The prospect of choosing between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for president is driving Veronica Mahaffy straight to prayer.
To this lifelong conservative Christian and Republican voter, he’s a “mocker” — the kind of arrogant, heedless man who’s condemned in the Bible — and he’s “corrupt.”
Trump did not change her mind with his address Friday (June 10) to
1,200 people including Mahaffy, a Pennsylvania retiree who came here for
the three-day Road to Majority gathering of the Faith & Freedom
Coalition and the Concerned Women for America.
He certainly tried.
Trump came to the podium with opening words of gratitude. “We’ve done
very well with all the evangelicals,” he said, adding “I happen to be
Presbyterian. There’s about three of you out there.”
He named key evangelical endorsers such as Jerry Falwell Jr., president
of Liberty University, and Dallas megapastor Robert Jeffress.
Trump’s calm and careful speech (with a teleprompter) was focused on
“our shared values.” He drew applause with pledges upholding the
sanctity of life and marriage as “the building block of happiness and
success.
“It’s more important than the money,” said the thrice-married billionaire.
The crowd clapped and flashed cell phone cameras as he whacked “crooked
Hillary” who, he said, refuses to even say the words “radical Islamic
terrorism” — a phrase he repeated at least five times. “This alone makes
her unfit to be president.”
A handful of young women protesters calling out anti-Trump slogans were
quickly muscled out of the room. While the crowd shouted, “Trump!
Trump!” and “USA.” Trump just shook his head, saying, “So sad. So sad,”
and dismissing them as “professional agitators.”
Mindful perhaps of GOP critics alarmed by his inflammatory rhetoric on
race and ethnicity, Trump said a Clinton presidency would “be a crushing
blow to poor people. And she will send blacks and Hispanics turmoil and
even worse, despair.”
But his policies on judicial appointments, trade, education and
families would restore the luster of faith and respect in our culture,
said Trump. “Together we will chart a new optimistic course for
America.”
Before Friday’s event, CWA president and onetime Ted Cruz supporter, Penny Nance already had swallowed hard and reluctantly endorsed Trump despite his personal history — a history at odds with most of the biblical principles at the core of the women’s public policy group for 35 years.
“It’s hard.” Nance said. She was appalled that Trump did not step up
immediately to support bills blocking transgender access to public
restrooms, telling Breitbard News, “conservatives are right to question
Donald Trump’s judgment. … His instincts are wrong on our core values.”
Nance has a visceral disrespect for Clinton so there’s no left turn in
her future. But she also said Friday afternoon, “I’m am not laboring
under any delusion that Trump’s a Bible-banging evangelical.”
She respects those Republican primary voters who chose differently.
Still, Nance said Friday afternoon, “My worst nightmare” is that after
all the passionate volunteer efforts of conservative women to deliver
the vote this fall, “we wake up one morning and discover it was all a
ruse.”
The focus now for CWA is, as it was from the beginning, to bring the
nation back to biblical principles no matter who is elected. Nance
acknowledged that in more than three decades, society has become
markedly “less religious than ever before.” But she said, “I’m blessed
to work with women who are not a bit cowed by this challenge.”
Trump has been all over the map on core issues for the CWA, including
opposition to abortion. The Washington Post calculated that he took five different positions on abortion in three days this spring.
At the height of the outcry over fetal tissue donations and Planned Parenthood, Trump praised the good work done by Planned Parenthood and would not commit to calling for it to be defunded.
Friday morning’s speakers at the Road to Majority gathering were
front-loaded with members of Congress who raised amens from the audience
with calls to “save this country.” U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R- N.C.,
urged them not to let the race turn on
“personality” or stay home discouraged and leave the election to “the Philistines.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recited a litany of what
the GOP majority has accomplished — and what Obama vetoed. But he never
named Trump. Neither did most of the speakers. Their pitch: Only a new
president stands between hope and the death of American freedom at the
hands of Democrats.
Faith & Freedom organizer Ralph Reed did mention the presumptive
nominee and made clear that perfection was not the standard for
judgment: “We are not looking for a political messiah. We already have a
messiah.”
“We serve a mighty God who uses imperfect people to achieve his perfect will,” he said.
Outside the Omni Shorham Hotel, Catholics in Alliance for the Common
Good held a news conference to denounce Trump as “a total affront to the
gospel of Jesus.”
Alex Leary
The Faith in Public Life Action Fund released a video Thursday with
author Max Lucado, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, and Gabriel
Salguero, founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, urging
Trump to seek God’s forgiveness for his “racist, sexist and xenophobic
rhetoric.”
Veronica Mahaffy, who hangs up on Trump campaign robocalls, is not holding her breath.
“He doesn’t love God more than money,” said Mahaffy, 74, a retired
nurse anesthesist who traveled with her husband from Chadds Ford, Pa.
“I don’t think he even believes in God,” she said.
On the other hand, nothing could make her vote for Clinton — no matter
that the former secretary of state is a lifelong churchgoing,
Bible-reading Methodist. Mahaffy said Clinton’s actions and policies
don’t align with Scripture as she reads it.
Friday, Trump’s speech didn’t bring either Mahaffy on board — yet.
Come Election Day, confronted with the choice, Veronica Mahaffy said, “I am going to pray and ask God for wisdom.”
Photo: Donald Trump addresses the Faith and Freedom Coalition's
"Road To Majority" conference in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2016.
Courtesy: Religion News Service
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