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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN RELIGION,
POLITICS, AND POLICY

Religious Rhetoric in
US Right-Wing Politics
Donald Trump, Intergroup Threat,
and Nationalism

Chiara M. Migliori
 Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy

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 Chiara M. Migliori

Religious Rhetoric
in US Right-Wing
Politics
Donald Trump, Intergroup Threat,
and Nationalism
Chiara M. Migliori
John F. Kennedy Institute
Freie Universität Berlin
Berlin, Germany

ISSN 2731-6769 ISSN 2731-6777 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy
ISBN 978-3-030-96549-5 ISBN 978-3-030-96550-1 (eBook)
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 For my grandfather
who would have hated the things I say
but would have loved a book written by me
 Preface

When I started my Ph.D. in October 2016, Donald Trump was still

the Republican candidate who had been polarizing the United States,
and most of the world’s public opinion, since summer 2015. In little
more than a month, under the bewildered look of half of the nation’s
population, he had become the president-elect of the United States.
I have always been fascinated by how Christian faith and conservative
politics intersect in the social panorama of the United States, and I had
set out to pursue my research in a structured, in-depth way thanks to the
opportunity offered by the doctoral position. What I had not foreseen,
when I first set foot in the Graduate School of North American Studies
of the Freie Universität of Berlin, was that I was in for a ride that would
have challenged many of the preconceived notions I had on that subject.
At first, I had thought of limiting my research to the discourse
of Donald Trump, investigated through an attentive listening of his
speeches, and that of preeminent pro-life and pro-traditional family
interest groups, if I had been brave enough to meet some of the people
working for them. Then my colleagues suggested that I interviewed
the people whose opinions mattered the most: ordinary voters who
supported the former president and did so without being conditioned by
the decades-long relationship tying the Religious Right to the Republican
Party.
During the years, I managed to meet with people who allowed me
to ask them the questions that then formed the structure of this book.

vii
viii PREFACE

We talked about politics and religion, they granted me access into their
thinking and their beliefs, and even though some of them are the opposite
of mines, I was grateful for their willingness to sit down with a complete
stranger to discuss the whys and hows of their worldview.
I organized this specific type of interviews because conversations
happening in small groups can give as a result a wider variety of input
related to the topics discussed. Peer groups differ from focus groups in
their being composed by a smaller number of participants, who usually
know each other. The familiarity of the setting allows to reduce the role
of the facilitator and the conversation to flow in a more natural way.
A commonly mentioned limitation attributed to focus or peer groups
concerns the lack of representativeness of the participants’ opinions.
Further complicating issues characterizing this type of interview might be
the interruption of the answer of another participant, the mutual galva-
nization on certain topics, originating from shared opinions or grievances
surrounding them, and the outspokenness of some of the participants that
inevitably leads to the silence of other, less vocal ones.
A very low percentage of the pastors I had contacted answered my
request, either positively or negatively. At such low response rate, self-
selection clearly played an important role in the formation of the groups,
thus preventing me to obtain a probability sample. The rather low level
of representativeness obtained through this type of qualitative research,
however, does not constitute a hindrance for the present work, whose
main aim remains a discursive analysis directed at highlighting the role of
religious identity in informing political behavior in the 2016 presidential
election.
Some peer groups’ discussions proceeded smoothly, with participants
respecting the rules of taking turns, but sometimes avoiding expressing
strong feelings on any of the topics discussed. In other groups, instead,
it is possible to retrace deeply felt emotions and ill-concealed anger and
frustration. Notwithstanding the value of individual, in-depth interviews
to gain a deeper perspective in the object of investigation, the social
imaginary of white conservative Christian voters, a pluralistic discus-
sion represents the form best suited to uncover the multiple layers of
significance that some issues might assume in the imaginary of the
interviewees.
In order for the conversation to proceed, people usually tend to look
for common ways of framing the issue being discussed. Posited that
every singular way of framing corresponds to a different worldview over
 PREFACE ix

a specific topic, peer groups’ results provide with a detailed description of

the process of meaning formation and reproduction that is crucial to gain
a thorough understanding of the topic at hand.
Five years after the beginning of this research, Donald Trump is no
longer president; he was succeeded by a figure that represents the ideolog-
ical opposite of everything he symbolized, and his most ardent supporters
stand for. The amount of research and literature that his mandate spurred
to create is impressive, to say the least, and readers might ask themselves
why they should engage with yet another book on the subject.
In the following pages, you will be taken through the creation of what
I defined the tale of the mythological figure of Trump as the savior of
Christianity. Answers will be provided as to how a figure such as Trump
could obtain the success he had, and the historical events that saw the
development of the official relation between religion and politics won’t
of course be left out.
The most important thing readers will encounter, however, are the
voices telling this tale. These, belonging to his faithful followers, tell a
story of resentment and relief, of threat, fear, and revenge. As unfath-
omable as these words might be for many people, and as enraging some
of their ideas, Trump happened, and he, like many similar personalities in
western democracies, can’t simply be discarded as a mistake of the past.

Berlin, Germany Chiara M. Migliori

 Acknowledgments

I was lucky enough to be part of a program that allowed me to pursue

my research in an ideologically unconstrained manner. I was surrounded
by colleagues who showed me their support through stimulating conver-
sations, challenging discussions, and honest and friendly advice. My
supervisors encouraged me throughout and pushed me to face what I
thought were unsurmountable limitations.
As someone recently told me, “It’s clear that you have extremely
supportive friends and a family you can always rely on.” And I don’t
take this for granted. The work that made this book possible wouldn’t
have stood a chance, hadn’t it been for the help and love of the people
surrounding me. Thank you.

xi
 Praise for Religious Rhetoric in US
Right-Wing Politics

“The subject of this book is an extremely timely and important one.

Migliori’s work is the first large-scale qualitative study of how and why
religious conservatism bolstered support for Trump despite his overt char-
acter flaws. Understanding the Trump phenomenon is absolutely essential
due to its unprecedented nature in the U.S. and its similarity to right-wing
authoritarian politics in other national contexts.”
—Laura Olson, Thurmond Professor of Political Science, Clemson
University, USA

“Although the Christian Right has long been a central actor in Republican
politics, the embrace of Donald Trump by many but not all movement
activists came as a surprise to many. A movement that had claimed that Bill
Clinton’s affair disqualified him for the office of the presidency embraced
a man who paid off a pornstar and who bragged about multiple sexual
affairs. A movement that had long upheld the Bible as a source of guid-
ance embraced a man who was the poster boy for the Seven Deadly Sins.
In this carefully researched book, Chiara Migliori traces evolving evan-
gelical reactions to Donald Trump, dissects the various frames for his
presidency from the right and the left, and helps us makes sense of our
cultural movement. Highly recommended.”
—Clyde Wilcox, Professor of Goverment, Georgetown University, Qatar
Campus

xiii
 Contents

1 The Outsider and the White House 1

White Conservative Christians, the Religious Right,
and Donald Trump: The Creation of a Tale 5
Scope and Aim 15
References 16
2 “What Happened?” 19
“It’s Time to Remove the Rust from the Rust Belt” 23
“This is Youngstown, Mr. President” 27
“All he’s Doing is just Trying to Do the Best He Can” 30
References 46
3 Whiteness, Christianity, and Politics 49
White Conservative Christian Voices 50
Discarding the Word Evangelical 53
Religion and Race 57
White Christian Nationalism 62
“It’s ok to pray if you’re a Muslim” 66
References 73
4 A Threatened Status 77
Intergroup Threat 79
“Nobody Is Responsible for Their Own Actions” 84
Symbolic and Status Politics 88

xv
xvi CONTENTS

The Perception of Status Loss 92

References 99
5 Fighting for the Soul of the Nation 103
Religion and Partisanship 104
Young Voters and the God Gap 106
God and the GOP 111
“Pro-Life and Pro-Family:” The Twenty-First-Century
Religious Right 116
References 120
6 A Rhetorical Weapon 125
The Rights Talk 125
The Irreconcilability of Worldview: Examples and Effects
of the Rights Talk 130
“According to the Liberals, Their Free Speech Is Awesome,
but Our Free Speech Is Hatred:” 140
References 144
7 Trump Won. Deal with It 147
November 8, 2016: Why Trump? 148
“We Weren’t Electing a Pastor:” Justifying the Support
for Trump 151
“Most Importantly, I Brought My Bible”: Trump’s Style 155
“You Know, I’ve Been Here Before”: The Values Voter
Summit 161
References 171
8 Dispatches from the Swamp 175
Victims of Discrimination 178
How Trump Saved Christmas 186
The Villain and the Hero 187
References 192
9 “He’s Just a Real Dude” 197
Moral Politics and the First-Born Syndrome 198
“He’s Become the Mouthpiece for That Disenfranchised
Group”: The Liberals’ Take 203
Trump as One of Them 206
 CONTENTS xvii

The Common Man and the Hero 214

References 217
10 How Could Trump Happen? 219
References 225

Index 227
 About the Author

Chiara M. Migliori earned her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of

North American Studies of the Freie Universität of Berlin. Her research
focused on the interaction between Christian faith and political culture
with a specific focus on the Trump era.

xix
 CHAPTER 1

The Outsider and the White House

Oh, he’s got The Art of [the Deal], hold that book up please. One of the
great books. That’s my second favorite book of all time. You know what
my first is? The Bible! Nothing beats the Bible, nothing beats the Bible,
not even The Art of the Deal.1
Donald Trump, August 11, 2015.

One of the very first mentions of the Scriptures by then first-time

candidate Donald Trump happened on August 11, 2015 during a speech
he held in Birch Run, Michigan, on occasion of the Lincoln Day celebra-
tion, less than two months after announcing his intention to run for the
presidency of the United States. Trump repeated the sketch several times
during the rallies of his first campaign, and the reaction he obtained from
the public was invariably an outburst of cheers and approval shouts.
For the presidential hopeful, occasions to express his beliefs and elab-
orate on his Christian faith did not lack during the months preceding the
election in November 2016, although the answers didn’t always satisfy the
press. During the campaign, it had become a joke among journalists to
interrogate the candidate on Christianity and to highlight every instance
of his evident biblical illiteracy.

