Religion and Voting

Trump was elected by a minority, with three million fewer votes than Clinton. But hardly over half of those eligible voted; so Trump was elected by only about a quarter. And those who did vote were not even a representative sample of the electorate.

They were older than average (younger people are far less likely to vote). And they were more religious.

America is actually growing less religious, though you wouldn’t know it from politics — because of religious voters’ inflated electoral clout. Those answering “none” when asked their religion now actually outnumber evangelical Christians. The latter have shriveled to just 15% of America’s population. But because they almost all vote, they were 26% of the 2018 electorate. Whereas the nonreligious are now a quarter of the population, but were only 17% of 2018 voters.

And while evangelicals are only 26% of the electorate, they overwhelmingly back Republicans, thus constituting half the Republican vote. So Republicans kowtow to evangelicals.

It’s younger people in particular who are losing religion. Back when practically everybody was a believer, nonconformism didn’t even seem like an option. But once nonbelief reached a certain threshold, then it did begin to look like a real alternative. And a very attractive one given all the ways religious belief defies rationality. Humans aren’t perfectly rational, but nor are they impervious to rationality.

This has played out much more fully in most modern European nations. Once the mystique of religion was pierced, with emergence of a critical mass of nonbelief, the bottom fell out. In America, however, the First Amendment and separation of church and state created a more vibrant religious landscape, attracting congregants in ways that stodgy old European churches failed to do.

But meantime, American religion has actually grown more extreme, with higher proportions of Christians being evangelicals and biblical literalists, thus less credible to thoughtful people. Furthermore, Christianity’s blatant politicization soils its image — especially when mobilized on behalf of policies that make a mockery of Christ’s teachings, and a leader who is a vile creep. Rendering evangelicals’ moralistic posturing a ludicrous travesty.*

For older people, extricating themselves from religion can be a wrenching struggle, shaping their personal identity. Younger people often don’t experience that, because religion never resonated with them to begin with. And just as they increasingly disengage from the whole religion thing, they also often disengage from politics and the public square. It just doesn’t interest them. The disappearance of civics education is likely a factor, but it seems a broader cultural phenomenon. Voting is not something their peer groups do; no cachet of coolness. It’s a form of communal participation that lacks meaning for them. There’s also the nastiness and conflict of today’s politics, which is a turn-off. And nonvoting is easy to rationalize — balancing the time and hassle of voting against the virtual certainty that a single vote won’t change anything.

I vote not because I imagine it will change the outcome, but rather precisely because it does represent civic engagement. It’s the one sacrament I perform.

Not long ago I’d have said the disengagement by others actually reflects something positive — politics seen as not mattering much to people’s lives. A welcome development after centuries in which it mattered too much, with much at stake. Our society having settled down into an equilibrium where political differences fell into what was really, in the big picture, a narrow range, and it didn’t matter that much which party won. “Politicians are all alike” did have a kernel of truth.

Hence many were lulled into a mindset of being freed to ignore politics. Unfortunately that has changed, but many younger people haven’t gotten the memo. Many don’t seem to grasp how profoundly Trump is transforming America, altering the core of what this nation is all about. Then again, too few Americans still understand that story itself any more.

Russia’s factually proven 2016 election subversion included pushing the meme — especially to blacks and younger people — that voting is a sham, a waste of time, meaningless, all politicians are bad, and even that non-voting is somehow the right thing to do, to “protest” a corrupt system. Yet another effort to suppress the Democratic vote.** Russians, and other pro-Trump forces, will surely try this again in 2020, if anything more aggressively. We must not let this insidious ploy succeed.

* Trump wants to end restrictions on tax-exempt churches endorsing candidates. I say let them shackle themselves to Republican corruption and sink together.

** Blacks were targeted with messages falsely guiding them to vote online — or even the day after the election.