The second coming of Donald Trump
by Tom Sullivan
“Precious president” they called Donald Trump as they prayed for the cameras 18 months ago. He calls to them right back. Trump has plans for mobilizing the GOP’s evangelical base for his reelection in 2020.
Axios reports:
The goal: Paint Trump as a champion of socially conservative issues and warn evangelical voters that his defeat could destroy the progress he’s made.
- “There is a significant evangelical outreach effort. It’s going to be state specific. It’s going to exist in important battleground states and focus on churches and areas where we can have an impact,” a campaign adviser said. “African American outreach will be a component of that. … It’s robust, and it will be well-funded.”
Details: The campaign is hyper-focused on registration. It aims to make sure evangelicals, conservative Catholics and Mormons who are already registered vote on Election Day and — more importantly — ensure that the coalition they’ve built is registering people within their communities on the campaign’s behalf, a campaign official said.
No doubt Trump voter registration drives will find ways around criminal penalties Republicans have enacted against such drives in some states to suppress Democratic votes. Or else state officials will give a wink and a nod to volunteers in MAGA hats and to Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition. The group hopes to register a million new evangelical voters in battleground states such as Ohio, Nevada and Florida whatever the laws there say. The only unpardonable sin for “take no prisoners” evangelicals is getting caught. That makes Trump their kind of sinner.
“The future of U.S. democracy will be on the ballot next year,” warns E.J. Dionne. “No one should pretend otherwise.”
Trump’s evangelical base won’t have to pretend. Conditioned since childhood to think of Jesus as their heavenly king, it’s a small step to accepting Trump as their earthly one. Democracy is for unbelievers. They’re preparing for Donald’s second coming.