The fact that Griff can dismiss Evangelical/Catholic concern about abortion as simply "muh abortion" shows how little the left understands their concerns. I mean seriously, in our eyes there are plenty of politicians on the left and posters on Atlas running around saying how proud they are that killing. Can you see, how that might ever so slightly affect our votes?
No, I do understand it - I've been exposed to the evangelical side of it my whole life in cultural proportions most on here can't understand - and that is precisely why I reject the premise. There's way too much hypocrisy about the value of life among American evangelicals for me to take them seriously. Yes, even for the pious, consistency is required in the presence of truth.
What I understand even better, however, are the political and partisan factors. A key theme running through my post was that these groups began to exit the party in large numbers before large numbers of the party were pro-choice, and
that helped make the party largely pro-choice. There's a whole generation of voters who left the party over other reasons (largely initiating with the quasi-equal treatment of minorities) and who then later began citing concerns like abortion as reasons why they'd never vote Democratic - sorry, but for a good chunk of them, it's suspect behavior. They're grasping at straws for reasons why they no longer support Democrats (I'll get to that below). The
party has been behind the practice for a long time; the voters, not so much. Still, plenty of people were able to reconcile it. Quite a few (evangelicals and Catholics) still do.
You should at least be grateful that I'm not one of those Democrats who think that evangelicals are too stupid to think for themselves; I merely think their priorities are stupid. As in, most Democrats say "Oh
if only they'd understand - why do they vote against their own self-interests? If only they could be educated!", whereas I say, "No, those clearly
are their own self-interests: they just have sh!tty priorities".
Yet my biggest point was neither of these elements, but the premise that these individuals have been infused with blind hatred
for the party itself, which was done to create permanent obstruction that prohibits positive outcomes for the working and middle classes. The policies don't matter. They've been convinced underneath all of these currents that the party is the embodiment of evil, and all of the policy or ideological elements are - in reality - secondary at this point. The Democrats could vow to ban abortion, oppose gay marriage and enact a plethora of other desired policies that evangelicals want (that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion but are practically gospel in their circles at this point) and not a single one of these "values voters" would rejoin the fold.
"The issues" are masking a subconscious concept; they are now merely talking points and public "justifications". They've been slowly convinced to oppose their economic interests using one-dimensional strategies that after a certain point became so prevalent and deep-seated that no further input was necessary. The brand is forever damaged with this group - policies no longer matter. They'll repeat these issues-based talking points, sure, but every single one of these could be resolved amicably by the Democrats in their favor and they'd still find a reason to oppose the party.
So why care anymore?