Activists and political experts say former President Donald Trump’s recent remarks at a Christian summit are a threat to Black Americans and signal a troubling sign that he intends to make good on his promise to be a dictator if reelected – at least on “day one,” as he’s previously indicated.
“In four years, you won’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not gonna have to vote,” said Trump as he urged white Christians at the Believers’ Summit hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action on Friday to cast their ballots on Nov. 5.
“He is making it very clear he wants to win now so that he never has to worry about a fair election ever again. This is not theoretical. This is right in front of your face,” said Michael Blake, the founder and CEO of Kairos Democracy Project, an advocacy group that engages young voters and voters of color.
“Telling Christians to vote for us, so that you don’t have to vote again, and I’m not a Christian – which he said out of his own mouth – that by itself, is so contradictory, so egregious, so dangerous,” he told theGrio.
The political activist and ordained minister added, “It should be disqualifying for him to be a president or candidate for president ever again.”
Throughout his presidency and since leaving office, critics have condemned Trump’s penchant for praising dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean President Kim Jong Un. In 2018, Trump said it was “great” that President Xi Jinping could serve as “president for life” after the Communist Party eliminated two-year term limits.
“You should not have a national political leader, particularly someone running for president, telling people under any circumstances that they shouldn’t have to vote, or they don’t have to vote,” Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, told theGrio.
Voting is especially foundational for Black Americans, who did not earn the right to vote until 189 years after America’s founding. In 2020, Trump’s campaign falsely claimed there was voter fraud in cities with large Black populations and sought to invalidate their votes after he lost to President Joe Biden.
Payne said Trump’s latest comments are “part of a longer teardown in faith and confidence in our voting systems [and] … a longer story he’s telling about authoritarianism and about trying to change the core of who we are supposed to be as Americans.”
Bishop Joseph Tolton, a pan-African activist and founder of Interconnected Justice, noted that Trump and the Republican Party’s embrace of white, far-right Christianity is not only deeply connected to themes of authoritarian rule but is an effort to return America to a social hierarchy that threatens Black and brown Americans, women and LGBTQ+ people.
“The conservative vision is to create a society in which America has no responsibility to address its historic wrongdoings, which have legalized a second class of citizenship for certain classes of people,” Tolton told theGrio.
He added, “A strong base that is rallying behind you [and] believes that your capture of almost absolute power is necessary for you to execute and to implement a very particular agenda.”
Tolton said conservative policies are not only rooted in far-right white Christian ideology but also seek to “dismantle the civil rights infrastructure” by eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, as laid out in the conservative policy agenda, Project 2025.
Drawing a connection between white Christianity and the historical disenfranchisement of Black Americans, he explained: “[Trump] understands and knows very well that a very certain strain of Christianity was an integral component to not only the system of slavery but almost even more importantly, to maintaining the system of Jim Crow.”
Rev. Stephen Green, founder of the advocacy group Faith for Black Lives, told theGrio Trump is “playing to a base” of white faith voters by trying to “manipulate them to see him as their messianic king … even though he says he’s not a Christian in the same speech.”
Green said faith and community leaders must “counter that narrative with a bold vision of the revolutionary Jesus” who supports policies that improve the lives of Black Americans. He said Trump’s suggestion that Christian voters won’t have to vote in four years paints a stark reality for the future of democracy and how government works for Black and other marginalized communities.
“It’s really a vote or die,” he said, referencing the 2004 election campaign “Vote or Die!” launched by Citizen Change. Green added, “I think that’s really where we are right now.”
Green said it’s important for the Democratic Party to take back the “narrative” on faith from the Republican Party.
“[They] relinquished the faith language and a faith based toward a far right-wing evangelical approach,” he said, “because they have not been equipped with the tools to engage voters through the vision of a faith that is grounded in a spirituality of love and a public love.”
Payne said Trump, as the standard bearer for a Republican Party so heavily aligned with evangelical Christians, doesn’t have “control over [his] worst impulses.”
“This is who Donald Trump really is. He’s not the guy on a teleprompter talking in platitudes about unity that he doesn’t even understand,” he added. “No amount of campaigning can hide that.”
