Ross Douthat joins the “Trumpers are not r-e-e-e-a-l Christians” brigade.
The first fault line is the one suggested by the data on churchgoing: Trump is losing the most active believers, but he’s winning in what I’ve previously termed the “Christian penumbra” — the areas of American society (parts of the South very much included) where active religiosity has weakened, but a Christian-ish residue remains.
The inhabitants of this penumbra still identify with Christianity, but they lack the communities, habits and support structures that make the religious path (somewhat) easier to walk. As a result, this Christian-ish landscape seems to produce more social dysfunction, more professional disappointment and more personal disarray than either a thoroughgoing secularism or a fully practiced faith — which makes it ripe territory for Trump’s populist appeal.
Gimme a break. We’re talking about the exact same people that evangelical leaders have been using to bludgeon our politics for the past 3-decades.