Priest behind viral anti-Trump blog says Sanders will be a ‘hard pill’ but he’ll vote for anyone to remove ‘immoral’ president

When an evangelical Christian priest in Tennessee published a controversial blog post on his website denouncing then-Republican candidate Donald Trump ahead of Super Tuesday in 2016, he probably could have figured what would happen next.

Thomas McKenzie, priest at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, was immediately inundated with emails and messages on social media rebuking the post, which was titled: “This Isn’t Funny Anymore: Why I’m Voting Against Donald Trump.”

The messages — many of them profanity-laced and filled with hate — were sent to the priest in such excess, he was forced to set up an automated response that read in part: “Some things I’ve received have been down-right vile. This has not done much to persuade me that Mr. Trump is not a demagogue. Fear and anger seems to be the main message I’m receiving from his supporters.”

In a follow-up story The Independent published this week about Mr McKenzie’s foray into politics, the Anglican priest revealed how he lost both friends and parishioners after speaking out against Mr Trump. But Mr McKenzie also said he does not regret his blog post, and once again plans to vote against the incumbent president — even if that means supporting someone as progressive as Bernie Sanders.

“I’ll vote for whoever the Democratic Party puts forward,” Mr McKenzie said, adding: “In Christianity, we always want a choice between good and evil, but the fallen world often only gives us a choice between evil and more evil. I usually have to take the less evil, and, at this point, any of the Democrats are less evil.”

The priest said in his blog post that he did not support pastors and churches endorsing political candidates, but believed Mr Trump’s election could be damaging to both the country and the Church. Nearly four years later, he says things have been “worse than I expected” — and another four years could be potentially catastrophic.

“All these Democrats may be wrong on some things, and they believe things I may not believe, and do things I may think are stupid, but they’re probably not going to destroy the Republic,” he said. “Trump could, or he is — I mean, he’s doing his best.”

When it comes to the Democratic candidates running against the president in 2020, Mr McKenzie is somewhat more reserved in his criticism. Whereas voting for someone like Mr Sanders would be a “hard pill to swallow” for the priest, he said he felt it was “important” to once again reject Mr Trump at the ballot box.

Mr Sanders “may be wrong” on some important issues, the priest suggested, but he’s not “immoral”.

Mr McKenzie didn’t seem opposed to voting for any of the remaining Democrats vying for a shot at unseating Mr Trump in the general election, and noted his “love” for Amy Klobuchar.

“I don’t think she has any chance, unfortunately, but dang it!” he said while laughing. “Here’s somebody who is very moderate, who — for instance, I am pro-life — and she’s pro-choice, I get that. But she was asked if a pro-life person can be a part of this coalition, and she’s like ‘of course.’”

He also said that Pete Buttigieg was “perfectly fine”, though he noted concerns about his age and experience.

“I wish he were ten years older and had some sort of executive experience beyond serving as the mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana,” Mr McKenzie said, adding: “He and I may have different religious views — I recognise, obviously, that we are fellow Christians and I expect we will probably be in heaven together, but I think he and I have some differences of opinion.”

The priest also credited Mr Buttigieg for seemingly attempting to unify Republicans and Democrats alike, saying he “would certainly prefer that over the Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren camp”.

After posting the blog to his website, Mr McKenzie told The Independent he “very surprisingly” lost a close friend and several members of his church, though, for the most part, his parishioners who voted for Mr Trump continued attending services. Still, he noted an apparent increase in polarisation surrounding the political discourse in the Trump era, noting how “Fox News has a huge part” in the phenomenon.

“They’re just lying to people constantly,” he said. “There are wonderful, normal Christian people who I love, that just sit there and have Fox News on for eight hours a day. At some point it is going to make you think things that just aren’t true.”

Mr McKenzie said it was “befuddling” that Christian leaders and religious voters continued to support Mr Trump, in spite of actions his administration has taken which the priest described as anti-Christian. However, the priest noted how a recent interaction he had could help explain the resiliency of the president’s supporters.

A man walked into his office wearing a sweatshirt featuring the logo for the Houston Astros baseball team, which infamously was found to have cheated before receiving the World Series title.

“I was like wow, the sweatshirt of shame,” he said to the man, who then claimed all baseball teams in the league were guilty of cheating.

“I was like dude, not everyone does it. Do people cheat? I’m sure they do. Do people cheat that way? No they don’t. But he couldn’t see that,” the priest said. “I was like, ‘Oh wow, you’re a true believer. You can’t suss out that the Astros are your team and they did something really, really wrong.”

He added: “I wonder sometimes if that’s how people feel about Donald Trump, like he’s their team — their captain. He’s their Tom Brady: it doesn’t matter if he does something really wrong, he’s still their guy.”