US evangelicals still all-in for scandal-plagued Trump

WASHINGTON (AP): He has been indicted over hush money payments to a porn star and found liable in a sexual abuse lawsuit in a tumultuous start to his reelection campaign — but America’s evangelicals just can’t quit Donald Trump.

The 45th president of the United States — who is vying to be the 47th — has spent years mired in legal and ethical scandals, from accusations that he abused his office and tried to subvert a free-and-fair election to alleged affairs.

Yet the 77-year-old Republican remains as popular as ever on the Christian right, his appeal abundantly evident at Road to Majority, a weekend gathering of 3,000 evangelicals from the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Washington.

“Together we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, the globalists and the Marxists,” Trump said in characteristically apocalyptic language, as he delivered the keynote address at the closing gala to rapt applause.

“That’s what they are. And we will restore our Republic as one nation under God.”

It took some persuasion for white evangelicals to come around to Trump when he announced he was running for president in 2015. But once they were in, they were all-in.

Non-Hispanic white Republicans who attend church regularly backed him by 81 percent in 2016 and 76 percent in 2020 — statistics that astonish those who question the former reality TV star’s religious credentials.

“It’s the difference between a representative and a leader,” Suzzanne Monk, a 50-year-old conservative political activist, told AFP as she attempted to explain Trump’s enduring popularity.

“Many of the politicians we have seen over decades are representatives… and they do the absolute minimum to keep themselves reelected. Donald J. Trump looks at situations and tries to rectify the situation.”

Trump’s famously devout vice president Mike Pence, who is running a distant third in the race for the 2024 nomination, would seem the more obvious fit for evangelicals. But he was booed at the 2021 Road to Majority over his refusal to help Trump overturn his election defeat and received largely polite applause this year.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the only speaker to explicitly criticize Trump, was roundly booed for saying the Republican leader had let the country down.

The conference was being staged on the one-year anniversary of the US Supreme Court ending the nationwide right to abortion and Trump has voiced disquiet about some of the more restrictive curbs being pushed in conservative states.

He also sparked fury among some leaders on the Christian right when he blamed harsh restrictions on abortion for Republican underperformance in the 2022 midterm election — and he has refused to commit to a federal ban during the 2024 campaign.

Yet the twice-divorced Trump, who is under indictment over hush money paid to a porn actress for an alleged sexual encounter, was undoubtedly the star of the show.

“I consider it a great badge of courage. I’m being indicted for you and I believe the ‘you’ is more than 200 million people that love our country,” he told the crowd, earning more cheers.

In his opening remarks, Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, denied there was a “cult of personality” around Trump among evangelicals.

Delegates at the conference appeared to agree, with many speaking approvingly of Trump’s record rather than commenting on his personality.

Two theories of the case for another Trump term emerged: first, that he fights for his supporters like no one else in politics; and second, that he delivered more of their policy priorities than any other modern president, from protecting religious freedoms and nominating three of the Supreme Court justices who gutted abortion rights.

Monk, the political activist, pointed to Trump being the first sitting president to attend the annual anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington in 2020, and his early advocacy for parental choice in education.

“It’s not about, ‘Do we match? Are we the same people?’ It’s about, ‘Will you put my values into policy?’” she said. “And that’s why these folks all love Donald Trump.”

Enzo Alcindor, who manages a real estate office in south Florida, said he voted twice for Trump’s main primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but would be four-square behind Trump in 2024.

“The other (candidates) do not have the melons — let me say it that way — to represent us, to fight for us, to defend us against the machine,” says Alcindor, who is in his 50s and came to the United States from Haiti in 1986.

“So there is only one, and only one candidate for me. It’s president Donald Trump.”