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Originally Posted by Original Position
A lot of the problem here is that you are not distinguishing between two related, but different claims.
I think the problem is that what I said is still being misinterpreted.
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Originally Posted by Original Position
Many evangelicals are voting for Trump for religious reasons
I haven't made this claim.
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Originally Posted by Original Position
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.
That's not exactly what I said, what I said was this:
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ME: Trump could actually end up being president because of religion
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.