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.”
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.
This source linked under “Djupe and Burge 2019” in my original comment :-)
It is also cited directly in Djupe’s Cambridge publication that OP posted.
