[Feature: The Presidential Election and the Future of America] Saho Matsumoto: The Victory of the Republican Party as a Religious Party and Policy Predictions for the Future Trump Administration

2025/02/06

The United States is a nation founded on the basis of pure Protestant teachings, specifically Puritanism, even within Christianity. While Trump's "America First" likely means "prioritizing national interests" and "focusing on domestic affairs over foreign policy," it also resonates with the idea of "America as God's chosen people and God's country," which lies at the root of such Puritanism.

Since its founding, the United States has repeated religious Great Awakening movements more than four times up until around 1960. During that time, it transformed a barren land inhabited only by indigenous peoples into the world's most prosperous superpower in less than 300 years. This is because American history is not just about enjoying blessings from God, but a history where a strong pride in being a people chosen by God has been instilled in Americans.

This resurgence of religion in politics is not occurring only in the United States; it can be seen as a phenomenon happening worldwide as a backlash against globalization. Religion is a source of identity politics and is important for clarifying who one is and where one belongs, and this cannot be denied. It is also important to note that in democratic nations, freedom of belief and freedom of religion are positioned as extremely important.

Trump's reelection in the U.S. presidential election is a symbol of this era of religious resurgence. In this election, one of the important reasons for his reelection was that he gained Hispanic Catholic votes in addition to the votes of Protestant Evangelical Christians. Since 9/11 and the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. Republican Party has strengthened its character as a "religious party," though strictly speaking, there were signs of this from the Nixon and Reagan eras. However, Trump has carried this forward in a different form. In contrast, the Democratic Party has historically tended to emphasize being a "secular party." Considering why Harris—a woman who served as Attorney General, a racial minority, and who advocated for women's abortion rights, open immigration policies, and the expansion of LGBTQ rights—lost this time, it could be said that voters are not necessarily seeking secular and liberal leaders. In particular, it is necessary to analyze the inconvenient reality that the social strata supporting Trump are centered on relatively low-income blue-collar workers, while Harris supporters include many secularized elites. For blue-collar workers, illegal immigrants may threaten their livelihoods by working for low wages, whereas for the middle class and elites, they do not threaten their jobs, so they can afford to speak in platitudes.

Regarding the immigration issue, Trump is not saying he will exclude all immigrants; he differentiates between legal and illegal immigrants. While he takes a harsh stance on turning back the latter, he aligns with the Catholic faith and traditional values of legal Hispanic immigrants, which is why he gained the Hispanic Catholic vote. Details on this will be discussed later.

Based on this situation, this article analyzes the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election from the perspective of religion and considers what kind of policies and diplomacy can be expected under the new Trump administration.

Many of the Evangelical Christians who supported Trump this time live in states located in the southeastern United States, known as the Bible Belt. This region is home to many Christian fundamentalists who believe literally in what is written in the Bible. They include people who oppose abortion, oppose same-sex marriage (which was legalized under the Obama administration), oppose the expansion of LGBTQ rights, do not believe in evolution and thus homeschool their children (since public schools teach evolution), and are skeptical of all vaccines, sometimes refusing vaccination.

Protestant Evangelical Christians played an important role in the birth of the first Trump administration in 2017. During that term, by appointing three conservative Supreme Court justices, Trump paved the way for the effective illegalization of abortion by overturning the "Roe v. Wade" decision that had recognized abortion rights. Consequently, abortion did not become a major point of contention in this election. It was unclear whether the Evangelical Christians who pushed for the illegalization of abortion would turn to support Trump again in this election, but when the results were in, the Bible Belt states were painted bright red, signifying a Republican victory. Georgia, which Biden took in 2020, was reclaimed by Trump this time, and Texas, which is not originally included in the Bible Belt, also showed its presence as a thoroughly Republican state.

Texas is home to what is said to be the largest mega-church in the United States, and Joel Osteen, the charismatic pastor of Lakewood Church in Dallas, is known as a Republican supporter. Additionally, the base of operations for Lance Wallnau—a charismatic pastor from a business background who is involved in "Project 2025" led by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation—is also located here.

However, there is also concerning data. In the 21st century, secularization has progressed particularly in developed countries, and religious faith in Christianity has declined among young people in the West, with church attendance continuing to decrease. The "God's country" of America is no exception, and church attendance among Millennials and Gen Z has indeed dropped.

There are approximately over 1,300 mega-churches across the U.S., and the average attendance of the top 50 churches exceeds 10,000 people. A mega-church is defined as having a facility (sanctuary) that can accommodate 2,000 or more people at once, but in fact, the number of these mega-churches and their participation figures have not particularly decreased. Why is this, even though church attendance among young people is falling? The reality is that while charismatic pastors at these mega-churches preach the "Gospel," they do not label themselves as "Christian churches," and the majority of mega-churches are listed as "Non-denominational." Many mega-churches have sports and entertainment facilities on their vast grounds, playing a role more like a community center than a church. However, as far as the author has investigated, religious activities are also conducted at these mega-churches. Yet, statistically, mega-churches explicitly marked as "Non-denominational" are not included in the category of "Christian churches."

In the U.S., Catholics, who are a minority, traditionally had a strong tendency to support the Democratic Party. However, a fundamental change occurred in the trend of the Catholic vote, which contributed to Trump's victory in the 2024 election. 58% of all Catholic votes went to Trump, while Harris remained at just under 40%, representing a complete reversal. The reason is that the majority are Hispanic Catholics, who, being a minority compared to whites, had previously shown prominent support for the Democratic Party, but many Hispanic votes were cast for Trump this time.

