COVID-19: “A Blessing from God”

President Trump on Wednesday, October 7 released a direct-to-camera video address to the nation in which he called getting the coronavirus “a blessing from God.” His comment coincided with my reading a paper by Ceri Hughes. Hughes analyzed 175 Trump speeches and about 30,000 Trump tweets for use of religious language. Hughes surprised me when I learned that his earlier research determined that Trump used both general religious terms and “God terms” at a significantly higher rate than all his predecessors from and including Franklin Roosevelt.

In his current paper, Hughes suggests that “Trump appears to use religious language in a strategic manner in two central ways. First, Trump’s increasing level of use of Christian religious language helps afford an interpretation of him as a Christian individual: His use of this language likely helps (particularly White Evangelical) supporters make peace with their support of him. Second, this language is employed as an aide to the populist trope of ‘othering’: religious language is commonly proximate with concepts of ‘Americanness,’ whereas words associated with Islam are proximate with concepts of radicalism and terrorism. This work helped White Evangelicals accept the deal to deliver their political aims they would have to embrace a man they could interpret as devout enough for their purposes.”

Background

Both John Kennedy (Roman Catholic) and Jimmy Carter (evangelical) had to go out of their way to convince voters in 1960 and 1976 respectively they would prevent their religious faith from interfering in their presidential duties. This changed with the advent of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. Beginning with Reagan the Christian right became an influential voice within the Republican Party.

In January 2016, a Pew poll showed only 5% of adults saw Trump as very religious while only 25% saw him as somewhat religious. This poll also indicated that more than 60% said Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson were either very religious or somewhat religious. At about the same time a Christianity Today poll found that only 5% of Protestant pastors who self-identified as Republicans supported Trump in the primary elections.

A January 2016 Public Religion Research Institute survey showed that only 49% of White Evangelicals supported his candidacy. But over the next months, Trump increasingly gained their support. By September nominee Trump possessed a 61% favorability rating from White Evangelicals. And in November, 81% of White Evangelicals voted for Trump. White Evangelical support for Trumped dropped from 78% in February 2017 to 61% in December 2017 according to Pew presidential tracking polls. But this level of support was still much higher than for mainline Protestants or Catholics.

Trump’s religious language

Hughes’ research demonstrates that Trump’s Twitter use of religious terms (faith terms) and God terms (explicit references to God) increased dramatically once he became President, more than doubling his use of such terms as a citizen, candidate, and nominee. On the other hand, his speeches’ use of these terms made their most dramatic rise when he became the nominee and stabilized or even tapered off once he became President.

Importantly, Trump usually placed the use of these terms in the context of the American nation or country, including such terms as “liberty,” “saluting,” “and “flag” along with references to “America,” “country,” and “nation.” In other words, Trump usually connected Americanism with Christianity and Christian nationalism.

For example, in one speech extract, Trump says, “And I am going to bring us all together as Americans, imagine what our country could accomplish if we all start working together as one people under God saluting one American flag.” In another example, Trump talks about “We are one people. We are one family. And we are one nation under God. And together we will make America wealthy again, we will make America strong again, we will make America safe again, and we will make America great again.”

Hughes comments that these passages reprise “the central tenets of Christian nationalism of a strong and safe country. If God is included the collective ‘together we,’ God is part of the rebuilding process” to make America wealthy, strong, safe, and great.

Religious “othering” and populism

Following Jagers and Walgrave, Hughes believes “complete populism” contains three facets. These include (1) appeals made to ordinary working people, (2) attacks on the current power structure in society, especially the current government and political parties, and (3) “othering” in which lines are drawn between an in-group and an out-group. He suggests that in Trump’s case the othering relates to Christian nationalism. That is, “the notion that Christian Americans are the in-group, and that America is, and should remain, a Christian country.” Note that a poll in 2018 found that “73% of Republicans think that believing in (a Christian) God is somewhat or very important to be ‘truly American’.”

When Trump refers to Islam in his speeches and Tweets “radical” is the word he mostly associates with this religion followed by “terrorists,” “terror,” and “terrorism.” He almost invariably refers to Islam within the context of terrorism. Hughes points out that Islamic terrorism is “a topic occurring in a remarkable 98% of his speeches.”

Conclusion

Trump provides plenty of examples for the faithful to move away from supporting him. But he also “appears to regularly give them reason to maintain their support. He perhaps plays part of the role required to motivate reasoning that Trump is religious enough for their purposes. He speaks and tweets to them with increasing religious language and explicit evocations of God. In his speeches, he aligns Americanness with Christianity, implicitly and explicitly supporting notions that America is one nation under one (Christian) God. The mentions the ‘other’ religion of Islam almost exclusively to starkly illustrate the otherness of Islam as a religion he associates with terrorism. This deal is perhaps good enough to ignore the counterevidence about the religiosity of the man delivering these messages.”

Discussion

I believe Trump is much aware that his core of support contains three somewhat overlapping groups: (1) the ethnic antagonists (as noted by Bartels in a prior post)/white nationalists; (2) those who strongly dislike liberals/Democrats; and (3) White evangelicals. Trump uses his rhetoric in part to promote/spike anger in his base and in part to maintain significant support among White evangelicals. Trump certainly appears to use language strategically to sustain his core. As many have noted, this core at best is 40% of the voting population, with the real hardcore perhaps in the 25% to 30% range.

Appealing only to is core base, Trump will never win the popular vote. This is why he needs the Republican Party to enact voter suppression orders and legislation and why he needs to foment doubt on mail-in ballots for him to gain an electoral college win or rely on his judicial nominees to favor him in a contested election.