The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex
In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian-right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden administration is persecuting Christians, aren’t just Trump’s typically dubious claims. Much like Trump’s lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom.
In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged, “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.” Speaking just after the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot, Trump tied this “war” to his own legal woes. “Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before,” he added. “I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.”
Trump has promoted the theme of Christian persecution in the past, but is elevating it again as these legal issues mount. His clear purpose is to deflect attention from his own criminal liabilities by insinuating that the same Biden administration he falsely claims is unfairly targeting him for prosecution is similarly persecuting religious Americans.
Yeah and Trump said he’d drain the swamp and make Mexico pay for the wall. Hes bad but I cannot stand watching the same people tell me the president isn’t a dictator when they can’t do things with a slim majority, but somehow they genuinely expect Trump to somehow rally the political capital to be able to march democrats off to camps on day one. It’s delusion that matches what red maga thinks about democrats. Tell me how Trumps gonna march citizens off to camps when Biden can’t pass an infrastructure bill through a majority without removing 2/3rds of it. The math doesn’t math and its pure emotional propaganda. Either the president has that kind of power and Biden should have simply leveraged it to hold Trump responsible for what has been legally proven insurrection, or they don’t have that power and lots of people here are scare mongering.