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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28588 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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Of course, this is very loose. The Bushes are New England WASPs, as is say Mitt Romney’s ancestry.

GHW Bush was Blue Tribe and everyone knew it - in 1988 that was perfectly compatible with being a conservative (to the extent that he was) and a Republican because the party system had not fully aligned with the culture war, but the Red Tribe ultimately rejected him - the 1992 presidential election was the last time a Republican underperformed in the South.

GW Bush became Red Tribe by religious conversion - he left the (predominantly Blue Tribe) Episcopal Church and joined the (mixed-tribe, but he was in an evangelical-aligned congregation) United Methodist Church, announced that he had been through a born-again conversion experience, and generally said and did the things that Red Tribe Christianity requires of its adherents with visible sincerity. (He also bought and lived on a dude ranch, but that wasn't decisive.) Jeb Bush didn't, so the Red Tribe treated him as outgroup and decisively rejected him in the 2016 primary.

Mormons are neither Red nor Blue Tribe - they are their own tribe. They are political allies of the Red Tribe, but they are not part of it (just as African-Americans are not part of the Blue Tribe). Romney was only able to win the 2012 primary because Gingrich and Santorum split the tribal Red vote, allowing him to pick up a lot of delegates with narrow pluralities in winner-takes-almost-all states.

I think this is correct.

Though at this point, some Utah Mormons have gone full Red Tribe and there are internal divisions in the Utah GOP along “Mike Lee vs. Mitt Romney” lines.

Also the LDS church is fairly pro-immigration and pro-vaccination, which caused issues for some of the faithful.

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