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Pushing Back the Obama Legacy: Trump’s First Year and the Alt-Right—Evangelical—Catholic Coalition

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The Trump Presidency

Part of the book series: The Evolving American Presidency ((EAP))

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Abstract

In the 2016 presidential elections, Donald Trump carefully courted an unholy alliance of Alt-Right, conservative evangelicals and Catholics in his successful campaign united around an agenda of pushing back against Obama reforms on LGBT, same-sex marriage, health care, reproductive rights, education and foreign policy. This chapter examines the key issues bringing together this coalition and analyses the campaign promises made by Trump, prior to the election, and the extent to which these are being fulfilled over the first year of his presidency.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alec Tyson and Shiva Maniam, ‘Behind Trump’s Victory: Divisions by Race, Gender, Education,’ Pew Research Center, 9 November 2016.

  2. 2.

    Katie Rogers, ‘White Women Helped Elect Donald Trump,’ The New York Times, 9 November 2016.

  3. 3.

    Gregory Smith and Jessica Martínez, ‘How the Faithful Voted: A Preliminary 2016 Analysis,’ Pew Forum, 9 November 2016.

  4. 4.

    George Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016); George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2016); George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling, The Little Blue Book (New York: Free Press, 2012).

  5. 5.

    James Dobson, Dare to Discipline (New York: Bantam Books, 1977).

  6. 6.

    Dobson, Dare to Discipline.

  7. 7.

    Lakoff, Moral Politics, p. 5.

  8. 8.

    Lakoff, Moral Politics, p. 67.

  9. 9.

    Lakoff, Moral Politics, p. 74.

  10. 10.

    Lakoff, Moral Politics, pp. 73–75.

  11. 11.

    Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant, p. 128.

  12. 12.

    Hilary Clinton, ‘Hilary Clinton Speech on How Donald Trump’s Campaign Has Mainstreamed the “Alt-Right” Hate Movement,’ 25 August 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYyZX3UW8Qc.

  13. 13.

    M. Taylor, What Is the Alt-Right? (London: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2016); George Hawley, Making Sense of the Alt-Right (New York: Colombia University Press, 2017); David Neiwert, Alt-American: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (London and New York: Verso, 2017).

  14. 14.

    Hawley, Making Sense of theAlt-Right.

  15. 15.

    John Woodrow Cox, ‘Let’s Party Like It’s 1933: Inside the Alt-Right World of Richard Spencer,’ Washington Post, 22 November 2016.

  16. 16.

    Stephen Bannon, Documentary Generation Zero, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqu9gh6xhk.

  17. 17.

    Bannon, Generation Zero.

  18. 18.

    Neil Howe and William Strauss, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069 (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1991); Neil Howe and William Strauss, The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny (New York: Broadway Books, 1997).

  19. 19.

    Alexander Livingston, ‘The World According to Bannon,’ Jacobin, 7 February 2017, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/bannon-trump-muslim-travel-ban-breitbart-generation-zero/.

  20. 20.

    J. Lester Feder, ‘This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World,’ https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.jaMxrodeMD#.svD3JbdxQ8.

  21. 21.

    J. Lester Feder, ‘This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World,’ https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.jaMxrodeMD#.svD3JbdxQ8.

  22. 22.

    J. Lester Feder, ‘This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World,’ 15 November 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.jaMxrodeMD#.svD3JbdxQ8.

  23. 23.

    Feder, ‘How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World’.

  24. 24.

    Feder, ‘Bannon’.

  25. 25.

    Keith Koffler, Bannon: Always the Rebel (Washington, DC: Regnery Books, 2017).

  26. 26.

    Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain:Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), p. 21.

  27. 27.

    Smith and Martínez, ‘How the Faithful Voted’.

  28. 28.

    Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (New York: Prentice Hall, 1952).

  29. 29.

    Donald Trump, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York: Threshold Editions, 2015), p. 130.

  30. 30.

    Donald Trump, ‘Here’s Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,’ Time, 16 June 2015.

  31. 31.

    Tessa Berenson, ‘Jerry Falwell Jr., President of Liberty University and Prominent Evangelical Leader, Has Endorsed Donald Trump for President,’ Time, 26 January 2016.

  32. 32.

    Jerry Falwell, ‘President Falwell Donald Trump Introduction,’ 18 January 2016.

  33. 33.

    Michael Horton, ‘The Theology of Donald Trump—Four Words That Reveal What His Followers Really Believe,’ Christianity Today, 16 March 2016.

  34. 34.

    Sarah Begley, ‘Read Donald Trump’s Speech to AIPAC,’ Time, 21 March 2016.

  35. 35.

    Elizabeth Dias, ‘Donald Trump Receives Standing Ovation at Evangelical Meeting,’ Time, 21 June 2016.

  36. 36.

    Michelle Boorstein and Julie Zauzmer, ‘Thrilling Christian Conservative Audience, Trump Vows to Lift Ban on Politicking, Appoint Antiabortion Judges,’ Washington Post, 22 June 2016.

  37. 37.

    Donald Trump, ‘Trump Campaign Announces Evangelical Executive Advisory Board,’ Press Release, 21 June 2016.

  38. 38.

    Max Perry Mueller, ‘The Christian Worldview of Mike Pence,’ Religion and Politics, 10 October 2016, http://religionandpolitics.org/2016/10/10/the-christian-worldview-of-mike-pence/.

  39. 39.

    Phyllis Schlafly, Ed Martin, and Brett Decker, The Conservative Case for Trump (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2016).

  40. 40.

    Julia Hahn, ‘Donald Trump at Phyllis Schlafly’s Funeral: A Movement Has Lost Its Hero, Our Country Has Lost a Warrior,’ Breitbart, 10 September 2016.

  41. 41.

    Donald Trump, ‘Trump Values Voter Summit Remarks,’ POLITICO, 9 September 2016.

  42. 42.

    Donald Trump, ‘Trump Campaign Announces Catholic Advisory Group,’ Press Release, 22 September 2016, https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-catholic-advisory-group.

  43. 43.

    Donald Trump, ‘Issues of Importance to Catholics,’ Press Release, 22 September 2016.

  44. 44.

    Sarah Pulliam Bailey, ‘We’re All Sinners’: Jerry Falwell Jr Defends Donald Trump After Video of Lewd Remarks,’ Washington Post, 10 October 2016.

  45. 45.

    Pew Research Center, ‘How the Faithful Voted: A Preliminary 2016 Analysis,’ 9 November 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/ft_16-11-09_relig_exitpoll_religrace/.

  46. 46.

    Sarah Pulliam Bailey, ‘We’re All Going to Be Saying “Merry Christmas”: Here Are Donald Trump’s Campaign Promises on Religion,’ Washington Post, 7 December 2016; Peter Montgomery, ‘Trump This Thanksgiving,’ Right Wing Watch, 23 November 2016, http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-thankful-for-trump-this-thanksgiving/.

  47. 47.

    Bill Donohue, ‘Trump Will Be Religion-Friendly,’ Christian News Service, 7 December 2016; Emily McFarlan Miller, Adelle Banks, and Kimberley Winston, ‘Trump Advisers: The Faith Factor,’ Religion News, 13 December 2016; Patricia Miller, ‘Meet the New Christian Right, Same as the Old Christian Right,’ Religion Dispatches, 12 December 2016; Jack Noland and Anna Massoglia, ‘Betsy DeVos and Her Big-Giving Relatives: Family Qualifies as GOP Royalty,’ Open Secrets, 1 December 2016.

  48. 48.

    See Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (London: Little, Brown, 2018).

  49. 49.

    Summer Meza, ‘Trump Administration Holds Highest Rate of First-Year Staff Turnover,’ Newsweek, 28 December 2017.

  50. 50.

    Wolff, Fire and Fury; Koffler, Bannon: Always the Rebel; Green, Devil’s Bargain.

  51. 51.

    David Von Drehle, ‘Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?’ Time, 2 February 2017; ‘President Bannon?’ New York Times, 27 January 2017.

  52. 52.

    Darla Cameron, ‘How Trump Is Rolling Back Obama’s Legacy,’ The Washington Post, 31 January 2018.

  53. 53.

    Donald Trump, ‘Presidential Memorandum Regarding Mexico City Policy,’ White House, Washington, DC, 23 January 2017.

  54. 54.

    Donald Trump, ‘National-School-Choice-Week-Proclamation,’ White House, Washington, DC, 26 January 2017.

  55. 55.

    Daniele Palumbo, ‘Donald Trump and the US Economy in Six Charts,’ BBC Online, 20 January 2018.

  56. 56.

    Gallup, ‘Presidential Approval Ratings—Donald Trump,’ Gallup, January 2018.

  57. 57.

    Pew Research Center, ‘Stark Partisan Divisions over Russia Probe, Including Its Importance to the Nation,’ 7 December 2017.

  58. 58.

    PRRI, ‘One Nation, Divided, Under Trump: Findings from the 2017 American Values Survey,’ Public Religion Research Institute, 5 December 2017.

  59. 59.

    Russell Moore, ‘If Donald Trump Has Done Anything, He Has Snuffed Out the Religious Right,’ Washington Post, 9 October 2016.

  60. 60.

    Andy Crouch, ‘Speak Truth to Trump—Evangelicals, of All People, Should Not Be Silent About Donald Trump’s Blatant Immorality,’ Christianity Today, 10 October 2016.

  61. 61.

    David Gushee, Still Christian: Following Jesus Out of American Evangelicalism (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017).

  62. 62.

    Mark Labberton, ed., Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2018).

  63. 63.

    Hawley, Making Sense of theAlt-Right, p. 116.

References

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    Google Scholar 

  • Hawley, George. Making Sense of the Alt-Right. New York: Colombia University Press, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howe, Neil, and William Strauss. Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1991.

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  • Howe, Neil, and William Strauss. The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.

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  • Koffler, Keith. Bannon: Always the Rebel. Washington, DC: Regnery Books, 2017.

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    Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Lee Marsden

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  1. Lee Marsden
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Correspondence to Lee Marsden .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK

    Mara Oliva

  2. Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK

    Mark Shanahan

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Marsden, L. (2019). Pushing Back the Obama Legacy: Trump’s First Year and the Alt-Right—Evangelical—Catholic Coalition. In: Oliva, M., Shanahan, M. (eds) The Trump Presidency. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96325-9_5

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