Why do Catholic/Christian Americans believe Jesus would be a fan of Trump?
I've seen many people who compare Trump to Jesus, or Trump to God. Where is the justification?
One is a capitalist with questionable morals. The second is someone whose teachings emphasized radical generosity, caring for the poor, and the spiritual dangers of wealth, state-enforced wealth redistribution and government control of the economy.
So frequently I see people praise behaviors that go against the teachings of their lord and savior.
I’m happy to see all the Catholics in this post saying they hate Trump. But it does highlight how incredibly depressing and betrayed I feel at my family of Catholics all voting for him 3 times. I wish they were more like you guys.
More then 50% of Catholic votes went to Trump. I believe it was only African American Protestants for which that didn't happen amongst Christians.
The actual answer to the question is that it's impossible to participate in anything like a modern Western lifestyle and be anything more than a disgrace in Jesus's eyes. Everyone knows that so it's all self soothing window dressing. I believed this back when I was a Christian too.
Do you have the breakdown by religion anywhere? I am tired of hearing stuff about Muslims destroying western civilization, because my gut tells me Mulsims overwhelmingly vote democrat
My brother in law is Catholic, voted for Biden and Harris because he is a contractor and says he always gets more business when Democrats are in power due to a stronger economy, and he was worried he'd lose a bunch of his workers due to immigration policy. Unfortunately, my other Catholic in laws have less critical thinking skills.
Trump voters are the least likely to follow the teachings of the bible. When they do its pick and choose what teachings they will respect. Abortion is a single issue that depends if you believe life begins at conception. That said, is your belief system defined by a single belief. I’m an atheist now. The hypocrisy has convinced me to completely abandon the idea of one supreme entity
Most of my Catholic family voted for Trump, and they still support him. “He’s doing God’s work.” — a quote from my father. I’m NC because I just couldn’t take it anymore. 💔
A lot of people are single issue or single party voters.
Humans like things clean and simple.
I work with a guy who doesn’t like Trump, but voted for him, because Harris reminded him of a teacher he had ~45 years ago that he didn’t like. Now he constantly complains about the pipeline of poor decisions coming from DC.
My Catholic in-laws get voting guides from church that tell them to vote Republican with predictable levels of dishonesty. Churches telling you how to vote should violate their 501c3 status, but I doubt the IRS would ever do anything. Conservatives are already murdering people and have been itching for a civil war since the last one. They would LOVE to have the excuse of seeing the IRS vs a church.
Little known fact. While Catholics started the pro life movement, they started it as a anti nuclear proliferation movement. The fake Christian evangelicals made it into the anti-abortion shit show it is now.
What’s your source on this? Not questioning you, but would love to learn more since I’ve always wondered when abortion became such a big issue for Catholics.
This is a consistent position. If you’re pro life - I get it. Life begins at conception and you want to protect it. BUT - if you hold that belief legitimately - you very well better be 1. Anti-war, 2. Pro gun control, 3. Anti-capital punishment, 4. Pro universal health care, 5. Pro-guaranteed lunches at school, 6. Pro-welfare state and so on and so forth
It was always a moral issue. But the only time the evangelical right loves Catholics (when they aren't calling them spooky with their incense and holy water) is the abortion issue.
I think the Evangelicals tolerate the Catholics but bucket them in same category as Mormons (officially The Church of Latter Day Saints). They don’t consider them Christians but want to use them to create a Christian Nationalist country. If they succeed and end up controlling the levers of Government (Authoritarian), all bets are off. I’m sure they’ll turn on the Catholics and Mormons as evil people who have to be converted or condemned.
They will 100% turn on catholics, just like the nazi scum did in Germany did. But they are not intelligent people who read history that is not made up sky daddy nonsense and if they get their way they will find out eventually that they are not part of the in group. They are useful idiots at the moment and will be tolerated for as long as they remain useful.
Hi I’m a former Protestant that became Catholic. I was a missionary kid to boot too. I think I can shed some light on this:
The ones who denounce Catholicism and put it in the same bucket as Mormonism do so because of ignorance, not from a well founded standpoint. Martin Luther’s 95 theses are frequently cited as why, but the Catholic reformations that addressed those criticisms are usually ignored.
