Can Biden Peel Away Evangelical Trump Supporters?
[guest post by Dana]
It’s been a bit of a mystery to me how white evangelicals supported Trump (not just voted for him as the lesser of two evils, but actually wholly embraced him). But everything changes, and the more we have seen of Trump’s true character, and the novelty of the reality TV president has worn off, it’s quite possible that the president is in danger of Biden peeling away some of his evangelical base:
Biden, a lifelong Roman Catholic, has performed better in recent polling among white evangelicals — and other religious groups — than Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did in 2016 and is widely perceived as more religious than the current White House occupant. A Pew Research study conducted earlier this year showed that a majority of U.S. adults (63 percent) think Trump is “not at all” or “not too religious,” versus 55 percent who said they believed Biden is somewhat or very religious.
Many conservative evangelical leaders have argued that Biden’s positions on cultural issues — like abortion, judges and religious freedom — are disqualifying. Still, anxiety is growing inside Trump’s orbit about the former vice president’s ability to peel off Christian voters who supported Trump in 2016, including the 81 percent of white evangelicals he carried, according to eight administration officials, White House allies and people involved with the Trump campaign.
Such an outcome could deal a fatal blow to the president’s reelection, which largely hinges on expanding his support among religious voters to compensate for enthusiasm gaps elsewhere.
“Here’s the problem for Trump: He needs to be at 81 percent or north to win reelection. Any slippage and he doesn’t get a second term, and that’s where Joe Biden comes into play,” said David Brody, chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network. “In this environment, with everything from the coronavirus to George Floyd and Trump calling himself the ‘law-and-order president,’ Biden could potentially pick off a percent or 2 from that 81 percent number.”
This reminds me of David French’s observations about white evangelicals and the so-called “binary choice”:
When C.S. Lewis said “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of very virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality,” he was speaking an important truth. We may think we possess an array of virtues and beliefs, but we don’t really know who we are or what we believe until those virtues and beliefs are put to the test. There is many a man who goes to war thinking himself brave, until the bullets fly. There is many a man who thinks himself faithful to his wife, until the flirtation starts.
There were many men who thought character counted, until a commitment to character contained a real political cost. But that’s the obvious point. I’ve made it countless times before today. White Evangelicals, however, have shrugged it off. “Binary choice,” they say. “Lesser of two evils,” they say—even though those concepts appeared nowhere in the grand moral announcements of the past.
Many millions of Trump-supporting white Evangelicals no longer care about character (though a surprising number are still remarkably unaware of his flaws). That much is clear. But the story now grows darker still. As they’ve abandoned political character tests, they’re also rejecting any meaningful concern for presidential competence.
…
White Evangelicals, one of the most politically powerful religious movements in the entire world, should not use their power to maintain and ultimately renew the authority of one of the most malignant and incompetent politicians ever to hold national office. They shouldn’t, but they will.
Maybe they will, but there appears to be a good chance that they won’t. Maybe white evangelicals have seen through the ruse. Maybe this significant part of his base finally understands that, just because Trump holds a Bible up for a photo-op does not mean that it reflects accurately his true character. So rather than judge Trump by the props he employs, there is a chance that white evangelicals will judge his character by what they’ve seen with their own eyes and what they’ve heard with their own ears these past three years. Maybe the group now sees the contradiction between the man revealed, in all of his narcissistic and corrupt glory, and his willingness to use faith as a public relations tool. Maybe French is right, and white evangelicals will still support Trump, or even go for Biden. But there is also a good chance they are going to write in the name of that one individual that they can support with an untroubled mind and clear conscience.
–Dana
Good morning.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/22/2020 @ 10:00 amEverybody is more then one thing and a candidate can appeal to people in many ways. Trump didn’t appeal to them as a man of character who shared their faith and adherence to the teachings of Jesus. That was Mike Pence.
Trump appealed to them as someone who would fight for their cultural tribe to be respected and would attack those they felt looked down on them and showed them disrespect.
Hilary was seen as very much part of that culture. Joe Biden less so.
Time123 (235fc4) — 6/22/2020 @ 10:27 amCan Biden Peel Away Evangelical Trump Supporters?
Can Biden Speak Without A Gaffe Before His Three-Minute Egg Is Done?
Do Groundhogs See Their Shadows?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 10:42 amIt’s been a bit of a mystery to me how white evangelicals supported Trump (not just voted for him as the lesser of two evils, but actually wholly embraced him).
It’s a façade; groupthink: Jerry Fallwell 101. For most, it’s the politics which motivate, dipped in a tasty coating of sweet spirituality.
“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” – Mary Poppins [Julie Andrews] ‘Mary Poppins’ 1964
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 10:55 amCharacter is a prediction of how you will actually act. Trump’s character is a greedy, lazy, narcissistic whiny blame-avoiding asshole.
