https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/23/trump-iowa-evangelicals-pieces-of-shit-book-says
Mockery over ‘Two Corinthians’ slip and endorsement battles in 2016 echo in 2024 race as Republican contenders seek first win
A picture of Donald Trump hangs outside a house in West Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2016. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
Trump called Iowa evangelicals ‘so-called Christians’ and ‘pieces of shit’, book says
Mockery over ‘Two Corinthians’ slip and endorsement battles in 2016 echo in 2024 race as Republican contenders seek first win
In the heat of the Republican primary of 2016, Donald Trump called evangelical supporters of his rival Ted Cruz “so-called Christians” and “real pieces of shit”, a new book says.
The news lands as the 2024 Republican primary heats up, two months out from the Iowa caucus and a day after Trump’s closest rival this time, the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was endorsed by Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa.
The new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta, an influential reporter and staff writer for the Atlantic, will be published on 5 December. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Early in the book, Alberta describes fallout from an event at Liberty University, the evangelical college in Virginia, shortly before the Iowa vote in January 2016.
As candidates jockeyed for support from evangelicals, a powerful bloc in any Republican election, Trump was asked to name his favourite Bible verse.
Attempting to follow the advice of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the thrice-married, not noticeably church-going New York billionaire and reality TV star introduced it as “Two Corinthians”, rather than “Second Corinthians”, as would have been correct.
“The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump,” Alberta writes. “But the news of Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz, just a few days later, sent him into a spiral. He began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination.
“When Cruz’s allies began using the ‘Two Corinthians’ line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told one Iowa Republican official, ‘You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of shit.’”
Alberta adds that “in private over the coming years”, Trump “would use even more colourful language to describe the evangelical community”.
Cruz won Iowa but Trump took the second primary contest, in New Hampshire, and won the nomination with ease. After beating Hillary Clinton and spending four chaotic years in the White House, he was beaten by Joe Biden in 2020.
Pursuing the lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud, Trump refused to concede defeat. He has continued to dominate Republican politics, now as the clear frontrunner to be the nominee again.
Trump has maintained that status despite having been impeached twice (the second for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress) and despite facing 91 criminal charges (34 for hush-money payments to a porn star) and civil threats including a case arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.
Evangelicals remain the dominant bloc in Iowa, 55% of respondents to an NBC News/Des Moines Register poll in August identifying as “devoutly religious”. But despite his lengthy rap sheet, Trump’s hold on such voters appears to remain strong.
In October, the Register put him at 43% support overall in Iowa, with DeSantis and the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley 27 points behind. The same poll said 44% of evangelicals planned to make Trump their first choice, with DeSantis at 22% and Haley seven points back.
Evangelicals have also stayed with Trump nationwide. According to exit polls, in the 2020 presidential election he was supported by 76% of white evangelical voters.
DeSantis and Haley must attempt to catch Trump in Iowa. Vander Plaats’ endorsement was thus a sought-after prize, if one Trump did not pursue, declining to attend a Thanksgiving Family Forum Vander Plaats hosted in Des Moines last week.
On Monday, announcing his decision to endorse DeSantis, the president of the Family Leader, which seeks to “inspire the church to engage government for the advance of God’s kingdom and the strengthening of family”, pointed to the conclusion he hoped his followers would reach.
Speaking to Fox News, Vander Plaats said: “I don’t think America is going to elect [Trump] president again. I think America would be well served to have a choice, and I really believe Ron DeSantis should be that guy. And I think Iowa is tailor-made for him to win this.”
Trump’s rivals may yet take encouragement from Register polling, should evangelicals begin to doubt Trump. In the October poll, 76% of Iowa evangelicals said they had a positive view of DeSantis, while 62% said they liked Haley.
Scottie's Playtime 
Well, well, well, well…..WELL (Thank you Oliver Hardy).
Donald Trump a foul mouthed, vindictive, neurotic…. I did not see that coming!
