Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged

Before Election Day, I predicted a long night of vote counting.

I was sort of right.

When I fell asleep Tuesday — well before midnight — the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remained undecided. But all signs, from the New York Times Needle to betting markets, pointed heavily in Trump’s favor.

By the time I groggily checked my smartphone about 5 a.m. Wednesday, Religion Unplugged’s own Clemente Lisi already had published a piece on Trump’s triumph and five things we learned from faith voters.

Post-election autopsies — at least in Harris’ case, that’s the right term — have dominated the last few days. 

We’ve learned, via Christianity Today’s Harvest Prude, that Trump “held on to the white evangelical vote while making gains among Catholics and Hispanic Christians.” Or, as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana characterized it, “White Christians made Trump president — again.” 

“America, after its long journey through the 2010s and ’20s, is becoming more conservative again,” declared Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist and a former Reagan speechwriter. While making that observation, Noonan said of Trump, “As for me, I don’t like the SOB.”

As we prepare for four more years of Trump in the White House, pay attention to these three storylines:

Read the full column.

This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.

Shutterstock photo