Where We Are and Where We Are Headed

Some post-election thoughts

What do you do in a “center for philosophy of religion?” Mostly read, write, and talk with other nerds about things like the problem of evil and the nature of religious knowledge. But sometimes you end up dealing with more tangible things.

This past Saturday, I got to listen to and talk with a variety of researchers, organizational leaders, and activists who are concerned about how democracy is relating to religion in the US today. Thanks to the organizing efforts of historian Kristin Du Mez, experts on US religion and politics, deradicalization, and democratic institutions offered their insights into how we got to where we are and how to build a better future in the coming weeks and years. Without naming specific people, I’m going to summarize and discuss some of the best insights I heard:

1. Some things have not changed at all: As far as religious voting patterns, some things have been remarkably consistent. Religious/demographic groups like “Catholic voters,” “Black Protestants,” and “white evangelicals” have been voting in very predictable patterns for about 5 decades. More broadly, most voters, whether or not they have any political ideology, essentially vote based on whether a candidate has an “R” or a “D” next to their name.

2. There is still an underlying issue about whether a two-party, “first-past-the-post,” presidential system can preserve representative democracy in the long run. Other approaches like proportional representation in a parliament with multiple viable parties would probably be better at maintaining “free and fair elections.” We can’t do anything about that right now, though.

3. The immediate challenge is prevent “democratic backsliding.” In contexts where newly elected leaders and ruling parties have wanted to dismantle democratic institutions, rapid and sustained resistance by a broad coalition has been the only thing that has prevented that. A key example is in the resistance to election tampering and political interference with the judicial system in Poland. From 2015 to 2023, the ruling Law and Justice Party tried to roll back representative institutions to create a situation of dominance for their own party, regardless of popular opposition. Last year, a broad coalition of moderates, liberals, and conservatives successfully won enough votes to preserve democratic institutions. In other cases, such as in Turkey or Russia, autocratic parties and leaders rule over previously democratic societies and have severely restricted liberties and persecuted minority groups. They could do that because no successful opposition coalition kept them from dismantling representative institutions and freedoms for the press and civil society. In the US today, we are in an uncertain moment when people who have explicitly tried to dismantle representative institutions (for instance, by pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to change election results or by threatening election officials and volunteers in places like Arizona or by implementing extreme gerrymandering in Wisconsin and North Carolina) now have national-level opportunities to change key institutions. It is not clear whether there is a broad enough coalition to prevent a slide into long-term autocratic one-party rule under “strongman” leadership.

4. Longer-term, we have a serious problem with social disconnection. The building blocks of a democratic society are interpersonal connections that have been fraying in the US over the last few decades. The collapse or decline of social gatherings (like Robert Putnam’s bowling leagues and Elks Clubs) and, more recently, of every major Christian church denomination (even those that had never declined before) is a crisis for public life. Many individuals are incredibly isolated and some (mostly young men) will be increasingly vulnerable to the kinds of radicalization that lead to acts of political violence. More broadly, an increasing percentage of the population feels no real investment in public life. If they vote, they will be open to the idea of destroying society, including its democratic institutions.

5. The biggest and most concerning divide in our society is the educational attainment gap. Cultural, political, and religious connections between the 35% of adults in the US with a 4-year college degree and the 65% without a 4-year degree have been declining. For all the talk of “partisan echo chambers,” the deeper underlying issue is that those two educational groups often live in separate realities. Even within each major political party, this gap is wide and seems to be growing. There are many possible ways to deal with this, and we have been choosing the worst ones. Denigrating education and expertise will lead in horrible directions for everyone; we have seen that happen in fascist, Stalinist, and Maoist societies. Trying to impose political discourse that only makes sense to people who have read Foucault will also lead nowhere good. Ignoring the fact that 21% of adults in the US are “functionally illiterate” and 54% read below a 6th-grade level will not go well either. We cannot have a technologically-advanced democratic society that engages in real public dialogue without widespread literacy. The “pivot to video” in our media consumption has not helped with this; nor has our neglect of phonics instruction. In the short-term, people who advocate for freedom and equality need to learn to communicate at a level that reaches across the educational attainment gap. In the longer-term, we need to massively expand access to education and culture. It will not work to have a society in which 35% of the public thinks about things in terms like “social systems” or “climate change” and a large portion of 65% applauds the nomination of a professional wrestling executive as the top education official or an anti-vaxxer as the top health official. We should neither be snobbish and condescending to people with less education nor engage in a “soft bigotry of low expectations” that says “well, that’s just how ‘working class culture’ is.” Education and expertise about things beyond practical skills are real and important for public life. Consequently, we need to do whatever we can drastically expand access to “liberal education” (meaning, education in the sciences, humanities, and arts) for adults of all ages.

6. Our public life is also shaped by long-standing forms of bigotry, including xenophobia, racism, and sexism. In the short-term, we need to defend people who are under attack, such as our Haitian neighbors who were targeted by national politicians using racist lies that originated with members of the Neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe. In the longer-term, we need to face the fact that these problems exist around the world. From Brazil to South Africa to Bangladesh, unprincipled leaders use latent bigotry to attack unpopular groups of refugees and immigrants. Patriarchy is a similarly global issue. As Jesus might have said, these demons are not expelled except by prayer and fasting. It’s going to be a long and difficult struggle toward freedom and equality.

7. In concluding, I have to say that I think that most theological responses to public life in the US have failed. They have real strengths, but they’re not meeting the moment we are in. One of the most prominent responses has been an idea from Stanley Hauerwas and others that the church should have its own internal “politics” and model for the rest of world how to live and die well, rather than trying to gain political power. That’s a nice idea, but, among other things, I’m not sure that the leaders and members of most churches in the US have been particularly virtuous in a way that even should inspire others to imitate how they live. There have also been a variety of liberation theologies focusing on the social and material conditions of particular groups of oppressed people, such as those who are poor, Black, or disabled. These theologies have impacted the views of a lot of people, but, as theologian and Senator Raphael Warnock has pointed out, there are real gaps between most of these academic theologies and where most church people are at in their own theologies—let alone what can be implemented in national politics. I don’t mean that theologies of liberation are unimportant; they’re just not enough to deal with our current challenges. If cannot figure out broadly inclusive, truthful, attractive, and accessible ways to talk about both what is most true and sacred and how to live together as a society, we won’t have a democratic society anymore. We’re not there right now.