We now come to the next-to-last post of my book analysis of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book, Jesus and John Wayne. In this post, I will look at chapter 15, which looks at the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. Let’s get triggered!
Chapter 15: A New High Priest–A Summary
Chapter 15 takes us up to Evangelicalism’s take on Donald Trump. Beginning with the presidential election of 2016, KDM characterizes Hillary Clinton as “a devout Christian, but the wrong kind” for Evangelicals. Her faith was more at home “among black Protestants, whose prophetic faith tradition bore many similarities to her own progressive Methodism” (250). But because she was a feminist, a career woman, and was pro-human rights and pro-abortion up to the moment of birth, white Evangelicals did not like her.
KDM does note that early on in the GOP primaries, Evangelicals were not overwhelmingly on the Trump bandwagon (only about 20%). Eventually, though, they all got on board because, “Evangelicals were looking for a protector, an aggressive, heroic, manly man, someone who wasn’t restrained by political correctness or feminine virtues, someone who would break the rules for the right cause” (253). Soon, though, Evangelical leaders like Robert Jeffress and Jerry Falwell Jr. threw their support behind Trump, and eventually the “real Evangelical leaders began to fall in line”—namely James Dobson (again!), Wayne Grudem, and Eric Metaxes. Despite Trump’s crude comments and behavior, and even after the revelation of the Access Hollywood tape from back in 2005 and the revelation that he had had sex with Stormy Daniels around that same time, many Evangelical leaders continued to support him, despite his past moral failings, although many did not. Eventually, Trump won with 81% of the white Evangelical vote. KDM doesn’t mention any of Hillary’s questionable behavior that turned voters off.
So, the question for KDM becomes, “How in the world did Trump win and why did white Evangelicals vote for him?” Was it the fact that blue-collar Democrats were so fed up with things that they voted Republican in 2016, allowing to Trump to eke out victories in traditionally blue states? Nope! Without any citation of any stats, KDM states that the reason why Trump won was because “dominant groups” like white Christian men were “anxious about their future status.”
Was it just rank hypocrisy, where Evangelicals might say they care about the private morality of their candidates (as with Bill Clinton), but then turn a blind eye to when it is a Republican? Nope! According to KDM, Trump didn’t represent a betrayal of Evangelical values, but rather was the poster boy for Evangelical values: Militant masculinity, whiteness, vulgarity, crudeness, and sexual assault. In fact, a year into his presidency, two Evangelicals (David Brody, a journalist at the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Scott Lamb, the vice-president at Liberty University) wrote, The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography that papered over his past personal immorality and instead portrayed him being proud of “a John Wayne America.” Therefore, KDM concludes, “Evangelicals hadn’t betrayed their values. Donald Trump was the culmination of their half-century-long pursuit of a militant Christian masculinity” (271).
My Reaction to Chapter 15
Let me start by pointing out, once again, the clear bias KDM has shown throughout her book in the way she characterizes various presidential candidates, from McGovern, Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama, and now Hillary Clinton. I’ll just cut to the chase and say anyone who attempts to characterize Bill Clinton as a “modern Southern Baptist” and Hillary Clinton as a “devout Christian” has about as much credibility as David Brody and Scott Lamb (the two authors of The Faith of Donald J. Trump) have. So, let’s kill two birds with one stone and just say this: Yes, KDM is absolutely right for calling out the absurdity of claiming Trump was a Christian (and nobody, except extremely partisan morons think that), but she is displaying that same kind of absurdity herself in the way she characterizes the Clintons. The reason why Evangelicals didn’t like Hillary wasn’t that she was a woman. It wasn’t because she was pro-human rights. It was because they viewed her as corrupt (some of the reasons were not valid, some were), and she voiced her support for the right to an abortion up to the moment of birth.
As for Trump, I think that KDM, and quite frankly a whole lot of other liberals and “never-Trumpers,” still don’t understand why Trump won the 2016 election. I’ll elaborate on what I feel are the deeper issues regarding people’s reactions to Trump are in my final post. Here, though, let me just go through some stats to refute KDM’s claim that the reason why white Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016 was precisely because he displayed militant masculinity, whiteness, vulgarity, crudeness, and sexual assault.
Let’s first just focus on voter demographics to show that KDM’s claim that the reason why Trump won wasn’t because blue collar Democrats in key swing states switched to Trump. Consider this chart showing the percentage of vote in key demographics the presidential candidates got in both 2012 and 2016.
| Voters | Obama 2012 | Romney 2012 | Clinton 2016 | Trump 2016 |
| Under $30K | 63% | 35% | 53% | 41% |
| $30K-$50K | 57% | 42% | 51% | 42% |
| Unions | 58% | 40% | 51% | 42% |
| Suburbs | 48% | 50% | 45% | 50% |
| Rural | 37% | 61% | 34% | 62% |
| Cities | 69% | 29% | 59% | 35% |
| Democrats | 92% | 7% | 89% | 9% |
| Republicans | 6% | 93% | 7% | 90% |
| Independents | 45% | 50% | 41% | 47% |
| White Evangelicals | 21% | 78% | 16% | 81% |
Let me first address the elephant in the room (pun, completely intended)—the actual white Evangelical vote. As I said earlier, with various voting blocks, a large percentage of the vote is simply baked in, and ever since Ronald Reagan, white Evangelicals have consistently voted GOP to the tune of 75-80% or better in every presidential election. White Evangelicals didn’t vote for Trump because they really loved “militant masculinity, whiteness, vulgarity, crudeness, and sexual assault.” They voted for him because they always vote Republican, no matter what, and the reason why they vote Republican comes down to a number of issues like taxes, abortion, a strong national defense, etc.
