An Evangelical Explains Trump

Why did evangelicals vote for Trump?
Thomas L. Johnson
Quora.com, July 18, [otherwise undated; presumably 2019]
NOTE: In order to do anything involving President Donald Trump -- from impeachment to presidential election defeat -- it is necessary to understand as much as possible about the man. There are a number of blog posts and columns in which I've taken a stab at it. For example:

• "Intelligence Community's Inspector General and Impeachment," September 26, 2019
• Understanding Trump: Know Thine Opponent," September 23, 2019
• "Trump Won't Be Beat With Plans Alone," The Gazette, August 17, 2019, p. A5 (blog post title: "Marianne Williamson's Questions and Answers")
• "Trump Will Lose? Don't Be So Sure," The Gazette, May 29, 2019 (blog post title: "Why Trump May Win") (a list of 13 categories of Trump's advantages)
• For a contrary view to the one presented here, see Anthea Butler, "White Evangelicals Love Trump and Aren't Confused About Why. No One Should Be.: Focusing on the Disconnect Betseen Trump's Actions and the Moral Aspects of Evangelicals' Faith Misses the Issue That Keeps Their Support Firm," Think, NBC News, September 27, 2019.

However, one perspective I have not, and cannot, provide is how the evangelical portion of his base rationalize to themselves their relatively solid support of the man, seemingly regardless of his violations in thought, word and deed of what one would assume to be evangelicals' beliefs and standards.

As Mayor Pete Buttigieg has put it, "I do think it’s strange, knowing that no matter where you are politically, the gospel is so much about inclusion and decency and humility and care for the least among us, that a wealthy, powerful, chest-thumping, self-oriented, philandering figure like [Donald Trump] can have any credibility at all among religious people. ... Your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. ... That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth." Sojourners. "For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that … God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again." The Atlantic.

[Photo caption: "Members of Cross Community Church, an EA congregation in Berne, Indiana, pose for a photo published on the Evangelical Assocation's Desk Calendar." Photo credit: FatherRon2011, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, Wikimedia.org.]

The following piece by Thomas L. Johnson (no relation) provides some helpful insights:
# # # As an evangelical who did not and never will vote for Donald J. Trump, I fully understand why many evangelicals voted for a man who is crass, mean-spirited, personally unethical, and embarrassingly self-serving. They felt that they had no choice and have every reason to feel that again in 2020:

• Trump gave them two Supreme Court justices who will vote their interests for the next thirty years. Given the reality that many if not most evangelicals have never come to terms with abortion, particularly later term abortion, that absolves Trump of his extramarital dalliances.
• Trump has evoked the sort of tribalism that evangelicals understand. They live in a world of us versus them; so does Trump.
• Like Trump, evangelicals do not allow science to compete with their preconceived notions in areas like global warming or perceived conspiracies.
• Trump has embraced Israel. Many conservative Christians see Israel as part of the end-of-times prophecies.
• Like Trump, evangelicals are not fans of social change of the sort that came out of the Obama years. They believe in two genders determined and defined at birth, in a biblical view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and of a level of patriotism that rejects figures like Colin Kaepernick or Megan Rapinoe.

While Hillary Clinton’s campaign and personality were non-starters for evangelicals in 2016, often for reasons created or exploited by Cambridge Analytica, a Democratic candidate from the Medicare for All, open border, free education wing of the Democratic Party will present an even larger challenge.

Given their 25–26% share of the total electorate and their over 80% allegiance to Trumpism, evangelicals will more than offset the moderates who will move out of their comfort zone in the middle to vote for an Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

Iowa's Budget Cuts and the University

October 9, 2009, 7:15 a.m.

Here is "A University's Strategic Communication," October 7, if that's what you're looking for.

Economic Collapse Tests Moral Values
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Iowa's Governor Chet Culver, left with very little option given the Iowa Constitution's requirement of balanced budgets, a decline in tax revenue, and the inevitable delay in a legislative response, has exercised his power to order across-the-board cuts in State spending. It's a 10% cut, roughly 50% more than most feared, and it's "starting today" (he said yesterday, October 8). Jennifer Jacobs, "$565 million slashed from state's budget," Des Moines Register, October 9, 2009; Jennifer Jacobs, "Culver orders 10 percent cut, 'hundreds' of layoffs," Des Moines Register, October 8, 2009; B.A. Morelli, "UI officials shocked by cut; layoffs likely," Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 9, 2009;

Times are tough, and they're not likely to get better soon -- certainly not so far as unemployment is concerned, now heading into double digits. And even these numbers fail to take account of those who have given up looking for work, are no longer receiving unemployment benefits, the former full time employees now holding part time jobs, those who have jobs but are under-employed at low skill jobs paying a fraction of what they earned before, those who have taken a significant cut in pay or no longer have health care or other benefits, or those whose medical bills leave them no option but bankruptcy.