1 Trump’s speech at Lincoln Day celebration in Birch Run, Michigan, August 11, 2015.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
C. M. Migliori, Religious Rhetoric in US Right-Wing Politics,
Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96550-1_1
2 C. M. MIGLIORI

When Bloomberg journalists asked him to name his favorite Bible

verses, he answered that he preferred not to go too much into details
regarding his faith, as the Bible was something very personal to him
(Halperin & Hailemann, 2015). The question was asked to him again in
April 2016 and by that time he was prepared and claimed that his favorite
verse was the Old Testament’s “an eye for an eye” (Morton, 2016).
Trump also talked about the Holy Communion in terms of a modest
happy hour, claiming he would have his little wine, and his little cracker
(Scalia, 2015) and, during a speech held in January 2016 in front of the
students at Liberty University, he quoted a verse from “Two Corinthians”
instead of Second Corinthians (Taylor, 2016).
Anecdotes from the campaign trail seemed to convince many that
Donald Trump would have never won the hearts and votes of the conser-
vative Christian constituency his Republican predecessors had counted
on since the 1980s (Cohen, 2016; Wiener, 2016). The conviction was
further cemented by the infamous Access Hollywood tapes’ recording of
Trump claiming to “Grab them by the pussy” (Farenthold, 2016), as a
way to describe the sort of free pass his fame allowed him in relationships
with women. The release of the 2005 video and audio recording just a few
weeks before the November presidential election did not seem to shake
Trump’s confidence, let alone push him to a last-minute withdrawal.
And not all prominent Trump supporters seemed to be taken aback
by the revelations of the candidate’s moral flaws. These included Jerry
Falwell, Jr., former president of Liberty University and one of his first
supporters, and other members of the Evangelical Advisory Board Trump
had created in 2016. Despite contrary opinions and mistaken pollsters, on
November 8, 2016, Donald Trump became the 45th president-elect of
the United States.
From a Pew Research Center’s preliminary analysis of the 2016 vote on
the part of religious people, 81% of “white, born-again/evangelical Chris-
tians” voted for Trump (Martìnez & Smith, 2016; Pulliam Bailey, 2016).2

2 This data has drawn particular attention because it reported a higher percentage than
that of white born-again/Evangelicals who voted Republican since 2004, respectively
78% for Bush, 74 for McCain in 2008, and 78% again for Romney in 2012. What is
interesting is also the broadness acquired by the category “Evangelicals,” now generally
used to refer to white conservative Christian voters: As claimed by Pew, “[the] ‘white,
born-again/evangelical Christian’ row includes both Protestants and non-Protestants (e.g.
Catholics, Mormons, etc.) who self-identify as born-again or evangelical Christians”
(Martìnez & Smith, 2016).
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 3

When the news of the unprecedented result registered by the Presi-

dent among white Evangelicals started spreading, journalists and scholars
engaged in a debate over the accuracy of such a number. Some found
counterevidence to the 81%-statistic, providing data aimed at exposing a
different reality, namely, that those identifying both as Evangelicals and
as Trump supporters formed a considerably smaller group (Stetzer &
MacDonald, 2018; Taylor, 2018).
Articles explained, debunked, and redefined what the percentage
meant. Religion-based online magazines invited the readers to discard
the term Evangelical, especially if used in relation to politics (McKnight,
2017). Other commentators still insisted on the message that the Pres-
ident had indeed managed to surpass his Republican predecessors in
gaining the highest ever support from Christian voters. Despite argu-
ments over the actual percentage, which, according to some journalists,
amounted to 80 instead of 81, scholars and observers could not disagree
on the evident approval the candidate obtained from the white conserva-
tive Christian constituency. Moreover, this ethnic and cultural group has
oftentimes been reported as the one whose support for the former pres-
ident remained stable during his mandate (Burge, 2019; Burton, 2018;
Fea, 2019, Schwadel & Smith, 2019).3
There seems to be no unique definition correctly including the variety
of religious people who voted for Trump, nor their actual number. What
is undisputed is that the 2016 election has not called into question the
long-standing paradigm that sees some segments of white Christian citi-
zens, mainly Protestant but also Catholic, bound in a political alliance
with the Republican Party. For some scholars, in view of this estab-
lished partisanship, Trump’s success among these voters was nothing to
be surprised of (Hunter & Bowman, 2016; Jelen & Wald, 2017).
As a matter of fact, the contrary—the hypothetical case in which
white conservative religious people, in particular self-declared Evangeli-
cals, would collectively shift their partisan affiliation merely because of a
scarcely religious candidate such as Trump—would have been astounding.
What is also very probable, claimed Jelen and Wald, is that the Republi-
cans won because it was their “turn” at the presidency, as the result of the

3 This support might have slightly wavered during the last months of his presidency,
undoubtedly also because of the Covid19 pandemic. Source: “White Evangelicals See
Trump as Fighting for Their Beliefs, Though Many Have Mixed Feelings About His
Personal Conduct”, Pew Research Center, 12/3/2020.
4 C. M. MIGLIORI

physiological alternation of the party in charge and because the economic

situation usually favors the opponent over the incumbent.
Regarding the proposed explanation for the support given to Trump
by white conservative Christians, partisanship is undoubtedly a tool that
eases the identification of individuals, as “it answers the ‘who am I?’ ques-
tion by providing an identity” (Rozell, 2017, 22). This identification and
its effects are also strengthened by the religious signals a candidate might
emit, and as a matter of fact does, at least in the Grand Old Party (GOP)
arena: “Religious signals by political leaders provide exactly this: cues that
Americans use to truncate their information exposure and consideration”
(Domke & Coe, 2008, 20).4
The force of the phenomenon of partisanship, fostering not only iden-
tification but also an in-group versus out-group mentality, allowed voters,
especially already politically aligned ones, to overlook Trump’s character
flaws. These were classified as less important than his affiliation to the
GOP and, as a result, he was automatically granted the traits of a person
interested in defending religious and moral principles and values.
The explanation relying on partisanship also answers the question:
“[Do] citizens who already favor a particular candidate simply assume
that the candidate has socially desirable traits such as religiosity? Or does
the religiosity of a candidate generate a citizen’s favorable attitude toward
the candidate?” (Smidt et al., 2010, 33). As it has been shown, what was
recorded first was the appeal of Trump’s persona and what followed was
the attribution of the traits of a devout political leader.
Such attribution happened thanks to the combination of several factors.
One was Trump’s deployment of Christian symbols in his campaign
rallies, another undoubtedly was the depiction that some cable news
outlets (prime among them Fox News) provided of Trump as collabo-
rating with major Religious Right’s leaders.5 A further element that needs
to be considered was the public opinion’s staple that the GOP is the party
more attuned to conservative religious values.

4 In this regard, it is important to mention that Trump did not need to provide hard
facts testifying to his religiosity. His discourse, especially during the electoral campaign,
was inserted in the tradition of a presidential rhetoric automatically resting on religious
symbols (Gorski, 2017).
5 In this book, I refer to the pro-life and pro-family, or anti-abortion and anti-same-sex
marriage, movement as the Religious Right. Despite it not being the proper name of an
entity or organization, I prefer to capitalize its initial letters.
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 5

Finally, the November 2016 presidential election, culmination of the

electoral campaign of the two most unlikable candidates since the second
half of the twentieth century, dramatically exposed the pervasiveness of
the phenomenon of negative partisanship in the United States (Webster &
Abramowitz, 2017). In this sense, Trump represented the outcome of the
racial and gender-driven divide that has been reorganizing partisan affili-
ation for decades. Trump, as underlined by many, was the ideal candidate
of the white, lower-to-middle class male. The clash with his opponent,
Clinton, often devoid of the enunciation of concrete political programs,
was the epitome of a twenty-first-century political process mainly aimed
at raising and exploiting rage and resentment (Wuthnow, 2018).

White Conservative Christians, the Religious

Right, and Donald Trump: The Creation of a Tale

Whether religious or political, Americans are always looking for a savior.

(Domke & Coe, 2008, 156)

The Religious Right and the Republican Party maintain a decades-

long relationship that sees the systematic exploitation of religious values
for political purposes stretching back to the 1970s.6 Those years saw the
creation of a movement fighting to reinstate conservative Christian values’
preeminence in the United States’ society. Despite internal changes and
periods of diminished presence on the national stage, the movement is
still active more than forty years later.
The creation of what Wuthnow defined the New Christian Right
(1988) pulled conservative Christians (at first mainly Protestants who
had fought and lost the battle between fundamentalism and modernity
at the beginning of the century) out of a longed-for purist separa-
tionism and into the public square. The Civil Rights movement, the
cultural revolution, the rise of feminist politics and deepening political
divisions spelled out to the conservative citizenry that the wall between
personal, religion-based morals and public life was crumbling (Jelen &
Wald, 2017). Morality became a public and political issue.

6 Jerry Falwell, one of the first and most famous televangelists, began his work of
mobilization in 1976, with rallies and fundraising, also involving students from his Liberty
Baptist College (later Liberty University) in Lynchburg, VA.
6 C. M. MIGLIORI

The sanction of the union between Christian values and conservative

policy was the result of the conflation of several factors. On the one hand,
white working and middle-class Americans felt abandoned by the Demo-
cratic Party making explicit its support to the Civil Rights’ cause, and
transferred their political allegiance to the Republican Party.7 On the
other, the Republican Party saw in disillusioned white Christian voters an
occasion to replenish its constituency, and set out to broaden its support
base by mobilizing against the 1973 Supreme Court landmark decision
legalizing abortion, commonly referred to as Roe v. Wade.
Paul Weyrich, one of the strategists behind the creation of the Reli-
gious Right and its first flagship organization, Jerry Falwell’s Moral
Majority, chose to focus on the abortion issue also to dissimulate the fact
that religion-based organizations were in reality mobilizing against the
threat of the loss of tax-exempt status for private schools and universities
still practicing racial segregation (Balmer, 2006). The figure of Ronald
Reagan, with the help of the creators of the Religious Right, sealed the
alliance between white conservative Christians and the Grand Old Party.
The covenant between Trump and his white conservative Christian
electors was established through the promises the candidate made during
his first campaign and maintained through the gestures of differentiation
(Gusfield, 1963) he performed once elected, such as the nomination of
pro-life Supreme Court justices (McCarthy, 2019; Treene, 2019). This
support could simply be considered as the latest instance of a political
allegiance officially begun four decades ago with the creation of Jerry
Falwell’s Moral Majority and the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan.
In this sense, the 2016 presidential election did not represent a devi-
ation from the tradition: The Republican candidate and then nominee
appealed to white conservative Christians and secured an alliance with
prominent members of the pro-life and pro-family movement. Both this
movement and ordinary electors, in turn, acknowledged Trump’s effort
and expressed official support for him through public praising and their
vote. The relationship between the Religious Right movement and the
Republican Party continued unaltered, and partisan identification kept
on playing a crucial role in political culture despite the uncertainties and
antipathies raised by both 2016 presidential candidates.

