Evangelicals overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. Decades ago their allegiance to Nixon was just as strong.
More than 81 percent of Protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever.
By Randall J. Stephens, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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| President Richard Nixon (L) bows his head during the closing prayer at the annual National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton on Feb. 1, 1973. With him are Rep. Albert H. Quie, R-Minn. (C), and Billy Graham, who delivered the prayer. File Photo |
More than 81 percent of the United States' Protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump
in the 2016 election. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem
as dedicated to him as ever -- and just as ready to make excuses for his
decidedly un-Christian misdeeds.
Many Christian rightists, among them "family values" foghorn James Dobson, consider Trump a "baby Christian."
His lewd and predatory comments about women are simply the mark of a
very imperfect man. Any of his actions, no matter how debased or
inhumane, are dismissed or approved by the faithful.
On Thursday the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, used Scripture
to back up Trump's cruel policies on refugees, which are tearing
families apart along the southern border. Now, through the alchemy of
political tribalism, the former casino owner, who once starred in a
soft-core porn film and who confessed on the radio to multiple affairs,
is a man of God who speaks his mind with confidence, however deep his
ignorance.
But today's evangelical leaders should be wary of hitching their wagon
to an amoral, corrupt president. They could learn a thing or two from
their predecessors, who aligned themselves closely with another
troublesome president: Richard Nixon, whose malfeasance eventually became too much for the Christian right to tolerate. When the depth of Trump's misconduct is established, will his prayer warrior enthusiasts have to rethink their allegiance?
For now, the love affair continues. In May, First Baptist Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress proclaimed on Fox News
that the vast majority of his fellow believers hoped their candidate
would win again in 2020. Trump has reciprocated by waxing pious at
prayer breakfasts about the glories and mercies of God. His staunchly
evangelical vice president, Mike Pence, assures Americans that
"there's prayer going on on a regular basis in this White House." Pence
recently delivered a Trumpian, campaign-style address at a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination.
Trump hagiographies are rolling off the presses: The Faith of Donald J. Trump, God and Donald Trump, The Trump Prophecies. The latter is being adapted into a film with the help of fundamentalist bastion Liberty University.
Trump iconographer and right-wing Mormon Jon McNaughton, who once depicted a resolute Barack Obama with the Constitution under his foot, has created a series of kitsch classics rendering Trump as a cross between prophet, priest and king. Perhaps one day in the not-so-distant future the artist will paint The Apotheosis of The Donald for the Capitol rotunda.
What about the president's habitual lying? His sordid past? His bragging and bullying? His demonizing of refugees? His lawyer's payment of $130,000 in alleged hush money to a porn star? Influential evangelist Franklin Graham recently said that Trump's alleged affair with Stormy Daniels happened many years ago. It didn't matter now.
In March, the Pew Research Center reported that white evangelical support for Trump stood at 78 percent,
a figure that had actually grown since news about Daniels broke.
Democrats, progressive Christians and the media hated Trump. That was
reason enough for many others to support him.
Anyhow, said Graham:
"I don't think that he came to be president by mistake or by
happenstance. I think somehow God put him in this position." And Graham
was even more assured when Trump told him that his father, Fred Trump,
had taken him to an evangelistic crusade held by Graham's own father, Billy.
Common cause
Perhaps the most famous and influential revivalist of the 20th century, Billy Graham
preached a simple message of repentance and salvation. Though he
claimed to stay away from politics, he was in fact deeply political, and
a close confidant of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
During the 1960 presidential campaign, Graham and his fellow travellers were faced with the possibility that John F. Kennedy, a Catholic and a Democrat, would be the next president. They rallied behind Nixon -- and stayed behind him for years.
Like Graham, many white evangelicals in the late 1960s and early
1970s found in Nixon a strong, powerful man who boldly stood up to
liberal politicians, civil rights agitators and amoral student
activists. When the president championed the "silent majority" on
national television, they were heartened that such a Christian leader
would speak for them. Nixon signaled that they were the true victims in
the heated political and cultural battles of the age.
Nixon won 69 percent of the evangelical vote
in his successful 1968 bid, and he instituted regular White House
religious services at the start of his presidency. The president's call
for "law and order" also inspired the faithful. The head of the National
Association of Evangelicals endorsed the Republican president in 1972,
praising Nixon's Cold War policies. Some 84 percent of evangelicals cast
their votes for Nixon that year.
Their affinity lasted for most of Nixon's doomed presidency. Graham's
private conversations with Nixon, recorded by a secret White House
taping system, revealed the extent of the preacher's partisanship and
his willingness to encourage the president's many prejudices and burning
grudges. On Feb. 10, 1972,
Graham listened intently as the commander-in-chief railed against Jews
and their overpowering influence. America's pastor replied that "this
stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the
drain." Nixon sympathized: "I can't ever say that, but I believe it."
Keeping the faith
But the following year, the scandal over the Watergate break-in and
subsequent cover-up dominated headlines and nightly TV news. Like other
right-wing partisans, conservative Christians tried to brush it aside,
but they could only ignore the obvious for so long -- when it came down
to it, their political hero was a squalid criminal. When Graham finally
heard the profanity-laced Watergate tapes, he reportedly vomited.
Quite a few evangelicals, though disillusioned, didn't really come to
grips with the deeper meaning of it all, responding with a kind of
born-again dodge.
Graham reckoned that Watergate was a symptom of a deeper, national
moral problem. He wondered if Americans should have prayed more for
their president. "There's a little bit of Watergate in all of us,"
Graham cautioned. Some -- like the fundamentalist minister and Christian
right political broker Jerry Falwell
-- continued to revere the disgraced former president. In the years
after Nixon's 1974 resignation, evangelicals voted Republican in growing
numbers.
Will
Trump's solid, evangelical base ever come to terms with the kind of
person they voted into office? Will there be a reckoning in the coming
months and years that will open their eyes to his cynical manipulations,
his divisive, culture-war grandstanding, his philandering, or repeated lying? It's difficult to say. But if the past is any guide, the answer is a resounding no.
Randall J. Stephens is an associate professor and reader in history and American studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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