Nouriel Roubini is one of the few economists to have predicted, early and with some considerable precision, the magnitude of the financial crisis that has now played out before our eyes. He says there's more to come, including an additional 10% drop in home prices once demand from first-time buyers dissipates. (Among a great many other things, the $8000 first-time-buyer credit program expires November 30. Recall the precipitous decline in new car sales following the expiration of the "cash for clunkers" auto industry subsidy). What's worse, he notes, is that "The stress is moving from residential mortgages that are still in deep trouble, to commercial real estate, where they [banks] are just starting to recognize that they're going to have massive, massive losses" -- from some $2 trillion in questionable commercial real estate loans. He continues, "Most of these losses are not [yet] recognized because they're keeping the loans at face value on their books." Walter Brandimarte, "US housing market not bottomed-economist Roubini," Reuters, October 8, 2009.

Worse, as Elizabeth Warren noted on yesterday's "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook, Congress has essentially turned over the writing of the regulatory reform legislation to the lobbyists for the very guys who created the problems, are already back to business as usual, and are rapidly leading us into an even more severe financial catastrophe on down the road. "Creating Jobs in a Jobless Recovery," On Point, October 8, 2009. (Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren is chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel charged with monitoring the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP.)

Also on the program was Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He advocated, as I have over the past year, a re-enactment of the Glass-Steagall Act. First enacted in 1933, it limited bank speculation. In our headlong rush to the promised land of deregulation its prohibitions on bank holding companies owning financial companies were repealed in 1999. (Glass-Steagall also created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.) Notwithstanding the rather persuasive, multi-trillion-dollar evidence we now have of its necessity, there is little to no enthusiasm in Washington for its return.

Nor is there support for the logical mantra, "If it's too big to fail, it's too big." By turning trillions of taxpayers' dollars over to the Wall Street banks, while ignoring the Main Street banks, the 100 that have failed are simply gobbled up as the big get even bigger. There's no movement to bring them to manageable size, nor to curtail their risky behavior, and the rewards in bonuses that result. Banks are calling the shots, telling the taxpayers, "Heads we win, tails you lose." Congress is content to let them continue to speculate with depositors' money, secure in the congressional promise that if they profit from their risky investments they get to keep the profits, and if they lose Congress will cover their losses with taxpayers' money. A sweet deal indeed, with no signs it's about to change.

So not only is it bad and getting worse, the odds are good -- given elected officials' disinclination to alienate their most generous campaign contributors -- that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight on an onrushing train of even more serious financial disasters for Main Street, brought to us courtesy of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

When I was in Washington we had reasonable Republicans one could work with, and even admire -- while disagreeing over the details of policy. Nor am I today a partisan "anti-Republican." I am bi-partisan in my disgust with both parties' willingness to sell out the best interests of their constituents, especially those least able to fend for themselves, for the campaign contributions that enable them to be a member of Congress for life.

I would welcome a return of a constructive, civil and rational Republican "loyal opposition." It's not good for the Republican Party, and certainly not for the nation, for them to fashion their positions solely on their effort to "crush Obama" -- for example, recently cheering the news that his Copenhagen effort to bring the Olympics to Chicago had failed, or to stand in a solid phalanx of opposition to whatever he proposes as an obviously necessary health care reform. In the final analysis I don't think the American people are looking for "the Party of 'No.'"

Meanwhile, back in Iowa we have an especially urgent need to put partisanship behind us at this time, to come together, to put selfishness and greed behind us and focus on a shared sacrifice.

So I was disappointed to see on the Iowa House Republicans' Web site the reaction of their leader, Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha), to the current State budget crisis: "'Today the governor raised property taxes,' said Paulsen. 'The result of this across the board cut is higher property taxes for Iowans. A tax increase that could have been avoided by better management of the state budget. The governor is pushing his out-of-control spending problem on to the backs of Iowans.'”

This is a time of testing of our moral values. As the late AFL-CIO President George Meany once explained it to me, "Nick, it's all about who gets the beans and who gets the pork chops." In his time workers could afford not only pork chops, but homes and college education for their kids. Ultimately, with "trickle down" economics, more were reduced to eating beans and limiting their kids education to high school. And that was in "our best of times."

We are heading into "the worst of times." How will we allocate the pain? Will those best able to absorb it accept a little more? Or will the wealthy, the CEOs and other administrators, continue to assume an entitlement to a continuation of a lifestyle that is multiples of what others can enjoy?

There is an issue of tough, serious, specific substantive decisions here.

But two days ago I blogged about the importance of appearances as well as substance. Nicholas Johnson, "A University's Strategic Communication; A Modest Proposal to the Regents' University Presidents," October 7, 2009.

That's also important.

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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