This is just pisses me off:
Campaigns only remind evangelicals what they have already learned from their religious community: that voting Republican is a natural extension of what it means to be a good Christian. This message is not just reinforced from the top-down during campaign season, by Christian Right interest groups and campaign ads. It is also reinforced from the bottom-up by trusted local leaders who are part of people’s everyday lives.
If we want to increase midterm voting among groups who stayed home, we need to ask who the local opinion leaders might be to reach low-propensity voters. What local settings could play the role of an evangelical small group or Bible study? Where do people learn that voting is expected of them, to be a good member of their network, in a context of personal accountability? And what is the organizational vehicle that will identify and develop these local leaders, who will engage a much larger set of low-propensity voters in year-round base-building? You’ve got to hand it to conservative evangelicals: they really have all of this down.
I am a lapsed Episcopalian but I retain enough of the values of my Christian upbringing that it still makes my blood boil to think of people voting Republican because that’s just what “good Christians” do.
In the long run, fixing that widespread perception might be as important as figuring out how to be similarly effective in turning out our own natural base.
The state tortured Jesus, you maniacs.
