Abusing Religion

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  It is abusing religion to achieve its ends.

Trump has literally claimed that God is on his side.

Eileen Sullivan at NYT:

The Trump administration released guidance on Monday reminding federal agencies that religious expression in the workplace is protected by the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act — guidance that protects employees and supervisors seeking to recruit fellow federal workers to their religion.

Such expressions are protected as long as they do not cross into harassment, the guidance says. Wearing religious symbols and staging them in office cubicles is also protected, the guidance says, as are hosting prayer groups in empty offices and posting about religious events on office bulletin boards.

The Clinton White House issued similar guidelines in 1997, though at greater length and with more detailed examples and caveats. The Trump administration did not say whether its guidelines superseded those issued in 1997. Neither set of directives affects the First Amendment to the Constitution or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths,” said Scott Kuper, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, which released the policy, said in a statement.

 On July 7,  David A. Fahrenthold reported at NYT:

The I.R.S. said on Monday that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits.

The agency made that statement in a court filing intended to settle a lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters.

From the Christian Defense Coalition:

In the video, a man’s voice quotes Isaiah 6:8, which says: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’"

(Here is a link to the video)

DHS is implying it is the Lord, and not the government, who is issuing this call to be sent which is deeply troubling and manipulative.

The video takes an even darker turn as it states: “And who will go for us?” signaling the “us” of Isaiah 6:8 is not God but rather the government and the DHS.

Liking the voice and purposes of God to the voice and purposes of the United States government is offensive and must be challenged.

Also offensive is a song playing in the background with the lyrics: “Run on for a long time, Sooner or later God'll cut you down” which focuses on undocumented immigrants who cannot avoid God’s judgment.

Alexei Laushkin, Founder of Kingdom Mission Society, comments:

“We need to let DHS do their critical work free of politics. Using a video on Isaiah 6:8 is very misguided. The twitter account for DHS should be for critical informational tweets that protect our homeland. The DHS account should not be used to make a mockery of faith.

"God calls people to serve in DHS and throughout the government, but that message should be coming from the pulpit not a government ad.

"We want DHS to uphold the rule of law, to uphold due process, and fulfill its mission, not be a substitute for the voice of the Church. Things are best when there is collaboration, not co-opting.”

Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Washington, DC based Christian Defense Coalition, adds:

“The Trump Administration and DHS have manipulated and misused Scripture by releasing this offensive recruitment video. The DHS video is using the Bible verse, Isaiah 6:8, to imply it is the Lord Himself and not the government who is issuing the call to be involved with the DHS.

"As a Christian minister, I take issue with the Word of God being used by the Trump Administration as a marketing and promotional tool to deal with the immigration challenges facing America.

"Likening the voice and purposes of God to the voice and purposes of the United States government is harmful and must be challenged.

"The video takes an even darker turn as it states, 'And who will go for us?' implying the 'us' of Isaiah 6:8 is not God but rather the government and the DHS.

"The Bible should be used to reveal the nature of God, point people to a relationship with Jesus Christ and instruct us in understanding the purposes and will of God. It should never be used as part of a manipulative and misleading recruitment ploy by the DHS.”

For more information please contact
Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741

SOURCE Christian Defense Coalition

CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741

Validated Voter Survey

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics

Hannah Hartig, Scott Keeter, Andrew Daniller, and Ted Van Green at Pew:

In his third run for president in 2024, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris by 1.5 percentage points overall, winning 312 Electoral College votes and the national popular vote for the first time.

Trump won with a voter coalition that was more racially and ethnically diverse than in 2020 or 2016, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the 2024 electorate.

• Among Hispanic voters, Trump battled to near parity in 2024 (51% Harris, 48% Trump) after losing to Joe Biden 61%-36% in 2020.
• Trump won 15% of Black voters – up from 8% four years earlier.
• Trump also did better among Asian voters. While a majority of Asian voters (57%) backed Harris, 40% supported Trump. This was a narrower margin than Biden’s in 2020 (70% to 30%).

These shifts were largely the result of differences in which voters turned out in the 2020 and 2024 elections. As in the past, a relatively small share of voters switched which party’s candidate they supported.