And this is the fellow some folk seem to believe is fighting for God, if not the entire Holy Trinity against an anti-Christ / Satanic / Paedophile cabal in Washington???
JEEEEEEZZZZZ LOOOOU-ISE!!!
(Further comments about Trump, De Santis et al have been redacted on Family Friendly / All-Age grounds)
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Hi Roger. Yes the guy who pronounced himself the chosen one of the evangelicals, hates those he pandered to in order to get power. I wonder how many of the mega church preachers who clearly are not religious feel the same way about the people who are poor yet throw their money to the wealthy preacher? How many of these preachers laugh at the very people who think they are having their souls saved? Hugs. Scottie
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Jesus Christ has quite a few pointed remarks to make about those sorts of folks in the New Testament gospels.
And……
Interesting bit of speculation here:
One of the better known extracts from the gospels relates to a Centurion of the Roman Army whose servant in very ill and come directly to Jesus:
Matthew 8:5-13:
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
The historical context being that centurions were the professional backbone of the Roman army, hardened veterans who had come up through the ranks with hard views of the world. Thus this man’s appeal would indeed surprise Christ (he being partly human at the time).
There is another sub-text which some scholars have speculated upon. The centurion’s concern for a ‘mere’ servant suggests a very close bond, and the centurion’s reluctance for Christ to visit personally, maybe a bond that is emotional and physical and he is a bit wary about others picking up on by being a visitor.
Romans were not renowned for being that sentimental in occupied territories. Particularly that region, which was then a tough posting with all sorts of factions (somethings never change).
Did Christ bother to question this? Was he questioning about who was asking? No. All that mattered was a person in distress and another who cared for them displaying Faith in a belief which was way outside of his own expected norm. So did he suspect- maybe, so what? Faith and Belief as well as compassion were all that mattered here.
Having read a bit about how tough, ruthless and domineering the whole Roman ruling ethos was from top to bottom, I think there is some credence in that subtext.
I like to think that interpretation was so.
All the best guys
Roger & Sheila
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Hi Roger. What a wonderful deity you follow. I wished I had been introduced to that deity when I was a struggling abused gay teen, I would have been very interested in his message. Not saying I would have followed him, but I wouldn’t have rejected him as someone that hated my very existence, which as I understood at the time he created / made me as I was, to suffer, to be hurt, abused, harm, broken bones, ripped and bleeding anus… All his will, I deserved it as I was evil from birth.
Sorry Roger, you did not deserve that. But that is what I feel sometimes. If he created me and loved me, then why let that happen to me. How did I deserve it because Eve ate a damn apple? I never ate the apple, hell a lot of time I did not get to eat. Three times the doctors told my adoptive parents if they did not feed me, I would die, once after ending up in the ICU as a kid. Their response was to stop taking me to the doctors until the last time I simply collapsed in public and they couldn’t avoid it. I went into clinical death. Did not see any gods, or heaven but I did feel a moment of no pain before they relived me.
Back to your comment from my moment of self-pity.
I had heard that about the Centurions request that it was a male lover, and if what I have read in other peoples writings on the bible there were a lot of same-sex relationships going on. Which would have been normal for the time. It is complete revisionism of history to suggest otherwise. Even the prohibition in Roman’s about men not laying with men has been tracked back to it really saying men shouldn’t fuck little temple boys which was the custom back them. But hey, what is a bunch of good bigotry and hate compared with the truth?
Roger can you tell me what is so hard for so many “religious people” to accept a loving accepting god? Why do they need a god of vengeance, hate, and retribution?
I often post the Rev. Ed Trevors here. I enjoy his message. I have written to him before and told him I enjoy watching, listening to him and while I love his message, I don’t believe in his god. He is OK with that, to him the message being accepted is enough.
Anyway. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. Sorry for being so raw. Some bad memories came up just before I hit your comment. Maybe in a way, it was a good thing. Your comment reminded me that not all believers in Jesus hate the fact I am alive, and in fact in one reality Jesus found room for people like me to exist. Hugs, love. Scottie
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Sorry for the delay in replying Scottie. Chores called again.
