Opinion If today’s GOP baffles you, consider what motivates its base
A striking 71 percent of these voters think the country has gone downhill since the 1950s (when women were excluded from most professions, Black Americans faced barriers to voting, 50 million Americans still used outhouses and only about 5 percent of Americans were college-educated). Because White Protestant evangelicals make up such a large share of the GOP, that means 66 percent of Republicans want to go back to the time of “Leave It to Beaver.”
Half of White evangelical Protestants also think God intended America to be the promised land. Nearly two-thirds say immigrants are a threat, and 61 percent say “society has become too soft and feminine.” And they are the only discrete religious group polled to support overturning Roe v. Wade.
On race, only 19 percent of the group agrees that “the legacy of slavery and discrimination have limited Black Americans’ upward mobility.” They are the least likely to accept that African Americans disproportionately receive the death penalty. And here’s the kicker: Unlike a majority of Americans, “six in ten white evangelical Protestants (61%) agree that discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against racial minorities.”
Given these figures, it shouldn’t be surprising that while 58 percent of Americans think white supremacy is still a major problem, only 33 percent of White evangelical Protestants do, the lowest among religious groups. Similarly, 51 percent of the group believe that public teachers and librarians are “indoctrinating students with inappropriate curricula and books that wrongly portray America as a racist country,” compared with only 29 percent of Americans broadly.
And on immigration, only 30 percent of Americans buy into the “great replacement theory.” But 51 percent of White evangelical Protestants agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
As one might expect, this group is bolstering former president Donald Trump. “White evangelical Protestants are the only major religious group in which a majority of adherents say they view Trump favorably (63%), roughly similar to the share in 2021 (67%),” the survey finds. Likewise, 54 percent believe in the “big lie” of a stolen election, compared with 28 percent of all Americans.
In a nutshell, this group’s beliefs clash with the essence of the American experiment and conflict with objective facts, demography and economics. White evangelical Protestants’ outlook is warped by right-wing media and refracted through a prism of visceral anger and resentment.
It makes little sense to debate whether the MAGA movement radicalized White evangelical Protestants or the other way around. They are essentially one and the same.
Last year, Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge wrote for the New York Times, “In essence, many Americans are coming to the understanding that to be very religiously engaged and very politically conservative means that they are evangelical, even if they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.” In other words, Burge explained, more people are “conflating evangelicalism with Republicanism — and melding two forces to create a movement that is not entirely about politics or religion but power.” (This helps explain how evangelicals can embrace views that fly in the face of Christian theology; it’s not about the religion.)
The implications of the American Values Survey are profound. If millions of Americans think our country was best when White males were dominant and now think feminization plagues it, a great many would find comfort in the GOP’s toxic masculinity and in forced-birth laws that relegate women to the role of motherhood against their will. And if they dismiss the legacy of racism, many would favor policies that make it harder for minorities to vote and to access higher education (i.e., opposing affirmative action to rebalance college admissions in Whites’ favor).
These views also explain why so many Republicans seem perpetually angry and dissatisfied. What they want is unattainable. America is becoming less White, less male-dominated and less religious. Nothing politicians do or say will change this.
Moreover, White evangelicals are fundamentally out of step with the majority American opinion on everything from abortion to immigration to the legitimacy of the 2020 election. That, too, won’t change, no matter how angry they become.
Millions of White evangelical Protestants will therefore remain bonded with whatever cultlike figure can channel their anger. As long as he reaffirms and amplifies White evangelical Protestants’ fears, he can do no wrong. It also follows that a group that feels so besieged won’t much care about a candidate’s smarts, ethics or decency. Faced with a perceived existential threat, these Americans are inclined to support anyone who gives voice to their frustrations.
What endangers American democracy and democratic values goes far beyond one demagogue, one election or one set of policies. When so many Americans are driven by fear, resentment and antipathy toward inclusion, pluralistic democracy is at risk. Until we grapple with that reality, millions will remain vulnerable to cynical right-wing media and ruthlessly ambitious Republicans.
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