Based on the open and persuasive appeals to anger I keep finding I would say a safe statement is the evangelicals who support Trump are probably angry and evangelicals that don't support trump are probably angry. So the amount of not angry people should also stick out somewhere, but how can one support a Demagogic anger-peddler and not actually be angry?

Why are the angry segments of evangelicals angry again? Where does this begin?

A lot of the problem here is that you are not distinguishing between two related, but different claims. One is this: Many evangelicals are voting for Trump for religious reasons. I think this is true and I'm sure everyone else in this conversation also thinks this is true. People find this surprising because of Trump's public image as a irreligious hedonist. Thus, you have articles, like the ones you've linked, trying to explain evangelical support for Trump.

The other claim is: Trump's likely win of the GOP nomination is caused by support from evangelicals for religious reasons. Elections are zero-sum games, so if x causes exactly 100 people to vote for each of the candidates then x doesn't have a causal impact on any of those candidates winning. Thus, it is relative support, not absolute support that is relevant in determining whether Trump's likely win is caused by religion. So, to support the claim that Trump's win is mainly due to religion you would have to show that evangelicals are supporting Trump more than they are supporting other candidates, and that they are doing so for religious reasons. You haven't presented an argument for that claim.

Most people who are angry are angry that the present is not like a past that didn't actually exist. I think this has been called "nostalgia politics."

Most of the nostalgia is tied to a conservative suburban America world placed in the 1950s/60s. Leave it to Beaver stuff. There is some religion there, with the church-going culture showing up every Sunday morning in their nice clothes and things like that. This is what conservative America believes America should be like. And since most Evangelicals are conservative, there's a strong correlation there.

And there is very much a religious backdrop. But it's not so much about Christianity as it is about the general culture that "respects" religion. And that's where we see bits of anger from the Evangelicals who support Trump. They feel that the picture of America that's in their heads has been under attack for a long time.

The part of the analysis that goes wrong from MB is that he wants to claim that religion itself is playing a more significant role in this picture than what others think. That somehow, BECAUSE people are religious, they are more inclined to follow Trump (as Trump somehow represents a defender of Christianity, based on that speech that was given at Liberty University).

The data is definitely showing anger, but religious anger is pretty far down the list. People are not flocking to Trump as a defender of Christianity, but a defender of conservative America (a small part of which is Christianity).

So basically, he's holding tight to a "not wrong" idea, but he's doing his familiar thing of over-inflating the reality ("thanks mainly due to religion") and is having a hard time backing it down in a way where he still gets to believe he was right the entire time.

Mightyboosh. ****. I repeated the exact statements you made earlier. You tell me I am misunderstanding and that I should read back in the thread. To what? I was quoting your earlier statements! Was my paraphrase inaccurate? I don't think so. Was there some other part of the thread where you admit your earlier statements were wrong?

I love that I get on your case about not justifying your position and your response is to start spamming wapo opeds somewhat vaguely about evangelicals supporting trump until you hit your free article limit (and thus forcing people who click on them to also hit their free article limit for the month; thanks!). Sorry, but none of your wapo opeds thus far support your initial statements, as far as I can tell. Can you explain why they do?

I wish I didn't need to call you passive aggressive. I wish you would be willing to meaningful engage in substantive discussion of the issues. Unfortunately - just as in the last post - you consistently don't do that, and instead consistently act in a passive aggressive way. Sometimes it isn't even passive aggressive, it's things like typing out a big post (Full of "go reads") only to insist at the end you are not going to engage any more. That's just a dick move.

And if you really do leave this conversation, go with this fact firmly grounded: you have, after a long back and forth, not once stopped to actually articulate why you think your claims are true. Is that the type of conversation you are proud of?

I don't know if this works with the Washington Post, but try viewing in incognito/private browser mode. For some sites, this will block the cookie they're using to count the number of things you've clicked and it will let you view endlessly.

Hippies. NSFW. language and hippies.

I know you are done but if you have not you should read a bit about Ted Cruz and what he has said about Christainty. Think it would help you understand more about where the religious vote is going.

