One of the weirdest stories of the 2016 presidential race has been evangelical Christians’ embrace of the thrice-married vulgarian Donald Trump as a savior figure.

Via Right Wing Watch, former GOP congresswoman Michele Bachmann made a pitch for Trump to evangelical voters during an interview with Christian broadcaster Jan Markell where she praised Trump for having “1950s sensibilities” and said he longed for the days when people of all religions said “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

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“He gets and understands religious liberty,” Bachmann gushed about Trump while describing his recent meeting with evangelical leaders in New York. “He even said… ‘When I was growing up everybody said Merry Christmas. Even my Jews would say Merry Christmas.'”

It’s not exactly clear how getting “his Jews” to start saying “Merry Christmas” again would enhance religious liberty, but then again, the “religious liberty” agenda doesn’t really seem to be about religious liberty.

She also speculated that Trump may have been hand-picked by God to save the United States from Hillary Clinton, whom she claimed would “bring us into a certain destruction for the United States.”

“When it comes down to it, Trump may have been the only candidate who could actually defeat Hillary,” Bachmann said. “What I kept thinking to, Jan, was the Book of Daniel, and the Book of the Daniel, the essence of the book, was that the most high God lifts up who he will and takes down who he will.”

Let’s give Bachmann some credit here: If God really is angry at the United States for legalizing gay marriage, then making Donald Trump our president is a remarkably effective punishment.

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