Why Did Evangelicals Flock to Trump? Existential Fear
“Counterintuitively, the fact that Trump is bellicose, bombastic, insulting, and lives according to a code at odds with evangelicals’ beliefs actually made him more attractive as an ally, not less. ‘Evangelical nice’ is a real thing …That made evangelicals unlikely to see one of their own as capable of defeating an existential threat.” - The Bulwark
It seems this dead horse keeps getting beaten over and over. Yes, during the 2016 GOP primary process there were some evangelicals (Falwell for instance) who were for Trump, but the vast majority of evangelicals were for someone else. The data does not lie. It was not until the GOP primaries were all but over before Trump got over 50% in any state. He got the nomination because he was running in a lane all by himself. The others were too similar to one another and splintered the vote. Trump could get only 25 to 30 percent in a state and win easily because the 10 others were all mired in single digits.
But once the options were Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, many evangelicals decided that of those two options, Trump was the less distasteful, and so they voted for him. Trump is morally bankrupt and doesn’t have the right temperament for the job, while at the same time he can make better picks than Clinton for the Supreme Court. Both can be true.
Let’s be honest here; if Hilliary had won, her judicial appointments would have made any meaningful regulation of abortion impossible for a generation, would have overturned Heller and MacDonald and made the 2nd Amendment a dead letter in the law, and would have greatly deepened the corrupt deep state. In foreign policy, you would have the strong likelihood that our chief geopolitical opponents would have copies of her emails and would “remind” her of their contents at opportune moments in negotiations and the like.
Not a fan of Trump’s business practices or personal life, but we dodged a bullet there. The question, really, is whether we dodged one to get hit by another.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
2016 left the majority of Americans open-mouthed in wonder. How could someone like Trump win? Why did he get support from evangelicals with such despicable morals and character? Add to that that Republicans can longer claim the moral high ground in arguments. Then we watch the horde wanting a do-over of the election or impeachment.
I’m reminded of this quote from a novel I just read:
“I have found it best never to ask why when you can ask what. What must be done? What should I do? Why gets you only head-ache or heart-ache.” (From “No Snakes in Iceland”. A novel by Jordan Poss)
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
…how some of the “evangelicals,” perhaps embarrassed that their predictions about Trump have largely fallen flat, have done something far more serious than select a candidate (for good or for bad).
Many are abandoning aspects of Biblical truth and embracing social justice, gay Christianity and other cultural phenomena. The speed at which some are apostasizing for the sake of a cultural mess of pottage is mind boggling.
I cannot prove a connection to the concept that they missed it on Trump, and must now move on to something else that will hold attention for a moment, but several have posited such a theory.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
Unfortunately, because Trump cannot persuade (indeed, doesn’t even try to persuade), many of the very things evangelicals feared have actually been accelerated by his presidency. Because he makes himself so easy to hate, the left has been emboldened — and more unified — against traditional Christian and American ideas and against conservatism in general. Though Trump has been able to achieve some policy victorys, they are all coercive (in the sense of “imposed by authority”) rather than persuasive (as in “convincing people they’re best”) — and they will, therefore, be all the more temporary.
In addition, because Trump and the party that nominated him, are so unattractive to the millennials, both the GOP and conservatism (which is quite distinct from “the right” and the GOP now), will suffer for many years to come.
I’m not among those who see no upside to Trump’s presidency. I am certainly among those who think it’s not clear at all that the gains will outweigh the losses in the long run.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Remember how unattractive Bill Clinton became after his immorality and manipulation of of a young intern? Me neither.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
Remember how unattractive Bill Clinton became after his immorality and manipulation of of a young intern? Me neither.
True, but Clinton wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of Evangelicals claiming that he was God’s man. And it was largely evangelicals that led the accusations of immorality and the claim that “character counts in a President”.
If it was true in the ‘90s, it’s true today. God didn’t move…we did.
Great post, Aaron. Very well said.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Trump’s Supreme Court nominees will be on the high court for many years to come instead of Clinton’s nominees that never were able to be nominated. While there is much to dislike about Trump, and I agree with the thrust of Aaron’s concerns about the long term damage he can do, the damage done by a radical leftist high court would have been even greater. The 2016 general election was painful and the two options available reflected the low status of the morality of the electorate.
But back to the main point raised by the original article, outside of Falwell and a few others, Evangelicals were NOT overwhelmingly for Trump during the GOP primary process. The data is simply not there to support that assertion.
Here is the data showing how during the GOP primary process, Trump was unable to get over 50% in any state until long after the outcome was clear. Below is the percentage of the vote Trump received in each state, in the order in which the states voted:
IA: 24.3% (Cruz won with 27.6%)
NH: 35.2%
SC: 32.5%
NV: 45.7%
AL: 43.4%
AK: 33.6% (Cruz won with 36.4%)
AR: 32.8%
GA: 39%
MA: 49%
MN: 21% (Rubio won with 36%)
OK: 28% (Cruz won with 34%)
TN: 39%
TX: 27% (Cruz won with 44%)
VT: 33%
VA: 35%
KS: 23% (Cruz won with 47%)
KY: 36%
LA: 41%
ME: 33% (Cruz won with 46%)
PR: 13% (Rubio won with 71%)
HI: 43%
ID: 28% (Cruz won with 45%)
MI: 37%
MS: 47%
DC: 14% (Rubio won with 37%)
WY: 7.2% (Cruz won with 66.3%)
FL: 46%
IL: 39%
MO: 40.8%
NC: 40%
OH: 36% (Kasich won with 47%)
AZ: 46%
UT: 14% (Cruz won with 69%)
WI: 35% (Cruz won with 48%)
Finally, after it was down to three candidates, and Kasich and Cruz still fighting for the same voters, Trump was able to get over 50% in New York, his home state.
