The greatest threat was posed by Trump
Do evangelicals support a Donald Trump candidate? What is he teaching us about the American political and legal right? The fate of Donald Trump in Iowa
Eight years of bitter experience have shown us that supporting Trump degrades the character of his core supporters. There are millions of reluctant Trump voters that have maintained their integrity, good sense and kindness as they cast a ballot for the past or will be the next G.O.P. nominee. I love the people who vote for Trump, they are my friends and family. For millions of Americans, Trumpism is not just a temporary political practice but the model for Republican political success and that is what God wants them to practice.
There is not going to be a post-Trump religious right. Evangelical leaders who started their alliance with Trump on a transactional basis, then grew giddy with their proximity to power, have now seen MAGA devour their movement whole.
Absent the sort of miracle that would make me reconsider my own lifelong atheism, Trump is going to win Iowa’s caucuses on Monday; the only real question is by how much. Iowa tends to give its imprimatur to the Republican candidate who most connects with religious conservatives: George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012, Ted Cruz in 2016. According to fivethirtyeight, Trump leads his nearest rivals by more than 30 points.
If Donald Trump storms through Iowa and easily seizes the G.O.P. nomination, as presumed, and then goes on to win back the presidency, his victory will trigger a wild political and legal melee. The primary motivating purpose of his campaign is vengeance. He has told his base that they will be getting revenge and that they will destroy the deep state. If he faces protests, he may immediately invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops, under his command, to American cities.
We experienced a similar melee during his first term, but a second would be worse. In lieu of an internally divided administration, which a variety of responsible aides and appointees struggled to contain, a second term would present Trump in his truest form. His MAGA base would replace the Federalist Society as the screener of his judicial appointments, and there are now a sufficient number of pure Trump sycophants to staff his White House from top to bottom.
I dread the possibility of a second Trump term as well as the fact that he might do permanent political damage to the Republic. But the problem I’m most concerned about isn’t the political melee, it’s the ongoing cultural transformation of red America, a transformation that a second Trump term could well render unstoppable.
