The Atheist Case For Trump
He gave the fundamentalists little more than lip service
Back in my college days, I was an active participant in the atheist movement (UQ's Secular Freethinkers club, in my case). It was the height of the George W Bush era, the War on Terror was raging, and the Third Great Awakening was in full swing. Unfortunately, this movement was perhaps the first casualty in what we now refer to as the "woke" Culture Wars; whist part of this movement was deeply invested in the values of the Enlightenment (reason, critical thinking, challenging orthodoxy, science, individual liberty, and the general project of increasing human mastery over the world we live in), a sizeable swathe of members were really just partisan-left loyalists who were more interested in sticking it to the Republicans and supporting a wide variety of left-wing ideological causes than in atheism per se. These two sides held together during the George W Bush administration, but after Obama entered office and the Evangelical craziness of the Republicans stopped being in the headlines every night, conflict between the two factions became inevitable.
The flashpoint was an incident called "Elevatorgate," and I shall not repeat the details of that here. At the time of the incident, the biggest concern of the "woke" (or, as they were called at the time, "Social Justice Warriors") was neither race nor transgender topics (as it is now), but rather intersectional feminism. In the aftermath of Elevatorgate, every single powerful institution within the atheist movement fell under the control of intersectional feminists. The atheist movement began to wane and become less relevant and less vocal, but bad blood from those days still persists; in 2021, the American Humanist Association stripped the 1996 "Humanist of the Year" award from Richard Dawkins for allegedly attacking and demeaning transgender people (all Dawkins said was that sex is binary and immutable in human beings, which is true. Not to mention, we stopped calling gender transitions "sex changes" precisely because gender transition does not actually change someone's sex).
With the notable exception of the conservative/libertarian Atheists For Liberty (see https://www.atheistsforliberty.org/ and https://atheistsforliberty.substack.com/), which was formed after Elevatorgate and explicitly rejects "woke" ideology, basically every institution within the atheist movement has subsequently become little more than a Democratic-partisan operation, and when Trump rose to power, they panicked (and continue to panic) as if he were just as bad as, or even worse than, George W Bush.
This panic, I contend, is fundamentally a manifestation of irrational partisanship. Atheists should be grateful for Trump and even support Trump, because Trump is actually a secularizing force. He has not merely effectively secularized the Republican Party, but he is changing the very character of the White Evangelical Protestant church and making it, in substance if not style, less Christian and more secular. If one truly is an atheist and a secularist and a critic of Christianity, one cannot honestly escape the conclusion that Trump has had a net-positive impact (on the religion issue and associated issues).
In the first section of this article, I will provide some historical context and remind everyone of just how horrible things were back in the W Bush era. In the second section, I will show how Trump has changed the Republican Party in ways that, in effect, have made it less religious (despite the rhetorical pandering which is common in US politics). In the third and final section, I will show that the impact of Trump on the very culture of White Evangelical Protestantism is, in effect, a kind of secularization and a theological hollowing-out.
1. The Dubya Disaster
The W Bush era caused incredible damage to the moral credibility of Christianity, and Christianity has failed to recover. Furthermore, this damage was ultimately self-inflicted. Of course, before the Bush days, Christianity already was growing a bad reputation; paragraphs could be written about how the Christian Right beclowned themselves (or participated in often-bipartisan moral panics which beclowned themselves). The infidelity scandals. The embezzlement and corruption scandals. The constant, hysterical moaning about how terrible the latest piece of pop music is. The paranoia about Dungeons & Dragons teaching kids’ witchcraft. The Satanic Panic of the late 80s. Not to mention the sexual abuse scandals which rocked the Roman Catholic Church across the entire world.
But let us return to the W Bush era, as this was the period of time in which Evangelical fundamentalist Christianity reached its historical apex (as of now). The President of the USA was himself an Evangelical who credited Jesus with saving him from alcohol and cocaine addictions. During this period of time, the Evangelical movement committed several great "sins" which helped to damage what remained of Christianity's moral credibility: firstly, waging war against the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools. Secondly, waging war against equality under the law for sexual minorities. Thirdly, being complicit in the disastrous neoconservative wars in the Middle East.
