Democrats have a religion problem (Michael Wear/fm. Obama Staffer) ARTICLE

[valet]

Here's some excerpts:

Democrats Have a Religion Problem

Emma Green: Many people have noted that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in this election. Why do you think that was?

Michael Wear: It shows not just ineptitude, but the ignorance of Democrats in not even pretending to give these voters a reason to vote for them. We also need to have a robust conversation about the support or allowance for racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia in the evangelical tradition.

Many of those 81 percent are accommodating cultural changes in America that are deeply problematic. Liberals have been trying to convince Americans, and evangelicals in particular, that America is not a Christian nation. The 2016 election was evangelicals saying, “Yeah, you’re right! We can’t expect to have someone who is Christian like us. We can’t expect to have someone with a perfect family life. What we can expect is someone who can look out for us, just like every other group in this country is looking for a candidate who will look out for them.”

There’s a lot of conversation in Christian circles about Jeremiah 29, which is Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon. The message Jeremiah had, and that the Lord had, for the exiles is that they should seek the peace and prosperity of the city where they’ve been planted, and multiply—they should maintain their convictions for the flourishing of others. The concern I have, and that many others have, is that in this time of cultural transformation in America, you’re going to have many evangelicals who just become Babylonians.

Green: Why is it, do you think, that some liberals—and specifically the Democratic Party—have been unwilling to do outreach to people who hold particular kinds of theological points of view?

Wear: They think, in some ways wrongly, but in other ways rightly, that it would put constraints around their policy agenda. So, for instance: You could make a case to evangelicals while trying to repeal the Hyde Amendment, [which prohibits federal funding for abortion in most circumstances,] but that’s really difficult. Reaching out to evangelicals doesn’t mean you have to become pro-life. It just means you have to not be so in love with how pro-choice you are, and so opposed to how pro-life we are.

The second thing is that there’s a religious illiteracy problem in the Democratic Party. It’s tied to the demographics of the country: More 20- and 30-year-olds are taking positions of power in the Democratic Party. They grew up in parts of the country where navigating religion was not important socially and not important to their political careers. This is very different from, like, James Carville in Louisiana in the ’80s. James Carville is not the most religious guy, but he gets religious people—if you didn’t get religious people running Democratic campaigns in the South in the ’80s, you wouldn’t win.

Another reason why they haven’t reached out to evangelicals in 2016 is that, no matter Clinton’s slogan of “Stronger Together,” we have a politics right now that is based on making enemies, and making people afraid. I think we’re seeing this with the Betsy DeVos nomination: It’s much easier to make people scared of evangelicals, and to make evangelicals the enemy, than trying to make an appeal to them.

 

[acri1]

Look breh, just vote Republican if that's really how you really feel.

Personally I'm not of the opinion that we need two Republican parties though.

 

[ineedsleep212]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

good. fukk them

 

[hashmander]

the obsession with trying to make the democratic party more republican is just silly. the party is republican enough, move anymore to the right and what's the fukking point.

 

[hayesc0]

Look breh, just vote Republican if that's really how you really feel.

Personally I'm not of the opinion that we need two Republican parties though.

yep

 

[Regular_P]

@the cac mamba

 

[FAH1223]

Evangelicals were never voting for liberals

 

[valet]

Evangelicals were never voting for liberals

I think that brings up the questiom of whats the definition of evangelical.

 

[DonKnock]

I think that brings up the questiom of whats the definition of evangelical.

 

[Regular_P]

 

[NvrCMyNut]

America is a Christian nation.

 

[MostReal]

Evangelicals were never voting for liberals

true but the article is right

Demos are too gay, too pedo, too atheist, too far left. Nobody with centrist ideals wants to be apart of that mess.

Democrats have played themselves by going too far left. Looking at the party now, it's straight up ass
It's like they did everything they could do to lose to the Republicans in this election. They had everything going for them in 08 and blew a stacked deck

 

[FAH1223]

true but the article is right

Demos are too gay, too pedo, too atheist, too far left. Nobody with centrist ideals wants to be apart of that mess.

Democrats have played themselves by going too far left. Looking at the party now, it's straight up ass
It's like they did everything they could do to lose to the Republicans in this election. They had everything going for them in 08 and blew a stacked deck

I agree

Which is why speaking on class issues and struggle is way more appealing

 

[Rekorb]

true but the article is right

Demos are too gay, too pedo, too atheist, too far left. Nobody with centrist ideals wants to be apart of that mess.

Democrats have played themselves by going too far left. Looking at the party now, it's straight up ass
It's like they did everything they could do to lose to the Republicans in this election. They had everything going for them in 08 and blew a stacked deck

Appealing to evangelicals is like appealing to the lowest common denominator. The country would go back to the stone age, and the country has enough of a mix that there is a nice spread of the voting power.