Will Alexei Navalny’s death finally break Trump’s hold on evangelicals?

We live in a land of abounding quackeries and if we do not learn how to laugh, we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm.
— H.L Mencken, 1921

They are drunk with power and mad for revenge. Thanks to Donald Trump, they are destroying a century’s worth of progress in the name of  Christ — while embracing his antithesis.

Or, if you prefer Barry Goldwater, whom many MAGA members embrace today without knowing it, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” That kind of deviltry nearly consumed America on several occasions in our past, but those who dwell in reality know the worst devils are the people who exploit such naïve ideals for their own benefit: Donald Trump.

Yet Trump remains nothing more than a con man — a would-be emperor with no clothes.  According to Charlie Daniels, the devil had a fiddle of gold. All Donald Trump can muster are gold-colored sneakers that cost $400 up front — with the promise of getting them delivered in July. Don’t hold your breath. 

The lyrics tell us the devil went down to Georgia looking for a soul to steal. He probably found it easier there because, as the AP reported this week, there is a legislative proposal that would require school libraries in that state to notify parents of every book their child checks out. Georgia senators who advanced the idea certainly won’t provide any more money for education — just more red tape aimed at shutting it down. Georgia is also considering a proposal to bring criminal charges against librarians for distributing material containing any obscenities. So much for Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Finn. It’s also doubtful that the ribald humor of H.L. Mencken, quoted above, would stand up to that type of scrutiny.

Remember, those proposing such legislation are the same far-right politicians who embrace Trump as Jesus. If they had a lock of Trump’s hair, they would undoubtedly use it to try and cure warts.

Let’s hand it to Trump, though; he spent a lifetime hanging out with hookers, but that doesn’t make him Jesus. He’d probably burst into flames if he ever stepped inside a church, but that’s a different story.

If that’s not enough for you, the Alabama Supreme Court. led by MAGA superfans, has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a cold move that would freeze fertility treatments in the state. I guess in Alabama a fertilized egg in the refrigerator is considered a chicken.

If that makes your head swim, get ready for more stupidity. Retired U.S. Army Gen. Michael Flynn has crisscrossed America telling rally audiences, “They hate you because they hate Jesus.” He has urged evangelicals to get involved, saying the U.S. is in the middle of a “spiritual war.” Flynn’s “ReAwaken America” tour preaches the Trump gospel to far-right audiences across the country.

This is the new New South. Not the Jimmy Carter New South, where folks build Habitats for Humanity, but a South that sneers at migrants, hates anyone who isn’t a Christian, ignores the Constitution, elevates the evangelical church above our government and believes it has the right to dictate to a majority of Americans how they must worship. 

No, it isn’t the loathsome Confederacy of the 1860s, or the Jim Crow South that denied civil rights and burned Beatles records; it is worse. It is the South born from Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” and Ronald Reagan’s appeal to Southern conservatives and evangelicals. This South is for the direct descendants of the old John Birch Society, the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan and others whose deep historical roots most certainly include the Confederacy. It is the South of hate-mongering and fear. It is active and it is dangerous. Trump is not its architect, only its current messenger. He’s descended from the notorious populist William Jennings Bryan, a man Mencken said was about as sincere as P.T. Barnum.

Today’s evangelicals may be your friends and family members, but they show up at Trump’s rallies claiming they’d rather support Russia than the Democrats. They claim to follow Jesus, while standing for everything he stood against. These are Trump’s core voters. Maybe that’s not news, but what might be is the possibility that after full-force flaunting their arrogance, ignorance and disdain for anything remotely American for the last eight years, recent global headlines could finally lure them away. That could capsize Donald Trump.

When Trump was indicted for 91 felonies in four different criminal cases, his followers claimed it was all the work of the “deep state.” When he was impeached (with the active participation and leadership of Republicans) for his actions on Jan. 6, they screamed about a “witch hunt.” When Trump was found liable in civil court for sexual assault  and fraud, they screamed the same things — even louder. 

Joe Biden is a devout Catholic whom I’ve actually seen inside a church on many occasions, unlike Trump, whose greatest claim to Christian virtue was holding up a Bible outside a Washington church for a photo-op during protests near the White House. But Trump is cheered as a Christian, while Biden is pilloried as a man of no faith, or a communist or a genocidal maniac.

