Evangelicals Sell Their Souls for Trump

Speaking of the toxicity of evangelical Christians, a column in The Hill looks at how this segment of American society has sold its collective soul for Donald Trump, a man now confirmed to have paid hush money at least twice to cover up stories of marital infidelity while his current wife was at home with his infant son.  And let's not forget Trump's bragging about sexually molesting women in the Access Hollywood tape.  These modern day Pharisees who want to regulate the sex lives of everyone else - even as they have the highest usage of Internet porn - continue to turn a blind eye toward a man whose behavior is abhorrent to anyone with true moral standards.  Here are article highlights:

When it comes to the Stormy Daniels story, it is hard for me to understand the silence from evangelical Christians.  Let it sink in: It is now confirmed that the president’s personal lawyer paid a porn star for her silence.

After the story broke, a friend sent me an old article from a left-wing website. Democrats, the story said, beat themselves up for not better understanding white, Christian support for President Trump.  But that is a fool’s errand, the writer argued, because there is no understanding people who don’t accept facts.  The facts on the porn star and Trump became clear last week when Michael D. Cohen, the president’s lawyer, said he personally paid $130,000 to Daniels.

The money changed hands just before the 2016 election to allegedly stop her from talking about a sexual affair with candidate Trump that took place in 2006, just after Trump’s wife had a baby.  There is no longer any way to deny the fact of the payment and the nature of the tawdry story.

Also, there is no way to deny a former Playboy playmate’s telling of another extramarital affair with the president in 2006 and 2007.

And there is no way to deny that FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress last week that Trump’s White House knew about two serious charges of domestic abuse against top aide Rob Porter but let him keep his job. Porter resigned only when those allegations became public.

Yes, the injunction to let he who is without sin cast the first stone is an important one. But it now seems clear that evangelical Christians, who hold up biblical edicts on lying, cheating and adultery, don’t care about the word of God when it comes to Trump.

A January poll for The Washington Post and ABC News “found 68 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump’s job performance — a figure that is nearly double that of the population as a whole and that is higher than any other religious or demographic group.” For a group that regularly preaches about the “sanctity of marriage” and inveighs against the evils of divorce, it was a major political puzzle to me when evangelicals first backed the thrice-married, adulterous Trump over Hillary Clinton.

She suffered years of public humiliation rather than breaking up her family, turning away from marriage vows and divorcing her philandering husband.

And now the puzzling behavior of evangelicals is pushed to the limit by their support for Trump despite the slimy facts of the Stormy Daniels story.

What we are seeing is a hollow core in evangelical faith as practiced by its leaders. . . . . [Pastor Robert] Jeffress said he doesn’t “care” if Trump is a religious phony but only that Trump has “embraced and enacted” policies favored by Jeffress and other evangelicals.

That led Tara I. Burton to conclude in an article on Vox that Jeffress’ indifference about Trump’s nasty earlier comments about "shithole countries" in fact “revealed the dark heart of Christian nationalism: It is as much…about jingoism and ethno-nationalism as it ever has been about Christian values.”

When it comes to Trump, the nation’s political, social and historical norms do not matter anymore.

Truly, no decent and moral person should give evangelicals the time of day.  Their hypocrisy and dishonesty is stunning.  

Trump, Porn Stars and Evangelical Christian Moral Bankruptcy

Here in Richmond in the afterglow of the inauguration of three decent and moral leaders who will lead Virginia for the next four years, one has to pause to recall that the majority of evangelical Christians voted against these new leaders who reject the values and ugliness of Trumpism.  Meanwhile, these same "Christians" continue to support the current occupant of the White House who continues to put his moral depravity on constant display.  Between the continuing international fallout and condemnation for his "shit hole" remarks directed at majority non-white nations and new disclosures of Trump's payments of hush money to porn stars with whom he allegedly cheated on his current wife, one has to wonder (i) what is wrong with these "Christians" and (ii) why does anyone give them any deference.  They need to be condemned like their "dear leader" and avoided by decent, moral people.  The following are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post and The Daily Beast that look at Trump's sexual immorality.  First these highlights from the Post:

An adult-film star was paid $130,000 by a lawyer for Donald Trump in the weeks before the 2016 election to not talk publicly about a sexual relationship with the then-Republican candidate, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid Stephanie Clifford to remain silent about an encounter at Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after Trump married his third wife, Melania, according to the Journal. The Journal said the payment was made to a client-trust account at City National Bank in Los Angeles.

Cohen has called himself Trump’s “fix-it man” and has become part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election for his emails to Russian officials about a business project there, including a note to Vladi­mir Putin’s spokesman.  

In the days before the 2016 election, the Journal reported that Clifford was in talks with ABC’s “Good Morning America” to air her story about Trump. That report came days after The Washington Post released a video from a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump said he could grab women by the genitals because he was famous.

The Journal also reported in 2016 that the National Enquirer — a publication owned by a close friend of Trump — paid Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about an affair with Trump but never published it. 

Then there is this in the Daily Beast:

The Daily Beast was informed late Friday that porn star Jessica Drake is not allowed to discuss President Donald J. Trump on account of a non-disclosure agreement she signed barring her from any such talk. NDAs are often deployed as part of settlements to silence accusers.

“Jessica’s NDA blankets any and every mention of Trump, so she’s legally unable to comment,” her publicist informed The Daily Beast. “Jessica signed a non-disclosure agreement after her allegations of misconduct, and she can’t do as much as peep his name publicly.”

In late October 2016, Drake became the 14th woman to accuse then-candidate Trump of sexual misconduct. At a public press conference, Drake, flanked by her attorney Gloria Allred, claimed that after she met Trump in July 2006 at Nevada’s American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, where she was working a promotional booth on behalf of the adult film company Wicked Pictures, he made a pass at her. Trump’s wife, Melania, had recently given birth to their son Barron at the time. She alleged that Trump later called her and asked, “'What do you want? How much?” and then offered her $10,000 for sex. “This is not acceptable behavior for anyone, much less a presidential candidate,” Drake said at the presser. The Drake NDA news comes on the heels of a Friday report in The Wall Street Journal that President Donald J. Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, had arranged a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels “as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.” Around the time Drake came forward, then-candidate Trump issued a vow of revenge, threatening to sue every woman who came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump announced at a rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Oct. 22, 2016. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”   Thus far, he has not sued a single one. 

The reason one doesn't sue is because one in litigation, Trump could be sworn under oath and the courts could order the production of banking records, etc.  Trump will never sue these women because he'd lose and they would likely be shown to have been telling the truth - something that is unknown to Trump.

As for the evangelicals who continue to support this vile man, it's the height of hypocrisy that they say the gays threaten the "sanctity of marriage" even as they support this serial sexual predator and hate-filled man. Oh, and as for porn stars, they are more honest, in my view, than many of the "godly folk" who pretend to be something that they are not.