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Writing in @BulwarkOnline, @AJNolte44 has an explanation of white evangelicals' idolatrous devotion to Donald Trump that takes, it seems to me, the long way around the bush (HT @SykesCharlie for this). A much simpler explanation would attribute evangelical Trumpism....[thread]
....to evangelical decay. Trump's depraved morals don't put off evangelicals tolerant of depraved morals; his white racism doesn't repel white racists. Evangelicals attracted to dubious theological innovations like the prosperity gospel or prone to apocalyptic thinking...
...may well applaud Trump, who defines himself in public by vulgar displays of wealth & enemies he wants to destroy. But there is nothing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Trump; as Nolte notes, evangelicals who take their faith more seriously tend to be less supportive of him.
There may just be fewer such evangelicals than there used to be. Lastly, I have to ask: have white evangelicals actually read the Bible? The sacks of Jerusalem, the Israelites' exile, the Apostles' martyrdom, the Crucifixion itself: that's what religious persecution looks like.
Today we have evangelicals claiming persecution over wedding cakes and birth control mandates in health insurance plans, doing this degrading Johnny Fontaine performance and begging a mob boss to save them. Who do they expect to be attracted to a faith displayed like that?
I understand & respect electoral analysis; it helps to understand why & how people change their political behavior over time. In the case of a group defined (at least nominally) by what it believes, though, maybe we'd do better to examine how what it believes has changed. [end]
