'Dangerous fanaticism': Conservative fears Trump has fatally corrupted evangelical Christianity

Conservative writer David French is increasingly dismayed by his fellow evangelicals who are unflinchingly loyal to President Donald Trump.

White evangelical Christians backed Trump to the end, and many remain convinced he will remain president despite losing the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College by a 306-232 margin -- and French told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that his fellow conservatives are handling it well.

"One compared people who are letting this election normal transition occur lawfully to Germans who acquiesced or enabled the rise of Hitler," French said. "I mean, this is the level of discourse we are talking about here, and it wasn't just 1992 to 2000 that evangelicals valued character. Evangelicals placed character the highest value of all of the American religious subgroups in evaluating leaders until around late 2015, early 2016. I wonder what happened then?"

"Since that time it is one thing to say Trump's Republican, I am a Republican, he supports my policies, I may not like his character, but I am making a tough, tough choice," he added. "That's not what we have been seeing lately. What we have been seeing [is] people willing to demolish the Constitution, the rule of law to keep this person in power."

Many GOP lawmakers signed on to the Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the election in the U.S. Supreme Court, and French said many of them likely did so based on their religious views.

"I know many of the 126 members of Congress," French said. "I am very aware of many of these 126 members of Congress who signed this unconscionable amicus brief trying to reverse the election in four states. Most guys would say that they are absolutely Christians. The Texas GOP, which called for secession, is saturated with Christians, so this is a level of commitment to the man Donald Trump that the whole argument about holding your nose, that's over. That is yesterday's news."

"These people are all in on him, believing he has a very specific mission from God, and that America will fall, America will fall," he added. "Again, not all Christians, but his core. They believe that the fate of the church and the fate of the United States are inextricably bound up together with Donald Trump. It's a stunning argument and it's creating dangerous fanaticism, and I am very worried about its effect now and in the future."