Neal even compares Pence to the Bible’s Queen Esther. Pence: The Path to Power, written by Andrea Neal – whom Pence as Indiana governor appointed to the state board of education in 2013 – reads like a hagiography.
Like his boss, Pence both infuriates and elates. Indeed, it was Pence’s standing within the evangelical community that helped boost him on to the ticket.
Yet even as Trump acts as the battering ram of choice for white America at worship, it is Mike Pence, the vice-president, who is the leading evangelical in the administration. According to Falwell, they all deserve to “rot” in jail. At the same time, Jerry Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University, the evangelical powerhouse, has torn into Clinton, Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein, Sessions’ deputy. Franklin Graham, the late Billy Graham’s son, threatened Americans with God’s wrath if they had the temerity to criticize the president. On the other end of the spectrum, religious “nones” went for Hillary Clinton by better than 40 points.ĭespite Trump’s priapic escapades, the white evangelical community continues to stand squarely behind him. In 2016, white evangelicals gave more than 80% of their vote to Donald Trump, a share even greater than among white working-class voters. America’s semi-civil civil war continues, with religion a proxy for the political divide.