🇺🇸 Trump’s Comeback: What It Means For Immigrants, People Of Faith And The Press 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Subscribe now to get this column delivered straight to your inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.
(ANALYSIS) Before Election Day, I predicted a long night of vote counting.
I was sort of right.
When I fell asleep Tuesday — well before midnight — the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remained undecided. But all signs, from the New York Times Needle to betting markets, pointed heavily in Trump’s favor.
By the time I groggily checked my smartphone about 5 a.m. Wednesday, Religion Unplugged’s own Clemente Lisi already had published a piece on Trump’s triumph and five things we learned from faith voters.
Post-election autopsies — at least in Harris’ case, that’s the right term — have dominated the last few days.
We’ve learned, via Christianity Today’s Harvest Prude, that Trump “held on to the white evangelical vote while making gains among Catholics and Hispanic Christians.” Or, as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana characterized it, “White Christians made Trump president — again.”
“America, after its long journey through the 2010s and ’20s, is becoming more conservative again,” declared Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist and a former Reagan speechwriter. While making that observation, Noonan said of Trump, “As for me, I don’t like the SOB.”
As we prepare for four more years of Trump in the White House, pay attention to these three storylines:
1. What will Trump’s election mean for immigrants and refugees?
Trump’s tough talk on U.S. border security and his threat of mass deportations were a central part of his successful campaign.
“Some of the president-elect’s proposals seem unlikely, but he has threatened to remove millions of both undocumented and legal immigrants,” Christianity Today’s Emilz Belz explained.
In the wake of Trump’s win, faith groups that help migrants and refugees are reaffirming “their commitment to continue their work,” according to Religion News Service’s Aleja Hertzler-McCain.
Before the election, Idean Salehyan wrote for The Conversation that the outcome could help decide the fate of the 70,000 Afghans living temporarily in the U.S.
“A majority of Christian voters supported President-elect Trump, according to the exit polls, but it’d be an error to presume that means that most Christians align with everything that he’s said in the campaign related to refugees and immigration,” Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, told RNS.
As a journalist, I’ve had the privilege to meet — and tell the compelling stories of — Ukrainian refugees in Alaska and Texas, Afghan refugees in Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, Syrian refugees in Canada and Liberian refugees in Rhode Island.
Ekram Hashemi, born in the U.S. after his parents fled Afghanistan, shows off his “Toys Rule” shirt. His parents are proud of his American citizenship. (Photo by Audrey Jackson)
I’ve written, too, about Mexican immigrants — and other Hispanics — who came to the U.S. in search of a better life.
Certainly, border security is a legitimate concern for the American public.
And undoubtedly, immigration is a complicated policy discussion. But it’s not an abstract one: It involves real people and real lives beyond the cardboard caricatures often prevalent in political discourse.
2. What will Trump’s election mean for people of faith?
After Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., in July, he told the Republican National Convention that he was saved “only by the grace of Almighty God.”
In his victory speech early Wednesday, the president-elect said, “Many people have told me that God saved my life for a reason. The reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission.”
New York Times religion writers Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham offered this post-election assessment:
While politicians have often invoked God or cited passages from the Bible to make their case, the country is entering a new landscape, one where Mr. Trump is not only the leader of the Republican Party but also the de facto figurehead of conservative American Christianity.
Associated Press religion writer Peter Smith detailed this telling scene:
After former President Donald Trump gave his victory speech early Wednesday, at the Palm Beach Convention Center, dozens of his supporters gathered in a lobby to sing “How Great Thou Art,” reciting from memory the words and harmonies of a classic hymn, popular among evangelical Christians.
Meanwhile, the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas noted before the election:
Donald Trump's record on religious freedom is complicated, in part because what he says about religion doesn't match the tone or substance of his administration's actual policy moves.
Dallas also pointed out:
Most Protestants and Catholics think Trump stands up for people with religious beliefs like theirs, but some have raised concerns about whether he prioritizes Christians over people from other faith groups.
In the past few days, I’ve talked to Christians who are over the moon about Trump’s election. They see his return to power as a crucial win in the decades-old culture war over issues such as abortion and transgender athletes playing in women’s sports. (Ironically, voters in a number of states backed abortion rights on Election Day, but it didn’t help Harris, as the Wall Street Journal reported.)
But not all believers celebrated Trump’s comeback. I’ve talked to other Christians — Harris voters — who are aghast at the notion that a convicted felon who paid hush money to a porn star is somehow a political messiah for followers of Jesus.
3. What will Trump’s election mean for the free press?
Pew Research’s weekly media newsletter noted Thursday:
Donald Trump’s reelection could be a pivotal point for the U.S. media. During the campaign, Trump and his allies kept up their adversarial stance toward journalists, threatening to prosecute those he perceives as enemies and strip TV networks of their broadcast licenses.
Republicans’ views toward news organizations have become much more negative since Trump’s first presidential campaign. Four-in-ten Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now say that they have some or a lot of trust in national news organizations, down from 70% who said this in 2016. Republicans also were much less likely than Democrats to say the news media did a good job covering both the 2020 and 2024 elections.
I’m a journalist. My son Keaton is a journalist who works as an investigative reporter for Oklahoma Watch. My wife, Tamie, is a journalist, although she is on long-term disability because of autoimmune diseases.
So this won’t shock you: I’m not a fan of Trump’s “fake news” trope or his labeling of journalists as “the enemy of the people.”
At the same time, as I’ve written previously, I recognize the gap between the news media and people of faith. Back in April, I delved into the political backlash over the “overhyped” use of the term Christian nationalism.
After Trump’s resounding win this week, New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz suggested that the media owe the president-elect an apology.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Cynthia M. Allen offered similar criticism:
Members of the media — particularly those on television networks but also national print publications — were so fueled with hatred for Trump (not always for the wrong reasons) that reporting with prejudice became, it appeared, a feature and not a bug of their job.
I’ll openly acknowledge that I struggle with the best approach to news coverage of Trump.
The role of a journalist is to report facts.
Trump, on the other hand, loves to exaggerate. He tells outrageous stories. He — let’s be honest — lies. He talks like the professional wrestlers I grew up watching.
Trump’s supporters seem to love, or at least tolerate, his approach.
His opponents? Not so much.
Inside The Godbeat
Is Pope John Paul II a New Orleans Saints football fan?
His recent use of the hashtag #Saints — which automatically adds the team’s emoji on X, formerly known as Twitter — has given that impression.
Fans flooded the @Pontifex account after it inadvertently cited the NFL franchise amid a dreadful season, The Associated Press’ Nicole Winfield and Chris Lehourites report.
The Final Plug
“‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ could be a classic.”
That’s Joseph Holmes’ take for Christianity Today on the new PG-rated movie by Dallas Jenkins, who is best known for “the Chosen” TV series.
If Holmes’ name sounds familiar, he frequently reviews films for Religion Unplugged.
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.