The God Gap Helps Explain a 'Seismic Shift' in American Politics

The God Gap Helps Explain a 'Seismic Shift' in American Politics

The most important religious divide isn't between right and left, but
between left and left

David French
Jul 17

There’s talk of realignment in the air. If you think all the way back
to 2012, you might remember a certain phrase—the coalition of the
ascendant. This was the Obama coalition, the collection of all of
America’s growing demographics, from nonwhite voters to single women.
The Romney voters, by contrast, were fading. White, Christian, and
married, they were the demographic losers in a population that was
becoming both more diverse and more secular. Democratic dominance was
inevitable.

That analysis should have caused us to feel a certain looming dread.
Nations that use race or ethnicity as the organizing principle of
politics are often quite unstable, and quite violent. This is true
across the world, and it’s true in our own land. Systematic racial
division and oppression fractured the country once. It’s foolish to
think it couldn’t fracture again—especially when the political class
intentionally mobilizes voters to vote as a racial bloc. 

Optimistic Democrats didn’t see Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 so much
as a refutation of the coalition of the ascendant theory as a quirk of
the electoral college and a reminder that Hillary Clinton wasn’t
Barack Obama. The nation wasn’t quite majority-minority yet, and thus
that the white majority could still win races when identity politics
reign supreme. 

But 2020 told a different tale. The Democrats got whiter, the
Republicans got more diverse, and now all the assumptions are
scrambled. Donald Trump lost the popular vote by a far wider margin
than he did in 2016, but he did materially better with Hispanic,
Asian, and black voters. In fact, Trump did better than Romney with
nonwhite voters in 2016 (an improvement then mainly attributed to
Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses), and he improved on that showing in
2020. What was once seen as an aberration now looks like a trend.

The trend continues. Last week Axios’s Josh Kraushaar described an
ongoing “seismic shift” in the two parties’ coalitions. As outlined in
a New York Times/Siena College poll, “Democrats now have a bigger
advantage with white college graduates than they do with nonwhite
voters.” The Democratic Party’s losses with Hispanics are remarkable.
Whereas Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012, and Biden
won 65 percent in 2020, now the Hispanic vote is “statistically tied.”

Moreover, there are good reasons to believe that Hispanic voters will
continue to migrate to the GOP. As Ruy Teixeira described this week on
his Substack, comprehensive issue polling from Echelon Insights
demonstrates that strong progressives have substantially different
political and cultural views from Hispanics.

Hispanic voters are far more likely to believe that America is “the
greatest country in the world,” far less likely to support defunding
the police, far less likely to believe “racism is built into our
society,” and far less likely to believe that transgender athletes
should play on sports teams that match their current gender identity.
In most cases, the polling gap is just immense. 

What accounts for such monumental differences in beliefs in values? As
my colleague Jonah Goldberg often (and rightly) says, we should reject
monocausal explanations for complex social phenomena, but here’s a
factor that simply isn’t discussed enough. The Democratic Party has a
huge “God gap,” and that God gap is driving a wedge between its white
and nonwhite voters. 

Let’s look at the data. A 2018 Pew Research Center survey on American
religious beliefs provides us with a picture that’s worth a thousand
words:

See source here for pictures:

<https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-most-important-religious-divide>


We would be foolish to believe that religious differences this immense
would not eventually manifest themselves in different political
values. Ever since I first set foot on Harvard Law Schools’ campus
more than 30 years ago, I’ve seen with my own eyes how utterly
scornful many powerful white progressives are towards traditional
Christianity. 

Yet in scorning traditional or orthodox religious beliefs, secular
progressives are often scorning indispensable members of their own
coalition. Writing in response to flare-ups over Chick-fil-A, Yale law
professor Stephen Carter sounded the alarm more than four years ago:

Overall, people of color are more likely than whites to be Christians
— and pretty devout Christians at that. Some 83 percent of all black
Americans are absolutely certain that God exists. No other group comes
close to this figure. Black Christians are far more likely than white
Christians (84 percent to 64 percent) to describe religion as very
important in their lives. Of all ethnic groups, black Christians are
the most likely to attend services, pray frequently and read the Bible
regularly. They are also — here’s the kicker — most likely to believe
that their faith is the place to look for answers to questions about
right and wrong. And they are, by large margins, the most likely to
believe that the Bible is the literally inerrant word of God. In
short, if you find Christian traditionalism creepy, it’s black people
you’re talking about. 

