Loss of support from GOP evangelicals is okay with MAGA crowd

Page is an American journalist, columnist and senior editorial staff member of the Chicago Tribune.

Black voters have historically been crucial to the fortunes of the Democratic Party, but some recent polls have suggested they may prove less profitable for President Joe Biden than in the past. Whether as many as 20% of black voters have actually abandoned Democrats, as some recent polls suggest, is a contentious issue. But it’s probably fair to say that Democrats are currently more in defensive than growth mode with that part of the electorate.

But what about Donald Trump and the evangelicals? The same applies?

Historically, what we used to know as the evangelical bloc has meant a lot to the Republican base, just as black voters have been crucial to the Democratic base. But both truths look less reliable this time around, as we see church attendance decline in America and more factions emerge within a previously homogeneous bloc. Abortion politics also play a role here, and Trump’s position on the issue is not only virtually impossible to determine, but has also proven to many evangelicals to be a matter of political opportunism, not genuine moral conviction.

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That said, it is also true that the idea of ​​a single evangelical viewpoint seems increasingly outdated as cultural and political earthquakes have erupted within the church, just as they have within our current presidential race. Clearly, some of former President Trump’s statements in recent months have driven a wedge between his campaign and religious voters, especially those all-important evangelicals. In April, for example, he said he believed abortion should be regulated at the state level, with very little interference from the federal government. His statements drew strong reactions from the same anti-abortion rights groups that had celebrated his appointment of the Supreme Court justices who helped write the landmark decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling.

Trump’s dizzying logic was impossible to follow. He took credit for the decision that the three Trump-appointed judges helped make, but then appeared to push back against its consequences, saying states should make their own decisions about regulating abortion.

Trump’s new stance infuriated the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization, which supports a federal ban on abortion nationwide and condemned Trump’s comments as a “morally indefensible position for a self-described pro-life presidential candidate.” That should hardly have come as a surprise.

The question for Republicans and Trump now is whether it will matter. And there is a growing feeling within Trump’s presidential campaign that he can actually afford a certain erosion of traditional Republican support from evangelicals. That’s because Trump’s most influential support during the 2016 primaries came from an emerging group within the Republican Party whose impact has gone largely unnoticed: Republicans who are completely disinterested in churches, synagogues or other houses of worship.

Ryan Burge, associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and research director of Faith Counts, has written several books on church attendance, including “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.”

‘Nones’ is Burge’s label for the ‘unaffiliated’ or ‘non-churchgoers’. According to the Pew Research Center, no religious affiliation has gone from 5% of the population to almost 30% in the past half century.

“The data show that support for the former president is growing among this low-attendance group, meaning that in the short term, even if Trump alienates some religiously devout members of the religious right,” Burge wrote in Politico last fall, “ he remains well positioned to secure the nomination.”

That came true, and from that point on the evidence of continuation is compelling. Take this statistic from Burge’s article: “In 2016, 39% of all Republican voters attended church less than once a year. By comparison, only 36% said they attended religious services at least once a week.”

It is reasonable to assume that the number of church-going Republicans will decline even further in 2024. That is significant. And that makes them less important to the increasingly opportune Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

Dozens of books and other media have been produced to explain the unexpected connection between white evangelical Christians and Trump’s populist MAGA movement. At least that’s what everyone thought.

But they may very well be missing the bigger point.

There are simply fewer Republican evangelicals these days, and the MAGA crowd is now getting along better without them.

First posted April 19, 2024. (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.