Just ahead of his headline spot at the CPAC convention in Virginia and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump delivered a speech to right-wing broadcasters Thursday night in which the former president vowed to hand power over to the Christian nationalist movement on an unprecedented scale.
Trump said during his speech at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennesse that he would defend "pro-God context and content" on the nation's AM radio stations as he told the audience that religion is "the biggest thing missing" in the United States and warned, without evidence, that Christian broadcasters were "under siege" by the left and a "fascist" Biden administration.
"We have to bring back our religion," Trump declared. "We have to bring back Christianity."
Striking a Christ-like pose at one point with his arms outstretched as if on a cross, Trump mentioned his legal struggles, including multiple criminal indictments and civil judgements, and said, "I take all these arrows for you and I'm so proud to take them. I'm being indicted for you."
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this week, right-wing Christian Nationalists operating in Trump's inner circle are quietly preparing for the prospect of his possible reelection.
In his speech Thursday, during which he also promised to close the Department of Education so that Christian fundamentalists could take over school policy at the state level, Trump said, "If I get in, you're going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before."
Why any actual God fearing Christian would think that Trump is a pious man is beyond me.
It's more of an identity than an actual belief system for most people.
He resembles what they see in Christianity perfectly, and if we're being honest, what Christianity has always been.
There's a milquetoast version of Christianity that's quite benevolent and popular by numbers, but because they almost never do crazy shit, it doesn't get shown a lot. Like for instance Church of England or scandinavian protestant churches.
The USA has free market Jesus, something most other countries never had for as long as America. Since religion was decoupled from the state, religion could be whatever put butts in seats.
Yeah, there's a reason my very religious state preferred Ted Cruz and even Kasich to Trump in 2016...
He didn't win my state in the general because he's pious, he won my state because he's Republican, she unfortunately that's all that matters here.