America Ascendant
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Abused … It’s too easy to get on it. People who can work won’t work, because they’re receiving too many government benefits, and it’s easier to stay home and cash in on the unemployment and the food stamps. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
They eat better than I do. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
That’s the whole problem with the whole unemployment and the food stamps: people have taken advantage of it.… Now … it’s a way of living. And that’s the problem. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I work at Sam’s Club … lady comes in all the time. All of them: first, fourth, seventh, ninth. “I’m tired of ribeye steaks. Where’s your lobster tails? Where’s your seafood?” And they’re putting it in an Escalade.… It’s disgusting … it’s full of graft. It’s full of fraud. It’s full of abuse. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
The Democratic Party, they believe, looks to inject government into places where Evangelical and Tea Party Republicans believe matters are better left to family, community, individuals, and churches. They worry that minorities, immigrants, and welfare recipients now believe it is their “right” to claim these benefits. Tea Party participants in particular were very focused on those who claim “rights” in the form of government services without taking responsibility themselves.
Well, on the news, everything is—every minority group wants to say they have the right to something, and they don’t. It’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn’t say happiness. You get to be alive and you get to be free. The rest of it’s just a pursuit. You don’t even—you’re not guaranteed happiness. You have to work for it. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
I think that America doesn’t give us enough responsibility. I don’t think that they let us be responsible for ourselves because we know we have—or people think that there’s someone to catch them. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)
I see a lot of lack of personal responsibility. People are constantly looking toward the government to get what they need. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
Welfare and making your own money. I think people don’t take responsibility for themselves because they know … the government will take care of me and my five children while they can’t. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)
This tension between personal and governmental responsibility has emerged as one of the defining values differences between the parties. Three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say, “It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” But only a third of Evangelical Christians accept that—the staunchest opponents in the GOP base—and just 38 percent of Tea Party supporters agree. Moderates are aligned with base thinking on this values question (38 percent), but interestingly, 63 percent of the observant Catholics and 51 percent of the GOP establishment accept this safety net role for the government.
This dimension of the Republican consciousness is evident in their consideration of the Affordable Care Act—another entitlement that creates a benefit without the person contributing and taking responsibility, fostering a culture of dependence. This institutional dependence is designed by Democrats to translate directly into votes. It is disheartening, to be sure.
Based on 7,004 interviews conducted for Democracy Corps, July 2013–January 2015.
The government’s giving in to a minority, to push an agenda, as far as getting the votes for the next time. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
They’ve got their hands in everything. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
They want us to be dependent upon the government, more so than self-sufficient. And that’s what makes them powerful. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
That’s the sort of subculture that the Democrats are creating, is that sense of entitlement, because they want us dependent on them. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
Obama got elected because he kept saying, “I’ll keep giving you unemployment forever.” That’s why he got elected. Now you can live in this country without a green card. Come on, we’ll give you insurance, we’ll give you money. That’s why he got elected. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)
There’s so much of the electorate in those groups that Democrats are going to take every time because they’ve been on the rolls of the government their entire lives. They don’t know better. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
They’ve got a very effective process apparently. They’ve figured out how to convince the largest number of people to step in line. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
One of the things the Democrats have done is created a dependency class of loyal voters. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
The Affordable Care Act is the final act of government-created dependence that will take the Republican Party out for good: “Just looks like a wave’s coming, that we’re all going to get screwed very soon” (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs); “It’s putting us at the mercy of the government again” (Tea Party woman, Roanoke); “[Our rights] are slowly being taken away—like health care” (Tea Party woman, Roanoke).
EVANGELICALS
Three in ten Republicans are Evangelicals, currently the largest segment in the Republican base, and they are party loyalists through and through. Voting for Republicans has become voting their identity: they are white, married, religious, and older, which puts them behind the times. They talk about how the dominant politics and culture have encroached on their small towns, schools, and churches. They are troubled by the trends and talk with friends, family, and fellow believers about Obamacare, guns, government intrusion, gay marriage, and “culture rot.”
It used to be different, a fact illustrated by several men in Roanoke when describing their own towns:
It’s a little bubble. So everybody—it’s like a Lake Wobegon. Everybody is above average. Everybody is happy. Everybody is white. Everybody is middle class, whether or not they really are. Everybody looks that way. Everybody goes to the same pool. Everybody goes—there’s one library, one post office. Very homogenous. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
It is from that perspective that they view President Obama.