In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among those who voted for him in 2020. He also held an edge over Harris among voters who did not vote four years earlier – a group that was considerably more diverse than those who voted in both elections.

And while Trump improved his performance among several groups in 2024, many of the demographic patterns in voting preferences that have dominated American politics for the last several decades remained evident last November:

Educational divide. In each of his campaigns, Trump has held an edge among voters without four-year college degrees. But his 14-point advantage among noncollege voters (56% to 42%) was double his margin in 2016. Harris won voters with college degrees by 57% to 41%, but that was smaller than Biden’s lead among this group in 2020.

A wider urban-rural gap. Trump won voters living in rural areas by 40 points (69%-29%), which was higher than his margins in 2020 or 2016. Harris’ advantage among voters living in urban areas was nearly as large (65% voted for Harris, 33% Trump).

Continued differences by religious attendance. Nearly two-thirds of voters who attend religious services monthly or more (64%) voted for Trump, while only about a third (34%) supported Harris. Harris held a narrower advantage (56%-43%) among the larger group of voters who attend services less frequently.

Methodology: 

 For this analysis, we surveyed 8,942 U.S. citizens ages 18 and older who are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). We verified their turnout in the five general elections from 2016 to 2024 using commercial voter files that collect publicly available official state turnout records.

Hispanics and the Prosperity Gospel

Our next book will look at the 2024 election, which had fascinating demographic features.

Michelle Boorstein at The Washington Post:

The mix of hope, drive for success and belief in a God who rewards faith, sometimes with financial accomplishments, has become dominant across the United States and Latin America, experts on Latino religion say. The belief system is sometimes called “seed faith,” “health and wealth gospel,” or “prosperity gospel.”

In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused strive.
...
Nationally, network exit polls showed that between 2020 and 2024, Trump gained 14 points in support among Latinos, although a bare majority favored Harris, the Democratic nominee. In that same period, he gained 25 points among Latino Catholics and 18 points among Latino evangelical Protestants.
...

The prosperity gospel is rooted in American Pentecostalism and evangelical Protestantism, but experts say it’s become huge across faith in general, and especially among unaffiliated, often online spiritual influencers. Trump grew up in the church of the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, whose book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” was a huge bestseller and is considered a classic of the prosperity gospel.

A Pew Research Center survey in 2014 found wide majorities of Protestants and Catholics in almost all of Latin America agreed that “God will grant wealth and good health to believers who have enough faith.” In the Dominican Republic — the ancestral or birth home for many in Allentown — 76 percent of Protestants agreed and 79 percent of Catholics did. The firm PRRI asked a similar question in March and found 44 percent of U.S. Latinos overall agreed, higher than any other group except African Americans. What that means politically is that wealthy candidates like Trump are seen by some as both faithful and worthy of emulation.

Harris: Woman, Asian, Black, Christian

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. Our next book will discuss the extraordinary fight between an elderly white ex-president and a younger Black/Asian woman. 

Karthick Ramakrishnan and Sara Sadhwani

Recent data released by AAPI Data and Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) indicate that gender representation plays a stronger role than racial representation in shaping voter support for her candidacy. The survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago in September asked respondents, “Thinking specifically about Kamala Harris, how important to you are the following aspects of her identity?” providing choices that included “her identity as an African American,” “her identity as an Asian Indian or South Asian,” “her identity as a woman,” and “her age.”

Given the amount of news coverage and social media engagement around Harris’s racial identity as both Indian and Black, Asian American voters would be expected to give the highest importance to her Indian and South Asian heritage and her African American identities, with gender and age identities far behind. The survey results showed the opposite (see figure below).

The figure above, from the 2024 AAPI Voter Survey, reveals a significant gender gap among AAPI voters in regard to the importance of Harris’ gender identity

Well over a third of Asian American voters (38%) say that Harris’ identity as a woman is “extremely important” or “very important” to them, with significantly smaller proportions indicating the same about her racial identities as Indian/South Asian (25%) and as an African American (24%) or about her age (25%). The findings were not statistically different among Indian American voters, who arguably share even closer ethnic affinity to Harris.

