Donald Trump May Have Not Only Destroyed the GOP, But the Religious Right as Well

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:20 pm

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I warned awhile back that Donald Trump was the worst thing to happen to the Religious Right. And he has proven me right. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but Donald Trump may have not only destroyed the GOP, but the Religious Right as well.

He has Evangelicals falling over themselves trying to explain and justify their support of a man who is anything but a paragon of Christian virtue. This appalling defense of the deplorable has been truly painful to watch, even for a Heathen like me.

David French, certainly no friend of Donald Trump, wrote over at The National Review that it’s “time for hard truth.”

While there are a number of influential Evangelicals who have tied themselves so closely to Trump that they now feel obliged to publicly excuse the inexcusable, there are millions more who look at the present political situation with abject despair in their hearts.

French, who calls Trump’s “corruption of the GOP…almost complete” complains that,

“It turns out that the conservative base is not quite as conservative as we thought, and the Evangelical base isn’t as evangelical as we hoped. Rather than Rubio, Cruz, Bush, or Kasich, Republicans are stuck with Donald Trump, who presents Evangelical voters a nightmare electoral choice and a bleak political future.”

“Coach” Dave Daubenmire of Pass the Salt Ministries, exhibits classic symptoms of this Trump derangement, claiming “Women and men may be equal, but I think it’s pretty clear that the Bible teaches us that women should not be in authority over a man.” But it’s somehow not un-Christian to sexually assault women.

What Daubemire is saying is that it’s worse to have a woman telling you what to do than to just rape her:

“Here’s the point I’m making. With all that’s going on with Trump and everybody screaming and hollering about that, when is the last time your pastor stood up in the pulpit and said, ‘Hey, listen, we cannot vote for Hillary Clinton because women are not to have authority over men’? If we want to follow the Bible, that would sure be a good place to start, wouldn’t it? Rather than worrying so much about the immorality of a sinful man, what about the biblical principle that when a woman rules over a man … it’s a sign of judgment of the Lord?”

Daubenmire is a typical Religious Right hypocrite, like French talking about religious liberty as if it applies only to Christians (or at least, so-called Christians). He has in the past claimed anti-bullying efforts bully Christians, and, hilariously, that he is “sick and tired” of being sodomized by the left.

French laments, and Dave Daubenmire is living proof of this, that,

“Here’s the emerging reality: While the GOP can’t win without Evangelicals, it’s increasingly clear that it can’t win with them either.”

Clearly, there are problems that go beyond Trump. But Trump has coalesced these deplorable attitudes under one banner, in a Trump cult of personality at odds not only with basic human decency, but with his own party; and with many Evangelicals who can’t quite stomach that degree of hypocrisy in the name of defeating Hillary Clinton.

The obituary for the Religious Right has been written many times, and always it is premature. But the Religious Right, like the GOP, has never met a man like Donald Trump, who has proved you don’t need political ideology or religion to hate: All you need is hate.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.