"We Will Get Destroyed": Evangelicals Are Quietly Ditching Donald Trump's 2024 Bid

[Celerity]

Several prominent pastors say their congregations are looking to others like Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis to steer the Republican Party back on track. “Donald Trump has to go,” as one evangelical columnist put it.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/evangelicals-donald-trump-2024



In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Donald Trump leaned heavily on his own version of the “silent majority,” hoping that a mythical demographic, which handed Richard Nixon two presidential victories, would carry him across the finish line. That prediction did not pan out in 2020—or in this year’s midterms. And after suffering three disappointing election cycles, Trump now appears to be faced with a silent majority of conservatives who are turning increasingly against him: evangelical voters.

“There’s a lot of people who share a lot of our similar thoughts but don’t want to go on record," Bob Vander Plaats, one of America’s top evangelical thought leaders, who hesitantly backed Trump in 2016, tells me. “You can see that it’s almost a silent majority right now,” he says. Everett Piper, a Washington Times columnist and the former president of an evangelical university, published a post-midterm polemic last month arguing that Trump is “hurting…not helping” American evangelicals. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” Piper added. “If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

Earlier this month, televangelist James Robison, who served as a spiritual adviser to Trump, likened the former president to a “little elementary schoolchild” while addressing the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. Another major evangelical leader, who requested anonymity, tells me there’s “no doubt” that if Trump wins the primary, Republicans will “get crushed in the general.” But even as some evangelical leaders seek a divorce, Trump’s influence on the Republican Party has held strong. He’s centered many of the culture wars that evangelical voters have been harping on for decades. And, increasingly, the party’s agenda has become nearly interchangeable with the attitudes of evangelical voters.

Take, for example, the dramatic rise of Florida governor Ron DeSantis: Despite not having officially entered the 2024 race, he has emerged as the GOP front-runner, in part, by courting the religious right with combative rhetoric, hawkish moral policies, and a knack for making cultural enemies. This summer, the Florida governor was invited to attend the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference, where thousands of evangelical voters gathered to listen to several 2024 contenders, and was recently endorsed by Tom Ascol, a prominent evangelical pastor. Perhaps his biggest play with evangelicals came just before the November midterms, when the Florida governor released an ad portraying himself as an Old Testament warrior. “On the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector,’” the narrator of the spot, who mentioned “God” 10 times in 96 seconds, told viewers. “So God made a fighter.”

snip

[yonder]

1. Self-delete

[ZZenith]

13. They're all sincerely praying for more rubes to come down the pike

so they can fleece them of everything they own.

No mistake, every single person in that photo is a manipulative snake.

[yonder]

15. Agree and the King Snake is at their center.

[Hortensis]

26. I don't think this is what the article is discussing. Of course it's

likely true that most would welcome a new authoritarian winner sent by god to serve him by smiting us. But, still, it's saying significant numbers are chastened by their losses and threat of future losses into dumping tRump as that leader. A message, if true, very worth noting?

[yonder]

28. Re-reading my post shows me I somehow lost the thread.

I was trying to juggle a half dozen things earlier and guess I got side-tracked. Apologies to the OP and thanks for pointing that unintentional derail out. Will self delete.

[Emile]

2. They got want they wanted from him. Judgemental pricks

will drop him like a hot potato!

[LakeArenal]

5. That's what I think about his Supreme Court picks.

They are there for life. Who needs trump.

[elleng]

3. MUCH better, pence and de santis!

[gratuitous]

4. Can a leopard change its spots?

Can these folks, so accustomed to doing evil suddenly practice what is good and right? Jeremiah didn't think so.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

6. DeSatan Christ-Like?

If Evangelicals think that, I am the Virgin Mary.

[hlthe2b]

7. That photo is sooooooo creepy.

Seeing that, is there any surprise that younger generations want nothing to do with organized religion?

[Blue Owl]

8. Runnin' with the devil....

[BlueTsunami2018]

9. This is why we should be pushing for Тяцмр.

We want him to be the nominee. We don’t want his disastrous tenure swept under the rug and forgotten like W’s was. They always get to wipe the slate clean and pretend it never happened. Nixon, Reagan, both Bush Presidencies. They should have Piss Wig hung around their necks forever.

I don’t want the asshole in jail, I want him kneecapping DeSantis in the primaries. I want to crush him in the ‘24 general.

[musette_sf]

10. It's Paula White up front, TFG's "spiritual advisor"

Time for the Paula White/Eminem/Vibing Cat mashup - crazy prayers for the “angels” to fix the election. I love this clip.

[DET]

16. HA!

Complete with “talking in tongues” (unconvincingly) and bored guy walking in back. Love it!

[malaise]

11. Bwaaaaaaaah

Cartoon characters

[bluestarone]

12. Their GAWD must have LIED to them huh?

THEY said GAWD told them TFG was the CHOSEN ONE! (Actually i KNOW who LIED)

[old as dirt]

14. Bob Vander Plaats

[Buns_of_Fire]

17. Of COURSE he has to go! He's cutting into their receipts!

The more the rubes send to him for NFTs of his underwear, the less they'll have to put in the collection plates. Gotta keep those priorities straight!

[underpants]

18. Haven't read it but Pence could be a fly in the ointment

The thumpers could go away from Trump and if there aren’t too many people running bleed votes away from him.

Sorry, couldn’t resist in the subject line.

[BlueIdaho]

19. Not so easy to change horses in mid-stream

TFG’s stench is all over these Bible bangers. They have forsaken their god for a flashy huckster and a small stack of playing cards… BTW - where is Donny’s “Christ is Risen” NFT card? Be sure to collect the whole set! 🤮

[Girard442]

24. If Donnie is going to rise on the third day, he'll have to be crucified first.

I'm sure he's up for it.

[Genki Hikari]

27. They've forsaken nothing

Have you read the book?

The bewigged toddler has plenty in common with their deity:

jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

If you didn't know it was a quote from Richard Dawkins about the Abrahamic deity, you could quite easily apply all of that to describe that...thing as well.

That's how much they have in common.

[Initech]

20. They wanted an asshole for a leader and they got an asshole for a leader.

Sorry evangelicals, but 40+ years of your hateful bullshit led to this. It's going to take decades to undo the damage that Trump and Fox have done to your party. We know where you stand now, and it's not with the US. And there's no amount of fake patriotism that you can conjure up to cover it up.

[Captain Zero]

21. I'm sure the GQP can find them a wackjob to worship.

No problem.

[Aristus]

22. They knew exactly what he was when his squalid behavior

was bringing the knuckle-draggers out to the polls.

Now that he’s losing elections for them over and over, they’re pretending that they are just now seeing what’s been there all along.

[PufPuf23]

23. Pence and DeSantis are Highways to Hell for Evangelicals and the USA

May these Evangelical Pastors, Pence, DeSantis, and what reprobates they can find lead them and their followers on the Highway to Hell so the rest and majority of us can have peaceful and safe lives in an egalitarian society.

Spent most of my life considering myself and enjoying the meaning and symbols of cultural Christianity, in my old age I do not. Granted, I am celebrating Kittymas thanks to Amazon with my Maine Coon and have done some holiday gifting.

Here is an appropriate holiday song for these asshats:

[TlalocW]

25. A lot of big names are still publicly (at least) supporting him

A lot of them are "prophets" and have some skin in the game concerning their already-failed prophecies of his being re-elected and probably made a lot of bank when he was president.

[Martin Eden]

29. They LOVED Trump until he became a LOSER

Trump is the same vile POS.

And so are they for putting this utterly corrupt totally immoral patholigically lying malignant narcissist in the White House.