With President Donald Trump facing everything from impeachment to plummeting poll numbers, many Democrats are no doubt thinking this is their moment.
One huge gap in their 2020 strategy is how to pick off adherents to the GOP, most notably the religiously devout, who voted in huge numbers for Trump in 2016.
The New Yorker’s Eliza Griswold set out to cover an activist from the evangelical left who can speak fluent Democrat, yet at the same time offer up pointers on how to nab some of America’s evangelicals, who are one-quarter of the U.S. electorate. Candidate Barack Obama did a decent job of that in 2007.
Fellow GetReligionista Bobby Ross looked at some coverage of this effort a year ago. Since then Democrats have gotten more, not less polarized on religion. The big elephant in the room? That would be Beto O’Rourke’s promise to remove tax exemptions from houses of worship if leaders don’t embrace modernized doctrines on LGBTQ issues.
Her piece begins:
On a Tuesday afternoon this past summer, Doug Pagitt, a fifty-three-year-old pastor in a blue straw hat and glasses, stood in a conference room at the Democratic Congressional Committee’s office in Washington, D.C., laying out sandwiches. Pagitt was preparing to lead a training session for Democratic members of Congress on how to speak to evangelicals. A table was littered with blue-and-orange lapel pins reading “Vote Common Good,” the name of an organization that Pagitt launched last year to make the religious left more visible. “We want people to know that it exists, and they can join it,” he said. Last year, the group’s members spent a month traveling the country in a tour bus, campaigning for roughly forty progressive candidates on their religious message, but this was their first time speaking to politicians in Washington…
Robb Ryerse, a self-described former fundamentalist pastor and the political director of Vote Common Good, opened the meeting with a tip. “Trying to memorize John 3:16 in the car on your way to the event and then quote that is probably not the best way to connect with faith-based voters,” he said. He had seen a candidate try this trick on the way to a rally in Kansas and then struggle to remember the phrase onstage.
Here is a snapshot of a pastor from the ranks of the “emergent church” trying to help Democratic politicians succeed among voters who are active in traditional forms of religion. As tmatt has written previously, Republicans in recent years have increased their clout with religious voters and Democrats are increasingly made up of the unaffiliated “nones” a growing demographic.
Some Democrats are settling for a party profile that gives little-to-no space for those who do attend church, temple, synagogue or mosque.
In the conference room, Katie Paris, a media trainer with Vote Common Good, discussed campaign tactics with the representatives. … She also felt that Democrats had become afraid to mention religion at campaign events, which ceded faith to the right. She urged the representatives to discuss spirituality “wherever your values come from” — whether or not they were believers. The important thing was to make it clear that they took religion seriously and didn’t look down on the devout.
Fortunately, the article did mention O’Rourke’s bombshell promise linking LGBTQ rights and tax exemptions for houses of worship.
Pagitt thinks that, among the Democratic Presidential candidates, for example, Elizabeth Warren is doing a good job of integrating faith seamlessly into her message, beginning sentences with phrases like “As a Sunday-school teacher …” and by singing the hymns from her conservative childhood church in a defense of same-sex marriage. Bernie Sanders seems to avoid speaking of religion — his own, Judaism, or that of others — at all costs. Cory Booker often speaks about God in generalizations that can feel bland. Some candidates seem willing to openly antagonize religious voters; last week, at a town-hall discussion on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, Beto O’Rourke said that he would revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage — the first time a major Presidential candidate has stated such a position.
Unfortunately, the article was researched before O’Rourke made his remarks, so that was that.
Seriously, though, does Pagitt really think that hearing Elizabeth Warren sing decades-old hymns in favor of gay marriage is going to sway any active evangelical? She’s totally out of touch with that crowd. No one who is anyone reaching out to the under-40 evangelical crowd is going to sing hymns. Try stuff from Hillsong, Bethel, MercyMe, Casting Crowns, Misty Edwards, Matt Redman, Natalie Grant and Kari Jobe.
Implicit in the article is the assumption that evangelicals are so stupid, all a Democrat needs to do is mention the fact that, for instance, their mom is a devout Episcopalian and that would make a big difference. The Episcopal Church, whose numbers are going through the floor, has been antithetical to evangelical points of view long before the denomination elected its first openly gay bishop in 2003.
Still, Pagitt is on the money when he suggests a more moderate approach to abortion is the major sticking point for evangelicals wishing to defect from the GOP.
There are many voters within the Party who don’t want to see it give up ground on progressive issues like reproductive rights. There are also many who believe that religion is a private matter that should be separated from politics, and that publicly discussing it alienates religious minorities and non-religious voters. “We get pushback all the time from people within the political industry saying that the Democratic Party shouldn’t court these evangelical people,” he said. But he felt that evangelicals represented a large enough segment of the electorate that the Party had to take them into consideration. “What we want you to do is like religious people enough that you can ask for their votes,” he said. “There are seventy million evangelicals. Moving fifteen per cent of seventy million is a large number.”
There are other issues, such as those involving religious liberty and gay marriage, that Pagitt doesn’t mention. That’s strange, to say the least.
Evangelicals are very concerned about laws that criminalize people in the wedding industry who do not wish to be part of gay weddings or be forced to sign diversity statements or be forced out of their jobs if they say that marriage is between one man and one woman. Trump has wisely played on that fear and I don’t see the Democrats willing to compromise one whit on this.
About his work:
Pagitt says that the major campaigns have indicated interest, though none has committed. “I think they should take religiously motivated voters seriously,” he told me. “If they don’t, it’s at their own peril.”
Sadly, this story is very short, as so much more could be written about a crucial swing vote in next year’s election. I find that many reporters talk down to evangelicals in ways they’d never address racial minorities and that 99 percent of the media (and the Democrats) don’t know this group at all. Do they, for instance, know the difference between Christianity Today and World magazines? Or the difference between Beth Moore and Russell Moore? Or what IHOPKC stands for?
Pagitt is known as a theological liberal. I would have liked to have read a comment from a more conservative theologian commenting on Pagitt’s efforts and the likelihood of Democrats making headway among evangelicals. Or maybe a quote from a Democratic Party operative on the likelihood of Pagitt’s message resonating anywhere. Maybe a call to people at Democrats For Life?
Three U.S. representatives attended Pagitt’s talk. Were they convinced at the close of his presentation? I am curious to know. It sounds like the reception was not all that great, as Pagitt left Washington, DC for greener pastures out there in flyover country. It’s not clear to me that his presentations are making a dent in how the typical Democratic politician is presenting him or herself.
Pagitt has been on the road for a year now and since August, he seems to have sidetracked into a tour promoting his recent book. Let’s have a bit more critical reporting on what difference, if any, he’s really making.
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