How the American Church should adjust to President Trump

The inauguration of Donald Trump for a second time as US president takes place on Monday. Polling shows that a big majority of Irish people are opposed to him, which is probably a product of a number of factors, one being that, for historical reasons, we lean heavily towards the Democratic party, and the second being that we are exposed almost exclusively to anti-Trump opinions.

The first reason, our liking for the Democratic party, is mainly connected to the fact that the Democrats for a long-time were the most pro-Catholic of the two big American parties, and courted the Irish vote. Cities were big Irish populations, like Boston and Chicago, were (and are) Democrat strongholds. And of course, there was the Kennedy family.

The Republicans were the party of the ‘WASPs’, that is, ‘White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants’. But this way of seeing American politics is now very out-of-date.

When we consider the Trump victory in November, we can see that lots of Catholics voted for him. Indeed, he won a majority of the Catholic vote at 53%. Lots of them were Latinos, and lots of others were Irish-Americans. In his last administration, Trump had a lot of people with Irish names.

Therefore, the Republicans are no longer the WASP party. For their part, the Democrats can no longer claim to be the most Catholic party. This has not been the case for a long time, but that memo has not reached Ireland yet. Joe Biden is a practising (but extremely pro-choice) Catholic, and is proud of his Irish roots. But he belongs to his party’s past, not its future. Kamala Harris is closer to what the Democrats look like now. Some version of Harris will win elections for them in the future, because America is a 50/50 country, politically speaking, but the Democrat party that we like to think still exists, is more or less, no more.

Working-class

Trump won the November election largely on the strength of a multi-racial, working-class coalition which included 45% of the Hispanic or Latino vote, the biggest ever for a Republican presidential candidate. With Trump constantly being accused on the Irish airwaves of racism, this may surprise a lot of us. How could a man who is supposedly a racist, win so many Latino votes? The answer is that those voters don’t think he is a racist and voted for him mainly based on economic factors. The cost of living has gone up a lot in America, and although the American economy is doing well overall, many voters feel like they are being left behind. They are paying a lot more for basics like food and fuel these days.

A lot of these voters also turned away from the Democrats because that party has become too obsessed with so-called ‘identity’ issues like race, sex and sexuality”

A lot of Latinos also believe too many people are now entering the country. This may also surprise some of us. How could Latinos want to decrease immigration when that is how they entered the country? But you don’t have to look too far to find an answer. You can easily be an immigrant yourself and believe that the numbers coming in now are simply too high, and that too many are entering illegally, which is circumventing the legal process you went through.

A lot of these voters also turned away from the Democrats because that party has become too obsessed with so-called ‘identity’ issues like race, sex and sexuality and party leaders talked too little about basic bread and butter issues.

Jobs

Trump won by saying he would reduce the cost of living, end unfair trade practices, reduce immigration levels, bring manufacturing jobs back to American and end the obsession with identity issues. He will be much less aggressively pro-abortion than the Democrats as well. Whether he can keep his promises is another matter, but these are what he has been elected to do.

Americans are well aware of Trump’s many character flaws but seem to have decided they would rather a flawed man with good policies in the White House than a better man (like Biden) with bad or failed policies (as they see it).

Where does all this leave the Catholic Church? Well, I think it should be clear that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are a natural fit for Catholic voters. The Democrats are very aggressively pro-abortion and have attacked or sought to curb freedom of religion in various ways, for example, by trying to force Catholic employers to cover ‘medications’ like the ‘Morning-After-Pill’ (which can act as an abortifacient) in their insurance plans.

Trump has attracted lots of low-income voters because the Democrats now seem to be far more on the side of the rich, and the big corporations than was once the case”

In the days before the party went all-in on abortion it was much more natural for a Catholic to gravitate towards the Democrats because traditionally the party was a lot more on the side of the poor than the Republicans.

But in a way few can have expected, Trump has attracted lots of low-income voters because the Democrats now seem to be far more on the side of the rich, and the big corporations than was once the case. They seem far more elitist than they were.

Some Catholics are still attracted to the Democrats because of the question of immigration. Trump is threatening to deport huge numbers of illegal migrants (Biden deported more illegal migrants than you might imagine, by the way), and a lot of American bishops baulk at this.

It cannot be an accident that Pope Francis has announced that Cardinal Robert McElroy is to be the new archbishop of Washington DC, right under Trump’s nose.

If Trump carries out his threat to step up deportation of illegal immigrants, Cardinal McElroy is likely to be a thorn in his side because he has previously criticised Trump over the issue.

Signatories

In December, he was one of the signatories of a statement from the Catholic bishops of California on the matter (he is being transferred from San Diego) which warned against mass deportations while at the same time, and this needs to be stressed, acknowledging that America’s immigration system is in disarray and needs to be brought back under control for the sake of ordinary Americans. So he knows there are two sides to this particular coin.

The leaders of the Catholic Church should not, and very rarely do, come down in favour of one party or the other. You have to go back to the hey-day of the Christian Democratic parties for that. Instead, they will have to assess the policies of any given party, in America, Ireland and elsewhere, on a case-by-case basis, endorsing (say) the pro-life policies of one party, while backing the immigration policies of another.

There will be tensions between the Catholic Church in America and Trump, in his second term as president. But there were tensions with Biden as well. And this is as it should be. The Church should not be in the pocket of any particular party.