Trump sees that the church is a big part of what made America great, and he sees that the state persecution that President Obama began hurts the country. I hope that he sees more, sees Christ as his savior. But in his role as Caesar, protecting our rights is quite enough.
This quote is a nice pointer to the unreality in which the Evangelical Right lives.
Who is in prison, thanks to the “state persecution that President Obama began”? Whom has he forbidden to pray? What church did he shut down? Who has had their children taken away?
And notice this, too, the offhanded, casual nature of the remark — as though the “state persecution that President Obama began” is something everybody knows and requires no explanation. Notice, especially, that Ross Douthat never calls him on it, never asks, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Seriously: These people are living in, and sharing, a paranoid fantasy.