When will the U.S. have its first non-Christian President?

[Bo]

You seem to want a Jewish president just for the sake of having a Jewish President, not counting his or her personality, policies, or resume.  I think that is just totally wrong.  I think that Lieberman would have been a disaster as VP or president, just reviewing his actions of the past ten years.  I think post 9/11 the American media is very much focused on Middle East relations.  I think the number of Jewish senators doesn't matter because Senators rarely win the White House.  If a Jewish person wants to prove he is ready to be Chief Executive, he will have to serve as a governor and someone like Spitzer or Rendell have a lot of credibility as executives.
There might not be any religious or ethnic favortism by a candidate.  Bush certainly never favored evangelicals.  If a Hispanic like Richardson ran for president, he would surely face criticism and scrutiny from mexican immigration critics, and if he would place another country's needs ahead of the needs of the US.  Lieberman has obviously been a strong supporter of Israel's policies and never criticizes their actions.  I guess that can be good or bad depending on someone's religion.
America is a religiously tolerant place, but I don't think it would be fair that Americans are religiously tolerant only because they are less-Christian.  Even if someone was a Conservative Christian, would that make them less accepting of a Jewish person.  Even if someone was a strict Catholic, would it make them less accepting of a Jewish person.  Even if someone was a strict Jewish observant, would they not vote for a Conservative Christian or Catholic.  Or is it a power struggle between religions, and a non-Christian America, means that more non-Christians will be voted into office, and a lesser number of Christians will hold office, and Christian groups will loser power, while non-Christian groups Gain power in America.
I was under the impression there were non-practicing Catholics, Jews, and Christians, and that this comprises of your non-Religious survey of the USA.  If Religion is playing less of a role in Christians lives, is Religion also playing less of a role in a Jewish person's life?  Will a Jewish person be more willing to marry a non-Jewish person, as many Catholics and Protestants have now inter-married?  Since we have a half-African Muslim president, perhaps the future we'll have a half-Jewish/half-Christian president.  There are certainly a lot of women and men have converted to Judaism or were not ethnically-born Jewish, or have married a Jewish person but have not converted.

I never said I explicitly wanted a Jewish President. I just said that you overestimate how hard it is going to be to elect one since over 90% of Americans have said that they are willing to vote for a Jewish President (and this was back in 2000, so it's probably even more now). If the right candidate comes along, we could easily elect a Jewish President. It doesn't matter if they're Senators, Governors, or have some other office. It just matter if they're experienced and if they run good campaigns. I seriously doubt Lieberman would have been a disaster as VP or as President. Lieberman wouldn't have had any power as VP and I don't see him doing anything that bad as President. So what if he supports Israel? Most politicians in the U.S. support Israel, and frankly, for the most part, Israel didn't really do much wrong in the last ten years. Even if the media was focused on the Middle East after 9/11, that still didn't stop Bush from being reelected despite the fact that most Arabs hated him a lot after he invaded Iraq. This gives me the impression that Americans don't vote based on how the Middle East and other areas of the world want them to vote. I seriously doubt there will be much accusations of religious favoritism if a non-Christian candidate runs for President. I don't think many people have accused JFK of religious favoritism, and that was half a century ago.

My point was that due to frequent intermarriage and increasing religious diversity in the U.S., Americans are becoming more religiously tolerant. You might not know this, but a majority of Jews in the U.S. have already intermarried with people of other religions.

Polls show that the younger generation is more religiously tolerant than the older generation, and thus this trend will only continue in the future.

By non-religious people, the polls mean people without any religion whatsoever. That % has increased in the last several decades and will continue to increase in the future. If someone becomes a non-practicing Christian, they're still a Christian unless they decide to abandon Christianity completely. Even many people in the U.S. who have a religion don't have nearly as much religious influence on their lives and views as they had several decades ago. I seriously doubt most Americans would view electing non-religious people as a power struggle.

They will just view it as a step forward for progress and religious toleration. Europe has already become pretty secular, and the U.S. would probably be like Europe in that regard in several decades.

And yes, as the U.S. becomes increasingly secular and non-religious, more non-religious candidates and candidates of non-Judaeo-Christian faiths will be elected to office (heck, a lot of current politicians might secretly be non-religious but refuse to say so in public) and religion will become less and less of a deal in how the American people vote. This will allow the U.S. to elect a non-Christian President (and even a non-Judaeo-Christian President) sometime in the future, most likely in the late 21st century or sometime in the 22nd century.

Because of inter-marriage, I think an ethnically half-Jewish president would be elected President just like Obama was half-white and half-black, and was able to connect with both White Suburban voters and Black voters.  A weakened Christian population will allow people of other faiths to rise in politics.

Again, ethnicity and religion are two different things. And I seriously doubt many whites voted for Obama because he was half-white. Obama self-identifies as black, and many whites voters voted for him due to his positions on the issues and his charisma, not due to this race. And I agree that as the U.S. becomes more secular and less Christian, we will become more willing to elect people of other faiths and religions (or people without a religion at all).

[milhouse24]

Again, ethnicity and religion are two different things. And I seriously doubt many whites voted for Obama because he was half-white. Obama self-identifies as black, and many whites voters voted for him due to his positions on the issues and his charisma, not due to this race. And I agree that as the U.S. becomes more secular and less Christian, we will become more willing to elect people of other faiths and religions (or people without a religion at all).

