Dyer: Donald Trump’s fake religiosity could be political poison

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The past two weeks have been a roller-coaster ride for Donald Trump.

First, he’s the target of an assassination attempt. However, that makes him God’s Chosen One because he survived, and it looks like the presidency is in the bag because President Joe Biden can’t even finish his sentences.

But then Biden quits the presidential race, and suddenly Trump is the old white guy, up against an opponent  — Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears to have the Democratic nomination sewn up — who’s 20 years younger.

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Religion has played a big part in Trump’s rise, although he is not religious himself. That’s why he told the crowd at the Republican National Convention that “I stand before you only by the grace of Almighty God.”

Trump was claiming God is on his side because he must win the ‘Christian’ vote. The Republican Party used to be a fairly broad church, but these days its core support comes from white Protestant ‘evangelicals’ who have taken to calling themselves Christian Nationalists. They can be counted on to vote Republican, no matter what.

In effect, the Republicans have now become the local version of the Party of God. Last year 87 per cent of Americans who identified as Republicans said they believe in God, whereas only 66 per cent of Democratic voters did.

However, there are probably not enough Christian Nationalists to put Trump back in the White House all by themselves, and the tide is running against him in two ways. He no longer faces a tragically diminished opponent like Biden – and American Christianity is in retreat.

Almost every country or region used to have its own version of ‘that ole time religion’, and if that’s where you were born that was what you believed. After all, everybody else around you seemed to believe it, so it must be true.

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But then came mass education and mass media, and people became aware of the wider world around them. There are half a dozen big religions and lots of smaller ones. At best, only one of them can be right. Maybe none of them is. And why should it be the one my grandparents believed?

For most of the West, and also for most of East Asia, the old beliefs are no longer ‘normal’. They are optional.

There are still many believers, and most people are happy to continue the traditional religious rites of passage such as marriages and funerals. Likewise, the ancient seasonal festivals like Christmas and Chinese New Year. But the religious core has evaporated.

In Britain, Sweden and Australia, only around 30 per cent of the population see themselves as religious. In Japan, South Korea and China, only about 15 per cent do. Moreover, the trend line is downward in every case.

In the midst of this, the United States has seemed the great exception: A developed country in which religion still dominates in public life. But it’s really more of a grand illusion, because the rot (if that’s what it is) set in quite a while ago.

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In 2001, a Gallup poll reported that 90 per cent of Americans believed in God. In another poll last year, only 74 per cent did. That’s a drop of almost exactly one per cent per year, which is an inexorable trend.

It’s inexorable because it is driven almost entirely by generational turnover. Older Americans are not ‘losing their faith’; their children are just not buying into it. The 2023 version of the same poll revealed that among 18- to 34-year-old Americans, only 59 per cent believe in God.

The U.S. is a lot less different than it thinks it is. The ‘Heartland’ will remain true to the old ways for a while longer, but most Americans live within a few hours’ drive of the east or west coasts and they live in the modern time zone.

Trump cannot rely on the Christian vote alone to bring him victory. If younger Americans vote in large numbers, his fake religiosity is political poison.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist based in London, England.

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