Donald Trump: Pontifex Minimus of the Civil Religion of the Big Lie
2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/21567689.2023.2285796
ISSN2156-7689
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoABSTRACTThe American president is the pontifex maximus of the American Civil Religion (ACR). While each U.S. president has their own ‘take’ on ACR, they all endorse democratic values and serve as national pastors. All until Donald J. Trump. This article argues that Donald Trump is the first pontifex minimus in American history: the first leader to self-consciously endorse an anti-democratic civil religion as president. After providing the necessary background in ACR studies and the presidency, it explores Trump's religious values (derived from Norman Vincent Peale's power of positive thinking) and his political beliefs (especially his deep hostility toward democratic governance). It documents both throughout his presidency, but argues that they mature in the waning days of his term. Trump's decision to strike at the heart of the election ritual—the time during which American politics is at its most vulnerable—establishes him as the pontifex minimus of the civil religion of the Big Lie (CRBL). AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank Lonce Bailey, Matthew Hodgetts, Jonathan Keller, Lydia Willsky-Ciollo, and his colleagues in the Politics Department for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. He would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers at Politics, Religion & Ideology for their invaluable help in revising this manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Clinton Lawrence Rossiter, The American Presidency: With a New Introduction by Michael Nelson (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), p. 4.2 Ron Elving, ‘How Presidents Fulfill Their Role As Consoler-In-Chief’, NPR, 31 October 2018, sec. Politics, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/31/662696702/how-presidents-fulfill-their-role-as-consoler-in-chief.3 Richard V. Pierard and Robert D. Linder, Civil Religion & the Presidency (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Academie Books, 1988).4 First and famously articulated by Robert Bellah, ACR is the sacred beliefs (e.g. democracy), symbols (e.g. the Constitution), and rituals (e.g. the Fourth of July) that help Americans understand their nation in light of transcendent reality. See Robert N. Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus, 96:1 (Winter 1967), pp. 1–21.5 Robert D. Linder, ‘Universal Pastor: President Bill Clinton’s Civil Religion’, Journal of Church and State, 38:4 (Autumn 1996),pp. 733–749; Alan Bearman, ‘The Failed Prophet: George H.W. Bush as President of the United States of America’, in Civil Religion and American Christianity, ed. Liam J. Atchison, Keith Bates, and Darin D. Lenz, Revised (Middletown, Rhode Island: Stone Tower Press, 2018), pp. 41–68.6 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency, Reprint edition (Boston, Massachusetts: Mariner Books, 2004); Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987).7 Shanto Iyengar et al., ‘The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States’, Annual Review of Political Science, 22:1 (11 May 2019), pp. 129–146, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034; Jack Citrin and Laura Stoker, ‘Political Trust in a Cynical Age’, Annual Review of Political Science, 21:1 (2018), pp. 49–70, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050316-092550; Samuel Kernell and Laurie L. Rice, ‘Cable and the Partisan Polarization of the President's Audience’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 41:4 (December 2011), pp. 693–711, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5705.2011.03910.x.8 Thomas E. Cronin and Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, 4th edition (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).9 Abigail Vegter, Andrew R. Lewis, and Cammie Jo Bolin, ‘Which Civil Religion? Partisanship, Christian Nationalism, and the Dimensions of Civil Religion in the United States’, Politics and Religion, 26 January 2023, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048322000402.10 It could be objected that adopting minimus (rather than a more objective term—perhaps schismaticus) is too normative. To this I offer two points. Firstly: minimus is the more natural opposite of maximus. Secondly: to the extent that this conveys a normative claim (i.e. that a president ought to seek to be the pontifex maximus not minimus), I believe this is permissible. As I make clear later, the American Civil Religion (capitalized, singular) embraces certain normative commitments to democratic governance that civil religions (lower-case, plural) do not. The pontifex minimus exists within ACR, not civil religions generally.11 Gorski argues that Trump represents a secularized Christian Nationalism. While there is merit in his argument, it continues to attempt establish ‘civil religion’ as a normative category. This may be persuasive in the case of ACR as elite rhetoric, but I disagree with Gorski's narrow approach that defines Trump outside of ‘civil religion.’ I believe it is, it simply isn't the American Civil Religion. For more, see Philip Gorski, ‘Why Evangelicals Voted for Trump: A Critical Cultural Sociology’, American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5, no. 3 (1 October 2017): 338–54, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-017-0043-9; Similarly, Jeffrey Alexander argues that Donald Trump threatened crucial civil institutions. See Jeffrey C. Alexander, ‘Frontlash/Backlash: The Crisis of Solidarity and the Threat to Civil Institutions’, Contemporary Sociology, 48:(1 January 2019), pp. 5–11, https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306118815497.12 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘On the Social Contract’, in The Basic Writings Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing, 1987), p. 141, 164.13 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, ed. Mark S. Cladis, trans. Carol Cosman, Abridged edition (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 157–161; although he does argue that this religious dimension is normatively desirable. See Émile Durkheim, ‘Durkheim's “Individualism and the Intellectuals”’, ed. Steven Lukes, Political Studies, 17:1 (1 March 1969),pp. 14–30, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1969.tb00622.x.14 Rousseau, ‘On the Social Contract’, 226.15 Though Rousseau believes only the people, not the prince or magistrate, is Sovereign. Still, scholars argue that this more ‘top-down’ conception would, in modern societies, most clearly apply to political elites that are justifying/legitimating their claims to authority. See Marcela Cristi, From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion, and Politics (Waterloo, ON, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001); see also Roderick Hart, who argues that what he calls ‘civic piety’ is entirely a product of elite rhetoric: Roderick P. Hart, The Political Pulpit (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1977).16 Marcela Cristi and Lorne L. Dawson, ‘Civil Religion in America and in Global Context’, in The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. James A. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III (London, England, UK: SAGE Publications, 2007), pp. 267–292.17 Ellis M. West, ‘A Proposed Neutral Definition of Civil Religion’, Journal of Church and State, 22:1 (1980), pp. 23–40.18 Blandine Chelini-Pont, ‘Is Laicite the Civil Religion of France Civil Religion in the United States and Europe’, George Washington International Law Review, 41:4 (2010 2009), pp. 765–816; Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State, Civil Religion in Israel (University of California Press, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520313019; Arthur Remillard, Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Aaron Q. Weinstein, ‘Onward Townsend Soldiers: Moral Politics and Civil Religion in the Townsend Crusade’, American Political Thought, 6:2 (Spring 2017), pp. 228–255, https://doi.org/10.1086/691172; Aaron Q. Weinstein, ‘Occupy Wall Street's Civil Religion of the Nones: A Theology of Consensus’, New Political Science, 42:1 (March 2020), pp. 70–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2020.1722540; Dylan Weller, ‘Godless Patriots: Towards a New American Civil Religion’, Polity, 45:3 (July 2013), pp. 372–392, https://doi.org/10.1057.pol.2013.15.19 This is not to imply that ACR is state worship, which Robert Bellah would deny. ACR is ‘state endorsed’ to the extent that it is given form by elites, i.e. top-down.20 Philip Gorski, American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2017).21 Many ‘hate’ a president because they feel subject to his or her whims against their will: ‘If he [or she] symbolizes an America we despise, he [or she] divides our own hearts against themselves.’ Michael Novak, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics (New York, New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1974), p. 11.22 Catherine L. Albanese, Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1976), p. 147, emphasis in original.23 Gorski, American Covenant, pp. 96–98; Barry Schwartz, ‘Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination’, Social Forces, 70:2 (December 1991), pp. 343–364.24 Albanese, Sons of the Fathers; Don H. Doyle, ‘Abraham Lincoln: The Apotheosis of a Republican Hero’, in Political Leadership, Nations and Charisma, ed. Victoria Ibrahim and Margit Wunsch, First Edition (London, England, UK: Routledge, 2012), pp. 80–98.25 Jeffrey Haynes, ‘Donald Trump, “Judeo-Christian Values,” and the “Clash of Civilizations”’, Review of Faith and International Affairs, 15:3 (3 July 2017), pp. 66–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2017.1354463; Mark Silk, ‘Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America’, American Quarterly, 36:1 (Spring 1984), p. 66, https://doi.org/10.2307/2712839.26 James David Fairbanks, ‘Religious Dimensions of Presidential Leadership: The Case of Dwight Eisenhower’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Separation of Powers and the Power to Govern: With Particular References to the Truman-Eisenhower Legacies, 12:2 (Spring 1982), p. 264.27 Jack M. Holl, ‘Dwight D. Eisenhower: Civil Religion and the Cold War’, in Religion and the American Presidency, The Evolving Presidency Series (New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), p. 128.28 Patrick Henry, ‘“And I Don’t Care What It Is”: The Tradition-History of a Civil Religion Proof-Text’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 49:1 (March 1981), p. 41.29 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, ‘Inaugurating the Presidency’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 15:2 (Spring 1985), pp. 394–411; Cynthia Toolin, ‘American Civil Religion from 1789 to 1981: A Content Analysis of Presidential Inaugural Addresses’, Review of Religious Research, 25:1 (September 1983), pp. 39–48, https://doi.org/10.2307/3511310.30 Pierard and Linder, Civil Religion & the Presidency, p. 169; Merlin Gustafson and Jerry Rosenberg, ‘The Faith of Franklin Roosevelt’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 19:3 (1989), pp. 559–566.31 David S. Adams, ‘Ronald Reagan's “Revival”: Voluntarism As a Theme in Reagan's Civil Religion’, Sociological Analysis, 48:1 (1987), p. 20.32 Ann Swidler, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Sociological Review, 51:2 (1986), 273–286, https://doi.org/10.2307/2095521.33 Gorski, American Covenant.34 Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920, Revised (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 13; David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 259–260.35 Gorski, American Covenant, pp. 86–88.36 For instance, ‘Constitution of the Confederate States of America’, in The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry into American Constitutionalism, by Marshall L. DeRosa (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1991), pp. 135–151.37 Wilson, Baptized in Blood, p. 50.38 As Blight notes, ‘Davis helped give the Lost Cause its life blood’, even though he ‘had many predecssors upon whose work he built his mystical defense of the Confederacy.’ See Blight, Race and Reunion, 260; Wilm K. Strawbridge, ‘Knights, Puritans, and Jesus: Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and the Archetypes of American Masculinity’ (Starkville, Mississippi, Mississippi State University, 2011), p. 176.39 Blight, Race and Reunion; Wilson, Baptized in Blood.40 Strawbridge, ‘Knights, Puritans, and Jesus’, pp. 160–74.41 ‘Memorials in a Modern World’, College of the Holy Cross, accessed 31 July 2021, https://college.holycross.edu/RaguinStainedGlassInAmerica/Memorial/Memorial.html.42 James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York, New York: Basic Books, 1991); Mark Silk, ‘American Exceptionalism and Political Religion in Republican Politics Today’, The Review of Faith and International Affairs 10:2 (24 May 2012), pp. 33–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2012.682516.43 Paul H. Elovitz, ‘A Psychobiographical and Psycho-Political Investigation of Biden and Trump in Troubled Times’, The Journal of Psychohistory, 48:2 (2020), p. 85 and 87.44 Mary Trump, quoted in Gwenda Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire (New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), p. 227 and 301.45 Jay Dixit, ‘Donald Trump on Failure’, Psychology Today, 19 May 2009, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/200905/donald-trump-failure.46 Paul Schwartzman, ‘How Trump Got Religion — And Why His Legendary Minister's Son Now Rejects Him’, Washington Post, 21 January 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/how-trump-got-religion--and-why-his-legendary-ministers-son-now-rejects-him/2016/01/21/37bae16e-bb02-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html.47 Blair, The Trumps, p. 301; 454; Schwartzman, ‘How Trump Got Religion’.48 Carol V.R. George, God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale & the Power of Positive Thinking (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 136, 139.49 Lance Cummings, ‘The Dark Alchemy of Donald Trump: Re-Inventing Presidential Rhetorics through Christian and “New Age” Discourses’, in Michele Lockhart (ed), President Donald Trump and His Political Discourse 1st ed. (England, UK: Routledge, 2018), p. 56.50 Cummings, 55; Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Reprint Edition (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).51 Matthew Yglesias, ‘“Low-Energy”: Donald Trump's Favorite Diss on Jeb Bush, Explained’, Vox, 4 September 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/9/4/9258037/low-energy-trump-bush; Glenn Kessler, ‘Trump's Claim That Clinton Lacks the “Physical Stamina” to Be President’, The Washington Post, 18 August 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/08/18/trumps-claim-that-clinton-lacks-the-physical-stamina-to-be-president/; Steve Holland, ‘In Struggle to Land Blow on Biden, Trump Toys with Nickname Change’, Reuters, 15 August 2020, sec. 2020 Candidate Slideshows, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKCN25B01E.52 Cummings, ‘The Dark Alchemy of Donald Trump: Re-Inventing Presidential Rhetorics through Christian and “New Age” Discourses’, pp. 58–59.53 Dixit, ‘Donald Trump on Failure’; Tony Schwartz, ‘Trump Can't Cope with Losing. No Wonder He Hasn't Conceded Yet.’, Washington Post, 11 November 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/11/trump-losing-concede-election/.54 Nate Silver, ‘How I Acted Like A Pundit And Screwed Up On Donald Trump’, FiveThirtyEight, 18 May 2016, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/.55 ‘2016 Election Forecast’, Five Thirty Eight, 8 November 2016, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/.56 Tamara Keith and Meg Anderson, ‘Republicans Call For Donald Trump To Drop Out; Trump Says He Won’t Quit’, NPR, 8 October 2016, sec. Politics, https://www.npr.org/2016/10/08/497181974/republicans-call-for-donald-trump-to-drop-out-trump-says-he-wont-quit.57 David Folkenflik, ‘Trump Won. The Media Lost. What Next?’, NPR, 9 November 2016, sec. Analysis, https://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501460470/trump-won-the-media-lost-what-next; Jim Rutenberg, ‘News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong’, The New York Times, 10 November 2016, sec. Business, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/business/media/news-outlets-wonder-where-the-predictions-went-wrong.html.58 Martin E. Marty, ‘Two Kinds of Two Kinds of Civil Religion’, in Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones (eds), American Civil Religion, (New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974), p. 145; some, like Robert Wuthnow, use Marty's distinction to propose Left (prophetic) and Right (priestly) civil religions. See Robert Wuthnow, ‘Divided We Fall: America's Two Civil Religions’, The Christian Century 105:13 (20 April 1988), pp. 395–399.59 John Avalon, ‘Trump Says He's a Cheerleader for USA. We Need a Quarterback’, CNN, 1 April 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/opinions/trump-coronavirus-hyper-partisan-opinion-avlon/index.html.60 Dana Farrington and Barbara Sprunt, ‘Transcript: Trump Shifts Tone Again On White Nationalist Rally In Charlottesville’, NPR, 15 August 2017, sec. Politics, https://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/543769884/transcript-trump-shifts-tone-again-on-white-nationalist-rally-in-charlottesville.61 Stephen Makes Condemning Nazis Look Easy (Because It Is), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (New York, New York: Ed Sullivan Theater, 2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sheEL099ADM&ab_channel=TheLateShowwithStephenColbert.62 Aaron Blake, ‘This Photo of Trump's Notes Captures His Empathy Deficit Better than Anything’, The Washington Post, 21 February 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/21/this-photo-of-trumps-notes-captures-his-empathy-problem-better-than-anything/.63 Erica Gonzales, ‘Trump Had to Remind Himself to Say “I Hear You” to Students Affected by School Shootings’, Harper's BAZAAR, 22 February 2018, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a18658174/trump-i-hear-you-note-tweets/.64 Jeremy W. Peters, Elaina Plott, and Maggie Haberman, ‘260,000 Words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus’, The New York Times, 27 April 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/26/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-briefings-analyzed.html.65 ‘Trump Tells Woodward He Deliberately Downplayed Coronavirus Threat’, NPR (Washington, D.C.: NPR, 10 September 