‘Trump modified evangelicals more than they modified him’: How Christian nationalism took off in U.S.

As you know the left is trying to shame Christians they try and shame us us I'm a very proud Christian actually taking the the bullets taking the arrows I'm taking them for you and I'm so honored to take them you have no idea November 5th is going to be called something else you know it's going to be called Christian visibility day when Christians.

Turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before for many Christian nationalists Donald J Trump is the leader they have been looking for they believe if he becomes president they can make their vision of what America should be a reality and there is something he is more than willing to encourage at his.

Rallies on the campaign Trail anthia Peter Katherine still with us anthia have we ever had a political candidate like Trump I mean there are some Christian voters who see him as their savior no we have not had anybody see a presidential candidate as Savior and for evangelicals this is where I you know am personally appalled because they're for.

Evangelical there is one only one Savior and that's Jesus Christ but the way they think about Trump is that he is a Divine figure in the first round of his presidency they compared him to King Cyrus there's all this artwork of Jesus standing behind him in the Oval Office there were all these memes that happened in the first round but what has happened.

Now since 2020 and he lost is that now he's taking up sort of tying himself into a persecution complex look they are doing this to be I am your savior I'm the one to do this so it was no mistake that he started to sell the Bible on Holy Week right and last year he did the same thing he talked about how they were trying to persecute him so this.

Narrative of persecution is tying into Evangelical beliefs about their own persecution or what they perceive to be persecution and he's the perfect person for them so in other words it doesn't matter if he's had three wives it doesn't matter about any of that stuff we thought would matter to evangelicals what matters to them is that they see.

Him as a suffering savior but a suffering Savior for their causes and for them Peter back in 2016 Trump told some of his supporters that they were under siege he said that Christianity will have power again religious extremism has been part of his rap for years but now it is different what do you hear him telling supporters today.

Well I just think that he's he's uh ratcheted up um and the the language that he's using is more violent um and more and more threatening um you know there's a psychological accommodation that's that's happened there was some resistance not not much not obviously nearly as much as there should have been when Trump came onto the scene but with.

Every transgression that he made uh Christian nationalists and a lot of Christians who are not nationalists but just Evangelical Christians made their inter peace with Donald Trump and uh he changed them much more than um than they changed they changed him uh and I want to say one other thing which I think is important to understand in this context.

Kristen D is a historian at Calvin University and she wrote a very good book called Jesus and John Wayne and one of her arguments is that Donald Trump is the personification of a lot of values that the white Evangelical movement had for decades and decades a lot of people who don't follow the movement think and understand so isn't there this massive.

Hypocrisy on Trump with his depraved life moral life personal life how could they could like him again that's true but that's not the full story it's the cruelty that he embodies that unfortunately tragically shamefully uh resonates uh with them so there there's something about him and we saw this in the primaries in 2016 we see it again.

You this year in the primaries when Republicans have choices conservative alternatives to Donald Trump not corrupt alternatives to Donald Trump successful Governors like Nikki Haley they reject her they reject them in overwhelming numbers that means there's something about Trump that draws uh them to uh him to them um which which is a real uh a.

Real shame Katherine you wrote that right-wing conspiracy theories have never been more bloodthirsty we talked about it in the last segment we have seen political violence become a reality January 6 was clearly that I want to understand if and how Christian nationalism played a role in January 6th and do you think there'll.

Be more violence ahead well uh the movement leaders absolutely played a role in January 6th they spread election lies in the runup to January 6th uh this conservative Action project and organization affiliated with the council for National policy issued a memo uh telling it's it's this one of the key networking.

Organizations of the uh religious right telling leaders that they should uh and their Allied uh political allies that U the electoral votes should be contested so and and not only that there were a number of uh Christian nationalist leaders who actually participated in the Jericho marches who that preceded uh the January 6th uh coup attempt so um you.

Know you mentioned conspiracism and disinformation this is unfortunately a really big part of the movement the movement uh leaders know very well if you can separate people from the facts you can control them you can control their behavior uh and you control can control their vote so a lot of the folks who participated in January 6 a lot of.

The folks who attend these other sort of conspiracy fests like reawaken America tours I don't know if you know about that there is these sort of traveling prot Trump conspiracy Road shows that take places in mega churches and a attract thousands of of attendees uh they just sort of spread lies uh all different kinds of Lies there's a lot of.

Q andon there's a lot of um great replacement in other conspiracies but the main lie that they're spreading is the idea that Donald Trump is their savior he's a really terrific guy the election of 2020 was stolen and unfortunately um they're really priming a a section of the American public to um become sort of authoritarian.

Voters they are deeply entangled in Trump's 2024 campaign an theia what could another Trump Administration look like with some of these guys at the helm well it could look really bad because basically what you have now is called project 20125 which is a piece that's been put together by the Heritage Foundation where they talk about how.

They will turn 900 00 Manifesto really basically where they are going to change all these different roles of places in government how going to put their own people in what kind of rules will change because of this they are already interviewing people and I think that for people who just look oh this is just another project they have had time to.

Think about what they've wanted to do since 2020 and this project 2025 I think is the most fearful thing the other thing I would say is that you know you heard Donald Trump yesterday say well I'm not really going to be involved in abortion I'm going to kick this back to the states right that's an ausc they will Go's the reason reason being.

Exactly but he's doing a nice little faint so that people won't see this and that he can get women's votes but the way that I would put it is the way a friend said it to me it's like if women vote for Donald Trump it's like uh chickens voting for Colonel Sanders and you know that's crazy to say but it's just the truth and I think that you know.

These kinds of projects whether they're on the state level or the national level where we can look at book Banning we could look at how um you can't teach ethnicity in certain places in schools where people have to actually get permission for their kids to learn about African-American history during Black History Month okay because that's woke.

In Florida all right so these kinds of things are going to be entrenched because they want a theocracy and this is the thing that I can't stress to people enough that you need to understand that it's not just about abortion it's not just about you know all of these other little bitty things like books and all this this is about.

Changing the entire structure and for people who say they believe in Freedom they don't believe in everybody else's Freedom they want freedom for themselves but they don't want it for the rest of us who are living in this nation and don't want to live by those rules because we may or may not believe them hey everyone MSNBC has a new and.

Improved app you'll get real time alerts and Analysis live blogs in-depth essays video highlights and the best 2024 election coverage download the new MSNBC app here's how to do it you tap on the App Store on your phone you hit search on the bottom right corner you type in MSNBC you click on the MSNBC app you click on get or the cloud icon and enjoy.

It

Sharing is caring!