Christians Are (Mostly) Republicans

And: Bad Episcopal Samaritans; Houthis Beat US; Silicon Valley As Jerusalem

Source

One of my favorite Substacks is “Graphs About Religion,” written by the political scientist Ryan Burge. In a couple of recent posts, he analyzed the 2024 election results, comparing them to past results, and came up with a conclusion that will unsettle liberal Christians: To be a Christian in America today means you are more likely to vote Republican.

In this post, Burge uses the data to point out that it’s simply wrong to call the Mainline Protestants “liberal,” at least politically. Excerpt:

Got that? Whatever their leadership says, most Mainliners in the pews vote Republican. In his Substack post, Burge shows that among regular churchgoing Mainliners, Trump’s vote percentage was even higher.

For years it has been commonly accepted that US Catholics are split 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats. No more:

Notice how much Trump grew among non-white Catholics over his 2016 vote!

Of course we all know that Evangelicals vote heavily Republican. Black Protestants still vote heavily Democratic, but they only make up seven percent of the total US population. The conclusion is unavoidable: in terms of voting, the GOP has become the Religious Party, and the Democrats have become the Secular Party.

If this news is reported in the media, the focus will be on how the Republicans have been captured by the Religious Right — a term from the 1980s that doesn’t have much meaning anymore. That’s one way to look at it. But an equally valid way to look at it is that the Democrats have been captured by the Secular Left. In fact, I would say that’s a more important way to look at it, because Trump’s big gains among Christian voters came after the Democrats lost their moral minds in the Great Awokening. I bet this Trump ad from 2024, or at least the issue it highlights, had a lot to do with the 40 percent of non-white Catholics who voted Trump last fall:

I know that Never Trump Evangelicals like David French are scandalized that so many Christians vote for the Big Orange Heathen, given his moral character. But look, I would rather vote for a man whose personal morality I disdain, but who supports laws and policies that better accord with my moral and religious beliefs, than vote for a man like Joe Biden, who went regularly to Catholic mass, but whose policies on abortion, LGBT, and racial discrimination (DEI) run deeply counter to what I, as a Christian, consider to be just and right. To make the point clearer, if I had to choose between voting for Joe Rogan or the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, I would vote Rogan and wouldn’t even have to give it a second’s thought.

Hard to see how Democrats can change. If they move to the center, they’re going to infuriate and alienate their hyper-progressive base. Perhaps a charismatic figure like Donald Trump emerging on their side could do it. Trump is basically a New York liberal — not la-tee-da Manhattan New York, but outer borough New York. And he brought the party with him, by the force of his personality.

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Before you go, let me poll you subscribers (including non-paid, which is 93 percent of you). Click below to answer; voting will go on for three days. Notice that I didn’t ask you to identify as either Republican or Democrat; I’m only interested in how you usually vote. I identify as a right-wing Independent, which means I usually vote GOP.