The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex
In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian-right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden administration is persecuting Christians, aren’t just Trump’s typically dubious claims. Much like Trump’s lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom.
In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged, “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.” Speaking just after the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot, Trump tied this “war” to his own legal woes. “Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before,” he added. “I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.”
Trump has promoted the theme of Christian persecution in the past, but is elevating it again as these legal issues mount. His clear purpose is to deflect attention from his own criminal liabilities by insinuating that the same Biden administration he falsely claims is unfairly targeting him for prosecution is similarly persecuting religious Americans.
It is incredibly frustrating that Christians see this man as a good person, basically the antithesis of everything they supposedly believe. Three wives? Cheating on your pregnant wife with a prostitute? Doesn’t go to church.
I hope the Lincoln Project or whatever it was saved some good stuff for this election.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” seems to be a piece of timeless historical wisdom by Voltaire that unfortunately just never seems to fall out of relevancy when it comes to pointed criticism of the Christian church specifically, and religion more broadly.
Don’t forget that he publicly told an interviewer that he had never sinned, nor asked for forgiveness because he “didn’t need it”,