From John Pavlovitz’s open letter, the American people seem not to be moved by the support White Evangelical Christians accorded to President Trump before the elections. In such consideration, White Evangelical Christians are perceived as hypocrites, inconsistent, mercy-selective, and appear to covert supremacies to the people. For instance, the White Evangelicals did not come to President Obama’s rescue as the people relentlessly demonized him for the eight years of reign despite being a faithful married for 26 years with no reported infidelity issue (Sherwod, 2020). Such a move shows that the support White Evangelical Christians rallied behind President Trump’s reelection was ingenuine and politically motivated. The White Evangelicals never offered prayers to President Obama public all the while or even suggesting that he got the position God had in place for him. On the contrary, the White Evangelicals branded President Obama with scriptures to sideline him and used racial stereotypes to criticize him. As a religious institution, the White Evangelicals were supposed to demonstrate transparency and fairness in deciding whether to support the presidency. Therefore, the White Evangelicals’ arguments on the United States (US) polls appear to be racial instead of spiritual.
When the White Evangelicals rallied their support again on Donald Trump’s bid to be reelected, it was not as significant as in 2016. Such a decline in support for their favorite presidential candidate shows that they had lost supremacy and tie with the people. For example, the polls projected that about 10% of the White Evangelicals who had voted for Trump in 2016 did not reelect him in the last concluded elections. President Trump also had several moral scandals that surrounded him before and during his tenure that Americans advocated against. With such embattlements, the White Evangelicals had no power to mobilize more people towards President Trump’s second term. The group constituted five of the US electorate, which dad significant input and credited for Trump’s victory in 2016.
Even though the White Evangelicals did not address the fall in support of Trump’s reelection, they were convinced they could win the 2020 elections. However, places such as Georgia showed more support for Trump than Joe Biden in the presidential race (Sherwood, 2020). The Catholics also accompanied the White Evangelicals by switching their support from President Trump to Biden. Such scenarios indicate the role of the faith groups towards the campaigns and decisions in the 2020 elections. For instance, President Biden was a staunch catholic faithful and had the support of the church. Biden increased his faith affiliation by frequent references to win the Catholic voters over his pro-choice stance. During the 2016 election, Trump managed to win among the significant faith categories of white Christians, who constituted almost half of the registered US voters.
Consequently, the White Evangelical Christians had a significant snag in the 2020 presidential elections that saw different leaders from mega-churches divert from supporting President Trump. Even though the campaigns were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the President helped the Evangelicals to keep their churches open. Trump appeared to encourage the evangelicals to pray despite a ban on social gatherings as a COVID-19 measure. In such regards, Trump’s White Evangelical base weaken as he added that he was a non-denominational Christian. Therefore, the White Evangelicals were pleased with Trump’s presidency amid the controversies.
Work Cited
Sherwood, H. (2020). White evangelical Christians stick by Trump again, exit polls show. The Guardian. Web.