OP-ED: The evangelicals are to blame, says former GOP congresswoman

If evangelicals were, in fact, the margin of victory in 2016 for Donald Trump, then they are the ones to blame for the hatred and chaos we’re currently experiencing as a nation. While I abhor “the blame game,” that is clearly Trump’s M.O. But I believe you need to hear the truth as I, and many, see it. I challenge every evangelical to explain how their movement could possibly claim to be a religion when they support a man who:

• Constantly lies.
• Denigrates other human beings (the disabled, minorities or the least among us).
• Has clearly and unabashedly committed adultery (one of the many 10 Commandments he willfully violates).
• Takes God’s name in vain.
• Sells Bibles, God’s guidance, for his own personal gain.
• Has been found guilty by a jury of his peers for cheating the New York state government of millions of dollars.
• Has stolen from students who entered his fake college.
• Has absconded with his fake charity to put those monies into his own pockets.
• Is the first president in history to fail to disclose his taxes despite his promises to do so.
• Has taken top-secret classified documents, threatening our national security.

None of the above is political rhetoric. These are facts! In fact, Trump’s own running mate, JD Vance, made many of these same arguments about Trump as recently as 2017, calling him a “total fraud” and “reprehensible.” Today, Trump’s followers dismiss provable facts by their addiction to his nonstop falsehoods and conspiracies. Only the mainstream media, which Trump constantly criticizes, can be counted on to convey the truth. And now, with Russian interference and increasingly sophisticated AI manipulation of social media, Americans are losing their cognitive abilities. If you’re questioning what is true, this short piece alone includes links to a dozen different mainstream news sites from around the country with information that can be verified. In contrast, whether it’s Trump, the MAGA movement or the Russians, the goal of the right-wing media empire is to deceive and manipulate for personal and political gain. The evangelicals have poisoned the information marketplace for their own power gain — to dictate their beliefs onto others. Numerous leaders in the evangelical movement themselves have made it clear: Evangelicals are no longer a religion, but an arm of the Republican Party, which itself has been captured by a man who traffics in lies, immorality and false witness. As recently as 2015, Republicans understood the danger Trump poses to true evangelistic churches. The reason people have been leaving the churches is because they no longer speak to our soul. They no longer explain the difference between right and wrong. As evangelical Russell Moore, the editor of Christianity Today, reports, less than half of Americans belong to a church, and he writes that a lot of those who leave evangelical churches, especially the young, “will conclude that the gospel is just one more aspect of political theater or outrage culture or institutional self-perpetuation or worse.” Most Americans know that our country was founded on “religious freedom,” and yet now the Republicans want to further institute Christian nationalism, thanks to the evangelicals. Please know, “I speak the truth in love,” as Evangelicals are wont to say. So I must ask: How can you purport to speak or even represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ when you support an unrepentant man like Donald Trump?

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Hon. Claudine Schneider served as a Republican in the United States Congress from 1981 to 1991. She remains active in promoting political accountability, constitutional democracy and classic Republican principles in our country.