Notably, the “gender boost” in identity representation was driven entirely by the opinions of Asian American women. About a half (49%) of Asian American women said that Harris’s gender was important to them, nearly double the proportion among Asian American men (25%). This gender gap was also noticeable in questions about the importance of having more elected representatives who are women (56% of Asian American women said that this was extremely important or very important to them, when compared to 36% of Asian American men), and about their intention to vote for Harris (72% among Asian American women and 59% among Asian American men).

Kamala Harris: “I grew up in the Black church. I grew up attending 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California.”

Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr: “That’s church.”

Harris: “My pastor is Amos C. Brown of Third Baptist Church.”

Charlamagne: “God is good.”

Harris: “All the time.” pic.twitter.com/t1X71KId9f

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) October 15, 2024

Whether they're religious or not, I believe people want a leader who is driven by compassion not cruelty, one whose values are rooted in hope and not fear, whose moral convictions yield inclusion and not separation.https://t.co/sj872MkZKo pic.twitter.com/IixEWa3EDv

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) October 16, 2024

Authoritianism and Republicans

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

 Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

Public Religion Research Institute:

Most Americans disagree that those convicted of crimes from Jan. 6th are being held hostage by the government or that Trump should do whatever it takes to be President if he is not declared the winner in 2024; authoritarians and Christian nationalists are more likely to agree.

• Just 23% of Americans agree that “the people convicted for their role in the violent Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol are really patriots who are being held hostage by the government.”
• A plurality of Republicans (43%), including half of those who hold favorable views of Trump (51%), agree with this idea, compared with 16% of Republicans with unfavorable views of Trump, 20% of independents, and 7% of Democrats.
• Christian nationalists and authoritarians are more likely to hold this belief than others, though Christian nationalists (44%) agree at higher rates than Americans who score high on the RWAS (38%) and CRAS (28%).
• Just 14% of Americans agree that “if Donald Trump is not confirmed as the winner of the 2024 election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume his rightful place as president,” compared with 24% of Americans who score high on the RWAS and 28% of Christian nationalism supporters.

Republicans, authoritarians, and Christian nationalists are far more likely than other Americans to believe that the Democrats have “weaponized the Department of Justice to try and silence Donald Trump and his supporters.”

• While roughly four in ten Americans believe the Justice Department has been weaponized against Trump and his supporters (39%), a strong majority of Republicans (78%), particularly those who hold favorable views of Trump (88%), agree, compared with 37% of independents, and 8% of Democrats.
• The majority of white evangelical Protestants (69%) and white Catholics (54%) agree, compared with minorities of members of other religious groups.
• Christian nationalism supporters (67%) are more likely than those who score very high or high on the RWAS (61%) and CRAS (50%) to agree with the weaponization of the Department of Justice against Donald Trump and his supporters.

Right-wing authoritarians and Christian nationalists are most supportive of the need for a strong leader who is willing to break the rules.

• Just one in three Americans agree with the idea of a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right (34%).
• More than half of Republicans who view Trump favorably (55%) agree that we need a leader willing to break some rules compared with 26% of Republicans with unfavorable views of Trump, 32% of independents, and 22% of Democrats.
• The majority of those who score high on the RWAS (59%) and those who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (55%) agree with the need for a leader who is “willing to break some rules,” compared with 44% of those who score high on the CRAS.

Americans remain broadly supportive of the separation of powers and believe presidents should not have immunity from criminal prosecution or be allowed to limit opposing parties.

• Just two in ten Americans agree that former presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution (23%); have the power to limit opposing parties (20%); or ignore Congress or the Supreme Court (19%).
• Among Republicans with favorable views of Trump, 50% agree that former presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution, compared with 19% of Republicans who do not hold favorable views, 20% of independents, and 10% of Democrats.
• Among Americans who score high on both authoritarian scales and who qualify as Christian nationalism supporters, around one-third or fewer agree with these three measures that would strengthen the power of the president, except for 42% of Christian nationalism supporters who agree with immunity for former presidents.

While most Americans reject political violence, those who score high on the RWAS, CRAS, and Christian nationalism scales, as well as Republicans with favorable views of Trump, are more likely to do so.

