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The godless US election Viking shamans are transforming spirituality

'For the insurrectionists at the Capitol, what was at stake transcended politics' (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

'For the insurrectionists at the Capitol, what was at stake transcended politics' (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)


November 4, 2024   7 mins

Rallies. Insults. Slightly awkward baby-holding. In most ways, this year’s election is just as crass and theatrical as ever. Yet as the American public heads to the polls, the 2024 cycle is strikingly different for one key reason: its godlessness. For the first time in decades, neither candidate has said much about their faith, and when they have mentioned religion it’s been in the vaguest terms imaginable. 

Given America’s long history of divinely inspired electioneering, a field ploughed by everyone from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, that’s striking enough. But when you consider that America remains a thoroughly religious country — at least by Western standards — the disappearance of God from the stump really is remarkable. 

Yet amid rising speculation that America’s Christian flame is finally dying, it’s wrong to say the 2024 cycle has been free of spirituality. For if personal appeals to organised religion have been notable by their absence, this election is as metaphysical as ever. Whether in Harris’s subtle nods to secular spirituality, or else Trump’s manichaean cosmology of good and evil, the divine still matters. It’s just that the sandals-and-beard Christ is being elbowed aside by something stranger and darker, with consequences that could yet transform America’s political culture.

Religion has been part of US elections for decades. As far back as 1976, Jimmy Carter’s victory was partly attributed to his religious openness, with his Southern Baptist roots proving attractive to voters. Four years later, Ronald Reagan prayed during his acceptance speech. By the turn of the millennium, Dubya declared that Christ was his favourite political philosopher: because he “changed my heart”. For his part, Barack Obama was fond of invoking his own conversion experience, while Joe Biden, who once considered entering the priesthood, has made frequent reference to his Catholicism. 

Cut to the 2024 election, however, and testimonies of faith have mostly vanished. Consider Donald Trump. Despite enjoying near-Messianic status among some supporters, not to mention selling Bibles with his name on them, the Republican hopeful isn’t a regular churchgoer and has little to say about his personal convictions. He has, to be fair, claimed his faith “took on new meaning” after he narrowly avoided assassination in July. Overall, though, the issue doesn’t seem to be front of mind. At a recent forum for faith voters in Georgia, Trump made just one allusion to his own beliefs, preferring instead to focus on the perils of illegal immigration.

Kamala Harris, for her part, grew up attending both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. With a Jewish husband and stepchildren, she’s been touted as the candidate for a multifaith, multiracial America. Yet if she’s made occasional references to personal religiosity, it’s not a significant part of her campaigning, an omission that’s been seized upon by her opponents. As J.D. Vance sniped: “There is something really bizarre with Kamala Harris’ anti-Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian approach to public policy.”

Americans have heard the message loud and clear. In a poll conducted in September, just 12% of voters said the word “religious” describes either Trump or Harris “extremely” or “very” well. 

So why might Trump and Harris have taken this Jesus-light approach? Part of the answer, presumably, is the much-touted decline of Christianity. As documented in the latest Pew Research Center survey, 28% of Americans are now classed as “nones” meaning they’re religiously unaffiliated. This is up from 16% in 2007, and just 5% in 1972. Concurrently, the proportion of Christians has tumbled, from 90% in the Seventies to 78% in 2007 to less than two-thirds today.

According to the Pew Research Center’s projections, the numbers of Christians and “nones” could be roughly equal by 2070, each comprising around a third to a half of the US population. 

This demographic shift is inarguable, and Harris especially will have been paying attention. All those “nones” are a diverse cohort, comprising atheists, agnostics, loosely spiritual types, and a big group identifying as “nothing in particular”. They span everyone from the anti-religious to the apathetic, and while most believe in a higher power, nearly half maintain that religion does more harm than good.

They are also more inclined to vote for Harris: 70% of this group skew Democrat, including 84% of atheists. While they are far from a unified voting bloc, and are indeed less likely to vote than the general population, they equally include a very vocal group of Left-leaning secular activists. If Harris were to overdo the religious rhetoric, in short, she’d stand to alienate a significant chunk of her voter base. 

Of course, it isn’t as simple as saying that secularists vote blue and the godly go red. As well as courting the non-religious vote, Harris will be looking to maintain her support among black Protestants, 84% of whom lean Democrat. Many Jews, Muslims and Hispanic Catholics tend to look Left too.

Yet appealing to these groups doesn’t necessarily require Harris to talk up her faith. Rather, she’s made efforts to portray herself as a defender of minorities and a champion of abstract social justice. As the Democratic nominee vaguely put it, she “was raised to believe in a loving God, to believe that your faith is a verb”. It’s a position unlikely to ruffle her supporters, be they black Baptists or strident atheists. 