Hispanic Americans also tend to possess strong religious values. In
October 2020 the New York Times’s Jennifer Medina published a
prescient report highlighting Trump-supporting Hispanic Evangelicals.
Called “Latino, Evangelical, and Politically Homeless,” it featured
this insightful sentence: “Hispanic evangelicals identify as religious
first and foremost.”

Yes. Absolutely. That’s exactly why a politics focused on mobilizing
by race/ethnicity will not reach them, especially when identity
politics is paired with hard-left cultural positions and hostility for
traditional religion. Hispanic voters will find a religious connection
with many, many white Republicans, and that religious connection can
prove far more culturally and politically consequential than any
effort to create a politics based on ethnic or racial identity. 

The disproportionate secularization of white Democrats represents a
danger for the Democratic Party, for the country, and for American
religion. The danger for the Democrats is clear. America may be more
secular than it’s been in generations, but it is still a quite
religious country. It’s far more religious than any European nation.
It’s far more religious than Canada or the rest of the anglosphere
nations. And it’s going to remain extraordinarily religious for the
foreseeable future. 

A party that’s culturally disconnected from (or perhaps even scornful
of) traditional religious faith is going to alienate itself from tens
of millions of voters it could otherwise reach.

The danger to the nation is a version of the same danger represented
by ethnic identity politics. If there’s one thing that can fracture a
nation as thoroughly as ethnic division, it’s religious strife. The
historical examples—from Catholic/Protestant to Hindu/Muslim to
Sunni/Shiite—are too numerous to count. Indeed, we’re watching a great
power war unfold in eastern Europe that’s motivated at least in part
by profound religious animus. Our nation will be far, far healthier if
we don’t divide on sharp religious lines. 

Religious conflict and political religious separation is also
dangerous to religion itself. Turning one party into the “faith party”
not only risks repeating many of the compromises of the Trump era
(many Christians saw supporting the GOP as their only real choice), it
also risks melding together faith and power and faith and ideology in
deeply destructive ways. 

Countless political and cultural issues don’t have a clear “Christian”
policy solution, yet when a party’s members perceive it to be the
party of American Christianity, then the platform is wrongly infused
with religious fervor, even on issues (like tax rates, gun policy,
environmental policy, foreign policy, and countless others) where the
correct religious answer is far from clear. 

Moreover, the tight union of Christian faith and political power has a
terrible track record for the Christianity. Note, for example, that
Christianity is withering away in Europe, the very continent that for
centuries unified church and state to an extent never seen in the
United States of America. When Christian power is seen as
indispensable for the flourishing of the Christian faith, history
demonstrates that power, not faith, will become the priority of a
Christian people. 

The future is not yet written. Both parties are at a crossroads. There
is time for secular progressives to understand that Christians
(including especially the black church) are an indispensable element
of the progressive coalition. At the very least secular Americans
should demonstrate respect and real tolerance for traditional
religious beliefs. 

Indeed, there is a long history of Christian leftist political
engagement in the United States. America would be a less just place
without their Christian witness, and many politically progressive
Christians are traditional and orthodox, including on matters of sex
and gender. Can they retain their political home? 

Conservative Evangelicals—who come disproportionately from the
South—have a real opportunity to turn the page on generations of
terrible sin. Why are black Christians still so politically separated
from the white church? Because for centuries all too many white
Christians viewed their black brothers and sisters less through the
lens of a common faith and more through the bigoted lens of a
different race. It was white identity politics that separated the
church, and its lingering legacy is a roadblock to unity today.

While Hispanic Americans don’t share the same history as black
Christians, the hateful and fearful language around immigration
(including, for example, “replacement theory” discourse) causes too
many Republican Christians to view Hispanic immigrants more as a
political threat and less as brothers and sisters who likely share the
same faith.

In December 2016, the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean
Baquet, famously told NPR’s Terry Gross, “We don't get religion. We
don't get the role of religion in people's lives.” His comment rang
true to me. During my time in deep blue America, it was plain to me
that many of my secular friends were mystified by my faith, at least
at first. 

But if we don’t “get religion” we won’t fully get the seismic shift in
American politics. America is a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and deeply
religious republic. If one or both parties can embrace each element of
that reality, then we have a chance to make sure that seismic shift
moves our politics towards the respectful pluralism that America
requires. 

Source -- see it all here:

<https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-most-important-religious-divide>