Abundance politics may not win over conservative Christian voters

[marmar]

Abundance politics may not win over conservative Christian voters
A new study finds conservative voters value religious identity over economic policy

By Mike Lofgren
Contributing Writer
Published July 5, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Last year, in the wake of the Trumpian seizure of power and Elon Musk’s vandalizing government agencies, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson sparked a brief tizzy among the chattering classes with their book “Abundance Liberalism.” The Democratic establishment was in a funk over losing the 2024 election, and the book seemed to offer a panacea for winning over the fickle American voter.

The idea was that Democrats should drop their phobias about environmental degradation, urban sprawl, interstate highway construction and other quality-of-life considerations, and instead engineer the economy to crank out more stuff for the masses — housing, green energy jobs, infrastructure. All they have to do is defang regulations contained in the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, zoning restrictions and other examples of Luddite do-gooderism. Grateful voters would flock to the Democratic Party, and right-wing extremism would lose its steam.

....(snip)....

There is another, more important reason why “Abundance Liberalism,” at least as the authors conceive it, is unlikely to work: The groups it hopes to convert don’t want it.

The evidence for this startling conclusion comes from the most significant opinion study you’ve never read or read about. Published in May, the Johns Hopkins Agora Institute and ReD Associates conducted an in-depth research of conservatives in three red counties in Michigan, South Carolina and Wyoming. The authors describe the content of “Faith, Freedom, Family, Place: An Ethnographic Study of Conservative Americans’ Relationships to Democracy” as follows:

This study relies on ethnographic research: sustained immersion in people’s homes, lives, and communities through extensive interviews, observations, participation, and relationship-building. Where much democracy research documents what people say they believe, ethnography examines how and why political worldviews take shape within the full context of daily experiences, relationships, and social environments.

....(snip)....

Let that sink in. It’s what many of us expected, but it’s still surprising to see it in print, given the almost phobic avoidance by major media, academia and think tanks of any discussion of whether Americans actually believe in the nation’s unofficial civic religion of democracy. It may also explain why ordinary, non-elite conservatives are untroubled by Donald Trump’s assertions that he would be “dictator on day one” or that he intended to “terminate” parts of the Constitution. On the contrary, that’s what they want. .....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/07/05/abundance-politics-may-not-win-over-conservative-christian-voters/

[dave99]

1. wonder what it would cost to ask: Do you believe in Democracy, yes or no ?

tally the results by state , and publish results.
Need at least 50,000 per state.

[hatrack]

2. "A brief tizzy" - Yep, that's about it . . .

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. I hope Abundance politics fails to win over *any* voters, Democratic or Republicans

To the OP: Abundance politics has nothing to do with supporting democracy.

The Abundance Agenda is a centrist, Third Way Trojan Horse to gut environmental regulations, building codes and labor rights in the name of “affordability” and job creation. It is a cash grab for developers and resource extractors designed to maximize profits and remove pesky government oversight.

https://kayuma.substack.com/p/the-abundance-delusion-how-silicon

Carney is using it in Canada (and premier Eby in BC) to ram through legislation for “critical projects” like pipelines, LNG plants, mines, data centers, and bailouts for overpriced, unsellable condos.