There is a deeper push-pull in the political polarization of America. My recent Rising Voters, Sinking Republicans focused on a growing generational schism between voters from younger generations versus current Republican values, one that threatens to decimate the GOP once the delaying tactics of voter suppression and gerrymandering no longer protect an old-world white incumbency. Today, I would like to approach another facet of that schism: fading religiosity against a population of faith particularly vulnerable to anti-science conspiracy theories.
Let’s start with a global trend, but one that is particularly visible here in the United States. Writing for the April 3rd, Los Angeles Times, Phil Zuckerman explains the shift: “Democratic societies that have experienced the greatest degrees of secularization are among the healthiest, wealthiest and safest in the world, enjoying relatively low rates of violent crime and high degrees of well-being and happiness. Clearly, a rapid loss of religion does not result in societal ruin.
“For the first time since Gallup began tracking the numbers in 1937, Americans who are members of a church, synagogue or mosque are not in the majority, according to a Gallup report released this week [first week in April]. Compare today’s 47% to 1945, when more than 75% of Americans belonged to a religious congregation.
“This decline in religious affiliation aligns closely with many similar secularizing trends. For example, in the early 1970s, only 1 in 20 Americans claimed ‘none’ as their religion, but today it is closer to 1 in 3. Over this same time period, weekly church attendance has decreased, and the percentage of Americans who never attend religious services has increased from 9% to 30%.
“In 1976, nearly 40% of Americans said they believed that the Bible was the actual word of God, to be taken literally. Today only about a quarter of Americans believe that, with slightly more decreeing the Bible is simply a collection of fables, history and morality tales written by men. And the percentage of Americans who confidently believe in God’s existence, without a doubt, has declined from 63% in 1990 to 53% today.
“Fears that this rise of irreligion might result in the deterioration of our nation’s moral fiber — and threaten our liberties and freedoms — are understandable. Such concerns are not without historical merit: The former Soviet Union was a communist country deeply rooted in atheism and was one of the most corrupt, bloody regimes of the 20th century. Other atheistic authoritarian regimes, such as the former Albania and Cambodia, were equally crooked and vicious. But here’s the thing — they were all godless dictatorships that tried to forcibly destroy religion by persecuting the faithful, actively oppressing religious institutions, and making a demagogic cult out of their thuggish rulers. Such coercive secularization is, indeed, something to dread.
“However, there is another, alternative kind of secularization, one that emerges organically, amid free and open societies where human rights, including religious freedom, are upheld and respected. Many societies qualify for this label — including those in Japan, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada and Uruguay, among many others. In these places, religion is not actively repressed, nor do governments promote secularization. And yet, it occurs simply because the people living in these societies lose interest in the whole religious enterprise.” In reality, the New Testament did not reach sufficient codification until approximately 600 years after the birth of Christ. Still, today’s political schism has religious ties.
The GOP is laced with reliance of outdated and disproven economic theories (“supply side economics” where favoring the rich is supposed to create jobs but never does) and outlandish conspiracy theories (like QAnon), which justify repression and even armed insurrection. Holding its evangelical base has become Republican Party gospel. The fundamental notion of fiscal conservatism has been lost in this unsustainable and mythical catering to essential GOP constituencies. Reality has simply left the Republican building. They are against much more than they stand for, an unhealthy erosion of an important political party.
UC Davis Professor and author, Kathryn Olmsted, is an expert on the combustible blend of politics, conspiracy and paranoia. After the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, she felt that perhaps the litany of conspiracy theories – the CIA was drugging Americans, the Watergate break-in, FBI investigations everywhere, UFO links to Area 51, etc. – would now fade. Not to worry, Dr. Olmstead, as LA Times writer (on April 3rd) Mark Z. Barabak, explains: “The decade that followed was bracketed by two Big Lies: the canard that Obama was born in Africa and thus didn’t belong in the White House, and the fiction that the 2020 election was stolen and thus Donald Trump never should have vacated it. Countless other mistruths and wackadoodle theories gained purchase in the years between.
“Indeed, thanks in good part to Trump’s mendacity, these are glory days for an academic with Olmsted’s expertise, which has placed her in great demand as an explainer and debunker… She’s not particularly glad about that, though Olmsted does laugh a lot for someone who spends so much time plumbing the nether reaches of the body politic. Just the day before, she said with a dry chuckle, a journalist mentioned this loopy tale making the rounds: Former First Lady Michelle Obama is transgender, a fact known to the late actress Joan Rivers, who was murdered by Bill and Hillary Clinton to keep it secret…
“But [according to Olmstead], recent years have seen a perilous development, which she called ‘conspiracy theory without the theory.’ Or, more simply, utter fabrication with no grounding in reality whatsoever… ‘It used to be there were a lot of facts that were actual facts and then people would make this leap. But like the birther conspiracy theory’ — regarding Obama’s supposed African origin — ‘there’s no kernel of truth there. There’s nothing you can point to and say, ‘Well his mother did make that trip to Kenya when she was pregnant,’ ‘ Olmsted said. ‘It’s just totally made-up and there’s no attempt to justify it.’”
But polls tell us that the “big lies” and conspiracy theories conspicuously resonate much more frequently among people of faith, particularly evangelicals. “The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, reported in February that more than a quarter of white evangelicals believe the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that a cabal of powerful politicians run a global child sex trafficking ring, is ‘mostly’ or ‘completely’ accurate. The rate was the highest of any religious group. The same survey indicated that 3 in 5 white evangelicals believe Biden’s win was ‘not legitimate.’… A poll released this year from Nashville-based Lifeway Research, an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, indicated that 49% of Protestant pastors often hear congregants repeating conspiracies about national events.” LA Times, March 3rd.
Indeed, we seem to be in a race between a fading power constituency, unable to sustain its body politic among rising generations, and Millennials and younger who are facing the horribles that the GOP denies, marginalizes or refuses to spend money to solve. When you realize that the only way for this aging GOP constituency to maintain its political power is to repeal democracy, the stakes have not reached this level of combative polarization since the Civil War.
I’m Peter Dekom, and neither time nor scientific reality are on the side of the current configuration of the Republican Party, and they desperately know that.
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