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The religious right got America wrong

Naturally, evangelicals are doubling down

Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” filming on the National Mall. (via Twitter)

Donald J. Trump is not the only albatross around the Republican Party’s neck (although he is). Religious conservatives weight down GOP ambitions, writes Amanda Marcotte (Salon):

As with Trump, Republicans are in a “can’t win with them/can’t win without them” relationship with the religious right. Fundamentalists remain a main source of organizing and fundraising for the GOP, as well a big chunk of their most reliable voters. They can’t afford to alienate this group any more than they can afford to push away Trump. Doing so risks the loss of millions of loyal voters. But by continuing to pander to the religious right, Republicans are steadily turning off all other voters, a group that’s rapidly growing in size as Americans turn their backs on conservative Christianity. That’s doubly true when one looks at the youngest voters, the ones Republicans will need to stay viable as their currently aging voter base starts to die off. 

More data showing that younger voters, in essence, stuck it to Republicans at the ballot box this month suggest they will develop a taste for giving a middle finger to the people who gutted Roe this summer. Their ballots ruined Republican dreams of a red wave as surely as a splash of water melted the Witch of the West.

Republicans told voters to fear inflation, crime and LGBTQ people. What their leaders actually fear, John Della Volpe wrote over the weekend, is the youth vote. The young vote Democratic (New York Times):

Democrats who court the youth vote fully will likely outperform their competitors in 2024. Now is the time to listen more intently, see beyond the top-line polling data and better understand the values and vision of this still emerging voting bloc intent on saving the America they believe is under threat.

Marcotte adds this morning:

New data from the progressive polling firm Navigator Research shows how dire the situation is for Republicans. On “culture war” issues like reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, the voters broke hard on the progressive side of things. Among Democratic voters this midterm, 48% said abortion was an important issue for them, showing strong pro-choice sentiment. But among Republicans, only 13% ranked abortion (and the banning of it) as a driving factor in their vote. When Democratic voters were asked their main reason for their voting choice this year, abortion rights was the most popular, cited by 49% of voters. But among Republican voters, only 24% cited support for abortion bans as a major factor. 

The religious right’s hunger for dominating the rest of us for Jesus led to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Dobbs decision, and a flood of draconian abortion bans in GOP-dominated state legislatures. People noticed, especially younger voters.

“A defining attribute of young Americans today,” Della Volpe wrote, “is the degree to which they stand up and fight for those even more vulnerable than they are.” The Harvard youth poll he oversees found “59 percent of young Americans believe their rights are under attack and 73 percent are troubled that the rights of others are threatened.” Including by the religious right’s rhetorical pogrom against LGBTQ people.

Marcotte argues:

This rash of queerphobic policy has been accompanied by an escalation of bigoted rhetoric in right wing media, all aimed at painting LGBTQ people as perverts and child predators. From Fox News on down the entire conservative media ecosystem, it’s become routine to accuse queer people of being “groomers,” which is a not-especially-oblique way to call them child molesters. Groups like the Proud Boys routinely target drag shows with intimidating “protests,” which are starting to get violent. Over the weekend, there was a gun massacre at a gay club in Colorado Springs. While the police are still not speaking publicly about the killer’s motive, observers have pointed out that the murders happened mere hours before a drag brunch, the kind of event that conservative groups have been targeting for harassment. 

All of this ugliness did not help Republicans in the midterms. On the contrary, it appears to have hurt them, especially with such high youth voter turnout. As a national youth poll run by Harvard shows, younger people reject the fundamentalism that animates the Republican party. Only 12% identify as “fundamentalist/evangelical,” while 37% — by far the biggest group — say they have no religious preference at all. This comports with other polling that shows that Christian churches are becoming older and smaller all the time, as young people leave in droves. Overall, 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage. About two-thirds of Americans want abortion to remain legal. 

Even Republican voters this month did not warm to evangelicals’ enthusiasm for repression and retribution against those who do not share their beliefs about women. “The Republican party still appeals to racist voters, but even they’ve lost the enthusiasm for being the panty police,” Marcotte writes. Nevertheless, evangelicals blamed the Republican underperformance on not being harsh enough on women who believe it is their right to decide when and with whom to have a child.

As Prof. Drew Westen (“The Political Brain“) observed at Netroots this summer, Republicans believe every rapist has the right to choose who has their child. Democrats believe that’s a family choice. American voters agree, especially younger ones who may decide the 2024 elections.

Marcotte concludes:

Fundamentalists are learning they’re just as dependent on the Republican party as the GOP is on them. No wonder they’re doubling down. As more and more people leave their pews, their only foothold in staying relevant is to maintain control over the Republican party. As with Trump, they will not leave quietly, but continue to hold the GOP hostage to their increasingly unpopular agenda. 

Good luck with that.

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