This piece was originally published in Tablet.
At the start of 2026, Donald Trump should have the wind at his back as he sets out to assure America’s future.
For his recent election, he assembled the broadest multi-faith conservative coalition in modern American politics. A twice-divorced casino magnate who bragged about his sexual exploits to interviewers, rarely attended church, and once identified as pro-choice hardly embodied the “family values” that had defined the Religious Right since the late 1970s. Yet despite violating the moral norms religious voters championed, he drew more unified, enthusiastic support from them than any Republican in the modern era. Churchgoing white evangelicals gave him historic margins, but so did Orthodox and observant Jews. Traditionally, Democratic Catholics swung hard to the GOP. And in a twist almost no one predicted, in 2024 thousands of Muslim voters in Michigan—long considered a Democratic lock—crossed over to vote for him.
