Why Do You Worry?

The election was not decided by those “left behind” economically, political scientists discovered; it was decided by dominant groups anxious about their future status.
~Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez

In Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez takes the reader on a historical tour of the rise of white evangelical politics in the United States. Part of the inspiration behind the book is something that many people were wondering in the wake of the 2016 election in the United States: why did such a high percentage of white evangelicals support Donald Trump, a man who has lived the complete opposite of what they say they stand for?

I’m certain I’ve recommended it before, and I will definitely recommend it again. It is interesting and infuriating, enlightening and damning all at the same time. In other words, it’s a good read.

In the later chapters of the book, the readers attention is finally drawn to the 2016 election. The results of the election were a shock to a lot of people. But as we look at the direction of the campaigns, perhaps it’s no surprise that things ended up the way they did.

I think there was little doubt that Hillary Clinton would be the Democrat candidate. It certainly seemed like the path was laid out for her, even though Bernie Sanders made it closer than was probably expected. However, the fact that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination was a bit of a surprise, especially given all that was said about him when his candidacy was first announced, and all that came out during the course of the campaign.

There’s no doubt it was an ugly race. For a lot of people, by the time they were voting, many were holding their noses. Clinton wasn’t exactly a popular figure, though, she certainly showed herself to be smart, measured and capable. There still proved to be a lot of people who don’t think too highly of women in leadership.

Trump’s popularity rose throughout the primaries because he was a guy that “said it like it is” — according to a lot of people. He wasn’t “part of the establishment”. He was a “fresh voice” and a “successful businessman”.(Notice: I’m not putting those in quotes because I’m quoting specific people, but because those are the general arguments I heard in those days.)

He certainly marketed himself well, and his loose affiliation with the truth was a red flag of what a Trump administration would be like. But, for a lot of people, he wasn’t Clinton, and that was enough.

However, he had one more major thing going for him: he stoked the fearful imagination of the majority population. It’s amazing to me how often he talked disparagingly about the “migrant caravans” that were heading to the United States. Using highly racist undertones, Trump implied, and even outright said, some awful things about people who were seeking to come to America from lands further south. But it worked.

He played on very real fears from the white population that they were soon going to be the minority if all “these people” were allowed to enter the country. It’s amazing how the caravans became less of a concern after he was elected; only to be resurrected again when the 2018 primaries didn’t look good for Republicans. In spite of the exaggerations of the dangers of immigrants, people felt like Trump was spot on with his evaluation of the situation. He played on their fears, and he won. (Thankfully, 2018 didn’t see the same kind of results of this fearmongering.)

These same fires were stoked in the 2020 campaign as Republicans repeatedly talked about what a Joe Biden America would look like, using examples of city blocks burned down after riots in some cities. The most ironic one I remember seeing was somebody showing a burned out store with the caption “This is Joe Biden’s America”… while Trump was the one actually in office at the time.

Fear was a major factor. People were given a vision of an awful future and told that if Clinton (and later, Biden) was elected this is what it would look like. It worked the first time. Not so much the second. But my real question is this: why should white evangelicals fear what could happen? Why are they anxious about it?

In Matthew 6:34, Jesus says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” For people who aren’t supposed to be afraid of what the future holds, white evangelicals certainly let fear dictate who got their vote in 2016.

They allowed themselves to be manipulated into voting for a person who said all the right things, but lived the complete opposite. They voted for a man who proudly and openly spoke of assaulting women, made fun of the disabled, incited violence against those who disagreed with him (verbal and physical), a man who had not shown the kind of life that a follower of Jesus should be living.

Here we are, in the second year of a post-Trump America, and people are still letting their fears dictate their actions. There is still a lot of talk of Trump running again in 2024. I can’t imagine the chaos that will ensue if that’s the case. But, how about we not let ourselves be swayed by fear when we come to the polls?

Certainly, there are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with. Things are far from perfect around here. Inflation has been awful. Rising cost of living is really putting a strain on people. To assume that it’s all the fault of the man sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office is wrong, but that’s who is going to get blamed come election time.

I look forward to calmer days in American political discourse. I don’t know when those days are going to come around. But the sooner we stop allowing our fears to dictate who gets our vote, the sooner saner options will come to the fore.