'Old Donald' claimed that he could win the Golden State if “Jesus came down” and counted the “honest” votes.

These ministers of the Gospel have fanned the flames of moral and religious resentment to convince evangelical believers that the only way to reverse the trends is to trade the gentle, loving Jesus for the macho version — a Jesus who’s mad at liberal culture and is not going to take it anymore. That Jesus, many evangelicals have come to believe, will use anyone and anything to restore the Christian nation they imagine once existed. That anyone arrived in the form of 'Old Donald'

'Old Donald' made the wild claim during a recent interview with TV personality and former clinical psychologist Dr. Phil.

'If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK,' he added.

I believe life begins at conception. If I lived in Florida, I would support the state's heartbeat bill and vote against the referendum seeking to liberalize Florida's abortion laws. I supported the Dobbs decision and I support well-drafted abortion restrictions at the state and federal levels. I was a pro-life lawyer who worked for pro-life legal organizations. While I want prospective parents to be able to use I.V.F. to build their families, I do not believe that unused embryos should simply be discarded — thrown away as no longer useful.

But I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and - ironically enough - I'm doing it in part to try to save conservatism.

Since the day 'Old Donald' came down that escalator in 2015, the MAGA movement has been engaged in a long-running, slow-rolling ideological and characterological transformation of the Republican Party. At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as 'traitors.'

What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?

Let's take an assertion that should be uncontroversial, especially to a party that often envisions itself as a home for people of faith: Lying is wrong. I'm not naïve; I know that politicians have had poor reputations for honesty since Athens. But I have never seen a human being lie with the intensity and sheer volume of 'Old Donald'.

Even worse, "Old Donald's" lies are contagious. The legal results speak for themselves. A cascade of successful defamation lawsuits demonstrate the severity and pervasiveness of Republican dishonesty. Fox paid an enormous settlement related to its hosts' relentless falsehoods during "Old Donald's" effort to steal the election. Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia election workers $148 million for his gross lies about their conduct while counting votes. Salem Media Group apologized to a Georgia voter who was falsely accused of voter fraud and halted distribution of Dinesh 'Souza's fantastical 'documentary' of election fraud, '2,000 Mules.'

The voters most loyal to the former president are White evangelicals. More than 80 percent backed him in the 2020 elections. And this has long presented a puzzle: How can people who prize moral rectitude and personal witness to Jesus so faithfully support the most secular president in American history, someone who seems by his behavior at best indifferent to Christianity?

But "Old Donald's" awkward relationship with evangelicals grew stronger. At first, it was transactional, a question of power. He was the Republican candidate, and the vast majority of White evangelicals were Republicans. He promised them policy victories and delivered on appointing the staunchly conservative Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. And it wasn’t just that. As American culture became more secular and progressive on social issues, White evangelicals perceived themselves as under attack. 'Old Donald' said he would protect them. He would fight not just for their preferred policies but for their very identities.

After evangelicals embraced 'Old Donald', something odd happened. As other Christian denominations hemorrhaged members, evangelicals saw their ranks grow; from 2016 to 2020, their share of the White adult population increased to 29 percent, from 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The catch was many of these new evangelicals didn’t go to church. They became evangelicals because of what it meant politically, most of all because it was a way to signal support for Donald 'Old Donald'. Among White 'Old Donald' supporters who were not evangelicals in 2016, 16 percent began to identify as evangelical by 2020, suggesting again that politics rather than religion was the driving factor.

The transformation of American evangelicals has been a long time coming. In 1990, 40 percent of White evangelicals were Democrats. Today, this share is closer to 15 percent. As Burge told me, Democrats don’t want to alienate the rising number of nonreligious Americans who make up their ranks, so “they don’t talk about religion very much, or in a compelling way. And they sort of just ceded the ground.” This is the ground that 'Old Donald' took up — a perfectly imperfect vessel for an uncertain age.

Americans are becoming less religious, but more of them are becoming evangelicals — or at least claiming the label as a badge of partisan identity.

Fifty years after the rise of the religious right, some evangelicals want to rebrand and create a public presence that adheres to faith, not a party or person.