A case in point: Emanuel Jones, a Georgia state senator, has spoken approvingly of the presidential candidate’s unwillingness to mix politics and God. “I think she does a really good job of keeping them separate,” he said in October. “She did that today, and we all should.” 

On the face of it, Trump’s apparent irreligion is more mystifying. This is a man, after all, who is looking to court some of the most overtly religious voters in America. A whopping 85% of white evangelicals lean Republican, along with the lion’s share of white Christians generally. 

And though white evangelicals are less powerful than they were, now comprising less than one in seven Americans, they nonetheless are expected to wield outsize influence on the election. For one thing, this cohort is far more likely to vote than most. For another thing, they could play a decisive role in swing states like Georgia.

Trump can’t afford to lose these voters. But with two previous cycles under his belt, he doesn’t seem too worried about that. To put it differently, then, he may not talk about his faith because he doesn’t need to. Evangelical loyalty is assured already: even given Trump’s less-than-stellar personal behaviour, many white evangelicals now view him as synonymous with traditional Christian values. 

For sure, some are single-issue voters, who will hold their noses and vote Republican based on the abortion question alone. Others, though, are wedded to the idea that Trump is God’s flawed but “anointed” instrument on earth. As media personality Lance Wallnau put it rather ominously last year, “the hand of God is on him and he cannot be stopped”. 

Beyond that, though, it’s unclear how appeals to Christianity might fly with another group of voters, a group that’s garnered cultural clout while defying traditional classifications. 

It’s here that “conspirituality  a muddle of far-Right conspiracy theory and alternative spirituality gathers steam. Think anti-vaxxer yoga teachers at one end of the spectrum, and Capitol-storming white supremacists at the other, with MAGA cheerleaders like Alex Jones hollering away in the middle. Many in this bracket would previously have aligned with RFK Jr, who identifies as Catholic but has made no secret of his conspiratorial persuasions. Around half of RFK Jr’s supporters are now thought to have pivoted to Trump, with only a quarter switching to Harris.

“Think anti-vaxxer yoga teachers at one end of the spectrum, and Capitol-storming white supremacists at the other”

It’s hard to say how these voters might define themselves from a religious perspective. On the one hand, movements like Q-Anon have been painted as an offshoot of evangelical Christianity, with white evangelicals overrepresented among their supporters. On the other, many conspiracists have New Age-accented beliefs, while others use pagan signifiers. Who could forget the Viking shaman at the Capitol?

The academic Tobias Cremer argues that what we’re seeing is the emergence of a new, post-religious Right, consisting of “disenchanted working-class voters who combine secular values with cultural nativism and authoritarian tendencies”. This group may borrow the symbols of Christianity for instance parading Christian crosses at their marches but don’t necessarily believe Christ died for our sins. 

If Trump is interested in cornering this group, then, it may be smart to avoid traditional religious rhetoric. Not that these voters are insensitive to spirituality. For even if their Bibles are gathering dust, many continue to see politics as a meeting ground for cosmic forces, a clash not just between one set of values and another, but between the very powers of good and evil. 

QAnon message boards have always been full of apocalyptic grandiosity, notably claiming that those in Washington “worship the devil”. For the insurrectionists at the Capitol, what was at stake transcended politics: they believed they were waging war against the Deep State in a battle they called “The Storm”.

At the more absurd end of the spectrum is Kek, an ancient Egyptian chaos god who spawned an internet religion. He became a semi-ironic icon for the alt-Right, who used his image not only to troll liberals, but also make a serious point about their desire to overturn the global order.

Then, during the pandemic, these same far-Right fearmongers found some unlikely allies in the wellness community. Charles Eisenstein, a New Age thinker who became a campaign advisor for RFK Jr, identified a “locus of evil in Covid policy and the totalitarian impulse beneath it”. At the same time, the one-time liberal darling Naomi Wolf described the Covid health measures as “pure elemental evil” adding that they caused her to believe in the “principalities and power” of darkness. 

Trump and his supporters are constantly alluding to this kind of spiritual warfare: a move that may appeal to white evangelicals and conspiratorially secularists alike. When they describe the Democratic party as “evil” or else attribute Trump’s criminal charges to a demonic plot they are tapping into a black-and-white psychology that goes far beyond a specific religious viewpoint. 

It should be noted that alternative spirituality isn’t merely a Right-wing phenomenon. A counterexample on the Left is the self-help author Marianne Williamson, who ran for the Democratic party nomination in 2020 and 2024. Her low polling numbers, however, suggest that something about her spirituality-infused spiel didn’t resonate. It remains to be seen whether other New Age candidates can break through, and what kind of narrative they’d need to persuade this highly educated voter base. In the immediate term, certainly, Williamson’s message of peace, love and vaccine hesitancy proved a little too kooky.

What we can be more sure about is that, as America’s ideological landscape continues to fracture, we haven’t seen the last of alternative spiritualities. What might this mean for politics? Once those “nones” equal America’s Christians a situation that’s already close at hand in Britain might we see what was once unthinkable: the first openly atheist presidential candidate? Or perhaps we should expect the first nominee to have founded an internet religion? Or one who endorses the curative powers of ayahuasca? Performs witchcraft? Follows an AI deity?

Short of securing the intercession of Kek, the future is impossible to predict. But whatever happens, politicians will always be tasked with finding the lowest common denominator among the voting public. Whether that’s the battle of good versus evil, or wan homilies about letting your beliefs inform your actions, they need a unifying message. With belief systems splintering ever more dramatically, it’ll take a very savvy politician to talk from the pulpit with skill. In the meantime, it’s business as usual: gaffes, clangers and baby-holding too.


Abi Millar is a journalist, and author of The Spirituality Gap: Searching for Meaning in a Secular Age, due to be published in January 2025.


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T Bone
T Bone
1 month ago

How do you just ignore the Intersectional, Climate Existentialist End Times spirituality that consumes the entire spectrum of Democrats from moderate liberals to radical leftists? There are a few outliers like the chamber of commerce Republicans that are now Dems who are just ruthless pragmatists.
But the majority of the Party voters have bought into conspiracy after conspiracy.

You have to laugh listening to “reasonable Democrats” talking against “division” and “promoting unity” when their entire philosophy is based on Conflict Theory and smug certitude. The entire 2020 campaign was about Race-based “Police Brutality.” A concept they quickly abandoned once the public noticed the Narrative was contrived.

There are exceptions but most Democrat voters believe everything the Media reports. They have no interest in the Fact/Value distinction because questioning the value of some facts vs others would mean their interpretive experts (Prophets) haven’t correctly identified the meaningful facts; thus reality. That’s why they say things like “Trust the Experts” as if the Experts are High Priests with unique, unobtainable knowledge about reality.

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
1 month ago
Reply to  T Bone

At the beginning of the 16th century the Catholic Church had a monopoly on European religion and cultural reality. Having abandoned Christ’s non-material and apolitical imperatives, the Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops were corrupt, power-hungry, wealthy, and immoral. Fake miracles, paid indulgences, and harsh treatment of heterodoxy summarizes their scam. To say the least, it no longer served its flock. Martin Luther, Gutenburg and the Enlightenment would shatter that world.

We have a new religion in the West, Science, which has also forsaken its foundational tenets in favor of authoritative orthodoxy. Major questions of science are now decided, not in the lab, but by consensus of credentialed “experts” who are not to be questioned. Where scientists like Jonas Salk and Marie Curie once forsook profiting from their discoveries in favor of benefitting humanity, our current high priests in lab coats covet the riches of intellectual property and the glory of prestige. Its revelations now frequently cannot be reproduced (the replication crisis). The miracles they offer too often prove curses that coarsen our lives and threaten our safety (gain of function virology experiments). They leverage their prowess to hold forth on matters of conscience and public policy far exceeding the writ of what science can honestly offer. They discourage us from thinking for ourselves. They align themselves politically with power and influence.

Wise men once recognized the detrimental nature of the wedding of religion to the state and revolted in order to divorce them. Is it time to separate science from the state? If the high priests of science continue to abandon their gospel and abuse their prerogatives, especially forcing unproven dogma upon reasonable skeptics via the power of the state and the threat of virtual inquisition, there will come again a nailing of theses to the chapel door.

Douglas Redmayne
Douglas Redmayne
1 month ago

Evangelicals are toxic people who want to impose their values on others by criminalising abortion. The decline of their infl and numbers is to be celebrated.

Brett H
Brett H
1 month ago

A little too simplistic.

Vidar Bøe
Vidar Bøe
1 month ago

If evil exists, which I firmly believe, one would find it among those who label what is good bad, and cheers on every kind of vice and perversion. For years it has been public acceptable to call godfearing christian men in my country ‘darkmen’. But what can we expect, our Lord and saviour was called Belsebub, or the Devil, and if He that lived the perfectly reightous life was thus treated, we should humbly accept being called toxic and dark men.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 month ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

“Godfearing”
Why should your god need to be “feared”? It’s all utter nonsense, and worse: it’s psychologically disturbing to those whose mental frailty can’t accept there’s no ‘creator’.