7 As McQuarrie claims, “partisan conflict has been increasingly organized around race
since Nixon’s ‘southern strategy’ of peeling off white workers from the Democratic
coalition using race (dressed up as ‘law and order’) as a wedge issue” (2017, 137).
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 7

If one could dismiss Donald Trump’s election with mere arguments

based on continuity and tradition, however, this work would have no
reason to exist. And the same would be true for the research that has been
elicited by the election of the 45th president of the United States, aimed
at explaining the unprecedented and, for some, at least partially unjustified
support granted him by the white conservative Christian constituency.8
I have investigated Trump’s success through the lens of a triangular
relationship between his figure, prominent Religious Right’s actors, and
white conservative Christians. Within this model, each vertex is linked to
the other two by ideological elements and discursive practices. Through
the lens of the triangular relationship, this book takes into consideration
both ordinary voters (the local or lay level) and religious-political actors
(the national or institutional level), to exhaustively describe the creation
of the mythological figure of Trump as the champion of Christianity.
As far as the first category or actor is concerned, white conservative
Christians suffer from the perception of a status-loss threat and inter-
group threat posed by other ethnic and cultural groups present in the
country. This perception let them be susceptible to the ethno-nationalist
and populist discourse of Donald Trump and provided fertile ground for
the candidate’s us v. them rhetoric (De Bruijn, 2016), deployed on a
variety of issues ranging from economic protectionism to global relations
and Christian symbols.
Religious values, one of the constitutive elements of the identity that
Trump’s white Christian voters feel as being endangered by cultural
modernization and ethnic diversification, found confirmation of their dire
predicament in the discourse of prominent Religious Right’s organiza-
tions. Even though several religious and lay leaders of these organizations
were reluctant, at first, to endorse Trump, he performed a series of
gestures of differentiation, such as the creation of the Evangelical Advi-
sory Board, composed by many prominent movement’s characters. By

8 One of the latest examples being a book published in August 2019 titled Red State
Christians: Understanding the Voters Who Elected Donald Trump. The author, journalist,
and minister Angela Denker, investigates the rationale behind the vote for Trump on the
part of conservative Christians. The release testifies to the strong interest for the relation
between Christian values and politics that, despite having been a constant of American
society in particular in the last four decades, still elicits attempts at explanation.
8 C. M. MIGLIORI

doing so, he signaled his formal support for the conservative Christian
culture.
The endorsement received from prominent Religious Right’s figures
was instrumental to the creation of the figure of Trump as the candi-
date who would fight to save and promote conservative Christian values,
a portrayal that was skillfully propagated by conservative media (Sullivan,
2017). Thanks to a continuous reinforcement of the discourse of threat
against white conservative Christians, and of Trump’s figure as a Chris-
tianity protector, the President registered the success of the election’s
result.
It is unquestionable that the support obtained by Trump from white
conservative Christians both at the institutional and at the lay level stems
from a long-standing alliance between believers and the Republican Party.
However, it is also true that the comparison of Trump to a devout
figure, and of his use of Christian symbols to a faith-enhancing agenda,
emphasized the effectiveness of a shallow deployment of religious talk in
fomenting political partisanship. The favor he was granted at the lay level
did not occur in a vacuum, and the discourse expressing this support must
be investigated both as an occurrence of established white identity politics
and as a litmus test for the state of the relationship between religion and
politics in the twenty-first century.
As the words of Trump’s supporters will show, there is no retrievable
connection between ordinary voters and the Religious Right’s figures who
expressed support to the former president. However, a common topic of
the interviews conducted with ordinary voters is their conviction of being
persecuted and silenced, which is also one of the staples of the Religious
Right’s discourse. The main difference between the two levels is to be
found in the way this alleged persecution is framed. In the discourse of the
Religious Right, the topic of religious freedom under threat is the most
commonly deployed. In the words of Trump’s white conservative Chris-
tian supporters, the perceived threat is to their freedom of speech. This,
in conjunction with the portrayal of Trump as an unbridled, heroically
outspoken figure is what provides the reader with the necessary element
to understand the massive support received by the 45th president in 2016
and throughout his mandate.
The difference in discourse between the use of the frame of religious
freedom under threat on the part of the Religious Right, and that of
freedom of speech in the words of Trump’s voters, is crucial for making
the case that the persecution of Christian citizens described at the national
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 9

level does not find a counterpart among ordinary citizens (i.e., those not
involved in the activity of interest groups). This is essential to understand
how the sense of persecution felt by several of the peer groups participants
is not based on a real threat to their liberty of belief and cult, but it was
rather crafted throughout the decades of activity of the Religious Right.
Thanks to the narrative of rights’ curtailment propagated by the Reli-
gious Right and cooperating candidates and presidents since the end of
the 1970s, the fears of the white conservative Christian constituency have
been tapped into, extracted, and rebranded as rightful concerns for one’s
own constitutional freedoms. The feelings of displacement and resent-
ment, mainly deriving from economic disruptions and cultural changes,
have been capitalized on, skilfully stripped of their racial and gender-based
attributes, and transformed into the fuel to motivate the fight to protect
Christian morals, values, and identity.
The triangular model involving Trump, his ordinary, local-level
supporters, and the Religious Right allows to explore the success obtained
by the former president among religious voters from various points of
view. The focus on all three actors takes into consideration aspects of
the historical and traditional alliance between white Christians and the
Republican Party, as well as the situational elements generated by the
integration of Donald Trump in this alliance. Providing a global vision
of the process under exam, the triangular relationship is crucial to analyze
Trump’s success as the product of several concurrent factors.
The fact that both the national and the local level of Trump supporters
widely deploy the rhetoric of rights under threat, despite the lack of
any retraceable connection between the two levels, is a spotlight on the
real nature of the relation between religion and politics in the United
States. Since the Religious Right co-opted the rights talk of the Civil
Rights movement for their political purposes at the end of the 1970s,
the alliance between Christianity and the conservative political realm has
always been based on the restoration of supposedly imperiled religious
values and religious liberty.
This has not changed in the months that led to Trump’s victory nor
during his stay in the Oval Office. What we can infer from the words of
Trump’s lay supporters, however, is that the Religious Right’s narrative of
the threat to Christians’ religious freedom does not find a corresponding
preoccupation at the local level. As the voices of Trump electors will
make clear, religious freedom thrives in the United States. Their anger
10 C. M. MIGLIORI

and resentment derive from the perception of being disrespected and of

having been stripped of status prestige.
The frame of the triangular relationship allows to overcome poten-
tially reductive explanations taking into account only one or two decisive
factors, such as economic dissatisfaction, or political partisanship, polar-
ization or the left-behind theory. Most importantly, it helps us retrace
the common factors of the support granted to Trump by different
actors, prime among them the exploitation of individual rights to express
grievances and dissatisfaction, and it provides us with a more complete
understanding of the political phenomenon that left analysts and scholars
dismayed for years.
Investigating the figure of Trump and his entry into the relationship
between religion and politics is important for several reasons. First of all,
in order to justify their support, sympathetic and prominent Religious
Right’s figures created a narrative that highlighted more than ever before
the ideology behind the coalition itself. Since its inception, the movement
gained allies and battles that allowed it to acquire the image of a coali-
tion of actors, interest groups, and legal firms whose sole interest was to
restore the values of a nation dedicated to God and the Bible. The move-
ment’s alliance with the Republican Party, however, never left any doubt
as to the reasons behind its creation. These could in fact be summarized
in an attempt to mobilize white, Christian, lower-to-middle class voters,
hitherto devout Democrats, and bring them into the ranks of the party
that had not failed them by supporting the struggles of Black citizens.
Thus, during the second half of the twentieth century, the movement
lent support to the Republican Party and its candidates, who returned the
favor by committing to oppose political and legislative struggles aimed
at granting civil rights to excluded or marginalized parts of the popula-
tion. Until Donald Trump came along. Acting like someone who didn’t
believe he had to make the slightest effort to woo Christian voters, Trump
showed absolute disregard for a convincing use of religious symbols
in his speeches, let alone attempting to appear like a religiously sound
public figure. His exploitation of the Christian religion has always been
limited to slogans asserting the superiority of the Bible over any other
book, including his own, and to statements about the unconditional
love granted to him by Evangelicals, a category that, as we will see,
should no longer be mentioned in connection with politics. Finally, reli-
gious symbols gave him the occasion to make bombastic promises to his
constituents, giving them permission to say “Merry Christmas” again.
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 11

But Trump did not win 81% of the votes of white, Christian citizens,
or self-described Evangelicals, despite his religious illiteracy. In fact, this
book argues that Trump attracted a higher percentage of that group than
his Republican predecessors precisely because of his attitude. The 45th
president, a self-described outsider of the political system and the Wash-
ingtonian swamp, found himself in the role of the protagonist of a tale
created around and for him by the Religious Right movement and his
infatuated supporters.
This fable, or myth, was the fulfillment of a decades-long narrative
about persecuted Christians in the United States. The role of the villain
par excellence, present in every tale worth of its name, was assigned to
Barack Obama, the first Black president in the history of the country.
Leading an army of malicious liberals, aspiring socialists, abortionists, and
feminists during his two terms in office, Obama is seen as having accel-
erated the upheaval of society, turning it into an inhospitable place for
those citizens who consider themselves the identity and cultural core of
the nation.
In this climate of persecution, Donald Trump entered as the cham-
pion of Americans’ freedoms, primarily those of religion and speech.
Trump freed his devout followers from the yoke of the oppressive polit-
ically correct, the unbearable depravity of the so-called LGBTQ lobby,
the senseless preoccupation with climate change and a political-economic
globalism aimed at stealing their jobs and making them second-rate
actors on the world stage, subordinate to nations that claimed a role of
pre-eminence they never deserved.
The myth of Donald Trump is a tale told by many voices. One is that
of the Religious Right movement. Trained for decades in political and
ideological support to prominent figures of the Republican Party, the
Religious Right sharpened its rhetorical weapons to create a mythological
figure, that of Trump the protector of Christian citizens and their values.
Their contribution to the propagation of the fable consisted in the tireless
efforts of some of the movement’s most prominent players in publicizing
the figure of Trump in the guise of the savior of Christianity. The ideo-
logical partnership between Trump and the Religious Right consecrated
the former as a figure capable of representing the interests of Christian
citizens and legitimized his position as the candidate of the Republican
Party.
But this tale doesn’t stand on public mythmaking alone. After all,
Trump garnered an impressive 81% of the votes of white citizens who
12 C. M. MIGLIORI

