GOP Platform: Holes in the Roof, Spots on the Wall, and Cracks in the Foundation

During election night coverage of the 2000 presidential race between George W. Bush and Albert Gore, Jr., CBS News’s Dan Rather had a field day with figures of speech. As the electoral votes were counted (and later recounted), Rather employed one folksy aphorism after another. He noted that Bush “…swept through the South like a tornado through a trailer park.” And as the race tightened, he famously quipped, “This race is as tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-hot car ride back from the beach.” 

It’s unclear if the seasoned news anchor was speaking from experience, but on that night, Rather didn’t let a bad metaphor go to waste. Twenty-four years later, bad metaphors are still not hard to find. Take, for example, Eric Trump’s characterization of the removal of planks on abortion and marriage from the GOP Platform in an interview with NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie:

Savannah Guthrie: We’re talking about tone. You’re talking about your father possibly toning down the rhetoric. The Republican platform, interestingly, has moved to the center on a couple of key issues. There’s no — for the first time in 40 years — the Republican platform does not call for a federal abortion ban. It no longer defines marriage as between one man and one woman. So, is this a sign that your father is moving to the center in some ways or in some issues?

Eric Trump: I think he’s always been there on those issues, to tell you the truth. And I think that’s reflective of who my father is and what he believes in. And I think that’s reflective of my wife, Lara, who runs the RNC, and clearly what she believes in. And I’m proud of the party.

“I mean, listen, at the end of the day, this country has real holes in the roof, and you’ve got to fix those holes and you’ve got to stop worrying about the little — you know, you know — spot on the wall in the basement.

“You’ve got to fix those holes. And we’ve got real immigration problems. We’ve got fentanyl problems. I can’t tell you how many friends — I’m a young guy — I can’t tell you how many friends I have who have lost children to fentanyl that’s pouring over the border. Our economy isn’t great. Everything’s more expensive. Inflation is crazy. Gas is crazy. You know, the wars all over the world. We didn’t have any wars under my father. And it’s just really sad to see what’s happened over the last three years. And he wants to bring it back. He wants to bring back American greatness, and he will.”

In a single bad metaphor that lacked Dan Rather’s panache, Eric Trump dismissed two longstanding key elements of the Republican Party. The issues of life and marriage are compared to a “spot on the wall in the basement.” Sure, it may be a problem, but it’s one that’s nowhere near cause for alarm when the roof is leaking. Abortion may indeed be a problem, but it doesn’t compare with “real problems” like immigration, gas prices, and the absence of all war. A fair summary of his argument might be that if there are immediate pressing problems (holes in the roof), why spend time and energy on less pressing issues (a spot on the basement wall)?

Prioritization in politics is nothing new, and to be clear, that’s what Eric Trump was talking about. And perhaps his house metaphor isn’t bad on the whole, but it’s simply forgetting a key element: the foundation. The value of all human life isn’t a mere “spot on the basement wall.” Neither is marriage. Both issues are the bedrock without which the house of human civilization can stand. To extend Eric Trump’s metaphor, if the foundation is cracked, neither a spot on the wall nor a hole in the roof makes much difference. The entire house is in danger of crashing down.

Removing the planks of life and marriage are like digging up an existing foundation in a house with a pickaxe and not expecting the walls to eventually cave in. The removal of the foundation makes the Republican Party, to steal a line from Dan Rather, “shakier than cafeteria Jell-O.”

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned of the folly of faulty foundations:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24–27, ESV).

The sanctity of human life and the true definition of marriage aren’t issues that most voters consciously interact with on a daily basis. But it doesn’t mean that they’re not there, or that they’re not important. The foundations are always there beneath our feet. The presidential race indeed may be, as Dan Rather would say, “…as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a ’55 Ford,” but digging out the ground beneath the house is not the solution.

Eric Trump is right. There are holes in the roof. But turning to a foundation of sand only puts us in more peril. Americans need a house where even when the rains come, and the winds blow and beat on the house, it will still stand because it is founded on the rock.