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In the complex mix of allies and adversaries, the two key contenders for the White House, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have another electoral chessboard that, as it turns out, will have to be taken into account in a simultaneous game session.
The battle for the political sympathies of adherents of the Christian faith became an additional arena. Among this category of Americans there are many direct, though already distant descendants of the first settlers who fled from Europe to these lands precisely because of persecution for their religious beliefs. Their alarming awakening is due to just one imprudent decision made by President Biden on March 31.
The nominee of the Obama-Clinton clan found nothing more appropriate than to recall the duty of all «progressive» citizens to celebrate it as Transgender Day of Visibility, which in principle has long been proclaimed. But this year, March 31 coincides with Catholic and Protestant Easter, the most important holiday for believers of those faiths, commemorating the resurrection of Christ.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt characterized the statement by Biden, who at just the right moment remembers that he is sort of a Catholic by faith, as «appalling and insulting». Leavitt added that this manifested the Biden administration’s “year-long attack on the Christian faith». The reference here was to Biden’s 2022 Easter speech, in which neither God nor Christ’s resurrection was mentioned, and the entire narrative could well have been delivered on Halloween.
Biden’s PR strategists rushed to issue a clarifying commentary, choosing offense over defense to damage control. They accused the Republicans of using the U.S. president’s transgenderization of Easter as an excuse to
«divide and weaken our country with violent, hateful and dishonest rhetoric».
Speaking at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Donald Trump didn’t miss a chance to hit back at a well-placed rival. Calling Biden’s words «blasphemy», he suggested that this year’s final round of the presidential election, Nov. 5, should be celebrated in a special way. That day, Trump said, would be called «Christian Openness Day», which was greeted by the audience with sustained applause.
Other colorful critics of the Democrats also did not miss the opportunity to slap their opponents. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Joe Biden «betrayed the central tenet of Easter» — the resurrection of Christ.
The highly grandiloquent and combative lady congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia noted this statement on the X network:
«The lengths Biden and the Democrats will go to in order to mock your faith and point the finger at God».
Matt Slick at the website of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry provides examples of authorities discriminating precisely for adherence to religious principles. In 2013, a Christian psychologist was fined for refusing to provide counseling to same-sex couples; a clerk of court in New York City was ordered to issue same-sex marriage licenses despite religious reservations; and a wedding photographer was sued for refusing to film a same-sex wedding. As Matt Slick comments,
«in each of the above cases, Christians have not tried to impose their values. Instead, secularists were imposing their values and using discriminatory laws to do so».
Not surprisingly, a September 2023 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found: six in ten white evangelical Protestants (60%) believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Hosting her signature column on MSNBC, the US cable TV channel’s website, Sarah Posner analyzes this phenomenon and projects it onto the outcome of the upcoming election:
«According to Trump supporters, if Christians (i.e., Trump’s loyal electoral base of white evangelical Christians) come out on Election Day in unprecedented numbers, how can he lose?»
The MSNBC columnist is irritated by Trump’s underlying assertion that, “Christian America has descended into an apocalyptic hell and only he can save it».
There has been a consistent campaign by neoliberals against the attempts of Trumpists to recruit citizens who consider themselves Christians. For example, Alvin Chan, in the British left-liberal Guardian, makes the following logic: «Are white Christians under attack in America? No, but that myth is winning». The author refers to a poll conducted in the state of California, when the original premise was the claim that white Americans are becoming a minority in the United States. In this case, this category of interviewed citizens in their majority admitted their intention to vote for Republicans.
Alvin Chan cites forecasts accompanied by the census: the US is already having more children of color, and white Americans will indeed become a minority in the next 25 years.
In this context, the fundamental reliance of the Democratic National Committee (Biden’s campaign headquarters) on appealing to African-Americans, Latinos and Asian citizens is understandable. They are seen as a loyal electorate that does not necessarily share Christian precepts and values. These voters, according to the long-range strategists of the Democratic Party, will faithfully vote for neoliberals in the future.
Now, however, there is an unforeseen glitch in the matrix: African-American and Hispanic voters have begun to defect from the Democratic camp and move to the Republican side. In the case of Latinos, one of the key motivations appears to have been the elephant party politicians’ commitment, at least in words, to traditional values, particularly family ones.
The provocative sign at the entrance to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office is noteworthy: «There are TWO genders».
What is this but another example that the social divide mentioned in the White House’s aggressive statement is real and steadily deepening? Citizens who practice traditional values, often referred to by the phrase «law-abiding and God-fearing», are in a depressed state because they do not have resources and tools comparable in power to the arsenal of the neoliberal «deep state» that promotes its LGBT agenda (the LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).
Very few people, even among the older generation today, remember the chrestomathic saying of Theodore Roosevelt, who became President of the United States (the youngest in history at that time) at the age of 42:
«We must strive hard to make our young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, honor-loving, justice-loving, and fearless and strong».
One might consider Theodore Roosevelt lucky in the face of the denial and vilification of the past, the destruction of the conventional myths on which the relative unity of the American nation rested. He cannot be anathematized and condemned for slavery because he was born much later, nor can he be accused of exploiting some «white privilege» for selfish purposes. The namesake of his more famous future successor in the White House was an unadulterated imperialist, but so far in the United States this classification of politician has not become a clear indictment and is unlikely to become one.
However, in the eyes of the neoliberals who set the tone in America of the name of six-time drug addict and robber George Floyd, the 26th president of the United States would be a completely dishonorable person for one reason alone. «Good old Teddy», considered one of the most popular politicians in American history, dared to put such qualities as «decency, God-fearing, law-abiding» as virtues in his mantra. In today’s America, these human principles are not honored at all.
…Will Trump, who hardly corresponds to the ideal painted by Theodore Roosevelt, be able to mobilize conservative traditionalists to give him, if not votes, then at least their sympathies? The chances are there. On October 19, 2020, a banner reading «Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President» was displayed on a home in rural Georgia