I admire your courage and honesty to be frank and open about a cruel, horrid and unjust past and salute your courage Scottie to build yourself up to the person you are today.
There is the perpetual challenge to all Christians as to how we believe in a God of Love and yet so many cruel things happen. Why does HE let it be so???
Of course some can go off on all sorts of theological tangents on the matter, but to be honest a number of them sound downright insulting to innocent folk who have suffered appallingly.
And the beginning of this year, in England some young lads fell through ice in a pond, drowned or suffered shock through exposure. Sheila and myself were really upset. Our faith as such was not shaken. But we were both in a ‘Hey God! C’mon. Don’t tell us this is part of Your plan. What’s all this about. Kids dying like this?’
I wrote a post on it:
The most honest of us, including more than a few decent priests and pastors say ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know,’
Going back to the Centurion and the question of ‘prohibitions’ and ‘sinful actions’, a lot of the injunctions in the Old Testament were basically telling folk to stay with their one partner and not going around with others as that would cause family feuds which would lead to resorts to violence. Taking English translations out of context of the times and the places is so much hoo-hah (polite term) to, as you say, excuse hate and prejudice.
Sadly Scottie that is all this highlighting passages from the Bible is all about, folk looking for an excuse to validate (as they see it) their hates and prejudices.
I don’t see them as followers of any God or Son of God that I recognise.
I witness it in politics too. Folk who are only too swift to be vitriolic and hateful in ‘defence’ of ‘Liberty’ and ‘Rights’ (those being their definitions of ‘Liberties’ and ‘Rights’ of course). Both Right and Left have a large number of those. It’s not just MAGA and the US evangelic crowd, their mirror images are alive and loud on the UK radical Left too. I’ve given up UK socialism because they have polluted it with their own bigotries. I drift to liberal-moderate.
Anyway we shall end on a high note Scottie, these hateful folk do not get the final say. That is for someone way, way, way above their paygrade. You and Ron have as much right to live and love as anyone, and that is a gift, which dare I say in my world, comes from ‘On High’ to you both.
Bless you both.
Take care.
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Personally, I could give a potty-sh__ who the evangelicals want for POTUS.
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Hi Nan. It is better to know what the enemy is up to in order to defeat them. See the evangelical / religious vote is a good chunk of the right wing base. So they have a disproportional say over the nominee. But what I found interesting was the two most religious republicans running were not supported by the base, but the ones spouting the most hate against others are. Hugs. Scottie
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My point was that news sources make a BIG DEAL about how the evangelicals support Trump … I’m well aware of their potential influence.
Sidenote: I essentially do NOT believe the bible, but because of my several years of indoctrination, I’m quite familiar with much of the “end-days” rhetoric and -IF- there is any truth to it, the “christians” that support Trump are going to be very surprised one day.
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Hi Nan. Sorry I did not understand your comment. And I am well aware of your religious qualifications. I own your book! And you are one of a small handful of people which includes Roger that I trust on issues with the bible.
That said, I am now more confused than ever on what you really wanted to express with your comment? You don’t like that the news organizations give a large republican voting block credit for backing tRump? Ok I get that. But it is a truth. I don’t like it either. But until we make these evangelical religious people irrelevant to the republican primary, they are a factor that we have to deal with.
Hugs. Scottie
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OK … I’ll try it another way.
I don’t like ANYTHING the evangelicals support. The fact that Trump is lumped in with all the other issues they support simply means that I don’t give a flying F if they support him or not. Their opinions don’t matter to me.
Now … to your point … yes, they carry a fair amount of political influence so in THAT respect, their support of Trump is dangerous.
Got it?
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Hi Nan. Yup I do. But you are not the majority of voting maga republican primary voters. And they don’t give a shit about your feelings on tRump. Got it! Hugs. Scottie
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