Experts and commentators have pointed to a number of factors that may have contributed to Donald Trump winning this year’s presidential election in the United States.
However, the religious aspect has received little attention. Religious rhetoric, manipulation and mobilization is the elephant in the room – highly visible but often ignored.
When Trump entered the presidential election campaign in 2015, he was portrayed as the “outsider” who suddenly appeared in politics to clean up government corruption and national immorality.
True, he lacked political experience, but not political ambition.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Trump clearly expressed publicly his views on the economy and foreign policy, and the question of whether he considered running for president occasionally arose. In 1999, he ran for the first time for the Reform Party. He withdrew albeit after a few months, but still won the nomination election in two states.
Pandemic measures, such as lockdowns and social distancing, were portrayed as targeted persecution of Christians.
In 2011, Trump announced his candidacy again, this time for The Republican Party. Now he had adopted a social conservative views on matters such as abortiongun control and same-sex marriage. The change was strategically aimed at evangelical Christian voters.
Since his last election stunt, Trump had made acquaintances with several influential evangelical leaders, including the money preacher Paula White-Cainewho became a link to other charismatic leaders.
Stay updated. Get a daily newsletter from Dagsavisen
As the story is told in evangelical circles, Trump must have consulted with some of these about whether he should run against incumbent President Barack Obama in 2012.
The alleged answer to prayer was that the time had not yet come.
The contacts Trump had made became very useful when he announced his candidacy again in 2015. Although other Republican candidates had a stronger Christian conservative profile, Trump gained early support from many evangelical voters.
His controversial personality and statements were largely offset by the image his evangelical allies actively promoted about him.
With various depictions, Trump was portrayed as God’s chosen one to save the United States from moral and economic ruin. Photographs of religious leaders who prayed for himwas circulated to show that he listened to and associated with Christians.
Trump himself stepped into the role and introduced himself as the foremost champion of Christian conservative values. This was enough to convince many voters who would otherwise have refrained from voting in 2016.
Because it is prohibited by law, the voter guides do not explicitly endorse a party or candidate. Only a call to “vote biblically”.
The mobilization among evangelical Christians continued after the election victory, but it was not enough to secure Trump’s re-election in 2020. However, the alliance became central to keeping interest in Trump the same, including by reminding the voter base almost daily that Donald Trump was still America’s real leader and God’s chosen as such.
At the same time, the growing blackness of the Democratic Party helped prepare the ground for a comeback. Pandemic measures, such as lockdown and social distancing, were portrayed as targeted persecution of Christians. Laws designed to prevent discrimination against minorities were presented as attacks on the individual’s freedom of belief.
The world was repetitively presented in black and white: the Left as demonic, Trump and Christian domination as God’s solution.
Since 1954 has federal law prohibited churches and other tax-exempt organizations to promote or oppose political candidates. Christian leaders have nevertheless found ways to circumvent this law, such as posing for pictures with “their” candidate, creating political action committees and distributing so-called voter guides.
Christian leaders can have great influence over people’s choices when they present one view as “God’s will” and call it the believers’ duty to vote accordingly.
To create the impression of neutrality, these provide the voter guides no explicit support for a party or candidate, only an invitation to “voice biblical”. However, the presentation of the party programs leaves no doubt that this means republican.
In practice, it is about religious manipulation. Christian leaders and institutions can have great influence over people’s choices when they present one view as “God’s will” and call it the believers’ duty to vote accordingly. In the autumn, several people said outright that it was not possible to be a Christian and at the same time vote for Kamala Harris. Harris is himself a Baptist.
In 2011, Trump was also in contact with Ralph Reed, leader and founder of the interest organization Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC). FFC has worked for years to mobilize conservative Christians to vote republican.
This was useful for Trump in 2016. It was particularly important in this year’s election.
According to Reed, the FFC now carried out its largest mobilization in historywith 9.7 million home visits, several million KI messages and phone calls, as well as the distribution of 30 million voter guides in 130,000 churches.
This is said to have caused hundreds of thousands of evangelical voters who did not vote in 2020 to cast early ballots for Trump. In some swing states, this may have been 20-30 times Biden’s margin of victory in 2020.
The FFC also directed special efforts at Hispanic voters, and at black Americans in areas where their votes were important to the outcome. Traditionally, these groups have been completely in the direction of the Democrats, but this year Trump received increased support from both.
Although the main mobilizing issues this year were the economy, border control, crime and foreign policy, the religious element behind much of the commitment to get Christian conservative voters to vote does not disappear.
Many of the most central Christian leaders want the United States to be governed in line with their understanding of Christianity.
While secular politicians try to appeal to the electorate to gain support for conservative policies in general, many of the most central Christian leaders want The United States must be governed in line with their understanding of Christianity.
Several of the evangelical leaders who came closest to Trump in 2016 are active champions of Christian dominion theology.
Although some of Trump’s Christian nationalist promises may have a rhetorical intent, he will have to give his allies something in return if he is to retain the support of Christian conservative voters.
There are only two years until the next mid-term election, and the experiences of 2020 have shown how vulnerable support for Trump actually is.
Thus can individual religious leaders now gain far greater influence in the White House than they otherwise would have received.
Read also: The Trump dance has become a trend
Also read comment: Donald Trump is well on his way to a police state
Also read comment: The right steals the left’s clothes while drowning in foaming mud and sludge