[Special Feature: The Presidential Election and the Future of America] Saho Matsumoto: The Victory of the Republican Party as a Religious Party and Policy Forecasts for the Future Trump Administration

The United States is a nation founded on the basis of pure Protestant teachings, specifically Puritanism, even within Christianity. Trump's "America First" likely means "prioritizing one's own country's interests" and "emphasizing domestic affairs over diplomacy," but it also resonates with the roots of Puritanism as "God's chosen people, America as the Kingdom of God."

Since its founding, the United States has repeated religious Great Awakening movements more than four times up until around 1960. During that time, it transformed a barren land inhabited only by indigenous peoples into the world's most prosperous superpower in less than 300 years. This history of the U.S. exists because Americans have been instilled with a strong pride in being a people chosen by God, rather than just enjoying God's blessings.

This resurgence of religion in politics is not occurring only in the U.S.; it can be seen as a phenomenon happening worldwide as a backlash against globalization. Religion is a source of identity politics and is important for clarifying who one is and where one belongs, and this cannot be denied. It is also important to note that in democratic nations, freedom of belief and freedom of religion are positioned as extremely important.

Trump's re-election in the U.S. presidential election is a symbol of this era of religious resurgence. In this election, one of the important reasons for his re-election was that he gained Hispanic Catholic votes in addition to the votes of Protestant Christian Evangelicals. Since 9/11, the U.S. Republican Party has strengthened its color as a "religious party" since the George W. Bush era, though strictly speaking, there were signs of this from the Nixon and Reagan eras. However, Trump has carried this forward in a different form. In contrast, the Democratic Party has historically tended to emphasize being a "secular party." Considering why Harris—a woman who served as Attorney General, a racial minority, and who advocated for women's abortion rights, open immigration policies, and the expansion of LGBTQ rights—lost this time, it could be said that voters are not necessarily seeking a secular and liberal leader. In particular, while the social class that supported Trump is centered on relatively low-income blue-collar workers, it is necessary to analyze the inconvenient reality that many secularized elites are among Harris supporters. For blue-collar workers, illegal immigrants may threaten their livelihoods by working for low wages, whereas for the middle class and elites, they do not threaten their jobs, so they can afford to speak in platitudes.

Regarding the immigration issue, Trump is not saying he will exclude all immigrants; he differentiates between legal and illegal immigrants and takes a harsh stance toward the latter. However, for Hispanic legal immigrants, he has aligned with their Catholic religion and traditional values, which is why he gained the Hispanic Catholic vote. Details on this will be discussed later.

Based on this situation, this article analyzes the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election from the perspective of religion and considers what kind of policies and diplomacy can be expected under the new Trump administration.

Many of the Christian Evangelicals who supported Trump this time live in states located in the southeastern United States, which is called the Bible Belt. Living here are many Christian fundamentalists who believe literally in what is written in the Bible. They are often opposed to abortion, opposed to same-sex marriage (which was legalized under the Obama administration), opposed to the expansion of LGBTQ rights, and because they do not believe in evolution, they may practice homeschooling (as public schools teach evolution) and are skeptical of all vaccines, sometimes refusing vaccination.

Protestant Christian Evangelicals played an important role in the birth of the first Trump administration in 2017. During that term, by appointing three conservative Supreme Court justices, the administration overturned the "Roe v. Wade" ruling that recognized abortion rights, effectively opening the way to the criminalization of abortion. Therefore, in this election, abortion did not become a major point of contention. It was unclear whether the Christian Evangelicals who pushed for the criminalization of abortion would turn to support Trump again in this election, but when the results were in, the Bible Belt states were painted bright red, signifying a Republican victory. Georgia, which Biden took in 2020, was reclaimed by Trump this time, and Texas, which is not originally included in the Bible Belt, also showed its presence as a thoroughly Republican state.

Texas is home to what is said to be the largest mega-church in the United States, and the charismatic pastor of that Lakewood Church in Dallas, Joel Osteen, is known as a supporter of the Republican Party. Additionally, the base of operations for Lance Wallnau, a charismatic pastor from a business background who is involved in "Project 2025" associated with the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, is also located here.

However, there is also concerning data. In the 21st century, secularization has progressed particularly in developed countries, and religious faith in Christianity has declined among young people in the West, with church attendance continuing to decrease. The "God's country" of America is no exception, and it is true that church attendance on Sundays has dropped among Millennials and Gen Z.

There are approximately over 1,300 mega-churches across the U.S., and the average attendance at the top 50 churches exceeds 10,000 people. The definition of a mega-church is a facility (sanctuary) that can accommodate 2,000 or more people at once, but in fact, the number of these mega-churches and the participation figures there have not particularly decreased. Why is this, even though church attendance among young people is falling? In these mega-churches, while charismatic pastors preach the "Gospel," they do not label themselves as "Christian Churches," and the majority of mega-churches are labeled as "Non-Denominational." Many mega-churches have sports and entertainment facilities on their vast grounds, playing a role more like a community center than a church. However, as far as the author has investigated, religious activities are also conducted in these mega-churches. Yet, statistically, mega-churches explicitly marked as "Non-Denominational" are not included in "Christian Churches."

In the U.S., Catholics, who are a minority, traditionally had a strong tendency to support the Democratic Party. However, a fundamental change occurred in the trend of the Catholic vote, which contributed to Trump's victory in the 2024 election. 58% of the total Catholic vote went to Trump, while Harris remained at just under 40%, resulting in a complete reversal. The reason is that the majority are Hispanic Catholics, who, also being a minority compared to whites, previously showed prominent support for the Democratic Party, but many Hispanic votes were cast for Trump this time.

