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.
Just like no way he’d get elected to office? Been there, heard that argument.
He will get into office again, by hook or by crook.
These loonies will vote for him in a solid bloc happily, because he’s promising them what they’ve always wanted: a chrisofacist state where only the ‘glorious word of the lord’ is law. At this point, with that offer, they’d vote for the Devil himself.
And the rich arseholes backing Trump will do it because their beliefs hold that the Jews all need to be in Israel and then they can kickstart the apocalypse and all get into heaven, and that will be easier to do if they’re in charge of a mindless, dogma-following religious ‘government’.