{"id":22652,"date":"2017-06-26T01:58:56","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T01:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22652"},"modified":"2017-06-26T01:58:56","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T01:58:56","slug":"trump-and-evangelicals-strangest-union-of-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22652","title":{"rendered":"Trump and evangelicals: strangest union of all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

Donald J. Trump has just selected Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead a task force aimed at overhauling public education policy.<\/p>\n

The president of the United States has linked arms with the head of a leading faith-based university; Falwell also is the son of the late televangelist who used his pulpit to attack President and Mrs. Bill Clinton throughout the president’s two terms in office.<\/p>\n

This appointment brings to mind a curiosity I’ve harbored ever since Trump entered political life, which is when he announced his candidacy for president in June 2015.<\/p>\n

Falwell joins Trump team<\/a><\/p>\n

My question of the moment is this: How does this man, Trump, continue to win the support of many within the Christian evangelical movement?<\/p>\n

Falwell Jr. has called Trump a “dream come true” for evangelicals. He just cannot say enough gushy things about the president, who delivered his first commencement speech at Liberty University, the school that Falwell’s father founded.<\/p>\n

If you think about it, though, the relationship strains credulity to the max.<\/p>\n

Trump has not been known as a major contributor to religious causes; he hasn’t been associated with faith-based charities; his whole life has been filled with glitz and glamor, chiefly through his association with and ownership of beauty pageants; he is married to his third wife and has boasted publicly<\/em> about his infidelity involving his first two marriages; Trump also has boasted about how he can grab women by the p**** because his celebrity status allows him to do it.<\/p>\n

But he’s tough on Muslims, vows to destroy the Islamic State, wants to impose a travel ban on refugees coming here from Muslim-majority nations. Maybe that’s why Falwell and many within the evangelical community are smitten by the president.<\/p>\n

I concede that political alliances can take form among groups or individuals one might not imagine banding together. This one, though, baffles me greatly.<\/p>\n

The president’s history is full of episodes that would seem to send devoutly religious voters scurrying for someone more, um, to their liking.<\/p>\n

Go figure. I cannot fathom it.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald J. Trump has just selected Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead a task force aimed at overhauling public education policy. The president of the United States has linked arms with the head of a leading faith-based university; Falwell also is the son of the late televangelist who used his pulpit to attack President and Mrs. … Continue reading Trump and evangelicals: strangest union of all<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,15],"tags":[1424,7164,5723,2783],"class_list":["post-22652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","category-religious-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-evangelical-christians","tag-jerry-falwell-jr","tag-liberty-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22653,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22652\/revisions\/22653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}