People who are more devoutly Christian and more likely to vote based on that are for Cruz mostly. Its the nominal Christians who are voting for Trump and they are not really voting out of their religiosity. Not that there is anything wrong if the did....

I think the problem is that what I said is still being misinterpreted.

I haven't made this claim.

That's not exactly what I said, what I said was this:

The word 'could' is not there by accident, I guarded what I said because I'm aware that it could be completely wrong.

What I meant was that taken alone, votes from the crazies who want walls built and iphones made in the US and who want America to be 'great' again, and who think Trump is presidential material.. etc etc should not amount to election winning numbers of voters. However, Trump is winning, and the reason may be that his votes are being boosted by the evangelicals who don't actually agree with many of his positions or think that he's a good Christian but see in him someone who will defend their beliefs, and that's a very important issue to them. Those votes might be tipping the scales. So, religion is the reason that they are voting for him even though the majority of evangelicals are voting for other candidates, candidates who more closely represent their values. So, technically, Trump could actually end up being president because of religion.

If you achieve 90% of your votes one way, but win the election because you unexpectedly managed to attract the extra 10% from somewhere else, a block that you wouldn't expect support from, then can you not say that those extra unexpected votes won you the election?

It was never more than a throwaway comment, never something I intended to defend to the death and honestly I don't really care about it that much. If I need examples that I think show negative impacts of religion in our society, I have many many more, I don't need Trump.

I meant I was done talking to Uke about it.

Yes, I understand why Trump is not getting 66% of the evangelical vote.

On an unrelated note, how ridiculous it is to me that in the US there is a such a thing as the 'Evangelical vote'.

Im not speaking just about evangelicals. More Christians in general. If you understand (and agree) what i wrote i dont see how you can say Trump could get elected because of religion.


I dont think it is ridiculous people forum blocks of voters. Its kind of natural or inevitable when they share similar values.

Ok i read your response to op. I see where you are coming form and will let you guys bat it around. Its not an important questions to me either because i dont see an inherent problem if it was true. Religious people should be able to bring their religion into the voting booth. So meh...

To be clear: this is a massive departure from your previous statements. The claim wasn't just that there was some "technical" possibility that religion "tips the scales" - everyone would agree with that. Previously you said "MAINLY due to religion". Previously you said it explained it MORE than the anti Mexican stuff regarding the wall. Previously you said it was UNDERVALUED. These are all relative statements, not that it could be some tipping point.

So, given how what you are saying now is substantially different from previously, is it that you reject your previous claims? Or are just unwilling or unable to support them?

Can you still read the 'capslock' wording on the key, or have you worn it away yet? Try italicizing, just for a bit of variety.

It's not substantially different to me, so I reject the choices you've offered me as incomplete. It's highly unlikely that the majority of Trump's supporters are voting for him for reasons relating to religion and I've never claimed that they are, but the block of votes that could swing the election for him are the ones coming from the unexpected voting block, the evangelicals who are voting to protect their religion, so they would be the reason he wins, and their motivation would mainly be religious.

It wasn't the best way to word it but since I've already demonstrated that I'll admit to error, but haven't in this case, you'll just have to believe my explanation. And now, I really am done with this. If you want to spend more of your time on it, be my guest.

This is very poor analysis. This is like saying that Obama won in 2012 because of the evangelical vote. Sure only 20% of evangelicals voted for Obama, but imagine if 100% voted for Romney!

I agree! Religious people shouldn't be allowed to vote!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...l#post49511265

"No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, everything is religion's fault."

just to be clear, I typed this on my iPad on the subway. I splitscreen with a note taking all so I can read the thread and type at the same time, then copy over the result when I am done. As such, italics are hard. Capitalizing is a super quick and easy way to emphasize key words in a sentence. My usage here is simply not comparable to a 90s email chain "shouty capitals" style of posting. So if you really want to try and mock me for capitalizing key words so you will address them - which you then ignore - well just have at it.





It's not just, as OrP puts it, very bad analysis. I still don't believe it is consistent with your earlier statements. Perhaps you want to interpret "mainly due to religion" in this bad way. But you also have your relative comment about the other issues like the anti-Mexican stuff, your claim that we are undervaluing this factor, and so on. Do you still believe that we are undervaluing this factor?



i don't just have to do anything, and you are hardly making a strong case for your willingness to admit error here. And Ive said it before and I'll say it again: this whole typing out a big post then declaring you are not responding again (often responding again anyways) is a dick move.

...

It's not analysis, it's simply a perspective.

If the evangelical vote was the difference between him winning and losing, then yes, you could say that he won because of them. What makes it worthy of note is that it's a voting block he can't expect a lot of support from, which distinguishes them from the voters you would expect to vote for him. Likewise with Trump. Or you could simply treat each voting demographic as equal to all the others, none worthy of comment in how they choose to vote, but in practice we don't do that do we. One block of voters can swing an election one way or the other, and that's what might be happening here.

Oh come on OrP... You can agree that I find it ridiculous, since I do, but the rest of that post is silly.

The American constitution protects religious freedoms, it shouldn't make any difference at all to voters what the religious beliefs of candidates are because what matters is their suitability for the job of running the country and their religious beliefs are irrelevant to that, they could be Hindu or Muslim, or atheist, or whatever.

I notice that you didn't comment on the fact that I find it ridiculous that there is such a thing as the 'black' vote, and the 'Hispanic' vote. Do people with the same colour skin all vote the same way too in the US such that it's worth giving that a demographic distinction? or is this just another manifestation of the racism that is rampant in American culture.

In other words, you've just formed an opinion based on nothing, and you're going to hold to it despite the fact that people have presented information to counter your nothing, and you still have nothing.

This is perhaps the most incompetent voting analysis ever.

Except that all the data is showing that this is exactly NOT what's happening.

would you say Obama won 2012 mainly due to the evangelicals who voted for him because he would protect their freedoms?

Also how come you can talk about voting blocks here, but it is ridiculous for someone to consider the block of black voters or evangelicals. Obviously nobody is saying they are all identical, just that there are certain patterns (blacks overwhelmingly vote democrat, for instance)

This is why I rarely get into conversations with you anymore. I'm not interested in your personal view of me or your aggressive, insulting tone, it's quite unpleasant. Your goal seems to be to prove me wrong at all costs, no matter how trivial the point, it's tiresome and distracting, and since I'm struggling to stop myself replying to your endless, misstating of what I think (try asking more questions maybe??), I'm putting you on ignore for a while.

I would have PM'd this to you but hey, it might just have ended up in a public thread anyway right Uke? Let's talk about dick moves....

Congratulations, Uke!

Of course you completely ignore the substance.

Mightyboosh, I really don't care about the rest. If there is anything at all that I can get you to do, it is to actually sit down and meaningfully address the points. If all you type out is is meaningful responses to the issues I swear on whatever gods you don't believe in, I will only give meaningful responses back. Every time.

But if your posts have other stuff - if they are mostly other stuff outside of actually addressing the issue - then I am going to call them like I see them. I'm sorry, but I think typing out a big post then asserting you are not responding - and then responding anyways, as it happens - is rude. Maybe you think this is fine forum etiquette, but I don't. If me saying that means you won't meaningfully address the issues, well so be it I guess. Frankly, this feels very similar to the previous incident, where to my eyes you are being very rude (demanding we not talk about anything else, in the previous case), but then get mad at me for calling you out on it.

But there is a simple resolution: just post the meaningful stuff, and I will too! Try me.

And for the record, the incident you are referring to was when you had repeated the same point both in the thread, and in PM, just with slightly different phrasing. Yes, in the thread, I referenced the slightly different phrasing from the PM. I do not think that is a big betrayal of trust given how you had made the same point in the thread, publicly, just not that exact word choice. And besides the subject matter was literally about how we do NOT need to go to PM just because something is a "tangent" (a fact you proved in the other thread when you went on a tangent); the disagreement was you wanted the conversation in PM and I wanted the conversation in the thread, but it wasn't like I was telling everyone private thoughts not previously communicated publicly or anything like this. Nonetheless, now that I know - rightly or wrongly - that you are very sensitive to this, it won't happen again.

Oops: I think he edited in the ignore point after I started my reply. Well I would have given a somewhat different comment had it been there when I started, but so be it.