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| Trump and possible First Lady Melania Trump - Trump's "family values" |
As regular readers know, I hold a very low view of Evangelical Christians who, in my opinion, are best defined by their lies, hypocrisy, bigotry and selfishness. The reality of what these people are in fact versus they image they try to project. Now, with evangelicals flocking to the banner of Donald Trump, we are seeing just how phony their claims of supporting "family values" are in fact. Just as they have the highest divorce rate in America (funny how they ignore Jesus' admonition on divorce but cling to anti-gay passages in Leviticus). Trump is twice divorced, doesn't attend church regularly and is crass and vulgar in his speech, all of which underscores the real attraction for evangelicals: his strident bigotry, racism, and xenophobia. The New York Times looks at Trump and his evangelical supporters. Here are excerpts:
In speeches, including one in Oklahoma City on Friday, Mr. Trump almost never talks about issues that politicians seeking evangelical support thunder about: abortion, religious liberty and, recently, the appointment of a conservative Supreme Court justice.
Practically the only part of a Trump stump speech aimed at faith-driven voters is a promise that shopkeepers will again be able to say Merry Christmas. It is one of his most reliable applause lines.
Mr. Trump is winning with evangelicals, as he does with other Republican primary voters, by promising uncompromising immigration and trade policies and a hard-driving leadership style. “Evangelicals see all that’s going down, and they just like somebody to be strong and stern and consistent on issues,” said J. Hogan Gidley, who was a senior adviser to Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and onetime Baptist pastor, before Mr. Huckabee quit the race.
A CBS News poll of Republican primary voters nationally this month showed Mr. Trump leading Mr. Cruz among evangelicals 33 percent to 22 percent.
In South Carolina, where Mr. Trump won a commanding victory, earning all 50 delegates, he carried evangelicals by six percentage points over Mr. Cruz and 11 percentage points over Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, according to exit polls.
After Mr. Cruz’s brutal South Carolina loss, his campaign manager, Jeff Roe, re-emphasized a Southern strategy, the cornerstone of Mr. Cruz’s campaign since he announced he was running. “We’re going to have a big night on March 1 in an electoral map that favors us,” Mr. Roe said.
But even though Mr. Cruz won a plurality of evangelicals in the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, he faces uncertain prospects in Oklahoma and other Bible Belt states that will vote on Tuesday. Polls show him trailing Mr. Trump in Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama.
“Not everybody is going to follow just because we say this is what we suggest you do,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a leader of the Christian right in Iowa who is a national co-chairman of the Cruz campaign.
He expressed frustration that so-called values voters were giving Mr. Trump a pass on issues about his character, such as his mocking of women, as well as his conservative credentials. Mr. Vander Plaats suggested that they were “either hypocritical or uninformed or maybe not interested.”
“It’s not just three marriages,” he said, listing what he called Mr. Trump’s breaks from conservatism. They included donating to Democrats in the past and once suggesting that his sister, a federal judge who struck down a ban on partial-birth abortions in New Jersey, could make a good Supreme Court justice.
Again, how do you explain his appeal to the supposed "godly folk"? He is peddling open racism, nativism, and a gospel of greed. Plus, he provides the authoritarianism that the sheeple of the Christian Right love: someone who will tell them what to do and think whle disingenuously playing them for fools.. .
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