2024 Election Postmortem
A report on the Notre Dame conference, December 7, 2024
A couple of weeks ago, Kristin Kobes DuMez posted that she would be part of a one-day conference of journalists, philosophers, and religious leaders to discuss the 2024 elections, especially the presidential election. At the time when the conference was organized, no one knew what the results of the elections would be, but the triumph of Donald Trump made the day a sober exercise, because it’s fair to say that all of the 15+ panelists view the results as very concerning. The conference was sponsored by the Dept. of Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame, as well as the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative.
You can see the entire day’s program here. (I recommend taking a peek, because it’ll help you identify people in what follows and also is a good outline of the schedule for the day.)
I’m sure that I’ll not capture everything that was said or happened in the day; but Merna and I both learned a lot, and I’ll do my best to summarize the discourse here. The positions and CVs of the presenters won’t be repeated here; you can get most of that from the link above. All of the speakers are either religious themselves (mostly Protestant or Catholic) or deeply investigating the relationship of religion and politics.
(1) What Happened:
Reflecting on the 2024 Election and How We Got Here
The first session was kicked off by David Campbell, who stated right off the bat that “we should not be suprised” at the results of the election. There’s been a worldwide movement to the right in democracies and economic anxiety and inflation have been factors in quite a few countries. But there’s not been much focus on religion as a factor and, in fact, religious groups’ votes didn’t change much from prior elections. Both secular and religious groups have mostly calcified in their voting patterns. Even the “nones” (persons with no religious affiliation, mostly the young) have grown in number as the right has grown. It’s still largely true that “to be American is to be Christian.” Secularists almost all continue to cluster on the left. And Democrats have not figured out how to connect religious blocks that affiliate with them with the secularists who also are on the left. The leaders of the Republican Right are no longer seriously religious; they’ve removed religion from their personas and substituted nationalism for religion.
Next, Robbie Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)1 presented data (and comments) on the election. The most remarkable thing is “what has not changed”: white Christians (not just evangelicals) continue to vote more or less straight Republican, and there has been no change in this since 1980. This year, 2024, also marks the end of the Republican party as pro-life: not only was the anti-abortion plank removed from the party’s platform (probably at Trump’s behest) in 2024, but exit poll comparisons between 2020 and 2024 reflect a shift in the voters, too: in 2020, 49% said abortion was the main basis of their vote for the Rs; in 2024, that number was down to 29%, a substantial drop. Instead, immigration became the #1 factor for Republican voters, and this is reflected in the Republican campaign strategy (or was generated by that strategy).2 How do evangelicals vote? White evangelicals voted for Trump (80%); Black evangelicals voted for Harris.
Christopher Parker, the lone person of color on the panel, emphasized that the right’s deep concern about cultural issues, in his estimation, drove some of the voting that put Trump in power. He’s worked quite a lot on status as a strong driver of peoples’ perspectives, and that if people feel that their status is threatened, they will become defensive and vote accordingly. He drew a line (perhaps not entirely straight) from the KKK (early 20th century, including 1920s and 1930s Indiana) to the John Birch Society (1950s and 1960s) to the TEA party (2000s) to the strong reaction by many to having a Black president (Obama). This explains in part the through-line of support for Trump, why it grew with each election (2016, 2020, 2024). Trump represents the barrier, the blockade, between MAGA (mostly White) and “them” (others, esp. racial others). Why is status threatened now? Status is threatened, he argues, because of sociocultural change, including (1) demographic shifts, (2) gender assymetry (more women in positions of power, esp. in the workplace and in government), and (3) non-conforming gender identity. (It seems to me that these can be status of different kinds and that different groups are thus affected; but that they coalesced in support of a single candidate seems reasonable.)
The author of Money, Lies, and God and The Power Worshippers, Katherine Stewart, wondered aloud why support for Trump seems impermeable: no matter what scandals or dirt is found, people don’t abandon supporting him. She pointed in the main to the power of disinformation and the failure of our national and local institutions—and that the strategy of Trump and others on the right is to continually undermine the institutions that have proved to be bulwarks of democracy in the past.