The "woke"/"social justice" left were not the first people to want anti-scientific, politically partisan ideology masquerading as respectable scientific theory to be taught to children in public schools. During the W Bush era, the Evangelical right wanted schools to be allowed to either exclusively teach "Creation Science/Intelligent Design" or to teach "Creation Science/Intelligent Design" as an equally credible competitor to the theory of Evolution. Creation Science/Intelligent Design is the right-wing equivalent to Critical Race Theory and is just as obviously unscientific due to being unfalsifiable. Thankfully, this ridiculous attempt to teach religion in publicly funded biology classes was struck down (by a Republican-appointed judge, too). However, the damage this campaign caused to the reputation of the right still hasn't been repaired. Moreover, it damaged the reputation of Christianity by making it clear large swathes of Christians were simply opposed to science, committed to fundamentalism, and frankly were morons.
Perhaps the greatest preoccupation of the Evangelical right was sexual orientation. They even ran camps that compelled non-heterosexual (or suspected-non-heterosexual) adolescents to "pray the gay away." Some would say that they considered the Nicene Creed secondary to the Westboro Baptist Creed ("God Hates Fags"). In hindsight, their absolute obsession with fighting civil marriage equality, combined with the huge number of Evangelical Republican gay infidelity scandals that came to light during this period (most prominently that of George W Bush's primary spiritual advisor, Ted Haggard), was beyond pitiful. As with evolutionary biology, the work of Republican-appointed jurists was critical in denying victory to the Evangelicals. Justice Anthony Kennedy most prominently, but also Judge Vaughan Walker, helped to drive a stake through the heart of the ridiculous argument that permitting same-sex couples to marry would somehow cause some sort of harm to opposite-sex married couples. Yet the damage to the reputation of both the Republican Party and Christianity as a whole was hardly negligible.
The Evangelical right gave us many awful moments, from the Dover Panda Trial to the Jihad against gay marriage, from Pastor Becky Fisher's hysterical condemnation of Harry Potter (see
to George W Bush's counter-Constitutional statement that Wicca "isn't a real religion." But perhaps the worst crime of the Evangelical right was its complicity in neoconservative foreign policy. Two theological positions common on the Evangelical right are important here - the first is Christian Zionism, and the second was a belief in the Rapture and that the "end times" were upon us. These beliefs ensured strong Evangelical support for the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which ultimately ended in failed nation-building exercises that flushed thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth down the toilet. Even from a counter-Jihad perspective these wars were failures, as the Taliban were eventually returned to power and Al-Qaeda were replaced by Islamic State.
The George W Bush era ended in disgrace. Bailouts were haphazardly arranged, much to bipartisan popular outrage. Unsustainable entitlements were increased, thanks to Medicare Part D. Americans had grown war-weary, the New Atheist movement was enjoying its heyday, and the Republican Party's brand was deeply damaged - they were now the party of endless war, the party of homophobia (whilst secretly concealing same-sex infidelity), and the party that established the National Security State. A war-weary populace with little taste for having Evangelical extremism enforced upon them decisively rejected the Neocon-Evangelical fusionism of George W Bush when it delivered a landslide victory to Barack Obama.
2. Trump's Reformation of the Republicans
Let us start with Trump's most recent achievement on this issue: he managed to get the national Republican Party to remove advocacy of federal abortion bans or restrictions (outraging pro-life groups), and he's even criticized some Republican-controlled states for being "too tough" on the subject (see https://time.com/7093731/donald-trump-abortion-state-measures/). He also managed to get the national Republican platform to drop opposition to same-sex marriage. To give context to how momentous these achievements are, one must remember that complete opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage were practically the core, defining features of the George W Bush era Evangelical Right. George W Bush wanted to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and even today White Evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly believe abortion at any stage of the pregnancy to be murder, yet it is quite unlikely that they are going to be denying their votes to Trump as a result.
Trump's acceptance of same-sex marriage, or history of divorce and rumored infidelity, certainly didn't deter them from voting for him in 2016. Trump, a thrice-divorced man who has been in favor of same-sex civil marriage since the 80s, ran an LGBT-inclusive campaign, was the first President to openly accept same-sex civil marriage at the time of assuming office, and was the first President to appoint an openly gay person to his cabinet (in the form of Richard Grenell). Additionally, his son criticized the Texas Republican party for not hosting the Log Cabin Republicans - a pro-gay Republican group - at its state convention. Alongside Grenell, Donald Trump launched an international campaign to encourage more nations to decriminalize same-sex sexual relations.