• Just 16% of Americans agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” 16% agree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions,” and 15% agree that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers to ensure a fair presidential election.
• Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to agree that patriots may have to resort to violence (27%, 15%, and 8%, respectively); Americans need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even with violence (24%, 15%, and 10%, respectively); and that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers (24%, 10%, and 10%, respectively). Republicans with favorable views of Trump are more likely to agree with all three statements (32%, 27%, and 28%, respectively).
• Christian nationalism supporters are slightly more likely than Americans who score high on the RWAS or CRAS to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country (33%, 28%, and 21%, respectively) or to ensure that the rightful leader takes office (30%, 26%, and 20%, respectively), and that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers (29%, 25%, and 20%, respectively).

Apocalyptic religious views, support for “Seven Mountains” theology, and the idea that America was chosen to be a promised land for European Christians are strongly linked to support for authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, religion, partisanship, and news trust.

• Two-thirds of Republicans (65%) agree that “the final battle between good and evil is upon us, and Christians should stand firm with the full armor of God,” compared with 39% of independents, and 32% of Democrats. More than eight in ten Christian nationalists (84%) hold this apocalyptic position, as do 70% of Americans with high RWAS scores and 61% of those with high CRAS scores.
• More than three in four Americans who most trust conservative news sources (76%) and nearly seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox News (69%) agree with this apocalyptic statement, compared with 44% who do not watch TV news and 37% who most trust mainstream news.
• Just one in four Americans (25%) believe that “God wants Christians to take control of the ‘7 mountains’ of society,” including 39% of Republicans, 18% of independents, and 17% of Democrats, while fewer than two in ten Americans (17%) believe that America was chosen by God to be a new promised land for European Christians (30% of Republicans, 15% of independents, and 8% of Democrats).
• No religious group has majority agreement with these two statements, but white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to agree (48% and 33%, respectively).

Support for authoritarianism and Christian nationalism are associated with the belief that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity.

• Most Republicans (80%), particularly those who favor Trump (86%), along with 54% of independents and 38% of Democrats agree that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity.
• Most Christian nationalism supporters (82%) as well as those who score high on the RWAS (82%) agree that America is losing its culture and identity; most Americans scoring high on the CRAS do so as well (69%).
• Except for religiously unaffiliated Americans (41%) and other non-Christians (39%), majorities of other religious groups agree that America is losing its culture and identity, especially white evangelical Protestants (77%) and white Catholics (68%).

Most Americans reject patriarchal views that defend traditional gender roles; however, Republicans and Christian nationalists are more likely than others to support these views.

• Less than half of Americans believe that society has become too soft and feminine (41%), the husband is the head of the household (32%), society is better off when men and women stick to the jobs and tasks they are naturally suited for (32%), the truest vocation for any woman is to be a wife and mother (25%), and that women’s gains have come at the expense of men (17%).
• Across all five measures, Republicans, particularly those who favor Trump, are more likely than independents and Democrats to agree, and Christian nationalism supporters are more likely than those with high RWAS and CRAS scores to agree.

Views about immigrants’ impact on the economy and local communities as well as extreme views on immigration are strongly related to authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, as is partisanship.

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans agree that immigrants are generally good for America’s economy (65%), but 56% also agree that the growing number of newcomers burdens local communities. Significantly fewer Americans agree that immigrants increase crime rates in local communities (38%).
• Republicans are significantly more likely than independents and Democrats to agree that immigrants are a burden to local communities (84%, 54%, and 35%) and increase crime rates (67%, 35%, and 17%), with a larger gap between the views of Republicans who view Trump favorably and unfavorably on immigrants as increasing crime rates (75% vs. 37%, respectively) compared with immigrants burdening local communities (88% vs. 74%).
• Most Christian nationalism supporters and Americans who score high on the RWAS agree that immigrants burden local communities (79% and 77%, respectively) or increase crime (63% and 59%, respectively).
• Roughly one-third of Americans agree with the statements that immigrants who enter the country illegally are poisoning the blood of our country (35%), we should round up all immigrants who are in the country illegally (35%), and immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background (33%).
• About six in ten Republicans agree with all three statements (64%, 63%, and 60%), compared with three in ten independents (30%, 31%, and 30%), and under two in ten Democrats (16%, 17%, and 14%). Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are more than twice as likely as those with unfavorable views to agree with all three statements.
• Except for white evangelical Protestants (54%, 56%, 55%), no religious group reaches majority agreement for any of these three statements.
• Over six in ten Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (64%), 59% of those who score high on the RWAS, and 48% of those who score high on the CRAS agree that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. 

