In a recent piece for The New York Times, Elizabeth Dias delves into the much-analyzed paradox of evangelical Christians’ immovable support for President Trump.
“Evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is. They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. He is their protector, the bully who is on their side, the one who offered safety amid their fears that their country as they know it, and their place in it, is changing, and changing quickly,” Dias writes. “White straight married couples with children who go to church regularly are no longer the American mainstream. An entire way of life, one in which their values were dominant, could be headed for extinction. And Mr. Trump offered to restore them to power, as though they have not been in power all along.”
Throughout the piece, Dias speaks to people within the evangelical demographic who all seem to echo a constant theme: evangelicals support Trump because he’s finally given them a voice after decades of elitist liberals looking down on them.
One person Dias interviews for the piece was Carolyn Schouten, who said that her freedoms were being taken away and that she felt like a “minority” during Barack Obama’s presidency.
“I think Trump is good for America as a country. I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all,” she said. “Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”
“If you are a hard-working Caucasian-American, your rights are being limited because you are seen as against all the races or against women,” she continued. “Or there are people who think that because we have conservative values and we value the family and I value submitting to my husband, I must be against women’s rights.”
According to Schouten, “it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him.”
Vice President Mike Pence, Schouten says, seems to be filling the role of a submissive wife nicely.
“Mike Pence is a wonderful gentleman,” she said. “This is probably a very bad analogy, but I’d say he is like the very supportive, submissive wife to Trump.”
“He does the hard work, and the husband gets the glory,” she said.
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