The final speaker in the first session was Karrie Koesel, who is an expert on authoritarianism, especially in China and Russia. She began by exploring the fact that the right and MAGA Republicans seem to be fascinated with Vladimir Putin. Why? or How? (1) Putin’s language itself is taken by MAGA to be Christian: he portrays Russia as a Christian nation and has called the invasion of Ukraine a “holy war.” The fact that Putin is a powerful leader aligns with the belief on the right that the only hope for the U.S. is to have a powerful leader who will lead in the “right direction.” This portrayal of Putin’s Russia, however, is woefully inaccurate: Russia has very little freedom of religion, and the state religion (Russian Orthodox Church) has very few regular participants; most of the country is de facto secular. Other religious groups, including non-Orthodox Christian groups, are routinely actually persecuted. (2) There is a strong ideological affinity between MAGA and Putin. Putin picks up and uses MAGA’s language, such as calling opponents “woke,” knowing full well that it will resonate with Americans. Ever since Pat Buchanan said “God is on Russia’s side” (this was in 2014, when Russia had annexed Crimea), the religious and political right have taken this up, mostly around cultural issues, and, of course, Putin praises Trump. What the right doesn’t see is that Russia is anything but a country to emulate: alcoholism is rampant, there’s no freedom of speech (see Navalny), abortion rates are high, domestic violence is very high (it’s been decriminalized), and more than 50% of the families are single parent (almost exclusively the parent is a woman).
Q & A time: these 5 presenters were followed by a question-and-answer segment (about an hour).
In response to a questioner who wanted a definition of “Christian nationalism,” Jones noted that the PRRI survey used 5 questions (they can be found on the PRRI site) and rated respondents based on a 5-point scale; the summary is that about 30% of Christian respondents fit “strong support or lean” toward Christian nationalism. However, that a person leans in this direction does not make them a “Christian nationalist.” The general consensus of several speakers is that this label should not be applied to persons but to the movement/ideology.
Question: “What’s the influence of the end-of-the-world apocalypticism on the growth of the Christian right”? Parker noted that this perspective is strengthened by the idea that their “way of life is threatened” by changes in the culture; and that this means that anything that’s needed to preserve the “old way of life” is fair game. It’s not a matter of policy (so talking about policies has little effect); it’s a matter of “good” vs. “evil.” Stewart suggested that the “pure vs. impure” categories as well as the notion that Christians feel persecuted feed into this; this pressure is then spiritualized in that they feel they’re facing demonic activity, that they’re enduring spiritual warfare.
Question: What about Catholics and women? There’s always been an idea that women vote primarily Democrat, and so, too, Catholics. Campbell: it’s a myth that there is a single Catholic vote; the Catholic vote tracks the white vote, in general, at least for white Catholics. As for women, 53% of white women voted for Trump—but this is not new, either; it follows traditional Republican vote patterns. Jones then made a comment that still rings in my ears: in all of PRRI’s research, gender of the voter doesn’t matter; it’s what the voter thinks about gender that matters. This aligns with the frequent talking point: “America has become too soft, too feminine.”
General question: what happened, organizationally? Stewart: the right has lots of money and uses it very wisely; it’s very organized. The money followed the issues, not the candidates. This was a tactical error on the part of the Democrats, who basically put their money behind candidates. Parker: two words—misogyny and racism, still very prevalent in a large segment of the population. Jones: although only 41% of the country is “white Christian,” 70% of those voted for Trump (note that this is all categories of Christians): it’s a disproportionate weight from this group on the right. Since 1980, consistently, that ethno-religious sorting has been steady.
Question: what factor did party identification (D or R) play? Campbell: it remains critical, and it rarely changes. That is, people who voted D in one election continue to vote D, and the opposite is true, too. The vast majority do not change political parties and typically vote straight tickets. The “swing voter” is an almost mythical being. Note, too, that only 60% of eligible voters turned out in the 2024 election.
Question: why didn’t the “women deserve to control their own bodies” argument have a greater effect? (The answers to this also reflect back on the immediately prior question.) I didn’t mark down the name of this respondent; when I forgot to note this, hereafter I’ll simply mark as UR = Unknown Respondent. UR: The Republicans explicitly targeted women with the “Trump won’t end abortion” message. UR: Much of the rhetoric became that you hated the other party more than you loved your own party (both on the left and right); and this was strongly more partisan than in past elections, so that there wasn’t even room for conversation with the “other side.” UR: If you’re an individualist (and most Americans are just that), you are not open to talking about systemic problems, because, well, systems are made up of individuals, so let’s not talk about systems at all. Jones, with a general response: Evangelicals make up 13% of the American population; but they generated 18% of the vote; so they have an outsized influence on the outcomes of voting. On the other hand, the “nones” don’t vote as much.
(2) Remaining Vigilant: What to Watch for
in the Days Ahead
The incoming Trump administration, according to Matthew Taylor, has 4 clear religio-cultural goals (whether stated or not): (1) to make Christianity the de facto religion of the U.S., mainly through the education (esp. K-12) system; (2) continuing to be anti-abortion via state and local laws (despite the removal from the R platform; and not ruling out the possibility of a national ban); (3) limiting LGBTQ rights in various ways (not just bathrooms); and (4) unequivocal support for Israel = Christian Zionism. Although DJT is hardly a Christian, his populist authoritarianism will be backed by religious nationalism. So, Christian nationalists have moved and will move toward DJT’s positions, not vice versa; DJT won’t move toward the center. Furthermore, we may want to look to history to see if there are analogous times in the past that can help us deal with the present, but there are none: we are in a unique historical situation. (It’s not good.) Taylor used a constructed bell-curve to represent these, with 5 possible outcomes. He then ranked best-case scenario (DJT essentially gives the U.S. a second version of DJT first term) on one side of the bell-curve to worst-case scenario (the U.S. is shaped to look like Putin’s Russia, with repression of dissent, etc.) on the other end of the bell-curve. Neither of these is likely. Moving toward the middle of the bell-curve, then, between these two extremes, we could expect something like 2015–2023 Poland, where the far right attempted to take over every institution in the country but where, now, in the last election, a coalition of opposition parties have begun to reverse that shift (so, a situation worse than Trump 1). On the other side, the U.S. might become like India under Modi, where Hindu nationalists (who are in the majority) pretend they’re persecuted but can carry out extralegal persecution of minorities with impunity. Smack dab in the middle between the extremes and the “moderate extremes” would be Turkey under Erdoğan or Hungary under Orbán, which are the likeliest outcomes in the U.S.
Next, Krisin DuMez characterized the incoming administration thusly: the only “true Americans are Christians”; others are not. There will be ongoing demonization of enemies, a continued “us vs. them” vibe; and an attack on secular experts in all fields. “Alternative science” will continue to be promoted and will gain a foothold in scientific institutions. Lying will continue apace. And, as already promised, retribution will be carried out on opponents of the new administration. Rhetoric will continue to be polarizing. Media flooding will be prevalent—repeating the lies over and over until it’s almost impossible to argue for the truth. Moderate evangelicals will be attacked (probably some self-reference in this statement). What Timothy Snyder has pointed to—anticipatory capitulation—will be all too frequent.
The next speaker, Elizabeth Neumann, works for an organization that attempts to defuse political violence. She says that political violence usually comes from the right (not exclusively, but primarily), but that in the current climate, there’s something of an upsurge in the threat of violence from the left (people on the left buying guns, etc.—mimicking in some respects the survivalists on the right). The left is scared, fearful; and this is not a good thing. In any case, her organization is seeing an increase in the sense of threat on both sides of the political divide. On the right, she thinks that there will be continued emphasis on (1) elections, lack of fairness/fraud; (2) the threat of immigrants; (3) government agencies will face violent threats, in some cases; (4) Jews and Blacks will be under greater threat; (5) hate crimes will rise; (6) terrorism may increase; and (7) in general, the cultural climate will be more hostile. She then pointed to something that I think bears serious consideration: we have a crisis of belonging in our culture, and in that context, Christians have experienced group humiliation at the hands (mouths?) of some on the left. The general sense I got was that, when anyone speaks about the right, the language used should not be demeaning or shaming; it only widens the divide and wins nothing. This general thought was shared by several speakers.
My notes on Lilliana Mason’s comments are more sparse than I’d like; apologies. In general, her research shows that, especially since 2017, there’s been an increasing moral disengagement on the part of Americans: we don’t care as much (as a society) as we once did. Beliefs about social equality, including the value of women, has grown increasingly divergent in this period as well: Ds and Rs are quite far apart on this matter. Moral disengagement leads to mass violence. My thought: the reality is that the sheer magnitude of the threats we face leads to moral weariness; vigilance requires much energy. What we may have considered deeply wrong in 1990 is banally present in politics generally today.
Rachel Brown focused on communication and language in her comments. In our current culture, language mainly is used to create a perception of reality (not the reality itself). So, as an example, there’s an increasing use of language that constructs my identity and the identity of others, typically picking just one characteristic. My example: I’m a patriot; at my core, that’s who I am. And if that’s not your core, you’re not aligned with me, you’re “other.” Doing this—that is, picking one aspect of my identity and making that primary over all others and then evaluating all others in terms of what I think their core identity is (“gay,” or “Christian,” or “female,” etc.) creates oppositions that are not true to who we are at core. Violence comes out of this kind of construction of opposites. The construction matters, because it is used to create a “virtuous we” (her term, meaning “my group is good, pure”). Morality is then derived from these constructions; and silencing of those who don’t fit the construction of the group that constitutes the “virtuous we” proceeds. All of this creates social pressure to act, to attack moderates, and a concomitant rewriting of morality based on lies and misperceptions. What we need to do, then, is to root ourselves deeply in our morality and watch out for isolation and distrust.
Q & A time: again, about an hour, followed.
First, a comment from Neumann that struck me as quite important, if obvious: “You can mass-radicalize; you cannot mass de-radicalize.” This has enormous implications for how we try to achieve change.
DuMez: There has been a long-time goal of Christians on the right (and perhaps politicians, too) to destroy the social gospel. This has been at least partially coordinated with the continued proclamation of the prosperity and power of the U.S. and of individuals in the U.S. as a direct result of the blessing of God. (This needs further elucidation and development, in my opinion—JEE.)
Brown: “Essentializing people” (see the summary of her comments above) permits the creation of the sense that other people are “evil” and gives you permission to use that language. It’s important that, in response, we do not do the same; we must distinguish behaviors from the people themselves. My example: not “you’re a Christian nationalist” but “you seem to hold some ideas that align with Christian nationalism, can you explain. . . ?” to pick a broad category.
DuMez: We must work locally, at that level, and get deeply involved in the local community. (Aside: this seems both important and really difficult and very time-consuming; well, yeah.) The targeted community needs connection. So, for instance, the anti-Trump Republicans feel alone. They’re actually about 1/3 of the party but afraid to speak out. People leave cults mainly because of an unexpected experience of love and empathy and truth.
Jim Wallis (from the audience; he’s on the final panel later): Human beings learn by proximity; proximity is what changes people, and we need to change people. He recommended the book by Caleb Campbell (Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor).
Pastor in the audience (didn’t catch full name; first name: Malcolm): We need to revisit M. L. King’s “10 commandments.” “We’re talking here about how to win politically, but we need to train people—and I’m working on training my community [Black] to die well, to lose well.” Comment followed along the lines of: “Why do Christians expect to win? at least in the terms that society thinks is winning?”
(3) Strategy Session: Planning, Partnerships, and Practical Steps for the Next Four Years
We should be thinking about the issues we’re facing as generational, not merely a next four years concern: so said Chris Crawford. Furthermore, we should take DJT at his word: he will attempt all that he says he plans to do, and his surrogates will assume that he wants some things done that he’s not even saying out loud. So what do we do? We (1) work hard at protecting the integrity of elections; (2) do not obey in advance (re Timothy Snyder’s work on this and authoritarianism) and perhaps not even when commanded, if it’s contrary to the Constitution and/or morality; (3) learn to speak in new ways to new audiences; (4) do not give up hope (because the opposition wants to break hope). Shine a light and bring light to others. Share stories (ex.: life of Fanny Lou Hamer).
Stories matter; and, said Amanda Tyler, Christian nationalism relies on funding a narrative, so we must work on counter-narratives. For instance, “belonging” is touted by the right as a scarce commodity; we need to speak and show that “belonging” is part of the category of abundance. The work is local, because (1) working locally provides us space to talk, to work with neighbors/community; (2) “local” is a practical form of direct democracy (think “school board” and so on); (3) a vibrant civil society is crucial to democracy; (4) local involvement can be a different kind of Christian witness. She thinks that mass deportation will be the main first thing worked on under the DJT administration. This can be opposed at the local level, since it’s difficult to imagine that it can be carried out without local cooperation.
Citing Desmond Tutu as a mentor, Jim Wallis said that we must treat hope as a choice, a decision, not an emotion or feeling. Then, he cited Jacques Ellul, who said “faith should not be sociologically predictable,” a comment that it seems to me to require some imagination to work out. He then listed 5 things that we can work at: (1) defend the vulnerable of all kinds (perhaps via mass non-cooperation); (2) act on the fact that budgets are moral documents, so pay attention to where the money goes, both locally and beyond that; (3) defend the truth, because lies lead to captivity (mental, and more); (4) train for non-violent resistance, something that recent Christians have not done much of if at all; (5) rediscover the social gospel.
Tim Whitaker, who is deeply enmeshed in social media, noted that the sheer size of the right-wing media is breathtakingly enormous. He presented several graphs showing the relative reach of Turning Point USA and the like compared with main-stream media compared with traditional Christian media (think Christianity Today and Relevant and the like), mainly via views on various media. There’s almost no comparison; the left (whether secular or religious) is nowhere close. So what to do about this enormous gap? He suggests we have to figure out ways to address this, because information is power.3
Anne Nelson: We need new news sources; the main-stream media (incl. both newspapers and TV in all its forms) are nearly dead or at least dying. Rush Limbaugh began something 40 years ago on radio that has morphed into digital and that has enormous tentacles with massive reach; and neither the left nor Christians or a combination of them are anywhere close. The information war is being won by the right.
Q & A: this section was more free-form and open, as the day was winding down.
Joel Day (moderator): “Can we be the vanguard of an alternative culture?” If so, we need to start with micro-level actions (again a return to the local action scenario). What will we do if local police are deputized by DHS to assist DHS in deporting immigrants? What do we do in this sort of situation? Do we have the courage to face this sort of problem?
UR but I think it was Chris Crawford: our organization is tossing around two sorts of political reform that we think could help, and our people are pretty much equally split on the issue of recommending (1) ranked-choice voting or (2) proportional representation (the latter has been static since Congress topped out the House at 538 representatives a century ago; so change would involve expanding the House); press Congress for one of these alternatives.
Again, Joel Day: “Here in South Bend and surrounding communities [and, I would add: also reported here in Warsaw, Indiana] KKK fliers have been found in front yards encouraging people to report ‘illegal immigrants’, your neighbors or even self-deport yourself if you’re an ‘illegal’.” Anti-democracy is always asking for action, and the KKK and the Proud Boys and the like are the vanguard of anti-democracy; can we be the vanguard of pro-democracy? Perhaps it’s only micro-actions. The example of the Notre Dame football team facing down the KKK in South Bend in 1924 was cited.
This more or less ended the day. The overall mood was certainly, for me, one of feeling overwhelmed at the immensity of the issues that our nation faces. Every speaker in the room echoed the notion that we are at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. There was no sense that the problem is “not that bad” or that there will be any kind of rapid recovery from where we are. Could you argue that this is a huge echo chamber of semi-panicked academics? I suppose you could; but this was a group of very smart, well-read, very in-touch people, and I agree that the future we face is reallly difficult.
Merna and I were left with a need to decompress and to keep coming back to ask: what should we do? What can we do?
The entire day was video-recorded, and I suspect it will be posted online at some point. When that happens, I’ll post a link on this substack. The video will certainly include some of the graphics that I’m unable to include here. I am grateful to Merna, who read all of this post and helped me add some things she noted that I had missed. Our hope is that this summary is useful to you; and I hope that it reasonably well reflects the speakers and the tenor of the conference.
If you’re at all interested in religion in American life, you need to follow the work of PRRI; they’re doing critical work in evaluating, gathering data, and understanding religious life in the U.S.
Jones also noted the rise of Christian nationalism and its effects, but other speakers covered that topic in more depth.
After this, my notes get more sparse, in part because I was just plain tired and weary.
Many thanks for this, Jim. Really good and thoughtful recap.
Thanks, Jim. I plan to pay attention.