To vote, or not. It's the "or not" that Evangelicals are warning about if presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump fails to mend the hearts and rekindle the minds of social conservatives.
It's apathy conservative activists saw in 2008 and 2012, and it's apathy they're trying to fight in 2016. But they need the presumptive nominee to give them something, anything to arm themselves for the battle.
One way to heal wounds and repent the sins of the past -- Trump's choice of vice president.
"He's not part of the conservative family," chairman of ConservativeHQ.com Richard Viguerie told
POLITICO. "He needs to prove to us he's worthy of our support. … The ballgame on that is personnel."
Choosing a running mate more like them, combined with a detailed commitment to conservative Supreme Court justices would energize the grass-roots movement to court like-minded voters to cast their vote Nov. 8.
"The choice is not him or Hillary," Penny Nance, the head of Concerned Women for America, told POLITICO. "The choice is him or don't vote."
However, the real-estate mogul seems to see things differently.
For one, he's given no indication he thinks it important to name a conservative vice president, having told MSNBC he doesn't need to unite the entire party. Second, he took to lobbing a counter-attack on Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's political arm, tweeting he's a "nasty guy with no heart."
That came on the heels of Moore's CBS' Face the Nation appearance when he labeled Trump "reality television morel sewage." Moore has been critical in op-eds and on Twitter, too.
Though the impact of that exchange remains to be seen, the foreboding warning remains:
"Dr. Moore is much more influential among younger evangelicals than older evangelicals," said Johnnie Moore, a National Association of Evangelicals board member, and no relation to Russell Moore, to Time.com. "Younger evangelicals don't rally to the other side; they just protest by not acting."
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