I think that his picture of the people in this room would be that we’re all a bunch of racist, gun-clinging, flyover state, cowboy-hat wearing yokels. Because we didn’t go to Harvard, and we’re not from New York, and we’re pretty white, we’re pretty middle class. We like to go to church, we like our Bibles. And so we’re just not him. We’re not on his agenda. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
They are “pretty white” and “didn’t go to Harvard”—and “we’re just not [Obama].” The “tolerant” liberals just aren’t very tolerant when it comes to them.
In Roanoke, participants remarked that it was refreshing and unusual to be in a room where everyone shared their beliefs—and gave them an opportunity to speak openly about guns, gay marriage, church, and their values. In Colorado Springs, participants remarked that Colorado used to be a conservative state where they could expect that their values and rights would be protected. This seems to be slipping away, as one noted: “We’re having to realize that we’re going to be in a very politically incorrect minority pretty soon” (Evangelical man, Roanoke).
Based on 7,004 interviews conducted for Democracy Corps, July 2013–January 2015.
They know that they are the most “politically incorrect” and most disturbed when it comes to this country’s acceptance of homosexuality and the gay agenda—which they find to be truly an abomination. Towering above all the other Republican groupings, almost three-quarters of Evangelicals say that “homosexuality should be discouraged by society.” Among the current social revolutions, this is their defining and consuming issue.
Giving gay and lesbian citizens of the right to marry the person they love can seriously harm them, and seriously harm the children that they were raising. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
They’ve taken what I consider a religious union between a man and a woman—pardon my French—and bastardized it. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
They believe the dominant nation
al culture promotes homosexuality and makes this “minority” culturally “normal.” There is a conspiracy to push “the gay agenda.”
The fact that it is so prominent, that’s day to day. Like … that stupid song on 96.… It’s on every five minutes. The “I can’t change” song. It’s on constantly. It’s [a] song promoting gay and lesbian rights and all that stuff. But it’s so prominent. It’s every 10 minutes. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
Like it’s a normal way of life. There’s a minority of people out there are homosexual, but by watching TV, you’d think everybody’s that way. And that’s the way they portray it. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
Somebody’s got to say “the gay agenda.” That gets thrown around, a lot—that there’s this vast conspiracy of gays that are trying to push this. But—you know, to some extent, it almost seems like that, because these things are just moving so quickly along a certain trajectory. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
Their kids are under threat from popular culture and in the schools—and the gay agenda seems to have displaced school prayer as the intrusive secularism that is undermining their ability to raise their children right.
It’s really tough when my 13 year old comes home, and saying, the girls are holding onto hands in school, and the guys, there’s nothing that can be done. Which comes back to, Christ is taking—being taken out of schools. They’re trying to take anything that mentions the word God out of schools. They could get in trouble, if they bring a Christian book. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
The schools aren’t going to teach your kids the stuff that you want to. We don’t need the schools raising our kids. We need to raise our kids, teach them what our beliefs are, what our standards are, our morality is, and let them get an education there, but not raise them there. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
It’s hard when the school is directly opposing what you’re trying to teach your kids. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
As a result, some have taken their kids out of the public schools and instead placed them in church schools or are homeschooling:
My daughter’s only one, and I already am making plans for her not to go to school and have that [homosexuals] in her life, because it’s not—Not only that it’s not just something that I agree with, but it’s not something that should have to be forced down her throat. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
Evangelicals believe that their views are unacceptable outside of their small circles of like-minded friends and family because there is a dominant culture that has marginalized them ideologically, linguistically, and culturally. They are very conscious that they are viewed as rednecks by the liberal elite. Take, for example, this exchange between Evangelical women in Colorado Springs:
It becomes hard, because [if you’re conservative] you’re not allowed to have your opinion, but everybody else is.
You have to agree with another opinion. That’s very annoying.
[Does anyone else feel that way? That you’re allowed to have certain opinions, but not others?]
Yes. (All around)
[Where does that pressure come from?]
It’s from the people who say that we’re supposed to be tolerant.
[Who are they?]
The people who are intolerant. It’s the left, for the most part.… I just recently had a debate on Facebook with a nephew of mine. And he accused me of so much stuff out of one comment.… And it was just—He was just clueless on where I stood.
Not surprisingly, the Evangelicals feel besieged and wonder why their own party has not stood up, battled, and won. Republican politicians have lost their way, and there are too many “RINOs” who cannot stop what is happening.
