Trump Wants to Make Religion Great Again, and Elections Unnecessary

By SAM URETSKY

Queen Mary (The Bloody)
Had an understudy
Who was a Prot:
She was not.
— W. H. Auden (Academic Graffiti)

In 1534 Henry VIII pushed through the Act of Supremacy. The Act made him, and all of his heirs, Supreme Head of the Church of England. This meant that the Pope no longer held religious authority in England, and Henry was free to divorce Catherine of Aragon and so could marry Ann Boleyn. Despite breaking with Rome and overthrowing the authority of the Pope, Henry never became a Protestant himself. However, Edward VI, the son he eventually had with this third wife Jane Seymour, was raised Protestant. When Edward died, his sister, a devout Catholic, wanted England to return to the Catholic church. When anyone refused to rejoin the Catholic Church, they could be, and were, burnt at the stake. It’s estimated that 300 people were killed during her five-year reign. Mary’s sister Elizabeth I, returned to the Anglican church, but only executed about 10 people.

The notion of an official state religion still exists. A study by Pew Research concluded that about 80 nations have either a state religion, or a religion that is favored by the government. Modern England continues to have an official religion and King Charles has the title Defender of the Faith, although in practice there is freedom of religion. When the American colonies were trying to form a constitution, Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #51 wrote “In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other, in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.”

This was the basis of The No Religious Test Clause, Article VI, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, which states that no religious test can be required to hold public office or a public trust. The clause was introduced at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and unanimously adopted on Aug. 30, 1787. Even so, this clause was controversial during ratification debates, with some delegates were opposed because they believed it would allow non-Christians to hold public office.

George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, promised that “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

It was a promise, but also an experiment. Al Smith in 1928 was the first Catholic nominated by a major party for the presidency, and he lost to Herbert Hoover in a landslide. The reason may have been the result of the economic prosperity of the time, but there was anti-Catholic prejudice that affected Smith’s candidacy. When John F. Kennedy decided to run for president, he gave a speech, “Are we going to admit to the world that a Jew can be elected Mayor of Dublin, a Protestant can be chosen Foreign Minister of France, a Moslem can be elected to the Israeli parliament—but a Catholic cannot be President of the United States? Are we going to admit to the world—worse still, are we going to admit to ourselves—that one-third of the American people is forever barred from the White House?” Kennedy won the presidency in one of the closest elections in American history—by a margin of 118,000 votes out of 69 million.

Now Donald Trump is trying to revive the religious issue. When he survived an assassination attempt, he said, “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness.” Admittedly the remark is non-sectarian, but it is rare to find Trump crediting any force but himself.

This year, Trump charged that Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their faith and to Israel. Trump opponents accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes while his defenders suggested he was making a fair political point in his own way. Jonathan Sarna, American Jewish history professor at Brandeis University, said Trump is capitalizing on tensions within the Jewish community. The New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch publication, headlined “Trump, GOP eye record share of Jewish vote over antisemitism: ‘A real issue.’”

Apparently Trump is relying heavily on the Protestant White male vote. A report by Pew research found Jews and unaffiliated voters (atheist, agnostic) show a preference for Democrats. Pew reported, “As they have for most of the past 15 years, a majority of Protestant registered voters (59%) associate with the GOP, though as recently as 2009 they were split nearly equally between the two parties.”

Trump said to a gathering of Christian conservatives: “I love you. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.” Trump has been asked to explain what he meant by “not going to have to vote”, but he has not explained and not tried to walk back the statement.

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sam.uretsky@gmail.com

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024

Populist.com