Populists will regret doing God

I am looking at a photo of Donald Trump, taken in the Oval Office on March 6. Around him are 20 pastors. A few are laying hands on the wartime leader. All are praying with him. No one's eyes are open. On this holiest of weekends for some readers, it would be bad manners to make fun of such a tableau. Also, in fairness to the president, he exudes all the enthusiasm of a cat being bathed. The prayer stunt is not for himself, but for voters. Just don't assume that it will work. Or that JD Vance's new memoir Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith is a shrewd move. Or that Pete Hegseth's holy war talk ("wicked souls", "eternal damnation") attracts more people than it repels. Instead, populism's current embrace of religion might be remembered as the moment the movement over-reached. Absolutely central to populism's success a decade ago was a sense of fun: a non-judgmental streak. Remember the Big Three of the Anglo-American right. The unchaste Islingtonian Boris Johnson. Claret fan Nigel Farage. Trump himself. Their masterstroke was to spot that voters had turned against immigration but not against sexual freedom, secularism or much else about the modern world. If populists are to now become a moralising movement, or what Joe Rogan calls "a bunch of fucking dorks", the electoral coalition of 2016 won't hold. Central to the right's success a decade ago was a sense of fun: a non-judgmental streak This error has been coming for a while. The right misinterpreted, or overinterpreted, the "vibe shift" against cancel culture. Just because swing voters are anti-woke does not mean they are positively conservative. Yes, there is a longing out there to undo recent cultural fads, but the desired status quo ante is circa 2006, not 1956 or even 1986. In other words, lots of voters who hate pronoun protocols don't mind in the slightest that women work or that men wed men. There is no quicker means of losing them than replacing the playboy populism of a Trump or Johnson with some stern young Torquemada. This is not just a dilemma on the Anglosphere right. In France, there is a question that populists have never been able to settle among themselves. What does Muslim immigration threaten: the secular republic or the Catholic nation? Marine Le Pen has tended to emphasise the first, her niece Marion Maréchal more the second. This is a house matter for rightwingers, and I am inclined to leave them to it. But, given the irreligiosity of the electorate, it is clear which way a cold strategist would go. All political movements over-reach in the end. But most readers won't know how far the populist right, behind the scenes, has strayed from its original (and winning) loucheness. An ecosystem has sprung up of Hungarian-sponsored conferences and Substack verbiage about "re-sacralising" things. Yet all the data you could ever need is on hand to suggest the electoral risk here. When George W Bush won on a faith-led platform in 2000, two-thirds of Americans belonged to a place of worship. Now less than half do. Young men are the least religious group of all, which might explain their recent souring on Maga. If accentuating religion is hazardous enough in US politics, imagine how much barmier it is in the UK. Last month, the Bible Society at last withdrew a report that found church attendance booming among young Britons. The never-plausible data turned out to be flawed. We all stumble (James 3:2) but this mistake mattered, as it caused the political right to get their hopes up. Even Farage has allowed some colleagues to make religious noises that would once have made his electoral antennae twitch nervously. In the end, the country is what we thought it was, a place where six per cent of 18-to-34 year olds say they are Christian and attend church on the regular. The case that a "quiet revival" is afoot now boils down to hearsay about busy chapels in Oxford colleges. There is nothing ignoble about a believer straining to see like-minded people where there are none. But a politician has to mind the golden rule. Lie to others, by all means, but never to yourself. The notion that piety is popular is a breach of that rule, and liberalism's first real opportunity in a decade. [email protected] Find out about our latest stories first -- follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning