With the Iowa caucus happening today, here's an interesting and timely article regarding the category of "evangelicals" as a label that's used in political discussions.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...divide/458706/

I think the articles linked in the first few paragraphs are worth reading, as well.

I found this Christian perspective on this topic...

http://www.kentucky.com/living/relig...e57553638.html

Popular thread.

If I had bumped this thread, it's a "please clap" moment. But when you bump the thread, it's like you're crying for attention.

The only people who think evangelicals form a monolithic block are troglodytes in the liberal/New York/Washington media who've rarely been out of their bubble.

The article that spank posted on "authoritarianism" is simply one guy's opinion with a point to prove. There's zero science behind it since science is replication (among many other things). We don't even know the methodology by which he decided they are "authoritarian" or that this correlates. Meanwhile, he obviously has a position to push. On the surface his idea looks very plausible, but so do most ideas that end up wrong.

What you're describing, OP, doesn't even have much to do with evangelicals. It's simply the common divide between "polite" society - where certain "truths" of the day are sacrosanct and anyone who crosses them is Emmanuel Goldstein - and the mass of people with more intelligent and diverse and reality-based opinions. It's existed in all ages and among all classes.

There are no indications that the religious right is a definable group which leans towards authoritarianism?

Tooth's ability to form a coherent narrative is stifled by the fact that he doesn't believe in historical narratives (even though he clearly uses them).

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=49

^Aaron, I didn't reply to you there because it all went right over your head. There are lots of good arguments to made against the points I made in that thread (a historical Jesus is probable for a lot of reasons); unfortunately, you made precisely zero of them, so there was no point continuing.
There are lots of indications, hence me saying "the idea looks very plausible". It doesn't mean it's true however, and it probably isn't. I mean, look at what he studied:
That education has no bearing on supporting someone expressing his sentiments is surprising, no, given that "racism" tends to be associated with lower education? Gender also (Trump has been attacked for his views on women). Also surprising is that ideology isn't correlated (you would think conservative ideologies would prefer Trump). So what we're left with is:

For one, these were data mined (greatly reducing significance), and for two, how precisely is he calculating something as non-concrete as authoritarianism? All the hard statistics (gender, age, education) show zero correlation.

The odds that this is nonsense are extremely high. Not to mention, he has an agenda to push, his results aren't replicated, etc.

I like how you think you've actually raised a meaningful criticism, and how you're backpedaling on your argument. It shows your sheer lack of intellectual depth.

Yeah... It's not like "authoritarianism" is a thing that other social scientists have ever used to attempt to measure people's attitudinal disposition towards different moral perspectives built on other people's research.

http://universityofcalifornia.edu/ne...onal-you-think

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_ha...the_moral_mind

So.... no. Just waving your hands and pretending like you've raised a meaningful criticism because you don't know what you're talking about isn't going to be successful.

He's building on pre-existing results. The work of Haidt is almost a decade old, and much work has been done in this area.

But, as is your intellectual tradition, I'm doubtful that you've even bothered to look up anything about what this was about, and merely grabbed the word "authoritarianism" and pretended like you knew what you were talking about.

I'm not attacking the idea of authoritarianism as a social science construct. If you were a little less silly and trying a little less hard you'd realize that.

Most published research is wrong. This is a fact, even in the harder sciences like medicine. Here we have a single statistical analysis of a survey, by a guy with an agenda to push, unreplicated, (unpublished?), which is being treated as gospel. I'm doing two things:

- Saying that the conclusion he's drawn is very likely to be wrong. This is an uncontroversial statement, but the way
- Asking what his methodology is

Since this went right over your head, and you prefer to attack strawmen than actually read and understand other peoples' thoughts, I'll provide some insight myself.

Here is what the politics PhD student - who focuses on authoritarianism - said in the article in which he spruiked his analysis:

That's it. Four binary questions about child rearing preferences are used to decide if someone is "authoritarian". When in fact you equally describe these people as "civic minded" or "collectivist instead of individualist" or "conservative in child rearing". Those more accurate descriptions don't get headlines and press for the author, however. "Trump more popular among conservatives" doesn't get the left wing media excited.

And how strong is the statistical significance? Not strong at all, and that's before considering that he data snooped across a large number of metrics, cohorts and possibly even candidates, finding something to raise his profile.

The study is meaningless. If you were more science minded and less bloviating, that would quite obvious to you as well. The chance that it's correct is very low, no matter how plausible the idea seems. Yet people are treating it as fact.