call themselves Evangelicals, whom we should call conservative Chris-

tians. It was in the end their job to show themselves willing to approve of
Trump’s beatification by the conservative religious elite, and they carried
the task through with passion and dedication. As their words give us an
opportunity to understand, beyond seeing images of Trump surrounded
by pastors and preachers in the Oval Office, propagated by Fox News or
social media, the voters with whom I came into contact did not seem to
have knowledge of, or even interest in the Christian Right movement.
Yet, as they were more than willing to show, many of them believed in
the good faith of a Donald Trump eager to protect Christian values and
their identity, dramatically debased by years of Democratic presidency.
One of the main questions I’m addressing, then, is how did these two
actors come to form such a similar opinion of a man who never presented
himself as the one of the most devout Christian men to have ever become
president? One answer is provided by what I already claimed at the begin-
ning, or that partisanship reached such a high level that only the fact that
Trump ran for the GOP was enough for his voters to consider him a godly
person. This book, however, intends to go further and to show that there
were other crucial elements at play in this support.
I argue, in fact, that local-level supporters didn’t see Trump as the
protector of their cherished Biblical values. The most important thing
that Trump did for them was giving them a series of slogan that, albeit
symbolically and superficially, revengefully reaffirmed the superiority of
their identity, culture, and ethnicity above all others. More importantly,
however, he gave them an example to follow. With his refusal of what
some call political correctness, and others might term decency, with unbri-
dled authoritarianism and populism, Trump became both a figure to
aspire to and a means of salvation.
Trump voters, as we will see, showed a degree of objectivity in their
political views that the Religious Right cannot afford. Aware that they
were not expected to “elect a pastor,” the reasons that led them to
support Trump, and to sing his praises during our conversations, ranged
from the aforementioned not being Hillary Clinton to his estrange-
ment from the corrupt world of politics; from his savoir faire in the
economic field to his promises to make American industrial production
flourish again (particularly effective in the area where the interviews were
conducted, the so-called Rust Belt).
But the characteristic of the Trumpian hero that, more than any
other, fomented the almost unconditional support of these voters was his
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 13

supposed ability to tell it like it is. His disturbing aversion to any norm
of politically correct conversation was perceived by Trump’s supporters
as the key to avenge their unfortunate vicissitudes as victims of a country
and a world in the grip of dramatic and epochal change. Donald Trump’s
no-holds-barred speech, untethered from any convention seen as lack of
honesty and intellectual excess, exalted and convinced them that no man
would have been better for the office of president.
In their imaginary, Trump is portrayed as the leader who would fight
the battle that would finally lead them to regain a status and position
unjustly taken from them. More importantly, however, he was perceived
as one of them. It is the combination of these two images of Trump
that provides us with the key to understanding his success. Trump, in
fact, didn’t only share their frustration at supposed discursive limitations,
damaging economic deals, and detested social changes that disrupted a
society that was once in the image of the middle-class white Christian
man and is now, theoretically, no longer. He picked up on this resentment
and bewilderment and made himself its spokesman by publicly displaying
and ranting about it. What they saw in him was a means to release their
feelings of status loss, displacement, and anger, allowing them to feel
like their resentment was finally being heard, without having to undergo
the risk of expressing themselves, being labeled as offensive and feeling
attacked.
Trump, it will be shown, was himself a megaphone for the resentment
of his supporters and, in doing so, acted as a coveted outlet. Every slip in
his speech, every questionable rejection of the norms of civil conversation,
every slogan deflected from a substantive policy agenda but ranted to
inflame the crowd was an opportunity for his supporters to take pleasure.
A kind of satisfaction given by the presence, in public, of someone who
seemed to exist and serve as president solely and exclusively to rebuke the
wrongs they allegedly suffered over the past decades.
In November 2020, the fable of Donald Trump reached its official
conclusion. He was defeated by the cabal of liberals, feminists, and succes-
sors of the “apologist in chief” (Barack Obama, sic) that he himself
had valiantly tried to uproot from the swamp of Washington. Trump
fought for weeks, with the inveterate support of his followers, but had
to succumb to the overwhelming reality, and even to the shame of having
one of his favorite channels of communication taken away. The hero of
the tale did not go down without a fight, nor did his supporters, who
protested to the point of committing an act of domestic terrorism by
14 C. M. MIGLIORI

storming the Capitol two weeks before the inauguration of the 46th pres-
ident Joe Biden and the first African American and South Asian woman
vice president Kamala Harris.
This book tells the tale of Donald Trump, supposed protector of the
values of a threatened identity: white, Christian, and middle-class. It does
so through the voices of those who created and lived that tale, the Reli-
gious Right movement and the former president’s ordinary supporters.
Not excluding the voice of Trump himself, of course.
Albeit focusing on the characters of the tale portraying themselves
as the persecuted majority, the unjustly silenced, the custodians of the
only traditional and legitimate American way of life, the book gives space
also to the voices of those who, despite belonging to the same demo-
graphic sector, proudly declared the opposite political affiliation. This
is not intended to run counter the studies showing how the American
public opinion is much more purple than neatly divided into red and
blue encampments and that polarization is a myth, or an element merely
retraceable only at the party level (Fiorina, 2017; Webster & Abramowitz,
2017). The purpose is in fact to highlight the wall of incommunica-
bility that has been erected in the course of the last decades and that,
if anything, the figure of Trump has contributed to make more impen-
etrable. Being aware that the concept of culture wars is often harshly
disputed, I insist however on the importance of maintaining the lexicon
alluded to by this phrase, as it points to the perception of persecution and
fight that characterize the protagonists of this tale.
The structure of the book is modeled after that of a hypothetical tale.
Chapters 2–4 focus on the supposedly dire predicament in which white
conservative Christians find themselves. Through their voices, as well as
relevant studies conducted in the field, readers will obtain a thorough
knowledge of how this situation came to be. Chapters 5 and 6 present the
Religious Right and their role as helpers of the demographic group feeling
itself in danger, and their rhetorical weapon: the conservative rights talk.
Finally, Chapters 7 and 8 center on the figure of Donald Trump, his
peculiar ethno-nationalist religious discourse and the improvement he
allegedly brought to society and the nation as a whole. The most impor-
tant reason for Trump’s success will be presented in the final chapter,
where the voices of his supporters will help us understand, once and for
all, why they saw him as their hero.
 1 THE OUTSIDER AND THE WHITE HOUSE 15

Scope and Aim

This book has three main aims and the research conducted in the first two
years of Trump’s presidency provides a tripartite contribution to the scien-
tific debate created by the 2016 presidential election and to the existing
literature investigating the relationship between religion and politics in
the United States. The first aim of this work is providing a panoramic of
how a segment of the white Christian population began to develop feel-
ings of displacement and resentment, and how these feelings found relief
in the figure of Donald Trump. This will be shown by the review of the
existing literature on the topic and will find confirmation in the words of
Trump voters.
The second aim is to delineate an evolution of the rhetorical strategy
known as rights talk and how this is deployed in the discourse of the
Religious Right and of white conservative Christians. Both individual and
collective interviews will be instrumental in devising the rootedness of this
rhetorical tool as well as the main differences between how it is deployed
at the institutional and at the lay level of Trump support. This trans-
lates into the difference between the narrative based on religious freedom
under threat and that based on a wishful revenge of a supposedly curtailed
freedom of speech.
The third and final aim is addressed throughout the whole book, as
a fil rouge connecting both the past and the present of the relation-
ship between religion and politics, and the institutional and lay levels,
and it consists of the creation of the tale of Donald Trump as an almost
mythological figure.
Throughout the book, the words collected in the first years of Trump’s
presidency will be interwoven with explanations of the historical relation-
ship between religion and conservative politics in the United States and of
how white conservative Christians began to develop feelings of displace-
ment and resentment which were crucial in consigning Trump the keys
to the White House. Their words, providing the reader with a privileged
look into their social imaginary, constitute a point of access into a socially
and ideologically constructed reality that can foster the understanding of
the success obtained by the figure of Donald Trump beyond what political
commentaries and editorials were able to do.
16 C. M. MIGLIORI

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 CHAPTER 2

“What Happened?”

As I learned from a woman named Linda, member of a nondenomina-

tional Evangelical church, even Melania Trump, on accompanying her
husband to Youngstown, Ohio, for a rally in summer 2017, was star-
tled by the conditions of the area. As Linda told me: “[Melania] was
looking around as they were coming in from the airport, and she said:
‘What happened?’ you know, ‘Why does it look like this? Why is it so
run down?’” To which the President promptly answered: “‘This is what
happened to America when our jobs were taken away. When we stopped
making the manufactory.’”.

The material presented and analyzed in this and the following chapters has been
collected during peer group conversations organized and conducted in
accordance with the requirements of the International Sociological Association
and the American Sociological Association’s codes of ethics (sources: https://
www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/code-of-ethics and https://www.asanet.
org/about/ethics. Last accessed on October 30, 2019). Eventual concerns
regarding the tax-exempt status of the churches involved and the application of
the Johnson Amendment are here irrelevant, as the interviews were conducted
after the electoral campaign (see Cromwell, 2018). The names of the peer
groups participants have been substituted with fictional ones.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2022
C. M. Migliori, Religious Rhetoric in US Right-Wing Politics,
Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96550-1_2
20 C. M. MIGLIORI

I met Linda in October 2017, after the Sunday service at a nonde-

nominational Evangelical church located a couple of miles south of
Youngstown. She approached me after the service, as she had heard that
I was visiting the church and asking questions about Donald Trump. She
offered me a lift back downtown, with a short but insightful tour of the
rundown city in which she was born. Linda, a little older than thirty,
a husband and two kids, was originally from Youngstown, but lived in
Idaho, California, and Arizona before she decided to move back home.
While driving and indicating closed businesses’ buildings of what on a
Sunday morning sadly reminded of a ghost city, she didn’t hide what
seemed to be one of her biggest concerns: the education of her sons.

How sad it was still coming back home, and seeing it being mediocre, you
know, lifestyle was just living off one another versus creating something,
creating a life for each other. […] I’ve homeschooled my boys, in Arizona
we have more freedom with school choice. […] And so, I see how it’s
broken here, and I tried to put my kids here in a private school, but
because the money and jobs have left, priorities have changed here, so
there’s not much funding for schooling. And so, a lot of what we had
before, parochial schools, have closed down, because there’s not enough
money flow to operate these schools. So, it was hard watching my kids,
who were thriving in Arizona, in the school system, and were learning and
having a teacher-based school system where they love their job, versus a
system that is overworked, underpaid, and... Not enough help to work
with so many kids. And so, it was frustrating for me watching my kids
going from a thriving environment to a mediocre environment.