As a result, when there is a question of how he will act, e.g. how he will react to evidence that Covid is starting to spread ever more rapidly in some states, his character is to take the action most likely to avoid blame or work or responsibility. And thus he will suggest less testing.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/06/trump-admits-he-asked-for-less-covid-testing-because-positive-tests-make-the-us-look-bad
The character right wingers were looking for was the character of someone who will always attack their enemies – liberal Americans. Why they think that’s a good thing in a president is really baffling, no?
Victor (a225f9) — 6/22/2020 @ 10:59 amCan’t really blame evangelicals for observing what Democrats try to do to The Sisters of Mercy, Chik-fil-a, Hobby Lobby etc. and decide not to pull the level in that direction.
Now all they have to do is look at Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Baltimore etc. etc. etc. to realize the push to not improve lives but to make everyone equally miserable has switched gears.
harkin (4cf812) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:04 am_
Historically that isn’t true, much of the acceleration can be directly linked to the Tea Party movement, although it got pretty bad under Clinton too. The business of government was still being accomplished though. The Tea Party and “Freedom Caucus” ran both Boehner and Ryan out of the House, they’d rather quit than deal with them.
Having met Jim Jordan a few times in college, I get it, he’s lucky that he was good at rolling around on the floor with groups of sweaty men.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:13 amIDK enough about the diverse evangelical groups to say one way or another, but no one who is a faithful Catholic should be entirely comfortable with either party if they are looking at them through the filter of Catholicism. And any Catholic who says they are is looking only at their politics and calling it religion.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:18 amAs a white Christ follower, I won’t vote for a guy with zero character and zero moral compass, so yes, there is nothing that will convince me to vote for Trump. He is a blight on the GOP, and we’ll be paying for his incompetence and malevolence for years to come.
Paul Montagu (d27749) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:27 amBiden is a Catholic and he does have some morality in him, but I can’t get past his support on too many policies that I disagree with, and I think white evangelicals are in that same boat.
This is why it’s so frustrating that Amash didn’t throw his hat in.
….no one who is a faithful Catholic should be entirely comfortable with either party if they are looking at them through the filter of Catholicism. And any Catholic who says they are is looking only at their politics and calling it religion.
That’s the problem with secular politics and political parties.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:27 am1) Millions, maybe tens of millions of yeses
Dustin (e3a6ae) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:38 am2) Nope but it’s 2020 so who cares? Nixon won the debate on the radio, JFK won on TV. It’s 2020, the year of the outraged hashtag. Trump can’t beat Biden unless Biden lets him have something to stupidly tweet about. It’s amusing to watch Biden fail to be the leader we need, and yet crush Trump day after day. Thank God Bernie wasn’t nominated because who knows what would have happened.
3) This year they see horns on them.
Evangelical writers to their fellow faithful: Donald Trump is a ‘spiritual danger’
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:45 amInteresting organization… http://www.evangelicalsforsocialaction.org/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/22/2020 @ 12:24 pmHow conspiracy theories about the NYPD Shake Shack ‘poisoning’ blew up
The three cops at the center of the NYPD milkshake “poisoning” scandal never even got sick, and there wasn’t the slightest whiff of criminality from the get-go ……The Post has learned.
The three officers when they ordered…… via a mobile app around 7:30 p.m., purchasing three shakes across two separate orders, sources said.
Their drinks were waiting for them when they arrived at the Shake Shack on the second floor of 200 Broadway a few minutes later……
Police sources explained it was clear that the workers couldn’t have known cops had placed the orders “since it wasn’t done in person” — and they couldn’t have dosed the drinks after the officers arrived, because they were packaged and waiting for pickup when the trio walked in.
…..
But when the cops told their sergeant about the incident, the supervisor called in the Emergency Service Unit to set up a crime scene at the fast-food joint for an evidence search around 9:20 p.m. — nearly two hours after they first got the sour shakes.
The three were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were examined and released without ever showing symptoms, sources said.
Meanwhile, a lieutenant from the Bronx blasted out an email to the unions that six cops “started throwing up after drinking beverages they got from shake shack on 200 Broadway.”
It was unclear why the sergeant and lieutenant escalated the situation.
Detectives easily closed the case after interviewing five employees and reviewing surveillance footage showing the shakes were made normally, sources said.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 6/22/2020 @ 12:47 pm…..
…..Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch made a show of visiting Bellevue while his union declared at 10:47 p.m. that police officers came “under attack” from a “toxic substance, believed to be bleach.”
…..
…..[A]t 4 a.m. — just over eight hours after the cops picked up their shakes — Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison announced on Twitter that there was “no criminality.”
……
RipMurdock,
Interesting story. I wonder if there’ll be any follow up about discipline of the officers involved. One really serious blow to policing in the U.S. is if it becomes widely understood at trials that their testimony is inherently untrustworthy.
