Unsurprisingly, those who actually go to church are less inclined to support to Trump. As Cleets sometimes suggests, the same might also be true for those who actually read the bible.
https://thebulwark.com/why-did-evangeli ... O5nOBBE0l0Of all the developments that have come along with Donald Trump’s capture of the Republican Party, few have been as unexpected as his robust support among conservative white evangelicals. What caused these socially conservative voters to embrace a candidate who built his brand on values so strikingly dissimilar from theirs? Why have many evangelicals gone so far as to actually uphold Trump’s values as a virtue in our current political moment?
I come to the question both as a political scientist and as a friendly observer of, and by some definitions, a participant in, the world of conservative white evangelicalism, who also did not vote for Trump and remains deeply Trump-skeptical. As a political scientist, I think it’s important to try and explain this recent evangelical political behavior in the context of broader questions about our current political moment, and religion and politics. As a friendly observer of conservative evangelicalism, who thinks categorical support for Trump is both unwise and harmful for evangelicals in the long term, I think it’s even more important to understand the reasons for that support. After all, understanding why it happened is the first necessary step to persuade evangelicals that it’s ultimately self-defeating. So, as a political scientist and a friendly observer/participant, I’d like to offer a theory: Donald Trump appeared at a time during which many evangelicals’ rising expectations had turned, rather rapidly, into existential fear. Trump was uniquely positioned to exploit that moment and win over evangelicals. Yet while that support is very real, I also think it is shallower and more conditional than it appears.