To explore the link between Christian nationalism and Trump support, we examined data from the fifth wave of the Baylor Religion Survey [ https://www.baylor.edu/baylorreligionsurvey/ , https://www.baylor.edu/baylorreligionsurvey/index.php?id=942304 ]. Fielded soon after the election, from Feb. 2 through March 24, 2017, this survey is a national, random sample of 1,501 American adults with telephones and is weighted to estimate population parameters. This data set is unique in its size, time of collection and the measures it contains.
To measure Christian nationalism, we combined responses to six separate questions that ask whether respondents agree or disagree with these statements:
• “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation”
• “The federal government should advocate Christian values”
• “The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state” (reverse coded)
• “The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces”
• “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”
• “The federal government should allow prayer in public schools”
We also examined many other common explanations of support for Trump, including economic dissatisfaction, an index of attitudes on gender, an index of anti-black prejudice, a measure of respondents’ attitudes toward illegal immigrants and an index of views toward Muslims.
Finally, our statistical models also accounted for religious affiliation, religious beliefs and a variety of religious behaviors, as well as political measures including party affiliation and political ideology, and sociodemographic predictors including age, gender, race, education, income, marital status and residential context.
The more someone believed the United States is — and should be — a Christian nation, the more likely they were to vote for Trump
First, Americans who agreed with the various measures of Christian nationalism were much more likely to vote for Trump, even after controlling for other influences, such as political ideology, political party and other cultural factors proposed as possible explanations.
As you can see in the figure below, even when holding constant a host of other explanations, a Democrat at the higher end of the index was three times more likely to vote for Trump than a Democrat at the lower end of Christian nationalist ideology. For independents, the probability of voting for Trump increased moving across the range of the Christian nationalism scale. Likewise, Republicans scoring low in Christian nationalism were significantly less likely to vote for Trump than those scoring high on the index.
No other religious factor influenced support for or against Trump
Second, we find that Americans’ religious beliefs, behaviors and affiliation did not directly influence voting for Trump. In fact, once Christian nationalism was taken into account, other religious measures had no direct effect on how likely someone was to vote for Trump. These measures of religion mattered only if they made someone more likely to see the United States as a Christian nation.
Antagonism toward Muslims was just as important as Christian nationalism
Finally, the various cultural explanations that other researchers have examined didn’t predict Trump support in our study, with one notable exception: anti-Muslim sentiment. How much a U.S. voter feared Muslims was as significant in predicting who voted for Trump as Christian nationalism. Overall the strongest predictors of Trump voting were the usual suspects of political identity and race, followed closely by Islamophobia and Christian nationalism.
What does this mean?
Many voters believed, and presumably still believe, that regardless of his personal piety (or lack thereof), Trump would defend what they saw as the country’s Christian heritage — and would help move the nation toward a distinctly Christian future. Ironically [actually, not the least bit ironically, as it, Christo-fascism, is inherently thoroughly absolutist and authoritarian to its core], Christian nationalism is focused on preserving a perceived Christian identity for America irrespective of the means by which such a project would be achieved.
Hence, many white Christians believe Trump may be an effective instrument in God’s plan for America, even if he is not particularly religious himself.
In the upcoming midterm elections, Trump and other politicians will keep emphasizing Christian nationalism. After all, it works.
White Christian America is unquestionably in demographic decline [ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/robert-jones-white-christian-america/532587/ ]. But one of its primary cultural creations — Christian nationalism — will continue influencing U.S. politics and society for decades to come, particularly in response to waning demographic and social dominance. It’s a worldview that can’t be undermined, even by porn stars and Playboy models.
Matrix999, Why Christian conservatives supported Trump — and why they might regret it
"Boy oh boy has the religious right changed since Clinton."
“Because I’m a Christian, I'm able to say that Christian people can be idiots."
By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Updated Feb 2, 2018, 7:46am EST
[...]
“Some of them sincerely believe that Donald Trump was ordained by God and actually going to put the right people on the Supreme Court and fight for religious liberty.”
[...]
Sean Illing
One question I have is why should any of these people have believed that Trump was with them? Or that he could be trusted? The man’s entire life is stuffed with lies and distortions and debaucheries.
Stephen Mansfield
Well, now you put your finger on the real heart of my book. The case I’m making is that he ended up with a highly visible sales team full of religious leaders who supported him. All of the other GOP candidates were more authentic, more articulate, and had deeper evangelical roots than Trump. But Trump wisely started meeting with clergy to hear their concerns. He wisely became a champion of opposition to the Johnson Amendment. He came out strongly against abortion. He came out strongly for religious liberty.
That then won over prominent clergymen like Franklin Graham and James Dobson. They became apologists for him and used language like, "Well, he's like Churchill. Maybe profane but still ordained.” One of the big positions was that he's Cyrus the Great from the Old Testament, where Cyrus was a vile pagan but still used by God for his purposes. All of this was bandied about. All of this was spoken from pulpits. All of this was said on religious media and secular media like Fox News, etc.
So the answer to your question is the religious conservatives were convinced by their leaders.
They felt Obama and Clinton had them under siege. Trump was Machiavellian enough to say all the right things to their leaders. They believed Trump's lie that the Bible was his favorite book, and that he was gift from God.
Hope the article helps you to understand Tammy more. Sadly she's in a quagmire, but she will likely be able to rationalize Mueller's investigative results such that to remain content.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
