The Emergence of the Post-Religious Right

The electoral prospects of the Republican Party should not be confused with those of American evangelicalism

The Republican Party’s 2024 platform removed language calling for a national ban on abortion, causing consternation among social conservatives.

But this should surprise no one. The emergence of a post-religious right less concerned with social conservative causes is exactly what should be expected in a Negative World.

As I wrote in my book Life in the Negative World:

Because since the 1980s evangelicals have been closely aligned with political conservatism and the Republican Party, it’s easy to conflate the prospects of evangelicalism with the prospects for Republican electoral victory. The Republican Party is in a period of turmoil, but it clearly has a large following. It’s easy to imagine scenarios in which Republicans control the presidency, Congress, and most state houses. In fact, many states are already overwhelmingly Republican controlled. But Republicans winning electoral majorities doesn’t mean evangelical Christians are a majority, or that the Republican Party will advance evangelical religious priorities, or that Republicans will even in many cases defend evangelical church teachings against a skeptical culture. [emphasis added]

We see just this scenario playing out. While Donald Trump may not win in November, he certainly looks very competitive. Republicans are also going to be competitive in both chambers of Congress.

But abortion restrictions have proven to be an electoral loser. They also have no major donor constituency or support from other powerful interest groups. Hence in the inherently pragmatic world of politics, the Republican Party is going to jettison those positions like abortion restriction that cost them votes (and potentially elections).

Also, growing numbers of people on the right are themselves no longer personally religious or socially conservative. This has long been true of a large number of leaders, but has spread to much of the base as well.

I noted that Donald Trump’s base was made of cultural conservatives, not social conservatives. Their priorities are immigration, trade, and wars, not abortion or sexuality issues.

Young conservatives especially are more likely to be into a sort of Barstool lifestyle than anything traditional. They don’t like wokeness. They certainly don’t like anti-white ideologies, or, for the men, anti-male ideologies. But they definitely aren’t interested in any social conservatism either.

Much of the online dissident sphere is implicitly or explicitly hostile to Christianity.

While we will probably never reach their level, Europe offers a glimpse of what a post-religious right looks like. Many of the populist-nationalist parties there are not interested in traditional religion or morality, and may even embrace what would at first glance appear to be secular liberal values.

The Financial Times did a great in depth piece on the French populist right last month, in advance of that country’s recently elections.

The strong performance of the RN [the populist right party of Marine LePen] follows what seems to be a trend in Europe: the electorate’s shift to the right in favour of populist parties. There are clearly two components to this support: a hostility towards migrants in general and Islam in particular, and a rejection of globalisation and Europe in favour of protecting a “way of life”, whatever falls under that label. The connection between the two is more accidental than structural. 

…

The gilets jaunes [yellow vest] revolt during Macron’s first term embodies the anti-establishment dimension of the current support for the RN: the fight to preserve a certain way of life. The gilets jaunes movement was not racist or especially anti-immigration. Its target was the arrogance of the establishment. It protested against punitive environmentalism, restrictions on car use, the decay of public transport, the growing gap between big cities and life in the distant periphery. Many parts of the RN programme are not far from that of La France Insoumise [the populist far left party].

…

In their personal lives, western Europe’s populist leaders do not exemplify traditional values. Nor are their voters eager to renounce sexual freedom and toleration. Populist parties that put forward a programme of returning to religious norms fail in elections. Poland’s Law and Justice party tried for eight years to implement Christian norms through legislation; it lost in 2023, with the issue of abortion prominent. In Spain the same year, the populist Vox party, which campaigned against abortion, gay marriage and the tightening of anti-femicide laws, saw its vote fall 2.7 per cent in parliamentary elections, while the Partido Popular, its rightwing ally — which had voted for same-sex civil unions — gained 12.3 per cent.

The failure of the Christian right parties and the caution of populists in promoting traditional values have one simple explanation: that voters’ shift to the right does not reflect a desire to return to those values. In all regards, for better or worse, our societies are liberal: sexual freedom, hedonism and individualism are prized. European populists are mostly secularist. There is no fascination with sacrifice, death and glory. The “culture wars” that divide the US are not effective in Europe with few exceptions (Poland’s Law and Justice or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — at least in his speeches, because Hungarian society is as liberal as the others in terms of social mores). [emphasis added] 

Click over to read the whole thing. (Unfortunately, the FT has a very hard paywall, but you might be able to get access).

This is basically a description of Trump and his appeal, even though his electoral coalition has many more religious people than France’s populist right (and anti-Islamism is not a major motivator either).

Increasing numbers of voters on the right have no interest in religion or social conservatism, though may still give a religious affiliation as an identity marker in surveys.

This is a real challenge for those who have been all in on the conservative culture war movement. As I wrote in my book:

What should evangelicals do when the overturn of Roe v. Wade means decisions about the legality of abortion are returned to the states and yet a majority of voters in their state want abortion to be legal—at least on some level?

And as we see, this shift in public opinion is not just affecting issues around the Sexual Revolution, but also matters ranging from drugs (pot legalization) to gambling (now normalized and mainstream). The impact is pervasive.

How this will play out, I can’t say for certain. But it’s an effect of the transition to the Negative World, both in the decline in popularity of social conservatism, but also in the growing appeal of post-religious populist right leaders and movements, like Trumpism.

There’s a great irony. Trump and Trumpism were only possible in a Negative World culture, the one promoted by the very people who are so horrified by him.

Of course, this also affects mainstream conservative parties as well. There are still plenty of ride or die libertarians, and a certain folk libertarianism is still strong among Republican voters, but the appeal of free trade dogma and “entitlement reform” is also in steep decline.

Movement conservatism has a problem here in that while there’s big donor support and powerful interest group support for some of their policies, the voters increasingly don’t agree.

Again, I don’t have great predictions. Though I do think that non-religiously grounded right wing thought has tended to go in very bad directions, so would encourage great caution in getting too deep into it.

We are in a time of transition, and it remains to be seen what the new contours of our world will be.