In denouncing Trump for his reprehensible conduct, Obama was putting voters -- not to mention the media -- on the spot.

[frogstar0]

https://wapo.st/3U7hL2i
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/14/obama-rally-trump-voters-morals/

Jennifer Rubin
In denouncing Trump for his reprehensible conduct, Obama was putting voters — not to mention the media — on the spot. How have they disregarded or normalized or ignored utter disdain for basic values, norms and truth? It’s not an easy query. You wonder whether millions of Americans have become cruel and despicable — or so cynical they treat politics like a game in which fundamental rules of behavior have no place.

This shift in public opinion has largely gone unremarked upon by the media. (Perhaps they fear the wrath of MAGA voters if they do.) So we turn to social scientists for answers. The data show us that Republicans, heavily dominated by White Christian evangelicals, stopped caring about character in their leaders.

In 2011, the think tank Public Religion Research Institute found that “60 percent of white evangelicals believed that a public official who ‘commits an immoral act in their personal life’ cannot still ‘behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.’” But Trump changed all that by 2016, when the number plummeted to 20 percent. The party of character and personal rectitude had changed its tune.