Twice indicted but still the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump told religious conservatives Saturday that his legal woes were bigger than a courtroom fight.
The former president and evangelicals were instead engaged together in what he likened to a “righteous crusade” against “atheists, globalists, and the Marxists.” In a nearly 90-minute speech, Trump alleged that Democrats were not just “trying to take away” religious liberty. They were battling “God Almighty himself.”
“They are waging war,” he said of that cosmic battle. “It’s not a war they are going to win.” And for his part, Trump promised, if returned to the White House, to “restore our nation under God.”
In this way, inside the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, he branded his reelection as something of a holy war before questioning how any person of faith could support a Democrat. “How can you as Christians, how can the people in this room,” Trump asked, “vote for them?”
According to the former president, his recent indictment for mishandling classified documents was the latest confirmation that his enemies harbored anti-democratic ambitions in pursuit of an anti-religious mission. “The radical left is coming after all of us because they know our allegiance is not to them,” he said. “Our allegiance is to our country and our creator.”
And again, Trump cast himself as a martyr. “They want to take away my freedom,” he claimed, “because I will never let them take away your freedom.”
This message was met with thunderous applause. Trump has an enduring appetite for culture wars, though he sees himself not as the aggressor but as champion finishing for the right what the left started. Throughout the night, he reminded the crowd of social conservatives how his administration notched victory after victory on the issues they hold dear.
On the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump noted that he had nominated the three justices who returned the abortion issue to the states, giving “pro-life people tremendous power to negotiate.” Without offering specifics, Trump added that there remains “a vital role for the federal government” in regulating abortion.
It was his administration, he continued, that moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, barred transgender individuals from the military, and attempted to weed out critical race theory from the classroom.
Leaning on that record and comparing it to the actions of the current White House, Trump hopes that no challenger can pluck the evangelical vote from his hand. At the very least, he seemed certain there was no way that kind of electorate could support a Democrat, even a lifelong Roman Catholic like President Biden.
Trump harkened back to the 2020 presidential debates, saying mockingly that Biden “was trying to say, ‘Oh, I love being Catholic!’ You know what they’re doing to Catholics? There’s never been an assault on Catholics the likes of which they’re having to go through.”
He referenced documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year showing how the FBI sought to develop sources inside parishes, telling the crowd that federal law enforcement was “sending undercover spies into Catholic churches.”
He pointed to the arrest of activist Mark Houck, who was later acquitted, saying that the FBI “has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-lifers.”
He said that the treatment of American Catholics under the Biden administration was “just as it was in the old Soviet Union days.”
But Trump was more ecumenical in how he saw those examples applying to the diverse American electorate that is made up of the many religions. “I don’t understand how people can vote, people of faith,” he said pausing to note that he was “not just talking about Christians,” but all people of faith, “can vote for these Democrats.” His opponents approached godlessness, he claimed. “They’ve become monsters. They’re fighting you all the way on religion.”
A second Trump term would have a religious impetus beyond social issues, he promised. Even immigration policy would take on a faith quality. “Using federal law and section 212-F of the Immigration and Nationality Act, I will order my government to deny entry to all Communists and all Marxists,” Trump said. America would only welcome immigrants who “love our country.”
“We don’t want them when they want to destroy our country. ‘Welcome to America, we want to destroy your country, thank you very much,’” he said. “So, we’re going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists, and socialists out of America. We’re keeping them out of America.”
This kind of rhetoric has previously appealed to the religious right. Trump maintained his grip on these voters through two elections. Most evangelical voters who attend church regularly ended up going to the polls for him in the last general election. A survey by Pew Research Service found that Trump won 71 percent of white evangelical protestants and 63 percent of Catholics while Biden carried black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated.
Trump still lost that contest, but his conflicts continue. He told the crowd Saturday evening that he didn’t fear the possibility of prison. Instead, the former president said, “every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxist communists, and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage.”
“I’m probably the only person in history that’s been indicted,” Trump added, “and my numbers went up.” He now leads his closest competition, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by more than 30 points in the RealClearPolitics Average.
Of course, if he wasn’t in the contest, his enemies would find new targets of opportunity, Trump told the crowd of the election that he claims has as much to do with picking the next president as it does with ensuring “atheist” opponents didn’t succeed in their war with the American church.
“They would focus on whoever was leading,” he said.
“They would go after that person, male or female, just as viciously as they go after me,” he continued.
“And that person would not be able to handle it,” he concluded, “and that’s why you have no choice but to vote for Donald Trump.” At this, the crowd roared just like they had for much of the night.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
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