At least one member of Trump's so-called "evangelical council" is no longer able to stomach the candidate after his leaked on-mic brags about being able to get away with sexual assaults.
“Mr. Trump’s comments released yesterday — though 10 years ago (he was 60) — are not just sophomoric or locker room banter. They are truly the kind of misogynistic trash that reveals a man to be lecherous and worthless — not the guy who gets politely ignored, but the guy who gets a punch in the head from worthy men who hear him talk that way about women.”
Will megachurch pastor James MacDonald therefore be quitting the campaign? Don't be silly. He'll be staying on, but warns that if anything comes up that "exceeded" the bragging-about-assault comments, he'll be out for sure.
Meanwhile, an even more prominent Jesusfella is fully on board with the campaign line that bragging about sexual assault is something lots and lots of men do: Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, who first rode into the conservative political arena by telling Obama he wasn't Jesusy enough at a National Prayer Breakfast, told CNN's Brianna Keilar he was "surprised you hadn't heard that," and that "maybe that's the problem." He’s got a selfie of himself with Jesus, you know. They’re best buddies.
Trump has been getting quite a lot of reaffirmed support from the religious right in the wake of the new tape, which is a hell of a thing. Many of the rationales for why Trump's sexual assaults should be ignored are even couched in Biblical terms, as when good ol' Sean Hannity sputtered that well King David had lots and lots of wives, and nobody thinks that guy was a Trumpian sleaze.
Trump may be doing irreparable harm to his party, but we haven't much considered the damage he's doing to an evangelical movement that scurried to his side and have only doubled down on their support after each new wretched anti-immigrant, anti-faith, anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-justice thing to come from his mouth. The man lies repeatedly; they say they don't care. The man shows no respect whatsoever for their beliefs; they dismiss his scorn as evidence that he is just a "baby Christian,” to be graded on a different curve. But if evangelicalism stands for Donald Trump, it stands to reason that evangelicalism stands for nothing at all.
And, as the Southern Baptist Convention's Russell Moore puts it, that is “a scandal and a disgrace.”
These evangelical leaders have said that, for the sake of the “lesser of two evils,” one should stand with someone who not only characterizes sexual decadence and misogyny, brokers in cruelty and nativism, and displays a crazed public and private temperament — but who glories in these things. Some of the very people who warned us about moral relativism and situational ethics now ask us to become moral relativists for the sake of an election. [..] The cynicism and nihilism is horrifying to behold.
Trump really is cratering the careers of all those that stand with him. Finally, after 70 years on this Earth, the man is doing something good in his life. We may someday have to erect a monument to him after all.