Matt Yglesias is prone to the "David Brooks Fallacy" of taking an interesting data point and running too far with it. In the above piece (sub req), he takes two interesting data trends and reaches an unusual conclusion.
First, America is secularizing at a rapid pace and much - if not all of it - is in the Mainline churches. Evangelicals remains strong, no doubt because evangelical groups tend to be homogenous and insular. You go to the same church your folks and grandparents go to. It's a cycle. It's unclear if we are seeing evangelicals actually evangelize doubters.
Second, he takes a trend of non-White voters shifting somewhat to the GOP in the last two electoral cycles. These non-White Republicans are most likely NOT to be church goers. Yglesias argues - plausibly - that the Black church, in particular, serves as a political socialization organization (Souls to the Polls). and Black men who don't go to church voted for Trump, because they either left the church over Democratic politics or were never socialized into Democratic politics.
Put another way: White conservatives go to church, Black and Hispanic conservatives do not.
It IS true that Trump did better among Black male voters by 6 point from 2016 to 2020 and did 4 points better with Latine voters. We have to remember the power of incumbency on low information voters. Non-College voters tend to be lower information voters, so if these are non-college, low-information voters, they likely supported the guy because the economy had been pretty good and maybe Trans people freak them out.
I don't think you can make a broader case that Black men and Hispanics are becoming Republicans as they leave church. Not yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment