Many of us saw that insanely weird OH Trump speech in which the Cheeto-in-Chief accused former VP of being “against God,” and claimed that a Biden presidency would “hurt God” and “hurt the Bible.” It was bizarre even by Trump’s standards. At first, I simply thought it was one more piece of evidence of Trump’s declining mental health. But the more I think about it, the more I think that something more is going on. A little historical review sheds some possible light on the matter—and suggests a good tactical response from the Biden campaign.
In 1928, the Democratic National Convention nominated Gov. Al Smith (D-NY) as the party’s nominee for U.S. president. Smith was the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for POTUS by any major political party. He faced enormous opposition by GOP nominee Herbert Hoover, especially using anti-Catholic fear mongering to gin up votes against Smith by Protestants. Smith was accused ridiculously of wanting to hand over the White House to the Pope! Although anti-Catholic fears among Protestants were not the sole cause (Smith opposed Prohibition, too), Hoover easily beat Smith and anti-Catholicism played a notable role. Smith himself lamented that “the time has not yet come when a man may say his rosary and also be President.” Because, prior to the Second Vatican Council (1960-1963), the Catholic Church did not encourage individual Bible study, one of the strongest Protestant fears was that if Catholics ever became politically powerful in the U.S.A., they would ban the Bible. (This fear was baseless and confused Catholic belief that the Church was charged to correctly interpret Scripture for laity—to prevent the spread of heresy—with hostility to Scripture itself.)
When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he found it necessary to explain and defend his faith before a meeting of Protestant ministers in Texas, defending his respect for religious liberty and church/state separation. Protestants still worried that Catholic adherence to the authority of the pope prevented them from actually functioning as citizens in a democracy. Kennedy had to promise voters in West Virginia (then a Democratic stronghold) that he would not ban birth control, that the Constitution and not official Church doctrine would guide his actions. Kennedy won, unlike Smith, but opponents still published attacks that preyed on Protestant fears that a Catholic president would ban private ownership of Bibles.
In the years since Vatican II and JFK’s presidency, Catholics have become the largest religious group in the U.S. Catholic political strength has grown and the Ecumenical Movement has meant far more interaction between Protestants and Catholics and, hence far more Protestant understanding of Catholic faith. The study of Scripture by Catholic laity since Vatican II has also contributed to major decrease in the crudity of Protestant fears. Also, the rise of the Religious Right (c. 1978) as a political force has meant much cooperation between conservative Protestants and conservative Catholics—especially in political opposition to legal abortion.
Despite all those developments, the long strain of anti-Catholicism in U.S. political life has decreased, not vanished. When John Kerry was the Democratic nominee for POTUS in 2004, the George W. Bush campaign decided to ramp up voter turnout among white evangelicals not just by stressing that W was one of them, but by stoking white evangelical Protestant fears of “secularism,” including continued legal abortion access and increasing legal protections for LGBTQi folk. Kerry’s Catholicism was not attacked directly—times had changed. Yet W’s campaign ads still circulated the old fears of bans on the Bible.
But W’s campaign was far more subtle than anything Trump or his campaign can muster. There was always “plausible deniability” of any personal attacks on Kerry’s faith in ‘04. So, I think that Trump’s campaign staff probably told Cheeto man to stoke fears that a Biden presidency would mean a loss for “religious liberty” (his base understands any decrease in the privilege and political power of white evangelicals as attacks on ‘religious liberty”) and stoke the old fear of banned Bibles. They probably also told Trump to stoke fears of Democrats coming for all gun ownership. But Trump is an idiot and apparently in mental decline. He can’t do subtle or nuanced. So what came out was that Biden would “hurt God and hurt the Bible,” harm guns and be “against God.” This may not have been specifically anti-Catholic, but it certainly uses old anti-Catholic tropes.
So, the Biden campaign, which has already called out this attack on Biden’s faith, should specifically accuse Trump and his campaign of anti-Catholicism. Remind the public of the “ban the Bible” fears. This will put Trump on the defensive--and it could splinter the alliance between conservative Catholics and white Protestant fundamentalists in his base.
That weird attack is already backfiring for Trump (as did his photo-op with the Bible in front of St. John’s Church several weeks ago). So, I say, press the advantage. Put his campaign on the defensive. Make them have to defend themselves from charges of anti-Catholicism for the rest of the campaign. It’s not 1928 or even 1960 anymore. An anti-Catholic smear campaign should have political costs.
