If there’s a quote from the last ten years that lives in my orbit it’s this one from Ross Douthat from the New York Times. In February of 2016, he tweeted:
My concern is the self-identification. For example, I know a lot of people that say "religion is very important to me," but I feel like they say that because they know they're supposed to say that. Their actions and words certainly do not line up with any sort of Biblical teaching, in my view.
It's more like the actions have changed, and reasoning has changed, and justifications have changed, and how do you measure that?
This makes me think of the corpus collosum experiments where people's left and right brains were separated. The left brain could speak, and the right brain could write. Some people, when asked "do you believe in God" would say yes and write no.
Combined with Jonathan Haidt's research on the conscious and subconscious, it brings me to the conclusion that only meaningful metrics of faith are behavior (how do you behave) and attention (what do you spend time looking at).
I think this is a reliability measure rather than an accuracy measurement. As long as the question is the same over time and the sample, you're looking for movement and balance between the answers and not legitimacy of each individual answer.
There's a lot to agree with here, but also feels like something is missing.
Correct me where I'm wrong, but Ryan seems to be implying that because young Republicans are 60% Christian, the GOP will converge towards roughly this number.
There's a problem with this: the GOP is currently a minority coalition, more or less structurally incapable of winning the popular vote (which it will presumably lose for the 5th consecutive time this November, and the 8th out of the last 9 elections). It is a much smaller minority among 18-35 year-olds than among the general population.
Therefore, unless we assume a religious revival, it's a mathematical certainty that a GOP that can't pull any more non-religious Millennials or Zoomers than it's currently pulling is one that is doomed to ever-increasing demographic obscurity, and that won't be competitive in another Presidential election after 2024. Which may well happen! There has been a thought out there for a while that the Republicans are the new Federalists, that the party will collapse as a national entity, and there will be an era of single-party domination by the Democrats, akin to the period 1800-1824.
Alternatively, the awkward efforts seen in this year's Republican convention -- Amber Rose, Sikh prayers, etc. -- are the beginning of an accelerating trend to make the GOP a bigger tent that is electorally viable, and in which Christians will necessarily have a smaller voice.
I think you’re spot on here. The GOP seems to be at a crossroads of sorts. They’ve dug in on the evangelical vote, but I think we are nearing an inflection point where that will not be viable for winning elections, especially if young voter turnout increases. The Harris campaign seems to be aware of this and is focusing heavily on voter turnout for gen z. If that strategy works I think we could see some significant shifts in American politics in the next decade.
I've heard this provocative quote a number of times and it's nice to have some data to explore concerning it. I wonder if it's less a matter of Nones being more hardline on specific issues, and a shift in which issues matter most. For example, I would be curious to see whether there's any shift in regards to immigration. I could hypothetically see the Christian teachings on love for the stranger being a moderating force on anti-immigrant sentiment, but that being lifted by someone not sharing Christian values on that topic. That being said, I could also see that *not* being the case, since many conservative Evangelicals place a different emphasis on those passages and are more prone to racialized religious views anyways.
There is an operationalization question here, not in terms of variables but in terms of what it means to be guided by religion. 20 years ago, being part of the religious right meant that you expected politicians to be moral individuals who comported themselves in ways that exemplified Christian values. A serial divorced philandering friend to porn stars would not be tolerated by these folks. There was also a lack of militancy among these people in terms of seeking revenge and using state powers to punish people with whom they disagreed with.
This is really insightful. A question. It doesn't change the premise/results in Republican mix. What is the overall change/ratio of Republicans v Democrats v Independents with the huge increase in nones? (and by age since you're so great at this!) I think you've done this analysis but would like to see it along side the increase in young Republican nones.
Assuming one's political identity is established before age 30, there is a gradient between how people in the older cohorts and the younger ones understood what being a Republican stands for. The older people entered when Reagan and candidates in the next few elections promoted economic Republicanism or perhaps international policies to which Republicans could claim ownership. The dominance of social issues as a litmus test came later, when the younger people were forming their political identities. The older people also chose their political identity with their religious identity already established from childhood. The younger entrants to Republicanism had a more fluid religious imprint.
They may be very different people. While positions on specific issues like abortion or puberty blockers are easy to tabulate through polling, some more fundamental views like identity or resentments may be more difficult to sort out, though likely just as important.
It’s likely that today’s 18-35 “nothing in particular” and “religion is not very important to me” contingents will find faith more important and will identify with a specific faith tradition as they age and meet life challenges that cause them to seek the solace and community organized religion offers, especially if they were reared in religiously observant families. If many congregations seem over-populated with us gray hairs, it’s as much because so many of us have returned to church as we’ve aged as because younger people have left due to busy lives, dissatisfaction with church dogmas, and peer pressures. With age comes the wisdom of humility.
That’s a line that I heard a lot growing up - you get more conservative as you grow up or you find religion as you get older. However, my personal experience as a none is that every year I’ve moved further left politically and further away from religion. Of course, we can’t know for certain what the future holds, but it seems unlikely to me that the same shift within your generation will take place for mine.
Yeah, it's a myth that people move right on social issues over time. All generations have moved left on social issues. E.g., Boomers are more liberal on gay marriage now than they were 40 years ago. As society becomes ever-increasingly liberal on social issues, older generations only appear to move right in relative terms -- Boomers were on the social left 40 years ago, but are now on the social right, despite having positions that are further left now in absolute terms. Not really a Boomer, but JK Rowling might epitomize this.
I do think people tend to shift their economic preferences as they age though. People care more about property taxes as homeowners than as renters. They care more about income taxes (including SALT) in their peak earning years than in their 20s. They care more about Social Security and Medicare in their 60s and beyond than when they're younger.
That non-Christians made up less than 20% of older generations and as much as 40% of younger generations (great data visualizations by the way!) is a striking change and signals a real shift in the making. The post-religious right is not necessarily taking over the Republican Party (though it is causing a marked shift in the platform away from Evangelical causes) but rather splitting its philosophical foundation and causing intellectual squabbles over what it means to be a Conservative (whether the fight is against “Evil” or against “that which goes against human nature”). It sounds like an academic shift but ideas have consequences and this will affect the vision and future policy choices of the party, and will likely fragment Conservatism.
I'm particularly curious about the rise of the religious but not Protestant or Catholic contingent. I've long wondered if it would ever be possible for religious people of multiple faiths to share the same political party amicably, at least for a time and given a common enemy.
My concern is the self-identification. For example, I know a lot of people that say "religion is very important to me," but I feel like they say that because they know they're supposed to say that. Their actions and words certainly do not line up with any sort of Biblical teaching, in my view.
It's more like the actions have changed, and reasoning has changed, and justifications have changed, and how do you measure that?
This makes me think of the corpus collosum experiments where people's left and right brains were separated. The left brain could speak, and the right brain could write. Some people, when asked "do you believe in God" would say yes and write no.
Combined with Jonathan Haidt's research on the conscious and subconscious, it brings me to the conclusion that only meaningful metrics of faith are behavior (how do you behave) and attention (what do you spend time looking at).
I think this is a reliability measure rather than an accuracy measurement. As long as the question is the same over time and the sample, you're looking for movement and balance between the answers and not legitimacy of each individual answer.
That's a good point.
Whether "faith is very important to me" is actually perceived as the desired response has probably also changed over time.
There's a lot to agree with here, but also feels like something is missing.
Correct me where I'm wrong, but Ryan seems to be implying that because young Republicans are 60% Christian, the GOP will converge towards roughly this number.
There's a problem with this: the GOP is currently a minority coalition, more or less structurally incapable of winning the popular vote (which it will presumably lose for the 5th consecutive time this November, and the 8th out of the last 9 elections). It is a much smaller minority among 18-35 year-olds than among the general population.
Therefore, unless we assume a religious revival, it's a mathematical certainty that a GOP that can't pull any more non-religious Millennials or Zoomers than it's currently pulling is one that is doomed to ever-increasing demographic obscurity, and that won't be competitive in another Presidential election after 2024. Which may well happen! There has been a thought out there for a while that the Republicans are the new Federalists, that the party will collapse as a national entity, and there will be an era of single-party domination by the Democrats, akin to the period 1800-1824.
Alternatively, the awkward efforts seen in this year's Republican convention -- Amber Rose, Sikh prayers, etc. -- are the beginning of an accelerating trend to make the GOP a bigger tent that is electorally viable, and in which Christians will necessarily have a smaller voice.
I think you’re spot on here. The GOP seems to be at a crossroads of sorts. They’ve dug in on the evangelical vote, but I think we are nearing an inflection point where that will not be viable for winning elections, especially if young voter turnout increases. The Harris campaign seems to be aware of this and is focusing heavily on voter turnout for gen z. If that strategy works I think we could see some significant shifts in American politics in the next decade.
