How honest is this? My kin, John Fremont, co-founded the Abolitionist Republican Party and was its first Presidential Candidate. Trump carries those red southern states who honor their Confederate ancestors. Capturing the moral high ground began before the Civil War. Ministers on both sides made a claim. The issue of abortion was invented to take the moral high ground from the Civil Rights movement that was taking power away from white people who are becoming the minority, and thus want to appear to be victims. That only they care about Right to Life, is the invention.

John

“If you look at public opinion data, white evangelicals’ connection to [Trump] isn’t because he’s carrying water for their pet causes,” said Robert Jones, founding CEO of PRRI. “It’s really about their broader fear about the changing demographics of the country.”

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5502785

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

The night before last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump was hosting religious leaders and lawmakers for dinner at the White House when he spotted Democratic Senator Chris Coons — and pounced.

Trump confronted the Delaware lawmaker — who attended the event as the Prayer Breakfast’s official Democratic co-chair — over the issue of abortion, creating a tense scene in the White House’s Blue Room, according to three sources familiar with the exchange.

Trump leaned in close to Coons, who calls himself “a practicing Christian and a devout Presbyterian,” and laced into the Democratic senator over controversial moves to change statewide policies on abortion that have roiled New York and Virginia politics in recent weeks. “He was in his face about it,” said one person familiar with the exchange. The person described Trump as extremely “worked up.”

“He saw a Democrat in the room, a Democrat who’s known to be a person of faith, and he was like, ‘Why aren’t you speaking out about this?’” the source added.

Another source who was in the room confirmed the account, describing the moment as both “awkward” and attention-grabbing. Rarely has Trump been so vocal about abortion when the masses aren’t watching, this person said. (A Coons spokesman declined to comment.)

The private episode underscored Trump’s recent public focus on abortion, which has delighted his evangelical Christian supporters. During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, Trump used vivid imagery to claim that New York’s new abortion law would “allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” And he accused Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who’s backed similar legislation in his state, of wanting to allow medical providers to “execute” babies after birth.

Abortion is a somewhat unlikely new cause for a president who years ago called himself “very pro-choice” and did not make the issue a central theme of his 2016 campaign. But people close to Trump say that he has developed an increasingly sincere passion for the cause.

That passion also conveniently dovetails with what they call a concerted recent effort to energize white evangelicals who might otherwise be turned off by the concessions Trump appears poised to make to Democrats who have refused to meet his demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding. In need of a boost with his base, Trump is turning increasingly to social and religious issues.

Four officials inside and close to the White House said Trump has sought to connect in new ways with his evangelical supporters during the prolonged immigration battle and has been previewing issues that could play a key role in his 2020 re-election bid.

That wider effort includes Trump’s unexpected endorsement last month of a campaign to add Bible literacy classes to public school curriculums. He has also been in regular touch with evangelical leaders, including Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., who sometimes speaks to the president several times a month.

And on Thursday, the White House’s political affairs office will host a conference call with surrogates and the president himself to “discuss the importance of Life at every stage,” according to an email invitation obtained by POLITICO.

“We’re very pleased that the president is using the bully pulpit to make it clear that he values every child, born and unborn. It’s a powerful statement duly noted by evangelicals and it’s consistent with the president’s beliefs and with his policies,” said Faith & Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed, who spoke with Trump shortly before his State of the Union address.

“It’s also politically savvy,” suggested Reed.

The outreach comes at a moment of political vulnerability for Trump. For the 81 percent of white evangelicals who backed him in 2016, immigration remains an issue of utmost importance. Sixty seven percent of white evangelicals support Trump’s border wall, and 72 percent backed his travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, according to data compiled by the Public Religion Research Institute.

“If you look at public opinion data, white evangelicals’ connection to [Trump] isn’t because he’s carrying water for their pet causes,” said Robert Jones, founding CEO of PRRI. “It’s really about their broader fear about the changing demographics of the country.”

But those numbers are why two outside advisers to his 2020 campaign said they’re concerned about the potential impact of a perceived “loss” or “cave” to Democrats should Trump, as is expected, sign onto a preliminary deal struck by congressional negotiators this week.

That agreement, announced on Monday, includes $1.375 billion for 55 miles of border fencing — not even half of the $5.7 billion Trump demanded in wall funding. Democrats managed to add a provision encouraging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to detain fewer undocumented immigrants.

The good news for the White House is that a third of pro-Trump white evangelicals say there’s virtually nothing he could do to lose their favor. But some evangelical leaders worry about Christians who have become disenchanted by the chaos of Trump’s administration or feel that he has otherwise betrayed their values.

“I spoke with a pastor here in town who’s Pentecostal and an immigrant. He was very supportive of Donald Trump and even encouraged his congregation to vote for him. Then, in 2017, with the travel ban and the ramped-up ICE enforcement, he told me, ‘Wait, I thought this president was for a Christian agenda,’” said Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a Baptist minister in Durham, N.C.

“Many people have had that kind of realization — that it wasn’t just rhetoric,” he claimed.

Trump has sought to compensate for such complaints by playing up other evangelical priorities in recent days — and by soliciting advice from prominent conservative Christians.

In addition to abortion, religious leaders point to Trump’s support for a bipartisan criminal justice reform measure, which he signed into law in December, that had been a longtime cause of Christian activists who preach forgiveness.