Make America religious again? Religion, identity, and political polarization in the United States

This article examines the resurgence of religion in American public life under Trump's second term, prompted by his February 2025 call to bring religion "back much stronger." It asks whether this reflects a familiar strategy of political legitimation, or a deeper shift in America's constitutional order—historically defined by combining church-state separation with guaranteed free exercise, keeping faith embedded in politics rather than excluded from it. Tracing religious cleavages from slavery through the New Christian Right to today's evangelical-Republican alignment, the article situates Trump's rise within postmodern identity-based polarization rather than religious content itself. Christian voters, decisive to his victory, illustrate this. Three key initiatives are analyzed—the White House Faith Office, the Religious Liberty Commission, and task forces on antisemitism and "anti-Christian bias"—signaling accommodation of religious actors, though largely restating prior, weakly-enforced policies. Public opinion remains ambivalent about their scope. The article frames these developments through identity politics: religion shifting from shared moral framework to marker of civilizational belonging, generating internal tensions, as with evangelical backlash to an AI image depicting Trump as Christ. Conclusion: Tocqueville's balance between "the spirit of religion and liberty" is strained by two decades of polarization, turning religion from a framework of pluralism into contested political terrain.