Definition of "tub-thumper" []

• A violent or gesticulating preacher; one who employs violent action to give the effect or appearance of earnestness to his sermons. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Tom Hooper's monarch-ish drama about King George VI's struggles to overcome a stammer on the eve of the second world war is a deftly shot, beautifully acted, curiously moving tub-thumper buoyed by a classy bromance."
• "Like many people who count "Hitch" among their friends, I have watched with a certain degree of dismay how this lifelong champion of left-wing, anti-imperialist causes, this scourge of armed American hubris, this erstwhile booster of Vietcong and Sandinistas, this ex-Trot who delighted in calling his friends and allies "comrades," ended up as a loud drummer boy for President George W. Bush's war in Iraq, a tub-thumper for neoconservatism, and a strident American patriot."
• "Many on the right hope that hot-button issues like abortion, contraception, school prayer and creationism will keep people voting against their own pocketbooks and for the tub-thumper issues that the religious right feeds on."