I picked up some parts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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In recent election cycles, though, the connection between the movement and the party has frayed. While the presidency of conservative evangelical George W. Bush was a high point for the Christian right, no bona fide conservative Christian Republican candidate has attracted overwhelming support from the movement, which has no single recognised leadership or formal structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, white evangelical Republicans have ultimately backed the candidate they felt had the greatest potential of defeating a Democrat. In 2008,\u00a0Mike Huckabee\u00a0was rejected for John McCain; in 2012, Catholic\u00a0Rick Santorum\u00a0and Conservative evangelicals\u00a0Rick Perry\u00a0and\u00a0Michele Bachmann\u00a0were rejected for Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Both nominees were defeated by Barack Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same dilema was presented in 2016. Conservative Christian voters had to get behind a candidate who could defeat their longtime b\u00eate noire, Hillary Clinton, while remaining at least sympathetic to their views. As in previous races there were strong conservative evangelical candidates on offer, in particular Ted Cruz, who had a\u00a0100% voting record on values issues\u00a0in the Senate and who won the straw polls taken at the\u00a0Values Voter Summit\u00a0three years in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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He positioned himself as a Christian, albeit one who had never found the need to ask God\u2019s forgiveness. In his 2015 book\u00a0Crippled America, he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think people, are shocked when they find out that I am a Christian, that I am a religious person. They see me with all the surroundings of wealth so that they sometimes don\u2019t associate that with being religious. That\u2019s not accurate. I go to church. I love God, and I love having a relationship with Him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Trump made all the right promises: to restore, cherish and protect the nation\u2019s Christian heritage, to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, and to\u00a0repeal the Johnson Amendment\u00a0which prohibits tax-exempt organisations from endorsing political candidates.\u00a0He told Values Voters\u00a0at their 2016 summit that: \u201cThere are no more decent, devoted, or selfless people than our Christian brothers and sisters here in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump also brought Christian right leaders formally into his campaign, setting up an\u00a0evangelical\u00a0and\u00a0Catholic\u00a0advisory bodies and filling them with movement stalwarts. Above all, he chose as his running mate Indiana Governor\u00a0Mike Pence, a leading campaigner for value issues who describes himself as \u201ca Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not everyone was pleased. A\u00a0number of prominent evangelicals\u00a0worried that dallying with Trump would fatally damage the movement\u2019s credibility, given his chequered past and his attitudes towards Mexicans, Muslims and women. This opposition grew with the release of the\u00a0Trump Tapes\u00a0revealing his predatory attitude and actions towards women. But none of this seriously diminished the resolve of Trump\u2019s evangelical backers, who were content to\u00a0stay the course\u00a0in pursuit of worldly power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, white evangelicals came out to vote in greater numbers than ever before, and\u00a081% of them backed Trump\u00a0on November 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump clearly intends to return the favour, and is already appointing\u00a0leading\u00a0religious\u00a0conservatives\u00a0to key cabinet posts. As far as the organised Christian right is concerned, it doesn\u2019t get much better than this. Their movement is back, bigger and bolder than ever. In\u00a0Trump\u2019s own words: \u201cAnd you believe it. And you know it. You know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n