This past week, following the House’s formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, the political world got an abrupt surprise when the moderately prominent Christian publication Christianity Today announced its support for removing Trump from office. In line with his many previous public outbursts in response to even the slightest criticism, the president promptly lashed out at the publication, which he accused of harboring leftism — although that’s just not true. Now, The Washington Post has reported another outlandish extreme that presidential aides have gone to accommodate Trump’s outrage. They rushed to announce an “Evangelicals for Trump” event for early January “to appease the president.”
In other words, the operations of the team of the president of the United States are hinging on whatever whiny complaints that president happened to post on Twitter most recently.
The Post explains that besides noting the relatively low paid circulation of Christianity Today:
‘Several White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations, said they believed Trump was bringing too much attention to the editorial… They said that in their view, he was probably overreacting to the criticism after a long week in which he became the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. Trump officials were still under pressure to act… The Trump campaign… announced it is launching “Evangelicals for Trump” at an event in Miami on Jan. 3. While the event was already in the works, it was announced Friday to appease the president, who also wants evangelical leaders to come to the White House in January, according to one White House official.’
These aides didn’t just come up with this pressure on their own. That official who told The Post about the idea for an evangelical meeting at the White House in January added, of the president:
‘He’s putting a lot of pressure on people because he thinks this is a big deal.’
All of this outrage from the president is because of an opinion piece written by one individual, Christianity Today‘s editor-in-chief Paul Galli, who noted that he’s never expected he’s going to “change many minds.” His proclamation of support for impeaching Trump came after many other prominent publications had already done the same. It also followed numerous public scandals that some might have expected would spark evangelical, supposedly “family values” voters to break with the president. Even after a tape came out of him bragging about committing sexual assault, those voters made no such break.
In fact, they’ve only gotten more fervent in their support of the president, suggesting Trump has achieved cult leader-like status for them. During the recent final day of debate ahead of the House’s impeachment of Trump, one Republican Congressman compared the impeachment proceedings to the trial of Jesus, which, of course, ended with him apparently crucified.
Another compared the proceedings to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — and there’s no sign of any break on the horizon, either. In fact, ahead of a Senate trial meant for after the House’s approval of articles of impeachment, Senate Republicans have explicitly said, in their words, that they will not be “impartial jurors.”