For Jewish people, they consider themselves ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish, I thought you knew this.
Someone like John Kerry had a father who was Jewish and an blue-blood mother, but he was raised Roman Catholic.
Again, Obama IS half-white, and the results show he got the white votes that Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton never got.  Obama grew up with his White Grandparents by the way, which helped shape his personality and education.  He may self-identify as Black, but he grew up in a white household.  My point is, why does Christianity need to be weakened for other religions to rise up, why can't we have a strong Evangelical and Catholic believers, and also allow for Jewish and Muslim politicians to serve in office.  We don't have to be a country of non-Christians and non-religious and wait for other religions to hold power.

[milhouse24]

We have a non christian president right now. Americans do not know Barack Obama's heartbeat.

I would say he is half-christian.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

We have a non christian president right now. Americans do not know Barack Obama's heartbeat.

Americans didn't know ANY president's heartbeat. For all we know they could all have worshiped anything or nothing. If ANY president was an atheist, it was Thomas Jefferson. Obama is more Christian than Jefferson.

[??????????]

Obama is more Christian than Jefferson.

LOL

Have you met the comedy goldmine yet?

[fezzyfestoon]

I definitely don't see that happening anytime in my lifetime.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

My GOD people have got to stop sniffing glue!!

Anyway... if it happens, it'll be an closet-atheist or a Jew.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

As a citizen of a country, that elects atheist for it's first President in 1922, I love this discussion.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

2024. Ben Shapiro, obviously!

Wow, that's a necro.

[Blackacre]

Unless we get a Jewish President like Sanders or a Muslim like Ellison soon, probably not until the 2030s or 2040s. The nation's growing more secular, eventually that'll result in a secular President

[RINO Tom]

Unless we get a Jewish President like Sanders or a Muslim like Ellison soon, probably not until the 2030s or 2040s. The nation's growing more secular, eventually that'll result in a secular President

I'm not sure the nation "getting more secular" will result in it getting dramatically less "nominally Christian."

[Blackacre]

Unless we get a Jewish President like Sanders or a Muslim like Ellison soon, probably not until the 2030s or 2040s. The nation's growing more secular, eventually that'll result in a secular President

I'm not sure the nation "getting more secular" will result in it getting dramatically less "nominally Christian."

Not sure what nominally Christian means, or how a secular President would be evidence of the nation becoming dramatically less so, but I'll elaborate on my reasoning because I can get a little asgdsbfua sometimes.

The United States is getting more secular. By that, I mean a growing percentage of Americans are identifying as non-religious, particularly among young people. If we can assume that the sample of "people running for office" is similar to the general population, we'll see more and more secular people running for elected positions. Some of them will win. This will result in more Congresscritters, Senators, and Governors self-identifying as nonreligious. Because that is almost always the pool from which the President is selected, that will translate into a nonreligious President.

What does that mean, policy-wise? Who knows! A nonreligious President would be no better or worse than a religious one. Such a president would probably be more socially liberal but even that isn't a guarantee. We came almost close to electing a Jew just last year, Christian Presidents are not an inevitability.

[Dr. MB]

We've likely already had a few.

Trump, I doubt is religious. Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs still aren't clear.

I'd say it could happen next election or it may not happen until the 2050s or later. Too hard to tell.

An interesting question is whether there will be a Mormon or a Jewish president first.

[Blackacre]

We've likely already had a few.

Trump, I doubt is religious. Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs still aren't clear.

I'd say it could happen next election or it may not happen until the 2050s or later. Too hard to tell.

An interesting question is whether there will be a Mormon or a Jewish president first.

For the sake of this discussion we're taking Presidents at their word when they state their religious views. So Trump and Obama are Christians. Did Lincoln ever state on the record whether he was a Christian or not?

[darklordoftech]

We've likely already had a few.

Trump, I doubt is religious. Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs still aren't clear.

I'd say it could happen next election or it may not happen until the 2050s or later. Too hard to tell.

An interesting question is whether there will be a Mormon or a Jewish president first.

For the sake of this discussion we're taking Presidents at their word when they state their religious views. So Trump and Obama are Christians. Did Lincoln ever state on the record whether he was a Christian or not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Abraham_Lincoln

Klansmen often claimed that Lincoln was a Jew or an atheist.

[kcguy]

We've likely already had a few.

Trump, I doubt is religious. Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs still aren't clear.

I'd say it could happen next election or it may not happen until the 2050s or later. Too hard to tell.

An interesting question is whether there will be a Mormon or a Jewish president first.

For the sake of this discussion we're taking Presidents at their word when they state their religious views. So Trump and Obama are Christians. Did Lincoln ever state on the record whether he was a Christian or not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Abraham_Lincoln

Klansmen often claimed that Lincoln was a Jew or an atheist.

The reminds me of a scene from All in the Family:

Archie: "That's something the hebes do. They change their last names but keep their first names so that they'll still recognize each other."

Mike: "Whaddya mean, Arch?"

Archie: "Well, you take a guy like Isaac Schwartz. He changes 'Schwartz' to 'Smith' but he leaves Isaac. So he's Isaac Smith. Jacob Cohen, he becomes Jacob Kane. See?"

Mike (sarcastically): "Yeah, I see what you mean, Arch. Like Abraham . . . Lincoln."

Pause.

Edith: "I didn't know Lincoln was Jewish."

[Kingpoleon]

Probably a Jew. Eric Greitens, Ron Wyden, Brian Schatz, Al Franken, Lee Zeldin, and Eric Garcetti all come to mind.

[Sir Mohamed]

I think we will elect an atheist in the 2020s or 2030s.

I'd actually prefer to see an atheist as president, second choice a (liberal) muslim.

[beaver2.0]

2040-2049.

[Cokeland Saxton]

Likely in a couple decades or so.