Blinded followers turn Trump into a political martyr

Donald Trump: a man currently facing at least 90 different charges against him, including several sexual assault accusations and a conviction of business fraud has turned the Republican party into his very own church. Turning his speeches into sermons and his campaign into a crusade, further dividing the country under the pretense of building a better nation.

According to a New York Times article, “Mr.Trump’s ability to turn his supporters’ passion into piety is crucial to understanding how he remains the undisputed Republican leader despite guiding his party to repeated political failures and while facing dozens of felony charges in four criminal cases.”

Despite his morally flawed reputation, Trump has his flock of followers blindly believing everything he says disguised in the elaborate pious pantomime he has created for the success of his re-election. Using religion and turning around his prosecution into persecution instead, he’s made his followers believe he is some sort of political martyr.

Even though his campaign has strayed away from completely making him out to be prophet-like, one of his most devout allies, Senator Marjorie Taylor Greene, explicitly compared Trump to Jesus saying how they had both been arrested by radical, corrupt governments. Comments like these bode out Trump as an evangelical hero to all those conservative voters and further elevate their devotion towards him.

A Pew Research Center survey found that in the 2020 presidential elections “59% of voters who frequently attend religious services cast their ballot for Trump, while 40% chose Biden”.

Although nobody can deny that the former president can awaken fervent emotions within all of his supporters, even those who don’t support him, it is also not uncommon for Republican candidates to lean on the Christian communities for votes as they remain “a key bloc of the Republican party,” according to an article by Spectrum News.

However, this upcoming election proves crucial for conservative Christian supporters in the way that they are especially eager to support Trump following his involvement in the overturning of abortion rights by appointing the Conservative majority that made this decision possible.

The criminalization of abortion, just like a stricter stance on immigration continue to be issues of importance for conservative voters and they remain decisive in dictating the direction in which people will gravitate at the polls. In addition to these issues, the conflict in Gaza will surely be another important factor to take into consideration.

It is, however, Trump’s stance on these issues that results in an evangelical conundrum. In the same way that many conservative Christians mobilized in support of banning Roe v Wade, it is troubling to see how many more still rally behind him despite his lacking religious values regarding immigration and the troubling comments he recently made when telling Israel to “finish what they started” in Gaza.

Donald Trump’s advantageous usage of religion is especially alarming when confronted with the moral hypocrisy that accompanies many of his Christian supporters. Despite nonviolence and solidarity being recurring elements in the Bible and core Christian values, when the president blurts out outrageous claims that incite violence or hateful speech that divides, his so-called evangelical supporters continue to praise the man who goes against every core belief that Christianity teaches.

How can these supporters even label themselves as Christians? They might regularly go to church on Sundays and feel that they are better people because of it, but in the end, each is just as much a hypocrite as Mr. Trump. They are easily deceived by Trump’s religious farce because they are essentially deceiving themselves into wanting to believe that he truly champions the Christian agenda.

Willingly turning their back on their moral compass, the Republican party and its followers have allowed their party to transition from a non-secular inspired political party into what is now a Church of Trump.