Uriah

Now Cohn phrased that in the dumbest way possible, because one of the best predictors of Trump’s support was the number of self-identified “Americans”, who are also white Protestants. These are people who have been in the country so long they don’t know what they are.

Minnesota was the only state lame enough to vote for Rubio. Iowa and Wisconsin went for Cruz and Ohio was a Kasich victory with Trump winning all the Southern, Appalachian counties with lots of Old Americans.

I’m fairly sure this is not genetically influenced, because heavily German Pennsylvania and East Texas didn’t display the same tendency. Ancient Pennsylvania Germans also didn’t turn against Wilson in 1916 or FDR in 1940; they’re just Americans who happen to have German blood.

Midwestern ethnics gave up their languages a long time ago, so this is a weird finding. It turns out that certain basic attitudes have remained unchanged in Midwestern ethnic ghettos even as the languages and food died out. What are they exactly?

I think the basic answer is that Trump is an affront to all things Protestant. Not the actual doctrine; there are certain deep religious folkways that have nothing do with the original founder of the religion or its Holy Book.

The Koran doesn’t insist women wear the veil, but it’s such a baked in Muslim practice that a lot of people assume it does. Likewise, there’s nothing about sola scriptura or justification by faith that naturally leads to the Protestant Modesty Cult, but that’s baked in, too.

Trump’s wiki used to have a quote from him to the effect: “People can’t believe I’m a Protestant” and that’s apt, because open braggadocio is so frowned upon in the Protestant North, the traditional backbone of the old school GOP.

Now Southerners are of course Protestants too, but not really in the European sense. The religion is too loud and charismatic; it has too much personality for a Scandinavian or a German to feel comfortable. It’s fundamentally a Protestant spinoff.