KDM herself admits that Trump didn’t have a big chunk of the white Evangelical vote early on. I’m convinced the reason he got the GOP nomination was that early on there were sixteen candidates who split the GOP vote amongst themselves and that allowed Trump to hang on. Once he got the nomination, though, white Evangelicals voted for him in the expected percentages they had always voted for the GOP presidential nominee.
In a similar, hypothetical fashion, I’m willing to bet that if Harvey Weinstein had run for the 2016 Democrat nomination, and that there was no clear front-runner, and that there were sixteen Democrats running, the same dynamic might have happened. And if he would have somehow secured the Democrat nomination, I guarantee you that 90% of Democrats would have voted for him and 90% of the black vote would have voted for him. Sure, some of the rumors of his harassment of women might have come up, but I guarantee you that Bill and Hillary and all the Democrat bigwigs would have eventually rallied around Weinstein because they would have wanted a presidential win for the Democrats. You know it’s true. If you deny it, then you aren’t dealing in reality.
Now, would the reason have been because Democrats and black voters really love misogyny, sexual harassment, and rape? Of course not. The reason would have been because Democrats vote for Democrat candidates no matter what, and they find ways of excusing questionable and bad behavior of their candidates. So, why did Republicans and white Evangelicals still vote for Trump in the consistent percentages they have always voted for the Republican candidate? Well, my question pretty much is the answer, isn’t it?
The reason why Trump won wasn’t because white Evangelicals came out in unprecedented numbers for him. The percentage for the white Evangelical vote was pretty much as consistent for the GOP candidate as it always has been. What is telling is just how much the percentages dropped in key demographics from those who voted for Obama in 2012 and Clinton in 2016. On top of that, Trump was able to flip the traditionally Democrat states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, largely because of his specific appeal to, yes, you guessed it, traditionally blue-collar Democrat voters. Simply put, Trump didn’t so much win the election as Hillary Clinton lost the election.
Regardless of what one might think of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or either the Democrat or Republican parties, the actual voter demographics of the 2016 campaign do not support KDM’s assertion that the reason why Trump won was because white Evangelicals really doubled down on their efforts to establish their dream of America becoming a version of The Handmaid’s Tale. That claim is silly, nonsensical, and detached from reality.
Sure, one can say that the Evangelicals who made a big stink about Bill Clinton’s immoral behavior were hypocrites for excusing the immoral behavior of Trump. Absolutely. But by the same token, you can equally accuse those who excused Clinton’s immoral behavior but then turned into the Church Lady when it came to Trump. Welcome to politics, where all partisans are hypocrites, so get that log out of your own eye!
Ultimately, my point concerning all this is simple. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, an Evangelical or an ex-Evangelical, whether you love or hate Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden—we should all be suspicious of oversimplistic and blatantly partisan explanations of political outcomes. And we should all be wary of those who attempt to dress Christianity up in politically partisan and ideological robes and proceed to condemn and disparage entire groups by those partisan and ideological standards. It doesn’t matter if that person is an ultra-fundamentalist like Ken Ham, a right-wing partisan like James Dobson, or a left-wing partisan like KDM.
Donald Trump didn’t win because white Evangelicals viewed him as the epitome of the white supremacy and patriarchy they’ve always wanted. He won because white Evangelicals (along with most of the electorate) voted the way they always do, based on general conservative values regarding the role of government, and Hillary Clinton was such a bad and arrogant candidate that she ignored even campaigning in those rust-belt states that Trump surprisingly won. Yes, you can always point to a few nutty Evangelicals who viewed Trump as an American Messiah, but it is simply wrong, and quite frankly unintelligent, to claim that all white Evangelicals voted for Trump solely on their love of white supremacy, patriarchy, and guns, wrapped up in an American flag. It has about as much credibility as saying that all black Protestants vote Democrat because of their love of pedophilia, Marxism, and transgendered bathrooms and Che Guevara t-shirts.
I want to make clear as I am coming up to my conclusion in my next post that I’m not attacking KDM’s political views. I think it is fair to assume she is quite progressive—that’s not my problem with her book. My main criticism of her book is that she has produced what amounts to a political hit piece, and in that respect, I find it no different in tone than much of Ken Ham’s writings about the “culture war.” Whenever you demonize Christians on the other side of the political aisle, engage in blatant broadbrushing and stereotyping of entire groups of people, and claim that they are the ones who are guilty of corrupting or compromising the faith—I’m sorry, but I’m going to say that you have conflated Christianity with a political party, and your “Christianity” is really nothing more than a political idol.
Here is my short analysis of 2016 election. The US system is such that there are really only 2 candidates for Prez, any vote for a 3rd candidate is just throwing your vote away. It is not required to be this way in a representative democracy, but it is in the US and that is partly because of the system and partly because the 2 main parties collude to exclude any 3rd party from becoming viable. However, one of the results of the fact of their being only 2 real candidates is that an election becomes a beauty contest between those 2 candidates. Both can be horrible candidates and I think that is what happened in 2016, but that does not mean they are equally horrible. One will almost always be assessed as worse by most voters and then the responsible thing to do is to vote for the less worse candidate trying to avoid the worst result.