your job as President is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." It is not your job to make laws. It is not your job to support Executive Branch agencies in making and enforcing rules that have the force of law. It is your job to work with the other branches of government when they follow the Constitution and to do what the Constitution allows you to do to correct situations where they do not follow the Constitution.
You know that one of the biggest factors in your election was a loss of trust by citizens in their government. Your success as President will depend on your ability to restore that trust. Constitutional order will strengthen that trust. Integrity in leadership will strengthen that trust. Not least of all, a steady hand at the helm will strengthen that trust. Sometimes you will need to make people guess what your next move will be, but you should not make it a habit. Nothing disrupts markets, national security, and the rule of law like constant uncertainty regarding the actions of government. Know what your core principles are, and let people know what to expect from you.
2. Accepting responsibility for yourself
In order to be responsible in your role as civil servant, you must take responsibility for yourself. In your personal dealings with other people as well as in official government business, you do not act merely as an individual. You act as someone who has received a public trust. When you are dishonest or unfair, when you put your personal interests ahead of the public good, you betray that trust.
One of the reasons that I chose not to support you is that as both a private citizen and as a candidate for office, you constantly showed a lack of responsibility in your behavior and your judgment. That must not continue as you assume the office of President. Not only that, but you owe it to your Creator and Judge as well as to the nation to acknowledge and make restitution for past offences.
My advice to you on this is to establish a special committee to advise and help you in setting things right. They would need to be authorized to guide and facilitate reconciliation with those you have wronged, but you personally would need to invest time and heart in the process. You would need to write, call, or meet face to face with those to whom you owe an apology and potentially more. Only by doing this can you assure the nation that you truly do represent all Americans and that you will be fair and upright in your words and actions.
3. Right to Life
One of the most basic protections of the Constitution--a protection rooted in natural law--is that no person may be deprived of life without due process. That due process is denied every day to the innocent babies who are murdered in abortion. One of your first responsibilities as President is to do everything that your assigned powers allow to end legalized abortion in America. You should start by keeping the pro-life promises you made during the campaign, but you must go further.
You must apply the precedent of Abraham Lincoln on the Dredd Scott decision to the decision in Roe vs. Wade. This was Ted Cruz' policy, and it is the policy of the Constitution Party. It would mean that you would not use the office of President to in any way legitimize Roe vs. Wade. Roe vs. Wade does not form a political rule that is binding on the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch.
Not only must you deny enforcement of Roe vs. Wade by the Executive Branch, but you must empower and pressure legislators at the state and federal levels to bring the laws into conformity with the Constitution. You must make it clear that if the pro-abortion crowd wants to establish the legality of abortion, they will need to change the Constitution to do it. You must also make it clear that if they do so, they will do it without your help.
Legislation and executive action alone, however, will not undo the harm of abortion in our nation. As the President of all Americans, you will need to provide women in crisis pregnancies with the help and encouragement that they need to choose life. You will need to use your position as a moral leader--and you are a moral leader--to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.
The protection of life applies to other issues besides abortion. Your presidency must be consistently pro-life.
4. The Constitution
You will be taking an oath as President to uphold and defend the Constitution. In order to fulfill that oath, you will need to be familiar with the Constitution and with its link to the Declaration of Independence. You will need to choose as advisers men and women who share a commitment to the Constitution and a knowledge of its contents. The Constitution defines the responsibilities and limits of Federal government offices. The Constitution reserves all government functions except those assigned to the Federal government for the states. The Constitution safeguards the natural rights of all people, especially Americans. By keeping your oath to the Constitution, you will be keeping its promise to the people of America. You will also be using the very significant influence of the United States to benefit the nations of the world.
5. Promoting free and just government
One of the concerns that many Americans have about your presidency is the company you keep. You have enabled and encouraged racists, misogynists, and xenophobes at home. You have praised authoritarians abroad for their authoritarianism. By your speech and your personnel choices, you have given reason to fear that you are bringing our nation under the influence of foreign authoritarian governments. It is essential that you acknowledge these errors and correct them.
Constitutional policies and Constitutional executive action are undermined when the head of the Executive Branch encourages characters who are hostile to the Constitution and its values. Many people of other nations look to America to affirm and promote the natural rights that authoritarian governments deny them. An American President with authoritarian affinities would strengthen dictators and weaken those who value freedom and justice around the world.
6. Character in public office
Representative government depends on a set of behaviors in citizens and civil servants commonly known as "republican virtues" or "civic virtues." Without these, it can not thrive and may not survive. Biblically, the need for this is supported by admonitions to government officials and by moral qualifications for candidates for office (see Exodus 18, Deuteronomy 16, and other passages. Leviticus 18 is one passage that indicates a comprehensive set of moral standards to be enforced in society as a whole.)
With all respect, your conduct over the years has not met the standards of Scripture or of reason for a public office holder. While it is true that God does often raise wicked men to power, that is no reason for you to continue to be wicked. You owe it to God to take His way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Faith comes by reading and hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). With faith comes repentance, and with repentance come appropriate fruits (Matthew 3:8, 2 Corinthians 7:9-11).
You owe it to your country to confess and forsake the behaviors that have lowered the integrity of government and the moral tone of society. These have been confronted often and in detail by others, so I will not go into them here. You should acknowledge them, change your ways, and make amends to specific people and groups that you have wronged. You should surround yourself with and listen to people who will speak truth to you and hold you accountable. This category even and especially includes people who have not supported you and have vocally opposed you.
Your appointments must also be people of character.
7. Principled unity
Your professed desire for unity and reconciliation is commendable. However, as President you will need to hold even the most liberal politicians and voters accountable to the Constitution. You should patiently but firmly point out that advocating unconstitutional policies and actions makes one a domestic enemy of the Constitution and someone you are bound by law to defeat. Whether or not they personally admit the existence or content of God's law revealed in nature and the Bible, they need to understand that the founding documents explicitly recognize the existence of natural law. They need to know that impatience with Constitutional procedure will not be tolerated, and that any evolution of society's moral views does not take away the necessity for or the authority of the Constitution. The Constitution is the official reflection of our nation's moral understanding. If the official reflection does not match the new majority view of morality, that is the problem of the moral revolutionaries, not of those who hold to traditional morality. The procedural rules have not changed, and God's law will not change even if the Constitution does.
With that understanding, you will need to bring together people with very different moral views to promote the common good. People's views can change in a Biblical direction as well as in an anti-Biblical direction, so the dynamics of the culture war are not foreseeable for this age. God's people know Who wins in the end, and that is what matters ultimately. In the meantime, the Constitution and the Presidency have the opportunity to maintain external peace in society, and justice tends to flourish where the rule of law is upheld.
8. Divine guidance
As President and as a man, your responsibilities are beyond your ability to fulfill. That is not because you are Donald Trump, but because you are human. You will need God's wisdom and power. As you need to be familiar with the Constitution to be President of the United States, so you need to be familiar with the Bible to be a successful human being and ruler in God's world. You will need God's Spirit to make you malleable and to give you understanding. I will be praying for God to give you spiritual life and to pour His Spirit on you as a leader.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to my advice. I would welcome a response. I will be in touch, and I would love to hear from you any time.
Respectfully,
Owen Crew
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