Pundits are going all a-flutter trying to explain why Republican evangelical voters, who are filled with peace and love and Jesus, seem to be flocking to candidate Donald Trump, who is a human piñata stuffed with wealth and spite and old divorce papers. This isn't terribly complicated, though. They like him because he hates the same people they hate.
[Anti-LGBT hate group leader Tony Perkins] believes that's because Trump has articulated the fears that have been simmering for evangelicals since President Barack Obama's assumed the presidency. From fears of terrorism to porous borders to the economy, Trump is speaking to them.
"The problem with fear is that fear causes us to basically shut down," Perkins said. "Fear and faith are incompatible."
That's Perkins explaining why evangelicals who support Trump instead of his own preferred immigrant-bashing hatemonger Ted Cruz are wrong. It may also have something to do with Donald Trump's insufficient hatred of The Gays, a hatred which is Perkins' sole reason for existing on this earth.
But he's not wrong. Evangelicals that are flocking to Trump are doing so for the same reasons other Republicans are. They don't like immigrants, they're mortified that the sitting president is a black man and they are absolutely beside themselves with panic at the thought there are Muslims among us, and Donald Trump is the shouty, red-faced man who promises flat-out that he'll be getting rid of people like that. No muttering about checks and balances or working within the confines of the Constitution, like wimpy Marco Rubio. No nonsense about how immigrants aren't all rapists and drug dealers, like the doomed Jeb Bush piped up quietly with from time to time. Nope. Just good ol' fashioned, white-hot racism with its own private jet.
And he's rich, so you know God loves him. That's how it works, right?