“He’s the only savior I can see,” one woman told a reporter as she explained her plans to vote for Donald Trump for the third time this fall.
“I believe Trump is appointed by God — appointed-slash-anointed, however you want to say it,” explained another woman. “He’s the only one that’s speaking the truth.”
Another voter said the struggles Trump faces in courtrooms, where he has claimed, “I’m being indicted for you,” reminds her of Christ’s death on the Cross: “My first thought went, well, Jesus Christ died for my sins. Jesus died for me. He (Trump) is doing this for us as a country.”
Painting of Trump as Jesus circulating online.
Welcome to Iowa, site of the nation’s first presidential caucuses, and a state where Trump has wooed religious voters with an appeal full of foreboding, fear of woke liberals and other “vermin,” and promises to protect Christians from harm if triumphant in November’s election, which he has apocalyptically described as a “final battle.”
“Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before,” Trump said in a video on his social media outlet, Truth Social.
“Over the past three years, the Biden administration has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists,” Trump claimed in another Truth Social video.
(Pro-life protesters who commit violence at clinics have been arrested. The FBI also arrested Mark Houck, a Catholic activist who was not charged, but the FBI says they arrested him after knocking on his door, no SWAT team needed or employed.)
Trump made his boldest statement in March, at the Conservative Political Action Conference: “I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Privately, Trump mocks his evangelical followers, but he curries their favor in public, promising believers if he gets a second term, he will use the powers of government to save them from harm.
Internet meme from Trump supporters
“When I’m back in the White House, never again will your government be used to target Christians and other religious believers,” he said at another Waterloo rally. “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable.”
He said the task force will also “look at government agencies, universities and major corporations that have adopted anti-Christian diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”
“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have, and I will keep on fighting for Christians as hard as I can for four more years in the White House,” Trump said in a speech.
Trump scores points even when the threats he promises to fight seem made-up. “I will defend religion, and I will defend ‘In God We Trust,'” he told one crowd. “You know, that very important phrase is under siege.”
But the conservative Washington Times says the phrase is actually on the rebound. “In God We Trust’ makes a comeback,” the paper opined. “Praise the Lord.”
Trump has been delivering his messages to evangelical groups for months, and his pledges have been covered by The Christian Post, Salem Media’s Townhall, and the rightwing group Catholic Vote.
“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have, and I will keep on fighting for Christians as hard as I can for four more years in the White House,” said Trump at September’s Pray Vote Stand Summit, sponsored by the Focus on the Family-aligned Family Research Council.
Internet meme from Trump supporters
The messaging has worked. BNG recently reported Republicans now view the non-church-attending Trump as more religious than Joe Biden, Mike Pence or Mitt Romney. And Trump walked away with an overwhelming victory in the Iowa caucuses.
In September, Trump made his case at a conference sponsored by the pro-family group Concerned Women for America.
“This election will decide whether America will be ruled by Marxist, fascist and communist tyrants who want to smash our Judeo-Christian heritage, or whether America will be saved by God-fearing, freedom-loving patriots just like you,” he said to a cheering crowd.
In November, Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Family Leader, a state pro-life group affiliated with Focus on the Family, endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has finished a distant second to Trump in Iowa.
Trump’s evangelical surrogates also promoted him in Iowa.
“God isn’t done with our country, and the people of Iowa know that,” tweeted Ben Carson, Trump’s former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who has been speaking on Trump’s behalf at church events.
Mike Huckabee and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former and current governors of Arkansas, planned to stump for Trump at “faith events” in churches but canceled due to winter storms.
Mike Huckabee is promoting the Kids Guide to President Trump, a book for “future voters” that tells “the truth about Donald Trump, what made him a great president and … his plan to reclaim the presidency in 2024.”
Huckabee warned that efforts to keep Trump off ballots over claims he violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution could be deadly.
“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” he said on his Trinity Broadcasting Network show, “Huckabee.”
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said the 91 indictments Trump faces show “the Biden administration is weaponizing the DOJ to go after their No. 1 opponent.”
Focus on the Family CEO Jim Daly backed Trump in 2020, calling him the “most pro-life candidate” of his lifetime, but Daly embraced DeSantis in an August 2022 Focus broadcast.
“You’re like a man’s man,” Daly said of DeSantis. “I’m watching you on the news or watching the many bills that you’ve signed that support the things we believe in at Focus on the Family. It does seem to have like a military precision to it.”