Donald Trump Has Lashed Out at Evangelicals – Is He Trying to Lose 2024?: When historians look back at the fall of Donald Trump, they likely won’t be able to pinpoint one particular moment.
Still, his comments about evangelicals a few months back will likely be remembered for years to come.
The disgraced former president questioned the loyalty of what had been his most crucial allies.
In an interview with the Real America’s Voice program earlier in the year “The Water Cooler,” Trump was asked about his thoughts on why evangelical leaders expressed hesitance to support him in his bid to seek re-election.
“I don’t really care,” the former president replied during his interview with David Brody of the Trump-aligned right-wing news and opinion channel. “It’s a sign of disloyalty.”
Donald Trump apparently forgets that loyalty is something that is earned through actions and that elected officials aren’t guaranteed it.
According to reports, even his most trusted advisors are accusing him of alienating what had been one of his most prized voting blocs.
Power Players
Even as their power has waned in recent years, evangelical Christians remain crucial voters for Republicans – a point noted in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent re-election where he won by a landslide thanks to the turnout from the bloc.
This group also proved to be a difference for Trump in 2016, just as its low turnout in 2000 almost ended up in a victory for Al Gore over George W. Bush. Four years later, Bush easily won reelection thanks to evangelicals.
The truth is that evangelicals may not vote for President Joe Biden – or any Democrat for that matter – but if 2020 was any indication, Trump would need every vote he can get. Thus if evangelicals opt to sit out the election entirely, as many did in 2000, then Trump can’t make up the difference with another group.
Politics is too much of a numbers game to throw away any bloc. Yet, instead of trying to be conciliatory or making any attempt to mend bridges, Trump went on the attack against the evangelicals in his interview.
“There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty because nobody … has ever done more for ‘right to life’ than Donald Trump,” the former president insisted.
“I put three Supreme Court justices who all voted, and they got something they’ve been fighting for 64 years or many, many years,” Trump said. “And nobody thought they could win it. They won — Roe v. Wade — they won. They finally won.”
Trump needs either a history or math lesson, as the landmark Roe v. Wade of the U.S. Supreme Court – in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to choose to have an abortion – was decided on January 22, 1973, fifty years ago this month.
Is Donald Trump Right or Wrong? Disloyal or Realistic?
As for the actual “disloyalty,” it came down to their failure to turn out enough in the mid-terms, where nearly all of the Trump-backed candidates went down in defeat. Yet, as noted, DeSantis did win by a landslide.
Perhaps it isn’t disloyalty, but reality, and evangelical leaders know not to bet on a loser.
The former president announced that he was formally running for president last year at an event hosted in his Mar-a-Lago club and estate.
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Author Experience and Expertise: A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
