'He wins or we lose': Author explains why no matter what Trump does — evangelicals 'don’t care'

One group that former President Donald Trump has long counted on for support are right-wing white Christian evangelicals. Despite a drop in support, at one point, after Trump said he'd "compromise" on abortion restrictions, the demographic continues to stand behind him.

The Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta explains the reason behind their loyalty to the MAGA hopeful in his upcoming book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, which he discussed Sunday with MSNBC's Jen Psaki.

"The irony here, perhaps, is that despite being a champion of a number of issues that members of the evangelical community care about," Psaki said. "He doesn't exactly hold the highest esteem for the people in the community. He's called them 'so-called Christians.' Pieces of you know what — I'm not gonna use the exact term because it's a family show — when they don't support him. It sounds like what you're saying is, they were aware. my question was, did they know that they're being used? It is that okay with him? They're using him to?"

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Alberta replied, In fact, I think it is okay with many of them. Now, don't get me wrong. Here, again there's some nuance. There are lots of these folks who firmly, deep in their bones believe that Trump has become a born again Christian, that he is one of them, that he is a divine tool, a God-ordained leader at this time for these purposes, and that he is not just fighting for them, but that he is one of them, truly. I would say that is a smaller minority of these folks. I think the great majority of them, they recognize that he's not one of them. They recognize even that he probably, you know, says these things, hold these views of them in private. And they don't really care. I'm reminded, even just a couple of weeks ago, he's doing this awful vulgar language at a political rally, dropping 'MFs' and the like. i remember seeing some of the Twitter traffic around these evangelical spaces where people just shrugging and saying, 'Yeah, but so what? This is zero-sum. He wins or we lose.' That those are the stakes they are stakes not just at a partisan level. they are stakes for many of these people, again, and a spiritual level. That this is good and evil, and it's binary, and Trump is the one who's the field general, charging into the trenches against the evil progressives who are trying to banish Christianity from public life."

Psaki said, "I think the answer to this is, they don't care, but I want to know. Is there anything that Trump could do at this point like say, for example, trump was just talking about being a dictator on day one this week. Is there anything he could do like that that would make them turn the other way? What do you think the community thinks about him saying something like that?"

Alberta replied, "It's interesting. Donald Trump, after the 2022 midterms, he threw pro-lifers under the bus in a pretty brazen way. And for the first time we really saw a bit of a slippage with his numbers as it pertains to the white evangelical base. There was a real opening there for a [former Vice President Mike] Pence or [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis, a [ex-South Carolina Nikki] Haley, somebody. to exploit that vulnerability. a lot of pro-lifers very upset with him, and by extension some evangelicals really upset with him. And then shortly thereafter, Jen, [Manhattan DA] Alvin Bragg delivered that first indictment, and his numbers went right back up, like a hockey stick graph. And I think what that speaks to is a certain persecution complex that is very real in certain corners of the evangelical world, where they believe that the culture is coming for them. That Christianity is under siege, that before long, they won't even be able to gather physically in worship together. and Donald Trump in fact for these 91 counts in for all of the criminal and civil proceedings, all these clouds hanging over him, they're not supporting him in spite of those things, in many ways there supporting him because of those things. Because when he says that 'I am your retribution,' and when he says that they're coming after you but they've gotta get to me first, you they hear it as them.'"

Watch the video below or at this link.

'He wins or we lose': Author explains why no matter what Trump does — evangelicals 'don’t care'youtu.be

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