Politics

Trump’s religious facade crumbled at his Georgia church rally

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Trump’s religious facade crumbled at his Georgia church rally

Donald Trump’s “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” in Zebulon, Georgia, on Wednesday was very short on words about believers, ballots or faith. In the closing days of past campaigns, the Republican Party and its Christian right allies made strong appeals to these voters to get out to the polls in huge numbers to save “Christian” America and “biblical” values. On Wednesday, though, Trump’s perfunctory appearance at Christ Chapel Church in the battleground state punted on an opportunity to make such a plea inside a church. The abbreviated, uncomfortable charade showed how Trump, in his third presidential run, has dispensed with the GOP’s farcical claim to being the party of religious Americans, relying instead on his status as a messiah figure to mobilize his loyal base of white evangelical voters.

One of the town hall participants asked Trump about a survey released earlier this month by the evangelical pollster George Barna and Arizona Christian University, claiming that 32 million regular churchgoers may not vote this November (this is not the first time Barna has made such dire pronouncements, including in 2016, when Trump won). Asked to “share a final message to those Christians to encourage them to go to the polls,” Trump could not even bring himself to offer such a message. He did not acknowledge or thank the voters who helped propel him to the White House eight years ago and stood by him throughout his scandalous presidency and insurrection. Instead, he said, “Christians are not tremendous voters,” and then rambled for nearly three minutes on themes of religious persecution by “not nice” and “stupid” people, guns and COVID restrictions, without completing coherent sentences or thoughts.

Trump has drifted away from Christian right leaders who, unlike Kirk, have proven track records in organizing and energizing evangelical voters.

That lack of concern may be due to his evident decline and increasing indiscipline, or the hubris arising from being persistently told he is God’s anointed candidate. It may also stem from his embrace of a new evangelical leader, far-right campus troll and election denier Charlie Kirk. To the chagrin of many Republicans, Kirk’s organization, Turning Point Action, is performing GOTV functions for the Trump campaign, part of a new, untested Trump strategy for mobilizing irregular voters that is worrying veteran Republican strategists. Turning Point hosted a campaign event in Duluth, Georgia, directly after the one in Zebulon on Wednesday, but it was not billed as an event connected to Believers and Ballots, supposedly the Trump campaign’s own religious outreach. At the Turning Point event, according to The Associated Press, Kirk claimed Democrats “stand for everything God hates” and called the election “a spiritual battle.”But Trump seems to have little energy for any battle, spiritual or otherwise, and has drifted away from Christian right leaders who, unlike Kirk, have proven track records in organizing and energizing evangelical voters. He created a rift when, at the Republican National Convention, the party took control of the platform drafting process and sidelined influential activists like Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and Chad Connelly, a longtime evangelical outreach operative. Perkins, in particular, protested loudly that the platform “watered down” the party’s anti-abortion stance.

But Trump (who reportedly edited the platform personally) ended up getting his way. The resulting document gaslit the public, facilitating Trump’s claim that he had “softened” his stance on abortion even as he boasted repeatedly of his central role in overturning Roe v. Wade.

Around that same time, Kirk and fellow far-right provocateur Jack Posobiec proved their fealty by promoting the idea that God saved Trump in the assassination attempt this past July, days before the Republican National Convention. Posobiec and Kirk both claimed that, because the bullets were fired at 6:11 p.m., Trump must have been protected by the armor of God described in Ephesians 6:11. The meme traveled like wildfire in right-wing circles, Trump’s status as a victorious savior shielded by divine protection became a talking point at the Republican convention and Trump now regularly appears at Turning Points events. But neither Trump nor his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, appeared at Pray Vote Stand, the annual political conference formerly known as the Values Voter Summit, hosted by Perkins’ FRC and in the past a key campaign stop for Republican hopefuls.

If evangelicals show up on Election Day, it won’t be the old “Christian values” that bring them to the polls.

Whether this will matter in the end for Trump’s evangelical turnout remains to be seen. Surveys from both the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute this fall show Trump roughly matching his previous share of the white evangelical vote, at 82% and 81%, respectively. But Wednesday’s event proved that if evangelicals show up on Election Day, it won’t be the old “Christian values” that bring them to the polls.Amid GOP panic over losing women and swing voters who support abortion rights, Trump appears adrift in his evangelical mobilization, meandering through disconnected verbal thickets of insults and boasts, unable to focus on issues or hammer home talking points. If he loses the election, recriminations will fly among Republicans and Christian right powerbrokers about whether he did enough to get these voters to the polls. If he wins, though, his second presidency will be even more driven by spiritual warfare, toxic social media trolls, and Bible-fueled conspiracy theories than his first.

Politics

US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict

Published

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June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

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Published

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Poll: Voter cynicism remains a potent threat to incumbents across the globe

Published

3 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters punished ruling parties across the globe in 2024. They are doing it again now.

The same voters who rejected their rulers without mercy on both sides of the Atlantic — throwing out Britain’s Conservatives after 14 years in power and humbling Democrats in the United States — are now poised to deliver resounding defeats to the very leaders they elected two years ago.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces the prospect of being ousted later this year if a key rival in Manchester can pull off a win in a special parliamentary vote next week. President Donald Trump, while locked into power until January 2029, appears to be barreling toward lame duck status with Democrats growing increasingly bullish about their midterm prospects in November — particularly in winning back the U.S. House.

And The POLITICO Poll suggests Western voters’ desire for political bloodletting hasn’t abated.

Building on previous work by Public First, the London-based firm that conducts the survey, a new analysis of May Blue Light News Poll results show large shares of voters in both the United Kingdom and United States express deep cynicism about politics and a constant desire for radical change — suggesting the forces behind the backlash may still be potent, and that power switching hands this year may not be enough to quell them.

