This cannot be said too many times, which is why E.J. Dionne is saying it again, and why I am about to quote E.J. Dionne again.
For all the ridicule the left heaps on ignorant, white evangelicals, the latter, when it comes to politics, are far smarter than the former. Because, writes Dionne, "white evangelicals turn out to be the premier pragmatists of U.S. politics":
They know they are losing ground in public opinion on issues such as same-sex marriage. An older group than the country as a whole, they
are also in demographic decline as our nation grows more ethnically, racially and religiously diverse.
Nonetheless, their strength in Republican primaries — dominated by older white voters — continues unabated, which helps explain why Republican politicians are either Trump apologists or mealy mouthed about his abuses. The best defense evangelicals have against the new majority is control of the courts, which Trump is giving them. Everything else is negotiable, or ignorable.
Above all, as progressives spend their time eating overpriced chicken wings and drinking outrageously overrated imported beers at sports bars, snickering and snarking at Scripture-thumping hayseeds all the while, white evangelicals spend their time getting their ignorant friends and family members to the voting booth on Election Day, so that we can all be ruled by their fellow, cryptofascistic ignoramuses.
Every two years, every four years, the Democratic establishment (those being muscled out of decision-making roles at, for instance, presidential conventions), swears it will turn these progressives around — whereupon the true American majority can rule. And yet every two years, every four years, the young, the informed, the "enlightened" progressives fuck us all by either staying home or voting for electorally hopeless left-wing candidates in swing districts and purple states.
If it weren't for moderate Democratic voters — who on occasion can outnumber the progressive clowns — the White House would be permanently Red and Congress would be a permanent Reichstag.