A common theme of MSNBC’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses was the network’s overall contempt for these voters who are largely out of their demographic. Evangelical voters, in particular, were singled out for scorn.
Watch as Alex Wagner practically calls evangelical Trump supporters a cult, and suggests that they are not attracted to anything attributable to former President Donald Trump as virtue, but to his “vice”:
ALEX WAGNER: Steve was pointing at the evangelical vote, which I've been fascinated by in recent weeks because the number of really esteemed reporters have been talking about the way in which the Trump coalition, the MAGA coalition, has absolutely just devoured the evangelical coalition. Iowa is kind of a case study in that. Michelle Goldberg talks about that, Tim Alberta’s new book talks about it, David French has talked about this phenomenon, and if you look at those entry polls, you know, as Steve points out, 55% of white born-again or evangelicals are going for Trump. That is an exponential increase from 2016. Do you consider yourself part of the MAGA movement, 78% going for Trump, that's not hugely surprising. But the overlap there, I think, is what, I mean, is so remarkable about this moment in American politics, right? Bob Vander Plaats, who is a kingmaker in Iowa politics, an evangelical, and very much a mouthpiece for the evangelical vote in Iowa, endorses Ron Desantis. It clearly does not matter. Evangelical America is behind Donald Trump. And that sort of gets to the roots of what Trumpism is now. You know, we were told in 2016 that evangelicals made their beds with Trump because they wanted to have a Supreme Court that was modeled- an evangelically conservative model. Well, they got that. But it seems like their affiliation with Trump and MAGA-ism runs deeper than that. And you know, David French has articulated this point beautifully. It’s- it’s- the Trumpism in some way has become religion for a certain section of the American electorate-- and especially for evangelicals. That it's not about the virtue anymore. It's about the vice that Trump expresses. And I think you see that playing out in Iowa where the evangelical vote is key. It is central to what is going to unfold tonight. And it is very much a group of people that find that Trump is, in some ways, a second coming. It's why Trump is taking out ads like the one that came out, I think, a week ago, called “God made Trump”. There is a distinctly religious undertone to his campaigning nationally. And I think you see that playing out in Iowa, right? The numbers do not lie, Rachel. And I find it really a spectacularly interesting thing, if not a downright curious thing.
Conservative Midwestern evangelicals are the polar opposite of MSNBC’s target demographics: think what was formerly known as the “coalition of the ascendant”, and wealthy coastal liberals- the “AWFUL” voting bloc, if you will. And MSNBC has no qualms about signaling virtue to their audience by openly displaying their contempt for the kinds of evangelical voters that turned out in Iowa and, per results, for Trump.
Wagner’s contempt was not the brutish, racist contempt displayed by Joy Reid. Hers was a more florid contempt, couched in woke theology, but nonetheless grasping at an understanding of what makes these voters tick.
The basis of such support goes far beyond the Supreme Court, but is incomprehensible to MSNBC’s viewers. Wagner’s arguments completely ignore that 8 years ago, Hillary Clinton said that “deeply held beliefs would have to change”, and that the administration preceding Trump’s literally persecuted Christians- whether as demonstrated via the IRS tax scandal, or via the respective lawsuits brought by Hobby Lobby, The Little Sisters of the Poor, and Masterpiece Cakeshop. Also ignored, the current climate of intolerance against persons of faith.
The easy thing to do here, as Wagner (and Reid) demonstrate, is to broadly impugn the motives of persons of faith. Instead they should consider whether individual evangelicals simply decided to compare Trump “not to the Almighty, but to the alternative”.
