Gift article.

[quote]Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, enthused about the way Trump had punched “the bully that had been pushing evangelicals around,” by which he presumably meant American liberals. But, Perkins said, “The challenge is, he went a little too far. He had too much of an edge sometimes.” Perkins was clearly rooting for Ron DeSantis, who represented the shining hope of a post-Trump religious right.

[quote]But there’s not going to be a post-Trump religious right – at least, not anytime soon. Evangelical leaders who started their alliance with Trump on a transactional basis, then grew giddy with their proximity to power, have now seen MAGA devour their movement whole.

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by Anonymous

reply 14

January 12, 2024 5:26 PM

[quote]The power of Christian-right operatives like Vander Plaats came from their ability to move their followers, but Trump has taken that power away from them, absorbing it into himself. Vander Plaats has been reduced to arguing, as he did in a Des Moines Register essay this week, that Iowans should choose DeSantis because it would position him to protect Trump from his persecutors. “A DeSantis presidency ensures justice for Trump,” Vander Plaats wrote.

[quote]Those convinced that Trump is touched by divinity, however, are unlikely to think he needs another politician to shield him. “I think they are doing the same thing they did to Jesus on the cross,” one Christian voter told The Associated Press, speaking of Trump’s manifold legal troubles. It doesn’t matter what evangelical elites say. Trump’s acolytes want to see him rise again.

Could you have imagined a decade ago that the host of The Apprentice would fuck up the evangelical world to such an extent? The power of this one man to break people's brains in unrivalled.

by Anonymous

reply 1

January 12, 2024 4:47 PM

It's simply baffling - I don't see any charisma in him, never have.

by Anonymous

reply 2

January 12, 2024 4:51 PM

His supporters have always reminded me of the idiots who joined the Manson Family. I am surprised some of them haven’t held vigil outside one of the many courthouses he is touring this campaign season with shaved heads.

by Anonymous

reply 3

January 12, 2024 4:56 PM

r2 No charisma, all bluster. But that's what they love about him. He mentioned people dying during Covid at the Fox News town hall the other day and the camera cut to this guy in the audience who was just laughing. He wasn't reacting to that statement in particular, but to Trump as a whole package – the performance of it all and the fact that he was, once again, saying things in a clownish way and pissing off the libs. This is the new Holy Communion for these people.

by Anonymous

reply 4

January 12, 2024 4:58 PM

When Trump became the nominee in 2016 I was sure my upstanding evangelical relatives would be turned off by such an obviously morally repugnant candidate who couldn’t pretend to be a devout Christian the way Bush or Romney could. Boy, was I wrong as they fell in love with them. It made me realize how racist and hateful they really are and how that’s more important to them than anything.

by Anonymous

reply 5

January 12, 2024 5:01 PM

They've been saying they don't care how boorish he may be, they love him because he gives them what they want politically.

by Anonymous

reply 6

January 12, 2024 5:04 PM

Well, since the majority of those who died in the pandemic were white Republicans who thought they knew better than trained scientists, guess who's laughing now, assholes.

by Anonymous

reply 7

January 12, 2024 5:04 PM

Trump is like the lit torch that the pathetic cowardly hunchback Fritz tortures Frankenstein's Monster with in James Whale's 1931 film.

Fritz ended up with his neck broken.

by Anonymous

reply 8

January 12, 2024 5:07 PM

[quote]MAGA Has Devoured American Evangelicalism

I have some Tums Ultra Strength. But I am NOT sharing them.

by Anonymous

reply 9

January 12, 2024 5:10 PM

This is interesting. Yes, the "conservative evangelical base" is now completely right-wing white supremacist fascist oriented. Yes, the evangelical churches have healthier attendance than "mainline" Protestant denominations - that's been true for decades. But at truth is that attendance/participation in those evangelical churches is actually down in recent years. American church attendance falls precipitously in all denominations, including the evangelical churches... the only real vaunted "growth" is in the global south - for example in Africa where evangelical influence has accomplished establishing the death penalty for gay people in Uganda.

The shift from religion to cultural fascism was a deal with the devil. Now that deal is bouncing back to bite them. Soutern Baptist conference for instance: this last year "banning" women from being pastors. Women who had been pastors for many years suddenly kicked out of the convention. Child molestation, sexual harassment, and lower membership... the Southern Baptist reality in 2024.

Also, remember this is white evangelicalism - the black communities, not so much.

by Anonymous

reply 10

January 12, 2024 5:14 PM

They won't admit it, but white evangelicals are all deeply racist. Barack Obama's election scared them shitless about losing their dominance over society, and the Orange Idiot wasn't afraid to say the really stupid, racist things they were thinking for all eight years of the Obama administration. So they fell completely in love with him, despite how antithetical to their religion he was. That wasn't particularly difficult because if they're in church, they're already easily swayed into believing nonsense if the person preaching it is aggressive enough.

by Anonymous

reply 11

January 12, 2024 5:17 PM

r11 I agree, Obama broke their collective brain. Back when some basic civility in politics was still a thing, they responded to him with the Tea Party, pretending it was all just about taxes and spending. Then Palin the clown came along and something changed. But she was a woman, so of course a non-starter. Trump in 2016 was the natural conclusion of that process.

by Anonymous

reply 12

January 12, 2024 5:23 PM

American Christian Evangelical membership is dropping like a rock. On a more positive note, younger evangelical Christians are not buying into the whole Falwell, focus on the family era bullshit. It might take a while but when boomer gen evangelicals die off - so goes much of their power.

by Anonymous

reply 13

January 12, 2024 5:23 PM

The foundational racism of white American evangelical churches pre-dates Obama. I think the idea that Obama drove them crazy is oversold... certainly Trump rooted his support there. But Pat Robertson and all the other evangelicalban were explicitly racist long before Obama and Trump.

by Anonymous

reply 14

January 12, 2024 5:26 PM