Perhaps Evangelicals Really Are “Easy to Command” After All

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

While I’ve been tromping around in Ireland, I see that this chart from Thomas Edsall has been making the rounds:

Edsall comments on this and other recent poll results:

What happened in the interim? The answer is obvious: the advent of Donald Trump….Michael Barber and Jeremy C. Pope, political scientists at Brigham Young University, reported in their recent paper “Does Party Trump Ideology? Disentangling Party and Ideology in America,” that many Republican voters are malleable to the point of innocence.

….Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law and political science at Stanford, described his surprise at the docility of Republican officials in an email: “While I and others had written extensively about the partisan tribalism of both elites and the mass public, I guess I would have expected greater defections by Republicans in the wake of Charlottesville.”

As these quotes make clear, the issue here isn’t religion per se, but Republican affiliation. An awful lot of Republicans apparently have very weak views on most subjects and are willing to support whatever Trump supports. Conversely, those with no religious affiliation, who are heavily Democratic, changed their views hardly at all. That’s not to say they’re unaffected by tribalism, but apparently they’re affected a lot less.

Any way you look at it, though, the strongest effect by far came from white evangelicals, who were almost literally willing to flip their views upside-down when Donald Trump told them to. I’m reminded of the famous description of evangelicals in a Washington Post article 25 years ago as “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.”

The Post apologized almost instantly, but this nonetheless became legendary on the right as shorthand for the contempt that Beltway elites feel toward evangelicals. But maybe the Post should have held its ground after all. In the age of Trump, it seems like maybe it’s evangelicals who ought to be the ones apologizing. Compared to other religious traditions, evangelicals in general really are poorer, less educated, and easier to command.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate