J Street

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Whenever Donald Trump Era ends, what will America's religion landscape look like?

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Whenever Donald Trump Era ends, what will America's religion landscape look like?

“Trump is toast.”

So proclaimed National Review’s Andrew McCarthy after the most shocking Republican Party flop since, oh, 1948, which was followed by the least shocking Republican event imaginable, Donald Trump’s Tuesday announcement of a third run for president.

McCarthy joins a significant lineup of conservative pundits and media in blaming the GOP’s embarrassment on Trump and his demands for 2020 election denial with resulting candidate picks. Democrats took the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area by 12.8%, for goodness sake. The former federal prosecutor contends that Trump has not only surrendered his 2024 chances but is certain to face federal indictment.

Well, no matter what such elite conservatives suppose, Trump retains a massive grassroots following. However, the first post-election poll of Republicans and Republican leaners, from YouGov, put Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the 2024 front-runner with 42% to Trump’s 35%. A month earlier YouGov gave Trump 45% vs. DeSantis’s 35%. A poll of Texas Republicans was similar.

An intriguing Wall Street Journal package recently offered scholars’ speculations on what Russia will look like in the long term whenever Vladimir Putin’s reign ends. The media could borrow the idea to explore what the American religion landscape might look like when Donald Trump no longer rules the Republicans, whether that’s in the primaries or Election Day 2024, or Inauguration Day 2029.

If you grab the theme, also run this one past your sources: Has this secularized, former Mainline Protestant and onetime “reality” TV personality had more impact on American religion than any member of the clergy during these years?

Other assorted post-election musings.

As GetReligion often observes, Catholics are the swing vote to watch, since white evangelicals are locked into lopsided Republican loyalty (this long before the Trump years).


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OK, I'll ask The New York Times: Any faith issues lurking in firestorm about Netanyahu speech?

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Hang in there with me, because I am going to ask what I freely admit could be a very silly question.

As you may have noticed, people here in the land of the Beltways, and in New York City, of course, are melting down as they argue about Speaker John Boehner’s decision to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to address Congress. How big an issue is this across the nation? I don't know, but it's a big deal here.

My question is about religion (#DUH) I am aware that doctrinally liberal, oh, Episcopalians are highly likely to be liberal politically, especially when compared with doctrinally conservative Anglicans. The same thing is true with, let's say, doctrinally liberal Lutherans and doctrinally orthodox Lutherans. Or Baptists. Or Methodists. You can see this perfectly obvious point.

Now, I know how to connect the doctrinal dots in these cases, how, for example, doctrines on sexual morality lead to political views that point left or right. What I'm struggling with is understanding the patterns in this case -- the Netanyahu wars. Consider this passage from a report in The Forward, on the Jewish left:

As the Israel lobby kicked off its meeting, Netanyahu jetted into town after proclaiming that he speaks “for the Jewish people” on Iran -- a claim that drew an unusually harsh critique from pro-Israel stalwart Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat.
“(Netanyahu) doesn’t speak for me on this,” Feinstein told CNN. “I think it’s a rather arrogant statement. I think the Jewish community is like any other community, there are different points of view. I think that arrogance does not befit Israel, candidly.”

Understood.


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Peter Beinart and the powerful, but voiceless, Jews of Atlanta

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The New York Times published an interesting story about the Atlanta Jewish Book Festival (“Jewish Book Event in Atlanta Cancels Author’s Talk on Zionism, and Uproar Follows“). It’s a great piece with the weirdest missing element. Here’s the top:


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