This should scare the hell out of everyone
Evangelicals have quite a bit of clout, considering they are currently the largest, most cohesive constituency in a republican party that cannot afford many defections or abstentions. Indeed, evangelical leaders have threatened to tell their flock to stay home or floated the idea of backing a third-party candidate multiple times over the past several decades. Trump and the Republican Party know they have to keep white evangelicals happy and deliver on promises made to win their votes.
Recent overtures to this group have included two staunchly pro-life Supreme Court justices and Federal Judges, presidential addresses to the annual March for Life, and countless pieces of legislation designed to severely curtail a woman’s right to choose, and other legislation to make members of the LGBTQ community second class citizens.
The ascension of white evangelicals within the GOP is a story of how party coalitions change. Across the nation, religiously conservative activists began in the mid-1980s to assert themselves by getting involved in local Republican Party politics, the path to power was clear nominate new kinds of candidates, specifically those stressing moral traditionalism.
White evangelical activists transformed the Republican Party into one that was no longer solely focused on fiscal conservatism but that cared as much or more about culture war issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, and the role of religion in public life.
White evangelicals have been more than satisfied with Trump’s judicial appointments and his public statements on culture war issues. Trump’s harsh rhetoric towards racial and ethnic minorities may not only be palatable to this constituency but secretly favored by many of them as well. Christian conservatives in the age of Trump seem to be saying, “It’s not religious, it’s strictly politics". Which is why Evangelicals should be seen as a political party, NOT a religion.