In America, 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump. In the U.K., voters are similarly angry at politicians, who they blame for being unable to address a variety of issues, including cost of living and immigration. New results from The POLITICO Poll, conducted over the weekend, show a 56 percent majority of U.K. adults said the bigger problem with politics in the U.K. is the politicians who do not do the right thing, while just 15 percent blame the system itself.

That deep dissatisfaction has metastasized into a perpetual anti-incumbent frustration in recent years. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party had its worst result in a national election in several decades, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau stepped down amid growing voter frustration. Just since February of last year, the rulers of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have all been ejected at key elections.

Now the U.K. is watching the vote in Makerfield next week, which may determine whether Starmer gets to keep his job amid public outrage at his handling of fallout from the Epstein scandal, and voter concerns about immigration, the economy and law enforcement. If Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, succeeds in being elected back to Parliament next week, it will almost certainly trigger a series of events that could end in the removal of the deeply unpopular Starmer as the head of the Labour Party — and prime minister.

The result could ripple across the Atlantic as Republicans face their own political headwinds ahead of the crucial November midterms in the United States.

“What we’re seeing is a cross-Atlantic disconnect between voters and electeds,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist in Washington and senior partner at Penta, a consulting firm.

“Voters in the U.S. are squarely focused on at-home domestic priorities and kitchen-table concerns like food, health care and housing costs. So when the headlines are focused on foreign conflict and disruptions to global markets, those will reinforce the disconnect.”

Deep cynicism in the UK spells trouble for Starmer

In 2024, the rejection of incumbents came amid a growing frustration over the cost of living and broader economic anxieties. Whether that backlash was a temporary response — or reflects an engrained dissatisfaction with political institutions — is a question now confronting leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, as affordability concerns continue to spiral.

In the U.K., the analysis from Public First finds a deep sense of political disillusionment. The firm developed a series of measures to understand that feeling of “anti-politics”, and cynicism stood out: Voters who believe politicians are self-serving, that political talk rarely leads to real action and that the public has little influence over what politicians actually do.

Nearly half of British adults — 45 percent — scored high on Public First’s cynicism scale; so did 37 percent of U.S. adults.

The findings underscore the challenge facing Starmer. New results from The Blue Light News Poll conducted last weekend show nearly two-thirds of U.K. adults — 64 percent — said they don’t think Starmer will remain as prime minister until the next general election.

The center-left U.K. leader has suffered the most dramatic plunge in popularity of any prime minister in British history. Since winning a landslide victory just under two years ago, Starmer has seen his Labour Party fall to historic lows in opinion polls, while the nationalist right-wing Reform U.K. of Nigel Farage has stormed into the lead in polls and local elections, mirroring the success of insurgent populists across Europe.

Three-quarters of highly cynical voters in the U.K. hold an unfavorable view of Starmer, the Public First analysis of a May Blue Light News Poll found — far higher than the national average.

The Makerfield by-election on June 18 will determine whether Burnham, Starmer’s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour’s representative, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister. Burnham’s main rival in the by-election is the Reform U.K. candidate — whose victory would likely end Burnham’s leadership ambitions, plunge Labour into unprecedented turmoil and send the national government into fresh disarray.

But Makerfield looks likely to be terrible for Starmer, whoever wins. Either it will be Burnham, who will then go to London to try to oust the prime minister, or it will be Reform U.K. — fuelling claims that Starmer has toxified his own party beyond repair.

Why Trump should be watching closely

It’s a cautionary tale for Trump, the Public First research found.

As Starmer confronts dropping favorability ratings, Trump’s own numbers have also plummeted — and the segment of cynical Americans may be as dangerous for the president as their British cohort is for the prime minister.

Among this group, 57 percent hold an unfavorable view of Trump and his agenda, compared with 48 percent nationally.

That could pose a challenge for Republicans heading into the midterms. Elections in the U.S. historically punish the party in power, and many Republicans are bracing for an even more difficult than anticipated midterm landscape, fueled by the mounting economic concerns and an unpopular war in Iran.

“The biggest mood shift is taking place among voters in the big middle,” Madden said. “These are the same voters that migrated toward Trump and the GOP in 2024 because they were nostalgic for a Trump economy and they rallied around a message focused on tackling inflation.”.

Sizable shares of cynical Americans hold negative views about the economy. Among these respondents, 52 percent say their financial situation has worsened since Trump took office in 2025 and 59 percent say Trump has spent too much time focused on international affairs rather than domestic issues.

Trump, who rode to power in 2024 in large part over voter dissatisfaction to the economy during the Biden administration, is now confronting a similar challenge. Recent polling finds voters increasingly blaming Trump for their financial pressures, even as he continues to cast blame to his predecessor.

Part of the problem for incumbents is that many people blame politicians — not the broader system — for their dissatisfaction, underscoring the challenge for the leaders as voters begin to turn on them. Nearly half of British adults, 45 percent, say the country keeps changing prime ministers “because none of them are any good,” while just 26 percent blame “big problems that not even a good PM could solve.”

As soon as leaders are elected by a frustrated, dissatisfied electorate to turn things around — as both Starmer and Trump were in 2024 — the clock begins to tick.

“Elections are so often now about which candidate can channel the frustrations of a cynical electorate,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, Blue Light News’s polling partner.

“Republicans and Democratic candidates alike should pay attention to what is happening in the U.K.,” he said. “It is far harder to win over an antipolitical voter base when you represent the ‘politics,’ and given how fast Britain is working through Prime Ministers cynical voters seem to be getting more common and less patient.”