Why do Evangelicals support Trump?

[perdita9]

He has unethical business practices, curses, abuses women, minorities and disabled people and instructs his followers to watch porn.

How can the Evangelical community claim to be morally superior when they support such an immoral man?

[JenniferJuniper]

1. He may be an immoral man. But he's a man.

Many/most fundamentalists don't believe women should have authority over men.

[winetourdriver]

9. this

It's a patriarchal culture, they do not believe women should hold positions of real power.

[Nay]

18. Thank you. What women say in fundie cultures -- well, they might as well bay

at the moon. They are the drudges and are to do what they are told. Period.

[saltpoint]

2. Evidently too many of them -- not all --

are willing to look the other way on those things because they think he will deliver on the prohibitions to society they most desire.

I think your question is fair. And I think any answer the pro-Trump evangelical community might offer would be flimsy at best.

[Kablooie]

3. They envy him. He does all the things in the open that they have to do in secret.

[kacekwl]

4. Same reason the GOP supports him

They know if elected they will have another puppet figurehead as president and they can do as they want while he tweets and has his picture taken . He can't and won't do the job.

[asiliveandbreathe]

5. Seriously?? - He is their water carrier for their

agenda..roe v wade - overturn w/SCOTUS - the religious right the white supremacists, will have a field day - trump is their puppet...just look at SPLC write up re CNP - of whom Conway and bannon are members...the alt right is very active -behind the scenes,,,

[perdita9]

16. My parents were super religious...

...and wrote people off if they said a swear word. I don't understand why the religious zealots can support Trump. He represents everything they preach against

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. They want more Republicans on the Supreme Court.

They still want Roe v Wade overturned.

Also, like another poster already stated, Trump is a man. Many evangelicals believe that women should be silent followers of men, not leaders.

[The Wielding Truth]

33. Look at him. Do you think they will be able to control him. He may talk to Ivanka and change his

mind, on a whim, and give no rational explanation or refuse that he was ever on their side. He is a hustler who is also all the bad things he has shown us.

If they want him to do their bidding he will extract payment. He is so dangerous. He may not even remember being this jerk and become another kind of selfish jerk. He cannot go to far off his basic personality, but he can change the focus of his deceptive practices. Is he a actual sociopath? Maybe so.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

34. The author of "Art of the Deal" says he's a sociopath.

If not that, he just might be the most self-absorbed human on the planet! I agree that they shouldn't trsut him to do their bidding. Look at his long history of broken contracts and promises.

[The Wielding Truth]

36. Buckeye - Are you seeing Ohio moving towards Hillary? We really need the open hearts of that

heartland. I am assuming you are from Ohio and I appreciate your posts.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

38. We're BARELY blue according to Nate Silver's "now cast."

I can't really tell just from people that I've met. The liberals here tend to be more quiet too.

Ohio is basically Kentucky and West Virginia in some areas, especially in the southern parts. If not for those people, I think Ohio would be solid blue. There's also a few people who have a "throw the bums out" attitude about Washington, and they see Hillary as a long-time political insider. They don't seem to care that Trump is an unstable ignoramus!

At least the Cincinnati Enquirer, a VERY conservative newspaper, recently endorsed Hillary because their editors correctly perceive Trump as a "clear and present danger."

[The Wielding Truth]

39. Thanks. That seems like a fairly positive assessment. I believe Hillary will win them over.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

40. I think Hillary will win Ohio too.

As for liberals being more quiet here, I've observed stuff like co-workers on lunch breaks turning the break room TV from FOX to CNN (after the loudmouth right wingers left) as they say stuff like, "I'm so sick of seeing that idiotic shit every day! Those assholes always put it on FOX!" You'd never know their political views most of the time! I think most of the liberals here know that the "tea party" types are nuts and not worth engaging.

[Agnosticsherbet]

7. Supreme Court Control.

[saltpoint]

8. There is this piece from last May:

https://newrepublic.com/article/133488/evangelicals-like-trump

Posters here have covered this ground very well. Some very sure-footed (and well-founded) replies to the OP.

The article is a concise examination, and for each of its salient points, a longer discussion could be undertaken.

Very useful for considering what motivates many Trump supporters.

[Mike Nelson]

10. He would...

...nominate Supreme Court Justices to stop abortion, gay marriage, etc... Also, they think Hillary and Obama do not know their "place".

[vlyons]

11. They are Christian Dominionists

They want to impose Christian Dominion theology on the United States. They want to be powerful enough to claim Christian dominion over the seven pillars of society: business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion. Very scarey.

http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm
http://www.7culturalmountains.org/

[saltpoint]

12. Agree. They are frightening.

I've tried (and mostly failed) to have conversations with some of these folks. Their responses were often robotic and unfeeling, exhibiting a sort of reflexive cult-like reaction in form and content.

