OPINION:
Charles Hurt’s criticisms of the media coverage of Donald Trump’s most recent publicized incident completely miss the point (“Donald Trump’s Corinthians misquote overblown by media,” Web, Jan. 19). Mr. Hurt expounds on the reasons that conservative evangelicals support Mr. Trump, attributing it to the fact that like Mr. Trump, they are politically incorrect people living in a society that directly opposes or demonizes the ideals for which they stand.
While all of this may be true, the point that the ’liberal media’ was making in most cases is that Mr. Trump was pandering to the ideals of Liberty University, with which he obviously was not familiar. The motivation behind support of Mr. Trump is not that he shares similar religious convictions. Mr. Trump could have gone to Liberty University and discussed the parallels between his fierce dedication to convictions that have not been received well and the tendency of popular culture to attack Christian ideals. He would have likely been better received.
As for media coverage, maybe the media would have completely ignored the event or maybe they would have attacked both Mr. Trump and the evangelicals from the university. Regardless of what may have happened, current media coverage is not an overblown report of a simple slip of the tongue on the part of Mr. Trump. It is highlighting the fact that Mr. Trump is exploiting a belief system to which he does not personally subscribe in hopes of gaining votes.
HANNAH ODENTHAL
Collegedale, Tenn.
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