The Christian Divide

The latest PPRI report- Democracy at a Crossroads: How Americans View Trump’s First 100 Days in Office

I urge you to listen to the podcast conversation I just had with Robert P. Jones, the Founder and President of Public Religion Research (PRRI). Their latest report, just out, is called Democracy at a Crossroads: How Americans View Trump’s First 100 Days in Office.

Drawing on a survey of more than 5,000 Americans the survey asked clear questions with answers broken down into Republican, Democratic, and Independent categories. You might have seen some of the other 100 day polling reports by other media outlets which describe the partisan results and also of independent voters. But the PRRI report is very interesting because it records the answers to survey questions by different religious groups, and by Christians in particular, to their support or opposition of Trump.

There are lots of fascinating results from the survey, but two sets of questions in particular jumped out to me:

1. Is “President Trump … a dangerous dictator who should be limited before he destroys American democracy?” OR is “President Trump … a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore American greatness?”

2. There are deep differences and clear questions in the survey on immigration policy. How many Americans and religious groups agree or disagree “that the federal government should place immigrants who are in the country illegally into internment camps guarded by the military until they can be deported.”

The numbers in the PRRI survey strongly challenge the public narratives about what the majority of Christians and other religious and non-religious groups think about Donald Trump.

To hear about the results of these, and other fascinating questions, listen to our conversation. Take a listen– I think you’ll find it fascinating.

And if you want to dive deeper into the results of the survey, you can read the executive summary, the full report, watch PRRI’s panel event discussing the report, or read Robert P. Jones’ latest Substack article about the poll.

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