Evangelicals embraced Goldwater’s cowboy style before his religious credentials mattered

Evidence

Goldwater seemed the perfect antidote to Kennedy, and conservative evangelicals were drawn to his hard-edged, bombastic style, and to the “cowboy conservatism” he embodied. For his 1958 Senate campaign poster he’d stood, rifle in hand, in a buckskin jacket and cowboy hat, and in public appearances he liked to conjure the aura of the heroic cowboy, standing alone against all odds, refusing to compromise. As the freedom forum’s featured speaker, Goldwater invoked his own hero, Theodore Roosevelt—“America’s ultimate cowboy president.” Like Roosevelt, Goldwater warned against “peace at any price,” and called instead for a strong defense and courageous citizenry. Goldwater wasn’t known for his religious beliefs, but that wasn’t really the point. He was bringing a message Sunbelt evangelicals wanted to hear. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 95

Categorization

• XREF: Prefigures the Trump parallel central to the book’s whole argument — cultural style, not religious orthodoxy, is what evangelicals respond to. The reader should flag this for the final-thread mapping.