Now Ralph Reed casts Trump as a convert to social conservatism, thus especially beloved, blessed. Yet again forty years of hypocrisy is exposed, the moral majority mood galvanized improbably for Reagan somehow rejiggered impossibly for Trump. My thought that evangelicals were finally being openly sold out by the GOP and weird vision of an evangelical-left coaltion against HRC technocracy dies a-borning, unsurprisingly. All this bloc needs are “hints” that abortion will become illegal, gays never marry, etc., to get behind a figure who goes out of his way to appear cartoon-Satanic. Making America great again means — once again — making Sunday School whiteboy Jesus smile down on us, and anything — even the high priest of Moloch in Manhattan — turns out to be better than a female president herself recently “converted” to marriage equality. I do think Bryan’s evangelicalism, however nativist and hidebound, was far superior — simply more sincere! — than this bullshit. Always knew Reed was a cleverly corrupt smarmmonger, but are we going to hear anything against Trump from sincerely conservative evangelicals? Or do they not exist?
In at The End of The World 
Is this political naivete or ratings seeking by Trump and evangelicals? I’ve spoken to a couple right-wing Christian friends about the tension between Trump’s life and Christian support. They come from different regions and different churches and all three said: “he doesn’t live our life, but he will protect it” or a very close paraphrase, close enough in fact to make me think it’s been thought about and disseminated through various religious bodies.
Why? Maybe it’s simple politics? Of the dozen+ candidates on stage, only a few would be willing to run as Christian/evangelical/conservative, and of those, it might be that Trump looked like the one most likely to win, be popular, and keep Christians in the party. Most of the moderates in the Party have been burned or demonized, so Trump might be all that’s left.
Trump, for his part, sees everything as numbers, polls, ratings, counts, will grab up any endorsements he can – knowing that the media will report it as momentum.
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“He doesn’t live our life, but he will protect it”: Well, I guess that’s as at least as realistic a political calculation as any other. And maybe in a time when the right-wing Christian feels socially embattled as never before, “protect” rather than “promote” is the rearguard action. In this reading, it’s more the Ralph Reeds of the world who need to pretend to believe what can’t possibly be true, that Trump is personally coming around on Christian values. Actual Christian conservatives are probably more realistic. Plus flat-out terror at the thought of an HRC presidency, as reflected in the Times interview, makes some otherwise wary voters go for Trump the way flat-out terror of a Trump presidency makes some otherwise wary voters go for HRC. I mean I hope they will.
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In the meantime, as a Protestant separatist — not literally, more like the Jones family personality type — I can only suggest rendering unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s.
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The rationale could also be that they know that Hillary will actively work against much of the Evangelical program, while Trump probably hasn’t thought about it for ten minutes. And, he probably doesn’t care a great deal about those issues since he hasn’t demonstrated any concern about any issue other than himself. So, he may well back many of their issues out of shear fecklessness. Probably also worried about the possible three or four supreme court seats the next president will fill.
Still, I suspect that he won’t do as well with Evangelicals as past GOP nominees. And that’s all that Hillary needs. Have to look for some polling on this. Switching religions, he’s not popular with Mormons. Two polls in Utah show he and Hillary very close. I’m sure that he’ll win the state, but that Hillary is basically tied with him is crazy. And Orrin Hatch still hasn’t come out and endorsed Trump, either.
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