Last summer, during the now-infamous exchange between Donald Trump and pollster Frank Luntz at The FAMiLY LEADER’s Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, the Republican front-runner discussed regularly attending church services in his youth.
His pastor was the famed evangelist Norman Vincent Peale, who authored the book The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, and was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan. Trump told Luntz he still remembered those sermons.
“You could listen to him all day long,” he said. “And when you left the church, you were disappointed it was over. He was the greatest guy.”
Peale’s teachings, through his radio shows, newspaper columns and articles, and through Guideposts—his monthly digest of inspirational messages—espoused self-confidence. And those teachings have become an indelible part of who Trump is today.
Last fall, when it looked as though the GOP front-runner’s campaign was about to fade away, Politico’s Gwenda Blair wrote the following:
After the second Republican debate, when it appeared Donald Trump’s lead was finally starting to slip, and Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio were gaining traction, Trump himself, in typical fashion, appeared to only see positive signs. He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that only the polls (TIME, Drudge Report, Newsmax) that showed him having picked up support mattered because they represented “the people who vote.” The happy talk was relentless: After speakers at the Emmy Awards on Sept. 20 ridiculed him, Trump told Politico that the evening had been “amazing.”
That was an introduction to a story about the impact Peale’s preaching had on Donald Trump. Her analysis concluded that “thanks to Norman Vincent Peale and the magic of branding, Donald Trump is one of the most self-confident and most successful-seeming candidate the nation has ever seen.”
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