I will say it seems highly plausible to me that Trump supporters are more authoritiarian, but it's also highly plausible to me that they're more likely white, male and not college educated - things which the study says there is no correlation.

This is true. But that doesn't mean much in terms of criticizing a particular theory.

As "gospel"? There are only a few posts in this thread. Where has anyone treated it as such? No wonder you sound like you've got no clue what anyone is saying. It's because you've got no clue! (Surprise!)

You've just given yourself license to slap a gigantic "NUH-UH" on every piece of literature (published or otherwise). That's a highly controversial move.

Ummmmm.... right. I bet you want people to be asked twice whether they're male or female, too.

Basically, you don't actually understand social science research. You've got in your head that "authoritarian" is some concept that is so narrowly defined as to require a significant amount of categorization to identify it. But that's not the reality of the structure of many of these surveys.

Is it going to be "perfect" in categorizing people? Nope. But four binary questions that address the same topic is enough for a binary categorization. There will probably be noise, as there always is. But if this is the heart of your criticism, then all I do is shrug at your ignorance.

Or I could be both bloviating and scientifically minded, understanding that my concept of scientifically minded requires critical thinking. I pointed to that other thread for a reason. That reason is that it exemplified the level of think that you are capable of. And it's not very high. You've re-affirmed my belief by your participation in this thread.

Given an initial position of ambivalence, the chance it's correct is 50%. What information do you have to lower that from 50% when the only available information appears to push it above 50%?

I believe you're trying to apply skepticism, which you should be applauded for. Unfortunately, you're applying an extreme form of skepticism and combining it with an extreme form of arrogant ignorance, leading to you rejecting BOTH evidence AND reason.

Of course it does. If something is a priori likely to be wrong, we should be treating it extremely skeptically. I love how you have a problem with me (without question on the right side of this debate), but not with the people who uncritically present this as meaningful/probably true.

It's been uncritically repeated all over the mass media.

That's precisely what science is. Peer review, replication, etc, are core elements of research. None are present here. I'm very entitled to slap "this is probably total bull****" on any single study, especially conclusions that use imprecise language data snooped with poor significance.

The heart of my criticizing is data snooping, poor significance, unreplicated, and yes, the fuzziness of this particular concept, compounded by the fact that he only asked four correlated questions relating to child rearing. The study is meaningless.

You're good at being a bore, not so good at criticizing.

Most things do not have causal connections, so 50% is just lol. Of everything he data snooped, only authoritarism was signficant. According to Aarow W.'s genius theory, it was 50% likely that sex was correlated with Trump support, 50% likely that age was correlated with Trump support, 50% likely that race was correlated with Trump support, 50% likely that education was correlated with Trump support, etc.

Your setting of baseline probability at 50% is really silly.

As for this study, it's WAY lower than 50%. It's probably below 10%. "Correct 50% of the time" is the baseline for large scale, blinded, peer reviewed, non data snooped, published, replicated multiple times, hard data (i.e. medical measurements) conclusions. To get to 75% you need to get to meta review level. This particular claim is:

- Written by a PhD student
- Soft data
- Unreplicated
- Poorly captured (four questions on child rearing)
- Data snooped, heavily
- Appears unpublished and not peer reviewed
- Not blinded

The odds that it's true are well below 10%.

It's amusing to me how you've just reinforced your extreme skepticism view. The claim that "most published research is wrong" is very different from "nothing in published research is likely to be correct." Your interpretation of the phrasing has been revealed to be far stronger than the actual statement is.

It's true that most research has areas where something is wrong. That is, every paper has some part of it that is potentially erroneous in the analysis. But this is a completely different issue than a wholesale "this is full of crap" type of error. You're taking it to mean the latter, whereas I'm taking it to mean the former.

I like how you talk to yourself to make you feel better about your position. Your self-confidence followed by your nonsense reveals a somewhat substantial level of self-delusion.

Then criticize the mass media specifically. Don't make statements that appear to refer to people/posts in this particular thread if that's not where the error is located.

You're entitled to do whatever you want. But that entitlement neither makes it right or rational. But what you've not done is actually point to any meaningful analysis that you've done to challenge the statement. Rather, you're rejecting it out of hand for reasons that clearly lack intellectual depth. These are very particular errors based on how you apparently process (or fail to process) information.