Vidar Bøe
Vidar Bøe
1 month ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Dear Lad, He is to be feared because your very life is in His hands. Christianity is Christ crucified, God who gave his life for sinners. The Son og God who died for the sinful. How awful it will be for everyone who rejects God’s sacrifice for sin, who will venture to meet a holy God on their own merits.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 month ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

You make him sound like an authoritarian dictator rather than some benevolent creator, therefore you can keep him thanks. I’ve got enough things to worry about in my life without fearing some madman is going to strike me down at any moment because I haven’t followed done exactly as he says

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

You only need to fear God if you are a sinner. I expect down deep you feel you have much to answer for. But I don’t judge you. That’s up to Him unless you are a Dawkins acolyte, a form of intellectual slavery you will come to regret..

Tony Nunn
Tony Nunn
1 month ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

I’ve always understood “fear” in the context of fearing God to mean something more akin to respect than being frightened or terrified.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  Tony Nunn

Think of it as Crime and Punishment.

Douglas Redmayne
Douglas Redmayne
1 month ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

Get help

Vidar Bøe
Vidar Bøe
1 month ago

God bless you Douglas

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago

It didn’t work for you, why recommend it for others.

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
1 month ago

No hate or extremism there.

Mrs R
Mrs R
1 month ago

Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity…. In the
new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration
of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society. -Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci (1891-1937)

David Sharples
David Sharples
1 month ago

The author has little clue about the spirituality of the election here.
It is a race between two political parties: one made up of sinners, the other embracing the doctrines of demons.

Terry M
Terry M
1 month ago

What is sad is not that religion is disappearing from political campaigns, but that serious discussion of issues over which the government has control/influence is disappearing – particularly from the Dem side. It was all about Vibes and Joy until that was seen to be a charade, and now it’s all about fascism (that they don’t understand), saving democracy (that they don’t practice), and abortion, abortion, abortion (that the Fed gov’t no longer controls or influences).
Trump has at least discussed a few issues, but he has left many of his real accomplishments behind – the corporate tax cut from 35 to 21%, 3 ME peace deals, and low minority unemployment – and has instead doubled down on his worst – tariffs.
Very disheartening.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
1 month ago

I just wish Vance was standing instead of Trump. He would prioritise Christian values as well as economic nationalism and clear, aggressive policy towards China.
As a Californian socialist, Ms Harris can logically adhere to only one faith: LaVey’s Church of Satan. That doesn’t mean she expresses the sheer Evil of Biden and Clinton – she’s just a decadent hippy courtesan, utterly useless.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

Kamala is not a Christian though she is a socialist or worse. As a Brahmin in childhood, she worshiped the Indian godess Shiva. Like Obama’s Muslim upbringing in Indonesia, that doesn’t go away.

Martin Goodfellow
Martin Goodfellow
1 month ago

This article seems to have a ‘light touch’ seriousness about it, that doesn’t lend credit to its proposed purpose. A “beard and sandals Jesus”? Is she writing a movie review? Even for that this is highly irreverant. Then there’s the “Viking shaman”–colourful image, but Vikings didn’t have shamans, nor did they wear horned helmets. In view of such sloppy detail, it’s hard not to question the rest of what is said.

Gregory Hickmore
Gregory Hickmore
1 month ago

You are right Martin, the pictured headwear more closely resembles buffalo or bison war bonnets worn by many Plains Indians tribes (Sioux, for example). “Viking shaman,” indeed–adding insult to cultural appropriation.

Vidar Bøe
Vidar Bøe
1 month ago

The election might seem Godless, but we can rest assured, God is about His business and has confirmed this in his very word to us:
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. ” Romans 13.1

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 month ago

The author is wrong about Jimmy Carter. Southerners may have voted for him , because he was a Baptist, but he said nothing about it when running for president. He strongly believed in the separation of church and state. For example, he was the only president, before or after, who did not invite Billy Graham to the White House. He had nothing against him, but he felt it violated the First Amendment. His only mention of his religion when he was president was in an interview for Playboy. (Men subscribed/bought Playboy for the interviews.) Reagan may have prayed, but no one who knew him had ever seen him attend church.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 month ago

I truly tried to get to he end of this drivel but I couldn’t. “…the sandals-and-beard Christ” was a warning, but I struggled on. This article is a classic example of the excrecense of academic thought and writing into the debased state of modern journalism. It is a juggling of questionable statistics leading a jumbled conclusion that is so far from convincing that I involuntary found myself releasing gas from a gust of ribald laughter. I’ll start and end with the image of the man in the buffalo horns. He is described by this detached ignoramus as a shaman, and perhaps he thinks so himself, but what does that mean? He believes in God and Christ is the way I have read his gentle ruminations. On another front, 80% of atheists polled are voting for Kamala. I know that’s only interesting but not important in the view from the ivory tower.

stacy kaditus
stacy kaditus
1 month ago

.