We’ve not had a year like 2017 in a long time. Donald Trump has done what he promised—upended the political system. Governing by tweets with little regard for the truth, Trump is constantly on the attack against enemies real and imagined. His base loves it, his opponents hate it and Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan ignore it. The presidency may never be the same.
While Trump may have had an effect on numerous of our traditions and institutions, he profoundly affected two movements—the women’s movement and the white evangelical movement. One benefitted and one definitely did not.
Trump literally ignited a new women’s movement. Revelations during his campaign that he bragged about groping women, denigrated women on Howard Stern’s radio show and walked in on girls changing during the Miss Teen USA contest energized the women who organized the Women’s March last January. They kicked off Trump’s presidency with protests around the country and set the stage for the #MeToo moment when women had finally decided that they’d had enough.
Today, women feel more empowered than they have since the beginning of the women’s movement in the 1960s and ‘70s. They’re filing to run for office in record numbers and they’re fleeing a GOP that’s defended Trump instead of standing with women. The number of women who identify as Republican has dropped seven points since November 2016. Women of color have emerged as the most loyal block of Democratic voters. If the party benefits from a wave election next November, women will likely be the primary source of the political earthquake that causes it.
As for white evangelical Christians, their support for Trump and Roy Moore ruined their credibility with much of the electorate. Once a force for morality in politics, they’ve become little more than anti-abortion extremists willing support a child molester and a vile con man in exchange for limits on access to abortions. The editor of Christianity Today, a magazine founded by Billy Graham, declared, “When it comes to either matters of life and death or personal commitments of the human heart, no one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation.”
The impact of Donald Trump on American politics and life is still unfolding but in 2017, he energized women to become an increasingly powerful political force that may lead to big changes in 2018. White evangelicals who cheer Trump have damaged themselves. They’ve excused clearly un-Christian attacks on minorities and the poor while turning a blind eye to transgressions that would have led them to abandon a political leader in the past. Trump is reshaping our political landscape and 2017 will go down in history as the year that began the transformation.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
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