'If You Can Keep It': Donald Trump, White Evangelicals, And The 2024 Election

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4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

With his several divorces, violent rhetoric, and long list of criminal charges, former President Donald Trump may not be your idea of a God-fearing Christian. But that hasn't stopped him from appealing to his Christian base.

Roughly 8 out of 10 white Evangelicals supported Trump in the 2016 general presidential election. And a recent Pew Research survey found that among religious groups, white Evangelical Protestants had a more positive opinion of Trump than any other group, whereas the majority of Jewish Americans, Black protestants, and atheists all had an unfavorable opinion of Trump.

Despite their outsized political power, the white Evangelical church is shrinking. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, about 14 percent of the population identifies as white and evangelical. That's compared 25 percent in the 1990s.

Today, we focus on white Evangelical Christians and the effect they will have on the 2024 election.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from NPR sponsor Organic Valley, a co-op of small organic family farms dedicated to producing food that promotes respect for the dignity and interdependence of all life.
0:11.0	Discover their milk at ovae. coop slash ethically sourced. Today we're talking about the White Evangelical Church and the presidential election.
0:28.6	I support Donald Trump.
0:30.5	I voted for him and I will vote for him he's a brave man he's honest he's
0:37.0	trying to do the best it can and I believe in Christian values and thanks for that message.
0:43.2	Now Donald Trump isn't everyone's idea of a religious man,
0:46.3	but that hasn't stopped him from appealing to his Christian base.
0:49.2	What the hell was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be Trans Visibility Day.
0:57.0	Such total disrespect to Christians and November 5th is going to be called something else.
1:06.6	You know it's going to be called Christian Visibility Day when Christians turn out in numbers but nobody has ever seen before.
1:15.0	That was Trump speaking at a rally in Wisconsin last Tuesday.
1:18.0	We should note that Biden did not start Trans Day of Visibility,
1:22.0	a trans activist started it in 2009.
1:24.8	The Trump strategy to win Christian support is working for some.
1:28.2	Roughly 8 out of 10 White Evangelicals support at Trump in the 2016 general election.
1:33.0	A February Pew research survey found that among religious groups,
1:36.0	white evangelicals had the most positive opinion of Trump, more than any other religious group polled.
1:42.0	But despite their outsized political power, the White Evangelical Church is shrinking.
1:46.4	According to the Public Religion Research Institute, about 14% of the population identifies as White Evangelical, that's compared to 25% in the 1990s.
1:56.7	Coming up after the break, we explore how decades of political organizing by white evangelicals
2:01.7	culminated in Trump's presidency.
2:04.0	What does it all mean for the election this fall?
	...

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