The White Christian Vote For Trump: Privilege and Fear

“You give me your vote and I’ll give you special privileges and do all I can to codify your worldview in our government. 

Both parties have delivered.”

– Rachel Laser, head of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State

In addition to her role at Americans United (AU), Rachel Laser is a lawyer, advocate, and strategist who has dedicated her career to making our country more inclusive. Rachel Laser says …

“This old playbook, which threatens to normalize the weaponization of religion, is too easily pulled out and put back in use by those in power who are seeking to preserve traditional power structures. We especially see this today with the Trump administration.”

(Meredith Thompson. “Defending the Separation of Church and State: An Interview with Rachel Laser.” The Humanist. August 06, 2020.)

In a coordinated effort, the Trump administration, the US Supreme Court, and state legislative initiatives like Project Blitz (a full-frontal assault by Christian nationalists to force a narrow set of religious beliefs into shared secular laws) are attempting to redefine religious freedom to mean religious privilege.

James Randy Forbes, a member of the Republican Party and U.S. Representative for Virginia's 4th congressional district from 2001 to 2017, founded Project Blitz. The group is a coalition of Christian right groups, including the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, the National Legal Foundation, and the Wallbuilders Pro-Family Legislators Conference.

Project Blitz has specific goals – to inject religion into public education, to attack reproductive healthcare, and to undermine LGBTQ equality using a distorted definition of “religious freedom.” In order to achieve these goals, the Project Blitz campaign arms state-level politicians with model bills, proclamations, and talking points through its legislative guide.

Project Blitz described their purpose as “the fight for faith” and cast unnamed political opponents as attacking faith itself. This is the template for the method they then turn on groups and individuals. The group has repeatedly smeared lawmakers that stand against its Christian nationalist agenda as “anti-faith” in order to undermine their position.

The Religious Blitz For Trump

With a huge majority of evangelical Christians lined up behind Trump, as have white Catholics. (A May poll by Public Religion Research Institute showed the president’s standing slipping among both groups.) Trump has repaid them with devoted attention to issues such as abortion, school vouchers, and religious liberty.

(David A. Graham. Jeff Sessions Explains Why Christians Support Trump.”

The Atlantic. June 30, 2020.)

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Michael Gerson, in a 2018 Atlantic cover story, criticized the habit of “evangelicals regarding themselves, hysterically and with self-pity, as an oppressed minority that requires a strongman to rescue it. This is how Trump has invited evangelicals to view themselves. He has treated evangelicalism as an interest group in need of protection and preferences.”

But, at what price to their professed faith do Christians absorb Trump love? As the single largest religious demographic in the United States – representing about half the Republican political coalition – sees itself as a besieged and disrespected minority, evangelicals have become simultaneously more engaged and more alienated.

Gerson, a nationally syndicated columnist appearing twice weekly in The Washington Post, who also served as a top aide and speechwriter for George W. Bush, says …

“The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption. Blinded by political tribalism and hatred for their political opponents, these leaders can’t see how they are undermining the causes to which they once dedicated their lives. Little remains of a distinctly Christian public witness.”

(Michael Gerson. “The Last Temptation.” The Atlantic. April 2018.)

Gerson sees this as the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Gerson contends, “Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders.”

“Fox News and conservative talk radio are vastly greater influences on evangelicals’ political identity than formal statements by religious denominations. In this Christian political movement, Christian theology is emphatically not the primary motivating factor.”

– Michael Gerson

Christians have called Trump “the chosen one,” and Pentecostal minister Paula White said that saying no to Trump is the same as “saying no to God.” Conservative radio host Wayne Root has even called Trump “the second coming of God.”

While Trump has eased enforcement of the so-called Johnson Amendment (which bars religious groups from endorsing or opposing political candidates), reversed Obama-era protections for transgender people, and moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, his Christian base largely remains loyal on the verge of the 2020 election.

Still, it is amazing that Christians vote for a candidate who does these things:

* Says, “It is what it is,” in reference to the current number of the U.S COVID-19 deaths,

* Separates families at the border and puts children in cages,

* Repeatedly lies (evidence shows over 20,000 lies while in office,

* Prefers forms of communication that are insults and demeaning comments,

* Denies knowledge of hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels,

* Embraces White nationalism,

* Demeans women over and over.

And, of course, Trump and the GOP have promised to restore Christian supremacy and have simultaneously propped up white supremacy along with it. In black communities of faith, the scourge of police brutality and the broader racial inequalities pervade our nation’s criminal justice system. Meanwhile, in many white faith communities across the country, a deliberate avoidance of and in some cases an active dismissiveness toward these issues has taken root.

Surveys in 2018 conducted by PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research, found that white Christians – including evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics – are nearly twice as likely as religiously unaffiliated whites to say the killings of Black men by police are isolated incidents rather than part of a pattern of how police treat African Americans.

(Alex Vandermaas-Peeler, Daniel Cox, Maxine Najle, PhD, Molly Fisch-Friedman, Rob Griffin, Ph.D., Robert P. Jones, Ph.D. “Partisan Polarization Dominates Trump Era: Findings from the 2018 American Values Survey.” PRRI Research. October 29, 2018)

The PRRI surveys found nearly three-quarters (73%) of Democrats and 54% of independents say the recent killings of African Americans are part of a broader pattern of how police treat African Americans. By contrast, only 22% of Republicans – including 27% of Republican women but only 19% of Republican men – say these killings are part of a broader pattern of African Americans’ treatment by police, while nearly eight in ten (77%) Republicans say these killings are isolated incidents.

Perhaps, most astounding …

“The surveys also found white evangelical Protestants stand out for the extent to which they believe recent killings of black men are isolated incidents. More than seven in ten (71%) of white evangelical Protestants say these killings are isolated incidents, a view shared by roughly six in ten white Catholics (63%) and white mainline Protestants (59%).

“In contrast, only about four in ten (43%) Hispanic Catholics and about one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans (33%) and Hispanic Protestants (32%) say these killings are isolated incidents. Just 15% of black Protestants identify the recent killings of black men by police as isolated incidents, while more than eight in ten (84%) say they are part of a broader pattern.”

(Alex Vandermaas-Peeler, Daniel Cox, Maxine Najle, PhD, Molly Fisch-Friedman, Rob Griffin, Ph.D., Robert P. Jones, Ph.D. “Partisan Polarization Dominates Trump Era: Findings from the 2018 American Values Survey.” PRRI Research. October 29, 2018)

The results point to a stark conclusion: While most white Christians think of themselves as people who hold warm feelings toward African Americans, holding racist views is nonetheless positively and independently associated with white Christian identity. Again, this troubling relationship holds not just for white evangelical Protestants, but also for white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.

As white Christians vote for their perception of Godly standards, they feel themselves slipping from the status of being a culturally dominant majority to just another subgroup in our extraordinary cultural mosaic of America.

Put more simply, they feel outnumbered. After all, as the Pew Foundation’s Michael Lipka notes, “A rising share of Americans do not identify with any religion, while a shrinking portion of the population is Christian.” This bloc of voters does not fear a specific minority as much as they fear becoming one.

“Of all the changes to identity and belonging, the century’s second decade has been particularly marked by a religious sea change. After more than two centuries of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance, the United States has moved from being a majority-white Christian nation to one with no single racial and religious majority.”

– Robert P. Jones, CEO and founder PRRI (2019)