I've heard this provocative quote a number of times and it's nice to have some data to explore concerning it. I wonder if it's less a matter of Nones being more hardline on specific issues, and a shift in which issues matter most. For example, I would be curious to see whether there's any shift in regards to immigration. I could hypothetically see the Christian teachings on love for the stranger being a moderating force on anti-immigrant sentiment, but that being lifted by someone not sharing Christian values on that topic. That being said, I could also see that *not* being the case, since many conservative Evangelicals place a different emphasis on those passages and are more prone to racialized religious views anyways.
There is an operationalization question here, not in terms of variables but in terms of what it means to be guided by religion. 20 years ago, being part of the religious right meant that you expected politicians to be moral individuals who comported themselves in ways that exemplified Christian values. A serial divorced philandering friend to porn stars would not be tolerated by these folks. There was also a lack of militancy among these people in terms of seeking revenge and using state powers to punish people with whom they disagreed with.
Thanks for this analysis! Fascinating!
This is really insightful. A question. It doesn't change the premise/results in Republican mix. What is the overall change/ratio of Republicans v Democrats v Independents with the huge increase in nones? (and by age since you're so great at this!) I think you've done this analysis but would like to see it along side the increase in young Republican nones.
Assuming one's political identity is established before age 30, there is a gradient between how people in the older cohorts and the younger ones understood what being a Republican stands for. The older people entered when Reagan and candidates in the next few elections promoted economic Republicanism or perhaps international policies to which Republicans could claim ownership. The dominance of social issues as a litmus test came later, when the younger people were forming their political identities. The older people also chose their political identity with their religious identity already established from childhood. The younger entrants to Republicanism had a more fluid religious imprint.
They may be very different people. While positions on specific issues like abortion or puberty blockers are easy to tabulate through polling, some more fundamental views like identity or resentments may be more difficult to sort out, though likely just as important.
It’s likely that today’s 18-35 “nothing in particular” and “religion is not very important to me” contingents will find faith more important and will identify with a specific faith tradition as they age and meet life challenges that cause them to seek the solace and community organized religion offers, especially if they were reared in religiously observant families. If many congregations seem over-populated with us gray hairs, it’s as much because so many of us have returned to church as we’ve aged as because younger people have left due to busy lives, dissatisfaction with church dogmas, and peer pressures. With age comes the wisdom of humility.
That’s a line that I heard a lot growing up - you get more conservative as you grow up or you find religion as you get older. However, my personal experience as a none is that every year I’ve moved further left politically and further away from religion. Of course, we can’t know for certain what the future holds, but it seems unlikely to me that the same shift within your generation will take place for mine.
Yeah, it's a myth that people move right on social issues over time. All generations have moved left on social issues. E.g., Boomers are more liberal on gay marriage now than they were 40 years ago. As society becomes ever-increasingly liberal on social issues, older generations only appear to move right in relative terms -- Boomers were on the social left 40 years ago, but are now on the social right, despite having positions that are further left now in absolute terms. Not really a Boomer, but JK Rowling might epitomize this.
I do think people tend to shift their economic preferences as they age though. People care more about property taxes as homeowners than as renters. They care more about income taxes (including SALT) in their peak earning years than in their 20s. They care more about Social Security and Medicare in their 60s and beyond than when they're younger.
That non-Christians made up less than 20% of older generations and as much as 40% of younger generations (great data visualizations by the way!) is a striking change and signals a real shift in the making. The post-religious right is not necessarily taking over the Republican Party (though it is causing a marked shift in the platform away from Evangelical causes) but rather splitting its philosophical foundation and causing intellectual squabbles over what it means to be a Conservative (whether the fight is against “Evil” or against “that which goes against human nature”). It sounds like an academic shift but ideas have consequences and this will affect the vision and future policy choices of the party, and will likely fragment Conservatism.
What an interesting topic.
I'm particularly curious about the rise of the religious but not Protestant or Catholic contingent. I've long wondered if it would ever be possible for religious people of multiple faiths to share the same political party amicably, at least for a time and given a common enemy.
Love this! I wrote a (much less refined) commentary on the recent changes to the Republican Party platform last week:
https://open.substack.com/pub/griffingooch/p/the-kingdom-of-god-still-doesnt-fit?r=2mvy4l&utm_medium=ios