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meIn the televised duel with Donald Trump, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked what could be inferred from a defeat for his party. “It could mean I’m a lousy candidate,” Biden replied. At least that’s their hope. Because the other explanation is that the United States is “as racially, ethnically and religiously divided” as Trump apparently wants it to be.
Reinhard bingener
Political Correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hannover.
A few hours earlier, on Thursday, the Pew Research Center released findings that point to strong religiously-based polarization. This had already been suggested in the 2016 elections: Democrats won the majority in all ideological groups, from atheists to black Protestants. The only major exception were white-skinned Christians. Especially with white evangelicals, who make up about half of white Christians with a slightly rising trend, Republicans continue to lead by a huge margin based on current data: 78 percent of this group want to vote for Trump. Pew researcher Gregory Smith finds it notable that white evangelicals in general are becoming “even more Republican.” Conservatives’ approval had risen from 1994 to today by 17 percentage points to 78 percent. With moderate white mainline Protestants and white Catholics, the Republican lead is narrower at 53 and 52 percent.
Non-believers increasingly vote for Democrats
In its large-scale “Religious Landscape Studies,” the Pew Research Center has also tracked long-term ideological shifts that can be used to classify such data. The United States remains a relatively religious country, but Christianity is now losing about one percent of its population each year. The dynamic is even more pronounced among the younger generation. The proportion of Christians fell from 78 to 65 percent between 2007 and 2019. The “Non-Religious,” that is, atheists, agnostics and indefinite, increased by almost the same number during this period and now constitute a quarter of the population. This fundamental trend plays in favor of the Democrats, for whom about two-thirds of the “Nones” vote.
One notable idea is that under Trump, while Christianity is gradually losing ground in society, white Christians feel politically on the road to victory. This is again particularly pronounced among white evangelicals. Before Trump took office, this group saw itself as the loser in a culture war. Under Trump, confidence that one’s side would prevail rose from 23% to 63%. So the president has “complied.” White Christians, in contrast to other groups, view Trump positively as a person: he is considered “smart” (73 percent), “honest” (57 percent) and “morally honest” (51 percent).
More an ethnic divide?
Evangelical Christians are also the only group with a majority in favor of the churches’ political commitment. These data could also be of interest to other societies such as Germany, where evangelical currents vehemently oppose the “politicization” of the churches. It will be discussed to what extent this really means giving up a strong political mandate from one’s religion or whether it is not the deciding factor that, unlike in America, one finds oneself in a marked minority situation.
In the United States, given the data, the open question is to what extent can one speak of a religious division or should not speak more precisely of ethnic divisions. The sociologist of religion Philip Gorski recently argued that the religious right has less to do with religion than one usually gets the impression, but rather with “white racism,” which the Yale professor calls a “stool leg. hidden “. Pew researcher Gregory Smith also refers to Michelle Margolis’ thesis. The political scientist questions the basic assumption that religious beliefs shape political preferences and defends the thesis that religious polarization, conversely, is more the result of political polarization. This could explain the republican solidification of white Christians. And he indicated that American Christianity can pay a high price for left-right polarization, as a politically liberal orientation of younger white Americans is almost increasingly paired with a “none religious” identity.
Churchgoer Biden could score
The ideological homogenization of his own field, however, has its limits with the Democrats. While Republicans are increasingly becoming a party of white Christians, the Pew Smith investigator sees Democrats deeply divided religiously. On the one hand, there is the growing following of the “Non-Religious,” most of whom are white. However, the party also relies on African Americans and Latinos, who are often religious. In the Democratic primaries, the “Nones” favored lower and leftist candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, while Biden led the Christian-oriented Democrats.
Biden himself is a Catholic. However, according to the Pew researchers, deriving a huge advantage for Democrats in the Catholic electorate from this only goes too far, because Catholic Christians in America are as politically divided as Democrats are religious. It’s unclear whether Biden will benefit from another development as a regular parishioner: Latest data from the Pew Research Center indicates that Trump has recently lost significantly in approval even among his white and Christian constituencies.