NY: 59%
Other factors to consider in regards to Trump primary supporters:
1) The profile of early Trump supporters included union households disillusioned and disappointed in the Democrat Party.
2) Many of the libertarian-minded voters who had voted Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012 were on board for Trump in 2016. These voters do not follow a typical evangelical profile.
3) On the Democratic Party Primary side of things, the whole thing was rigged via Super-Delegates to ensure Hillary Clinton would get the nomination over Bernie Sanders. This freed up Democratic voters in open-primary states to cross over and ask for a GOP ballot and vote for Trump hoping to help him get the nomination as he was considered the easiest out in the general election.
Once Trump got the nomination, evangelicals were faced with voting for immoral candidate A or immoral candidate B, or the option to not vote. The media and Clinton campaign were hoping that evangelicals would sit out and cede the Supreme Court nominees to them. Evangelicals decided not to sit out, and accepted Trump’s promise to make conservative picks for the Supreme Court, which he did.
But any article that claims Evangelicals were overwhelmingly for Trump is faulty. Evangelicals for the most part fought the Trump nomination right to the end, even hoping for a brokered convention to stop him. But once the choices were Trump or Clinton, the loss of the high court for 30 years was too great a danger to just sit out the election and let it happen.
I don’t think Trump will win re-election. When you look at the actual electoral map, Trump’s narrow margins in MI, WI, and PA can easily be flipped by the Democrat candidate. The union households who voted Trump to bring their industries back will still be in more or less the same condition and will be of a mood to give the Democrats a try again.
Trump could actually lose the popular vote by a narrower margin than 2016, while at the same time lose the electoral vote.
There have been many articles similar to Dr. Nolte’s, with condescending lectures from the evangelical (or “evangelical-friendly”) elite to the less-spiritual/dumber Christians who (for absolutely sound reasons, logically and biblically) preferred Trump to Hillary in the presidential election. Here’s a response to one of those other articles absolutely shredding its argument:
https://sovereignnations.com/2018/08/31/scandal-nevertrump-evangelical-…
Joeb,
You could be right. I am just looking at it from an electoral college perspective, and with the placeholder Generic-D running against Trump. I know they are likely to nominate someone who is far from generic. But back to the electoral college perspective, Trump is also going to have to work to hold onto states like GA and AZ.
[Darrell Post]Joeb,
You could be right. I am just looking at it from an electoral college perspective, and with the placeholder Generic-D running against Trump. I know they are likely to nominate someone who is far from generic. But back to the electoral college perspective, Trump is also going to have to work to hold onto states like GA and AZ.
Many Republicans who didn’t vote Trump will likely come back to the Republican ticket, which could offset losses in the areas you mention. I think the Starbucks CEO could build a winning coalition, but he has to get all in soon and start building it. If he pussyfoots around, trying to test the wind to see if he might win, he won’t get enough momentum. Not to mention getting on the ballot in all the states.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Supreme court … yes. Again, this is coercive. Nobody’s thinking changes as a result of what the Court decrees.
Vote counts… yes, he won. Could win again. Assuming he’s the nominee (sadly, seems very likely), he’ll probably win again. Doesn’t change the reality that “the right” sold out in order to win a pyrrhic victory.
Here’s another way of saying what I’ve been saying:
The GOP and many “conservatives” directly traded away principles in order to win power. Because many of those principles were foundational (e.g., “character matters”), it not only directly traded core beliefs for tactical political power but has fostered the perception that tactical political power is all it’s interested in, and that it has no real principles at all.
This exacerbates the polarization problem as more and more thinking citizens become cynical about politics entirely. Rush Limbaugh used to say over and over (maybe still does… stopped listening long ago) that the left was the bunch that didn’t really believe in anything but only cared about gaining and keeping power. Maybe so. The right has now joined them.
So what we’re seeing, and will see more of, I’m afraid, is more and more power to the tyranny of cliches… because cliches move the ignorant masses to help you win and keep winning power. But they don’t get in the way like pesky principles, because if one slogan becomes an obstacle, you just start shouting another one, and the reactive, emotional, non-reflective electorate immediately forgets the old cliche was ever a thing.
As for me, I’m looking for leaders with principles I can “waste” my votes supporting.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Aaron, Regarding your comment that conservatives traded away principles in order to win power, do you mean regarding the Republican nomination or the general election?
When it came time to vote during the general election I felt I had four choices:
1. Hillary: Could NOT vote for her under any circumstance. THE worst of all options.
2. Trump: Didn’t like him either. One of the worst presidential candidates ever. His bombast and obnoxious behavior is definitely off-putting or wrong. But, at the very least he faked, if not outright believed, in many conservative values. We conservatives had at least some kind of chance pushing back against the liberal waves brought on during Obama. And, you knew which country he was for.
3. Another candidate: Just as well might have voted for Hillary. Only Trump had a chance to beat her.
4. Not vote: See # 3.
At the end of the day, it was pick your poison, and I chose what I felt was the least poison.
So, if this, and I was like many, many other conservatives, is what you mean by trading away principles, I don’t understand.
Given the four choices I’ve listed here, and I’ve asked this before, what else were we supposed to do?
There is much talk concerning Trump and his many faults, which indeed are many. But, it seems to me in this discussion we forget the hard left turn of the Democratic party. At the moment, do we want Trump or a version of AOC? Trump or Warren? Is there any Democratic candidate we Christians, and mostly conservatives, would vote for over Trump?
If it were up to me, I’d try to find Reagan 2.0, but that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon so we are left with Trump or (insert radical leftist candidate here).
Discussion