Does a less religious country really mean a more Democratic country?
The past is not necessarily prologue. Will the decline in religious American really be a panacea for Democrats? There several arguments to be made. While the above snippet from a Meet the Press with Chuck Todd segment is telling extrapolation of the past isn’t necessarily true.
The Pew Research Center reported the following in a comprehensive report.
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men.
To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.
Inasmuch as 70% of the religious unaffiliated voted Democratic in 2012, it is no guarantee. Rand Paul shares many of the tenets of the religious unaffiliated. Most importantly he is younger than Hillary Clinton and may seem like a transition to many.
Many continue to articulate messages that would make one believe Democratic wins in the 2016 election are shoo-ins. That could be a fatal belief for the Democratic Party.