At the time of our talk, Linda was homeschooling her two kids with
the help of a Christian-based curriculum. She acknowledged that they
were probably missing out on the valuable experience one can make in
school, surrounded by peers. Encountering the difficulties of having to
decide whether to enroll them in a private and more expensive Christian
school, or in one of the public schools of the area, she told me that she
might have sent her older one to a public high school the following year.
It was not a light-hearted decision for her, and not merely for economic
reasons.
As she explained: “I think a lot of what I feel with my kids is that being
Christian they are like put in a corner, sometimes, like in public eye.”
 2 “WHAT HAPPENED?” 21

“Like, ‘Oh, you’re that Christian kid’, or ‘Oh, you have those views,
you’re too narrow-minded.’” Thanks to some religious-liberty-related
leaflets I had had the chance to overview at the Values Voter Summit
(now Pray Vote Stand summit) in Washington, D.C. the week before, I
was not new to the topic of persecution, or rather bullying, against Chris-
tians. Linda’s words, however, represented my first encounter with that
same issue being mentioned by ordinary citizens.
Talking about the rally held by Trump at the Covelli Center a few
months earlier, Linda recalled having brought her sons there, because she
wanted them to see a president in person; someone who, regarding the
mediocrity of the area, “truthfully said he wants to fix that.” Truthful is
only one of the several positive words associated with Donald Trump in
the talk of the voters with whom I met. Other words I would have the
chance to hear quite often were reliable and honest. As Linda added: “I
think he’s trying to fight for those on that side that he sees are taken
advantage of with laws and regulations.” Her words depict the image of
Trump as a heroic figure ready to save coal miners and steelworkers facing
nonsensical environmental regulations.
When asked whether she thought religious freedom for Christians was
in danger in the country, this was her reply: “I don’t know that. I think
some of our beliefs are threatened. Like being called a bigot, or being
called… I can’t think of a word for it, sorry. Like being called a racist or
being called hateful. You know, it’s not that, it’s just… Why can’t you
respect our way? They want you to respect their, but you know, I don’t
go out persecuting them, but I’d be the first person they’d come down
on if I said something different.”1
I wanted to know why, in her opinion, they come down on Christians,
but Linda could not find an answer and turned to a passing-by woman for
help, asking the fellow church member why she thought society attacks
Christians for their way of life. The woman briefly stopped to engage in
our conversation and provided an extremely detailed answer that could be
reduced to a very simple but powerful explanation. Christians, she said,
can separate the person from their sin, and have the ability to despise

1 In this regard, it is interesting to notice the similarity between Linda’s words and
several Family Research Council’s Washington Updates presented in the following chapters,
in depicting the liberal counterpart as at best hypocritical. Liberals, or people who allegedly
do not respect Christian values, are perceived as figures who stress open-mindedness and
a welcome attitude toward everyone except for, apparently, religious people.
22 C. M. MIGLIORI

the sin, continuing to love the person. Other people, apparently, can’t or
don’t want to.
It took me a few close readings of the context and of the previous
and following questions and answers to understand what that meant, and
why would it be a reason for society to criticize Christians. The problem,
as the two women explained, consists in the fact that the people Linda
defined “those who don’t believe, those who are more left side” seem
to be unable to conceive that Christians can love a person, “and not be
ok with what they’re doing.” An example might be useful here, so let us
consider abortion. Christians despise the action but, since they accepted
God in their lives, they are able to distinguish the sin from the person
and, while hating abortion, they can still love the person committing it.
Thus, in their minds, they do not deserve being called bigots, let alone
hateful.
The short conversation I had with Linda contains a pivotal element
characterizing the discourse of the white conservative Christians who
participated in the peer groups presented in the course of this book.
This can be described as a deeply felt resentment toward a counterpart
often generically designated as liberals. This faction, in the words of the
interviewees, is considered guilty of engaging in a constant belittlement
of Christian believers, by means of labeling them bigots and racists. As
the words of other interviewees will soon clarify, a direct consequence of
this perceived deprecation is that religious people feel their freedom of
expression, usually mentioned as free speech, irreparably curtailed. The
perception of this supposed limitation is what provides us with one of the
most crucial instruments to understand the extensive support obtained
by Donald Trump among these citizens. The 45th president, in fact, was
mainly praised for his ability to speak in a bold, unconstrained manner,
for expressing his mind without fear of the consequences, and thus for
emboldening them and directly allowing them to regain their voice.
 2 “WHAT HAPPENED?” 23

“It’s Time to Remove the Rust from the Rust Belt”2

Linda did not participate in any peer group interview, but she possessed
the same socio-economic characteristics of her fellow church members,
and these traits place her in the demographic group that was credited with
Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016: white, conservative, lower-
to-middle class Christians. The voices emerging from the peer groups
reveal the seeming irrelevance of economic concerns for the political
choice made by the self-selected participants. It is nonetheless important
to provide an overview of the economic and political developments which
caused the partisan shift—from the Democratic to the Republican Party—
that affected the region in which the interviews were conducted. As will
be shown, for many Trump voters belonging to the working and middle
class the economic situation per se was not the first and most important
reason to vote for him. Economic dissatisfaction did indeed play a role in
their support for the former president, but because it originated from an
unsatisfied sense of deservingness. This, in turn, is related to the percep-
tion that other groups in the country are enjoying undeserved benefits,
or in general a more favorable treatment than these voters are.
This corresponds to what has been defined racialized economics (Sides
et al., 2018), a phrase that strongly suggests that we analyze concerns of
economic nature through the lens of intergroup relations. The economic
changes which affected the working and middle class in the United States
surely had a role in fostering the development of feelings of intergroup
threat. However, we should not forget the role played by scapegoating,
by the cultural revolution, and by the demise of conservative values in
creating the feelings of displacement and resentment that still animate
constituencies such as the ones that supported Donald Trump.
The Public Religion Research Institute defines white, working-class
Americans as “non-Hispanic white Americans without a four-year college
degree who hold non-salaried jobs and make up roughly one-third (36%)
of all Americans” (Cox & Jones, 2012). Within this group, whether it
still deserves the denomination “white working class” or not, 67% voted

2 Donald Trump, Cincinnati, December 1, 2016. Rust Belt is how is usually defined
the area roughly comprising Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and parts
of Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The area, once industrially thriving,
was formally known as Manufacturing Belt, and it received its new denomination
at the beginning of the decline of the coal and steel industry. The name Rust Belt
was coined in 1984 by Walter Mondale.
24 C. M. MIGLIORI

for Trump in 2016 (Lamont et al., 2017).3 Abramowitz and Teixeira

agree with the broad definition but also point to the deep change that
affected the white working class from the beginning of World War II
to the first years of the twenty-first century: “America in 1940 was an
overwhelmingly white working-class country. In that year 86% of adults
25-years old and over were whites without a four-year college degree. By
2007, with the dramatic rise in educational attainment and the decline in
the white population, that percentage was down to 48 percent” (2009,
394). With regard to occupation, the authors argue that the job category
traditionally defining working-class belonging has undergone a shift from
an employment so-called blue-collar, to “low-level white-collar (technical
and clerical-sales) and service occupations” (396).
From the 1940s to the 1960s, the white working class experienced
high levels of upward mobility and became “the first mass middle class
in the world” (397). Two concurring factors halted the rise of the social
ladder: “the decline of mass production industries and the rise of postin-
dustrial capitalism” (ibid.); and this was only at the economic level. At the
social level, the 1960s saw the emergence of new and until then unheard-
of or ignored claims on the part of citizens who had been marginalized,
or treated unequally, until that moment: Afro-Americans, women, and
gays. One of the most dramatic consequences of the cultural revolution
began to take place when the Democratic Party decided to support Black
citizens’ civil rights demands, thus alienating a considerable part of their
white working- to middle-class constituency. As a matter of fact, Richard
Nixon was able to conquer 20% more of disaffected white working class
vote than Kennedy and Johnson.
The decade of the 1970s was characterized by an economic recession,
slow income and economic growth, and “stagnating living standards”
(400). Those were the years that saw the consolidation, in the white

3 That of the support for Trump on the part of the working class has been defined a
myth, as the median household income of Trump supporters ($72,000) is higher than
the national average income ($56,000) and of the median household income of Clinton
and Sanders supporters ($61,000) according to data gathered after the 2016 primaries
(Silver, 2016). According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of white Americans
without a college degree who voted for Trump was 64%, compared to a 24% obtained
by Clinton (Pew Research Center, 2018). Providing a slightly different set of data but
confirming the refusal of the working-class responsibility in Trump’s victory, Rothwell and
Diego-Rosell indicate the mean household income of Trump supporters as $81,898, and
that of the citizens who did not hold a positive view of Trump as $77,046 (2016).
 2 “WHAT HAPPENED?” 25

working- and middle-class minds, that minorities were cutting in line

in front of them and that the government was conspiring against their
hike toward the American dream, depriving honest workers of their
hard-earned benefits and privileges (Hochschild, 2016). These condi-
tions allowed Reagan to collect six out of ten white working-class votes
for the Republican Party. Clinton managed to win back part of the
white working-class electoral force, thanks to the changes to the Demo-
cratic platform implemented by the Democratic Leadership Council, as
lowering taxation, supporting traditional family values and a tougher
stance on crime.
Clinton’s two mandates and his success in restoring the country’s
economic situation, however, were not enough for the Democrats to win
the third election consecutively, and in 2000 the White House passed to
George W. Bush. This ultimately signaled the fracture between working-
class whites and the Democratic Party. Despite the changes endured by
this demographic group in the course of the second half of the twentieth
century, there were some areas in the country, such as heavily industrial
zones of the Midwest, that remained a Democratic stronghold until a
few years ago. Then, Donald Trump managed, if not to win them over
completely, to significantly shift the balance toward the Republican Party.
Ohio belongs to a region derogatorily defined Rust Belt because of
the industrial collapse that afflicted it starting from the 1970s and that
has left plants closed and many cities drained from jobs and consequently
population.4 Thanks to the capillary presence of unions, the Rust Belt
has traditionally voted Democratic, and this has pushed some scholars
and commentators to define Trump’s victory of the Midwest as the revolt
of the Rust Belt against the party, in light of the majorly positive result
the 45th president obtained in that area (McQuarrie, 2017; O’Brien,
2016). The worldview of many working and middle-class Rust-Belt whites

4 According to the New York Times, in November 2016, Ohio registered a 51.3% of
vote for Trump against a 43.2% for Clinton. This should not be surprising in light of
the fact that Ohio’ presidential election results mirrored the national one since 2000
(https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_elections,_2016, last accessed on August 27, 2019). Of
the 88 counties of Ohio, only 8 voted Democratic. The state, as a matter of fact, is
defined as the bellwether of the American presidential election (Kondik, 2016).
26 C. M. MIGLIORI

has been gradually infused with the feeling of having been left behind
politically, economically, and not least culturally.5
The shift of the upper Midwest space from the center of industrial
production to the economic periphery meant the progressive dismantling
of the place in which several communities were formed and had devel-
oped their values (McQuarrie, 2017). What is defined the revolt of the
Rust Belt, in fact, wasn’t simply a reaction to the economic disadvantage
the once booming industrial region has experienced in the last decades.
The inhabitants of the communities of white poor, working-class citizens
have also expressed their resentment at what they perceive as “polit-
ical and cultural marginalization” (130). Such a marginalization is the
result of decades of purposeful readdressing of privilege from the local to
the national, which entails the predilection of “the credentialed over the
uncredentialed, interpersonal work over manual labor, [and] the coasts
over the interior […]” (132). Therefore, another result of the industrial
collapse was “the radical reorganization of geographical privilege” (133)
which lasted four decades.
This long process of readdressing geographical and economic privilege
from the small centers to the coasts showed its result in the presidential
elections in November 2016, when Clinton did not manage to win the
traditionally Democratic industrial and unionized state, thus irreparably
compromising her attempt at the presidency. The inhabitants of these
regions are often also pervaded by a sense of distrust toward what goes in
the direction of openness, diversification, and globality. It is for this reason
that categories such as culture producers and the high-tech industry often
occupy a place of relevance amidst the lamentations of white conservative
voters. “Professionals, experts and knowledge workers” (132), however,
are not the only purported enemies of the working class, as its resentment
is also directed toward a general liberal enemy, a banner under which
Democrats, higher education institutions, and Hollywood personalities
find place among others.

