Trump presidency highlights the 'complete fusion of evangelical Christianity and conservative politics' - Entrepreneur Generations

President Trump rose to power in part because he promised evangelical Christians more political power. "The Trump era has revealed the complete fusion of evangelical Christianity and conservative politics, even as white evangelical Christianity continues to decline as a share of the national population," Elizabeth Dias reports for The New York Times. "There are some signs of fraying at the edges of the coalition, among some women and young people. If even a small fraction turns away from Mr. Trump, it could make the difference to his re-election. But even if he loses in November, mainstream evangelical Christianity has made plain its deepest impulses and exposed where the majority of its believers pledge allegiance."

White evangelicals could be "Trump's best chance at re-election," Dias reports, since he has trailed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by double digits in nationwide polls for a month. About 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump in the 2016 general election, and even though his approval rating has gone down slightly among that bloc, 82% said they intend to vote for him in November, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in late June.

Plenty of pundits, researchers and journalists have speculated, investigated, or gathered data on why evangelicals support Trump, with theories ranging from the "purely transactional" promise of appointing more conservative judges and ending legal abortion to hatred of Hillary Clinton.

"But beneath all this, there is another explanation. One that is more raw and fundamental. Evangelicals did not support Trump in spite of who he is," Dias writes. "They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. He is their protector, the bully who is on their side, the one who offered safety amid their fears that their country as they know it, and their place in it, is changing, and changing quickly. White straight married couples with children who go to church regularly are no longer the American mainstream. An entire way of life, one in which their values were dominant, could be headed for extinction. And Mr. Trump offered to restore them to power, as though they have not been in power all along."

White evangelical Christians Dias interviewed expressed fears that Christianity—often equated with rural values—was under attack, and said they felt that city dwellers looked down on rural residents, and didn't understand their way of life. Trump, they said, recognized that fear and would fight for them.

"The one group of people that people felt like they could dis and mock and put down had become the Christian. Just the middle-class, middle-American Christians," said Lisa Burg of Orange City, Iowa. "That was the one group left that you could just totally put down and call deplorable. And he recognized that, You know what? Yeah, it’s OK that we have our set of values, too. I think people finally said, 'Yes, we finally have somebody that’s willing to say we’re not bad, we need to have a voice too.'"

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/3kD8QlE Trump presidency highlights the 'complete fusion of evangelical Christianity and conservative politics' - Entrepreneur Generations

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