2020), https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911368698/trump-tells-woodward-he-deliberately-downplayed-coronavirus-threat.66 Bruce Y. Lee, ‘Trump Back At White House, Says “Don't Be Afraid” Of Covid-19 Coronavirus, Is That Reasonable?’, Forbes, 6 October 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/10/06/trump-back-at-white-house-says-dont-be-afraid-of-covid-19-coronavirus-here-are-the-problems/.67 Orin Kerr, ‘Trump Wants to Protect Article XII of the Constitution’, Washington Post, 7 July 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/07/trump-wants-to-protect-article-xii-of-the-constitution/.68 George Thomas, ‘Donald Trump, Constitutional Ignoramus’, The Bulwark, 16 October 2019, https://www.thebulwark.com/donald-trump-constitutional-ignoramus/.69 Campbell and Jamieson, ‘Inaugurating the Presidency’, 396.70 For more, see Michael Kazin, ‘Trump's Civil Religion Has an Angry God’, Foreign Policy, 20 January 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/20/trumps-civil-religion-has-an-angry-god-inauguration-populism/. There are always exceptions, however. Franklin D. Roosevelt is just one such case: in his First Inaugural he argued that the money-changers were indicted in the court of public opinion.71 Christian Lundberg and Joshua Gunn, ‘Trump's Inaugural Speech: Is It Morning or Mourning in America?’, The Conversation, 20 January 2017, http://theconversation.com/trumps-inaugural-speech-is-it-morning-or-mourning-in-america-71656.72 Donald J. Trump, ‘Inaugural Address’, The American Presidency Project, 20 January 2017, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/inaugural-address-14.73 Walter Olson, ‘Trump's Inaugural Address, and the Words That Were Missing’, Cato Institute, 20 January 2017, https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-inaugural-address-words-were-missing.74 Kazin, ‘Trump's Civil Religion Has an Angry God’.75 Donald J. Trump, ‘Full Text: Donald Trump 2016 RNC Draft Speech Transcript’, POLITICO, 21 July 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974; Thomas, ‘Donald Trump, Constitutional Ignoramus’; Bill Chappell, ‘“I’m The Only One That Matters,” Trump Says Of State Dept. Job Vacancies', NPR, 3 November 2017, sec. America, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/03/561797675/im-the-only-one-that-matters-trump-says-of-state-dept-job-vacancies.76 Kevin Quealy, ‘The Complete List of Trump's Twitter Insults (2015-2021)’, The New York Times, 19 January 2021, sec. The Upshot, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-complete-insult-list.html.77 Andrew Rudalevige, The New Imperial Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power after Watergate (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2008); Paul M. Collins, Jr and Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, The President and the Supreme Court: Going Public on Judicial Decisions from Washington to Trump (New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Colleen J. Shogan, ‘The Contemporary Presidency: The Political Utility of Empathy in Presidential Leadership’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 39:4 (2009), pp. 859–877.78 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, ‘Final Report’ (Washington, D.C.: 117th Cong., 2d sess., 22 December 2022), Rep. 117–663.79 Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 276, emphasis added.80 Gillian Brockell, ‘“Grace and Humor”: The Vice Presidents Who Certified Their Own Election Losses’, Washington Post, 3 January 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/02/nixon-gore-pence-trump-january-6/.81 Amy Fried and Douglas B. Harris, ‘In Suspense: Donald Trump's Efforts to Undermine Public Trust in Democracy’, Society, 57:5 (2020),p. 529, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00526-y, emphasis in original.82 Marvin and Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag, p. 277.83 Gary C. Jacobson, ‘Donald Trump's Big Lie and the Future of the Republican Party’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 51:2 (June 2021), pp. 273–289, https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12716.84 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, ‘Final Report’, pp. 76–77.85 In short, had Trump won the 2020 presidential contest, his evident disregard for democratic elections would still invite us to question whether his ‘civil religion’ fell within the bounds of ACR.86 Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’, p. 4.87 Campbell and Jamieson, ‘Inaugurating the Presidency’, p. 396.88 Jeff Mason, ‘Obama Takes Oath Again after Inauguration Mistake’, Reuters, 22 January 2009, sec. Editor's Picks, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-obama-oath-idUSTRE50L09A20090122.89 