Zaac
Well-Known Member
Why are white evangelicals supporting Trump? It goes back to Jimmy Carter.
Donald Trump’s first major rally of the 2016 campaign takes place Friday night in the heart of the Bible Belt. It’s not a natural fit for the often-crude, always-immodest New Yorker. But Trumpmania has even found its way to Mobile, Ala.
Organizers initially planned to hold the event at the town’s civic center, which can accommodate about 4,000 people. But after overwhelming interest — the Trump campaign says it has distributed more than 35,000 tickets so far — the rally was relocated to the 43,000-seat Ladd-Peebles Stadium. If it’s jarring to imagine Trump in a setting akin to a Billy Graham crusade, well, that’s just one more way in which the 2016 campaign is confounding conventional political wisdom.
Ever since a mid-July Washington Post poll confirmed that Trump is the leading candidate among white evangelical Republicans (20 percent supported him at the time, compared to 14, 12 and 11 percent for Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, respectively), political observers have been trying to sort out the puzzle of conservative evangelical support for Trump.
This is, after all, a man who told the Iowa Family Forum that he can’t recall ever asking God for forgiveness (“I don’t bring God into that picture — I don’t.”) In a 2011 interview for the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump characterized his church attendance as “always on Christmas, always on Easter, always when there’s a major occasion.” The Bible contains dozens of verses warning against the sins of pride and hubris and condemning those who exalt themselves — and Donald Trump is … Trump.
Trump’s unorthodox Christianity — not to mention his fairly liberal record of statements on social issues — seems to trouble evangelical elites, if not ordinary voters. In a World magazine survey of 100 prominent evangelical leaders, only three respondents named Trump as their preferred candidate. (Marco Rubio was the top choice, with 18 votes, followed by a tie between Walker, Cruz and Bush.) The Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore has raised concerns over Trump’s immigration comments, telling reporters that “Mexican immigrants are far more likely to be Bible-believing Christians than to be criminals.” And some academics have tried to argue that many of those evangelicals backing Trump aren’t really evangelicals.
But while it’s easy to chuckle at the idea of Bible Belt voters rallying for a thrice-married real estate mogul who would never dream of turning the other cheek, Trump’s evangelical backing may not be that surprising. It’s been a long time since the personal morality of a candidate was a deal breaker for evangelical Republicans. They only reluctantly backed squeaky-clean Mitt Romney in 2012 as the GOP nominee, and yet voiced few concerns in 2008 when the divorced John McCain self-identified as a Baptist who has never been baptized.
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-are-white-evangelicals-supporting-trump-it-127261597616.html
Donald Trump’s first major rally of the 2016 campaign takes place Friday night in the heart of the Bible Belt. It’s not a natural fit for the often-crude, always-immodest New Yorker. But Trumpmania has even found its way to Mobile, Ala.
Organizers initially planned to hold the event at the town’s civic center, which can accommodate about 4,000 people. But after overwhelming interest — the Trump campaign says it has distributed more than 35,000 tickets so far — the rally was relocated to the 43,000-seat Ladd-Peebles Stadium. If it’s jarring to imagine Trump in a setting akin to a Billy Graham crusade, well, that’s just one more way in which the 2016 campaign is confounding conventional political wisdom.
Ever since a mid-July Washington Post poll confirmed that Trump is the leading candidate among white evangelical Republicans (20 percent supported him at the time, compared to 14, 12 and 11 percent for Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, respectively), political observers have been trying to sort out the puzzle of conservative evangelical support for Trump.
This is, after all, a man who told the Iowa Family Forum that he can’t recall ever asking God for forgiveness (“I don’t bring God into that picture — I don’t.”) In a 2011 interview for the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump characterized his church attendance as “always on Christmas, always on Easter, always when there’s a major occasion.” The Bible contains dozens of verses warning against the sins of pride and hubris and condemning those who exalt themselves — and Donald Trump is … Trump.
Trump’s unorthodox Christianity — not to mention his fairly liberal record of statements on social issues — seems to trouble evangelical elites, if not ordinary voters. In a World magazine survey of 100 prominent evangelical leaders, only three respondents named Trump as their preferred candidate. (Marco Rubio was the top choice, with 18 votes, followed by a tie between Walker, Cruz and Bush.) The Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore has raised concerns over Trump’s immigration comments, telling reporters that “Mexican immigrants are far more likely to be Bible-believing Christians than to be criminals.” And some academics have tried to argue that many of those evangelicals backing Trump aren’t really evangelicals.
But while it’s easy to chuckle at the idea of Bible Belt voters rallying for a thrice-married real estate mogul who would never dream of turning the other cheek, Trump’s evangelical backing may not be that surprising. It’s been a long time since the personal morality of a candidate was a deal breaker for evangelical Republicans. They only reluctantly backed squeaky-clean Mitt Romney in 2012 as the GOP nominee, and yet voiced few concerns in 2008 when the divorced John McCain self-identified as a Baptist who has never been baptized.
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-are-white-evangelicals-supporting-trump-it-127261597616.html