The problem is there’s not a party that thinks like us. We don’t have a voice in Washington. Or where else? The Republican Party? They might as well just have a D beside their name, as far as I’m concerned. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I don’t have a party anymore. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
And the Republicans—a lot of Republicans are just RINOs—Republican in name only. But we’ve really got to turn this ship around, or we’re in deep doo. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
Above all, they think the leaders of the Republican Party “cave all the time” (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs). “They’re rollovers” (Evangelical man, Roanoke). So thank God Fox News and the Tea Party understand the stakes and are fighting them.
When asked about our country’s greatest strengths and what gives them hope, the Tea Party is universally mentioned. They say that people are finally “standing up” and “fighting back.”
Well, I would say, the rise of the Tea Party, that people are getting involved, and they’re standing up.… People are saying hey, this isn’t what’s in our Constitution, and it’s not what’s in our schools. And I think people are taking a stand now, and we need to, before it’s too late. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
America is rising back up and getting a backbone again, and making our voices heard one way or another, whether it’s Tea Party, or whatever else. People are being emboldened. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
They are a group to be reckoned with, because if we’re going to turn things around, the Tea Party’s going to need to be part of it. And less government and less spending, and throw the rascals out—to quote Ross Perot—is what they’re all about. I’m there. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I thank God there’s enough people getting angry now and it will have to stop. I think people realize that we’re going to have to rise up and take control. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I’m very proud of them for standing up. It was about time … it’s given me courage to be able to say what I believe. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
In a room full of like-minded others, they become energized and feel ready to fight back and to reclaim what they believe has been taken from them. At the conclusion of the group in Roanoke, the men had formed a serious bond and parted vowing to remain in touch, “These are the kind of people the Tea Party’s made of.”
Opposition to abortion is a core issue of seriousness among the base of the Republican Party. Nearly three-fourths of Evangelicals give a warm rating to pro-life groups and so do 60 percent of the Tea Party bloc. The observant Catholics are quite warm, though nothing like the intense support of the core of the Republican Party. The pro-life movement and pro-life position are central to the one in ten voters who are the strongest Evangelical–Tea Party supporters.
Based on 7,004 interviews conducted for Democracy Corps, July 2013–January 2015.
Abortion millionaires … [Planned Parenthood is] making a fortune off of them, of course. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
We knew when I was 17 weeks pregnant that she had Down’s Syndrome … half my family pretty much abandoned me because I decided to keep my child so as you can imagine that’s a very hot topic and that strictly is a lot of reason I vote for who I vote for is because of abortion and the abortion laws. I don’t think in no shape or form you should ever end a child’s life. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)
I don’t personally agree on abortion.… I’ve sinned, you know we’re all gonna meet the maker. He can deal with them. (Tea Party woman, Roanoke)
There should be no abortions at all. Don’t have them. If you don’t want them, just don’t have kids. (moderate man, Colorado Springs)
TEA PARTY: “FIGHT BACK TO BASICS”
Tea Party enthusiasts form 25 percent of Republican identifiers—and are cheered on by almost four in ten of the Evangelicals (37 percent strong Tea Party supporters) who are depending on their conservative backbone. These are straight-ticket, antigovernment, antiregulation, probusiness voters who are more confident that they can get America back to basics if they fight back. The hot topics among their friends and family include Obama, gun control, Obamacare, taxes, and government spending. They raise their spirits by joining the battle to get America “back to the Constitution,” to American entrepreneurship, fre
edom, and personal responsibility.
In both Tea Party groups, the phrase “back to basics” was repeated multiple times—as they want to return to a time when they believe government was small, people lived largely free of the government, and Americans took responsibility for themselves.
These are not those times. Government is catering to those who have not earned their benefits or the freedoms of this country. Of all the Republican groups, these were the most anti-immigrant, anti–food stamp, and anti-Obamacare and those who stand to benefit from it. They emphasized food stamps, “welfare” recipients, and illegal immigrants more than any other group. They were also the most anti-Obama, anti–Obama agenda, and anti–Obama politics—because these threaten the basics.
They are conscious that some in the party grumble about how divisive the Tea Party might be in the country, but for the Tea Party Republicans the solution to this internal discord lies in the Tea Party. Many believe that the whole party should rally around this faction.
The Tea Party is trying to get back to the basics. Then you’ve got—even within the Republican Party trying to fight the Tea Party. It’s like,“Don’t fight each other. Let’s join together and be one party.” (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
I think [the Tea Party] is good [for the Republican Party]. I think that the rest of the GOP needs to get on board. We need to all agree on some of the basic stuff. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)