While President Trump may get impeached by the blindly obsessed Nancy Pelosi and her band of rabid Trump-haters, there is absolutely no possibility - as in zip, nada, zilch - that he will be convicted in the Senate.
The reason? Evangelicals.
In 2016, 81% of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Trump. It is no exaggeration to say evangelicals put him the Oval Office. There is a less-than-zero chance they will be inclined to participate in a coup d’état against him.
The reasons are obvious. This is a president who has kept the large promises he made to people of faith. He has used the authority of his office to protect the sanctity of human life, and just recently stripped Planned Parenthood of $60 million in blood money.
He has appointed over 150 judges to the federal judiciary who believe, as the Founders expressed in the Declaration of Independence, that the “right to life” is an inalienable right of every human being in the womb, a gift from their Creator.
These Trump judges know that the purpose of government is not to grant rights but to “secure” the rights that have already been bestowed on Americans by God. These rights are “inalienable,” which means they morally cannot be taken away by any earthly authority. Since Roe represents an unconscionable violation of this right, Trump’s enemies, as well as his supporters, know that Trump’s judges are a lethal threat to the hegemony of the baby-killing industry.
The president has, as he promised, been a warrior on behalf of religious liberty, the first of the inalienable rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. He has protected the conscience of medical providers who have sacred objections to the butchering of human life in the womb and has challenged the entire world before the United Nations to protect religious liberty as a transcendent right that all nations are morally bound to recognize.
Evangelicals believe, as the Bible declares, that the borders of nations have been established by God and can and should be protected. President Trump believes the same thing.
Evangelicals share with the president the conviction that a righteous worldview exalts the rule of law, the importance of justice, and the truth that no man is above the law, including Joe Biden and his son.
In order for Trump to be removed from office, 67 senators, including 20 Republicans, must vote against him. The one thing I have learned about lawmakers is the only thing that matters to them, once they have been elected, is getting reelected. For a Republican senator, most of whom likewise owe their office to evangelical support, to vote against the president would be an unforgivable and career-ending breach of conservative principle. The would-be disenfranchisers of 63 million Americans might pick up a vote or two from off-reservation renegades like Mitt Romney, who is still trying to pay Trump back for not picking him to be Secretary of State, but the chance of getting to 67 is impossible.
Robert Jeffress is right when he said yanking Trump out of the White House will set off a cultural Civil War the likes of which we have not seen in 160 years. If the House sends articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a vote, the thunderous, calamitous, roar of offended pro-Trump evangelicals will shatter the sound barrier. There is no way evangelicals will permit their senators to vote for removal, and by the time they get to a vote, every senator in Washington will know that he is staring into a political abyss if he turns on this president.
In construction, partitions made of fireproof material are used to prevent the spread of a fire from one part of a building to another. While the fire may start in the Capitol, evangelicals will block it from torching the White House. And woe to the Republican senator who tries to breakdown that firewall.
The author may be contacted at bfischer@afa.net
