Trump and Evangelical Protestants

There is a claim  going around in the traditional media that so-called evangelical Christians – i.e. Protestants who do not belong to the traditional, long established denominations familiar to people in the Northeast – sold out their principles by voting for Donald Trump. The argument is that since Trump is  a crude, arrogant, not particularly religious man with an unrepented history as a skirt chasing bon vivant,  evangelical people had  to abandon or ignore their beliefs to support him. 

The assertions  are easily refuted (as was done pithily by  a well known minister when he noted the election was for a commander-in-chief, not a preacher-in-chief) and display a good deal  of hypocrisy. One would think anyone who believes in the separation of church and state would be pleased when evangelical Christians or anyone else refrains from  imposing  a religious test on candidates seeking public office.  For those of us with liberal sentiments, that is a good thing, not  a lapse into immorality.  One also should remember there  was no such criticism made of any of the millions of evangelical Christians who voted to elect Bill Clinton twice. The double standard and the phoniness of the claims are fairly clear.

However there is an interesting question –  about the primaries rather than about the general election. I would have guessed that in choosing among candidates who generally agreed on most issues, most evangelical Christians would have preferred a candidate whose behavior seemed more in line with their norms than Trump’s did.  Yet even in the early primaries when there were several conservative candidates who made a point of their Christian beliefs, Trump did well among evangelical Christians.  I  think the answer may be similar to the likely reason why many others supported Trump for  the nomination. They were fed up and tired of being ridiculed and pushed around and ready for someone who would tell them fervidly and unambiguously he felt the same way and would do something about the situation unconditionally.

Many evangelical Christians did not like the constant, contemptuous ridicule they received from members of the ruling class and their associates in the traditional media. After all, most people would  not be fond of routinely being labelled and treated as backward, ignorant throwbacks. Some decided  they and their ways of living were in the crosshairs of the present administration, and  Republican politicians  in Washington weren’t  offering much help or cover. They might have objected when officials punished Christian bakers, florists,  and photographers for declining to work on  weddings of homosexuals  while the government required  trucking companies to  make special accommodations  for Muslim drivers who did not want to deliver beer. They might have noticed when the president responded to concerns about jihadist terrorists by hectoring Christians to feel guilty about the crusades.  Demands from officials to open up women’s public restrooms and locker rooms in their communities to men pretending to be women could have annoyed some of them. Some could have wondered why Christians in the Middle East were both among the most likely to be persecuted and among the least likely to be accepted as refugees.  They might have decided they saw a theme and  pattern in such things.

 So a lot of them went for Trump from the first, as did a lot of other angry and fed up Americans who felt they were threatened and abused by their rulers.   One can question people’s judgment in making that choice. I wish the Republicans had nominated and elected someone else.  However the threats and abuse from the government were real enough and by no means only for Christians