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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSlate "Why White Evangelicals Abandoned Their Principles for Donald Trump"
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/why-white-evangelicals-abandoned-their-principles-for-trump.htmlIn a new cover story for the Atlantic, the conservative commentator Michael Gerson examines why Americas white evangelicals have gone all in for a president that you might have once thought they would find grotesque. Despite his terrible conduct toward women, his racism, and his disregard for basic human decency, Donald Trump has managed to convince many evangelicals that he will protect what they see as their endangered status in modern-day America. He has also delivered to them a policy agenda rich in social conservativism. Gerson, a harsh Trump critic, looks at the complex history of Americas evangelical communities, and comes to the conclusion that the embrace of Trump will ultimately be corrupting and catastrophic. As he writes, This is the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders.
I recently spoke by phone with Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a columnist for the Washington Post. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed why American Catholics have been less likely to embrace Trumpism than evangelicals, whether the Bush administration helped set the stage for our current situation, and why so many evangelicals are blind or dismissive of racism.
Isaac Chotiner: I am curious about the degree to which you look at the phenomenon youre writing about and see two strands. The first is people making a practical calculation and essentially saying, I know this guys got flaws, but we have Neil Gorsuch, etc. And the second is people who have really bought into Trump and Trumpism in some way.
Michael Gerson: Interesting question. I would say that the argument, the basic utilitarian argumentthe president is not a pastor, a certain amount of compromise is necessary to get conservative judgesyou might be able to make that case in some limited circumstances. The problem is that that does not demand that you be a sycophant. It doesnt demand that you defend him in every scandal or defend any kind of vile social behavior, so theres something else going on here than a reluctant political calculation.
snip - interesting (depressing of course) read. the rest is at the above link
JI7
(89,173 posts)They may have hid behind other things but their support for trump showed what they are and have always been.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I agree with Gerson on one thing though. Rightwing evangelicals embracing Trump in light of his clear and many moral failings have ripped off the veneer of diffidence that some felt they deserved. I personally am far more willing to confront an evangelical now and when they start throwing bible quotes, rip them to shreds. That is a change that their fulsome embrace in Trump has caused in me, before I deferred to them to avoid being seen as hostile to any valid faith based concerns that they raised, now I simply don't give a fuck about how they feel because they have shown me that they care about no one but those having their views.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Women's rights ,super racist , greedy and anti gay way B4 Trump
Civic Justice
(870 posts)the history of the white Evangelicals in America, are a derivative of the Confederacy Idealist. These are the same ideologist who CONTORTED the bible in their aims to justify slavery, and promote discrimination, as are they the same i zealot ideologist who promoted segregation and fought against integration, as well as against equality for women. They did this within their churches and within their church communities, to spread the madness and delusion of white superiority.
They never had true and full humanitarian concerns and respect for ALL PEOPLE, they were race bigotry based back then, and they are still as race based today. As a group they embraced white supremacist, white separatist, kkk, neo nazi types and every from of "white race based hate groups". This has been within the make up of their congregation.
Every advance our Democracy makes to make Democracy better and to respect the equality of each person to be the individual they choose to be, these same "evangelicals" fight against it, still trying to promote some Confederate ideals they based on Victorian Madness.
If one study back in history even as late as the 1960's it will be seen how this group known as White Evangelicals, never moved to embrace the Civil Rights in America, not for minorities or any other type of Civil Rights. They still hold fast to the ideals of holding back women, and standing against people who live lives that don't fit their heterosexual frame.
They have not changed, THEY HAVE BEEN NATIONALLY EXPOSED !!! Bigotry and Vile has always been within their ranks and in their spread of how they teach. They cannot relive themselves of the delusion of white supremacy, as these are the same mentality types who 'tried to claim the United States Constitution was only for "white males'... these people never saw women as equal people and they still don't see them as such today. Only when its convenient will they parade a woman, but other than that, they will push her back, denigrate her, and see her as an "object for men's play" and seek to omit her from anything and everything they can, including the right to make her own choices about her own life.
God gave women life as individual, her life is not created by white men... nor any men, nor for any man to control... she is as much a human being as God made her to be, and in being so, he gave her the same ability to think, learn, grown and perform the works to make her ideals reality. Evangelical are abusive to women by the basis of their ideology, to try and make her conform to be lesser of importance in life than a man. the same as they spend centuries and decades trying to dehumanize people based on skin color and ethnicity. They are abusers and greed driven, and we see it everyday in the hoarding, the discriminations and the vile they engage to support their ideals of money and greed as their true God. They have obstinate against living in a world of peaceful relations and respecting the rights of people as individuals.
They are utterly ignorant to the fact, that no life comes in this world except through the body of woman and these evangelicals are not the regulator or controller of that fact. Therefore, she shall never be made to be less important than a man. The long history of such mentality types, who for centuries tried to deny women education, and then tried to deny her the right to work. This was done by these same Religious Zealots, and their Evangelical Madness they have tried to impose upon and against members of society and the humane realism of people.
We see these type of fanatics in all of such congregations of Evangelical teaching, trying to control people with their tribal mentality and diminish women in their tribal edicts. They want to infect this nations congress with their tribal ideology, and in doing so disrespects the Constitution and now they want to violate it, and diminish the divide between church and state.
They try and push policy based on their religious ideals, which insults the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution. they have not come to terms to understand or accept that the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution, gave any rights for Evangelicals to impose their madness upon the American people as a whole.
Hassler
(3,321 posts)Javaman
(62,439 posts)they have to have them first in order to give them up.