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The article doesn't mention one of the most important factors – in the US, Conservatism often comes with a heavy side helping of religion. As a result, highly e
by parennoob 10y ago
The article doesn't mention one of the most important factors – in the US, Conservatism often comes with a heavy side helping of religion. As a result, highly educated people tend to move away from conservatism even if they may be generally for Conservative policies, because they don't want to be associated with people who believe the earth is 5000 years old and that anyone who isn't a Christian needs "saving".
The current Republican primaries are showing that this link may be weakening, with Evangelicals no longer being a heavily significant factor in deciding the vote. So maybe the highly educated won't be 100% liberal in a decade or two.
- catawbasam 10y ago'side helping of fundamentalist religion' would be more accurate than 'side helping of religion'. In the U.S. most liberals are religious, though the percentage is lower than among conservatives. For example, the Pew study below indicates that religion is 'very important' or 'somewhat important' among 59% of self-described liberals who lean Democrat. source: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/importance-of-religion-in-ones-life/by/party-affiliation/among/political-ideology/liberal/ http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/im...
- coredog64 10y agoIt wasn't so long ago (Carter) that Evangelicals were a major liberal constituency.
- Avshalom 10y agoBasically what happened is the Republicans rounded up the evangelical leaders and said "those dem's are weak on communism, vote for us or Russia will kill God" and it worked. One of the 'interesting' side effects is that when Republicans decided to become anti abortion to get Catholic votes it forced a bunch of previously pro choice or neutral evangelical groups to become virulently anti abortion out of percieved duty.
- MisterBastahrd 10y agoThere's also the idea that evangelism is mostly a southern thing, and Republicans tend to play heavily into the sort of racially charged politics that resonate with southerners.
- Avshalom 10y agoWell from what I understand this was largely started concurrently with the southern strategy which was when that particular play started.