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Trump supporters are willing to surrender democracy—if it means keeping other races down
May 30, 2018 11:25am PDT by Mark Sumner

For two years, much of the media has seemed irrevocably and illogically wedded to a kind of inverse Occam’s Razor. One in which they would consider any reason for Trump’s electoral win but the one that was most obvious. One that saw them willing to throw away mountains of data and step around objective facts in the quest for some way they could justify Trump that was … not that.

But all the while, the reason for Trump’s victory and Trump’s support remained the same. New studies show that voters supported Trump not in spite of his racism, but because of his racism. And they show that his supporters are willing to sacrifice anything in that cause. Including democracy.

Over the same period that much of the press has carefully tiptoed around the “r” word there have been dozens of stories about Trump’s support among Christians. Despite his philandering. Despite his foul mouth. Despite his eager avarice. Despite his readiness to deliver a lie even if the truth would serve. The stories of Trump’s support among his religious base emphasize the willingness to overlook his personal faults so long as he holds up their “religious freedom.”

It took some time for an agreed-on image to emerge, but now there are regular stories that declare Trump a new “King Cyrus”—an outsider who nonetheless recognized the plight of the godly and helped restore them to the promised land. Once that narrative set in, it became the go-to reference for not just the many, many channels of evangelical programming on cable, but also AM radio and Fox. The “uncanny” resemblance between Trump and Cyrus rated a two-day special from the back-from-prison Jim Baker. The “unfolding prophecy” of Trump has already made it into print in multiple books.

The Cyrus model is a relief to the media on both sides of the Christian/supposedly secular broadcasting dial. It frees Trump to be Trump—after all, Cyrus was the pagan ruler of a Persian empire, but he was still a biblical hero and the “patron” of the Hebrews. It’s a relief to evangelical leaders who had initially tried to fit Trump into the robes of King David and discovered that even that remarkably low bar remained a tough standard for Trump.

To read the entire article (it's kind of long), go HERE.