Furthermore, when multiplying religion with race and gender factors, as shown in Figure 1, the voting behavior of Hispanic Catholic men completely flipped: while Biden took 59% and Trump took 36% in 2020, in 2024, Harris took 44% and Trump took 54%. This also involved the gender factor of Harris being a woman. Additionally, while Biden was Catholic, Harris is a Protestant of a Black Baptist church (the church of Martin Luther King Jr.), and because the Democratic Party follows a secular line, she showed very little religious color during the campaign. The fact that her background is Asian and African, but not Hispanic, may also be a reason.

The seven states called swing states, where support switches between the Democratic and Republican parties in each election, include the Rust Belt (states in the declining northern industrial zone) and the Sun Belt (southern states with long sunshine hours and expanding employment due to recent industrial attraction). Here too, the results of the shift in the Hispanic Catholic vote were seen. Comparing 2020 and 2024 in Figure 2, Nevada and Arizona, which are part of the Sun Belt, were taken by the Democrats in both '16 and '20, but Trump took them back from the Democrats in 2024. Furthermore, looking at Figure 3, it can be seen that these southwestern states are also states where the Hispanic population has reached 25% or more in recent years.

Nevada is located in the south and adjacent to Arizona, which borders Mexico, making it easily accessible for Hispanics. Moreover, it has Las Vegas, with many restaurants, hotels, casinos, live houses, and music halls, making it easy to find service industry jobs; in fact, many Hispanics are employed among the personnel working there. Furthermore, although not limited to Hispanics, workers in these leisure and restaurant industries have a high dependence on tip income because their earnings are lower than office workers (tips for food and drink in the U.S. are over 25%, about 2.5 times that of Europe). The Trump campaign's pledge in this election to make tip income tax-free likely had an influence as well.

In the next chapter, I would like to look at what kind of foreign policy the Trump administration born in this way will conduct in the future, focusing on Middle East policy, which is important from a religious perspective.

There are three main reasons why the U.S. supports Israel. Not only the U.S. but also Europe has recently toned down its support, criticizing Israel and condemning the current Netanyahu administration (due to its coalition with religious far-right parties), while taking care not to condemn the state of Israel itself. In the background is, first, the history of the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II—the systematic mass murder of Jews, where 6 million people fell victim to concentration camps and gas chambers. Regarding this, there is a sense of guilt that despite the UK and U.S. being vaguely aware of it during the war, they took no measures until the end of the war, and that Christian churches (both Catholic and Protestant) had been complicit in discriminating against Jews for nearly 2,000 years (Jews were driven out of the land of Palestine by the Roman army after the legalization of Christianity in the late Roman Empire).

Because part of the responsibility for the wartime Holocaust lies with the Christian West, the country of Israel was founded after the war in 1948. At that time, the memory of the Holocaust was vivid not only in the West but throughout the world, leading to UN recognition. However, after its founding, Israel experienced several Middle East wars, and the once-weak Israel grew into a military power with the support of the UK and U.S. (becoming solely the U.S. within a few years), turning many Palestinians into refugees and leading to the current Gaza conflict.

Even today, criticizing Judaism while criticizing Israel tends to be a taboo, and denying the Holocaust can be a criminal offense (for example, in Germany, one can be arrested just for wearing fashion items with Nazi symbols). However, despite the fact that criticizing Israel and criticizing Judaism are different things, the majority of Israeli citizens and Jews do not distinguish between them (though a minority of liberals do).

The second religious reason is that in the U.S., particularly the Christian Protestant Evangelicals who support Republican Trump, believe in Christian Zionism. Although Biden is Catholic, it cannot be said that he has no sympathy for this Christian Zionism. That ideology is defined as follows:

1. Israel is the only country given by God (the God of Judaism and Christianity).

2. The parent body of Christianity is Judaism.

3. Jesus was executed as a Jew.

4. There are blessings from God for Christians who support Israel.

5. God's judgment will fall upon Christians who mistreat Jews.

Christian Zionists believe that their souls will head to Jerusalem after death and will be saved by going to Jerusalem.

However, there are Muslims in Jerusalem. Therefore, they want Israel to subdue the Muslims and make Jerusalem a land for Judaism and Christianity. This is because the "Book of Revelation" in the Bible states that when the end of the world comes, Jesus will appear on earth to fight the devil and separate those who go to hell from those who go to heaven.

The origin of this Christian Zionism actually lies in 19th-century Britain during the British Empire era, but it eventually spread to the U.S. and remains a strong idea among American Christians today, especially among the Christian Evangelicals who support Trump. Therefore, a more pro-Israel policy than during the Biden era is expected in the second Trump administration.

Another important point not to be forgotten in U.S. policy toward the Middle East is the Abraham Accords signed in August 2020 during the first Trump administration. This was a diplomatic agreement concluded between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which Bahrain later joined. This is highly likely to hold the key in the second Trump administration. Although it is an agreement Trump concluded, Biden also recommended it. For that reason, Hamas, fearing they would be abandoned by Arab nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia that had supported Palestine until then, launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 2023, which was the trigger for the current Gaza conflict.

Abraham is named after the prophet recognized equally by the People of the Book—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism—and it is an agreement that these three religions can get along. The internal reality is a deal where the Arab Gulf states, enriched by oil, can receive scientific and technological support from Israel and the U.S. in preparation for oil depletion or a price collapse, and also suppress their rival, Shia Iran, within the same Islamic faith. Although the Abraham Accords are currently frozen due to the Hamas surprise attack on Israel, Trump seems to believe he can revive them and restore trust in the international community again as a peace mediator.

The outcome depends on how Trump can control Israel's Netanyahu, who is in a coalition with far-right religious Jewish parties. Since the Christian Evangelical lobby that supports Trump believes that Palestinians should just disappear, the focus will be on whether he can bring a trigger for peace to the Middle East as a business deal while balancing this.