Over at the Christian Broadcasting Network, journalist David Brody sends a warning to Donald Trump in the wake of yesterday’s tweets about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Here is what he said at his blog, “The Brody File”:
The evangelical attraction to Donald Trump was strong during the GOP primaries and reached even greater heights during the General Election when a record number 81 percent of evangelicals voted for him. But he needs to be very careful if he wants to duplicate or even improve on that number next time around. Calling out the media is one thing but making it personal is quite another. Evangelicals don’t mind President Trump’s unorthodox ways and his fighting spirit. They like when he socks it to Washington bureaucrats and phony politicians. But a pattern of petty personal insults will put Trump in danger of “evangelical voter apathy” in 2020. Diehards will stay with him no matter what but that won’t be enough to win in 2020. He needs those, “anti-Hillary Evangelicals.” Will they show up and vote for the next democrat nominee? No. Many of them may just not show up at all. If 81% turnout becomes 77% evangelical turnout (especially in key swing states) then he’s toast. It’s that simple. He needs evangelicals and he knows it. Any slippage and it’s game, set, match. He can’t afford to go down this road. It’s not worth it for him.
Look, the art of this deal is pretty simple if President Trump wants to seal the deal with evangelicals going forward: he can bash the media, “the deep state” and disingenuous politicians all day long. He just shouldn’t make it personal. Evangelicals are watching. And honestly, is it worth it? I get it. They insult him multiple times daily and Trump’s instinct is to punch back ten times harder. But sometimes it just gets way too personal and it can cause him more political harm than good.
Read the entire piece here.
Will Trump lose the Court Evangelicals if he keeps it up with these nasty tweets?
This all gets at a question I have been asking for the last year. What must Trump do to alienate the Court Evangelicals?
When does he cross the line and thus lose the support of Jeffress, Metaxas, White, Dobson, Falwell Jr., and others? So far the Court Evangelicals have been silent about Trump’s “Morning Joe” tweets. It is deafening. When will they step up with a prophetic Christian voice?
I think the so-called “evangelical line” is much thicker than Brody thinks it is. We will see if it breaks in the next couple of days. I doubt it.
Try as best I can, I can’t rationalize the support of evangelicals for this president. Most leaders would be fired and school children disciplined for tweeting, talking, and behaving like he does almost every day. His lack of emotional intelligence is frightening.