White Evangelical Christians are an essential and reliable part of Donald Trump’s electoral base. In 2016, 2020, and again in 2024, roughly eighty percent of voters who identified as “Evangelical” or “born again” pulled the lever for Trump. As I argued in my 2018 book Believe Me, these Trump voters were motivated by three primary factors: fear, power, and nostalgia.
The United States is changing—demographically, culturally, and socially (especially in terms of the traditional family). Fear of these changes drove Evangelicals toward a strongman they believed would protect them from secular threats and restore them to a position of moral guardianship over American culture. They were enabled by a political playbook developed by the Christian right in the 1970s. It endorsed a simple formula: win elections, gain majorities, appoint the right judges, and, once in power, execute policy to bring the nation more in line with a nostalgic vision of conservative Christianity. There is little consideration of whether this Christian golden age ever existed, but historical accuracy is beside the point. It is time to restore, renew, and reclaim the United States as a Christian nation.
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