5 See The Politics of Resentment (Cramer, 2016) for an excellent recount of how similar
events unfolded in Wisconsin. In her book, the author investigates the paradox of lower-
classes citizens being against redistributory policies, argues for the necessity of taking into
consideration the relevance that the geographical region plays in creating class conscious-
ness in the United States. In her study, the author also argues that the identity of a social
group is strictly linked not only to the geographical location of the group itself, but also
to the expectations that the group has towards elected officials.
 2 “WHAT HAPPENED?” 27

With regard to party affiliation, McQuarrie concedes that 91% of voters

cast their ballot in their usual way. However, we should not under-
estimate the shift of “poor and uneducated whites” (124) from the
Democratic to the Republican Party, as these were appealed by Donald
Trump’s discourse and promises.6 The author claims that 2016 was the
first presidential election since the establishment of the Democratic and
the Republican parties in which the latter obtained more votes from
poor than from affluent whites. One of the reasons for this should be
sought for in the relatively higher level of educational attainment charac-
terizing more affluent people, or those who, in 2016, preferred to vote
Clinton. Furthermore, one of the elements that might have been crucial
for this shift was Trump’s ability to retain the traditional Republican base,
while at the same time presenting himself as an outsider and “as a radical
alternative to the political mainstream” (ibid.), whereas Clinton strongly
represented the political establishment.

“This is Youngstown, Mr. President”7

Let us now further narrow the focus of this overview and introduce the
Ohioan city that constituted the background of the local-level actors of
this study: Youngstown, formerly known as Steeltown, U.S.A. (Linkon &
Russo, 2002). Gest defines Youngstown a post-traumatic city, therefore
belonging to those towns or areas that “lost signature industries in the
mid- to late-twentieth century and never really recovered” (2016, 7). In
the 1940s, at the peak of its industrial and economic development, 90% of
the city’s population consisted of white people. This rapidly changed after
the crisis hit, and “about half of its citizens are now black or Latino—
groups who simply did not flee as quickly as their white neighbors”
(10). What characterizes Youngstown and East London, the areas Gest
considers in his work The New Minority, is not that they were the only
places affected by the industrial crisis of the second half of the twentieth
century. Their peculiarity lies in the rapidity of the events that dramatically
altered the situation, and in the magnitude of the change experienced by
formerly productive areas.

6 This shall not obscure the fact that, anyway, “the median Trump voter […] is both
white and affluent” (McQuarrie, 2017, 124; Sides et al., 2018).
7 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0lRHa3WS8Q. Last accessed on April
29, 2021.
28 C. M. MIGLIORI

Youngstown is a city of approximately 64,000 inhabitants located in

northeastern Ohio, in the area known as the Mahoning Valley, close to
the border with Pennsylvania; the city is the seat of the Mahoning County.
Contrarily to what one might expect, considering the general voting
trend of the State, Mahoning County was one of the only seven coun-
ties in which a majority for Hillary Clinton was registered in November
2016, the others being the ones including larger cities such as Columbus,
Cleveland, Toledo, Athens, Cincinnati, Akron, and finally Lorain County
(Wilson et al., 2016). Clinton won Youngstown and the surrounding area
by a mere 3.3% of the votes, which is a considerably low result, in light of
the traditionally Democratic lean of the area, and of the fact that Obama
obtained the 63% of the votes in 2012.8
Mahoning Valley is the geographic term of an area usually referred to
as the Steel Valley. The activity of the steel mills was the major source of
income for the inhabitants of Youngstown and the surrounding cities,
from the nineteenth century until the major crisis that hit the sector
in the 1970s. Here, the unions’ presence has always been strong and
voting Democratic was almost a requirement in order to have a job,
as some of the older interviewees claimed. The effects of the crisis on
Youngstown were a halved population and the shutdown of almost all
businesses which animated a once lively area. Today, the city, seat of
Youngstown State University counting more than 12,000 students, is
trying to recover through investments in the tech sector and the presence
of business incubators.9
Born amidst the booming industrial development of the 1840s, the
city of Youngstown was subdivided into a rigid ethnic hierarchy that saw
white Protestants at the top, Black citizens at the bottom, and “Central
and Eastern Europeans, Jews, the Irish, Italians” in the middle (Gest,
2016, 77). The industrial and demographic growth, though, was paral-
leled by the expansion of mobsters and mafia’s activities, so much so that,

8 Trump’s partially unexpected success in Ohio has some historical precedents, especially
if one considers what Reagan obtained in Kansas in 1980 (Wuthnow, 2012).
9 After the industrial crisis, the General Motor plant in Lordstown, north of
Youngstown, became the largest employer of the area. The plant produced its last vehicle
in 2019.
 2 “WHAT HAPPENED?” 29

at mid-twentieth century, Youngstown had earned itself the reputation of

Crimetown, USA.10
The beginning of the crisis happened on what is recalled as Black
Monday: September 19, 1977. On that date, Youngstown Sheet & Tube
Company announced they were shutting down the Campbell Works’ mill,
thus terminating 5000 jobs. In the following six years, the steel industry
left 50,000 people without a job. This series of events left Youngstown’s
population so deeply scarred that many of its middle-age inhabitants still
seem to dwell in a nostalgic past. This, however, is far from being a hope-
less outlook on the future of the area. In fact, as will be noted also by
one of the youngest interviewees I met with, many older inhabitants
of Youngstown still believe in a roaring return of the city’s industrial
productivity.
Sometimes there are rumors of multinationals opening a branch in
Youngstown or the surrounding areas, such as Lufthansa or, when I was
there in 2017, Amazon. Someone also nurses the hope that fracking
might cause another longed-for industrial boom. Gest describes the popu-
lation of the city of Youngstown as drawn into a thick mixture of
resentment, anger, and distrust. These feelings are directed at the indus-
trial sector that let them down, at the government, that has done nothing
to save their jobs, and at ethnic minorities who are now starting to
outnumber the slightly majoritarian white population. Being dependent
on federal aids, but especially being able not to rely on such measures, is
by many white working and middle-class citizens a status marker.11
As far as status is concerned, Gest argues that “it is more accurate
to think of white working-class political divisions as a matter of social
status, which integrates the overlapping divisions of race and class and
converts them into narratives that structure people’s experiences in the
market, society, and political sphere” (135). I strongly agree with Gest in
this regard. One of the premises upon which the present research rests is
that it is essential to observe the discourse and ideology of white—in this

10 Also the title of Allan R. May’s book Crimetown, U.S.A.: The History of the Mahoning
Valley Mafia.
11 These findings are in line with what Lipset claimed in 1955, or that status discontent
tends to arise in times of economic well-being, and with Kimmel’s and his analysis of
“Angry White Men,” arguing that it is often not the poorest on the economic ladder
who gets enraged and start a revolution, either a symbolic or a real one. It is those who
think they have something to lose.
30 C. M. MIGLIORI

specific case conservative Christian—working and middle-class Americans

as stemming from an imaginary that is heavily influenced by a perception
of status loss, in turn deriving from the economic but especially social and
political changes that have affected the country for decades.
Trump’s success in this area cannot simply be taken as the inevitable
political outlet of decades of growing resentment and anger toward
the Democratic Party. In what can be considered disillusioned cities
like Youngstown, in fact, what counted most of all was the former
president presenting himself as an outsider. This allowed him to offer
prospective electors an alternative, albeit merely symbolic, to the two-
party system perceived as the symbol of all that has gone astray in the
industrial and economic world. Moreover, “Trump bluntly acknowledged
white working-class people’s acute sense of loss” (194).12 Trump’s self-
characterization as a political outsider and as a skilled businessman, as we
will see shortly, is in fact one of the main reasons provided by peer group
participants for their support for the figure of the 45th president.

“All he’s Doing is just Trying to Do the Best He

Can”13
The pastor of a nondenominational Evangelical church located just
outside Youngstown was among the first ones to reply to my interview
request with a straight positive answer.14 After the countless declines
received, I was almost suspicious when I saw his Facebook message simply
saying to write him when I had been in town. I met with him on a
Saturday morning at a Starbucks Coffee. He was accompanied by a friend
and church member wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap,
and a “Trump won. Deal with it” T-shirt. After a short introductory talk,
we headed to the church to meet with the rest of the group.

12 An important figure in the region, writes McQuarrie, that stood out with regard to
other Democratic politicians who advertised themselves “as populists or rebels against the
party establishment” (141), was Jim Traficant, Youngstown’s Congressman from 1985 to
2002, whom the author defines as a “proto-Trump” (ibid.). Traficant obtained his success
as a nativist, populist, anti-free trade and anti-big government figure.
13 Nondenominational Evangelical church, Youngstown, OH, October 2017.
14 For a detailed discussion of the methodology of peer groups see Talking Politics
(Gamson, 1992).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Nadjiba und Mina, 10jährige chaldäische
Mädchen.
Die chaldäische Gemeinde zählt etwa 7000 Personen und zerfällt
in zwei Parteien; die eine nennt sich nach Bagdad, die andere nach
dem Dorf Tell-keif bei Mosul. Die Tell-keif-Partei hat der Bagdad-
Partei Fehde angesagt und will sich der Herrschaft in der Gemeinde
bemächtigen. Als der chaldäische Bischof auf seinem Recht
bestand, verklagte sie den achtzigjährigen harmlosen Greis beim
Patriarchen in Mosul, er wolle Bagdad der Machtsphäre des
Patriarchen entziehen und ein unabhängiges Patriarchat gründen.
Der Streit ging noch immer weiter, als wenn man an dem Weltkrieg
noch nicht genug hätte! Wie überall im Orient gewinnt man wenig
Achtung vor dem Christentum, das den Kindern dieses Landes
geboten wird. Der Bischof wohnte in einem ganz unansehnlichen
Hause. Dort sollten, wie man mir sagte, englische Offiziere vom
Majorsgrad an aufwärts eine Freistatt während der ersten Tage ihrer
Gefangenschaft finden. —

Der syrische Erzbischof von Bagdad.

