Faith: The Bane of American Politics
How Donald Trump duped the Christian Right
It’s a strange truth that Donald Trump is the nominee for the Republican party for the third consecutive election cycle.
Perhaps one of Donald Trump’s greatest achievements is the way in which he’s relegated so many of the criticisms against him to a place of cliché. There’s nothing new to be said about the man whose time in office, and entire candidacy leading up to it, was colored by an undying flow of scandals and flagrant moral failures.
Back in 2016, I wrote an essay about the political climate leading up to the election. Now an entire eight years later, it’s shocking to see just how applicable so many of these words still feel today.
…most everyone has already heard what there is to say about how awful Trump is. It’s difficult to provide anything new or genuine to conversations about Trump and his trail of what should be campaign-ending lies, scandals, obscenities and worse.
Describing Trump as a sexist, racist, pedophilic, narcissistic, compulsively lying, tax evading, scheming real estate tycoon sounds cliche even as I type it. It shouldn’t feel like hammering in a sorely beaten nail to mention these realities, but Trump’s candidacy parades shamelessly on; the nail continues to jut outward. These absurd realities that should have rendered Trump’s candidacy non-viable long before now have no affect on nearly half of the American public. And that reality is one of the most frightening of all.
The notion that the better part of a decade has passed since Trump won the electoral college in 2016 is difficult for most Americans to grasp. Of course, the pandemic that followed did little to help people’s perception of time in those intervening years.
But reflecting back on some of the more bumbling and maniacal moments from his administration still feels like a fever dream for many. By the numbers, the four years of his administration tell a harrowing tale of disregard and ineptitude. According to the Washington Post, he told over 30,000 lies in his time in office, maintaining an average of 21 falsehoods daily for four entire years.
He’s the only president in history to have been impeached twice and indicted, not twice, not three times, but four times on four separate charges in four separate jurisdictions. He’s the first former president to have a mugshot taken.
His administration saw an unprecedented level of turnovers in high profile positions. He maintained relationships with and spoke highly of foreign autocrats, from Vladamir Putin and Jair Bolsonaro to Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and Victor Orbán.
He repeatedly gave dubious and dangerous medical advice to the public during the first pandemic in a century. He presided neglectfully over what quickly grew into the global epicenter of the virus. He attacked opponents and journalists, sowed widespread doubt in the entire political process, and attempted to steal an election through multiple means at once.
He said windmills cause cancer, publicly invited foreign interference in our elections and disparaged a deceased war hero. The “grab ’em by the pussy tape” was only the tip of an iceberg whose depths now span from predatory appearances with leaders of sex trafficking rings and probable rape to insurrection and espionage.
The four years he spent in office, as well as the months leading up to his whirlwind tenure, were a dizzying ride. The years since he’s left office, though, have been almost every bit as disorienting.
The QAnon prophecies and conspiracy theories that still linger around Trump and his lost election have stifled the hope that a new president might bring a return to normality.
In some ways, the time that Trump has spent away from the limelight has been even stranger than his time in the Oval Office. Some still believe Trump never left the office at all. Others are convinced that Biden’s apparent time in the Oval Office has all been an elaborate staging to allow Trump to lead the country unimpeded from Mar-a-Lago. The specifics vary enormously, but for much of the Republican party the divorce from reality is hardly less cultish than in the most rabid JFK conspiracy theorists.
It’s no minority of Trump supporters and Republicans who believe Biden stole the election. The way in which this denialism has continued rampant and unchecked even beyond all of Trump’s election-related court losses is telling. It’s proof that the two parties in America are living in disparate realities.
One of the primary ways that Trump has been able to continue embodying this image of a star-spangled patriot with a bald eagle on his shoulder is through faith. It’s no coincidence that Evangelical Christians are Trump’s largest demographic of supporters. And where faith is at play, objective reality is skewed.
In the same way that science matters very little to those who truly believe that Noah corraled two of every animal into a giant ark, the evidence of Trump’s failures has no weight for those who view loyalty to him as a matter of faith. Entire church congregations are turning their backs on their savior in interest of a political leader who violates most commandments before signing onto Truth Social each morning.
Pastors, politicians and church leaders across the country have taken to speaking about Trump in messianic terms. The detachment is cultish, but the failure in thinking is so common that it gets a pass in society. If the cult of Jim Jones or Charles Manson numbered into the millions, its congregants might be given the same worship rights as Christians in America today.
The dogma surrounding Donald Trump is no more rooted in reality. The belief he’s the man to save our country is a faith-based one. The notion that the philandering, frauding, former Apprentice-hosting billionaire has the best interest of the common man in mind isn’t one that’s rooted in evidence.
It’s a belief that requires the same suspension of thinking that’s always been pivotal to the success of organized religion. Trump’s shortcomings are as objective and verifiable as our very evolution. The rumors of his leadership skills are as refutable as the story of Adam and Eve. But because the belief in Trump is one that doesn’t falter before evidence, seeing isn’t enough.
Trump supporters can be presented with proof of their former leader’s malfeasance until they’re blue in the face, but even if he’s caught making out with Dylan Mulvaney at a Bruce Springsteen concert his most ardent believers will still only see a deep state conspiracy.
The differences between parties are no mere ideological disagreements. Nearly half of the members in both political parties believe that their political opponents represent a threat to the country. Even the realities that we occupy have less and less in common.
For Republicans, America’s very foundations and values are being eroded by radical left-wing ideologues hellbent on creating a socialist utopia. Our traditions, borders, and Second Amendment rights are under constant assault and our national identity is at risk.
For Democrats, America stands at the precipice of authoritarianism, with rights, climate action, and social justice being undermined daily. The powerful elites and corporations threaten democracy, silence the marginalized, and control the narratives.
Having a common set of facts on which we could all largely agree was part of life in an America that we no longer live in. Now, the movies we watch are steeped in political agendas. Even children’s TV shows have found themselves at the center of various political controversies.
There are ways in which both parties have given way to ideological extremes. But the truth isn’t quite so simple. Both sides of the aisle are susceptible to misinformation and radicalization, it’s true. But that’s not to say that both political parties stand equally at the mercy of falsehoods.
By nearly all metrics, the Republican worldview is one that’s less based in truth than its Democratic counterpart. From the attitudes toward vaccines, to the embrace of the QAnon conspiracy, to the lies that are still spread surrounding the 2020 election, so much of their platform is marked by a core set of beliefs that diverge dramatically from reality.
Since before even the 2012 election, though, this trend had already begun to solidify. A study performed by Dickinson College in 2012 found that Fox News viewers were consistently less informed than their NPR, Sunday Morning, and MSNBC counterpart. According to the study, “… someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 [out of 4] domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all.”
Additionally, numerous studies have found that Fox News viewers were less likely to believe in climate change and understand its causes. In the years since Fox News began to have a domineering role in American politics, though, even further right leaning sources of news have entered into the fray. With Newsmax, OAN, InfoWars, and Tucker Carlson — recently exiled from Fox News — all vying for attention, the standard of information has only deteriorated further. And for each fringe new source emerging from the woodworks, they’ve learned the lesson that faith is part of the product they’re selling.
How do we navigate a world where our beliefs often overshadow objective truth? How will our elections be affected by the advent of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of deepfake political content? Will the future of our country be decided by which political party can craft the more compelling narrative?
The confluence of faith and politics in the Trump era is a reminder that the stories we tell ourselves can shape the very fabric of our democracy. As we stand at this critical juncture, our shared future hinges on our ability to rebuild trust in truth, and redefine what it means to be informed.