Fast forward nine years and a majority of white Christians lined up to support someone more crude and short-sighted than Mr. Tancredo. No matter how many lies their candidate told, no matter how small-minded and vengeful he showed himself to be, when he advocated violence against protestors engaging in free speech, when he normalized white supremacists and neo-Nazis, when he bragged of adultery and sexual assault, when he boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue with no repercussions, and even when he dared to disagree with one of Jesus’ central teachings – while at the National Prayer Breakfast, no less – even then, white Christians, especially Evangelicals, stood by him. Along with too many of their white Catholic and Mainline Protestant brothers and sisters, white Evangelical Christians remained the most loyal segment of his loyal base, even when he botched the response to COVID-19, even when his toll of lies topped thirty thousand, even when he incited a mob to storm the Capitol just before his turbulent presidency ended. It became increasingly clear that they loved him not in spite of his faults but because of them. He might be tough, crude, dishonest, vicious, and self-serving, but he was their tough, crude, dishonest, vicious, and self-serving champion.
From “Do I Stay Christian: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned” by Brian McLaren
