A reaction to that very same secularization. Religious nutjobs feel threatened and this is their answer.

The fact that so many Americans listened to and followed those religious nutjobs and they were able to sweep the government with such little effort suggests no such "secularization" ever took place.

They're like people who see some pernicious "gay agenda" infiltrating all aspects of their lives just because they see two gay characters in a sitcom. Their fears are just projection. The power centers of the US have always been biased towards Christian conservatism. It's absurd to claim the US has ever been a truly secular nation when it isn't even possible for a President to get elected without professing Christian belief, because it's impossible to get elected President without the blessing of the deeply Christian south.

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wat10000 an hour ago | parent [-]

The US was 90% Christian and 5% None just 35 years ago. Today it's 63% Christian and 29% None. That seems pretty rapid to me. It has not reached anything close to a majority yet, so the religious still hold great sway. And the perceived threat from their decreasing belief share pushes extremism.

	▲	krapp 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		tbh, that seems less like "rapid secularization" and more like "a slight drop from absolute to merely near-absolute power" to me. Percentage of reported practice doesn't allow for the cultural and legal effects of religion, and it doesn't map linearly to influence. Remember the political apparatus of the US is designed explicitly to give rural Christians outsize power.

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cmrdporcupine 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think this is def part of it. Trump was not doing well in 2016 at all until the final debate when he cornered Clinton into a (legitimate) strong defense of her pro-choice position.

All the "moderate" Christians who couldn't stomach Trump before suddenly had no choice.

Essentially all Christian denominations + Mormons think abortion is murder. How can a candidate win a majority in a society where a plurality identifies as Christian and therefore probably takes that position?

Secularization of the majority, and the liberal culutral values that go with it just alienates these people more and more around abortion, gay rights, and most markedly, trans issues.

Although the devoutly religious are becoming more of a minority, they are far more homogeneously aligned on these core issues, and therefore easier to cohere around a "right wing" electoral block even when they do not think "right wing" around economic and political / international issues. They're willing to tolerate Trump on a whole pile of things as long as they feel he's accomplishing their "moral" goals -- and so far he mostly is.