In spite of everything he’s done to them, conservatives continue to embrace Trump as their champion. He is a con-man, an adulterer, a liar, a tax-cheat, a draft dodger and a stooge for Vladimir Putin. He is everything conservatives have always claimed to hate.
Conservatives often hold up their “family values” as proof that they are moral. They claim that truth, justice, patriotism, faith and fidelity are what they’re all about, but Trump embodies none of those values. He is their antithesis.
It turns out those weren’t really their values after all. Trump offered them a wall to keep out the Mexicans, and suddenly conservatives were willing to forego every standard of morality they’ve ever had to embrace Trump. And even after he failed dramatically to build the wall he promised them, conservatives continue to worship him.
The entire evangelical movement has declared Trump their Messiah, despite the fact that he’s as immoral as a man can be, never goes to church, and can’t quote a single line from the Bible.
So why do conservatives and evangelicals continue to accept Trump as their savior?
Because every time he opens his mouth, he caters to their basest instincts. He speaks out loud the racism and xenophobia they are too ashamed to express, and makes them feel like it’s okay to be racists and xenophobes. He plays to their fears and their hatreds, their suspicions and their resentments. That’s all Trump has to offer, really, but his conservative base is ready to canonize him for it.
A man like Trump brings out the worst in our country and its people, and he spent his four years in office dragging us all down to his level. We can’t allow that to happen again. We need to set our sights higher, to strive to be better.
Our country’s forefathers set forth a goal of nobility and equality. You remember, “all men are created equal?” They weren’t even close to achieving that ideal back then, and we’ve been trying to achieve it for more than two hundred years. Trump has set us back decades, but we have to keep looking up and moving forward anyway. We have to do it in spite of conservatives, and like it or not, we have to drag them up along with us. Perhaps, along the way, they will remember those values they used to go on about.