Abstract
This research evaluated the phenomenon of white evangelical Christian women’s endorsement of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were utilized with high-identifying evangelical, conservative Christian women who voted for Trump in the 2016 US presidential election to reveal the motives for their patronage. This qualitative study aimed to identify how the participants resolved potential cognitive dissonance in their support of Trump. The data from this study showed that, while the participants viewed Trump as a flawed and coarse man, they believed their vote for him was most consistent with their religious identity and moral values, given the alternative candidates they had to choose from. A long-standing prejudice of white evangelical Christian women against Hillary Clinton appeared to form an asymmetrical moral assessment between Clinton and Trump. The participants were able to downplay any conflict they felt regarding Trump’s morality. Trump’s unchristian-like behaviors were minimized or dissipated under the manifestation of their communal religious identity and situational moral principles. The participants dismissed negative mainstream news stories about Trump as “fake news.” A free press is an essential component of any healthy democracy and is protected by the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. When citizens do not have confidence in the press to be truthful while holding the government and powerful people accountable, democracy is put under pressure and is weakened.
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Notes
- 1.
Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and to Dr. AD Akande for his professorial editorial assistance. Portions of this chapter were originally published in Brisbane, (2019). “That Reminds me of Jesus: White Evangelical Christian Women’s Perceptions of News Outlets Persecution of Donald J. Trump” at the University of Colorado Boulder, and also in ProPublica (Brisbane, 2019).
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Brisbane, G.J. (2023). Why Evangelical Christian Women Voted for Donald Trump: A Crisis of Conscience and Moral Integrity—The Cognitive Dissonance. In: Akande, A. (eds) U.S. Democracy in Danger. Springer Studies on Populism, Identity Politics and Social Justice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36099-2_10
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