These are the Christian nationalists who have spread so much disinformation that three out of every five white evangelicals, according to the American Enterprise Institute, say Biden was not “legitimately elected.” That’s despite the fact that Trump has never presented one shred of evidence that he actually won the 2020 election. His claims have been laughed out of court more than 60 times — all grist for the mill, for those who blame the deep state.

But what may signal a turning point is the death of Alexei Navalny, the chief political opponent of Trump’s good friend and mentor, Vladimir Putin. Trump refused to criticize Putin for Navalny’s death. Instead he compared it to his own criminal prosecution: “CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.” That’s what Trump offered up on Truth Social, while Biden accused Putin of being complicit in Navalny’s death. The difference between the two men resonates — so much so that Nikki Haley, the last GOP opponent left standing against Trump, recently accused the former president of being “weak in the knees” when it comes to Putin and Navalny. That was a body blow. 

The Trump faithful may truly believe Navalny had it coming, because their leader told them so. Trump hasn’t said a word against Putin — nor will he ever. When Haley suggested Trump was on his knees, that was a mental image the Trumpers won’t want to acknowledge, for a variety of reasons.

Their desire to find a president who will promote their brand of Christian nationalism has found an audience with Trump. He sees right-wing evangelicals purely as the means to an end. He wants their votes. He has promised to support the Christian bigots who long to outlaw all other religions and turn America into a theocracy where you can pay $400 for a pair of gold sneakers, ban and burn books, and lock up librarians.

But Navalny’s death may yet prove to be the unsettling fact that drives some of his Christian supporters away from Trump, out of the same fear that drove them to him in the first place: the fear of persecution. 

That fear is strong throughout the world.

The cries of “Genocide Joe” rang out at Biden’s appearance Wednesday in Los Angeles from supporters of the Palestinian cause. Thousands of pro-Israel protesters gathered on the National Mall  after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Both of those communities know the fear of persecution, as do so many Christians, African Americans, women, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups. 

At the end of the day, only the preachers in the pulpits can reach the evangelical faithful. They won’t listen to their liberal or progressive acquaintances — and rarely consider those people “friends.” They won’t listen to other conservatives. But those preaching every weekend, whether in the “Six Flags Over Jesus” megachurches or small community churches, do have the ability to change minds. If you pay attention, you’ll hear some of those preachers saying that what happened to Navalny was a tragedy — and if you can’t condemn it, then you’re part of the problem.

That doesn’t bode well for Donald Trump. 

Those evangelicals who remain Trump’s core supporters are the most easily manipulated people on the planet. Their zeal blinds them to reality. Does anyone of sound mind or body believe that Donald Trump is a devout Christian?

There are sex workers across the country who could tell you of his debauchery. His visits to Epstein Island are legendary. His “grab ‘em by the pussy” comments are on tape. 

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 If Trump can convince gullible people that he is a Christian, however, maybe there’s hope that a preacher of sound mind can overcome the power of Trump’s rhetoric. If you’ll fall for Trump, you’ll fall for anything — including the truth, if it’s seasoned correctly. 

Joe Biden’s challenge, as the presidential campaign heats up, is to harness those voters if he possibly can — because if they turn on Trump, he is surely done. Biden seems to sense that as well. During his L.A. campaign stop he spoke bluntly: “Trump is dragging us back to the past and not leading us to the future. We are going to defeat him and his lies.”

The influence of the evangelical community is far-reaching. It includes anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters and every other believer in witchcraft, anti-intellectualism and ignorance known to man. Evangelicals are like all the other religious or political zealots on the planet — they favor emotion over reason, feel disdain for facts that do not agree with their predetermined beliefs and express a smug condescension that no one knows the truth except them.

That is the Mencken variety of Boobus Americanus as it lives and breathes in the United States in 2024. Most dogs, cats and other vertebrates seem to have more common sense than your average human being — and dogs are known to eat their own feces.

As for Trump, Mencken reminded us, “There is something peculiar about a man who wears a red tie.”