Born Again with Trump: The Portrayal of Evangelicals in the Media

Abstract

Since Trump’s ascendancy in American politics and his subsequent election, a number of articles have surfaced in the media trying to explain evangelical voters’ support of Trump. This paper analyzes common descriptions and conceptions of evangelicals by identifying recurring descriptions of evangelicals in 110 online articles published in a two-and-a-half-year period surrounding Trump’s presidential campaign and election. The results indicate that the answer to the question as to why evangelicals support Trump resides not so much in their theology, but in their aspirations for America and assumptions of what America should be like. This paper argues that it is crucial to recognize and address evangelicals’ prevailing attributes as perceived and portrayed by members of their own society in order to keep evangelicalism from descending into an insular, invalid expression.|Keywords: evangelicals and conservative politics, politicization of religion, public opinion, sociology of religion, Trump and evangelicals