The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory summary

Tim Alberta didn’t want to write about religion. To him, faith was something personal and private. Politics was an easier topic – a matter of public interest rather than individual salvation. 

That changed when Donald Trump ran for the presidency.

Trump was an outsider. No one foresaw his takeover of the Republican Party. Few could believe it even as it was happening. What explained his rise? How had he been able to brush aside so many seasoned and sober career politicians? 

To answer those questions, you had to understand the changing mood in Middle America. Alberta’s reportage took him into communities that reminded him of the one he’d grown up in on the outskirts of Detroit. People in these places had four things in common: they were white, wealthy, conservative, and they attended an evangelical church. 

These communities had been an integral part of the Republican Party’s base for half a century, but their relationship with politics was transactional. They didn’t vote for republicans so much as they voted against liberals. Politics was essentially about “lesser evilism.” 

Trump was different. Granted, evangelicals hated Hiliary Clinton, but they were also genuinely enthusiastic about her opponent. Trump made no attempt to hide the salacious and ruthless reputation he had built: his campaign included casual calls to violence, mockery of disabled people, and crude sexual bragging. Still, the evangelical support for him rose. By the end of the campaign, evangelical conservatives, once Trump’s softest backers, had become his staunchest advocates. What explained this allegiance? 

Trump’s character didn’t matter, evangelicals argued – God often uses imperfect instruments to pursue his ends, after all. Godless democrats, they said, were waging war on Christianity and winning. For all his flaws, Trump was a shield against the rising liberal tide. Voters had two choices in the 2016 election: Trump or “American carnage.” 

Having come to see Trump as a defender of their faith, evangelicals took attacks on him personally. Alberta discovered as much when he went back to his hometown after his dad’s sudden death in 2019. The funeral was held in the church in which his father had been a pastor for 40 years. Rather than offering their condolences, however, a number of congregants berated Alberta about the book he’d recently published, a critical account of Trump’s rise. 

One man repeated what Rush Limbaugh, the conservative broadcaster, had said about it on his show. Another demanded he publicly walk back his criticisms of the president. A third accused him of being a supporter of the “deep state,” a shadowy conspiracy to unseat the president.  

Alberta, and his wife, were stunned. “What the hell is wrong with these people?”, she asked. That was the question he now set out to answer.