'They're not getting what they voted for': Jesus meme lays bare GOP frustrations with Trump [View all]
Source: Politico
04/14/2026 07:30 PM EDT
President Donald Trump’s weekend tirade against the pope — capped off by an AI-generated depiction of the president as Jesus — was, for some of his supporters, just too much.
Their unusually severe backlash comes as many once-devout Trump supporters are having a crisis of faith. Upset over what they feel is a too timid deportation agenda, a sputtering economy and another war in the Middle East, many couldn’t stomach the affront the way they might have in the past.
The backlash cut across evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics and the populist conservatives who form the backbone of Trump’s base — a sign of how little grace key supporters are willing to extend at a moment when frustrations are already running high. To some, the Jesus meme — which Trump later said was never meant to liken him to Jesus but was instead supposed to depict the president as a Red Cross worker — exhausted whatever goodwill remained.
“They’re not getting what they voted for to begin with. On top of that, whether he’s mocking their religion intentionally or not, he still is,” said Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base. “I think we are looking not really at a MAGA crack-up per se, but a lot of the base becoming exasperated enough to start looking beyond Trump.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/14/trump-jesus-meme-pope-backlash-00872163
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