BBC Radio 4 2016-11-10

Good morning. In a rally in Iowa back in February, Donald Trump’s son, also called Donald, talked about his father. ‘While he may be the billionaire from New York, he’s much more of a blue collar guy,’ Donald J. Trump Jr said. ‘He’s a blue collar guy with a big balance sheet.’

As America and the world starts to comprehend the election of the first man in history to reach the White House without having served in the military or held political office, perhaps his son’s insight tells us a lot. Here’s a man who expresses the profound pain of so many Americans: the humiliation of finding your standard of living decrease over the last 15 years, the dismay that you no longer recognise your culture or your economy, the anger that you’ve worked half your life and found yourself further behind than when you started, and the conviction that the people in Washington have no ability or desire to do anything about it.

The fact that he offers to fix it is bolstered by his big balance sheet: he’s fixed his own life – maybe he can fix mine. At a time when expertise and a long record of experience is coming to be seen as a liability rather than an asset, his impulsive style and locker-room talk promise a simpler world that cuts through political stagnation.

A critical mass of the electorate has been prepared to overlook the discordant notes in his campaign. Why? Because, it seems, a great swathe of people feel he understands them. Electoral campaigns speak to the head, with their calculations of fiscal and foreign policy, and to the heart with their talk of making the nation great again. But perhaps they’re really settled in the gut. And maybe those who’ve been bewildered by the outcomes of one or two mass votes in the last few months have been a little slow to appreciate that.

As a pastor I frequently make the same discovery about faith. People whose faith is unshakeable are those who believe God fundamentally understands them and is on their side. Ideas of the mind and feelings of the heart come and go. But real faith is a matter of the gut. It’s not greatly undermined by some new scientific claim or even a distressing personal setback. The letter to the Hebrews says, ‘we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses.’

It’s perfectly understandable to want God to fix one’s problems. But for perhaps most people, what’s more important at life’s crucial moments is that God understands, sees, hears.

If you want people’s trust, loyalty, and support, you need over the long term to say to them, in word and action, ‘You matter.’