Speakers throughout the Republican National Convention are aggressively courting President Trump’s religious base by touting him as a defender of the free exercise of faith.
In the convention’s second night, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all wrapped their appeals in the language of faith, an approach followed by many of the lower-profile speakers as well.
The trend is expected to extend into the third and fourth nights as well. Wednesday will feature an address from Sister Dede Byrne, a nun and military veteran whom Trump has praised in the past for being one of the “Americans of faith [who] have uplifted our nation.” Trump’s own address from the Rose Garden on Thursday is expected to touch on themes of religious freedom.
Republican calls to the faithful are bound up in a wider message of cultural preservation that the Trump campaign has adopted in recent weeks. Trump, in the past week, has decried so-called cancel culture, claiming that Democrats want to “totally” silence voices that dissent from the party’s platform. On Monday, Donald Trump Jr. made a similar claim in a speech that focused almost exclusively on the dangers of “cancel culture.”
Trump Jr., in that speech, warned that the 2020 election is becoming a battle for American values: “church, work, and school versus rioting, looting, and vandalism.”
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, on Tuesday, advanced similar arguments, condemning the “radical Left” for attempting to “cut down” people exercising their “God-given right to speak and think freely.”
“The politics of identity, cancellation, and mob rule are not acceptable to me, and Republicans trust you, the people, to think for yourselves and to pursue your American dream however you see fit,” Cameron said.
Cameron became nationally known in May when he joined a lawsuit against Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for state restrictions on church services held during the coronavirus pandemic. Cameron, at the time, said that Beshear’s orders unfairly “target the practice of religion,” an argument made repeatedly by Attorney General William Barr during the pandemic.
Trump himself spoke out against the closure of churches in May, saying that he would “override” governors who would not let churches open.
Republicans in the past have touted their commitment to religious liberty, especially during the Obama administration. The 2020 RNC has been no different. In a Tuesday speech aimed at evangelicals, Cissie Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of Billy Graham, blamed the “Obama-Biden administration” for a series of attacks on faith-based organizations.
“Democrats tried to make faith organizations pay for abortion-inducing drugs,” she said. “Democrats tried to force adoption agencies to violate their deeply held beliefs. Democrats pressured schools to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports and use girls’ locker rooms.”
Lynch concluded that the Biden-Harris “vision for America leaves no room for people of faith.”
“Whether you’re a baker, a florist, or a football coach, they will force the choice between being obedient to God, or to Caesar,” she said.
Other religious liberty advocates have framed the disparity between the Obama and Trump approach to faith in more positive terms. Kelly Shackelford, president of the legal nonprofit group First Liberty Institute, told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s executive orders protecting people of faith, judicial appointments, and interventions from Barr’s Justice Department have made him the most pro-religion president in American history.
“There’s not anybody that’s close,” Shackelford said.