Victor (a225f9) — 6/22/2020 @ 1:16 pm5.Character is a prediction of how you will actually act. Trump’s character is a greedy, lazy, narcissistic whiny blame-avoiding asshole.
Shorter: capitalist.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 1:36 pm“ Shorter: capitalist”
(Think anyone will tell him the track record of the anti-capitalists?)
harkin (4cf812) — 6/22/2020 @ 1:42 pm_
@11.
1. Don’t bet on it; ask HRC– or maybe CornPop.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 1:43 pm2. In an era when Americans don’t want to be governed but wish to be entertained, Biden Gaffes could become a sitcom smash on Fox a la The Simpsons & Married With Children.
3. ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’ was career comedy gold for Flip ‘Geraldine’ Wilson.
@17. Trump University grads tell you bankruptcy was his tool; the tool Leona Helmsley’s ‘little people’ paid for.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 1:46 pmThis is the guy who introduced Bernie Sanders at his campaign kickoff:
“Tear Them Down”: Race Activist Shaun King Calls for Removal of All Statues, Murals and Stained Glass Windows of “White Jesus and his European Mother”
https://twitter.com/JamieGlazov/status/1275175571471732736?s=20
__ _
Coming to a church near you. Those who ridiculed predictions of Washington statues being torn down can go whistle.
Just can’t figure out why evangelicals have trouble supporting the Left.
But it is going to be interesting when the BLM crowd discovers The Prophet bought, sold, captured and owned slaves.
harkin (4cf812) — 6/22/2020 @ 2:40 pm_
Leona Helmsley’s reign of terror is powerful counter-argument to those of Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc.
harkin (4cf812) — 6/22/2020 @ 2:43 pm@20 I thought they wanted the images replaced with ones that were close to how he likely looked? Or is Jesus being white now part of the evangelical theology?
Time123 (69b2fc) — 6/22/2020 @ 2:47 pmBiden is so flawed that I have doubts but in 4 months there may be an issue that becomes center stage that isn’t on our radar today.
Mattsky (218206) — 6/22/2020 @ 4:08 pmLeftists are anti-Christian. They worship the state and hate any challenges to it.
NJRob (8886f4) — 6/22/2020 @ 5:44 pm@21. Lenin, Stalin and Mao shudda tried leaving a mint on your pillow in every gulag.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 5:44 pmNo matter the complaints about Biden (gaffes, handsy, inappropriate “closeness,” to females, etc.), he is not Trump, and that will go miles during the election. While his views are not something I can support, I do believe that he has somewhat of a functioning moral compass, unlike Trump.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/22/2020 @ 5:53 pmRip Murdock,
Your MO is to come on to a thread and post a long long quote (usually several) having nothing to do with the post. If it’s not an open thread, how’s about engaging with the post from time to time?
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/22/2020 @ 7:11 pmI do believe that he has somewhat of a functioning moral compass, unlike Trump
Moral compass? Biden’s a proven plagiarist.
A thief.
End of story.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/22/2020 @ 7:27 pm@28 Did you write the speech that Biden used? I can’t imagine going around the internet telling people that Daniel S, who stole my lunch in 1987, is a thief. And it was actually MY lunch.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/22/2020 @ 8:54 pmWithout question, evangelical support for DJT has waned significantly.
However, with more stunts like the ones in Lafayette Park and at St’ John’s tonight, the more likely it is that the folks will see real evil at work on the Biden side of things and will vote to prevent them from winning control.
If the leftists are somehow able to simply consolidate the incredibly rapid gains they have made in the past couple of months, the fear factor will lessen significantly. Goodbye, DJT if this happens. But, anarchists are not known for strategic pauses and deliberate measures. They are much more likely to hand DJT a second term.
Ed from SFV (f64387) — 6/22/2020 @ 9:05 pmCol Klink at 7.
I think Sherrod Brown on the ticket would be the clinching touch for Joe B. You think Jim J would get the Senate appointment from Mike DeWine in the event of Brown becoming VP?
urbanleftbehind (e1b126) — 6/22/2020 @ 9:20 pmJesus: Woe to you, Pharisees, teachers of the law! Produce fruit in keeping with righteousness!
The Old Testament: People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart.
Aesop: Actions speak louder than words.
Embittered political hacks:
“So rather than judge Trump by the props he employs, there is a chance that white evangelicals will judge his character by what they’ve seen with their own eyes and what they’ve heard with their own ears”
You get the point. People with non-stunted moral development talk about the divide between presentation and action. People flailing for any stick to beat someone with talk about the divide between one perception and the one they’d like to hang on someone. But what else did you expect when you went to a teacher of the law for moral guidance?
Ol' Hickory (8de00a) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:23 pmWords are important, especially when they’re coming from the mouth of the President.
norcal (a5428a) — 6/22/2020 @ 11:27 pm