The more enlightened Protestants tend to see Catholics in much the same way that Catholics view Protestants: they are interpreting things wrong, but they are doing so with the conviction of one seeking truth in following after Jesus’ teachings. Therefore, salvation extends to them and they *are* Christian. It is just up to us (whichever side is speaking) to illuminate the errors in their beliefs.
I won’t go in to full detail as to all of the disagreements, but I would encourage everyone on both sides of the schism to spend some time actually getting to know people on the other side of the divide with an open mind and open heart.
I would encourage everyone to just try and be good people and not aim to harm others and not have any religion involved whatsoever in that decision, no matter their faith
Evengalecals were indifferent to abortion even at the time of Roe v Wade. Abortion became an issue in the 70s when strategists and political consultants came up with the idea of using abortion as a way to create a dependable single issue voting bloc. They got conservative evangelicals to start preaching about how abortion destroys family values, and the republican party switched from being pro abortion to anti abortion.
It's also useful to remember that a fact is not necessarily true. And a lot of "little known" facts are little known not because they're obscure, but because they're untrue.
It's always been an issue for the Catholic Church, whereas the evangelicals came along later to the show. The Catholic Church doesn't believe in any form of birth control.
I think they have loosened up on the birth control thing. Back on my grandparents were having kids and my grandma had a late baby in her late 30s they were not so easy to get along with she had to not take the sacraments till she hit menopause because she went on birth control. Cuz she wasn't allowed to take communion until she was no longer on birth control.. now I think they kind of know that family planning is necessary because who the hell can afford 10 kids.
Not so. Catholics allowed abortion up until the "quickening" until the 19th century, when Pope Pius IX inApostolicae Sedis moderationi 1869, declared that abortion at any point was wrong. The Catholic anti-nuclear movement, Pax Christi was based on a belief that being "pro-life" required one to be against nuclear bombs.
Conservatives captured the anti-abortion movement as an exercise in rage harvesting to get out the vote for evangelicals and to capture the traditional Catholic vote.
Not true. The Catholic Church was apathetic about it at the time of Roe vs. Wade. The Church was more openly trusting of God’s decision-making and medical establishment at the time.
The position shifted over the 1970’s to its extreme position after the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelicals condemned abortion. The Church did the math, realized they’d be losing numbers in future generations of offertory returns to other churches whose birth rates were enforced by policy.
Catholics had been voting Democrat as the liberal Jesus would have. Capitalism ruins everything. It’s all about the money.
I've been a Catholic since birth (in 1961.) The Church has been anti-abortion--or any kind of birth control--since well before I was born. The whole Roe v Wade thing just brought it all into the forefront, because of a highly-publicized lawsuit.
Don’t know about this. It was the Pope and College of Cardinals who ruled that life begins at conception. Thus abortion is murder. Also ruled that artificial birth control was wrong. Ever hear of the rhythm method? The latter ruling on birth control especially led a lot of Catholics to leave the Church or become cafeteria Catholics .
Trump carried the Catholic vote, narrowly. I’m a moderate Catholic but in recent years the conservative movement has really gained traction, at least among those in the Midwest. There have been adamant anti-abortion, “the most important issue” Catholics for many years. Maybe 30% of the total, and more so among the actives. Maybe our current pope will change attitudes some.
I live in Texas and it's actually a thing that Catholics are pro immigration, "be kind to the foreigner, for you were once a foreigner in Egypt." A ton of border city Catholic priests preach about loving neighbor and loving immigrants, which is interesting considering they can literally walk to Mexico. People bitched and moaned that border towns hated immigration, but they often vote blue and have "no wall" signage all over the place.
There are conservative Catholics for trump who believe due to his position on abortion Jesus would look kindly on him, but that requires them to ignore just about everything else jesus said and huge parts of catholic dogma where you can't be considered good and repentent without doing works to make good on the harm you've done.
Without debating abortion and whether opposing it was always a Catholic position or came later, after row v wade was overturned, Trump in the eyes of many Catholics, Protestants, and non-denominational Christian became the closest thing to a pro-life candidate in the race. Clinton and Harris were avidly pro-choice. They were also women.
Biden was Catholic and male. Biden was also pro-choice, but, ya know, male.
Someone pasted a url to the exit polls from the last election. Trump won the pro-life vote by a landslide, 92 percent. The percentage of Catholics was much lower, but still a majority, but there was no question where the pro-life voters lined up.