Der syrische Erzbischof von Bagdad, Athanase Georges Dallal,
ist ein vornehmer, würdiger Prälat. Sein Aussehen erinnert an die
syrischen Könige auf den alten Reliefs: gerade, kräftige Nase und
dichter, rabenschwarzer Bart. Er trägt einen dunklen Mantel mit
Sammetkragen, den eine kleine Kette am Halse zusammenhält. An
dieser hängt das Kreuz, das seine hohe Würde bezeichnet. Seine
Kopfbedeckung gleicht einem umgekehrten Zylinderhut; die der
griechischen Geistlichen ist ebenso, nur fehlt hier die obere Krempe.
Er wohnt in einem sauberen Hause ortsüblichen Stils, dessen
kleinen gepflasterten Hof offene Galerien umgeben. Die Zimmer sind
groß, kühl und gut möbliert mit orientalischen Sofas und Teppichen,
schönen Kronleuchtern und zahlreichen Porträts verstorbener
Erzbischöfe.

Heskije, 60jähriger Rabbiner in Bagdad.

 Mesko, 60jährige Chaldäerin aus Tell-keif.
Hochwürden hatten die Güte, mir selbst die Kirche der
„Unbefleckten Empfängnis“ zu zeigen. Sie ist in halb arabischem Stil
vor einundfünfzig Jahren erbaut und hat drei niedrige Wölbungen,
die auf acht Säulen ruhen. Neben dem Hauptaltar im Chor steht zu
beiden Seiten je ein kleinerer. Dazu kommen mehrere
Gebetsnischen. Der schönste Besitz ist ein holzgeschnitztes Tor,
eine Gabe aus Indien aus dem Jahre 1863. Das ganze Gebäude hat
sehr unter Feuchtigkeit gelitten, besonders durch eine ungewöhnlich
starke Überschwemmung vor achtzehn Jahren, und man will es jetzt
einer gründlichen Ausbesserung unterwerfen, eine Arbeit, die wohl
auf 15000 Franken zu stehen kommt. Der Grund ist aufgeweicht, die
Säulen haben sich nach auswärts geneigt, und die Seitengewölbe
zeigen breite Risse. Die Innenseiten der Mauern waren mit
Alabasterplatten belegt, die dem übrigen weniger haltbaren
Baumaterial einigermaßen Schutz boten. Aber auch der Alabaster
verwittert, trotzdem er mit Ölfarbe gestrichen ist. Die alten Assyrier
verstanden die Kunst des Bauens besser.
Auf dem Altar lag das alte Evangelium in arabischer Sprache,
aber in syrischer Schrift, damit die ismaelitischen Araber es nicht
lesen können — ein höchst merkwürdiger Grund. Als
Verkehrssprache ist das Syrische fast verschwunden; nur in einigen
Dörfern bei Mosul soll es sich noch erhalten haben.
Früher war der Erzbischof von Mosul auch Bischof von Bagdad.
Vor sechzig Jahren aber wurde in Bagdad ein eigenes Erzbistum
errichtet, das dem syrischen Patriarchen in Antiochia, dessen
Residenz jedoch Beirut ist, untersteht. Dieser gebietet also den
Erzbischöfen von Aleppo, Mosul, Damaskus und Bagdad, sowie
denen von Homs und Hama, Diarbekr, Tripolis, Ägypten und Urfa.
Die syrische katholische Kirche Bagdads zählt 250 Familien mit
höchstens 2000, nach anderen Angaben 1250 Personen. In Amara
besteht eine kleine syrische Gemeinde von 70 oder 75 Personen,
und in Schar und Basra leben etwa 100 syrische Familien. Die
unierte syrische Kirche zählt 60000 Anhänger, die nichtunierte
400000; von letzteren wohnt die eine Hälfte in der Türkei, die andere
in Malabar in Indien. Vor fünfhundert und mehr Jahren hatte die
syrische Kirche mehrere Millionen Anhänger.
Die jetzt ausgewiesenen französischen Karmeliterpatres in
Bagdad haben eine Pfarrei mit Schule und Waisenhaus. Zu ihrer
Gemeinde gehören auch zwanzig Dominikanerschwestern, von
denen vierzehn Französinnen, die übrigen arabischer Abstammung
sind. Auch in Amara, Basra und Mohammera haben die Karmeliter
kleine Gemeinden und einige Schwestern. Das Irrenhaus in Amara
wurde von ihnen errichtet. Die verschiedenen Orden haben den
vorderen Orient unter sich verteilt. Den Karmelitern ist das ganze
Gebiet zwischen Bagdad und dem Persischen Golf zugewiesen,
während die Franziskaner ganz Palästina sowie Charput und Aleppo
übernommen haben. In Mosul residieren die Dominikaner, in Urfa
und Diarbekr die Kapuziner, in Damaskus die Lazaristen und in
Beirut Jesuiten.
Das prächtige Haus der Karmeliterväter mit seinem kühlen
Bogengang um einen gepflasterten, länglichen Hof herum haben die
Türken in eine Schule umgewandelt. Als ich vor mehr als dreißig
Jahren als frischgebackner Student dieses Haus besuchte, nahm
mich ein alter, weißbärtiger Pater so freundlich auf, daß ich mich
noch heute seiner lustigen Versuche erinnere, einige schwedische
Sätze zu radebrechen. Diesmal wohnte ich in der Karmeliterkirche
einem Hochamt bei, das mein Freund von der Euphratfahrt, der
katholische Priester, vor deutschen Soldaten und Offizieren und
syrischen Frauen und Mädchen hielt. Die leichten, von der Stirn bis
auf die Füße reichenden, meist hellroten oder hellblauen Schleier,
die schwarzen Augen, dunkeln Flechten und roten Lippen der
Töchter des Orients boten einen prächtigen künstlerischen
Gegensatz zu den braungebrannten feldgrauen deutschen Kriegern,
die das in Kreuzform gebaute, von Orgeltönen durchbrauste
Gotteshaus bis auf den letzten Platz füllten.
 Habuba, Chaldäerin aus Tell-keif.
Das Kloster der Dominikanerschwestern ist ein ungewöhnlich
gediegen gebauter Komplex von Höfen, Säulengängen, Altanen,
Terrassen und Veranden. Mitten auf einem der Höfe wächst eine
herrliche Dattelpalme, umgeben von Maulbeerbäumen und anderen
Gewächsen. Das Kloster wurde 1880 gegründet, während die
Mission der Karmeliterväter in Bagdad schon ein paar hundert Jahre
alt ist. Von den zwanzig Schwestern waren vier bereits vor dem
Krieg „Soeurs de charité“ im bürgerlichen Krankenhaus, elf taten
Dienst in Militärlazaretten, und fünf nahmen sich der
Erziehungsanstalten des Klosters an, der „Ecole arabe“, der „Ecole
professionelle“ und des Waisenhauses. Hier werden nur Mädchen
unterrichtet; in der Gewerbeschule lernen sie nähen, klöppeln,
sticken und weben. Einige der wenigen deutschen Damen in Bagdad
lassen ihre Kleider bei ihnen machen; es war rührend, sie bei der
Arbeit zu sehen. Vor dem Krieg lernten nicht weniger als
fünfunddreißig junge arabische Damen in der Schule der
Schwestern Klavierspielen. Vater- und mutterlose Mädchen, alle arm
wie Kirchenmäuse, wohnen im Kloster, wo sie alles bekommen, was
sie bedürfen. Zur Zeit waren es einundfünfzig, und die Einkünfte
waren auf eine unbedeutende Summe herabgesunken. Einigen
Verdienst brachte nur etwas Näharbeit für europäische Damen. Aber
unter der Hut der Erzieherinnen wachsen und gedeihen sie, und die
Schwestern tun, was sie können, um sie an rechtschaffene
christliche Jünglinge zu verheiraten, die Gelegenheit gehabt haben,
die Mädchen kennen zu lernen. Auch Verlobung und Hochzeit
werden im Kloster gefeiert. Zuweilen aber kehrt auch das junge Paar
nach einiger Zeit zurück, um Hilfe zu erbitten.

Phot.: Schölvinck.
Der Herzog, Rittmeister Schölvinck und der Verfasser im Gespräch mit
französischen Dominikanerinnen.
Die goldenen Kuppeln und Minarette von Kasimen.

Haupteingang zur Grabmoschee in Kasimen.

 Zu den Sehenswürdigkeiten Bagdads gehört auch die kleine
Stadt Kasimen auf dem rechten Tigrisufer mit einer von den Schiiten
sorgsam gepflegten Grabmoschee für Imam Musa-el-Kasim
(gestorben 801 n. Chr.) und seinen Enkel. Der persische
Pilgerverkehr dorthin ist so zahlreich, daß Midhat Pascha auf der
zwischen üppigen Palmenhainen hinführenden Landstraße eine
Pferdebahn anlegen ließ, deren zweistöckige, sehr abgenutzte
Wagen gepfropft voll waren. Auch Kasimen hat seine Basare,
Karawansereien und Kasernen. Die Grabmoschee selbst konnte ich
aber nur von einem Dache aus sehen und durch das Eingangstor
einen flüchtigen Blick in den Tempelhof werfen, dessen
Innenfassade mit moderner Fayence farbenprächtig ausgelegt war.
Auf dem Rückweg besuchte ich Sitte Sobeïd, ein Mausoleum, das
Harun-er-Raschid seiner Lieblingsgemahlin Sobeïd errichtete. Das
ursprüngliche Grabmal wurde im Jahre 1051 zerstört, und der jetzige
Bau mit seinem pyramidenförmigen Turm zeigt zwar den Stil des 11.
Jahrhunderts, ist aber kaum hundert Jahre alt. Zahlreiche neue
Gräber mit einfachen Steinplatten umgeben ihn, und in seiner Nähe
steht unter Palmen die kleine schöne Grabmoschee Scheik Ma’ruf-
el-Kaschi.
 Grabmoschee der Sobeïd.