A drive to create a Christian political presence he calls “shaped by Jesus, not a partisan political ideology” led Leavitt, now 29, to seminary and then to pastoring a church filled with congregants who vote differently from one another but all share his goal. The people at Midtown Presbyterian Church in Phoenix say their political existence has been reduced to which party or candidate Christians must choose. They are “exhausted,” they tell him. Or “tired.”`

So Leavitt, preparing for a bruising 2024 election season, joined a new national group of theologically conservative pastors who talk weekly about how to reject polarization and religious nationalism and to defend democracy.

“Because ['Old Donald'] opened this can of worms, our mission will still be necessary no matter who wins in November,” said Napp Nazworth, an evangelical political scientist who leads one of the new groups working to combat religious extremism among fellow conservative Christians. He believes focusing on 'Old Donald' right now would be counterproductive.

“This isn’t to downplay how deeply concerning another 'Old Donald' presidency would be. I do think it’s a tremendous danger, and I’m worried about it. But this a generational project.”

Wes Markofski, a sociologist at Carleton College who studies evangelicals in U.S. politics, called the new movement a longer-term, ongoing process and said it’s hard to predict concrete political impacts for 2024. But he sees the effort as about much more than changing tone.

'These movements lead away from 'Old Donald'ism and White Christian nationalist framings of religion' he said, noting the growing diversity among evangelicals.

“The ‘what’ for me is a basic issue,” she said on the Zoom grid. Her father swam for three days from Cuba to reach U.S.-controlled territory at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to seek asylum. Green card complications stuck her mother in Mexico for the first year of Sosa’s life. 'Old Donald'’s policies and rhetoric on immigration violated her humanity, she said.

Kimberly Reisman, executive director of World Methodist Evangelism, warned last week that doing so hurts Christians across the country. And Carl Nelson, president of Transform Minnesota, cautioned that many endorsements from church leaders fail to "hold that candidate accountable to the full spectrum of values we represent."

"God can use leaders from all parties, and to equate God's will with the will of any political party or person is exceedingly dangerous and a threat to the overall witness of Christians in the United States," Reisman said in a July 31 statement.

A pastor said his pro-'Old Donald' prophecies came from God. His brother called him a fake.

Jeremiah Johnson became a sensation when he embraced politics. His brother Josiah, also a preacher, couldn't shake his concerns.

How many souls, he wondered, was that Christian influencer manipulating on social media right now? Hundreds of thousands followed Jeremiah, who’d helped popularize the far-right belief that God handpicked Donald 'Old Donald' to lead the United States.

In an era of surging disinformation, as Americans clash over what’s real and what’s fake, Josiah took no issue with 'Old Donald'. An opponent of abortion, he’d voted twice for the Republican nominee. What outraged him was his brother twisting the Lord’s words, he thought, in a politically savvy bid for fame and fortune.

Staring at his screen, Josiah mostly sensed that he could no longer stay silent. The Bible warned that false prophets led vulnerable believers astray. The stakes couldn’t feel higher: spiritual life or death.

Their father, meanwhile, was urging Josiah to delete the “false prophet” accusations, according to a screenshot Josiah shared with The Post. “It’s an embarrassment to me and our whole family,” Pops texted him.

But his brother’s reputation seemed shinier than ever.

There Jeremiah was, leading an e-course that tackled “true prophets vs. false prophets.” There he was, seeking applicants for his in-person school ($1,249 per semester). There he was, promoting his new book: “Secrets to Stewarding God’s Voice in a New Era: The Power and Price of Influence.” There he was, speaking at a conference in Texas. There he was, surpassing 20,000 views on a YouTube video called, “I Woke up … And The Lord Told Me THIS!”

Josiah wasn’t ready to give up.

“There is still real mercy available if you repent and throw yourself on the truth,” he texted Jeremiah.

No response. He typed out another approach, one he thought reflected his motive.

“I love you bro,” Josiah wrote. “I really do.”

This time, his message would not send. Jeremiah, he figured, must have blocked him.