So, I heard that former President Donald Trump made some kind of announcement the other day. That means (#SIGH) that we have to think, again, about that whole elite-media thing with 81% of White evangelicals adoring Orange. Man. Bad.

But readers who scan this Google file on that subject will find plenty of reminders that — when White evangelicals had a GOP choice in the 2016 primaries — many provided core support for Trump while just as many voted for other candidates.

With that in mind, consider this National Review headline: “Can DeSantis Win the Evangelical Vote?” That leads to this summary:

… (I)fDeSantis does intend to challenge Trump, he must convince conservative Christians — particularly white Evangelical Protestants, who made up almost half of the GOP electorate in the 2012 and 2016 primaries — to support his cause.
DeSantis would seem well-suited to the task. He has taken a strong stance on many of the social issues that matter most to Evangelicals: This year alone, he stood up against LGBTQ indoctrination in schools and signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation (in a state where 56 percent of adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases); most recently, at his urging, state medical boards banned puberty blockers and transgender surgery for minors. …
And all of this ignores character. Between his three marriages, his lewd comments about groping women, and his friendship with Hugh Hefner, Trump was always an odd champion for the Moral Majority. DeSantis, on the other hand, has avoided scandal so far and cultivated a family-man public image that Evangelicals might find appealing.

Thus, it would be good to take a flashback to a crucial moment in this drama.

As candidate Trump ramped up in 2016, one of America’s most consistent voices on religious, moral and cultural issues — Marvin Olasky — wrote and published a World magazine essay with this headline: “Unfit for power — It’s time for Donald Trump to step aside and make room for another candidate.”

Any journalist who wants to cover the next two years of American politics needs to read this essay, which Olasky recently re-upped on Twitter. That’s highly symbolic for a lot of reasons (CLICK HERE for more info). Here is the opening:

Eighteen years ago, a WORLD cover pictured President Bill Clinton next to the headline, “Time to Resign.” Clinton had denied having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but her stained blue dress bearing Clinton’s DNA was proof that he had used his power for adulterous purposes, and then lied about it.
This month a videotape showed Donald Trump making lewd remarks about groping women’s genitals. While many opponents over the past year have criticized Trump’s character, the video gave us new information about how Trump views power as a means to gratify himself. It raised further questions about how Trump would act if elected to the most powerful office in the world.
Although WORLD over its 30 years has been more critical of Democrats than Republicans, particularly because of the abortion issue, we are not partisan. The standards we applied to Bill Clinton in 1998 are relevant to Donald Trump in 2016. A Clinton resignation would have been good for America’s moral standards in 1998. A Trump step-aside would be good for America’s moral standards in 2016.

Olasky, who is a journalism historian, addresses the questions that were obvious then and just as obvious now. Think, as always, U.S. Supreme Court. Also, it was clear back then that many, many potential Trump voters were sick and tired of life as unworthy Americans in Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.”

But Olasky is just as concerned about moral consistency and his views of the other Clinton — Bill.

Thus, in the end, he wrote:

WE KNOW THAT MANY CHRISTIANS, including some of our readers, will say that given the judicial stakes it’s wrong this year to draw a line in the sand. Our call for a different Republican candidate will lose us some readers and donors. But, standing before God, we cannot say that what WORLD argued concerning a Democrat in 1998 should not apply to a Republican in 2016.
As the Clinton precedent shows, we set the stage for even worse behavior when we ignore blatant offenses. Our journalistic task is to call powerful people to account, regardless of their party, regardless of the politics of the moment.
We don’t know if God will rescue our nation from the pit into which our politics have fallen. We don’t know if He will rescue WORLD from the ire some Trump supporters will feel. We hope and pray that He will — but if He doesn’t, He is still God, holding the future of individuals and nations in His hands. May His name be praised forever and ever.

That was then. Olasky’s costly editorial remains relevant as evangelical voters face political realities in 2024. Journalists need to think about this before promoting the White Evangelical voter monolith image once again.