Trump Rally Prayers

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.   

Trump has literally claimed that God is on his side.

McKay Coppins at The Atlantic:

To understand the evolving psychology and beliefs of Trump’s religious supporters, I attempted to review every prayer offered at his campaign events since he announced in November 2022 that he would run again. Working with a researcher, I compiled 58 in total, the most recent from June 2024. The resulting document—at just over 17,000 words—makes for a strange, revealing religious text: benign in some places, blasphemous in others; contradictory and poignant and frightening and sad and, perhaps most of all, begging for exegesis.

There are many ways to parse the text. You could compare the number of times Trump’s name is mentioned (87) versus Jesus Christ’s (61). You could break down the demographics of the people leading the prayers: 45 men and 13 women; overwhelmingly evangelical, with disproportionate representation from Pentecostalism, a charismatic branch of Christianity that emphasizes supernatural faith healing and speaking in tongues. One might also be tempted to catalog the most comically incendiary lines (“Oh Lord, our Lord, we want to be awake and not woke”). But the most interesting way to look at these prayers is to examine the theological motifs that run through them.

...

At a february campaign event in North Charleston, South Carolina, Mark Burns, a televangelist in a three-piece suit, squeezed his eyes shut and lifted his right hand toward heaven. “Let us pray, because we’re fighting a demonic force,” he shouted. “We’re fighting the real enemy that comes from the gates of hell, led by one of its leaders called Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Although Burns was more provocative than most, he was not alone in using the language of spiritual warfare. This is perhaps the most unnerving theme in the prayers at Trump’s rallies. One verse, from Ephesians, is quoted repeatedly: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

...

It wasn’t until I came across a prayer delivered in December in Coralville, Iowa, that a more urgent question occurred to me: What will they do if their prayers are answered?

Onstage, Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old evangelist with a shiny coif of blond hair and a quavering preacher’s cadence, preceded his prayer with a short sermon for the gathered crowd of Trump supporters. “We have witnessed a sitting president weaponize the entire legal system to try and steal an election and imprison his leading opponent, Donald Trump, despite committing no crime,” Tenney began. “The corruption in Washington is a natural reflection of the spiritual state of our nation.”

For the next several minutes, Tenney hit all the familiar notes: He quoted from 2 Chronicles and Ephesians, and reminded the audience of the eternal consequences of 2024. Then he issued a warning to those who would stand in the way of God’s will being done on Election Day.

“Be afraid,” Tenney said. “For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. And when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”

With that, he invited the audience to remove their hats, and turned his voice to God. “Lord, help us make America great again,” he prayed.

Trump on Kamala Harris: "She has no clue. She has no clue. She's evil." (Note how his audience is totally silent.) pic.twitter.com/NzYnoFUmXd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2024

Culture War

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

From Pew:

 

Divided, Indeed

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.    It is the "coalition of the ascendant" v. "the coalition of the resentful.

From Pew:

The rural - urban divide

The racial and educational divide:

The religious divide:

On Easter: Trump, Trumpists, and God

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

On Easter morning, Trump posted an article in two separate publications that said he is “The Chosen One” and “a miracle” who was “sent by God” to save America. Story …https://t.co/fIPHgSxfEc

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 31, 2024

Happy Easter from John Eastman’s family. https://t.co/pdFEX8fV0f pic.twitter.com/AAvnehfTac

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) March 31, 2024

God and Man and Trump

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

 Zachary Basu at Axios:

Few politicians have commanded the loyalty of the religious right like former President Trump, whose decision to begin selling $60 Bibles for Holy Week has outraged his critics — but drawn little reaction from evangelical leaders.
...
What we're watching: 

• On the 2024 campaign trail, the religious undertones employed by Trump and his allies have grown more apocalyptic — even messianic — as his legal troubles have mounted.In one video shared on Truth Social and played at Trump's rallies, a narrator's voice booms: "On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker.' So God gave us Trump."
• On the first day of his New York civil fraud trial in October, Trump shared an AI-generated courtroom sketch depicting himself sitting next to Jesus.
• This week, Trump posted a message he said he received from a follower: "It's ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you."

