The Fundamentalists and Trump
Wait a minute. I have not, even with all the day by day wreckage, brought up the subject that baffles me more than any other. Why is the most pious segment of Protestant Christians – the holy, holy puritanical — now backing away from backing Donald Trump who probably doesn’t know what a sermon, pew or pulpit actually is. To be honest, I have to say that the American evangelical community doesn’t even know what “critical thinking” actually is. (It’s an intellectual matter and a very disciplined one, analyzing, conceptualizing, and made very important because its purpose is important.) In my view about ten percent of the Trump voters fit that descriptive, most of them from the corporate sector, the rest are from the bingo crowd.) That said, things are changing, at first very slowly but recently more vividly.
The female culture is now beginning to rise with indignity. Trump – and I am not tarring him – is now at a stage that is provoking the broad public. Moreover, he raises the temperature of serious Christians by claiming he is one, by describing himself as a “serious Christian.” That is absolutely false, since he very rarely attends worship unless he has to because of the public situation. How stupid can he get? There’s no need, at this point, in listing his many missteps, a routine that suggests to me that Donald Trump is just not one of the brightest. The Washington Post reports, more than most papers, his ugly crude language that he expects to be private, when it isn’t. Examples are everywhere: a vivid one comes back to me: a year ago he was caught by a microphone whispering to buddies about his sexual life: “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” Now at last he’s paying for it. This and other vulgarities have led to many women (who were part of “the evangelicals” who supported him,) to start withdrawing, but quietly, as The New York Times put it a few days ago: “White evangelical women, core Trump supporters, are tiptoeing away.” They didn’t belong there anyway but let’s ask ourselves: what does this indicate? Lots, which may get your approval.
The ever reliable Pew Research Center, a few days ago, reported in the New York Times that support among white evangelicals, has dropped about 13 percentage points to 60 percent. That’s serious. As the Times puts it: “While the men in the pulpits of evangelical churches remain among Mr. Trump’s most stalwart supporters, some of the women in the pews may be having second thought. As the White House fights to silence a pornographic actress claiming an affair with Mr. Trump, and a jailed Belarusian escort claims evidence against the American President, Mr. Trump’s hold on white evangelical women may be slipping.” Indeed. The new Pew national poll reveals that Trump’s approval rating is declining. Moreover, a study of the poll reveals that the decline is particularly among evangelicals. According to Pew, Trump’s approval rating among white evangelical Protestants, dropped 17 percentage points from February to December. It went down from 78 percent to 61 percent… Though the decline was not as steep, Trump’s approval rating has dropped. The situation? Well, the change among adults 0 and older went from 47 percent to 38 percent… among whites it went 49 percent to 41 percent… Trump’s approval rating had dropped among every demographic group Pew polled….
Well, all in all, the future is not very positive for that nice man President Donald Trump. So how do you feel about it? You wonder how I feel about it? Well, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve been at it for a day or two or three. It calls to mind a line or two from another old politician, Newt Gingrich. He’d been hard at it and so looking back on things he said, “Perseverance is the hard work you do after getting tired of doing the hard work you already did…” Got it?