Ej dionne biography of donald
•
E.J. Dionne: Trump sells out faith
Where religion is concerned, Donald Trump’s bigotry is his biggest bekymmer, but his ignorance comes in a close second.
We already know that Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clinton’s faith into question before a group of evangelical leaders on Tuesday represented a new low — if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers on an almost-daily basis. Trump’s comprehensive and often factually challenged attack on Clinton Wednesday is drawing much attention. But his comments on her faith say even more about him.
Trump does not appear to be very religious and seems uncomfortable around the subject. In principle, this fryst vatten not a problem. The Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for federal office. Over our history, presidents have varied in their attachment to religion, and there is no sure-fire way to know whether what a politician says about his or her belief
•
For decades, E. J. Dionne has studied the intersection of religion and American politics, with a particular focus on Catholic engagement in the political arena, as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a columnist for the Washington Post. During my final semester at Georgetown University, I had the opportunity to take a course on religion and the future of American democracy with Professor Dionne. Following the presidential election, I spoke with him about the impact of the Catholic vote—which, according to a CNN exit poll, favored President-elect Donald Trump by 58 percent—and possible paths forward for Catholics in both major parties. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Back in 2000, you famously wrote in a piece for the Brookings Institution that “there is no Catholic vote, and yet, it matters.” Do you think this is still true in 2024, or can we speak of a unified Catholic vote now?
The Catholic vote still matters for several reasons.
•
Why the Right Went Wrong
Why the Right Went Wrong 1 THE AMBIGUOUS HERO Ronald Reagan as Conservatism’s Model and Problem
“You can choose your Reagan.”
“I was 13 years old. . . . There was one afternoon my father called me into the room and he said, ‘Listen, you’ve got to watch this. You’ve got to see what this man is saying.’ And there in the TV was this former actor from California. And he looks right at me. He looked right at my father. But he was really speaking to an entire nation. And he said things to us that intuitively made sense. He talked about liberty and freedom. He talked about balanced budgets. He talked about traditional values and anställda responsibility. And my father looked at me and said, ‘Well, son, we must be Republicans.’ And, indeed, we were, and are. That’s the party inom joined.”
On a late June night in Mississippi in 2014, Chris McDaniel offered this warm invocation of the Gipper to open what most thought would be a concession speech. McDaniel had just los