White Too Long review: how race trumped American Christianity

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/25/white-too-long-review-race-trump-american-christianity

In 2016, Robert Jones proclaimed the death of a US dominated by its pioneer stock. White Protestants comprised less than a third of the country, white Christians just 47%. Only four decades earlier, more than four in five had identified as white and Christian and 55% were white Protestants. To drive the point home, Jones titled that book The End of White Christian America.

Talk about jumping the gun. Just months after publication, white evangelicals went for Donald Trump by better than four to one while white voters overall cast their lot with the Republican by a 20-point margin. Like it or not, Trump’s election demonstrated the potency of religion fused to race. Gloria in excelsis Deo.

As the former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders would proclaim: “God wanted Trump to be president.” The fact her guy lost the popular vote was apparently theologically irrelevant. Franklin Graham, the late Billy Graham’s son, went a step further, threatening Americans with divine retribution if they criticized Trump.

Impeachment, Covid-19 and recession followed. Joe Biden holds a clear lead. The deity moves in mysterious ways.

Jones is the founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Its board includes the Very Reverend Dr Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, a political science professor. Its worldview is liberal and ecumenical.

*snip*

[qazplm135]

1. last gasp

that wouldn't have even been possible if our side had been a little more focused.

[brush]

2. In other words, the repug party is the white peoples' party.

Not really news. But thank God for white progressives who don't fall in line for the tribal racism.

[Mariana]

3. Trump's Republican party represents several different groups of people.

The majority of white people voted for Trump.
The majority of men voted for Trump.
The majority of Christians voted for Trump.
The majority of voters over 50 voted for Trump.

There is much overlap here, of course - one can be an old white Christian man, for example, and land in all four of those groups.

Trump needs to retain all of these majorities if he's to have a chance of getting elected this year. If he loses even one, he's gone.

[brush]

4. Well he already lost white, suburban women in 2018...

and never trumper repugs are strong against him now, not to mention all the unemployed white men.

I'm ridin' with Biden.