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🪵 The Threshold

An ideology can outlive and outspread the demographic group that created it

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tagsja-picks, deepthinking, question, contrarian_or_surprising, primary_study, singleton, xref, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@whitehead_make_2018, loc. 142

3 min read

An ideology can outlive and outspread the demographic group that created it

Evidence

Beyond the 2016 Presidential election, future research should examine Christian nationalism and its relation to various contentious topics animating politics and civil society in the United States, as well as future voting patterns at multiple levels of governance. As a flexible and pervasive set of beliefs and ideals, the influence of Christian nationalism will likely prove important across a wide range of contexts. … Due to various demographic and religious trends across generations that cannot be easily reversed, it is clear that, as a bloc, white Protestants will never again enjoy a demographic majority in the United States and will also likely decline in cultural hegemony over time. Despite these demographic trends, however, it is critical to acknowledge that the influence of Christian nationalism can outlive the decline of its progenitors. Although the group of Americans most closely associated with America’s perceived Christian heritage (white Protestants) might decline, Christian nationalism is not reducible to or strictly defined by this particular demographic group or its associated religious tradition(s), and can influence narratives and action beyond institutional religion. — Andrew L. Whitehead, Samuel L. Perry, and Joseph O. Baker, Make America Christian Again, 142

Categorization

  • DEEPTHINKING: The idea that political-cultural power can persist and even grow after its demographic carriers vanish is a genuinely provocative claim with applications far beyond religion.
  • QUESTION: Does this imply Christian nationalism could actually be strengthened by demographic anxiety fueling mobilization, even as its base shrinks?
  • XREF: connects to: Christian nationalism is a distinct ideology irreducible to racism, sexism, or xenophobia. — Andrew L. Whitehead, Samuel L. Perry, and Joseph O. Baker, Make America Christian Again: Christian…, 44; Operatives treated the 1978 election as a test of abortion’s mobilizing power — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 128
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