Mormons

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Why Do Evangelical Christians Want Trump?


To those on the left, this would seem to be an anthema to the core beliefs on any Evangelical. But the answer to this seemingly atithetical question is not the easy. Let’s consider that you have grown up in Central Southern Ohio where rural farmlands abound as do Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches. These people will tell you that their parents voted Republican, their grandparents voted Republican and everyone in the family has always voted Republican and it would go against their history to vote any other way. If, as in some states, their is a drawbar in the voting booths that allows a person to vote straight Republican or straight Democrat, they will always pull the straight Republican lever. And this is why it is difficult for those on the left to understand why people with staunch Christian values, or for that matter, Hasidic Jewish values, to vote for Trump.

Now you might ask, but what about all the outright lies Trump tells? As stated in the paragraph above, these people eat, sleep, and dream Republican. They also read and watch conservative radio and television. That simply means they are going to take all their news from Fox News, the 700 Club, and any other entity that serves the most basic beliefs politically. The will believe, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen not only because Fox News is still allowing people to say this on their platform, but because the U.S. Representative is also saying it. And so now things have been raised to a National level.

Let’s take one entire state that is almost entirely ruled by not just one party, but by one religion, Utah. You may have heard that just recently Senator Mitt Romney declaring he will not run for re-election this fall. Why is that significant. Senator Mitt Romney is a Mormon who lives in Utah. But at one time he was the governor of a decidedly blue state, Massachusetts. And he was a two term governor there as well. How did he do that and keep his faith? Quite simply, he used a very diplomatic route of being a middle of the road Republican. In truth, he was probably further to the right than he governed, but he did what was right for the people of his state and succeed. Now years later, he is in the state where his religion was formally founded, Utah. But he brought with him certain values he learned in the state of Massachusetts. That did not make him liberal in the least, but it an area that boasts the likes of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and a host of other liberal bastions of thinking, he was forced into a position of having to listen to the liberal point of view and he learned how to succeed in”enemy” territory, as it is thoght of today. But Senator Romney, to his credit, and in my belief, saw a Republican Party that was abandoning its long held view in favor of a wannabe dictator. It is unlikely that people of the Mormon Religion will ever vote for a Democrat but for them and for Evangelicals and other, a non-vote for president, in this election, is like a vote for Biden. We will never know but I would guess that in November’s election, Romney will chose to not vote for either candidate, this saying that Trump survives the criminal court system.

To be sure, Romeny is far from the only Republican who will not vote for Trump; Mike Pence said as much on today’s (Sunday, March 17, 2024) CBS Face the Nation. And I doubt, given her part on the January 6 Committee, that Liz Cheney will vote for him either but again, she will not vote for President Biden either. Now, Liz Cheney is an excellent example for other very conservative Republicans because she is one herself. Liz Cheney’s religious beliefs are unknown although she was brought up in a Untied Methodist household.

Democrats can make inroads on the Evangelicals if President Biden will go into say rural Kentucky, Elizabethtown, near Fort Knox, would be a good place, tell the Evangelical Republicans there that he is a go to church on Sunday Catholic. That will put into the minds of these people he need only beg them to do “fact checking” on Donald Trump to get to the truth and remind them of the New Testament Scripture that says, “I am the truth and the salvation . . . ” to possibly move them away from Trump. And in finishing, he would say to them that he is not asking them to vote Democrat but to consider what the actual truth of Donald Trump is.

One of the tools at Biden’s command is to get Republicans not to vote Republican but just to not vote for either candidate this go around.

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Who Hijacked the Republican Party?


The Republican Party can trace its roots all the way back to Washington.  While it is true that Washington and Adams both were Federalists, they were also the conservatives of their generation.  Jefferson, who became president in 1801, was the first “liberal” and his was the Republican Party.  The party of Jefferson, however, disappeared with the Whigs only to return as the party of Lincoln.

None of our first four presidents were religious men.  There is continuing discussion among historians as to what, if any, religion Jefferson truly ascribed to.  But it was a very conservative Adams, and equally conservative Madison, who made a point of distancing the federal government from any form of religion.  Their reasoning was simple and clear.  They remembered the heavy-handed dictates of the King of England insisting that his subjects be members of the Church of England.  It was this absolute separation of church and state, as much as anything, that brought the original settlers from England to America.  The second part of the first amendment is an affirmation of that fact.

Mitt Romney is a very conservative evangelical Christian.  His running-mate, Ryan, is a very conservative Roman Catholic.  The irony of those two being on the same ticket is that each of their chosen religions was a huge detractor of the other during the 19th and a good part of the 20th centuries.  Each religion based itself of certain absolute ideas and ideals over which they were unwilling or unable to find any middle-ground with dissenters of that particular belief.  In the late-20th century, at least one Mormon tel-evangelist referred to Catholics as evil in no uncertain terms.  To be fair, and having been brought up Catholic, we were led to believe that the only true Christians were Catholics.  I believe Romney is crafty enough that he realized such a division could be brought up during his campaign for president, hence his drafting Ryan.  To many, the charismatic Marco Rubio was a better choice of running-mate, but that would have put two evangelical Mormons on the same ticket.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, evangelical Christians, lead by Jerry Falwell, formed what they called “the moral majority” and started a systematic takeover of the Republican party.  To be sure, they were conservatives all and well-financed.  But the “moral majority” fell apart when Jim Baker, and other prominent far right-wingers, were found guilty of marital infidelity and other such things.  But the Falwells were simply the figureheads for well-monied ultra-conservative Republicans.  They quite simply set an agenda and required all Republicans to buy-in or see their campaign funding dry up.

Not all Republicans have toed that line.  I do not believe that Scott Brown, a Republican US Senator from my own state, is of the ilk although I do think he has found himself in the position of voting for positions that are unpopular with his constituency rather than risk becoming a pariah.  Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has also shown courage of conviction to buck his party’s line.  Unfortunately, he is far from being a centrist.

The “Tea Party” has a hand in all this.  It is the answer to the Libertarian ideas of Ron Paul.  But unlike Ron Paul, it has a close alliance with evangelical America.  While Ron Paul takes a very pragmatic approach to reducing government, the Tea Party seeks quick draconian measures that would basically kill the middle class as it increases the gap between the rich and the poor.

I think everyone should be allowed to practice whatever religion they desire.  But I do not want their religion, or mine for that matter, being used as a basis for public policy and law.  Religion is one of the most personal things that exists.  Even among the most conservative group of people of a same religion, you will find differences in their beliefs.  And while these difference may seem minor, they are important to each individual.  How do you dictate what, religious in content, a country should hear, should have as a part of its public policy, and worse, a part of its law?

Good government and good government policy can only be built upon the absence of religious belief.  It is not unpatriotic, for example, to be an atheist, although ultra-conservative Republicans will have you think that so.  I demand freedom from your religion, as you should demand of me.  My First Amendment right says that will be so.  I do not, however, believe that is the plan of evangelical Republicans who have found a leader in Mitt Romney, and who have kidnapped the once proud and pragmatic Republican Party.  Please give back the Republican Party of Lincoln, of Teddy Roosevelt, and of Dwight Eisenhower.