Death, Resurrection, and the Arena: Why I Still Stand With Trump
- dkclements
- 18 hours ago
- 10 min read
THE SUN RISES AGAIN over a fractured camp. Confusion everywhere. Attacks flow from outside the MAGA movement and from within it. An old ally, whether feigned or real, turns his fire on the Don.
Alex Jones, once a loud voice for the cause, now broke down in tears on his broadcast and urged his listeners to cut bait on Trump. He spoke of Trump’s failing health, swollen ankles, a mind that babbles, and the need for intervention. Trump is gone, he said. Be sad about it. Mobilize against the Democrats instead. Like an ocean tide, Jones has historically moved towards Trump when he proves his doubters wrong, standing victorious, only to fall away twice as fast when it looks like Trump is defeated. Titles of truth-teller, fair-weather patriot, and controlled opposition, all fill the atmosphere.
Yours truly gets attacked for backing Trump rain or shine. Accusations of idolatry, worship, or failing to see him as the anti-Christ—I’ve heard it all. Odd, as I was a never-Trumper in 2016 and have never shied away from holding unpopular views.
Life has battered me a thousand different ways, and I think it forced me to see a man, battered more than anyone, more clearly. A decade’s worth of study. When I can’t make sense of the man, I revisit the following.
1. If Trump was bad, evil would not try to kill him.
2. If Trump did not threaten the old order, the bought press would not lie about him every hour of every day.
3. A man cannot be the servant of evil when his mere living has woken more people to the face of evil than any other thing in our time.
4. No man can play the deep game and at the same time be led around by the nose like a fool.
As I traveled from New Orleans to Las Vegas, then Portland, speaking about the path forward, the same questions dogged me. Do you trust so and so? Do you think patriot X is evil? My discernment tells me to rarely supply a conclusion about a person’s heart and what lurks there, because only God knows its final destination. Rather, I say look to the Bible, inviting others to sharpen their own senses.
When you sacrifice the macro for the micro—the wisdom born of ten years enduring hell—to letting daily propaganda chip away at our victories with nagging doubt, I can understand why some ride the pendulum. Uneasy. Nervous. Not wanting to be duped.
Because smoke is everywhere. Kristi Noem is out at DHS. Rumors of an affair, with her husband outed as a cross-dresser; concerns he was a liability for blackmail. Pam Bondi out at the DOJ. Roger Stone and Laura Loomer spar over a similar fate awaiting Tulsi Gabbard. It would be shame if she was ousted, after ODNI seized voting machines in Puerto Rico due to concerns of foreign interference.
General Flynn surrogates throw shade at Trump’s cabinet, which seems to be unraveling. Kash Patel’s girlfriend punches back, morphing from a simple aspiring country music artist, to publishing a thread worthy of a CIA/Mossad analyst. And if you dig at that being a possibility, brace for a lawsuit silently approved by the FBI. Moreover, Dan Bongino took the thread, and double-downed against Flynn, joining the fray.
FBI whistleblower, Kyle Seraphin, attacks the credibility of Bongino over giving cover to J6 pipe bomb suspect, Shauni Kerkhoff. Kerkhoff failed a polygraph when pressed about placing the bomb, and now works for the CIA, while Brian Cole Jr. is made a patsy. Candace Owens attacks Erika Kirk. Erika Kirk glitches through the spectacle, grieving in her own way.
Joe Kent resigns from the National Counterterrorism Center. A veteran of eleven combat tours. His wife had been killed in Syria. Iran posed no imminent threat, he said. The war came anyway, pushed by Israel and its American lobby. The president called him weak. Kent walked out. And for the cherry on top, this Holy week, Christians spar over spiritual advisor Paula White’s presence in the White House. A thousand other cat fights are a daily constant. A giant crossfire distraction.
Holy week? In my mind, it feels like holy hell.
And that’s the topic for today:
Death, Resurrection, and the Arena: Why I Still Stand With Trump
I shake the cobwebs. Look for my North Star. A free and fair election. Arrests, convictions, and a firing squad for the modern-day Nuremberg perps. To walk closer with Jesus. One step at a time. Refuse the black pill. Wait for His instructions.
