Think the country’s gotten worse since the 1950s — and want to go back? You’re probably a white evangelical Protestant
By John L. Micek. ||Pennsylvania Capital-Star
A new poll provides an eye-opening glimpse into the values and motivations of the modern Republican Party, and the cultural and political forces that will drive the party faithful to the polls on Nov. 8.
The latest American Values poll by the Public Religion Research Institute also zooms in on the views of white evangelical Protestants who backed former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, and who continue to speak with an outsized voice in GOP politics.
“Approximately three-quarters of Americans agree that the country is heading in the wrong direction, but there is considerable division over whether the country needs to move backward — toward an idealized, homogeneous past — or forward, toward a more diverse future,” pollsters noted.
And while “most Americans favor moving forward, a sizable minority yearn for a country reminiscent of the 1950s, embrace the idea that God created America to be a new promised land for European Christians, view newcomers as a threat to American culture, and believe that society has become too soft and feminine,” pollsters further observed.
That’s borne out by the data: Republicans, and more specifically white evangelical protestants, were more inclined to say the country is headed in the wrong direction (93 percent for both), and that the culture of the country has gotten worse since the 1950s (71 percent for evangelicals), the data showed.
The data also reveal both a faith and racial divide on that perception: Majorities of white Americans (51 percent), white Catholics (53 percent) and white mainline Protestants (51 precent) also said the country has gotten worse since the 1950s.
