Seeking to shore up conservative Christian voters in North Carolina on Monday, Donald Trump cast himself as something of a religious warrior, anointed by the “supernatural hand” of God to win a second term in office. “I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose,” the former president told a gathering of conservative pastors in Concord, North Carolina, saying that his faith had deepened since the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania rally in July. “And that’s to make our country greater than ever before.”
The remarks—which came a day after his vulgar rally rant about late golfer Arnold Palmer’s anatomy, and amid ever darker threats against his “evil” political opponents—were part of an effort to boost turnout among a voting bloc that had helped him to the White House in 2016, but that Trump said has a “reputation of not voting proportionately.”
“Christians and gun owners don’t vote,” Trump claimed.
Social conservatives had helped Trump win the presidency eight years ago, in no small part because of his vow to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. They got their wish—Trump’s three appointments helped form a six-member conservative majority that ended federal abortion protections—but one of the few promises Trump kept has proved a major political liability for Republicans, as reproductive rights continue to animate Democratic and moderate voters. Trump has tried to dance around the issue this cycle, boasting about having “killed” Roe while suggesting he’s actually a moderate on abortion. Just last week, despite only recently learning about IVF from Alabama Senator Katie Britt, Trump went so far as to call himself the “father” of the procedure, rankling some conservative Christians eager for him to enact a national abortion ban.
While he continues to obfuscate the extremism of his anti-abortion agenda, Trump has sought to court the religious right by portraying Kamala Harris and the Democrats as radical heretics—and by making other promises to Christians. One among them, as he noted Monday, was nixing the Johnson Amendment of 1954, which prohibits churches and other non-profits from endorsing political candidates. “The radical left is not going to leave Christians alone,” Trump said at the “11th-Hour Faith Leaders Meeting” in North Carolina, a swing-state in next month’s election. “It’s going to get worse and worse, and you’re going to suffer greatly.”
Trump has never shied away from casting himself as the savior of the supposedly persecuted Christian conservative. But he, his allies, and his supporters have done so with even greater fervor since he survived an assassination attempt this summer in Butler, Pennsylvania: “If you didn’t believe in miracles before [the rally], you better be believing right now,” Senator Tim Scott said on stage at the Republican National Convention days after the shooting. “There is a hand of God on my father’s shoulder,” son Eric Trump said on a right-wing Christian podcast Monday, framing the election as a battle in a “constant war in this country against God.”
