Good discussion guys. I agree with Mike’s assertion about identity partisanship’s role in elections, and want to explore taking that one step further. Is Christianity’s primary influence on voting, on the macro-level, identity or idea oriented (Christian vs. Christianity)?

In my opinion, Conservatives never really had a monopoly on Christian values in my opinion, though they largely did on Christians (or at least white Christians). ‘Culture war’ issues did align on gay marriage, abortion, prayer in public spaces, candidate’s personal relationships w/ Jesus etc., but other issues such as expanded social programs for vulnerable people and an emphasis on diplomatic vs. militaristic foreign policy seemed to go the other way. The Republican platform is not derived from Christianity, it is a coalition of ideologies that somewhere along the way got conflated into a singular, pure ideology (I’m looking at you Tea Partiers). So I do disagree with the assertion that “what’s best for party/country/what’s morally right” have traditionally overlapped, but that’s not essential to the argument. I’ll concede that the balance of the scales in Christian hearts and minds has been tipped in favor of Republicans over the past several decades for whatever reasons.

But Trump does not credibly check any of the culture war boxes and has doubled down on the least Christian planks of the Republican platform (increased militarization including targeting civilian families of enemies, torture, internal and external divisiveness, anti-babyism (except when pertaining to hand-size), where can I stop?). Whatever your pre-Trump stance on the overlap of country/party/morals is irrelevant, I think we can all agree that that overlap is gone completely. And yet, he’s still outperforming Hillary amongst Christians. Why?

I can’t see any explanation that does not rely solely on identity here. I’m a Christian. Christians vote Republican. I will vote Republican. It does not matter that the vote might be cast for the least Christian person to have ever run for President, what matters is I’m on the red team, and Hillary is on the blue team.