Los Angeles: As a casino-owning playboy who has been married three times and faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct over the years, Donald Trump is an unlikely role model for America’s evangelical Christians.
But large numbers of these devout believers believe not only that he is the best choice for president this November, but increasingly that he has been chosen by God to save America from sliding into damnation.
Not a bad proxy for a man who plays golf on a Sunday.
And he will also have the ears of evangelicals on Thursday, when he will address a group of religious broadcasters.
In 2015, when Trump rode his golden escalator into the presidential race, he seemingly had little to offer the country’s religious right.
But over time, he secured what many saw as cautious transactional support, with a bid to appoint an anti-abortion justice to the Supreme Court, a possible chance to remove the biggest thorn in the side of right-wing Christians.
When America went to the polls in 2016, 77 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump, according to Pew Research.
Three new Supreme Court justices later, that support has risen to 84 percent heading into the 2020 election.
But with federal abortion rights when the Trump-laden Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade in 2022, what does this voting block still see in a man who looks uncomfortable when people pray and flinches when asked to name his favorite? bible verse?
Tim Alberta, who has written extensively about the evangelical right and its support for Trump, says the community fears it is under deadly siege in a country that is far less white, far less religious and far more tolerant of different lifestyles than in past decades.
“If you consider the fact that the culture wars have turned so violently against them and that the country is changing so dramatically in such a short period of time, you begin to understand why there is this fear, this anxiety,” he said during a round of interviews to promote his book ” The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.”
“If you believe the barbarians are at the gates, then you think, ‘Maybe we need a barbarian to protect us.’ This is the evangelical relationship with Donald Trump in a nutshell.”
For this group, which makes up just 14.5 percent of the population but 28 percent of the electorate, it doesn’t matter that Trump isn’t religious.
They feel he is on their side.
“I can say that from all the people I meet and talk to, and from personal experience even from my own family of lifelong Democrats, Trump has that appeal,” said Troy Miller, president of National Religious Broadcasters, which invited Trump. talk to the body thursday.
“People feel like he understands them. Even if some of the things in his life don’t fit with their personal lifestyle or morals, they still feel like he gets them,” he told USA Today.
To an outside observer, it is remarkable that the non-religious Trump is far favored over alternatives who are church-going Christians. Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic, but Pew Research found that he only attracts 14 percent support among white evangelicals.
Even evangelical Republicans are losing head-to-head races against Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina fell apart in the party’s primary process — and are now backing Trump.
For Albert, this fervent support was rooted in Christian nationalism, which fused biblical ideas of heaven with the very idea of America.
“There are millions of people in this country who really believe, deep in their bones, that America is not just another nation, that America is a covenant nation, that it is a nation that is in a special relationship with God,” he said.
Therefore, fighting for America is fighting for God, said Alberta.
“And this guy, Donald Trump, who doesn’t share any of your values … he’s willing to go to war for you. He’s willing to fight for you,” he added.
“In fact, I’d even say he’s willing to fight for you in a way that no good Christian would ever do.”
