For the better part of a decade, Russell Moore has performed like a self-important opera queen—a four-hundred-pound monster teetering on sequined heels, a glittering spectacle of vanity, belting out overwrought laments to an audience no one can see. His hand-wringing, his pearl-clutching, his endless moralizing—it’s all been part of a tedious opera that no one asked for but that Moore insists on performing.

Whether in his former role at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission or his current perch as Editor-in-Chief at Christianity Today, Moore’s disdain for Trump and his supporters has been the defining theme of his public life. And now, with Trump’s 2024 election victory over Kamala Harris, Moore has reached for his favorite script—sanctimonious lamentation.

In his latest missive, titled How to Get Through the Next Four Years, Moore predictably frames the election outcome as a national tragedy, thinly veiling his contempt for the millions of Americans who dared to vote against the progressive machine. He opens with a story of someone asking him about the election in an airport—a setup that reads like it was plucked straight from the Russell Moore Guide to Feigned Exhaustion.

“What do you think I think about the election?” he says he wanted to reply sarcastically, as though his disdain weren’t already carved into the very bones of his public persona. Of course, Moore is far too polished to say such a thing outright—he’s well adept at faking a smile—so he saves his disdain for the rest of the article, dressing it up in theological parlance and faux-objectivity.

Moore laments the return of “the Donald Trump Show” for another four years, blaming the electorate for choosing chaos over what he smugly implies would have been Kamala Harris’s more refined leadership.

The nonstop news cycle and drama won’t be some unforeseen circumstance. It’s what the American people voted for. The theory that people would want to “turn the page” on all that, offered by Vice President Kamala Harris, proved false. Turns out most people liked the drama just fine. So here we go.

He doesn’t bother to acknowledge the reasons millions of Americans voted the way they did—defending unborn lives, protecting religious liberty, rejecting a woke, anti-family agenda, and at least making an attempt to preserve what’s left of our freedom and rights.

No, for Moore, it’s all about the public’s supposed love of “drama.” In his world, Trump voters are little more than sex addicts, hooked on adrenaline and cheap thrills. How convenient. How reductive.

The article drips with condescension, but it’s Moore’s analogies that reveal his true contempt. He compares political engagement in the Trump era to pornography—a revolting and frankly insulting analogy.

This kind of political “drama” is related to actual political life the way that pornography is to intimacy. Porn gives the same physical sensation as sexual union. The nervous system responds the way it is meant to respond in the union of a husband and wife; it just does so by getting rid of the love, the connection, the other person. In other words, it gives the physical sense without what actually brings about the joy.

According to Moore, Trump supporters aren’t thoughtful citizens making reasoned choices—they’re junkies chasing empty highs. Never mind that many of these voters are Christians making what they believe to be morally responsible decisions. In Moore’s eyes, they’re little better than mindless consumers of filth. The analogy isn’t just offensive—it’s revealing. It shows us exactly how Moore sees the people he claims to minister to.

But let’s not stop there. Moore’s real sleight of hand comes in his attempt to paint himself as the voice of reason, the wise elder urging everyone to rise above the “noise” of the Trump years. This is where he invokes Thomas Merton’s monastic silence as a model for how Christians should approach the next four years, as though Moore himself hasn’t spent the last decade loudly participating in the very chaos he now claims to deplore.

The irony is palpable. This is the same man who used every opportunity to bash Trump, alienate conservatives, and cozy up to progressive elites. Now, suddenly, he wants to be the monk in the tower, calling us to quiet reflection?

Spare us!

Moore’s moral posturing reaches its peak when he critiques the supposed idolatry of political engagement, framing it as a distraction from true Christian discipleship. He warns against adopting politicians as father figures and reminds readers that their lives are “hidden in Christ.”

On the surface, this might seem like a noble exhortation. But in context, it’s a thinly veiled attack on conservatives, implying that their political choices are driven by misplaced worship rather than legitimate moral concerns. “We always come to hate our idols,” Moore writes, “because they never give us what we want.” It’s a shrewd move—Moore gets to sound spiritual while delivering yet another jab at the people he holds in such obvious disdain.

And then, just when you think he’s wrapping up, Moore shifts into full preacher mode, calling his readers to immerse themselves in Scripture and resist the pull of political idolatry. Again, this might sound good in isolation, but in the broader context of Moore’s career, it rings hollow.

This is the same Russell Moore who has spent years using his platform to push his own political agenda, all while accusing others of doing the same. His call to biblical faithfulness is less about leading people to Christ and more about positioning himself as the moral superior to those unenlightened Trump voters.

Moore’s article is a masterful exercise in hypocrisy and condescension, designed to shame Trump voters while elevating himself as the lone voice of reason in a sea of chaos. It’s not a genuine call to reflection—it’s a thinly veiled tirade against anyone who dared to reject the progressive vision for America.

Moore doesn’t care about unity or healing, either. He only cares about being right, about proving once and for all that he’s above the fray. But in trying so hard to rise above it, he only reveals how deeply entrenched he is in the very cultural conflicts he pretends to transcend.

Russell Moore’s disdain for Trump and his supporters isn’t new, but this article takes his contempt to new heights. And it’s not a critique of political idolatry—it’s a slap in the face to anyone who voted for Trump out of a desire to protect life, liberty, and faith.

Moore doesn’t misunderstand Trump voters. No, he understands them perfectly well. It’s just that he hates them—actively and passionately despises them—as his words make painfully clear. And for a man who claims to follow Christ, that’s a failure far greater than any election outcome.