Huckabee: American politics extremely polarized; government desperately needs to be ‘in the hands of people of integrity’
American politics is more polarized perhaps than ever before because of a divide between those who want the government to be stronger and bigger and consider government is god – and those who believe “that the government is at best a tool of God,” former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Southern Baptist pastor, told CBN News in a recent interview.
“I’ve never seen it quite so filled with rancor and contentiousness, but part of that is because people feel very passionately about their beliefs, their country,” Huckabee said. “And we have a divided country … what we have is a divide between those who want to lean towards socialism, where the government gets stronger and bigger – where many people think the government is god.”
He added, “And then there are still many of us who believe that the government is at best a tool of God, but it needs to be in the hands of people of integrity, people who will use it fairly and justly, but it should never become our god.”
Huckabee said the Democrats and Republicans once were able to find common ground. He said today it is difficult to find common ground when some believe America is fundamentally an evil country.
Social issues in America, such as abortion and gender, also have created a divide that is hard to bridge, he said.
“You have abortion, which has always been there, but I think those fissures have gotten deeper because with Roe being overturned, with Dobbs, you have that, you have the gender issue. I mean, there's so much going on right now where these are deep divides that are not easily healed or agreed upon…,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee commented on the divide among evangelicals concerning former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the November election.
When people ask him how he can support Trump, he tells them “You know, there are times he can be vain, he can be vulgar, he can be all these things. And I said, okay, I get it, I understand. I’ve always said to people, Donald Trump is probably not the guy you're gonna be sitting on the front row of church with this coming Sunday.”
Huckabee said he is honest to pastors and others about who Trump is and is not. He said when introducing Trump at an event in New York in 2016 he was blunt:
“My introduction of him, with him sitting six feet away from me was this. ‘Folks, Donald Trump is not one of us. Let’s not pretend that he is, because he isn't. And I said, ‘the truth is,’ yeah, I said this with him sitting there. I said, ‘I'm not sure he could find John 3:16 in a marked New Testament.’ I said, ‘But we are not electing him to be our pastor or our priest, our rabbi. What we are looking for is someone who believes in religious liberty, freedom of speech, and whose attitude toward those of us who are evangelical Christians is just (to) leave us alone.’”
Huckabee added, “But I've also found that there are things about Donald Trump’s presidency that exceed any of my expectations. I'll give you a couple of examples. He has been the most pro-life president in all of American history, surpassing Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, any other Republican, Democrat for that matter. Nobody has been more pro-life than he has in his policies. Nobody has been more pro-Israel than Donald Trump, and who didn't just talk about it, but actually carried out policies that showed the relationship between the United States and Israel.”
The former governor and presidential candidate went on to discuss his fears about the upcoming election and what he called “disturbing” possibilities for America in the future.
Watch the entire interview on YouTube: