I don't understand what voters Trump could've picked up between 2016 and 2020

Politics & Elections
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  • There is considerably more atheism-presence in the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. If you presented the question, “Is God an imaginary being, no more real than the flying spaghetti monster?” to the Republican and Democratic parties, you’d probably get a considerably higher number of “yes” answers from the latter than the former.
  • The Democratic Party is, by and large, the more pro-choice, pro-LGBT party (note that political Christianity ought to be about far more than just these two issues, but for some reason American Christians focus heavily on these two)
  • The Republicans are considerably more likely than the Democrats to agree that “Christians in America face persecution” (note that most Democrats probably wouldn’t dispute that Christians abroad in places like Saudi Arabia or North Korea might face persecution, but balk at the notion that anti-Christian persecution exists in the U.S. itself.)
  • The Democrats are considerably likelier than Republicans to say that religion and state should be kept separate (note that supporting religious liberty and supporting a theocracy are quite different, in fact perhaps contradictory, but some branches such as Christian Dominionism explicitly state their goal of a theocracy.)
  • The Democrats are considerably likelier than Republicans to say that religion and state should be kept separate (note that supporting religious liberty and supporting a theocracy are quite different, in fact perhaps contradictory, but some branches such as Christian Dominionism explicitly state their goal of a theocracy. Most conservatives don’t ascribe to Christian Dominionism though.)
  • There is a punch-up/punch-down phenomenon at work in America when it comes to religion, just like there is one with regards to gender, race, etc. Generally, Democrats are likelier to feel an urge to defend a Muslim, Buddhist, Shintoist, Hindu, etc. whom they feel has come under attack in America, than a Christian in America, since they feel that Christianity is the majority religion and therefore “needs less help” than a minority religion. Similarly, jokes or mockery of Christianity are generally perceived by Democrats as being less severe than jokes or mockery of other religions.
  • Theologically, Democrats are likelier to reject things like Young-Earth Creationism, literal interpretation of Scripture (i.e., a worldwide flood,) and whatnot.

I could write more, but I’m at work now and need to get back to things.

FWIW, I’ll also add an anecdote: I worked for a Republican Party internship in 2010 in California and topics of prayer and God and whatnot came up, and a Republican candidate exclaimed, “Isn’t it great that we’re in the party where this sort of topic is still allowed?”

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One last point (too late to edit): Democrats are generally considerably less likely than Republicans to side with a Christian on an issue-of-conscience if that issue of conscience requires discriminating against someone on an LGBT issue (gay-wedding-cake baker, etc.) or any other issue that requires someone to do something they feel they cannot religiously do.

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I checked out DU underground once. Definitely a bit of an echo chamber.

OTOH, I don’t see anything on their front page at least that leaps out at me as counterfactual.

Contrast that to the War Room, and I immediately see several items that I find questionable, and also a number that seem to be calling for violence.

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Okay. This is good. Thank you for both posts.

Now, because I don’t want to argue with you about it point by point - I assume the above are not ALL your positions (?) - is there a specific position that you hold that we can discuss in a productive fashion to see if we can reach some sort of understanding or agreement?

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Broadly speaking, the evangelicals I know fall into two camps: As you said, there are those who have convinced themselves that Trump is a good Christian and choose to overlook his past transgressions as forgiveness is a core belief of theirs. Then there are those who don’t believe Trump is a good Christian but he his policies are in line with what’s good for Christian Americans. i.e. Trump is Cyrus the Great.

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This seems a little unfair. People working in oil are not looking for a handout, they are voting for the candidate who is promising they can keep their jobs.

After Brexit and the Trump election I also tried to get out of the echo chamber a bit. I found a lot of not-so-rational beliefs, but in among them some points that seemed pretty reasonable. However, when I brought them up here they were dismissed, strawmanned, and (of course) claimed to be bigoted. I can see why a conservative would be put off.

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Yes, the dishonesty and delusion that makes up the conservative mind makes it almost impossible to actually address any so-called “issue,” when the only real issue is to just join their team.

Yep, they will. Assuming that Trump doesn’t manage to worm his way back into it. Fascism has produced their most successful results in years. They’ve shown that they are perfectly comfortable to become full-blown fascists.

No, they don’t have that power. Do you know how American political parties work? There is no authority that keeps a membership roster and has the power to strike people off. It just doesn’t exist.

My brother did the opposite. He voted in the Republican primary for Kasich just because he couldn’t stand the idea of any major American party nominating someone like Trump.

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I’d agree with all of these, except:

As far as the ones that I agree on, those seem like good ideas. It prevents others from telling you who, how, and when to worship. If those are principles that your mother rejects, then she rejects the very idea of freedom of religion.

Is it more important to her that I am required to worship her god, or is it important to her that she is not required to worship someone else’s?

The one I take exception to is that I can see how that is a perspective, but that is a false perspective. Other religions are attacked far more often, and far more viciously than Christianity is. Christianity is not under attack. Mockery is not attack.

I have no problem with someone mocking any religion at all. I do have a problem with people being actually discriminated against or harmed for following it though, and that is what is defended.

It’s not that Christianity is the majority religion and therefore needs less help, it is that Christians are not actually discriminated against, and therefore needs no help.

Agreed that Democrats are more likely to not allow discrimination of a declared public accommodation, religious beliefs not withstanding. But they do not require someone to do something that they feel that they cannot do religiously. We would never make a Jewish person eat bacon, we would never make a follower of Hindu eat meat. We would never require a priest to perform a same sex wedding.

This is the sort of thing that Christians like to bring up in order to feed their persecution complex. They are not being discriminated against when they are told that they may not discriminate with their business of public accommodation.

Let me repeat that: Not being allowed to discriminate is not the same as being discriminated against. I don’t understand why that is something that people just cannot grok.

Religious freedom is just that. It is not religious freedom to only be free in your religious expression, it is only religious freedom if I am free from your religious expression.

So, if these are the reasons that your mother voted for Trump, then there is no reaching her, as she objects to one of the founding principles of our country.

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I don’t disagree that it’s hard work. But they are still looking for a handout. The oil industry is heavily subsidized, and a decent chunk of my taxes goes into their pocket. And a fair amount of their work goes into the atmosphere, changing the climate.

They want the rest of us to subsidize their lives. With our taxes, our health, and our environment. They may not call it a hand out, but that is absolutely what it is.

They don’t want to do the work of finding other employment, of educating themselves or their children to do something other than drilling holes in the ground and sucking the stuff out of them.

And, once again, it will not be these people put out of work, but their children. If we implemented the green new deal in all it’s “glory” tomorrow, we’d still be drilling for oil in a decade.

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I almost did that in 2016. It was a hard decision, and one that if I had a chance, I’d definitely go back and change. But, I decided that I wanted the Overton Window moved a bit to the left, and lent my vote to Bernie.

Not that one vote makes a difference, and not that Ohio made any difference, but I still look back on that decision with a bit of regret.

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Well, I see that @k9bfriender already made the points I had in mind so I’ll add one more for your consideration and feedback. How do you view the positions that many many Christians hold with respect to being very accepting of gay marriage, LGBTQ issues, immigration, evolution and alignment with Democrats on the majority of bulleted issues you outlined?

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The only reason those jobs are viable is due to government subsidies. But they don’t realize it. Much like farming. Take away the subsidies and the “independent farmer” goes extinct.

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The problem with reality is that you actually do need to face it sometime.

And the longer you put it off, the harsher it is.

The Democrats are showing the reality, pointing to the somewhat hard truths we have to deal with. The Republicans want to put it off until those hard truths come to bite us in the ass.

Then they’ll blame the Democrats.

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And that position is idiotic.

I say that as a person who works in oil. In 2016, everybody in my area was SOOOO excited that Trump was going to revitalize coal and oil, and turn around the economy in an area that has been steadily declining for the last fifteen years.

Guess what? Didn’t happen. Despite Trump’s explicit promises about coal, the industry continues it’s decline at the same pace, but instead of a Democratic plan to retrain them to face the changing economy, we ended up with… Mass layoffs with no plan at ALL.

Oil? We had a small bump up, but it’s been trending downward (to be fair, this is more regional- Wyoming is far from everywhere, after all, and if production can be ramped up in Texas, that’ll happen before Wyoming).

But Trump/Republicans will make empty promises about how these people get to keep their jobs, ignoring the reality on the ground, and these people will just pull the lever, without one second’s critical thought.

How do we combat that, while also keeping our integrity?

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I’m of the mind that every religion should be discriminated against, at least when it comes to public life and politics. Do what you want in your home or your megachurch, but when you start playing politics you’re all equally screwy and toxic. You’ll never see me defending a hijab. They’re every bit as untrustworthy and easily manipulated as the clown with the crucifix tattoo or the Jesusfish bumper sticker.

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Sure, discriminate against their ideas when they put them into the public sphere.

But don’t discriminate against them for employment, or for legal issues, or for immigration.

People can believe what they want to believe. I believe that we humans can be great, we can do great things, that we can go to the stars and bring peace and prosperity with us. I can’t really say that someone who believes in a divine entity is any more delusional than that.

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I can. Poetry doesn’t eliminate the fact that their entire worldview is grounded in willful ignorance. Their entire purpose for being is to discriminate. “To save” or whatever, they are mandated by their stupid books to hate and persecute. It’s not a bug in the system.

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It indeed looks like democrats are going this way.

When “defund the police” came out they were all behind it until the backlash came. That mess in Seattle was not the happy street party the dems said it was.

Look, good, decent, people HATE rioters. But they see people blocking off streets and highways. They see marches in residential neighborhoods. They see BLM demanding people eating out hold up their fists in support.

And they DONT see democrats say a damn thing against it.

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Are we still talking about the people of Zapata, many of whom don’t speak English? What other good, steady jobs are they going to find?

Aren’t all the jobs gonna be taken by robots soon anyway? What’re you going to retrain them to do? I’m starting to think we need a whole new paradigm. Is the aim of society to make the highest GDP possible, or to enable people to lead happy, useful lives with opportunities for all?

If the Democrats were also promising to revitalise coal, then Trump’s failure might have had some impact. As it is they have a choice between definitely bad and hopefully good.

I have seen this too. Left wingers have a distressing tendency to leap to support the perceived underdog, no matter who is actually in the right. Jeremy Corbyn being a case in point.

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Basically, to belong to a political party in the US, all you have to do is say that you are a member.

2 years ago, the head of the Illinois Nazi Party got signatures to be on the Republican primary ballot for a US Representative seat in a VERY blue district. No chance of winning whatsoever. The Republican party didn’t know he was getting the petitions signed, and he was the ONLY candidate on the primary ballot, so he made it in to the general election. The Republican Party came out against this guy, did everything in their power to say “Do not vote for this person!”, gave him no funding - but they had no power to remove the ( R ) from after his name. Somehow this waste of oxygen still got 25% of the votes (I’m guessing mostly protest votes, but who knows).

This last election, the Republicans were ready. They couldn’t stop him from running again, but they had their own candidate ready. Once he submitted his nominating petitions, they submitted theirs. He lost brutally in the primaries. No, the Republicans didn’t put much money behind their candidate for the general election, but at least they didn’t have a Nazi running under their name. The Dems held the district 55-45.