Religious Right hypocrites cheer Trump at summit

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here's a primer on why it makes absolutely no sense for religious conservatives to support Trump:

1. He said in an interview that he doesn't need God to forgive him for anything.
2. He is full of pride, greed, and lust, which are three of the Seven Deadly Sins, and exploited hateful rhetoric as a candidate.
3. He is twice divorced and remarried, and his current wife has a long history of posing nude for pornographic magazines.
4. He made much of his fortunes from casinos.
5. He said several times in the Republican debates that Planned Parenthood does "great work" (which, incidentally, would have been political suicide for any of the other GOP candidates)
6. I'm probably forgetting something, but please feel free to add it.

If he had run as a Democrat, religious conservatives would have denounced him as a mortal threat to America by pointing to these facts, and quite possibly would have told their congregations that they would go to hell if they voted for him.  Jesus said that we could judge a tree by its fruits.  Does this sound like the kind of fruits of a true Christian?

Why should laws be made on the basis of the Bible again?

I don't know, ask Alabama's next Senator.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

If he had run as a Democrat, religious conservatives would have denounced him as a mortal threat to America by pointing to these facts, and quite possibly would have told their congregations that they would go to hell if they voted for him.  Jesus said that we could judge a tree by its fruits.  Does this sound like the kind of fruits of a true Christian?

Hold on a second. Isn't this logic more-or-less criticising Christians for not voting as bigoted sectarians? You're saying that it's hypocritical for Christians to vote for non-Christians regardless of policy as they should only support Presidential candidates they believe are 'saved' by God. That's basically a religious test. To stay consistent, should evangelicals refuse to vote for Sanders in 2020 on the grounds that he's Jewish?

I think evangelical support for Trump should be celebrated by progressives as it shows how admirably non-religious and accepting of cultural liberalism (divorce, sexual liberation) American conservatives are, instead preferring a more wide-based, secular American nationalism. It should be proof, if anything, that liberalism won the culture war of the 90s and 00s.

No, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of religious conservatives in voting for a candidate who was diametrically opposed to nearly everything they stand for, simply because he had an R next to his name.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here's a primer on why it makes absolutely no sense for religious conservatives to support Trump:

1. He said in an interview that he doesn't need God to forgive him for anything.
2. He is full of pride, greed, and lust, which are three of the Seven Deadly Sins, and exploited hateful rhetoric as a candidate.
3. He is twice divorced and remarried, and his current wife has a long history of posing nude for pornographic magazines.
4. He made much of his fortunes from casinos.
5. He said several times in the Republican debates that Planned Parenthood does "great work" (which, incidentally, would have been political suicide for any of the other GOP candidates)
6. I'm probably forgetting something, but please feel free to add it.

If he had run as a Democrat, religious conservatives would have denounced him as a mortal threat to America by pointing to these facts, and quite possibly would have told their congregations that they would go to hell if they voted for him.  Jesus said that we could judge a tree by its fruits.  Does this sound like the kind of fruits of a true Christian?

Why should laws be made on the basis of the Bible again?

I don't know, ask Alabama's next Senator.

As a secular liberal I would have had problems on all but (5).  As for (6), grabbing women by the crotch without their consent is sexual assault (as grabbing someone by an arm could be assault, but not sexual in itself) and rape should there be penetration even by a fingernail. If you are a defense attorney, you do not want me on a rape case in which someone has grabbed a woman by the crotch and inserted so much as a fingernail (deliberately or recklessly) into her vagina without her consent.

I'll give you (7): he is a demagogue, and demagogues never get good results for the nation or a national subdivision in which they govern or for which they legislate. We Americans have generally rejected demagogues handily, and this time we did not reject Donald Trump enough.

I could accept an atheist or agnostic, but that said, an atheist or agnostic seeking my vote had better have some moral compass. The Seven Deadly Sins include not only greed, lust, and (hubristic) pride -- but also anger. People with a moral compass know enough to constrain these no matter what their religious heritage is or even if they have no religion.

