As the race for the 2024 Republican nomination begins to intensify, it is not clear whether an important GOP constituency will back former President Donald Trump as steadfastly as it did during his first White House run in 2016. The support of conservative evangelicals will be critical to anyone who wishes to secure the party’s nomination, but at this early point in the race, some evangelical leaders are staying neutral or encouraging voters to move on from Mr. Trump.
The influence of conservative Christians in Republican politics is at a high point, as evidenced by the emphasis on appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court and the relentless focus on fighting secular liberalism. The Christian road to Trump was paved over decades, however. And in this episode of History As It Happens, University of Notre Dame historian Darren Dochuk explores the origins of evangelicalism’s rightward move.
“It’s definitely a Cold War moment,” said Mr. Dochuk, the author of “From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism.” “But the post-World War I period is also crucial. Several things are happening. Theologically, within Protestantism you see a very clear break between liberal progressives and evangelicals, who are going to label themselves in the 1920s as fundamentalists.”
With the dawn of the Cold War, many conservative Christians embraced anti-Communism, opposed the integration of schools in the South and fought the major liberal trends of the 1960s and ‘70s, including abortion rights and feminism. By the early 2000s, President George W. Bush was able to champion “faith-based” initiatives. Thus, long before Donald Trump decided to run for president, White evangelicals had become a dominant constituency in the GOP.
Listen to Mr. Dochuk discuss these developments by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
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