Wait.... are you saying that you misread a correlational claim as being a causative one? Yes, I think you are! Let's look at the language from the article, and then laugh at how bad you misread it:

There is no claim that I saw that said that supporting Trump was *caused by* authoritarianism. I welcome you to prove me wrong by providing a quote that says precisely that. All I see is correlative language.

So as for the rest of your nonsense, congratulations for demonstrating to everyone what I already knew was true!

Sorry Tooth, you got schooled by Aaron, ainec.

His tax policies are I guess low on the authoritarian spectrum. His pro life stance depends on how you frame the issue. How would you define his policies on deportation, banning muslims and building a wall though?

I doubt the methodology was completely scientific but it wouldn't be surprising to me if he attracted people with a preference for authoritarianism. He went out of his way to define himself as a "militaristic person".

On the topic of the split, here are some more numbers based on church going and not church going Christians (the former prefers Cruz, the latter trump)

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...ly-favor-trump

I think this is spot on and has a very broad appeal across several demographics including evangelicals, and others, who may not like him or agree with all his crappy policies, but want someone who will 'stand up' to their perceived foes and defend their way of life.

He has also been sufficiently vague in that regard that as long as you consider yourself a patriotic 'American' with all the unspecified evaluative terms he's used in that context, that people are just filling in the blanks with whatever values they happen to want defending.

So there's a split between evangelicals who don't regard him as worth supporting because of his lack of religious values, and those who don't care about that and are attracted to the authoritarian bluster..

So does this mean that you no longer believe that

?

Sure, there are certainly those that don't like him because of his lack of religious values, and there are those who are attacked to the authoritarian bluster. But the story certainly doesn't end there and I don't think fits into your previous thesis. Consider the link I gave above, that republican Christians who practice weekly don't like trump anywhere near as much as republican Christians at large.

This shouldn't be surprising. The various xenophobic traits, the rejection of the establishment, the rejection of political correctness, American nationalism, the get our jobs back from China/Mexico, the appeal of alpha males who fix problems, the perception of Obama being weak on foreign policy, etc etc etc all contribute to trumps appeal. Disentangling exactly which narratives dominate will be the subject of books for years to come. But look what is not on that list: much to do with religion. Given what he says and does, religious appeal is very low down on the list in a way it just isn't for a candidate like Santorum. Do some religious Christians vote trump over Cruz because they believe trump is better able to support their number one voting issue of protecting religious freedoms? Maybe. But I doubt it is a dominating trend, and indeed, the more religious you are the less it seems you like trump. And for good reason.

You're doubling down on the same misunderstanding. Religion isn't on the list because the evangelicals that are voting for him are probably not doing it because of his religious qualifications or because they think he shares their values or embodies them, they're doing it because despite his clear lack of religious credentials, they think he'll defend their beliefs.

I'm sure there are also those that have managed to rationalise their way into believing him Christian despite all contra-indications.

It would be more he attacks other beliefs they dont care for. Islam.

Hmmm....

The "they" here is in no way restricted to just Christians. (Though demographically, since most of the US still identifies as Christian, of course you see a lot of Christians.)

I was in a conversation with friends where my underlying thesis was something like "Trump has support from multiple sectors because he has successfully embodied the us-vs-them narrative." The list of "thems" includes:

* Immigrants (Mexicans in particular)
* Terrorists (and Muslims in general, by extension)
* Refugees (they're actually just terrorists, of course)
* The Washington establishment
* Black Americans (his appeal to white supremacists)
* All the other GOP candidates
* Democrats

Don't forget the media and the Chinese on your list Aaron.

Mightyboosh, I wrote "protecting religious freedoms" and you wrote "defend their [religious] beliefs". It seems to me (and I think original position) that I was fairly paraphrasing you. I'm not sure what the misunderstanding is. Nonetheless, I will use your exact language from now on:

Consider the top ten list of why people like trump. There are many ways that he is either unique or goes further on those ways than most traditional candidates. Many candidates fan anti-Muslim sentiment, for instance, but most wouldn't call for a temporary ban on all Muslims coming into the country. So it is reasonable to put that as an example of why some people like trump more than traditional candidates. And so on. But is "defend their beliefs" on there as something that trump is running a campaign focused on in a way the others are not? I don't see this. Undoubtably there are some convinced that trumps alpha dog nature makes him better able to defend roe v wade than Rubio, for instance. But it isn't one of his sort of top narratives, and even then it is that projection of being this sort of alpha is the defining advantage of trump and roe v wade is just a downstream consequence.

Yup. Drumpf loves the media except for those times he hates it. And then he really hates it.