3900

According to your data, Americans hate McCain!

As for Pope Francis…

3901

Yes, the states are totally allowed to make any laws they want, as long as they don’t violate the constitution. In this case, there’s no conflict at all, unless the federal government tried to make a law prohibiting their laws.

3902

Sure! But that clarification was as much for @DarthMasta as anything.

3903

Francis’s favor has risen and fallen over time in the US. Most of those who view him unfavorably are Conservatives and Christians in particular:

As @Magnet’s link shows, the pope’s favorability has recovered in the last two years, but it’s absolutely the case that American Christians and Conservatives (not that there isn’t almost exclusive overlap between the two nowadays) routinely see him in a worse light than liberals, moderates, atheists–basically any other slice of the demographic pie. Perhaps Wallapactu’s social circle is just behind the times in coming to like him marginally more!

Now, as for the rest, well, Tin’s post illustrates pretty well that Christians vote for the party that wants to watch the world burn in fire every single election again and again (with the exception of Latino Catholics), so, you know, there’s pretty good evidence for saying things like “Christians are assholes who vote to make the world a worse place for everyone but white Christian men.”

3904

Like.

3905

There was recently some GOP lawmaker who straight up said that when Christ was telling folks to be good to your fellow man, he was only talking about being good to Christians.

3906

Christians are not a voting bloc. They tend to favor the Republicans according to that survey, with about the same margin that Texans do. But it would be a gross oversimplification to say that Texans are assholes who vote to make the world a worse place for everyone.

3907

Christians are absolutely a voting bloc, particularly less Latino Catholics, who (as of yet, though it may be shifting) vote via cultural heritage/values more than faith at the moment.

The Pro-Life movement is a single-issue vote decider for millions of Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom subscribe to some variant of Christianity. Ditto for issues like women’s rights, LGBT rights, and a number of other divisive social issues. You can use Christian faith–particularly the Evangelicals, but all sorts of sects work here–as a likely predictor of position on those issues.

I’m not saying (in this particular post) that all Christians are bad people, but I might be saying that America would be on much firmer ground politically if all of them stopped voting tomorrow.

3908

@Nesrie is right, I had no evidence that American Christians at large hate the pope other than the few I know personally. But those guys really hate him, they think he’s the anti-christ. Also Obama is the anti-christ, as was Bill Clinton. Hillary can’t be the anti-christ because she’s a woman. So like, the sexism is there. And, I don’t socialize with them. I’ve pretty much alienated my entire family in the past few months by challenging them directly on their hypocritical, hateful, “Christian” bullshit.

I’m not afraid to say that American Christianity is a cancer on mankind (there are many cancers but this is one of them). They convince themselves that all manner of horrible shit is okay because some Republican told them it’s God’s will.

Evangelical Christians certainly are a voting bloc, and they voted 81% for Donald Fucking Trump. Take a thing Christ said to do, and Trump does the exact opposite. Like American Christians.

3909

Okay, if Christians are a voting bloc then explain how African American congregations voted.

White evangelicals may be a voting bloc, but they are not synonymous with Christians.

3910

So you suppose God told him to say that? Or maybe his pastor/priest etc?

I think many people are one issue voters and the GOP’s anti-abortion stand has kept many of them voting for what they consider a very important issue. But remember, when it comes to Sanctuary cities what side the churches are on. What group is harboring people?

I am pretty much an atheist ( maybe I am agnostic) but I find the condemnation of a whole group of people based on the actions of a few to be well, kinda hypocritical.

3911

A fair counterpoint. The Korean catholics are reasonably quasi-liberal as well.

White Christians as a group reliably vote Republican and come down against the grain of society of numerous social issues. You really don’t need the Evangelical tag, though adding it takes you from ~55-60% likelihood to 75%+ on virtually everything.

The electoral actions of the groups being discussed here aren’t the actions of the few. Voting Republican is actively voting against the lives and livelihoods of millions of people directly and a planet’s worth on issues like global warming. It’s a literal death sentence issued for reliably by certain social groups in America, including White Christians.