Furthermore, when crossing religion with race and gender factors, as shown in Figure 1, the voting behavior of Hispanic Catholic men completely flipped: in 2020, Biden took 59% and Trump took 36%, whereas in 2024, Harris took 44% and Trump took 54%. This was influenced by the gender factor of Harris being a woman. Additionally, while Biden was Catholic, Harris is a Protestant of a Black Baptist church (the church of Martin Luther King Jr.). Because the Democratic Party follows a secular line, she showed very little religious color during the campaign, and while her background is Asian and African, the fact that she was not Hispanic was likely another reason.

The seven states known as battleground states, where support switches between the Democratic and Republican parties in each election, include the Rust Belt (states in the declining northern industrial zone) and the Sun Belt (southern states with long sunshine hours and expanding employment due to recent industrial attraction). Here too, the results of the shift in the Hispanic Catholic vote were visible. Comparing 2020 and 2024 in Figure 2, Nevada and Arizona, which are part of the Sun Belt, were taken by the Democrats in both '16 and '20, but Trump took them back from the Democrats in 2024. Furthermore, looking at Figure 3, it can be seen that these southwestern states are also states where the Hispanic population has recently reached 25% or more.

Nevada is located in the south and adjacent to Arizona, which borders Mexico, making it easily accessible for Hispanics. Moreover, it has Las Vegas, which offers many service industry jobs in restaurants, hotels, casinos, live houses, and music halls, and many Hispanics are actually employed there. Furthermore, although not limited to Hispanics, workers in these leisure and food service industries have lower incomes than office workers and are highly dependent on tip income (tips for food and drink in the U.S. are over 25%, about 2.5 times that of Europe). This likely contributed to the influence of the Trump campaign's promise to make tip income tax-free in this election.

In the next chapter, I would like to look at what kind of foreign policy the resulting Trump administration will conduct, focusing on Middle East policy, which is important from the perspective of religion.

There are three main reasons why the U.S. supports Israel. Not only the U.S. but also Europe has recently toned down its support, criticizing Israel and condemning the current Netanyahu administration (due to its coalition with religious far-right parties), while taking care not to condemn the state of Israel itself. In the background is, first, the history of the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II—the systematic mass murder of Jews where 6 million people fell victim to concentration camps and gas chambers. Regarding this, there is a sense of guilt that although Britain and the U.S. were vaguely aware of it during the war, they took no measures until the end of the war, and that Christian churches (both Catholic and Protestant) were complicit in discriminating against Jews for nearly 2,000 years (Jews were driven from the land of Palestine by the Roman army after the legalization of Christianity in the late Roman Empire).

Because the Christian West bears part of the responsibility for the wartime Holocaust, the state of Israel was founded in 1948 after the war. At that time, the memory of the Holocaust was vivid not only in the West but throughout the world, leading to UN recognition. However, after its founding, Israel experienced several Middle East wars, and the once-weak Israel grew into a military power with the support of Britain and the U.S. (becoming solely the U.S. within a few years), turning many Palestinians into refugees and leading to the current Gaza conflict.

Even today, criticizing Judaism while criticizing Israel tends to be taboo, and denying the Holocaust can be a criminal offense (for example, simply wearing fashion items with Nazi symbols can lead to arrest in Germany). However, although criticizing Israel and criticizing Judaism are two different things, the majority of Israeli citizens and Jews do not distinguish between them (though a minority of liberals do).

The second religious reason is that in the U.S., particularly the Protestant Evangelicals who support Republican Trump, believe in Christian Zionism. Although Biden is Catholic, it cannot be said that he has no sympathy for this Christian Zionism. That ideology is defined as follows:

1. Israel is the only country given by God (the God of Judaism and Christianity).

2. The parent body of Christianity is Judaism.

3. Jesus was executed as a Jew.

4. There are blessings from God for Christians who support Israel.

5. God's judgment will fall upon Christians who mistreat Jews.

Christian Zionists believe that their souls will head to Jerusalem after death and that they will be saved by going to Jerusalem.

However, there are Muslims in Jerusalem. Therefore, they want Israel to subdue the Muslims and make Jerusalem a land for Judaism and Christianity. This is because the "Book of Revelation" in the Bible states that when the end of the world comes, Jesus will appear on earth to fight the devil and separate those who go to hell from those who go to heaven.

The origin of this Christian Zionism actually lies in 19th-century Britain during the British Empire era, but it eventually spread to the U.S. and remains a strong belief among American Christians today, especially among the Evangelical Christians who support Trump. Therefore, a more pro-Israel policy than during the Biden era is expected in the second Trump administration.

Another important aspect of U.S. policy toward the Middle East that must not be forgotten is the Abraham Accords, signed in August 2020 during the first Trump administration. This was a diplomatic agreement concluded between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which Bahrain later joined. This is highly likely to hold the key in the second Trump administration. Although it was an agreement concluded by Trump, Biden also recommended it. For this reason, Hamas, fearing they would be abandoned by Arab nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia that had supported Palestine until then, launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 2023, which triggered the current Gaza conflict.

The name Abraham comes from the prophet recognized equally by the People of the Book—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism—and the accords represent an agreement that these three religions can get along. The internal reality is a deal where the oil-rich Arab Gulf states can receive scientific and technological support from Israel and the U.S. in preparation for the depletion of oil or a crash in prices, while also suppressing their rival, Shia Iran, within the same Islamic world. Although the Abraham Accords are currently frozen due to the Hamas surprise attack on Israel, Trump seems to believe he can revive them and restore trust in the international community again as a peace mediator.

The outcome depends on how Trump can control Israel's Netanyahu, who is in a coalition with far-right religious Jewish parties. Since the Evangelical Christian lobby that supports Trump believes that Palestinians should simply disappear, the focus will be on whether he can bring about an opportunity for peace in the Middle East as a business deal while balancing these interests.