Die Angaben über die Bevölkerungszahl Bagdads schwanken

zwischen 120 und 300000. Europäer, die lange in Bagdad gewohnt,
und fremde Besucher, die es nach allen Richtungen durchwandert
und von hochgelegenen Aussichtspunkten aus sein Häusermeer
betrachtet haben, sind der Überzeugung, daß die Zahl 120000 der
Wirklichkeit am nächsten kommt. Einen brauchbaren Anhaltspunkt
für die Berechnung ergibt der Verkehr in den Basaren der
verschiedenen Städte; die von Damaskus z. B., das etwa 300000
Einwohner hat, sind viel weitläufiger und besuchter. Der syrische
Erzbischof von Bagdad berechnet die Zahl der Bewohner auf
230000 : 150000 Mohammedaner in zweiunddreißig verschiedenen
Sekten mit etwa hundert Moscheen, von denen nur ein Drittel Kuppel
und Minarett hat, 60–80000 Juden, die fünfzig Synagogen haben
und neun Zehntel des Handels beherrschen (nach europäischen
Angaben höchstens 45000), 7000 Chaldäer, 2000 Syrier, je 4–500
armenisch-katholische und armenisch-orthodoxe, etliche römische
Katholiken, und dazu die wenigen Kurden, die nur von Zeit zu Zeit
die Stadt besuchen. Im Jahre 1900 berechnete Max von Oppenheim
die Einwohnerzahl auf 200000, davon 150000 Mohammedaner
(einschließlich 90000 Schiiten), 10000 Christen und 40000 Juden.
Als ich Bagdad vor dreißig Jahren besuchte, wohnten nur wenige
Europäer dort. Vor Ausbruch des Weltkrieges zählte man deren
mehrere Hundert. Neue Kaufhäuser und Banken waren seitdem
entstanden, besonders hatte die Bagdadbahn viele Deutsche
herbeigezogen, und während meines jetzigen Aufenthaltes hatten
die Aufgaben des Krieges zahlreiche Europäer, darunter viele
Deutsche, Träger berühmter Namen, und mehrere meiner
Landsleute in deutschen Diensten nach Bagdad geführt. Einige, die
zu meinem nächsten Freundeskreis gehörten, nannte ich bereits. Bei
Dr. Herle sah ich den hervorragenden Arzt Professor Reich, der auf
der Rückreise von Persien am Flecktyphus erkrankt war; er schien
dem Tode nahe, überwand jedoch die Krisis und konnte Anfang Juni
nach Deutschland heimkehren. Die archäologische Forschung war
glänzend vertreten durch die Professoren Andrae und Jordan, die
Leiter der Ausgrabungen in Assur, und durch Professor Sarre, der
gemeinsam mit Dr. Herzfeld das Geheimnis von Samarra bloßlegte.
Beiden Ruinenstädten sind spätere Kapitel meines Buches
gewidmet. Die Archäologen Dr. Lührs und Bachmann waren
dienstlich an der Irakfront beschäftigt.
Wie Deutschland in allen großen Städten Vorderasiens überaus
tüchtige Konsuln besitzt, so auch in Bagdad, wo Dr. Hesses
vielseitige Kenntnisse auch für die Kriegführung von größtem Nutzen
waren. Früher war der englische Generalkonsul der mächtigste
Ausländer hier; er unterstand dem Gesandten in Konstantinopel, war
aber auch als politischer Agent und Resident der indischen
Regierung tätig. Eine Eskorte von Sepoys und ein eigenes Schiff
bezeichneten nachdrücklich seine Machtstellung. Jetzt waren die
englischen, französischen und russischen Konsuln verschwunden,
nur die von Österreich, Amerika und Persien noch auf dem Posten.
Dem persischen Konsul machten die Pilger seiner Heimat viel zu
schaffen, die lebenden und noch mehr die toten, die in Decken
gehüllt auf Mauleseln nach Kerbela überführt werden mußten.
 Kasimen.

Im Stabe des Herzogs traf ich Rittmeister Tschirner wieder, dem

ich an der Ostfront bei Suwalki begegnet war. Stabschef war Major
von Köppen. In einem Krankenhause lag in bedenklichem Zustande
der deutsche Schriftsteller Armin T. Wegner, bekannt durch seine
Bücher „Zwischen zwei Städten“, „Gedichte in Prosa“ und andere.
Der deutsche Arzt Dr. Schacht führte Schölvinck und mich an sein
Schmerzenslager, wo wir eine unvergeßliche Stunde verbrachten.
Mit einer gewaltigen Karawane von Mauleseln und persischen
Dienern kam von Teheran der dortige deutsche Gesandte Dr. Vassel
und mietete für sich und sein Gefolge ein Stück vor der Stadt ein
Haus. Hier wohnte auch Wilamowitz als deutscher Militärattaché in
Persien. Als ich meinen Reisekameraden das letzte Mal sah, hatte
er hohes Fieber, war aber nicht dazu zu bewegen, das Bett
aufzusuchen. Er war gerade Major geworden, und nach Dr. Vassels
Abreise war er deutscher Chargé d’affaires. Er hoffte, den
siegreichen türkischen Truppen nach Persien folgen und endlich der
erstickenden Hitze entfliehen zu können. Seine Krankheit aber
verschlimmerte sich plötzlich, und er starb Mitte Juli, eine trauernde
Witwe, geborene Freifrau von Fock, und eine kleine Tochter
hinterlassend, die jetzt in Stockholm wohnen.

Straße in Bagdad.
An Direktor Wurst hatte die Deutsche Bank in Bagdad einen
vortrefflichen Vertreter, dessen Arbeitslast sich ungeheuer
vermehren wird, wenn die Bagdadbahn einmal fertig ist. Herr Brown,
Chef eines großen deutschen Handelshauses, hatte acht Jahre lang
an der Piratenküste des Persischen Golfs unter wenig bekannten
Araberstämmen gelebt; durch Handelsverbindungen, die er mit
ihnen und den Beduinen in Mesopotamien anknüpfte, besaß er
einen großen Einfluß auf diese Völker. Er erzählte mir von dem
mächtigen Araberhauptmann Ibn Reschid südlich von Hille, der mit
einer Streitmacht von 30000 Mann der türkischen Sache treu
ergeben ist, und von andern Stämmen weiter unten am Golf, die auf
ihren Kriegszügen die vornehmsten Frauen in schimmernder Pracht
auf Dromedaren voranreiten lassen, um den Mut der Kämpfer
anzufeuern. Bei Brown wohnte der junge Diplomat Herr Dickhoff von
der Deutschen Gesandtschaft in Teheran. Herzog Adolf Friedrich mit
Gefolge, Graf Wilamowitz und ich waren oft in Browns Haus zu
Gaste, besonders an Mondscheinabenden, wenn man ohne Lampe
auf der Dachterrasse sitzen und den Anblick des silberblanken
Stroms und der seltsam beleuchteten Palmen genießen konnte.
 Kaiplatz in Bagdad.

Elftes Kapitel.
Sommertage in „Dar-es-Salaam“.

B agdads Sehenswürdigkeiten, d. h. das, was 1258 von den

Horden Hulagus und hundertfünfzig Jahre später von Tamerlan
verschont wurde, lassen sich an einem Tage besichtigen. Und doch
— wie gern verweilt man ein paar Wochen hier, um den
unverfälschten Orient und das farbensatte Straßenleben zu
genießen. Die Stadt hat eigentlich nur eine Straße, die diesen
Namen verdient. Hier kann man sogar Droschke fahren, wenn man
nicht gerade in einem unentwirrbaren Knäuel von Karawanentieren,
Reitern und Wagen stecken bleibt. Sie setzt die Straße Halil
Paschas nach Nordwesten fort und läuft parallel dem Tigris durch die
ganze Stadt, durch die vornehmste Pulsader des Basars und weiter
am Kopf der Pontonbrücke vorüber auf dem linken Ufer nach der
Zitadelle Kala, einem mauerumschlossenen Block von Zivil- und
Militärgebäuden, Serail, Konak und Kaserne.
Auf dieser Straße wogt ein bunter Karneval der Rassen —
Semiten, Mongolen, Arier, selbst Neger —, der verschiedensten
Religionen, Geschlechter und Stände. An den Ecken sitzen die
Armen, die übrigens während des Krieges weit minder zahlreich
waren, als man erwarten sollte. Auf weißen Mauleseln oder
kostbaren arabischen Stuten reiten die Standesherren. Mit
unbewußter Majestät, die geborenen Aristokraten Vorderasiens,
tragen die echten Araber, die Wüstenbeduinen, ihre weißen,
flatternden Kopftücher unter den Stirnreifen und ihre weiten, bis zu
den Füßen reichenden Mäntel. Juden überall, in orientalischen
Trachten und leicht erkennbar an ihren ausgeprägten Zügen.
Dunkelblau gekleidete Araberinnen verstecken die Glut ihrer Augen
hinter undurchdringlichen Schleiern. Die türkischen Damen gehen
gewöhnlich schwarz gekleidet, oft in Seide, und lassen ebenfalls
keinen Schimmer ihrer Gesichtszüge sehen. Die Christinnen
Bagdads: Syrierinnen, Chaldäerinnen, Armenierinnen, tragen helle,
leichte Gewänder, die wie zusammengefallene Ballonhüllen ihre
Formen verbergen, ihre schmucken Gesichter aber den Augen der
Männer freigeben. Auch die Trachten der Jüdinnen gleichen denen
der Mohammedanerinnen, nur der Schleier verrät sofort die Rasse,
ein kleines schwarzes, goldgerändertes Sonnendach, das von der
Stirne wagerecht vorspringt oder schwach abfällt und das Gesicht
nicht verbirgt, sondern nur beschattet.
In der Hauptstraße von Bagdad.

Die Hauptstraße Bagdads.

 Überall malerische Bilder und Gruppen! Sieh nur dort die
arabische Mutter, die ihr kleines Kind auf der rechten Schulter trägt
und ihren Buben an der linken Hand führt; oder hier die in
dunkelblaue Schleier gehüllten Mädchen, die zum Strand hinab
eilen, um in schönen Lehmkrügen oder Kupferkannen Wasser zu
holen. Auch im Innern der Stadt trifft man sie, wenn man an den
kleinen Wasserbehältern unter den schützenden Ziegelwölbungen
stehen bleibt; hier lassen sie sich abends nieder, treffen ihre
Nachbarinnen, plaudern und tragen die wildesten Basargerüchte
weiter.
Von der Hauptstraße führen mehrere kleine Quergassen oder
schmale Gänge zwischen den Häusern zum Tigrisufer hinab, wo
Boote und Guffas ihre Landungsplätze haben. Dorthin wandern
barfuß auch die Sakkas, die Wasserträger; in schwarzen, weichen,
tropfenden Ziegenfellsäcken tragen sie Wasser in die
Haushaltungen und zu den durstigen Wanderern in den Basaren,
oder sie sprengen damit die trockenen Straßen. Der Sack hängt auf
der rechten Seite, mit der rechten Hand halten sie ihn zu, während
die linke eine kleine, bis zum Rand gefüllte Holzschale darreicht.
Besondere Geschicklichkeit gehört dazu, den leeren Sack zu füllen;
ein an doppeltem Riemen befestigter Ledereimer wird in den Fluß
hinabgelassen, ohne daß der Mann sich bückt, dann mit einer
eleganten Bewegung herausgehoben und in die offene Mündung
des Sacks hinein entleert.
Sakka (Wasserträger).