This week he presented his candidacy for the US presidency. Mike Pence, the former vice president with Donald Trump, and who never tires of repeating his motto: «I am a Christian, conservative and Republican. In that order”. The evangelical rightone of the great political powers of USAwhich has one of its prominent heads in Pence, owes a lot to Pat Roberts, the Baptist minister, television presenter and presidential candidate in 1988, who died Thursday.
Robertson, 93, was one of the founders of the christian coalitiona highly influential political movement that put all its muscle behind candidates conservatives and that he had his maximum expression of power in 1994, when he achieved that both chambers of Congress had a Republican majority, something that had not happened in decades.
That political movement It is still very much alive in the US and has had some major victories in recent years. The most important, the conservative turn in the Supreme Court during the presidency of Donald Trump, who had the opportunity to appoint three justices. Trump signed Pence as president to win the trust of the evangelical electorate, key in his 2016 electoral victory.
When Robertson began his television career in the small television he founded in 1960, Christian Broadcasting Network, for many Protestant leaders the idea of mixing religion and politics was not acceptable. Each of them had their space. Robertson’s legacy is to have changed that position and made the evangelical right mainstream. Anyone who has played the radio on American highways knows the inescapable presence of preachers who talk as much about faith as politics.
Robertson (Lexington, Virginia, 1930) was born into both politics and religion. His father spent decades as a representative and senator for Virginia in Washington and his mother was a devoted housewife, who assured him that God had a plan for him. The plan started off crookedly: he was unable to take advantage of his law studies, he had an unheroic step due to the Korean War – his father’s influence prevented him from going to combat – and he got his girlfriend pregnant before getting married (this was hidden by during decades). He frequented New York nightclubs, where he landed, and squandered the family money on gambling. But, finally, he found the call of faith. He left everything and was ordained a Baptist minister.
He lived with his family in a dilapidated house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, when he found the opportunity to buy a television network in Virginia for a discount. With family savings and fan contributions, he founded the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Over the decades, he turned that chain into a media empire, with presence in 200 countries, programs in 70 languages. He was a pioneer of cable and satellite television and an ace in collecting donations from viewers.
Had one television presence flawless. With suave manner and speech, for many, incendiary, he became one of the most influential voices of conservatism in the US.
political career
He attempted the great leap into politics in 1988, with a candidacy for the US presidency, after eight years in the White House of ronald reagan. Despite having an important electoral machine, the nomination went to Reagan’s vice president, George HW Bush.
That did not take away the desire for political power. His promotion of the Christian Coalition, which grew to four million members, was key to that victory for the Republicans in Congress. Robertson was considered the most influential person in politics in the 1990swith great influence among Christians who felt ignored or mistreated by the elites, an idea that Trump inherited on his rise to power.
Robertson had to deal with many scandals. Especially those who believed his religious positions, with a fervor that reached the idea of the gift of tongues and healing capacity, which led him to frequent explosive statements. He blamed the 9/11 attacks to the sins of the United States, to the presence of atheists, feminists and gays; he said the 2010 Haiti earthquake was a punishment from God, just like Hurricane Katrina, which was due to abortion advocates; he accused liberal Protestants of being the “spirit of the Antichrist”; denounced that feminism led to witchcraft; after Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020, he assured that “God himself” would intervene to turn the results around (he later changed his mind and recommended that Trump turn the page).
In 1997, he sold much of his media empire to Fox for $1.9 billion. He dedicated the money to expand his influence apparatuswith a university, a law school, charities and organizations to promote their ideology.
He was in front of the camera until October 2021, when he said goodbye to ‘The 700 Club’, the program he hosted. He was then 91 years old and remained, until his deathbed, a influential voice.
