In the Trump era, Republicans have been revising their views on right and wrong.
In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if
an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.
White evangelical Protestants were
the least forgiving. Sixty-one percent said such a politician could not “behave ethically,” twice the 30 percent who felt that such a politician could manage it.
Every other religious group was less judgmental. Catholics, 49 no, 42, yes; white mainline Protestants: 44 percent no, 38 percent yes; the religiously unaffiliated, 26 no, 63 yes.
Are the moral convictions of white evangelical Protestants writ in stone? Apparently not.
Five years later, in October, 2016, P.R.R.I. asked the same question. The percentage of white evangelical Protestants who said that a politician who commits an immoral act in their personal life could still behave ethically shot up from 30 to 72 percent. The percentage saying such a politician could not serve ethically plunged from 63 to 20 percent.
“In a head-spinning reversal,” Robert P. Jones, the C.E.O. of P.R.R.I., wrote
in the July 2017 issue of The Atlantic,
white evangelicals went from being the least likely to the most likely group to agree that a candidate’s personal immorality has no bearing on his performance in public office.
What happened in the interim? The answer is obvious: the advent of Donald Trump.