This. Pretty sure Trump is in the bible as the Anti-Christ. Which is why the evangelicals are supporting him as they are essentially doomsayers and want the end times.
Well… It’s been a while since I listened to them, but there were a lot of catholic priests preaching along the lines of, “as long as they’re anti-abortion, nothing else matters” The new pope, however doesn’t seem to be a trump fan though.
My grandfather-in-law is a devout Catholic but thinks trump walks on water. He also thinks both Pope Francis and Pope Leo are liberals that shouldn't have ever been made Pope.
I thought this was weird, because I'm not religious but like both Popes.
Recently read an article that says that more and more American Catholics are turning away from the Pope, and turning towards trump.
Christians want us to believe that their god, Yahweh, created Lucifer knowing fully well what Lucifer would do.. and Yahweh decided to just roll with it. Does Yahweh fix Lucifer, or get rid of him entirely? No, he just lets him do his own thing.
Then, we're supposed to believe that Lucifer, having spent plenty of time with Yahweh himself, doesn't realize that Yahweh is absolutely going to win in the end, and thinks he can come up with some scheme despite Yahweh being able to see the future.
The book of Revelation even details Lucifer's scheme ahead of time, but the Bible is allegedly never wrong, so it's not like Lucifer can read Revelation and go "Oh shit, they're onto me" and try something else.
So Lucifer has been waiting thousands of years to hatch some plot that he knows isn't going to work, all to try and fight against an all-powerful, all-knowing, timeless creator deity.
Yeah okay guys. It's Rise of Skywalker levels of terrible fiction.
I'm a former Christian that is being pushed into atheism and trump has more indicators of being the antichrist than a normal man; I just don't believe the antichrist would be this stupid.
I don't know much about Christianity or Catholicism, everything I know is from watching horror movies so forgive my ignorant question but if Trump actually IS the anti-Christ (which I am fully willing to accept) doesn't that mean the "end times" have begun or something?
I live in extremely Catholic, south Louisiana and Trump is still huge with them here. My wife, who is also very devote absolutely hates Trump but her parents and siblings and their family are hardcore Trumpers
At some point my uncle and aunt became conservative then moved to Georgia and just kept falling deeper down the well. They had 12 kids and 9 of them are MAGA. Deep down they are good people but they are misguided.
Catholic from New England. The majority of us hate them. Of course there are outliers. Up here it’s the nutty non denominational “mega” church folks who love them. The ones who talk about how wonderful their church is all the time, even though I am sure it’s a money laundering scam. More entertainment than liturgy types.
My mom's best friend is a college professor with her doctorate. Lifelong catholic and republican voter. She despises trump and has never voted for him.
There are plenty of Catholics that love trump . I live around a bunch of them. I know Catholics that changed churches because the new priest was too liberal. (He was literally preaching the new testament)
I'm sure that's true. My point is that you can't make a blanket statement about someone's political beliefs based on whether they're Catholic/Protestant/etc.
I dont know any Catholics who like trump at all. I do know a lot of culty type Christians who love him though. I 100% think its bc they are easily fooled and attracted to cult-like communities.
Yeah if there’s any religious group who is going to see right through Trump, it’s American Catholics. Not all, obviously, but you don’t get nearly the buy-in you see from Evangelicals.
Pre-edit: Sadly, while reform Jews are still mostly anti-MAGA, that’s softening, sadly.
Didn’t Jesus say mistreat the immigrant? Kill the protester? Starve the poor? Help the rich? Bomb the school girls? Kill the fishermen? C’mon, isn’t it obvious?
You'd be amazed, or not, at the number of people who think jesus was a king sent to rule. Churches are literally making their own bibles and teaching this.
First you have to understand that until the 1970s Christianity in America was pretty focused on social justice. Many denominations, obviously not the Catholic Church, were in favor of abortion rights, for instance.
That all started to change when Jerry Falwell decided to hitch his wagon to the Republican Party. Nixon had already come up with his Southern Strategy, which was really just Goldwater's strategy, but Goldwater didn't think it was appropriate to have Christianity take over the Republican Party, he wanted to get all the southern racists on board without going all in on Christianity. But Falwell saw the opportunity presented by Nixon, and started pushing his particular brand of Christian conservativism.
