By DAVE WESTER | Baraboo, Wis.
White evangelicals account for about 15 percent of the American population, but in 2020 they accounted for about 40 percent of the vote for President Donald Trump. Most of them voted for Trump in 2016. After four years of his lies, racism, misogyny, support for Communist dictators and attacks on American democracy, most of them voted for him again in 2020. Even the hundreds of thousands of deaths that Trump contributed to by botching the fight against coronavirus did not sway evangelicals, who claim to support right-to-life.
This is not the first time in history that conservative religion has gone off the deep end and become a force for evil instead of a force for good. In American history, it goes back to the Puritans’ Salem Witch Trials of 1692. In world history, it goes back at least as far as the Crusades.
Today’s evangelicals bear stark similarities to America’s early Puritans. Both sought to entwine government with religion and replace democracy with theocracy.
Evangelicals claim that God made Trump president. Those who believe that must also realize that in the election of 2020, God corrected the mistake he made in 2016. America would clearly be in a better place today if Trump and evangelicals had not taken a wrecking ball to Christianity and democracy.
