President Lazarus? Understanding US politics
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 22 May 2025
Having spent a lifetime teaching and writing about American politics, I’m often asked this question by bemused church friends: “Why did 82% of white evangelical men vote for Donald Trump in 2024?” And the first thing that I want them to understand is that both they and those American voters are using the word “evangelical” to mean two different things.
My friends use the word to refer to something spiritual centring on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning man’s sinfulness, Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live God-honouring lives, and the need to preach that gospel to those as yet unsaved.
Politics USA
Donald Trump: An imperial president?
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 2 Dec 2025
The term “the imperial presidency” gained popularity in the USA in the early 1970s as a consequence of a book of that title by the historian Arthur Schlesinger.
Schlesinger charted what he saw as the abuse of power by successive presidents, most especially by Johnson (1963–69) and Nixon (1969–74). The presidency, claimed Schlesinger, had come to resemble more an imperial court than the office envisaged by the Founding Fathers back in the 1780s.
Politics USA
Trump and 'the most important issue': Immigration
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 23 Jun 2025
Rather like studying Scripture, context is so important.
In 2015, having glided down that gold escalator in Trump Tower in New York to announce his first presidential bid, Donald Trump was not a minute into the speech when he delivered this broadside against immigrants: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”