Aside from being human, one of the most interesting things that Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, Gays and Lesbians have in common is that a substantial number of voters are biased against voting for members of these socially constructed groups for President of the United States. A recent Gallup Poll and a journal article that is being published in Electoral Studies and discussed in Vanderbilt University’s “Research News” present data and analysis on this issue.

The Gallup Poll covering the period June 9-12, 2011, shows an unwillingness to vote for people with the following characteristics as President: Mormon, 22%; Gay or Lesbian, 32%; and Atheist, 49%.  These religions and sexual orientations have substantially higher negatives than other groups tested by Gallop: Hispanics, 10%; Jews, 9%; Baptists, 7%; Catholics, 7%; women, 6%; and Blacks, 5%. Obviously, people can belong to one or more classifications, but the meaning of the survey is clear.

Gallop points out that the bias against Mormons has remained consistently high over decades while there have been steep declines in other categories. Resistance to a Mormon President shows that the largest differences are among different educational groups: college graduates, 12%; some college, 20%; and no college, 31%. Significant differences on Mormons for President were not correlated with gender, age, or religion. Republicans and independents demonstrated less reluctance than Democrats. Those from the East showed less bias towards a Mormon candidate than those in other parts of the country, especially the Midwest. These findings may pose a hurdle for Republican Presidential primary candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.

The data and analysis presented in the Electoral Studies journal article by Brett V. Benson, Jennifer L. Merolla and John G. Geer, “Two Steps Forward and One Step Back? Bias in 2008 Presidential Election” makes a number of interesting observations concerning religious bias. The data came from two Internet-based experiments run by Polimetrix in November 2007 and October 2008. John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt observed:

“Our data showed that the voters’ increased social contact with Mormons reduces bias among the general population. However, this does not seem to be the case for Southern Evangelicals since religious threat is particularly relevant for this group. In other words, social contact does not diminish bias when the religious conflict from a given group is salient in politics.”

This doesn’t mean that a Mormon can’t be elected President, but it does point out a hurdle that Romney and Huntsman would have to overcome if selected by their party.  The data showed even greater challenges atheists and Muslims in winning support from Southern Evangelicals.

Worldwide membership in the Mormon religion is approximately 14 million people. The Mormon Church has a website which provides easily accessible information about their faith for anyone who would like to understand their religion. Opposition by Southern Evangelicals to Mormons appears to me to be based more upon theological differences than conflicts on cultural values. These conflicts are difficult to resolve because they are based upon ideological beliefs rather than factual truths; and many of these beliefs are held by what Eric Hoffer termed true believers in his 1951 book on mass movements. In addition to true believers, the situation is compounded by what Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley termed a hard core of “know nothings” in their classic 1947 study. The abstract for “Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Fail” reads as follows:

“’Even if all the physical barriers to communication were known and removed,’ the authors contend, ‘there would remain many psychological barriers to the free flow of ideas.’ For example, interested people acquire more information than the uninterested; people seek the sort of facts which are congenial to their existing attitudes; different groups interpret the same information differently. This study is based on an analysis of national samples of the American people.”

In addition to “true believers” and “know-nothings,” it is equally difficult to correct flawed misinformation held by “know-somethings.”

For me, the terms “true believers” and a hard core of “know-nothings” capture important aspects of the why it so difficult to reduce bias. While increased social contact is important, other interventions are necessary which address representations, institutions, routinized social actions, the legitimation of them, and the processes by which they are passed on to others and internalized.

What Happened?

There will be all sorts of explanations to account for the election outcome, most of them connected to the limitations of Obama as a political actor, most of them, also, not really serious.  In the past two elections, the Democrats gained a large number of seats in traditionally Republican districts, and thus they were not particularly solid, and when times are tough, as they are now, it is not good for incumbents in marginal districts. I have nothing particularly to add to this. I recommend an excellent, realistic election preview of the likely post election storytelling by Bendan Nyhan, which I think gets it right.

Why?

But beyond the outcome is its meaning.  Although Nyhan and other election realists are surely on target when they underscore that the old slogan “it’s the economy stupid” goes a long way in explaining the results, the results’ meaning will be less clear and more important as we proceed.

While I’ve suggested in my most recent posts that the power and limitations of Obama’s speech-making will be revealed by the voting, I don’t think that this is of crucial importance in understanding the meaning of the elections.  That was how the battle looked on the ground, as Obama tried to maximize his and the Democrats’ advantage.  Now there is the question of where the country is at this moment and where it’s going.  The Republican victory does reveal Democratic failures, which need examination, which I hope we discuss here at DC in the coming days and weeks.

I think that the primary issue is commonsense.  I have long maintained that Obama, and the Democratic Party under his leadership, is not leftist, but centrist, that his project was to move the center a bit left and to change commonsense understandings of central problems: key are issues of race and difference, more broadly about American identity, and the relationship between the state and the economy.

These issues have been discussed on this blog in posts on “Gates – Gate,” “Park 51,” healthcare reform, and on Obama’s election itself.  While I don’t think that the results tonight will indicate a complete failure and repudiation of the Democrats’ approach under the leadership of President Obama, I do think that the election results will show how the Democrats have been engaged in an ongoing struggle about commonsense, which has thus far not been successful.

Since Reagan persuasively convinced the American public that the government is the problem, not the solution to our problems, America indeed has been a center right nation, as conservative observers often assert.  Reagan’s obsession with “welfare queens” added a touch of racism to the consensus he forged.  But there is nothing natural about this.  Obama sought to change it and made inroads with a record of legislative accomplishment and of course by his election itself.

But commonsense changes slowly, and there has been significant resistance, including an impassioned social movement, The Tea Party. In the coming months, in post – election posts, I hope to discuss the battle over American common sense with the D.C. community.   Why have people held firm in their obsessions about government spending and balanced budgets while in an economic recession?  Why must we take steps backwards, after moving so convincingly forward in electing Barack Obama in our struggle against racial, ethnic and religious discrimination and injustice?  Will the change again proceed?  What strategies and positions can facilitate this?  What strategies and positions will block it?