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The stories that matter about money and politics in the race for the White House
Flag, faith and family. That used to be a winning message for conservatism in the United States. But what happens now? What if a voter to whom the message is addressed loves the flag but lacks faith? What if he or she considers the family environment unfit for political intrusion?
Now, let’s travel up one letter in the alphabet. Readers may remember “God, guns, and gays” as another alliterative summation of late-20th-century right-wing obsessions. But in 2024? What if a swing voter is a Second Amendment absolutist with no strong opinions on the other Gs? Or even takes a liberal line on the matter as a generational reflection?
We’re not talking about exotic creatures. The United States is a nation that supports same-sex marriage by a ratio of two to one. Most people “rarely” or “never” attend a religious service. At the same time, immigration is the top concern voters spontaneously mention, and only one in three strongly oppose the idea that a president could govern without too many judicial or congressional restrictions.
Put all this together and one thing becomes clear. Many voters are now what I would call “public authoritarians.” Porous borders, tent cities, progressive universities, maybe even Chinese imports: these things bother them. But private morality? Dormitory and chapel affairs? Make of them what you will.
Donald Trump’s electoral genius is never to scare these people. Even at his demagogic worst, a certain reticence about the private sphere, combined with some well-documented peccadilloes, assures conservatives (but not devout ones) that he’s not going to go all Cardinal Spellman on them. And so his coalition holds together. Republicans, it seems, have lost that balance of late. The Dobbs decision on abortion was the beginning. The rise of JD Vance (conservative Catholic, scourge of the childless, concerned about pornography) is a move in the same direction.
Vance himself could be the future. He has the time and the brains. He has the most underrated asset in politics and perhaps in life: not being shameless. But Vanceism? There aren’t enough private authoritarians in the electorate to sustain it. And this assumes no further secularization (Church membership in the United States under Reagan was 70 percent. Today it’s below half that). Either he changes his perspective (he wasn’t shy about changing his former distaste for Trump) or he accepts that his natural ceiling is the bottom half of a presidential ticket, propping up the faithful as Mike Pence did.
To be clear, there are millions of passionate Christians who vote Republican to uphold their creed, but not enough to elect a president. For that, it is an arithmetic obligation to choose the kind of Trump fanatic I am most likely to encounter. These characters react like I do to seeing a sublime ancient place of worship (“What a Dear “Sofitel would be”) and they are not only liberal, but also totally indifferent to people’s domestic activities. Their complaint is not with the cultural settlement of the 1960s, but with that of the 2000s, if that means progressivism, commerce and a foreign-born population that exceeds 10 percent of the total.
To win, the devout need the libertines. Trump was a vehicle to smuggle in a cultural conservatism that could not prevail on its own terms. A cunning plan, as Dobbs It was demonstrated, but it was not lasting. The inherent tensions were going to come to light over time.
In France, the far right has never fully resolved one issue. If Muslim immigration is a challenge, what is it for: a secular republic or a Catholic nation? For the voter who wants to protect secularism And the voter who wants to strengthen the Church can stay in the same coalition, more or less. But constant and meticulous monitoring is necessary. If the second voter is pleased, the first one backs off. That is why populist winners – Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi – are often something of a playboy. “Relax,” is the implicit message, “I am not a prude.”
Trump understands this, or at least he did. He is said to distrust the clerical zeal of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. He avoids talking about the childless as demographic slackers. But, all in all, what a fair choice of heir apparent! And, so as not to scare off undecided voters in a secular age, what pressure on the young impostor to mutate once again!
janan.ganesh@ft.com
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