I remembered the words from the Good Book. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
Righteousness simply means right living, and to live rightly we need to cultivate the ability to distinguish, judge, or separate truth from error, good from evil, and right from wrong with clarity and wisdom. Discernment goes beyond surface appearances to grasp what is real, excellent, and aligned with God's will. The people losing their minds, blowing about like leaves in the wind, live on the surface. Those people have never entered the arena, wanting to preserve a scorecard of never being wrong about anything, and in the process, they’ve done nothing when it truly mattered. They join the parade only after the guts have been spilt.
The men in the arena, however, are never free of liars, saboteurs, and false prophets. That’s where Trump lives. The phrase “keep your friends close and enemies closer” makes no sense to people that do not live in the arena. Liars and cheats in a business are fired. An abuser in the home is evicted. In a nation-state environment with term-limits, shedding crooks is rarely advisable. Fire a viper, and two more replace it. And the fired vipers write tell all books.
You see, in the mind of Trump’s critics, they imagine his job is as simple as not standing in a room with Fauci; condemning Netanyahu to avoid being called a puppet of Israel; condemning Islam to avoid being called weak on terror; not endorsing RINOs; and being smart enough to not utter the words that he “hopes” he’s “done enough” to get into Heaven, with Christians slapping their foreheads exclaiming “He’s not a Christian! You can’t earn your way into Heaven!”
Surface dwellers. The lot.
Let’s go deeper.
Fauci was put front and center and immediately undermined by Trump, and in the process, he inoculated the media’s optics that he recklessly ignored their chosen depopulation expert, while doing exactly that. Hard line evangelicals who cannot conceive of Israel having a deep state are kept at bay, as Trump focuses solely on military targets, encouraging peace, and avoiding Iran’s energy facilities so civilians have a chance to rebuild their lives after the war. He drew a line with Bibi as well, that Israel was not to attack Iranian infrastructure serving civilians.
His endorsements of RINOs should only give you heartburn if you believe he will not drain the swamp through tribunals. Whether Trump knows it or not, he is wielding spiritual warfare at the highest levels.
Proverbs 25:21-22 states:
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
Endorsing traitors you know will face a certain doom, does not make one a traitor, and is not the same as being led by the nose by bad advisors, or just following “poll numbers” to pad the value of a Trump endorsement equaling victory. Moreover, why endorse a well-intentioned patriot when a trap has been set? You screw up the trap. Thus, good people are kept away, or so-so patriots are spared the possibility of getting sucked into the swamp’s power vortex. The best MAGA candidates will have their opportunity to fill a massive vacuum once the Uniparty is destroyed, with burning coals heaped on their heads.
Not before then.
In my estimation, that must happen this year.
This is also the reason why I don’t blink twice as Trump’s cabinet unravels. They were never Plan A to bring the cabal down. Merely, a diversion. Either read in to draw flack, patriots willing to look bad for a season, or devils set up to fall at a strategic time.
Now for the church division, and bewilderment over Paula White. Trump cannot be the token representative of any of the 41,000 denominations out there. If he was Catholic, he’d be forced to defend the failures of Catholicism, and popes run astray. Likewise, his membership in any protestant church would invite constant debate and attack over that denomination’s views on baptism, communion, etc.
Instead of just fighting political leaders, he’d have to add modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees to the list. Not very smart for a man that must represent and defend all Americans, regardless of their religious creeds. Trump’s less than theologically astute claim of hoping he gets into heaven was politically brilliant. It made him an everyman, and secured prayers from the faithful, who boldly filled social media feeds with the Gospel of salvation being a gift, not earned by works.
Put the catechism pop quiz aside for a second, and ponder that. A man in need of prayers got them, and a people in need of the Gospel message received clear teaching. Perhaps, Trump is more discerning than we give him credit for. And I think that his gift follows a cycle of figurative death and resurrection that comes straight from the pages of the Bible.
Matthew 10:39 states:
“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
I recall Trump’s interview with Charlie Rose in the 90’s where he said, “And maybe this was foolish, but I really meant it. That someday I'd like to maybe lose everything for a period of time to see who's loyal and who's not loyal.”
Romans 5:3 adds:
“...we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame...”