3912

I find the term Christians not referring to Catholics to be weird as hell. Does the term Protestant have any meaning in the States?

3913

You can’t say that Christians are anti-environment and anti-pope… oh but not the Korean Christians or the Back Christians, or this group of Christians or that other group. Maybe the common thread isn’t actually Christianity. It may or may not be whites but how stupid would be to say whites want to destroy the planet as if I can take all whites, stick them in a bucket and say there, there’s my data.

We take a group of White Christians who are Conservatives who vote Republican, grab one word from there, Christian, and rub our hands and say done… that’s ridiculous. That does not mean being Christian causes this crazy behavior or you’d see all the other groups ALSO American Christians pushing the same thing. Hell even in the data showed above some of those groups are almost 50/50.

Correlation does not mean causality. If we actually dived into the data, i’d suspect Scuzz is closer to being right, it’s anti-abortion or a few other top issues that’s causing some of these groups to flow in one direction together.

That doesn’t mean the crazies aren’t out there; hell these days we’re seeing people actually vote for them.

3914

So what percentage of “white christians” in America actually voted for anybody for president? And those traitors that voted for Hillary better turn in their bibles.

3915

Most people consider all bible toting prayer quoting people to be Christians. The variations amongst themselves, however real, mean nothing to the outsider.

I remember the first time I encountered some evangelicals who introduced me to the concepts of who was really a christian and who wasn’t, and who would get into heaven and who wouldn’t It was mind blowing.

3916

McMasters has been somewhat of a disappointment, but he also has done some good things like telling the South Korean to ignore the “You have to pay for the THAAD missile systems.” Still compared to Flynn or a Bannon as NSA advisor there is no comparison.

Meanwhile, Mattis has basically been running the Defense Department how he sees fit and isn’t afraid to contradict the president.

While Kelly is somewhere between McMasters and Mattis in going along with Trump.

There are limits to how much any member of the staff can do to limit the damage of crazy etc. President. But mainly we want them in the White House so they can throw themselves on the grenade to prevent a catastrophic occurrence, Nuclear strike, war with Russia etc.

3917

White Catholics (and an increasing number, but not yet a plurality, of Latino Catholics) are voting pretty reliably conservative, although they were historically much more liberal than Protestants (until the Pro Life movement really got kicked off here in the states post Roe v. Wade), so we’ve traditionally separated them out in a lot of political contexts.

Also, at least in my experience growing up in the heavily Baptist American Southeast, Catholics were looked down upon as idolators and pedophiles by the other sects.

I suspect they’re the only ones who’ve read the “Good Book” recently.

I mean, strictly speaking, if all white people stopped voting tomorrow, the country would also go in a much better direction immediately.

edit:

I mean, my point, in an image, essentially:

Voting Trump is the nuclear option of all "fuck you"s to your Fellow man, and weekly Church attendees went for him by a 16-point margin. I’m sorry to the 40% of weekly churchgoers who are getting painted by a broad brush (okay, I’m not really, but let’s pretend), but I dunno, maybe do what you can to stop the rest of your congregations from sliding down the path into madness and Evil???

3918

I don’t know if it has changed but I remember when California had the proposition on gay marriage several years ago blacks voted against it by a pretty large percentage.

Here in California, the Catholic church (except for abortion) has always been rather liberal on social issues. They supported Cesar Chavez back in the day and have continued to be pro-immigrant. Of course, one could argue those groups contain a lot of catholics.

3919

In all this conversation, we’re stuck talking pluralities and slim majorities, because aside from the 1% and Evangelicals, you’re unlikely to see much more than a 20-point margin in most large groups (and, well, obviously the 1% are not a “large” group in any sense aside from “it would be hard to fit 'em all in a house”). Non-whites in America, as a broad, vaguely defined group, reliably vote liberal more than whites. There are catch issues here and there (gay marriage among the black community, Cuba among the, well, Cubans), but we’d have a pretty massively different looking Congressional delegation if all the White Christians wound up having their dreams come true and got Raptured tomorrow.