According to Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite writers, “Generally speaking, if you want to know who you really are, as distinct from who you like to think you are, keep an eye on where your feet take you.”
So, as your feet take you into the voting booth now or on Nov. 3, please do what President Donald Trump has asked you to do: “Pretend that I am on the ballot.”
Actually, you don’t have to pretend at all, because every Republican candidate who has remained silent in the face of the president’s cruelty and ridicule and lying and greed might as well be Trump himself.
Richard Conville
Every Republican candidate who has failed to speak up when the president has kowtowed to Vladamir Putin and praised our adversaries (Jinping of China and Un of North Korea), might as well be Trump himself. Every Republican candidate who has remained silent when the president has insulted and threatened our allies might as well be Trump himself.
Their silence has replicated Trump all across the country.
So, who are you, voter? Where will your feet take you this election day? To Trump? To more Trump? Or will you act to reverse the backsliding that plagues both American democracy and American Christianity?
That is the central question addressed by Robert P. Jones in his new book, Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy. Jones is the founder and president of Public Religion Research Institute, a national data analytics firm that gathers and reports on Americans’ views and values at the intersection of politics and religion. He kicked off the national tour promoting his book with a lecture at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and an informal discussion at University Baptist Church the next evening.
In his book, Jones cites many examples of the president’s preference for tyranny, a tyranny that attacks both democracy and Christianity. One of the most dangerous is National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, issued Sept. 25, 2025, and titled: “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” There, domestic terrorists are identified. They include those who advocate “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity;” those who advocate “extremism on migration, race and gender;” and those who oppose “traditional American views of family, religion and morality.”
Guess who gets to decide who is anti-American, what extremism is and what traditional American views are? Not us. You’ve seen the Trump administration at work. His people call the shots and always to his advantage. Long ago, they abandoned government of the people, by the people and for the people — to say nothing of the First Amendment.
But you have a choice. Compare the Trump regime to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (immortalized in his 1941 State of the Union Speech): Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear.
You have a choice.
Where will your feet take you when you go to vote? To NSPM-7 or to The Four Freedoms? One path leads to the suffocating darkness of tyranny and one leads to the fresh air and sunlight of freedom.
Richard Conville is professor emeritus of communication studies and service learning at the University of Southern Mississippi and is a long-time resident of Hattiesburg, where he is a member of University Baptist Church.
Related:
You have the power to defeat Donald Trump | Opinion by Trudy Bayer
Listen to the minor prophets as you vote | Opinion by Matthew Kolb
Why every Republican in Congress should be voted out | Opinion by Mark Wingfield