Not only did Trump get the national Republican party to stop obsessing over gay people or early-stage fetuses, but he also managed to completely change the Republican mainstream on foreign policy. Instead of a foreign policy based upon consistently agitating for endless war in the Middle East in the aim of fulfilling biblical prophecy, Trump embraced a simple realism based around national self-interest: "America First." Americans had enough of being the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Christian altruism (something which had been well-known since Obama's landslide victory, yet Obama miserably failed to deliver upon), and now demanded that their interests (as opposed to those of Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Israel) be prioritized. The result was that Trump did not get the USA into any more wars (unlike Bush, Clinton, W Bush and Obama) and that he encouraged several Arab nations to normalize their relations with Israel. The magnitude of the departure from the George W Bush days - when Evangelical theology was sanctifying neoconservative crusades - is hard to overstate.
Indeed, compared to the W Bush days, it seems like the American major parties have switched sides on key issues. Back in the W Bush days, it was the Republicans wanting to teach religiously driven pseudoscience in schools (in the form of "Intelligent Design Theory"). These days, it is the Democrats pushing the religion of wokeness and its associated pseudosciences (such as the racial views of people like Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, which are completely lacking in socially scientific rigor and reject reason and science as nothing more than a white male conspiracy).
Indeed, even when it comes to the Evangelical Republicans' favorite floggable dead horse - Those Kids and Their Awful Degenerate Pop Culture - the roles of the parties are now reversed. Who is criticizing mainstream pop culture as an evil force perpetuating social ills these days? The progressive left, with their constant problematization and politicization of everything ranging from video games to comic books to Star Wars, are today's puritans (indeed, they are arguably worse than the Evangelical Right - the Evangelical Right at least tried to make an alternative morally-acceptable pop culture, whereas the left aggressively colonizes and takes over currently-existing pop culture in the name of "social justice"). Trump, on the other hand, is a figure of the precise kind of lowbrow, degenerate pop culture that makes cultural commentators want to vomit; he has a multi-decade long association with World Wrestling Entertainment and is even a member of the WWE's Hall of Fame, and for years was the host of a reality game show (The Apprentice). Once upon a time, the Republican position on pop culture was that it reflected a continuous Slouching Towards Gomorrah, but these days the leading light of the American right is a pop culture celebrity.
3. Trump's Impact on the Church
Whilst many on the left are having fever-dreams that Trump is implicated in some sort of "Christian Nationalist" conspiracy, the reality is that Trump is in effect weakening the Christian-ness of White Evangelical Protestantism. Perhaps the most emblematic example of this is the Trump-endorsed God Bless the USA Bible (https://godblesstheusabible.com/), compiled by Lee Greenwood. Those who are critical of Christianity should actually like this, because the God Bless the USA Bible is essentially blasphemous and says a lot about so-called Christian Nationalism.
I'm an atheist, but even I can see the blasphemy inherent in the God Bless the USA Bible - this compilation implicitly elevates the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance and the chorus of a country rock song to the same level as the Bible. Most Christians, especially White Evangelical Protestants, believe the Bible to be a sacred text that contains divine revelation and at least some of its authors were inspired by God himself. The God Bless the USA Bible puts writings from Thomas Jefferson, Lee Greenwood, and George Thatcher Balch (revised by Samuel Bellamy and then revised by government fiat) on this same pedestal, enclosed within the same cover that has "Holy Bible" (and no other titles) on the front. I do not see how a theologically serious Christian could see the God Bless the USA Bible as anything other than outright sacrilege. And Trump managed to get a wide swathe of Christians to commit it and pay for the privilege of doing so. Frankly, this is the coolest act of public blasphemy since Marilyn Manson's heyday.
And as stated before, this Bible is deeply illustrative of the actual religion of Trump-supporting White Evangelical Protestants. They are actually not purely Christians (despite their aggressive labelling of themselves as such) but are syncretists whose Evangelical Christianity is blended with the American Civil Religion. Hence, to them, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the USA are holy documents in all but name - they have essentially adopted the Mormon belief that the American Constitution is divinely inspired. The Founding Fathers are among their Saints, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and celebrating Independence Day are among their sacraments. And, like all religions (syncretic or not), this religion is fundamentally tied to notions of group (or tribal) identity and societal belonging. Religion is a universal feature of all societies throughout history precisely because it develops to cement and sacralize the tribe/society/group's identity and value system; religion has historically been much more a matter of group passions and desires than individual monks debating about the number of angels that can stand on the head of a pin.
