jawfish

The 12 Tribes of American Politics
john posted in politics & culture on February 15th, 2006

On Beliefnet and now in The Atlantic, Steven Waldman and John Green correlate data from the 2004 election and come to some very interesting points about the relative sizes of the religious right, left, and the center, and the so-called culture wars.

Original story

Follow-up

Their essential conclusions:

The hard-core religious right, those evangelists who believe in biblical literalism, are against all abortions and gay marriage, and are pro-war, about equal the secularists on the left, those who want no religion in government, want abortion to remain an option, support gay marriage, and are anti-war. Each is about 10-12%.

Bush has made few changes to fulfill his promises to his hard-core constituency beyond the bully-pulpit. ( This is arguable, depending on Roberts’ and Alito’s future behavior.) Clinton made few of his own changes to appease his hard-core supporters. ( He did not have a Democratic Congress). Quibbling aside, they seem to make a point.

All data below taken verbatim from Beliefnet story.

Tribe	Percent of 2004 voters	L-R continuum	Religion	Examples
THE "RELIGIOUS RIGHT"	15%	Conservative: 66%, Moderate: 25%, Liberal: 9%	Highly orthodox white evangelical Protestants	Tom Delay, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson
HEARTLAND CULTURE WARRIORS	14%	Conservative: 50%, Moderate: 41%, Liberal: 10%	Conservative Catholics and conservative mainline Protestants, Latter-daySaints, and other smaller groups.	GW Bush, William Bennet, Milt Romney
MODERATE EVANGELICALS	9%	Conservative: 48%, Moderate: 26%, Liberal: 16%	…white evangelical Protestants hold less orthodox religious beliefs (54% are biblical literalists) and don’t show up in church quite as often as the "religious right"	Jimmy Carter, Bill Frist
WHITE BREAD PROTESTANTS	7%	Conservative: 37%, Moderate: 43%, Liberal: 20%	The core members of the Protestant "mainline" churches	GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, John Edwards
CONVERTIBLE CATHOLICS	7%	Conservative: 29%, Moderate: 49%, Liberal: 22%	The core of the white Catholic community,	John Kerry, Arnold Schwartzeneger. Maria Schriver
THE "RELIGIOUS LEFT"	14%	Conservative: 20%, Moderate: 50%, Liberal: 30%	Theologically liberal Catholics, mainline and evangelical Protestants.	Wlliam Sloane Coffin, Mario Cuomo
SPIRITUAL BUT NOT RELIGIOUS	3%	Conservative: 26%, Moderate: 49%, Liberal: 25%	Most report spiritual beliefs–85% believe in God and more than half are sure there is some kind of life after death-	Dennis Kucinich, Depak Chopra, Tony Robbins
SECULARS	11%	Conservative: 17%, Moderate: 48%, Liberal: 35%	Non-religious, atheists, and agnostics.	Bill Maher, Howard Dean
LATINOS	5%	Conservative: 28%, Moderate: 45%, Liberal: 27%	Majority Catholic, but with a large Protestant minority.	Bill Richardson, Mel Martinez
JEWS	3%	Conservative: 19%, Moderate: 36%, Liberal: 46%	Common cultural identity mixed with diverse religious beliefs.	Allan Dershowitz, Al Franken
MUSLIMS & OTHER FAITHS	3%	Conservative: 10%, Moderate: 46%, Liberal: 44%	Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, and other smaller groups.	Mohammed Ali, Richard Gere
BLACK PROTESTANTS	8%	Conservative: 27%, Moderate: 48%, Liberal: 25%	Fairly orthodox in practice (59% report attending worship once a week or more) and belief (56% are biblical literalists).	Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson