A God Gap Driving a Revolution from Conservative to the Far Right in the United States—With Significance for Europe?

Abstract

For some time now, the Christian right in the United States has sought proximity to the Republican Party. However, it is only since Donald Trump’s presidency that the central desires of the Christian right for a moral change have been fulfilled. This hope has existed since the 1980s and has been expressed in far-above-average voting behavior, especially of white evangelicals and Pentecostals for the Republicans. Thus, the Republicans’ focus on moral issues increasingly links them to the image of white Christian nationalism. This stance opposes transgender issues, homosexuality, abortion, and critical race theory and is preoccupied with America’s founding era and racist structures. Favored by the bipolar electoral system and driven by a politics that differentiates between good and evil, a political polarization is establishing itself that leaves hardly any room for compromise. These developments are not limited to the United States but are beginning to migrate globally, as recent incidents in Brazil, Serbia, and Russia show. The United States can be seen as a prototypical case of a particular form of transformation of a democracy into a polarized political system. A certain understanding of religion plays just as much a role in this as the rejection of plurality, especially at the level of sexual and gender diversity.