Jonah Goldberg is right

If Trump had an affair with anyone, porn star or otherwise, and then paid hush money to keep it quiet, then it's sin.  Call it what it is.

Yes, we all experience guilty pleasure watching Trump as a ringer, being everything the Left has been for decades, and throwing it back at them.  The Left, which used traditional Christian values against Conservatism for decades, and then gleefully pissed all over those values with impunity, are up against something they can't stop, and it's killing them.

Nonetheless, Trump is an extremely flawed and fallen individual with much moral baggage.  As tempting as it is to look the other way, we can't.  We must call sin what it is.  Better to lose by standing on Truth than following modernity into the cesspool of ethical void and thinking we can win in the end.  We can't.

The Left, like most leftist revolutions of the last century or so, elevates its political philosophies to the level of god, and a jealous god it is.  Throwing our values out the window in an attempt to win will only compromise us in the end.

This isn't because it will somehow be a bad witness to the enemies of the Gospel, Truth, morality and decency.  Those enemies have no values and play by no rules.  Nothing we do, short of divine intervention, will make a difference.

But doing wrong can become grist for the compromise mill.  That is, those in the Faith who are wavering under the relentless assaults of modernity against the Faith.  From top to bottom, side to side, the Faith is being hit from all sides.  From attacking the Bible, its reliability, its historicity, to challenging the very nature of the universe, humanity, divine revelation, to attacking long held notions of morality, decency, truth, values, justice, ethics, it hits along all sides.  This is in addition to its more measured assaults on things like the United States or the Western Tradition.  It's like being surrounded by ninjas on all sides and attacked at once.

Against this, a growing number of leaders and advocates are wavering.  Some, like Mark Shea, have completely abandoned the historic faith of the West and aligned with the forces of darkness emanating from the Left.  Others, like Russ Moore or Rick Warren, can see the changing winds, and are trying to find some way to straddle that fence without giving too much.

It won't work.  As much as Christians pine for the righteousness that comes from good old persecution the way Rome used to make, in most cases, persecution has done the Faithful little good.  In the West, we really don't get being persecuted, because until the last few generations, the Faith has had the upper hand.

In the East, when powers rose that were not in line with the Church's well being, in just about every case, the leadership caved.  Whether Tsars, Turks or Communists, there came a point when the leadership simply adopted the St. Saruman approach and found whatever way possible to be friends with the powers that be, even if those powers insisted on advocating heretical or atheistic doctrine.  If the Church ever thrived under persecution, it doesn't appear to do so under persecution that follows a state of influence and privilege.  It isn't easy fighting the powers of this present darkness when you're used to suffering for the Lord with a six figure income.

In many ways, we can get a foretaste of how the Western traditions will be once the Left gets its way.  Despite Trump's somewhat stunning victory, the Left is steaming forward, intending to win at all costs.  It already has made strides in convincing even Christian leaders that we live in a post-proof world, where accusations are as good as evidence.  In a matter of weeks, we abandoned centuries of due process and presumption of innocence because, well, the Left said so.

This is where it is going.  Throwing our values out the window to excuse what is clearly inexcusable will do no good at all.   It's wrong.  Plus, it won't do a thing for the enemies of the faith.  And what's worse, it will become the evidence needed to convince those rats itching to abandon the sinking ship that abandoning ship is the thing to do.  It will give ammo to those who want to lie in bed with the powers of the Left, or give excuses to those who long ago sold all common sense and morality to embrace this latest assault on humanity.

If Trump was an anvil judiciously dropped on the head of the Leftist shark, it would do well for conservatives to avoid being tied to it for every long, lets it drag them down to the depths with it.