Trump Calls Former Evangelical Supporters Disloyal

If nothing else, you have to admire Donald Trump’s self-confidence. Back on November 15, 2022, Donald Trump announced his campaign for a second non-consecutive presidential term in a speech at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, despite living under the specter of a whole raft of potential legal problems.

But if Trump was hoping to make America great again… again, and breeze into the Whitehouse like a January 6 Capitol Riot, it seems that he will have his work cut out for him.

Why?

Because many of the evangelical leaders who propelled him into the Whitehouse back in 2016 are refusing to publicly endorse his candidacy, denting his aspirations for a second term as US President.

In a phone interview on CBN News, Trump was asked about his lack of support from the same church leaders

Trump responded by saying that he didn’t really care, then added: “It’s a sign of disloyalty. There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty.”

Here’s the interview (apologies for the sound quality):

Source: YouTube

So, are evangelical leaders being disloyal to Trump?

Christian Nationalist Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer believes so. In fact, in a recent Twitter rant, he accused pastors of having “severe short-term memory loss” — presumably a reference to how great it was having Trump as president last time.

Lahmeyer, who leads a group called Pastors For Trump — a 50-state organization aiming to boost Trump’s evangelical support base — took to Twitter to remind Pastors across the USA that the radical left just wants to murder innocent babies… apparently, while Trump is a bastion of truth and courage.

Take a look:

What I hope is going on

It is a well-established fact that white, evangelical protestant Christians overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump’s 2016 tilt at the presidency to the point where “Evangelical Christian” became a kind of synonym for “Trump Supporter.”

So I find it fascinating that the same crowd of people are now so unwilling to commit to Trump again — especially in light of the fact that Trump was pretty much responsible for positioning three conservative Supreme Court justices to enact the overturning of Roe V. Wade, something that Christians have long campaigned for. Why isn’t Trump riding on the coattails of this supposedly historic victory against a woman’s right to choose?

Well, I think the answer lies in the actual agenda of the Christian nationalist movement, which is to make sure the country becomes and says a “Christian” country. Such a task involves making a whole raft of changes to political policy and justice reform so that the whole country can be forced to live under a system defined by “Christian” values (which, of course, most Christians wouldn’t be able to agree on in any case).

To achieve that lofty goal, you need hardcore right-wing Christians in positions of power — preferably as President — because then you can set about the task of making the country more “Christian” from the top down and keeping it that way.

What 2016 proved was that the content of a political candidate’s character is unimportant as long as they support the Christian nationalist agenda. Jesus Christ is more a convenient figurehead for evangelicalism’s political aspirations than a person to be followed.

However, I think evangelicals (perhaps Republicans in general) are wising up to the fact that Trump is a little too extreme for your average run-of-the-mill voter — the kind who might consider swinging back to the red vote if given a candidate who comes across as less emotionally erratic and more reasonable and mature.

Trump was great for a headline! Heck, I wrote lots of blog posts about Trump. But let’s be honest. Trump has managed to drive people to the political poles. The only way to swing the few who remain somewhere near the center is to get a new man who speaks a new language.

Trump ain’t that man.

Therefore, Donald Trump has outlived his usefulness to the Christian nationalist agenda. And if there’s one thing I know about the evangelical churches, it’s that they have a nasty habit of ditching people who are no longer useful to their cause.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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