Everything else being equal, the more religious the individual in the U.S. today, the higher the probability that the individual identifies with or leans toward the Republican party. I called this the “R and R rule” in my 2012 book on religion, found the phenomenon alive and well in my 2014 review of Gallup data, and now, nine years later, Gallup’s data confirm that this religiosity gap is more evident than ever.

Americans’ political identity is a powerful correlate of a wide range of Americans’ attitudes and behaviors, including, in particular, a wide range of attitudes about hot-button political and social issues. And we know that political identity is related to views of the national economy, views of the nation’s institutions, happiness, perceptions of the nation’s most important problems, and a variety of other measures. It is thus not surprising that political identity would also be related to religion.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Living in the American South this is pretty plain to see, however in the American Northeast Catholics are starting to do the same, which hasn’t been the norm until recently and even the Pope has noticed.

    My thoughts on it are that Right wing corruption affects everything it touches, the religious leaders wanted to batter down the wall separating church and state, and now many of them are losing their congregants to congregations that are lining up behind their new Orange Joseph Smith, because politics and religion are now intersecting within the Right wing. The MAGA Qult isn’t going away anytime soon, the Global Right Wing conspiracy is implementing their state religions and unless we increase mental healthcare and deprogram these individuals we’re going to have a religious extremist insurgency.

    I’ll leave you with this quote from Barry Goldwater:

    Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

    Except we’re not just dealing with Christian Nationalists, we’re dealing with Islamic and Hindu nationalists, and simply Chinese Nationalists and other fascists, all working together to carve out their own territories.

    • PostmodernPythia@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Being a Catholic in the NE used to be more about ethnic group/culture/family, and now it has become a political thing, just like the South. Makes sense. I had good reason to leave the Church, so I did. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Absolutely, I grew up in a NYC Irish Catholic family, and it was as much about being Irish-American as it was about being Catholic, and it was similar with all of the Italian Catholics that were married into the family or that I grew up with.

        Now I have far too many family members and friends replacing Jesus with Donald fucking Trump, and it sickens me. I’m also non-practicing, I’ve moved onto Agnosticism trending very close to outright Atheism, but I at least respect the humanistic aspect of “the teachings of Jesus”, Trump is anything but humanistic, he’s much more opportunistic, I’m not sure how these deluded people could confuse the two.

        • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It doesn’t matter what you call it, once you notice the church has gone too extreme you won’t ever go back. Especially Catholics, the American Catholic Church pushes sin. To save your soul you must leave because by its own dogma those who support what they ate doing will burn in hell for eternity.

    • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There us a strong divide between Orthodox Catholics and Liberal Catholics to the point the extreme Orthodox are pushing the Liberals out of the religion. People are leaving because they don’t agree politically with what their Diocese is saying, especially on Family Planning. Even myself argued with the Diocese over such issues originally put in place after the black plague ravaged the human population.