How the Right Lost Its Mind

by Charles J. Sykes

As recently as 2011, only 30 percent of white evangelicals agreed that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public life and professional life.” But in the era of Trump, evangelical attitudes underwent a stunning, head-snapping transformation. A poll released in October 2016 found that fully 76 percent of white evangelicals had decided that a candidate’s morals were no longer that important. While other groups had also become more tolerant of personal immorality, no other group had moved so dramatically. Indeed, as one commentator noted, that “immense shift in opinion means that the same types who made up the former ‘Moral Majority’ now comprise the religious group most likely to agree that public and private morality can be separate.” [Emphasis