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When Morality, Religion, and Politics Collide

Yesterday I was on a conference call with the Harvard Institute of Politics's John Della Volpe, who presented findings from the IOP's surveys and recent election research. There wasn't too much new information for those who are regular readers of Future Majority - the youth vote began trending up in 2004 thanks to new outreach programs; this resulted in Democratic victories in 2006; Millennials are optimistic and civically engaged; we are multilateralists who believe in international institutions, etc. There was, however, some data about morality, religion, and political persuasion that I find very interesting.

First, the poll found that an increasing number of American youth are spiritual (70%), however that does not translate into a desire to see candidate's profess their faith on the campaign trail.

Also interesting on this particular slide is the question about the moral direction of the U.S. This is an often abused statistic - particularly by the religious right, who use it as a club to beat pundits and journalists with the idea that more Americans are supportive of their position on abortion and stem cells. Della Volpe shed some light on these figures, pointing out that moral direction is a subjective term, and that in the cross tabs, it becomes apparent that self-identified Democrats responding to this question cite poverty, global warming, and Iraq as evidence or moral failings, while traditionally conservative respondents identify culture war issues like abortion and stem cells. So while similar numbers of Democrats and Republicans agree that the country is headed in the wrong moral direction, their views on what that means couldn't be further apart.

Religion and Politics

By far, this slide below was the most interesting piece of the presentation (click for a larger image). Take a look at the green and gray constituencies and tell me your head doesn't start to explode. Basically it identifies two new "types" of voter who comprise more than half of the Millennial electorate: the Secular Center who are less likely to vote, less supportive of moral arguments in politics less likely to support universal health care, but more supportive of gay rights; and the Religious Center who are more likely to vote, somehow split between Kerry and Bush despite the fact that African Americans and Hispanics (Democratic constituencies) are driving the growth of this sector, don't support GLBT rights, yet are greener than their secular counterparts.

I have no idea yet how to square these percentages with the actual numerical size of Millennials, and the recent swing towards Democrats by Millennials, or even with the question about partisan identification and morality mentioned above. Cognitive dissonance is setting in, and I'm getting eaten alive this week by my day job. I'll be back with more in this over the weekend once I get a chance to think and run some questions by the folks at the IOP. In the meantime, what's your take on it?

Religious Breakdowns

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August 29th, 2007 10:18am
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Curious Breakdowns

Submitted by Fred Gooltz on Wed, 2007-08-29 11:53.

At first i was startled to see this, but now i'm thinking that i was just flummoxed by how the information is laid out. The clusers of these demographic groupings and thier context has not changed from what we have known. I tell myself to relax... it's okay.

I'm going to really quicky make some new piles:
11% never gonna get the Reds. (Traditional Conservative)
35% always gonna have the Blues. (Traditional Liberal)
54% up for grabs.

Let's just say Dems take (by a conservative estimate) half of these up-for-grab votes that means that the Dem candidate gets 27% + 35% to make 62% majority. Which is in keeping with this wave that we're all aware of.

Now, I think we can easily at least hold half of these people who "do not fit neatly into traditional political categories" (come on! who the hell does?!)

Firstly, though, I'm also curious as to what kind of Spirituality they are discovering in College? Is it The podcastevangelists / traditional christian or is it Jah / Tao?

Here's how we hold the super majority: I think that though Hispanics and African Americans are a quickly growing population in this "Religious Center" group, they were also growing in 2005 when they walked out of high schools across the country about immigration and in 2006 when they voted against Republicans whose policies, they clearly see, to be directly opposd to thier health and well being.

Because remember, these supposedly ardently anti gay-marriage latinos and blacks voted against Republicans overwhelmingly. Look, gay marriage is not the most important issue to them, or nearly anyone except the Red 11%, who we'll never get anyway - so much ado about nothing there.

The secular center doesn't vote? So, fine, they are who the post-partisan message of Obama speaks to. They are less supportive of universal healthcare but it is still a majority that is in support. The entire Traditional Liberal 35% block wants Guaranteed Healthcare,now, single payer, the center is less supportive because some are anti-government libertarians and a few are radical free marketeers. Much ado about nothing there except for getting more people involved in voting and following political news.

Either way, one of the main things that we should be doing is labeling conservatives as hateful. Haters, as BOR would say. Because that's the trait of conservatives that we can pick at to peel a super majority to join our Traditional Liberal base of 35%. "Don't Hate" should be a dig at Conservatives.

While, yes, I think we should speak about our sense of spirituality in RE: the moral causes of our time, (citing the spiritual strength of MLK Jr. and Gandhi, perhaps) BUT we should simultaneously hold that the separation of church and state keeps the United States of America the, well, teh United States of America! ... because any law has to jive with the Constitution... not Leviticus, ergo The United States is not based on a document written 1,500 years before Jesus lived.

Don't Hate. And don't fret, i think this is fine.

11 percent?

Submitted by Alex UA on Wed, 2007-08-29 16:54.

I'm running between meetings, so I only have a second, but eleven percent are conservative? So, basically, young people are much more likely to believe that Aliens have landed on Earth than they are to believe in "Traditional Conservative" values. Wow. I always wondered when people would see through the thin facade of the "Me! Me! Me!" crowd, but that really is a complete and total collapse of that philosophy.

Good riddance, now lets help it out the door!

thats what i thought too

Submitted by Sarah Burris on Thu, 2007-08-30 16:41.

the 11% was my most exciting number as well. Its a stat that will only get worse as this particular diverse demographic continues to see the "conservative" representation flooded by old white men.

And Mike is right these numbers are most curious and a little confusing (for me anyway). Confusing in the "huh? What the hell" kinda way. But then again... we ARE an odd bunch of peeps.

For this I wish they had given their "don't know" or "no opinion" numbers - because one thing I have been noticing in more recent polls is that young people know exactly what they think. That said there aren't a lot of polls that don't just scrape off the "don't knows" but I always find those numbers important