The revelation of Trump’s affair with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006 and the $130,000 hush money payment to her just weeks before the 2016 election has been a real head scratcher. Specifically, how Teflon Don manages to emerge from each news cycle unscathed, and still with the emphatic support of his Evangelical base.
These are the same people who went bananas over President Bill Clinton’s improprieties in the White House, and yet weird sex with an adult film star within months of the birth of his son is just fine for Trump.
Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins, a big time Evangelical leader went on the record to report that his community is fully willing to give Trump a pass on this, as long as he delivers on policy. Basically what he’s saying is that they’re just looking for a warm body with enough fingers to hold a pen to sign off on whatever they put in front of him. Doesn’t really matter the content of his character at that point.
“We kind of gave him—‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,’” Perkins said on Politico’s Off Message podcast.
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He continued that Christians “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”
Though many would argue that Trump himself is the bully, but that’s neither here nor there with these people.
Perkins added, “Look, Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.”
Seems like maybe he’s tired of being called “nerd” or “four eyes” and the lessons of his Evangelical faith like “do unto others…” and “love thy neighbor” just weren’t cutting it anymore. Perkins and the Evangelicals seem poised to throw down and they’re happy to have the biggest bully – literally, he’s definitely more than his reporter 239 pounds – on the playground on their side.
Nevermind that the bully goes against literally everything they stand for, but presumably Perkins is willing to repent for that when the time comes.