Divorce and remarriage is permissible (Ronald Reagan) -- but Nancy Reagan didn't appear even in pin-up pictures.      

Good work, I forgot wrath.

And Reagan was a different character.  He was very public, both as a candidate and as president, about his Christian faith, and his views were more or less in line with them on the issues they cared about.

If anything, Trump's misogyny helped him with religious conservatives, most of whom believe that women are scripturally inferior to men (even though the Bible says exactly the opposite) and that they are little more than sex objects, whose bodies are inherently sinful and should be covered as much as possible to prevent men from lusting after them.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

If he had run as a Democrat, religious conservatives would have denounced him as a mortal threat to America by pointing to these facts, and quite possibly would have told their congregations that they would go to hell if they voted for him.  Jesus said that we could judge a tree by its fruits.  Does this sound like the kind of fruits of a true Christian?

Hold on a second. Isn't this logic more-or-less criticising Christians for not voting as bigoted sectarians? You're saying that it's hypocritical for Christians to vote for non-Christians regardless of policy as they should only support Presidential candidates they believe are 'saved' by God. That's basically a religious test. To stay consistent, should evangelicals refuse to vote for Sanders in 2020 on the grounds that he's Jewish?

I think evangelical support for Trump should be celebrated by progressives as it shows how admirably non-religious and accepting of cultural liberalism (divorce, sexual liberation) American conservatives are, instead preferring a more wide-based, secular American nationalism. It should be proof, if anything, that liberalism won the culture war of the 90s and 00s.

No, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of religious conservatives in voting for a candidate who was diametrically opposed to nearly everything they stand for, simply because he had an R next to his name.

I still don't get the "hypocritical" part.  To say that Donald Trump, the 2016 GOP Presidential Nominee "was diametrically opposed to nearly everything (Evangelicals) stand for" is, in public policy terms, just not true.  The stated positions Trump took in the campaign are far more in line with what Evangelicals would desire in a President than the positions Hillary Clinton would take.

To the degree that the 2016 Election was a binary choice, how would voting for Hillary, or voting for a third party candidate, thus aiding Hillary, been less hypocritical?  I'm not going to pretend that Trump is a Christian Role Model, but when presented with an unsavory binary choice that has consequences, Christians have to evaluate policy positions.  And the (R) by Trump's name is significant; the GOP has long advocated positions more amenable to conservative Christians, and if Trump were elected by those folks, he'd be accountable to them.

I voted for Trump in 2016.  I never told anyone else to do so, and I've never suggested Trump is a Christian.  I don't believe he is, and I'm not real impressed with his personal lifestyle.  I understand the Erick Erickson position of being without a candidate, and I do agree with him that the danger to the church comes from Christians compromising their testimony by presenting Trump as something he clearly is not.  But I would like someone to explain to me why deliberately taking action to cause Hillary Clinton's election is less "hypocritical" for an Evangelical Christian in this case.

Voting for Hillary certainly would have been more hypocritical, but it doesn't change the fact that religious conservatives blindly followed a man who never represented their values until he ran for president as a Republican.  In short, religious conservatives are yellow dog Republicans and thus the GOP needs to stop pandering to them.  Our party could nominate an ax murderer and religious conservatives would still vote for him/her, just because of the R next to the name.

There was never a binary choice between Trump and Clinton.  There were plenty of minor party candidates who received a significant share of the vote because both major party choices were so widely disliked.  (I even voted for one of them myself.)  Voting third party wouldn't have helped Hillary any more than it would've helped Trump.  It would have given 0 votes to both of them, and 1 vote to the candidate you chose.  That's why real "spoiler" effects are rare and are just a lazy excuse for people to delegitimize a president, senator, governor, etc. they don't like.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Remember when evangelicals voted two-thirds for the divorced Hollywood elite over a peanut farmer who called himself "born-again" because Falwell denounced private school integration?

In fairness, Reagan was a very committed and outspoken Christian who was pro-life and anti-gay marriage.  That's why religious conservatives voted for him.