The Evangelical Cult
by digby
These quotes from the Values Voters Summit over the weekend say everything about Trump’s following.
Bless their hearts:
While Donald Trump is the target of an impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill, evangelical Christians who gathered across town were unfazed by his request of Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.
On Friday, a succession of speakers delivered paeans to Trump at the annual Values Voter Summit, which the president is set to headline on Saturday. Trump’s allies have drawn a warm embrace from a core Republican constituency that feels under siege from modern social changes such as same-sex marriage and mass immigration.
To these voters, Trump is a protector. Some of them are uncomfortable with his soliciting political help from Ukraine, but they’re willing to overlook it. The attacks on him are perceived as an indictment of their values, and they identify with him for lashing out at progressives.
“I see it as harassment, quite frankly,” Gail Sonatore of Middletown, New Jersey, said of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. “I don’t think he’s done anything. I understand his tone — nobody likes that tone. But when you’re dealing with Marxists, what are you supposed to do? Just take it?”
She added: “Republicans have for a long time been called racist, fascist, sexist and greedy. And I think that’s why they support Donald Trump.”
Like many others at the conference, Sonatore said she has no problem with Trump asking Ukraine’s president to look into Biden. She said the former vice president should be investigated in the U.S., but was certain any inquiry would be thwarted because “the deep state is deep, and it is corrupt,” echoing a conspiracy theory common among Trump supporters that unelected career government employees are abusing their power to subvert the will of voters.
It’s hopeless people. These folks have attached themselves to acon man and there is no dissuading them.
“Nobody likes the tone” she says, probably talking about his crudeness. But they actually like it because he deploys it against people they see as their enemies. People like you.
They pretend it’s about “issues” but it’s clear from the interview that they are clueless. Yes, they like their Supreme Court but it’s obvious that that is just another “own the libs” symbol, a scalp they tack to their mantle of hate.
Bill Chimiak of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, said it was “problematic” for Trump to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival, but that it doesn’t affect his support for the president because “I didn’t hire an angel — I hired someone that would represent the United States.”
He scoffed when asked about the impeachment inquiry, suggesting that the U.S. government should put former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in prison instead.
“Go after the easy criminals first,” he said. “Go after them, and then let’s talk about that.”
[…]Valerie Marken of Monument, Colorado, said the impeachment inquiry was “crazy” and that her support for Trump wouldn’t be affected by his request to ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
“I think it’s fair game,” she said. “He’s the president.”
These are the supposed moral arbiters of our culture.
In my view, any Democrat who panders to these people at this point is committing political malpractice. It’s clear that it will never matter to them what any Democrat says. They are voting on the basis of something very primal and very very tribal. And it’s not about morals or principles, biblical or otherwise.
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