Pence sold Trump to evangelicals as embodied American strength and ruggedness

Evidence

By this point, Trump had announced the selection of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative evangelical, explained why he’d agreed, “in a heartbeat,” to join the ticket: Trump embodied “American strength,” and he would “provide that kind of broad-shouldered American strength on the global stage as well.” Pence himself might have lacked a certain ruggedness, but he was ready to ride Trump’s broad coattails into the White House. “Broad-shouldered” became Pence’s favorite go-to phrase on the campaign trail, and he would also point to similarities between Trump and Teddy Roosevelt—two men who “dared … to make America great.” Other evangelicals voiced the same admiration Pence did. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 590

Categorization

• XREF: Recalls the Teddy Roosevelt-cowboy-masculinity genealogy traced in earlier chapters; Pence explicitly invoking TR shows that thread persisting into 2016. — connects to: Leading evangelical figures framed Trump’s presidency as divinely ordained kingship — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 212
• QUESTION: Does Pence’s ‘broad-shouldered’ framing prove militant masculinity as the organizing logic rather than mere political convenience?