In 2011, I recall then-President Obama openly mocking Trump in front of a huge crowd. At a correspondent’s dinner Obama tried to humiliate Trump over questioning his citizenship. It was intended to send Trump a message. Do not dare and think of running for President.
Trump knew the towers and bright lights and the roar of crowds early. Then came the long years of losing. Lawsuits like spears in the dark. Friends turning. Two impeachments. A stolen election. Indictments piled high as cordwood. Mug shots. Courtrooms. The constant bite of enemies who wanted him finished. Even bullets came for him in the open field, one clipping his ear while the television cameras rolled. Trump has been preparing, waiting his whole life to fulfill his destiny as the commander-in-chief.
We’ve seen this story before. I think of Joseph. Seventeen when the dreams came bright and arrogant as young lions. Thirteen hard years after that: the pit, the slave chains, the false accusation, the stone cell where light came thin and grudging. Then one morning the door opened and he stood before Pharaoh with the ring and the robe and the power of Egypt in his hands. He had lost everything to gain it.
David next. A boy smelling of sheep when the oil ran down his head. Fifteen years of running after that—caves, betrayal, the spear thrown in the dark, the wilderness that taught him how to wait without breaking. At thirty the crown came, not easy, not whole at first, but piece by piece until he sat on the throne of Israel. The wait had forged him.
I think longest on the Carpenter. Thirty years of waiting before the sky tore open and the Spirit descended like a great bird. Three years to lose His life so that we could keep ours. There’s the template for discernment that holds value. Real value. Being broken, humbled, and hidden…
Then…
Boom.
God uses you. But you can’t grow in discernment unless you acknowledge where you have gone wrong. I’ve made a series of mistakes over the years. I chose life after the drugs stopped my heart and left me for dead. I won my wife only after I killed the selfish part of me and learned to want what God wanted. I ran for office for your children only after the Lord took one of my own. I could teach anywhere only after the university shut its doors on me.
I wrestle with the purification of my speech, dropping the occasional f-bomb, when gentler words would do. Ego, wanting to be seen and heard, needs a daily death. Confession that I need help, is what opens the door for God to use someone so fragile and weak. Freely acknowledging that I’m not enough, lifts the heavy weight that wastes the bones and saps strength. It clears the ground. No man carries hidden sin and walks steady. Confession is not weakness. It is the first honest step when the camp turns.
See the pattern?
Death first. Then the rising.
So, my advice to you. Carry the promise God whispered to you like a coal against your chest while the years grind you down. Then, in due time, if you do not quit, the hand that pressed you low lifts you high, setting that coal on fire.
This is the ground we walk. Idolatry forces many to ride or die with their favorite patriot influencer. When that influencer suddenly attacks another who once stood beside him, the followers crack. Loyalty to the man, not to the truth, leaves them shaken when the heroes turn on each other. Chaos follows. Social media fills with confusion. People wonder who is right, who has been compromised, who is running a limited hangout. The knives come from every direction, and the camp fractures deeper with every new thread.
I think of the chaos of the early church after the Carpenter left His tomb. St. Paul’s words cut through the dust like a clean blade. When he came to the proud city of Corinth, he resolved to know nothing while he was with them except Jesus Christ and him crucified. He came in weakness with great fear and trembling. His message was not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. So that their faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. Paul was no stranger to division. He had faced it in every church he planted. Yet he made this his anchor: one subject, the cross. Everything else—the deals, the ruses, the betrayals—were tested against that one unshakable fact.
The coming events, attacks, and betrayals surrounding Trump are only going to get more confusing. More vicious. Don’t be the person that gives up after fighting all these years. Could you imagine taking the black pill and throwing everything away, only to wake up a day later to victory?
The sun will rise tomorrow. The feuds may shift again. The discerning heart will still seek knowledge. The renewed mind will still test what is best. Paul’s single subject stands unshaken. Christ crucified. Confession. Death to self. Resurrection life. That is the equilibrium that lasts. Walk in it.
You will not be tossed.
You will not be shaken.
David K. Clements is a seasoned attorney, former law professor, filmmaker and dedicated advocate for election integrity and constitutional rights. If you think he's on to something, consider being a monthly sponsor of his independent journalism at:
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