A key portion of Donald Trump’s base are evangelicals. Nevermind that they’ve thrown their support behind a twice-divorced trash mouth who’s allegedly slept with a porn star, isn’t much of a churchgoer, and can’t even hold a Bible right. They’ll almost certainly support him again in 2024. And they’ll almost certainly do it despite learning what he’s said about them in the past.
The Guardian has a new report on the forthcoming book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta. No surprise that Trump plays a key part in it.
At one point it delves into the then-future president’s early, fumbling attempts to court the evangelical vote, namely when he appeared at Liberty University, which was co-founded by Jerry Falwell. When asked to name his favorite Bible verse, he said it was from “Two Corinthians.” Any Christian worth their salt knows one calls it “Second Corinthians.”
Per Alberta, Trump did not enjoy the laughter that resulted. Nor did he like that Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wound up endorsing not him but Ted Cruz. That sent Trump off, Alberta writes:
“When Cruz’s allies began using the ‘Two Corinthians’ line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told one Iowa Republican official, ‘You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of sh*t.’”
Was this was a one-off incident, Trump simply blowing off some steam in the heat of the moment? Not according to Alberta, who writes that “in private over the coming years”, Trump “would use even more colorful language to describe the evangelical community.”
Will this finally cause the evangelical community to ditch Trump, maybe support one of his 2024 rivals, perhaps even actual Christian Joe Biden? Oh probably not. They’ve made it this far and put up with so, so much that they’ll likely ride this one out to the end.
(Via The Guardian)