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That's the contradiction: Donald Trump is indeed the least religious Republican candidate ever, with a wide variety of flaws and sins that might make Donald Tru
by soundwave106 10y ago
That's the contradiction: Donald Trump is indeed the least religious Republican candidate ever, with a wide variety of flaws and sins that might make Donald Trump less appealing for devotees of the Gospel ideas. Yet approximately 80% of evangelical Christians voted for him. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/09/exit-polls-show-white-evangelicals-voted-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11...). Other religious identities were more split, but not evangelical Christianity.
I'm sure some of this was class issues. Anecdotally, of the people I know in the extended family that were both Trump supporters and of strong Christian faith, the Trump vote seemed either to be single-issue voting (eg abortion), or what I gathered was more just general cultural alignment. The later sort of ties into class: religion and class can go hand in hand.
The biggest question is whether this strong tie in America of "Christianity=evangelical", and the strong political stances this often evokes, damages the Christian brand overall here. It's possible: there's a pretty clear trend especially among younger people towards secularization, and seemingly hypocritical stances might be one of the reasons for this (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas...).