There is no culture war peace treaty – Vox.com
Liberals frequently wonder how evangelicals and other conservative Christians can possibly justify supporting President Donald Trump, given his flagrant personal immorality and dangerously unfit temperament. Why cant they get over their culture war, the argument goes, and vote for a Democrat to save the republic?
In a provocative piece in National Review published Wednesday, Michael Brendan Dougherty turns the question on its head asking people on the left why they wont give up on their culture war, moderating on issues like abortion and religious freedom exemptions to anti-discrimination law in the name of stopping Trump.
Democrats are no more willing than social-conservative Trump supporters to lay down their culture-war objectives and enmities in order to save the constitution from the president, he writes.
Dougherty believes that both groups are, when you get down to it, pretty much the same on these issues: Both care much more about issues relating to social justice and religion in public life than they do Trump.
Progressives believe they are just vindicating human rights when they pursue their culture-war goals relentlessly, he writes. Like Evangelicals, they dont think Donald Trumps depredations however appalling are a reason to lay down their arms.
But heres the thing: Doughertys analysis only makes sense if you think evangelicals are holding their nose and voting for Trump despite disliking him. But thats not what polling suggests. Evangelicals like this president they dont think hes a threat to the republic at all. 77 percent of white evangelicals approved of Trumps job performance in an October PRRI survey; they were the only religious group in the survey with a majority believing Trump has not damaged the dignity of the presidency.
Theres no solid reason to think evangelicals and other Christian conservatives are Trump waverers, wringing their hands and hoping for a moderate Democratic turn like, say, the nomination of Joe Biden for president who could give them a pretext to abandon the president. It would be political malpractice for a Democratic campaign to betray their base in order to tilt after evangelical windmills.
This speaks to a deeper problem with Doughertys analysis. His argument is premised on the idea that religious conservatives are primarily concerned about LGBTQ issues and insurance coverage of birth control. But the polling data suggests that simply is not true: They have conservative views on a whole swath of issues, including ones about race and identity that are so central to Trumps appeal. You cannot disentangle their support for Trumps policies on religious freedom from their support for his border wall and racial demagoguery.
The American public is not divided exclusively by their views of religion: They are divided by their view of what America should look like as a whole. Our various culture wars have become a giant culture war, and its hard to disentangle one component from the rest of it.
Earlier this year, Trinity Evangelical Divinity Schools Craig Ott and Juan Carlos Tllez published a survey of the academic and statistical literature on evangelical opinions on immigration. They found that white evangelicals have the most negative views regarding immigration as compared to compared to all other religious groups.
Interestingly, these grassroots opinions seem to arise in spite of more moderate statements from evangelical leaders and organizations. In Ott and Tllezs view, their attitudes and the manner in which they form their opinions appear inconsistent with evangelical convictions. Sheer religious conviction isnt driving these voters behavior, at least according to these scholars read of the available research.
Their analysis is borne out by recent polling on policy. Sixty-one percent of white evangelicals support Trumps travel ban, per one 2019 survey. A Pew report found that 68 percent did not believe the US had an obligation to take in refugees more than any other religious group surveyed. About 75 percent of white evangelicals support Trumps proposal for a US-Mexico border wall.
These restrictive attitudes reflect deeper negative attitudes toward diversity. In one study, white evangelicals were the only religious group surveyed where a plurality (44 percent) had a negative view of Muslims. A data analysis by Denison Universitys Paul Djupe found that white evangelicals have considerably more racial resentment toward African-Americans than the general white population. A 2018 PRRI survey found that a majority of white evangelicals believed that a majority-minority America would have a mostly negative effect on the country again, alone among religious groups in the sample.
Perhaps this seems obvious. Doesnt all this data merely show that a conservative demographic group is, in fact, conservative?
But thats precisely my point. Today, partisan identity forms what political scientist Liliana Mason calls a mega-identity a category that encompasses various different ways we think about ourselves into one giant bundle. Voting Republican isnt just a way for white religious conservatives to protect themselves from secular attacks on their institutions; its also an expression of their deep anxiety created by demographic change and the upending of historic racial hierarchies. Their fear is not just one of religious persecution or racial progress, but of both combining into a unified whole of a country that is no longer there.
Under these circumstances, the outcome of an election then feels so much more consequential for our own broader sense of who we are, as Mason put it in an interview. We cant just say: Well one part of me lost, but the rest of me is still doing great (or vice versa). Instead, we feel devastated when we lose and really really great when we win.
That sense of so much being on the line, of an entire way of life being under threat, means that partisan identification becomes an irresistibly powerful lure for voters. No amount of Democratic policy moderation on narrow issues of religious liberty is going to overcome this amount of deep partisan polarization. Dougherty is preoccupied by the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a small Catholic charity that sought exemption from Obamacares birth control mandate. But Ill guarantee you that case is a lot less important to Trumps evangelical voter base than the Wall.
You can see the profound shaping effect in another religious group: Catholics. American Catholics are split into two roughly equally sized partisan camps and have sharply polarized attitudes as a result. Pew asked Catholics in January whether they supported substantially expanding the border wall with Mexico; 91 percent of Catholic Democrats opposed it, while 81 percent of Catholic Republicans supported it. You can see similar partisan splits on other issues Pew polled, even ones of doctrinal relevance like abortion and climate change. It doesnt make sense to speak of a Catholic vote; it makes sense to speak of two Catholic votes, a Democratic and a Republican one.
In a world where extreme polarization and social anxieties play a central role in politics, simple policy moderation is not enough to change the way that polarized groups vote.
The truth is were locked in not several culture wars, but one giant one: a battle over the countrys future about which partisan camps have very, very different ideas.
Read the original:
There is no culture war peace treaty - Vox.com
- Kate Emery: Australia must never let reheating of old culture wars tear us apart - The West Australian - July 28th, 2025 [July 28th, 2025]
- Culture Wars Returns with Stirring New Ballad Lies and a Renewed Sense of Purpose - Stage Right Secrets - July 27th, 2025 [July 27th, 2025]
- Trumps Executive Orders, Culture Wars, and Civil Rights - Stanford Law School - July 27th, 2025 [July 27th, 2025]
- My chilling decade on the front line of university culture wars - The Telegraph - July 27th, 2025 [July 27th, 2025]
- Inside the Big Issue: Superheroes vs the culture wars - Big Issue - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- As the culture wars hit Englands schools, we teachers are being thrown into a minefield - The Guardian - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- My Generation Is Sick of Your Culture Wars. Here's What Students Really Need (Opinion) - Education Week - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Rugby has been stuck in the middle of the nation's culture wars - and it is an ugly place full of threats and lies - WarwickshireWorld - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Trump agencies turn up heat on culture wars - Axios - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- A Liberal government uninterested in fighting culture wars? This could be it - MSN - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Woke but not broke? Superman soars above culture wars to dominate global box office - The Sydney Morning Herald - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- A Liberal government uninterested in fighting culture wars? This could be it - National Post - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- What's killing the media goes all the way back to a famous 100-year-old culture wars trial: critic - Alternet - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Opinion | The culture wars: Trumps takeover of the Kennedy Center - Toronto Star - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Walter Kim: Reaching Every GenerationCuriosity, Connection, & Culture Wars - ChurchLeaders - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- From Cornbread to Culture Wars - iHeart - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- As a visibly Muslim woman, I'm so tired of bearing the brunt of the UK's toxic culture wars - Glamour UK - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Eamon Ryan: We cant afford to let the climate crisis get swallowed up in the culture wars - The Irish Times - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- Bikinis and burgers: How the culture wars are remaking advertising - AFR - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Conservatives lose culture wars because they don't show up - Washington Examiner - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Revolutionary Ideas || Marxism and Culture Wars: How We Fight Oppression - International Socialist Alternative - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- The dangers of imported American culture wars on Scottish women's rights - TheNational.scot - June 20th, 2025 [June 20th, 2025]
- Paul Elie on Culture Wars in Music and Art - Christianity Today - June 18th, 2025 [June 18th, 2025]
- Co-Learning Intersectionality and Social Justice during Culture Wars - E-International Relations - June 12th, 2025 [June 12th, 2025]
- How the word womyn dragged the National Spelling Bee into the US culture wars - The Guardian - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- EDITORIAL | Student Speech: Schools that wade into culture wars should expect pushback - Texarkana Gazette - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- Jerry Falwell and the Chistian Culture Wars - CounterPunch.org - May 28th, 2025 [May 28th, 2025]
- Kudlow: President Trump Is Gradually Winning The Culture Wars - Real Clear Politics - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Larry Kudlow: Trump is gradually winning the culture wars, but much more must be done - Fox Business - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Here come the culture wars: can Queenslands LNP resist wading into the ideological mire? - The Guardian - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Trump Is Gradually Winning the Culture Wars but Much More Must Be Done - The New York Sun - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- From Barbiecore to the Culture Wars: Alex Clarks Podcast Pivot Exposes the Right-Wing Media Machine - CEO Today - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- John Rustad: It's time for B.C. NDP to end culture wars and wedge politics - Vancouver Sun - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Gary Lineker, the culture wars and why his BBC exit became a sad inevitability - The Athletic - The New York Times - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Why culture wars and anti-wokeness is really nothing new - NZ Herald - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- In the way it addresses culture wars, Labor is acting more like a truly liberal party - ABC Religion & Ethics - Australian Broadcasting... - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Religious freedom laws: Albanese has shied from culture wars. This one waits for him when parliament resumes - The Sydney Morning Herald - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Trumps firing of Hayden brings culture wars to the Library of Congress - Baltimore Sun - May 15th, 2025 [May 15th, 2025]
- Culture comes first in cybersecurity. That puts cybersecurity on the front line in the culture wars - theregister.com - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- While His Admin Delights In The Culture Wars, Trump Tiptoes Around Abortion. At Least For Now. - Talking Points Memo - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Australians have soundly rejected Trump-style culture wars. Now Albanese must act with courage and vision - The Guardian - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Culture wars, political polarization and deepening inequality: the roots of Trumpism - The Conversation - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- THE OCEANSIDER: An Aside About the School Board Elections Culture Wars Trickle Down to Tillamook - Tillamook County Pioneer - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- OPINION: Book bans draw libraries into damaging culture wars that undermine their purpose - The Hechinger Report - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- PG Tips enters the tea culture wars with NCA - More About Advertising - May 8th, 2025 [May 8th, 2025]
- Debate over partisanship, culture wars in Mansfield ISD at center of school board race - Fort Worth Report - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Oklahoma Watch: The Supreme Court had classroom culture wars on top of mind in oral arguments - Duncan Banner - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- The Supreme Court Had Classroom Culture Wars on Top of Mind in Oral Arguments - notus.org - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Culture wars and costings: election special podcast with Michelle Grattan and Amanda Dunn - The Conversation - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Online pile-ons and culture wars: how did we get here? - The Sydney Morning Herald - May 3rd, 2025 [May 3rd, 2025]
- Opinion | Can the Catholic Church Quit the Culture Wars? - The New York Times - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Morning Mail: Dutton switches to culture wars in last debate; Canada heartbroken after car ramming; Liverpool win league - The Guardian - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- How your showerhead and fridge got roped into the culture wars - Grist.org - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Libraries have been in the crosshairs of culture wars throughout history - Houston Public Media - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Symbol of Injustice and the culture wars: Volleyball trans athlete and her teammates are caught in the middle - Genetic Literacy Project - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Fundamentalists in the Public Square: Evolution, Alcohol, and Culture Wars after the Scopes Trial - The Gospel Coalition - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Culture Wars talk New Single Typical Ways, And New Upcoming Album - Soundsphere magazine - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Can culture wars win elections? - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Peter Dutton flicks switch to culture wars as cost of living proves tough egg to crack - The Guardian - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- VIDEO: Costings and culture wars as last week begins - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Justices Consider the Culture Wars During LGTBQ Storybook Hearing - Law.com - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Laura Tingle's Election: polls and culture wars in the final week - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Capitol Update: Rep. Brandon Woodard says GOP put culture wars over real solutions this session - Johnson County Post - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- How Emerging Adults Have Historically Responded To Culture Wars - Forbes - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- Campfire and culture wars: the history of the American summer camp - MSN - April 21st, 2025 [April 21st, 2025]
- The charts that show youngsters are rejecting the Lefts culture wars - The Telegraph - April 3rd, 2025 [April 3rd, 2025]
- Beyond the culture wars: How mysticism can get us beyond polarisation - Catholic Outlook - April 3rd, 2025 [April 3rd, 2025]
- Work and money worry young people more than culture wars or climate, UK poll finds - The Guardian - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Ag Secretary Uses Purse Strings to Press Culture Wars in States - DTN Progressive Farmer - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Lionel Shriver: Trump has ended US culture wars but UK is lagging - The Times - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- No 10 happy to dip its toe into culture wars in row with Sentencing Council - The Guardian - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Canada ditches divisive culture wars for focused hyper-nationalism thanks to Donald Trump - Daily Maverick - April 1st, 2025 [April 1st, 2025]
- Disneys New Snow White Film Fights Culture Wars and Wins - Bloomberg - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- Culture wars reach the classroom: What is the best way to teach children about gender and identity? - The Irish Times - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- 'I thought we were done with the culture wars': Democrats push back on measure clarifying what makes school books 'harmful to minors' - Creative... - March 22nd, 2025 [March 22nd, 2025]
- Letter: Culture wars drove me away from the GOP - Bangor Daily News - March 9th, 2025 [March 9th, 2025]
- Beth Ann Rosica: Pennsylvania culture wars to be waged in the courtroom - Broad + Liberty - March 9th, 2025 [March 9th, 2025]
- I have a pathological need to be right: Ash Sarkar on culture wars, controversy and Corbyns lost legacy - The Guardian - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Alex Gibney to Exec Produce Doc About College Culture Wars and Freedom of Speech (EXCLUSIVE) - Variety - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]
- Embrace of authoritarianism in US fueled by culture wars more than economy, study finds - The University of Kansas - March 7th, 2025 [March 7th, 2025]