Evangelical Vote Media Criticism
By: Caitlin, Shepherd, and Max
Evangelical Christians are the main religious base and some of the largest financial supporters of the Republican Party, and are thus often represented as the dissenting voice against many progressive movements. They are framed as a monolith, analyzed as a collective, and predominantly referenced by a series of statistics. Media coverage of religion is very centered on the evangelical Protestant Christian vote. This election cycle, though, Evangelicals may not be the backbone of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as before. Almost all of the articles questioned the whether the religious right will still be a pillar of steadfast support (in both funding and voting) towards the Republican Party.
The articles on the religious and evangelical vote were only written by concerned Christians or political experts explaining their opinions of certain statistics or important issues within the community. There was not one religious leader who was the author or authority consulted in any of the articles that we read. There were some articles that focused on certain religious leaders involved in politics, but none of the pieces actually consulted any for any theology issues and questions. The articles were more about Christian citizens expressing their political beliefs in relation to Christianity, and political journalists discussing voting attitudes within the community. This lack of academic theologians within the media coverage of Christianity was startling. Instead of covering the theological and philosophical basis for many of the traditional positions of Christians voters, the articles focused instead on voting trends, relations toward President Trump, and the efforts of the Democrats and Republicans to win over the Christian vote. The articles also talk a lot about the dwindling Christian support of President Trump but they do not actually explain why they are decreasing. The articles also largely ignore the evangelical Christians perspective on Church lockdowns.
The Christian vote and demographics are rarely on front page news, even though they are an extremely powerful and important voting group. The issues that influence their vote definitely are front page news though. The Christian vote is largely determined by abortion, equality, LGBTQ rights, and Supreme Court Justice appointees. As seen in this article, about Trump's pitch to evangelical voters at the Republican National Convention, the news emphasized his stance on abortion to make it relevant for evangelical voters. These issues are almost always front page news stories and the highlights of the news cycles.
The media can improve their coverage of the evangelical vote by increasing their coverage of the individual narrative of prospective voters. This lack of individual viewpoints can be looked at as “othering” evangelical constituents. In the media, evangelical voters are treated as a single unit. They are understood and talked about as a collective whole. The spectrum of voters within the evangelical community is not recognized, which is astonishing considering the spectrum of denominations. Anglicans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Mormons, Pentecostals, Calvinists, and Lutherans all share very different beliefs yet in the context of the media, there is only one difference in the Christian faith: Catholicism and Protestantism.