The bottom line: 64% of Republicans view Trump as "a man of faith," according to a November poll by Deseret News — more than his former vice president and vocal evangelical Mike Pence.

Christians, Troops, GOP

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad." -- Donald J. Trump, March 13, 2019

Ruth Graham at NYT:

As a core faction in the Republican coalition, conservative evangelicals have long influenced the party’s policy priorities, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. And the influence extended to conservative culture, where evangelical norms against vulgarity were rarely challenged in public.

In some ways, they remain intact. Most pastors don’t cuss from the pulpit, or at all. Mainstream conservative churches still teach their young people to save sex for marriage and avoid pornography.

Yet a raunchy, outsider, boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.

...

Others see the cause as partly technological. Evangelicalism is a decentralized movement, and has always embraced new technology as a way to reach more people. But the old institutions and personalities that defined the culture are fading: Church attendance has declined at the same time that several lions of the movement have died, retired or been felled by scandal. Influencers and outsiders have filled the vacuum.

Risa Brooks at Foreign Affairs:

Perhaps the most sobering example of the effort to inject partisan politics into military appointments is the right’s treatment of Charles Q. Brown, Jr., an air force general who now serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Prior to becoming chairman, Brown was confirmed as air force chief of staff in 2020 in a Senate vote of 98-0. Then, last July, leaders of 30 political groups on the right signed an open letter opposing Brown’s appointment as chairman. Despite his accomplished career as fighter pilot, 11 Republican senators voted against him when he was confirmed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. The number of “no” votes for the chairmanship was unprecedented, as were the stated reasons for them. Tuberville attributed his “no” vote to the general’s support for “equal opportunity” in the military. Senator Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, asserted that the general, who is Black, had favored “woke policy initiatives” over effectiveness in the air force.

...

 If elected, Trump may seek to appoint a pliable general to replace Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is customary for secretaries of defense to compile a list of potential candidates from which a president chooses a chairman. A healthy rapport between the president and a candidate for chairman is usually an important criterion for selection. The candidate’s party affiliation is not. That norm might be one of the first to go.

God and Trump

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

 Thomas Edsall at NYT:

Trump, his family and his supporters have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation.

In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.

...

Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University and an expert on the role of religion in politics, published an article in 2019, “Are White Evangelicals Populists? The View From the 2016 American National Election Study.” The essay describes the basis for the strong affinity of white evangelicals for Trump’s conservative populism.

“White evangelicals,” Guth found, “are invariably the most populist: more likely to favor strong leadership (even when that means breaking the rules), to distrust government, to see the country on the wrong track and to think that the majority should always rule (and minorities adapt).”

Guth also found that

another salient trait of populist politics is the willingness to ignore democratic civility. We constructed a “rough politics” score from three A.N.E.S. items: whether protesters deserve what they get if they are hurt in demonstrating, whether the country would be better off if it got rid of rotten apples and whether people are “too sensitive” about political discourse. Here the usual pattern recurs: Evangelical affiliation, evangelical identity and biblical literalism predicts agreement with those assertions, while religious minorities, secular folks and progressives tend to demur.

The most common explanation [for evangelical support] , according to Guth,

is that white evangelicals have a transactional relationship with the president: As long as he nominates conservative jurists and makes appropriate gestures on abortion and sexual politics, they will support him.

“The evidence here,” he wrote, “suggests a more problematic answer”:

White evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility toward immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism and nativism, as well as his political style, with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership. Indeed, Trump’s candidacy may have “authorized” for the first time the widespread expression of such attitudes.