Why do conservative evangelical Christians admire and worship trump?

[MatthewG.]

42. Because he furthers their interests.

He picked judges that gave the Religious Right everything they want. That’s basically why. There’s also a heavy overlap between membership in conservative churches and reactionary populist foolishness in general, and Trump plays to that.

I know one or two educated Evangelical conservatives who acknowledge that Trump’s a sleazy hustler, but they’ll say getting the right judges appointed is what matters to them.

There’s also a solid tradition among religious conservatives of believing that God uses “sinners” to serve his purposes. In practice, this basically translates as: “the ends always justify the means. if someone not allied with us doesn’t follow our strict moral codes, we’ll condemn them loudly. If someone allied with us doesn’t follow our strict moral codes, that’s not at all a problem. Liberals consider hypocrisy a sin, but we consider it a good thing.”

The main lesson for progressives here, at least to my mind, is to abandon moral purity tests in politics. If a candidate hasn’t killed anyone or committed an actionable crime, and they’re willing to make progressive appointments or enact decent laws, we should basically always unite to support them in a general election however flawed their life or record.