Baylor University released the results of the fifth wave of the Baylor Religion Survey in September 2017 (See American Values, Mental Health and Using Technology in the Age of Trump). It is one of the most extensive surveys that is regularly conducted on religious attitudes in the United States. Around 11000 adults, chosen randomly from a stratified sample, were asked to respond to the survey and the 1501 complete responses were used for the analysis.
The survey was conducted in the first few months of Donald Trump's presidency and, besides regular concerns, the survey focused on Trump voters. The survey found that people who voted for Trump in November 2016 generally believed:
- Themselves to be "very religious;"
- That the US is or was a Christian nation;
- Muslims are a threat to America;
- In gender traditionalism;
- In an Authoritative God. (p-6 of the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) report)
This collection of values and attitudes form the core ethos of what we might call Trumpism. It is a new form of nationalism which merges pro-Christian rhetoric with anti-Islam, anti-feminist, anti-globalist, and anti-government attitudes. (p-7 of the BRS report)
Is "Trumpism" a new kind of nationalism? Trumpism is a new phenomenon and journalists, analysts and academics are still trying to understand it and see where it fits in the political firmament. Some are calling it a new type of conservatism and the biggest transformation of the conservative movement since the 1960s (See Is Trumpism the New Conservatism?), others tussle with the issue and argue that Trump is not a true conservative but he believes in true conservatism and is governing or will govern like a true conservative i.e. there will be no new type of conservatism as Trumpism will soon merge in the mainstream conservative movement (See Is Donald Trump a conservative? We asked the CPAC faithful).
So, again, is Trumpism a new kind of nationalism? The characteristics of Trump voters identified above give us a clue.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
First, survey analysis shows that most of the Trump voters consider themselves to be very religious. Religion is important for them and many of them are evangelical Christians.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
Second, generally, Trump voters believe that America was or still is a Christian nation. The survey statistics show that almost 60% of Americans believe that American is or was a Christian nation, a sign of the overall strength of religious nationalism in the US.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
Most of the those who believed in Christian nationalism voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. The report also acknowledges the strength of religious/Christian nationalism in the US and its association with Trumpism but did not call Trumpism a type of religious nationalism.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
The BRS survey results also showed that Republicans generally subscribe more to religious/Christian nationalism than independents or Democrats. This survey result can be interpreted as indicating that Trumpism is not much different from the mainstream Republican Party that is currently moving closer to Christian nationalism.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
The third characteristic of the Trump voters, based on BRS survey results, was their Islamophobia or fear of Muslims. Generally, Americans feel threatened by both Muslims and conservative Christians. However, most conservative Christians, who voted for Trump, fear Muslims more than any group.
Fear of other religions or "othering" of religions that are different from one's own is a characteristic of religious nationalists. Clearly, if one feels one's religion is the basis of nationalism, then people who do not believe in one's religion cannot be part of one's nation even if they live next door and speak the same language. The following graph demonstrates that people who believe that America was or is a Christian nation consider refugees from the Middle East, who are almost all Muslims, a terrorist threat.
The fourth characteristic of Trump voters is gender traditionalism i.e. men and women have different roles in life. Gender traditionalism is also associated with the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. These characteristics are also associated with Christian nationalism in the US.
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
Source: BRS Wave 5, 2017
These characteristics are associated with religious nationalism worldwide. In fact, religious nationalists belonging to different traditions (Christian, Jewish, Hinduism, Islamic, etc.), though bitter enemies of each other, agree on this issue.
Finally, Trump voters generally believe in an "authoritative God." The concept of authoritative God was given by Baylor University professors Paul Froese and Christopher Bader in their book, America's Four Gods: What We Say about God — & what that Says about Us, published in 2010. Matt Young explains the thesis of the book and the four types of God.
The thesis of the book is, in essence, that classifying people according to their religious denomination (or lack thereof) tells you little about, for example, their politics or their views on science. Instead, Froese and Bader classify people according to the kind of God they believe in: authoritative, benevolent, critical, and distant (not to mention none).
Froese and Bader pose 2 questions, “To what extent does God interact with the world? To what extent does God judge the world?” As a result of interviews and surveys, they conclude that
Americans differ radically in their beliefs about how closely God guides and judges their lives. These two dynamic dimensions of belief reveal four distinct images of God:
1. The Authoritative God—one who is both engaged and judgmental [31%]
2. The Benevolent God—one who is engaged but not judgmental [24%]
3. The Critical God—one who is not engaged but judgmental [16%]
4. The Distant God—one who is not engaged or judgmental [24%]
[5. Atheist [5%]]
But most important, do these different Gods matter? Unequivocally, yes. A person’s God is a direct reflection of his level of moral absolutism, his view of science, his understanding of economic justice, his concept of evil, and how he thinks we should respond to it. And these powerful relationships exist regardless of where he lives, the color of his skin, the amount of money he makes, how many years he has spend [sic] in school, or the church he attends.
Simply put, America’s four Gods lie at the heart of our moral, cultural, and political disagreements. (See America's Four Gods)
Froese and Bader argue that belief in a specific type of Church (or religion) is not a sure prediction of belief in a specific type of God. However, there is some statistical association, for instance, between belief in a distant God and belonging to "nones."
Coming back to Trumpism, most of the Trump voters believe in an authoritative God and those who believe in an authoritative God are more likely to be religious nationalists. Survey results revealed that those believe in an authoritarian God are more likely to want the declaration of the US as a Christian nation and are not likely to favor the strict enforcement of separation of church and state.
Is Trumpism a new type of nationalism, then? The above discussion indicates that of the five characteristics of Trumpism identified by the BRS Wave 5, at least four are also the characteristics of religious nationalism. So, Trumpism does not appear to be a new type of nationalism.
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