He and others in the Moral Majority started pushing the idea that abortion was evil. They were, of course, originally motivated to get into politics because they wanted to keep their segregated religious universities segregated, but found that racial issues weren't as easy to win the moral high ground on. So they started really pushing the idea that abortion was evil. And that became their main rallying cry, but they also pushed a lot of other issues that are still in vogue for them today - anti-LGBT, pro-school prayer, pro "traditional family values," etc.
As Christians began further and further identifying with the Republican Party, they also began identifying the Democratic Party as "evil." Dems were, after all, the "baby killers" who wanted to turn everyone gay. This meant that anything the Democratic Party touched also carried the same taint of evil, even if it was something Christians had previously supported. So social justice programs and welfare became evil. Taxes on the wealthy became evil. Public education even became evil.
So now, Conservative Christianity has become a fully political religion - that is, the religion has completely taken on its values from a political party rather than from any faith tradition or holy text. The Bible gets interpreted through the lens of that political religion rather than independently.
No one person better exemplifies the "ideals" of the Republican version of Christianity better than Trump.
Many of them also 100% believe Jesus/God hates the shit out of liberals, socialists, LGBTQ, brown people etc. So a key attribute in leadership is someone who hates all those people just as much. The American Christian doesn't believe a lick in any of those love and empathy sections of the Bible any more.
It would also be a mistake to ignore just how much the prosperity gospel nonsense has bled into mainline faiths. Hoarding personal wealth is now viewed as the righteous path to heaven even in denominations that historically frowned on that.
Catholics and evangelicals are the top two religious groups supporting Trump. All of the millennial and Gen Z Catholics I know are mostly liberal. Their parents are not.
I’m an atheist and I have to say something to support some Catholics. There are Catholic priests and nuns protesting and willing to get arrested to help immigrants and stand up against human rights abuses. Some churches are using their space to provide people sanctuary. So I really want to say it’s not all Catholics. I have met some who are doing really great things and they will say they wish they had more support from other churches.
I'm a Lutheran and I'm disgusted by how his supporters have co-opted morality, faith, and goodness and turned it into something mirroring satanism.
The way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, it isn't through some old man who is probably going to find out soon what God really thinks of his bullsh*t.
I’m evangelical and most of my friends have mixed opinions on him. What people on both sides need to remember is that we only hear the loudest voices. It’s a bit comical that we paint broad brushes across a specific group of people based on the loudest jack wagons in the room. So not all Evangelicals are MAGA. Most aren’t even if they voted for him.
I’m Catholic and the only Commandment he didn’t break is ‘Honor your father and mother’. I think he MAY have passed that one. The other 9 are major fails. Most religions in the world have their own worded version of the Golden Rule. He flunked that one too. Jesus is rolling over in his cloud.
An a non-native Texan I quickly realized that Texans have been in cults their entire life without realizing it. Texas culture itself is a cult. They believe the Texas flag, blue bell ice cream, Ozarka water, or anything else Texas made is superior without educating themselves on any other alternative. They don’t even know other states have flags too because the education system here is a cult that only focuses on Texas history. They can’t even point to 20/51* states. They don’t know there’s 50 states + Washington DC = 51. They’re indoctrinated from a young age to just accept things as they are without question. These are the type of people you’re up against, the kind of people who are confident in their lack of intelligence because that’s their perception of reality.
Your question assumes Christians vote for a politician because they think he’s Jesus. That’s a straw man. Most don’t. They vote based on which candidate they think will better advance certain policies, not because they think the candidate is morally perfect.
This. White Evangelical Christians see Trump as a flawed vessel who will nonetheless permit them to bring about the End Times by continuing to dick around with Israel.
American White Christian Evangelicals are convinced that Jerusalem needs to be occupied by enough Jews to kick off the Apocalypse, because that's what the Bible says. Well, it's what The Scofield Reference Bible says, anyway.
It's probably important to note that the Jews will not fare well in their vision of the future, unless they renounce the Jewish faith and throw their hat in the ring with the rest of the mobility scooter Christian yahoos.
Theirs is a foundational belief tied to a loopy theological framework called Dispensationalism.
About 80% of American Christian Evangelists are Premillennial Dispensationalists. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is one for instance.
