With the looming prospect of Project 2025 and overwhelming evangelical support for Donald Trump, Kristian Noll looks at the varying uses of traditional Christian conversative values and voters in the Republican Party’s election campaign.
The deep historical connection between Christianity and conservative American politics is well-documented and has garnered significant attention in recent years. The overwhelming level of support for Donald Trump among white evangelical voters in 2016 and 2020 in particular has raised questions about the nature of this unlikely marriage, given the ostensible contrast between the base’s conservative core values and Donald Trump’s rhetoric and behaviour. Since Trump’s first run for office, ample analysis has been produced tracing the root of this support to his 2016 pledge to appoint pro-choice justices to the United States Supreme Court. But what will this relationship look like in 2024, an election occurring in a political context defined by declining levels of religiosity, increasingly unpredictable demographic voting patterns, and other fundamental shifts in the country’s electorate?
Broadly speaking, there seem to be three competing visions for the future of religion and the Republican Party.
The first reflects a pragmatic desire to broaden the Republican Party’s support by crafting a message of unity and speaking to issues important to constituencies besides white evangelical Christians. Electorally, these efforts focus on building a more diverse Republican base — including different religious groups — and recognising that the majority of Republican voters are not, in fact, evangelicals. A poignant demonstration of this approach was on display at the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC), where Jewish prayers were offered and the Ardas, a Sikh prayer, was recited.
The second vision is one embraced by the party’s leader, Donald Trump. This is a far more transactional vision which seems to place an appeal to Christian voters at its core. As has become apparent in recent weeks, Trump’s campaign has focused on convincing Christians to ‘get out and vote,’ emphasising how a vote for him would ‘fix’ Christian concerns. Beyond vague promises to create an anti-Christian bias task force, cut funding to certain educational institutions, and protect freedom of religion and belief, it is unclear what exactly this vision entails. What is clear is that Trump sees the 2024 election as a deal. If elected in November, Trump claims Christians won’t have to vote anymore, not because the issues have disappeared but because he ‘won’t need your vote.’
Finally, there exists a third vision which reflects a well-developed strategy to re-centre traditional Christian conversative values in American policymaking. This vision has been meticulously planned, crafted, and codified in the 900-page Project 2025 manifesto. Although Project 2025 does not explicitly root its proposed policies in the language of Christianity, its frequent references to ‘traditional’ values, it’s architects’ associations with ultra-conservative Christian organisations, and even references to Christian theologians, reveal a policy vision intimately inspired by a certain Christian imaginary. The manifesto itself evokes religion in four policy areas, specifically in reference to the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
In all instances, the proposed policies adopt a defensive posture against what is classified to be a ‘ruthless pursuit of absolute power’ by liberal elites (p. 11) at the expense of ‘biblically-based’ social values. Within education, labour, and health policy, the central points of contention are primarily social issues such as gender, sexual orientation, and abortion. Key examples of policy steps this group would adopt include providing ‘robust protections for religious employers’ and ‘robust accommodations for religious employees’ – both in reference to progressive policies deemed by the authors of the manifesto to be ‘hostile to people of faith’ (pgs. 585 – 586). Similar rhetoric is employed in the manifesto’s discussion of international aid, in which democratic officials are accused of withholding funds from local NGOs which reflect conservative values. The platform recommends training be provided to USAID staff on the ‘connection between religious freedom and development,’ and ‘USAID collaboration with faith-based organisations’ be increased (p. 265) to ‘ensure that faith-based and religious entities… are not discriminated against on the basis of religious identity or religious belief when competing for Federal funding’ (p. 261).
While all three approaches are direct responses to a shifting political landscape, they represent drastically different visions for the future of religion in the United States. With less than 100 days to go before the election, it remains uncertain whether the United States will embark down a comprehensive march towards theocratical politics come November, or indeed which approach will endure within the Republican Party beyond 2024. What does seem clear, however, is the path the party has chosen for 2024. The almost messianic reception of Trump at the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee last month, rife with suggestions that divine intervention saved the Republican nominee from a would-be assassin’s bullet on July 13th, suggests that evangelical devotion to Trump will not fade anytime soon. In due course, we will see if the rest of the electorate agrees.
Photo by George Bannister
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Religion and Global Society nor the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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