If Jerry Falwell were alive today, he would likely be somewhat taken aback by the current election. He would certainly still keep his Republican views and support, but he would likely be voting for Ted Cruz. Both Cruz and Donald Trump hold many of the views that Falwell deemed important, but it is likely that Cruz is more in line with what Falwell believed; it is also likely that Trump might be too much for Falwell in regards to his larger than life media personality and celebrity. It is likely that Falwell would have believed that Trump’s famous personality takes away from the important issues at hand and he might have seen him as obnoxious. Trump has also been married more than once, which goes against Falwell’s strict warnings against the fractured family structure that was beginning to become more popular at the time that he wrote Listen America!
Falwell was a firm believer that doing right by God meant doing right by the American people, and vice versa (Falwell 244). Both Cruz and Trump are very religious, but Cruz tends to incorporate his religion into his campaign slightly more than Trump does. Falwell was also an advocate for the family, the morality of the world, and the Church (Falwell 244), and therefore he would be unimpressed with any threats to these institutions. At the core of the Republican party, these beliefs still remain. Falwell was against abortion, comparing it to the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, as well as other views such as being against homosexual rights and the modernization of family structure (Falwell 253-254). Cruz is strongly against abortion, homosexual marriage, and is overall more conservative on a personal level than Trump. Cruz does not endorse these types of “threatening” institutions that are supported by the Democratic candidates and would therefore make him more appealing to someone who thinks that these developments would be a bad idea. Cruz is a stronger candidate on keeping the traditional institutions that Falwell believed America’s governance was based upon, and therefore Falwell would vote for Cruz if he was resurrected today.
Works Cited
Falwell, Jerry. Listen, America! Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980. 243-266.
