A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.

That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified to make a statement on the specific popularity of predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.

That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little unfalsifiable though.

I don't believe there is any sort of conservative intellectual movement at this point. The right believes they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement, military), in the same way they believe the left has captured others (education/universities, media), and will use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger pointing men in charge tell them to.

Writing papers is not the same as being an intellectual.

The Heritage Foundation certainly publishes, but they don't have a coherent ideology.

Project 2025 is not an work of political philosophy, it's just a roadmap for seizing power at all costs.

"What are we to infer from Oakeshott's favoured 'cook' metaphor?First, that conservatism is about doing, and about understandingwhat one is doing, not about thinking in the sense of planningwhat to do.12 Second, that conservatism is unreflective to the extent that it does not deal with packages of coherent ideas abouthuman beings and their societies, but is a method of recognizingreality through experiencing it, intellectually unintelligible for nonparticipants. Third, and consequently, that it is non-transmittable,unless this be done by direct instruction in its practices. Fourth,and not least, that it is futile to conceptualize about human conduct, political or otherwise, in manners typical of Western politicalthought. Philosophy is simply 'experience without reservation orpresupposition'.13 The world of the conservative—the world ofpractice—is unsystematic and contingent, though there is withinexperience an inner, self-contained, coherent world." (Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory)

"To conclude: the law of conservative structure, and the key toidentifying the common components of its variants, consists offour central features. Two of those are substantive core concepts,though not always identified as such: (1) a resistance to change,however unavoidable, unless it is perceived as organic and natural;(2) an attempt to subordinate change to the belief that the lawsand forces guiding human behaviour have extra-human origins andtherefore cannot and ought not to be subject to human wills andwhims. Unlike other major ideologies, conservatism then intriguingly produces two underlying morphological attributes, instead of "additional substantive identifying features. One of these attributesis (3) the fashioning of relatively stable (though never inherentlypermanent) conservative beliefs and values out of reactions toprogressive ideational cores. This allows all substantive conceptsin the employ of conservatism, other than the two enumeratedabove, to become contingent. They are subjected to a complexswivel mirror-image technique, superimposed on a retrospectivediachronie justification of the current beliefs held by conservatives. In each instance, the consistent aim is to provide a securestructure of political beliefs and concepts that protects the firstcore concept of conservatism, and does so by utilizing its secondcore component. Finally (4) the process is abetted by substantiveflexibility in the deployment of decontested concepts, so as tomaximize under varying conditions the protection of that conception of change. Such flexibility of meaning permits a considerablefirmness of conservatism's fundamental structure when confrontedwith very different concrete historical and spatial circumstances.What may superficially appear to be intellectual lightweightedness or be mistaken as opportunism is rather the performance ofa crucial stabilizing function by means of the adroit manoeuvringof political concepts in positions adjacent to the ideational core.The morphological unity of conservatism is preserved by an identical grammar of response, but expressed through differentiatedlanguages of response." (Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory)

Trying to map the current Republican party, despite calling themselves conservatives, to anything that Freeden would recognize in 98 does not seem to be particularly productive.

Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current president, who in his more senile moments muses about how his works have probably earned him hell [0]).

But the same observation applies to lots of other attitudes, too—like “might makes right” and “nature is red in tooth and claw” or whatever else the dark princelings evince these days. I feel like “logic matters” mainly pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that might be in the past now…

Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of Those Scapegoats’ malfeasance—ipso facto we should punish them harder…

https://time.com/7311354/donald-trump-heaven-hell-afterlife-...

No, none of that is true.

Remember, Republicans represent half the country, not some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.

> Republicans represent half the country

This statement isn't necessarily wrong because about half of elected government officials are Republican, but I want to point out that less than 60% of eligible Americans voted in 2024, so we're talking about <30% of Americans who vote Republican.

And honestly, with a Congress that allows every state, irrespective of population, two Senators, it is somewhat skewed. I mean San Jose, California is about double the population of the entire state of Wyoming.

i don't know why this is downvoted, it's a legit complaint.

wyoming has ~800k people. ohio has 11 million. the greater NYC area (parts of NJ, CT, etc.) has ~22 million. california has 40 million.

and as a parent poster mentioned, just slightly 1/3 of eligible voters chose trump; if "no candidate" was a choice it may have one most states, beating out kamala and trump.

I didn't downmod, but it's probably because they are represented by population in the House, a coequal chamber which approves the budget (and the Speaker of which is next in line for POTUS after the VP). States have equal representation in Senate so one high-population state can't write laws that only benefit them, or are disadvantageous to smaller states.

27%* https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...

>some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.

Calvinists or Evangelicals?

I don't think that holds water either way.

Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a majority of Republicans “exercise”, predetermination is a convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by right wing media, etc.

Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American Church (Reformed Camp)

It's something they say in sociology 101 at colleges in the US and some people occasionally believe it.

You should lookup 'Supply-side Jesus' to get a better understanding of American Christianity.