Olivia B. Waxman, ‘3 Presidents Who Did Not Attend Successors’ Inaugurations', Time, 19 January 2021, https://time.com/5928537/trump-biden-not-attend-inauguration-history/.90 Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, ‘The Threat of Civil Breakdown Is Real’, POLITICO, 21 April 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/21/political-violence-2024-magazine-00093028.91 Bradley Onishi, ‘Trump's New Civil Religion’, The New York Times, 19 January 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/opinion/trump-lost-cause.html.92 Thomas S. Langston, ‘A Rumor of Sovereignty: The People, Their Presidents, and Civil Religion in the Age of Jackson’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 23:4 (1993), pp. 669–682.93 Manisha Sinha, ‘Donald Trump, Meet Your Precursor’, The New York Times, 29 November 2019, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/opinion/sunday/andrew-johnson-donald-trump.html.94 Jeffrey K. Tulis and Nicole Mellow, Legacies of Losing in American Politics (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), p. 91.95 Keith Naughton, ‘Donald Trump Is Just a Smaller, Weaker Richard Nixon’, Text, The Hill (blog), 10 July 2023, https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4085697-donald-trump-is-just-a-smaller-weaker-richard-nixon/; Joseph Lowndes, ‘Trump Wants No Limits on Presidential Power. That's Not New for the GOP.’, Washington Post, 26 July 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/07/27/presidential-power-republicans-trump-authoritarianism/.96 It is true that Nixon knew impeachment and conviction loomed, whereas Trump anticipated support from his party. As I pointed out earlier, hyper-polarization today affects civil religion in numerous ways.97 Charlotte Allen, ‘Political Marketing Through New Media: A Comparison and Contrast of FDR'S Fireside Chats and Trump's Tweets’, Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 14:3 (2020), pp. 48–50; Susan J. Douglas, ‘Breaking the Rules of Political Communication: Trump’s Successes and Miscalculations’, in Pablo J. Boczkowski and Zizi Papacharissi (eds) Trump and the Media (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2018), pp. 133–142.98 Pew Research Center, ‘Americans See Broad Responsibilities for Government; Little Change Since 2019’, Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy (blog), 17 May 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/05/17/americans-see-broad-responsibilities-for-government-little-change-since-2019/; Philip Bump, ‘The Inescapable Partisanship of How People View the Economy’, Washington Post, 15 December 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/15/partisan-views-economy/.99 Sean F. Everton, ‘American Civil Religion in the Era of Trump’, Religions, 14:5 (May 2023), p. 14, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050633.100 Julia Manchester, ‘Majority of Americans View Biden's Anti-MAGA Speech as Divisive: Poll’, Text, The Hill (blog), p. 13 September 2022, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3640627-majority-of-americans-view-bidens-anti-maga-speech-as-divisive-poll/.101 Shane Goldmacher, ‘Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds’, The New York Times, 5 November 2023, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html.102 Andrew R. Murphy, ‘Review Essay: American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. By Philip Gorski. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. 336 Pp. $99.00 e-Book.’, Politics and Religion, 12:1 (March 2019), p. 202, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048319000014.103 Adam Cancryn and Jennifer Haberkorn, ‘Mike Johnson Pushed the “Big Lie.” But Biden World Sees Thornier Issues Ahead.’, POLITICO, 26 October 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/26/mike-johnson-speaker-drama-biden-00123841; Alexandra Ulmer, Tim Reid, and Alexandra Ulmer, ‘Mike Pence, Former Vice President, Drops out of Republican Presidential Campaign’, Reuters, 29 October 2023, sec. United States, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-us-vp-pence-says-he-is-suspending-his-presidential-campaign-2023-10-28/.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAaron Q. WeinsteinAaron Q. Weinstein is an assistant professor of Politics at Fairfield University, where he specializes in the American civil religion and American political thought. His scholarship has appeared in New Political Science, American Political Thought, and other peer-reviewed outlets. He is the author of a forthcoming review chapter on the ACR in The Routledge Handbook of Politics and Religion in Contemporary America (Routledge Press).
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