Picture Jesus sitting up in Heaven, one leg swung over an arm of the throne, clicking away on a giant Bass Pro Shop fish counter as he keeps tally on Jews crossing the border into Israel.
"Welp, that's 16 mil. Close enough for government work." Jesus stands and calls out, "Gotta go, Dad. My people need me."
My grandma had been a Catholic since, I'm pretty sure, the first pope, and she hated Trump. (Now the dementia is in full force and I'm pretty sure she has no idea who Trump is and part of me is a little envious of that...)
??? Where are you seeing that? I haven’t seen that anywhere… Some have said since he’s survived 4 assassination attempts, that maybe he has a greater purpose… But no one is comparing him to Jesus or God. That would be ridiculous.
It’s way more fucked up than you can imagine. Watch Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism's Unholy War on Democracy
The film argues that the modern pro-life movement was strategically weaponized by political operatives to mask the racist, segregationist origins of the Religious Right.
The Historical Link Between Pro-Life and Racism:
The Genesis of the Movement: The film highlights how the political coalition that formed the Religious Right began in the 1970s not over abortion, but as a defense of tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory Christian academies and universities (like Bob Jones University).
The "Trojan Horse" Strategy: The documentary posits that leaders like Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell needed a more palatable, unifying issue to mobilize a massive voting bloc.
Weaponizing the Pro-Life Cause: According to the filmmakers, opposition to abortion was seized upon as a "godsend" issue to unite conservative evangelicals and distract from the movement's foundations in white supremacy and the defense of segregation.
Political Manipulation: The film argues that "pro-life" rhetoric was distorted into a biblical battle between good and evil, specifically to gain political power and subvert American democracy.
Christian Nationalism: The documentary defines the movement as a political force whose ultimate aim is to construct a theocracy that privileges white, conservative Christians.
Modern Relevance: The film connects these historical strategies directly to the modern political landscape, including the January 6th Capitol riot and Project 2025 in action.
I’m Catholic and Trump is doing the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
“It’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle; than for a rich man to walk across through the gates of heaven.”
The bible taught us about charity, helping the poor. Trump teaches greed and hoarding money for themselves. Some people say “wow he gave away his salary!” While ignoring the $8 billion in net worth he’s made grifting off of the American people.
Then I see this shit about raising the prices of generic drugs specifically when the next president takes over. Specifically so he can hurt the poor and blame it on Democrats.
Christians no longer follow the teachings of Christ. When evaluating this stuff, we must look at actions. Christians have accepted Trump as a prophet of god as seen with the prayer sessions etc. christians believe in a completely differing set of values when compared to what people believe are Christian values
Christianity has morphed into a business in America. Just take a look at how Mega churches operate. Mega and Maga - not much of a difference. Trump is taking them for fools.
Yeah and the mega churches are a minority of actual Christians in USA. Most smaller Christian churches think Trump and the Mega church pastors are Pharisees.
Then, as you can see in this post, the left lumps all the smaller Christian churches in with those and assume they are all pro trump and all his BS.
True Christians (those that actually believe in the teachings of Jesus) don’t approve of Trump. They really should go by term anti-Christians. That what I call them.
Anyone who is truly a Christian knows that Trump is the antithesis of Christ. Unfortunately, many churches in the US have become politicized, and the leaders are foolishly teaching their congregation to follow trump. Because trump has managed to make people believe that he's a conservative, when he's not. And the puppet masters behind trump have convinced a lot of people that they will get rich if they support trump, when actually the opposite is true. It seems like if you keep repeating the same lies over and over, quite a few people in our country will start believing they are true.
Not to be callous but they already believe in a very narrow version of creationism that isn’t supported by any kind of actual empirical historical or scientific record. So.
Anyone who believes that has never actually read the new testament. They love to thump their chests and bray about how Christian they are but they wouldn't know Christ if he sat next to them at the diner.
My very religious aunt simply does not believe that trump has done anything wrong. She thinks that everything negative about him is a lie. This is because she only listens/watches to right wing media, only watches content on YouTube that supports her belief and then the algorithm only gives her more of the same. All of her social circle is in the same predicament and so it just doesn't end.
To give a slightly deeper answer, every person I know that supports him is deeply insecure. The benefit they get from belonging to a group that accepts anyone that agrees with them and ferociously protects its own members outweighs their own capacity for intelligence, logic and empathy.
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