Why do so many evangelical Christians support former President Donald Trump despite his decades of documented ungodly behavior?
An in-depth report from The Economist shows that it has a simple explanation: They believe that God personally appointed him to rule the United States.
In fact, the report cites a survey conducted by Denison University political scientist Paul Djupe that around 30 percent of Americans believe Trump “was anointed by God to become president.”
Both the RawStory and The Economist articles are quite vague about what specific 2021 Pew poll they’re talking about. I’m very skeptical of this 30% number. The Economist article itself made no such claim.
My mom believes it and told me at her Bible studies they all talk about how God put Trump on Earth to protect America. So there’s that. It’s mostly old ass Christians, but unfortunately for us America is mostly old ass Christians because the Baby Boomer generation was FUCKING HUGE. Hats off to the leftist Christians who actually understand Jesus’ teachings
In fact, the report cites a survey conducted by Denison University political scientist Paul Djupe that around 30 percent of Americans believe Trump “was anointed by God to become president.”
Not a Pew Research Poll.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/full-armor-of-god/2B21DC6F17E88C6DF7275F45A66DF104
I’ll see if I can find it on open scholar or something similar.
EDIT: Here we go!
https://annas-archive.org/md5/da76eb110551fd4028c9c0a8e185f0ce
You can thank Cambridge for paywalling scientific knowledge for why the article is so hard to find.
I mean it took me about 10 minutes, but I guess most people do not know how to do research on the internet.
So I dug into this, and the following excerpt is the only piece of information related to the claim in question:
In the run up to the 2020 election, religious conservative public figures – for example, Rick Perry – claimed that Donald Trump was anointed by God; Perry called him “the chosen one” (see Djupe and Burge 2019). The head of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Council, Paula White, went a bit further: “To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that.” In May 2019, 21.4 percent of Protestants believed Trump was anointed by God to be president, as did 29 percent of evangelicals, and a majority of Pentecostals (like Paula White). Belief in Trump’s anointing increased considerably closer to the 2020 election (Djupe and Burge 2020; Edsall 2020).
Here are the original sources of the claim:
I’ll keep editing this comment as I get further into it.
Edit 1: added archive link for Edsall 2020
Edit 2: fixed the link for Djupe and Burge 2019
Edit 3: Here is an archive link to the Economist article.
Edit 4: relevant quote from the Economist article:
In a survey conducted by Mr Djupe shortly before the election, three in ten Americans believed Mr Trump “was anointed by God to become president”.
Edit 5: Conclusion
It seems as though the Economist article, and therefore the Raw Story and various other articles referencing it, are not correct. I’ve looked through a couple dozen resources at this point, and I cannot find any publications from Djupe or Burge substantiating this “30% of Americans” claim. However, I did find
However, I did find this:
Other surveys have shown similar results. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans, not just church-attenders, about God’s role in recent presidential elections. They found that 32 percent of the more than 6,000 respondents, a sizable minority, believed Trump’s election must be part of God’s overall plan—though only 5 percent of those respondents believed God chose Trump because of his policies.
So maybe the 30% finding was from Pew after all? I’m going to send all this to the Economist to ask for clarification.
I was able to find what I think is the original source: https://religioninpublic.blog/2019/11/25/was-donald-trump-anointed-by-god-are-all-presidents-anointed-by-god/
It was a survey of 1000 protestant Christians (in 2019) and they found that 30% of those surveyed, who went to church once a week, thought Trump was appointed by God. So terrible reporting all around.
Why I believe this is the original source is the article in the link is by the professor referenced in the original article/economist.
