Posted on 03/16/2015 4:21:19 PM PDT by NYer
“The Democratic Party is facing a Catholic apocalypse,” Patricia Miller warns at Salon.
Her article does a good job of marshaling statistics, but when she assesses the reasons for the apocalypse she makes a critical error.
“White Catholics are now identifying as Republicans by historic margins,” she says, and lists the evidence.
• She cites Pew data showing that 53% of white Catholics favor the GOP, versus 39% who favor Democrats.
• Catholics voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008’s presidential race by 5 percentage points, she says — but chose Mitt Romney over Obama by 19 points four years later, she says.
• The U.S. House has gone from a Catholic Democrat “bastian” in 2009 — with 98 Catholic Democrats and 37 Catholic Republicans to having more Catholic Republicans than Catholic Democrats for the first time ever in 2015 — though only barely; 69 to 68.
• Between 2009 and 2014 the number of white Catholics who thought the White House was unfriendly to religious doubled from 17% to 36%, according to Pew, says Miller.
The article looks for blame for the sudden shift, and offers a few ideas. It could be the bishops who say you can’t support Democrats because of abortion. It could be that left-leaning Catholics are leaving the Church, leaving only “conservative” Catholics in the fold. It could be that bishops (every bishop, by the way) are in her words “demonizing” the HHS mandate — the federal mandate that says Catholic employers must violate their consciences or face crippling fines.
Last, she cites Pew data showing Catholics wanting more conservative spending and immigration policies to say it could be the “Tea Party-ization of white Catholics.”
She is right. It could be any of those outside influences changing the dynamic.
But the only group missing from her list of possible suspects is the most likely culprit: the Democratic Party itself.
First, on abortion, the Democratic Party has changed dramatically. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all started out supporting the right to life. Democrats for Life powerfully make the case that liberals should be pro-life. But the party’s harsh stand against the right to life has left it hemorrhaging people of conscience for a long time.
Princeton’s Robbie George left the party over abortion decades ago. Jo Ann Nardelli, an important Democratic organizer who had close ties to the late Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania over social issues. Bishop Thomas Tobin left in 2013, giving up all hope for reform in the party.
For years, the Clintonian formula allowed Democrats to believe they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” Kermit Gosnell did away with the “safe” part . The 2012 Democratic platform did away with the “rare” part. Now all that is left is the “legal” part.
Just last week, Democrats killed a bill against human-trafficking because it didn’t pay federal money to abortion businesses. It is hard to accept a party that would do that, and many people simply won’t.
But Miller misses two other key factors in Catholic defections.
First: War.
Catholics don’t only care about abortion. As the Financial Times wrote in 2008, Pennsylvania swung away from the Republicans over the Iraq war.
What did Catholics get for their votes? Under Obama’s watch, U.S. kill teams in Afghanistan made international headlines. The administration’s violence created chaos in Libya and our premature exit from Iraq created an opening for ISIS, and the Obama administration shamefully redefined “civilian” to justify his own drone policy.
Catholics who voted for Obama got more abortion, less religious liberty, and more violence worldwide.
Second: Latinos.
By stressing “white Catholics,” the article doesn’t mention that Latino Catholics are also not a cinch for the Democratic Party.
When party-switcher New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said, “I’ll be damned, we’re Republicans” she was describing a feeling others may be having. Latinos were not the shoe-in they were supposed to be for Democrats last November.
It’s no wonder: Latinos are more pro-life in polls than the general population.
But one thing Miller totally gets right is that the changing dynamic heralds more changes to come.
“The shift in the Catholic vote should really be a wakeup call to the Democrats,” she quotes Democratic activist Steve Krueger saying. “White Catholics are 18 percent of the electorate and Catholics vote 1 to 2 percentage points above their representation in the overall population. This is a significant voting bloc that now perceives Republicans as being more welcoming to people of faith.”
Catholic ping!
The Democrat Party has firmly established itself as the anti-God party. Why any person of Christian or Jewish faith would support it defies the imagination.
Yes!!!!
“Why any person of Christian or Jewish faith would support it defies the imagination.”
These people may have a family tradition of being religious and they may go through the motions, but they don’t believe in anything their ancestors would recognize as good. What they do believe their ancestors would probably recognize as evil.
This is why they want to flood as many aliens into the country as possible, and do everything they can to avoid integrating them.
(I believe this paraphrases a quote from some nebulous region of my memory)
The Pope will be releasing a fatwa on Climate Change soon, stating that all good Catholics should support the Democrats, in order to save the planet. Or something along those lines. That should get them back into the fold.
On of his themes was that the "Culture" doesn't allow the truth, and we Catholics and other Christians need to reclaim the Truth. Reject the culture where everything is relative. He said there are 73 million Catholics in the US, and it takes 65,000,000 to elect a president.
The democRats should be very afraid.
The American Catholic hierarchy will prevent any sizable bloc of Catholic from voting for Republicans. They will divert attention from life and family issues with “inequality” and “social justice”. Don’t take my word for it; they’ve successfully done it for decades. BJ Clinton and Obama were elected by carrying the “Catholic” states...
As Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly pointed out, the Democrat Party relies on a permanent underclass for their votes. However, most of these immigrants are christians who oppose same sex marriage and abortion. The Democrat decision to rely on this group may well be miscalculated.
That would be Romans, chapter 8.
That's certainly historic. And very very sad to think this is something to brag about, or feel threatened by.
This is nonsense, Catholic is a church denomination, not a race, and whites have been leaving the denomination for decades, while the democrats have been importing Catholics and their offspring by the tens of millions.
White Catholics becoming more conservative is not very meaningful, it would have save the nation 50 years ago, but it is pretty meaningless today.
Hispanics are the wild card in a lot of places.
They are not staying on the plantation, are not easily swayed by race bating, and are starting to become rather active religiously. The LCMS “woke up” and found it had a large number of Hispanic parishes, and the HQ had now idea (the district presidents did, and have made a big push).
Because they are socialists who just happen to be catholic or Jewish.
Et cum spiritu tuo
Except the Hispanics are not staying in the Catholic church. This confused me, till I talked to a few people from Central America and Mexico. Their bishops were pretty bad.
I think it I mainly libs leaving the church. I don’t see any trend to the GOP in Catholic areas of New England, New Jersey, Maryland, Chicago or any other area where you would expect it except Cajun Louisiana.
I’ve been saying all along that there are more Catholic Republicans than Democrats.
Still wondering about the black Protestants who voted for Obama. She doesn’t go there in her story.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.