If that is what Christian Nationalism truly means - a syncretism between the American Civil Religion and Evangelical Protestantism - then it is not inherently socially conservative or inherently illiberal (in the classical sense), as the American Civil Religion contains Enlightenment individualism and liberalism within it (obviously tension exists, as is true with all syncretisms, but that is a topic for another time). Nonetheless, the point remains that Trump's effect on White Evangelical Protestantism has been to make it less Christian, with a sacrilegious bible and a syncretism with a belief system that sits uneasily with Christianity.
Don't take my word for it. Many famous Evangelicals have been critical of Trump and his impact on the culture of White Evangelical Protestants. The recently deceased Bill Pannell - an African American Evangelical - memorably described how when he tried to bring up the issue of racism (albeit in a manner very reminiscent of what we'd currently call Critical Race Theory) and was only greeted by indifference. When describing cultural change in the Evangelical movement and what he perceived as a growing resistance to discussing the subject, he said "somehow or other in my lifetime, the Evangelical movement became more and more American and less and less Christian" (see https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/10/died-bill-pannell-black-evangelical-white-racism-race-war-friend-enemy/). Then there's David French - a conservative evangelical who is a well-known opponent of Trump (although I personally suspect a lot of his opposition to Trump comes from Trump's relative reluctance towards neocon warmongering) and will be voting for Kamala Harris in this upcoming election (see https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/opinion/harris-trump-conservatives-abortion.html). As he writes, "It’s not just Trump’s lies that are contagious, but his cruelty as well, and that cruelty is embedding itself deeply within one of Trump’s most loyal constituencies, conservative evangelicals. It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes. There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church." Yes, Trump is changing the church, although I must wonder why David French sees Trump's "cruelty" (mean rhetoric and mean tweets, primarily) as worse than W Bush's warmongering.
Another fantastic example of an Evangelical noticing that Trump has been changing the culture of Evangelical Protestantism is Russell Moore. Moore is a conservative Christian, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and the holder of a PhD in Systematic Theology. In other words, he is an intellectually serious Christian thinker, but as stated before, religion has never really been just about belief and theology, and for most of its history it has primarily been about group identity. As such, when Russell Moore highlighted cases of congregants describing quotes from Jesus as "weak liberal talking points" (see https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706) I was not surprised. From an intellectually serious Christian viewpoint, this indeed represents a crisis, but as an atheist I am quite happy with this development.
Trump is de-Christianizing, in significant ways, Evangelical Protestantism. He is making Evangelical Protestants far more tolerant of "sin" than they used to be. He is literally selling sacrilege to them. He's even making them quibble with Jesus. In effect, what he is doing is turning White Evangelical Protestantism into a lifestyle brand with merchandising that serves as a social signaling mechanism (to show your political/tribal allegiance). He is hollowing all the theology - all the belief - out of their Christianity piece by piece, concession by concession. And what happens when you hollow out Christian belief? As Russell Moore says “the biggest threat facing the American church right now is not secularism but cynicism... There is an entire generation of people who are growing cynical that religion is just a means to some other end.”
Conclusion
It is unfortunate that what's left of the New Atheist movement is so vitriolic and hostile towards Trump, because Trump has been a force for de-Christianizing both the Republican Party and the demographic that forms their most loyal voting bloc. Trump managed to get the national Republican Party to accept same-sex marriage and a federalist compromise on abortion - stances that were utterly unthinkable fifteen years ago. He also managed to completely change the Republican Party's dialogue on foreign policy - a dialogue once driven by an unholy alliance between neoconservatives and Religious Right warmongers. Trump has also managed to contribute to a decline in the moral credibility and theological substance of White Protestant Evangelical Christianity, and has convinced this same demographic to turn the flag into a graven image; consequently, he has only accelerated the de facto secularization of this group and the decline of the Religious Right.
Atheists should give him some credit.