Very heavy reference to the Authority of their God, without any examination of the difference between their personal belief and public policy.

[vlyons]

17. That's the thing about dogmatic ideology

It's liked canned soup. Just add water and stir. Critical thinking and quiet refection are not required. Which would be fine if they only had dogmatic theology for themselves. But they want to impose it on you and me. Absolutely the same mindset as the Taliban and the Inquisition. Very scarey.

[saltpoint]

21. Agree on all points, and especially on

the Inquisition.

The garments and rituals vary a bit but the mindset is in essence the same.

[LiberalFighter]

13. Why do they support members that commit adulterly, incest, sex with children?

[PoiBoy]

14. God..Guns..Gays...

..in other words...the Supreme Court..

these people really miss Scalia...IMO...

Excellent articles posted above..!!

[Warpy]

15. He's also more likely to start the nuclear holocaust they've been hoping for

because they think that'll knock Jebus off his heavenly throne and force him to come back after they've all been ruptured up to hebbin.

Yeah, they really believe that bullshit.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

19. I called my sister on the morning of 9/11...

... and she acted happy about it! Not in word, but in attitude.

She's a religious kook, so I later surmised that she might've thought the rapture had finally arrived. That's ridiculous, of course, but she's got many strange ideas.

EDIT: My oldest brother says that she and our religious brother were both very gullible about "monsters" and "Santa Claus" as little kids, and I was the opposite. That makes me wonder if there's a genetic aspect to that kind of thinking.

[Warpy]

23. I've often thought it was hard wired in true believers

who claim to have direct experience of some higher being, sort of a variation on the "third man factor," something that has been widely reported in all sorts of people under extreme stress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor

[Buckeye_Democrat]

24. Thanks for the link.

There might be some people who are more prone to such experiences.

[Zambero]

20. Because their "religion" is actually a form of cultural identity

That identity has an ingrained "us & them" mentality. The "other" is manifested by intolerance to include those of differing religious beliefs, non-heterosexual sexual orientation, women who do not abide by "traditional" gender roles, and those in poverty who are somehow "lazy and willfully dependent". Evangelicals' religious identity serves as a self-righteous facade that justifies actions and conclusions that would not be condoned by any serious scholar of core Christianity.

[saltpoint]

22. Very good post. eom

[d_r]

25. Abortion.

He released a list of supreme court nominees given to him by the family council or some sort of right wing nut group. I asked one of them why they would believe that, he replied everyone knows what Hillary would do but at least with trump there's a chance. Nothing else matters to them.

[rurallib]

26. they want to be close to or have power

I have come to the conclusion that power is all they care about

[iandhr]

27. Because fertilized eggs matter more than women...

... to them. Or to put it another way.


Every sperm is scared every sperm is great if a sperm is wasted god gets quite

https://m.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

29. They probably consider it murder of the "soul" before it had a chance to be "saved."

What does the soul do? Pull some "levers" in the brain sometimes?

The idea has always struck me as ridiculous. I don't see how a fetus could be deemed "human" until it shows some human-like brain waves, and that doesn't start for many weeks after conception.

As for a soul being in the fetus after conception, what about chimeras -- i.e., separately fertilized eggs that later fuse together? Do they have TWO souls?

Their thinking is very sloppy.

[SamKnause]

28. They want the United States to be a

Last edited Fri Sep 30, 2016, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Dictatorial Christian Theocracy.

[liberal N proud]

30. They were brainwashed many years ago to vote republican

I was once told by an evangelical nut job that if you were a Christian, you had to vote republican. It's the last time I went to church.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Because Trump reviews porn "tapes" for them. Red states are biggest consumers of porn. . . . . nt

[CentralMass]

32. He hates the same people that they do.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

35. Kidding aside, it is Compartmentalized Thinking

I posted with reference to a Daily Kos article and that references studies of Right Wing Authoritarian Followers by Altemeyer and others.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8065442

Each table has multiple characteristics that are aspects of that dimension, see the link.

Table 1: Hostility & Fear Toward Outgroups

Table 2: Not-So-Healthy Ingroup Cohesion

Table 3: Faulty reasoning

Table 4: Profound Character Flaws

Table 5: Blindness To Own Failings

Table 6: RWA's Political Tendencies

[iceman8322]

37. Are You Kidding Me?

Trump is a crook, a liar, a conman, a thief, a misogynist, a xenophobe, a racist, an adulterer, an accused pedophile, a deadbeat and now we find out he appeared in a porn movie. In other words, he's the perfect right-wing christian candidate.