Salus Maior wrote:Old Tyrannia wrote:It's only tangentially related, but your post reminded me of this article from the Eastern Orthodox journalist Rod Dreher (probably best known for his book "The Benedict Option") about the Christian Right's pro-Trump "Jericho March." It's an interesting and deeply concerning insight into the politicisation of American Christianity. The reason the above post brought it to mind was the part of the rally where a Catholic priest appears on stage and addresses prayers to Mary and the saints; Dreher makes the point that if he believed the things that Evangelical Christians assert that they believe, this would trouble him deeply. It seems that devotion to the political cause of Trumpism overrides any deep-seated theological divisions for these people, a kind of ecumenism that I find more concerning that encouraging.
Ahh, that guy is Eastern Orthodox? Kind of surprising, considering how many Trad Caths are big fans of the "Benedict Option".
Yes, well, considering there are Evangelicals making explicitly religious art involving Trump I think it's pretty obvious that he's having a terrible effect on Christianity.
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3
While I can't speak to the theology at hand, because I know like none of it, it's clear that Trump tapped into a deeper emotional wellspring that was-while existent in large demographics of America-was particularly present in evangelicals (I suspect the demographic and cultural environments that tend to constitute much of the evangelical experience are partially culpable there), but I would charge that the culture of American-Protestant in general and Evangelical in particular-Christianity to emphasize the idea of the cultural place of Christianity being under attack or siege made it even more vulnerable to Trumpism than, say, other Christian traditions. Trump set himself up as an active participant in the culture wars-and a large part of the subtext of those wars is about the place and emphasis of Christianity in American society. That's not to say that one side is all "godless commies" and the other is "good, humble god-fearing Americans." But rather, to see the two camps (another oversimplification) as two warring narratives of what constitutes America, what is to be aspired to and admired, what is to be shunned and rejected, etc.
And I think there was a genuine cultural resentment (to say nothing of economic, which is far beyond the scope of what I want to talk about) or a sense of fear on the part of Evangelicals and Protestants-typically, though not necessarily white, because there is an overlap here-that they and their contributions to what America is, that they were being written out of the story-or cast as the villains. Spend some time in those spaces, and you hear a lot of the same rhetoric-"they hate us", they hate our values, they hate our way of life, they hate our freedom. And some of that feeling is justified. Liberal condescension towards these groups is a very real thing-though there is also a degree of manufactured rage, which we'll get to in a minute. But it's why the butt of the incest jokes is always Alabama, why the depiction of the racist is almost always a southerner (and typically overweight, too), why every pedophile joke is about priests. And mind you, I've engaged in some of this myself-I don't mean to remove myself as an agent. But it's personally and societally toxic. And this is amplified by the way rural areas are depicted in the media (with the exception of Hallmark movies). Hell, Hillbilly Elegy (Which I personally think is trash) was written by someone from one of those areas (Appalachia), and yet the largest viewers of it as a mass media production were not the people whose lives it was describing. But HE is a very good example of what I mean, because the portrayal-leaving aside the economics-of Appalachia is almost uniformly negative.
And then we combine the first element-a rich spiritual tradition directing much of its energy to the culture war, the very real liberal disdain towards certain people's cultural upbringing and values- and then we throw in a media apparatus, aimed towards the first group, to tell them that the "other" group is in a state of hatred and war or whatever the buzzword of the day is. Fox News, the New York Post, Glenn Beck, the Washington Examiner, Gavin McInnes (and note here that McInnes is far worse than the others, being an open white nationalist, but the observation is that they inhabit the same media ecospace), etc. Now, some of these people- are just on it for profit, some of them do genuinely believe their content, some of them don't seem to know what they believe. But they all offer variations on the same basic theme-your culture and way of life is under attack by some other group. And they all market towards-more or less-the same cultural and economic group. And one of their key insights was to keep their viewers in a constant state of rage and fear. It's why "they hate" appears so much on Fox News. It's psychological, after all-angry and fearful people are much less likely to be thinking critically, they're less likely to challenge the group.
And now, you have the perfect recipe for Trump-and the sheer strength of the emotional connection towards him.
There are many, many more factors that I didn't address here. The economic status of Trump's greatest fans, race as an indicator of "Americanness", education (and it's association with secularism), age, but I wanted to focus on religion, and this is already long enough.
One last thing: If you're observant, you'll notice that I interchanged "religious" "evangelical" "protestant" and "rural" as I went on-though not "white". And part of that is just demographic overlap. But here, it's because while those groups are not identical, they tend to share in the same cultural narrative about what America is and should be that I mentioned at the beginning. What that narrative is isn't something I can actually articulate-firstly, because I am not part of that cultural tradition and so have a skewed perception of it, but also because it's not a narrative told so much as felt.
