This Evangelical Pastor Wants to Replace Women’s Right to Vote; The New York Times, August 14, 2025

David French, The New York Times ; This Evangelical Pastor Wants to Replace Women’s Right to Vote

"There are many reasons for Wilson’s rise, but one of them is squarely rooted in politics. When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, he inherited a recent Republican tradition: The Republican president isn’t just a political leader — he’s a de facto religious leader as well.

Leaders inspire imitators, and all too many people are open to pastors exhibiting the same values as the president they admire so much. Or to put it another way, when George W. Bush was in office, “compassionate conservatism” was en vogue. And now? When Trump runs an administration where it often appears that cruelty is the point, well then, empathy is a sin. It’s not that men like Wilson had no audience before Trump; it’s that there is a new demand for Wilson’s message because it matches the Trumpist spirit of this evangelical age.

Trump is a profane, authoritarian man who delights in attacking his critics. Wilson is also a profane, authoritarian man who similarly delights in personal attacks. He created something he calls “No Quarter November,” a month when he grants Christians the right to “hoist the Jolly Roger and just go to war with the world.” His aggression is referred to as the “Moscow mood.”"