How Trump Is Using Christianity To Power The MAGA Movement

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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🗓️ 4 April 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

Donald Trump has enjoyed strong support from white Evangelical Christians since his first run for the presidency.

But recently, he has made a specific brand of Christianity a centerpiece of his campaign. He repeatedly casts himself as a messiah figure, even comparing his legal troubles to the persecution of Christ. He regularly ends his rallies with prayer. And last week he started hocking a version of the Bible that also includes copies of the founding documents of the United States.

“Trump is now wrapping his candidacy around this idea of White Christian Nationalism,” says Robert P. Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI. He is also author of two books about the relationship between race and religion in the United States, “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,” as well as “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.”

Jones joins Diane on this week’s episode of On My Mind to talk about what’s behind the attempts to build The Church of Trump, and why he sees it as a dangerous development for the country.

To find out more about Robert P. Jones and read his latest, visit his blog, “White Too Long”: https://www.whitetoolong.net/.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I am on my mind Donald Trump and white evangelical Christians.
0:13.4	Trump has heath the support of the community since 2016,
0:19.6	but recently he's made a specific brand of Christianity a centerpiece of his campaign.
0:28.0	What they cannot stand is that in the end we do not answer to bureaucrats in Washington.
0:34.0	We answer to God in heaven.
0:36.4	We do. We answer to God in heaven.
0:38.8	He compares himself to Christ.
0:41.8	He tells a version of the Bible and ends his rallies with prayer.
0:47.0	Lately we are seeing more straightforwardly like he is a Messiah figure, right? A Savior figure.
0:53.0	That's Robert P Jones. He's president and founder of PRRI, a nonpartisan research center on religion, culture, and politics.
1:06.6	He's author of the hidden roots of white supremacy and the path to a shared American future.
1:16.6	Robbie Donald Trump has had the support
1:20.8	of white evangelicals back since 2016, but he seems to be leaning into this idea of
1:31.1	Christian leader more than ever.
1:35.6	Tell us what's going on here and what he's up to.
1:39.2	Well, you know, on the face of it,
1:40.7	it is a bit of a headscratcher given, you know, his background and his personality, frankly.
1:46.7	But yes, you know, I do think we're seeing an increase in the kind of references to God, his claims to be Christian, on the stuff in 2024, even, you know, from where we did before, I should say that, you know, his connection to white evangelical voters has been
2:04.8	incredibly strong all the way through despite all of the dissonance that one might
2:10.6	expect from a group that called itself at one time values voters, right?
2:15.7	And yet at Public Religion Research Institute, we've been tracking his favorability among white
2:21.8	evangelicals. It has never been below 60% among white evangelicals
	...

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