Beyond Jesus memes: Trump’s Christian supporters also fret about abortion, inflation
President Donald Trump has never had an easy relationship with Christian conservatives. The thrice-married real estate developer and former reality TV star is widely seen as not particularly religious — and not at all engaged in issues that social conservatives care about, starting with abortion.
However, in recent times, tensions once calmed by a common political agenda have burst into the open. When President Trump used vulgar language on Easter Sunday, posted a Jesus-like image of himself on social media and attacked the pope online, some prominent religious supporters publicly responded, calling the posts blasphemous and suggesting Mr. Trump apologize.
And while the storm appears to have calmed for now, complaints from religious conservatives persist — from affordability concerns to frustrations over abortion politics, signaling a potential wake-up call to a key part of the Republican base as the November midterm elections approach.
Why we wrote this
President Donald Trump’s attacks on the pope, along with controversial memes, reveal cracks in his support from religious conservatives. This discontent is amplified by certain political disappointments, particularly regarding abortion.
With Mr. Trump’s Republican Party seriously at risk of losing the House and perhaps even the Senate, the president needs to keep these core supporters happy and energized, religious policy experts say, or some may decide to stay home.
“The evangelical community remains Trump’s strongest group, but he is starting to attack them too, especially the more moderate people,” says Jim Guth, a specialist on the religious right at Furman University in South Carolina.
The AI-generated meme appearing to depict President Trump as Jesus Christ healing a sick man, posted on the president’s Truth Social account, sparked an unusual reaction among many Christians, who took offense. It was later removed, with the president telling reporters he believed it represented him as a doctor.
After the post was deleted, some prominent allies who had made critical comments were quick to forgive.
“I love the president and am so grateful he is in the Oval Office,” conservative influencer Riley Gaines wrote on the social platform X on Monday evening, after Mr. Trump attacked her for her previous response. “Social Truth Post Missed the Mark. It’s Now Deleted. Unbelievable!”
Still, the initial reaction from Trump supporters to this and his other controversial posts was a notable break. And conservative Christian leaders say other issues are hurting Mr. Trump’s standing with his religious base. Opponents of abortion rights are angry about the Trump administration’s failure to take action against the shipment of abortion pills to states that ban the procedure. In fact, since the Supreme Court struck down the nation’s right to abortion in 2022, the number of abortions in the United States has increased.
Mr. Trump kept his first-term promise to add conservative justices to the Supreme Court, leading to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But many Christian right activists are now unhappy with the Food and Drug Administration’s lack of action on mail-order pills.
At the same time, religious conservatives share many of the same concerns as nonreligious voters, experts say. They are feeling the impact of more expensive groceries, higher gas prices and affordable housing.
“Just as with the average voter, economic issues – the ability to provide for one’s family – are also determining factors” for religious voters, says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
Although Mr. Trump’s war against Iran is partly to blame for rising inflation, many evangelical conservatives support the war because it attacks Iran’s Islamic theocracy and seeks to protect the state of Israel, a key priority of many conservative Christians.
Mr. Perkins, who supports the war, says he thinks it could end up being “a positive outcome among evangelical believers, if it ends the right way” — that is, ensuring that the Iranians do not have the capacity to enrich uranium and produce nuclear weapons, he explains.
Still, the veteran evangelical leader is unhappy with Mr. Trump’s recent social media posts, which he said were “very troubling to many Bible-believing evangelical Christians.” They include Trump’s lengthy April 12 statement that Mr. Perkins calls “fighting with the pope.”
Support dropping in polls
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump reposted another AI-generated image of himself, this time being kissed by Jesus. The author of the message said: “Maybe God is playing his trump card! » After the previous uproar, one might wonder why the president would return to images of Jesus, which could potentially be seen as mocking his own supporters.
Before Mr. Trump’s recent controversial messages, polls showed that he still enjoyed relatively strong support from white evangelical voters, with 69% approval for his job in January, according to the Pew Research Center. But that’s down from 78% a year earlier. And although Mr. Trump still enjoys majority support in the Pew poll among white evangelicals for “all or most of his policies,” that percentage has also declined — from 66% in January 2025 to 58% in January 2026.
It remains to be seen how polling among Mr. Trump’s strongest cohort might be affected by the latest controversies. Ryan Burge, a religion and polling expert at Washington University in St. Louis, says he has found that memes and social media posts have “a very short shelf life” in terms of their impact on public opinion. But, he adds, “you know, what doesn’t have a short shelf life is gas prices.”
“If we see a significant drop in approval rates now, it would be more due to gas prices than tweets and shouting at the pope,” says Professor Burge.
Mr. Trump’s standing with Catholics presents a more complex picture, especially since the new pope is American and Vice President JD Vance is Catholic. On Tuesday, Vice President Vance criticized Pope Leo XIV for posting an anti-war commentary on
Others say a pope engaged in world events cannot easily maintain an apolitical stance.
“The fact that we have an American pope means that he is necessarily woven into the political fabric of our country,” says the Rev. Robert Gahl Jr., an associate professor at the Catholic University of America.
“There’s a significant number of Catholics who supported Trump, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, I’m going to ignore the pope when he talks about politics,'” Father Gahl adds. “But this is not a good thing at all, because Christianity is supposed to permeate our daily lives and it is supposed to transform society. We have the challenge, as Christians, to act in the public square.”
Social conservatives boost GOP voter turnout
Anti-abortion Christian activists like Kristi Hamrick, who directs communications for Students for Life of America, point out that the midterm elections will likely hinge on voter turnout. If Mr. Trump’s conservative religious base is offended by his social media activity and doesn’t turn out to vote, Republicans will be in trouble, she said.
Ms. Hamrick, along with many other anti-abortion activists, is currently focused on the fight to restrict access to abortifacient drugs, or “chemical abortion,” starting with ensuring that such drugs cannot be mailed to states that have banned the procedure. And so far, she doesn’t see the Trump administration showing much urgency on the issue.
Mr. Trump’s social media posts are one thing, Ms. Hamrick says. But “frankly, I’m much more frustrated that chemical abortion pill policy, which is entirely federal, is stagnating under this administration.” If Mr. Trump wants to do more to motivate his base, she said, he should prioritize this issue.
After all, she notes, religious conservatives are usually a key part of the Republican Party’s turnout: They go door to door, contacting like-minded friends and neighbors to make sure they vote. Much will depend on their dynamism.
“Social conservatives have really been the staple of the Republican Party for a long time,” Ms. Hamrick said.
