Cradle Seculars & Cultural Shifts: A Deep Dive with Dr. Juhem Navarro-Rivera

[0:02] We mark our 100th episode with political scientist Dr. Juhem Navarro-Rivera, and we talk about the latest Pew Research Religious Landscape Survey. It’s positive for secular people, not so much for the religious. I’m Doug Berger, and this is Secular Left. We’ll see you next time.

[0:32] Music.

[0:39] Before we get into the main topic of this episode, I wanted to take time today to recognize the fact that this is our 100th episode. And there was much rejoicing. Yes, back in April of 2020, I had decided to convert my then-blog, Secular Left Blog, into a podcast. The pandemic had just shut everything down and wasn’t sure what to do, and I decided that this would be an easy thing to do. Well, it’s been fun. It’s been not always easy, but I’ve enjoyed it. And my original blog, I started in…

[1:33] Uh, 2005. And it was a re reaction to Fox news and the horrific people that were on that channel then. And they’re, they still are, they’re still a bunch of, bunch of buttheads. But, uh, this, uh, podcast started in April of 2020 and it was towards the end of Trump’s first term. And we weren’t getting any real help from the federal government in dealing with the COVID.

[2:08] They were technically, I guess, leaving it to the states. And at the time, in April of 2020, our Republican governor, Mike DeWine, actually did the right things when it came to the pandemic, at least for a time until his Republican caucus talked him out of it. And one of his advisors was the head of the Ohio Department of Health, Dr. Amy Acton. And she’s the one that signed a majority of the health orders at the time. She eventually left the administration when DeWine lost his nerve and started catering to the extremists who ignored science and wanted to get everything open again, even though COVID was still rampant. And she is currently starting her campaign for governor. So things have changed considerably. I attended a campaign event for her a couple of weeks ago. I really like her story. it really gets to me. She grew up poor in an unstable home. And what saved her was the public schools and public libraries. And that’s how she became a doctor. And it’s kind of ironic because the current Ohio legislature wants to cut both things, funding for public schools and funding for public libraries.

[3:38] But what I wanted to do today, besides rehashing these old things, is I’m going to have a link to the very first episode in the show notes. So if you want to go back and listen to it again, but what I wanted to do is I had in the first episode, I started out by reading a manifesto and it was a manifesto of the blog that I adapted for the podcast. And so many of the things that I explained that I wanted to do with my blog is the same things I wanted to do with the podcast. And I think that over the five years now that podcast has been going, I’ve pretty much stayed within that manifesto. This is from episode one and the title of and what I was trying to do with the episodes was I was dividing the show up into three segments. And so I was trying to have the titles kind of fit those three segments. And I’ve kind of gotten away from that because it’s just too hard. So episode one, the title of the episode was Of Manifestos, Abortion Foes, and Bernie Lives.

[4:46] And so like the first part, I’m talking about the manifesto. Then I have a segment about anti-abortionists trying to use COVID to stop abortions. And then I talk about why Bernie lost the election or, yeah, why he lost in 2016 and all that stuff. Anyway, so this is from the first segment on the show Manifesto, and I’m just going to read it as the transcript shows.

[5:14] Welcome to the first episode of Secular Left. This isn’t a new project, but it is a renovation from what started as a written blog back in 2005. My manifesto then is stated in post number one, purpose of this blog. In short, the purpose of this site is to point out and tear apart the myths and lies expressed by the religious right and other conservatives against those of us who are either non-believers, agnostic, liberals, or progressive.

[5:44] The blog was born as a result of anger toward religious and political conservatives in the United States who consistently lie, mislead, name-call, and propagate myths about those of us who are secular. This struggle has been going on for decades since the rise of groups like the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, the American Family Association, and the Family Research Council. These groups irrationally mix their religious beliefs with one particular form of political ideology. The term secular left began to appear in 2005 when religious and political conservatives started using the term as a pejorative to pander to their extreme religious conservative base. To them, the label includes anyone and any group who dissents against their extreme religious and political conservative agenda, especially in regards to social and cultural issues. People covered by the label secular left, quote, end quotes, seem to include the entire Democratic Party, those who support separation of church and state, those who support real religious liberty, those who support reproductive choice, those who work to lessen poverty, those who work for a better world, understanding, those who support sane environmental protection, and those who trust science as a tool for solving problems or answering questions in our world.

[7:11] Since the label is political, it can include believers, atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, liberals, and progressives. While religious and political conservatives try to frame their arguments as a popularity contest, those of us who are secular believe in tempering the tyranny of the majority. That is why our Constitution has a Bill of Rights, and we aim to support it 100%. Secular left supports progressive secular public policies and solutions. This podcast will feature progressive ideas about racism, income inequality, sexism, and issues around gender identity. It is a fact that many people who have privilege will not want to engage on many of these issues, but these issues and others are important to those in marginalized communities. Personally, I am an atheist, but as long as you support separation of church and state and uphold progressive values, then count yourself in the secular left. I firmly believe that extreme religious beliefs are at the root of many of the issues today that seem never to be solved. There are so many examples of the religious hurting people in the name of religious freedom. On those issues flavored by religious bigotry, we will offer a secular alternative.

[8:35] Protecting religious freedom was always meant to protect people from the whims of government and not used as a sword by the government against minority people and views. That is where we have lost track in this country. If you are more worried that Jesus Joe the cake baker has to bake a cake for a same-sex couple and not the couple who is denied a service simply because of who they love, then you are the problem. If you walk past a Ten Commandments statue on the courthouse lawn and have no clue what that is telling people who don’t subscribe to the Christian religion then you are the obstacle to a better world. Secular left isn’t about being anti-religion. We won’t be making an argument that one particular religion is more or less harmful. Our concern is religion influencing public policy and politics. It’s irrelevant to our show if someone’s religion makes them feel good or helps the poor.

[9:40] We also have seen enough thoughts and prayers during times of tragedy. All that does is make the people who do it feel better rather than actually doing something to make the victims feel more secure and happier. Secular left is also about progressive values, such as freedom, opportunity, responsibility, and cooperation. Our work, goals, and resulting laws and public policies should adhere to these values as much as possible. As progressives, we believe that everyone deserves a fair shot at a decent, fulfilling, and economically secure life. We believe that everyone should do his or her fair share to build this life through education and hard work and through active participation in public life. And we believe that everyone should play by the same set of rules with no special privileges for the well-connected or wealthy.

[10:36] Secular left also has a particular view on government and it isn’t anarchy Our government exists to protect our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness It does this through safety forces like the police and fire departments An effective justice system And appropriate regulations that would enhance our life and liberty.

[10:59] Progressives believe our government belongs to us as free citizens committed to working together to create prosperity, provide opportunity and security, and solve the nation’s problems in a smart and effective manner. We will visit these beliefs in future episodes when discussing particular issues. And that was the manifesto that I read during the first episode of Secular Left all the way back in April of 2020. In fact, In fact, I think it came out April the 17th. I’m pretty sure it came out April the 17th of 2020. So that’s pretty much five years ago. And so with that, I thank all of you who are listening at this time for joining us here at Secular Left. But it’s actually you guys that make this so fun and such a rewarding experience to do this show, to put this together, to put it out there for people to consume it. Even if I don’t get hundreds of thousands of downloads like a Joe Rogan or somebody like that, I don’t care. I’m getting my viewpoint out. I think it’s an important viewpoint, and I think it’s important that we talk about the issues that I bring up. And however that happens is great.

[12:23] And so having said that, again, Mark, that this is the 100th episode of Secular Left.

[12:33] And on with the show.

[12:39] Our guest today is Dr. Juhem Navarro Rivera. He’s a political scientist and partner at Social Analytica Research. He’s an expert in race, religion, and politics in the United States and Latin America. He also writes a newsletter called Secular Politics that include many of his insights and commentary on politics and the secular world. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for inviting me.

[13:06] What I kind of wanted to talk to you about, because I wanted an expert opinion, is the Pew Research Center issued their newest religious landscape study, and I think that comes out, supposed to come out like every seven years or something like that. Is that correct? It usually, these big surveys usually come out whenever they can get the money. So the first one came out in 2007, then 2014, it was the second one. And then they fielded this one between 2023 and 2024. So it kind of like was almost 10 years between the previous one. But yeah, it’s usually when you get the resources and the capacity to do them. And so, you know, this just came out. And so it got a lot of press in the secular community. What does it say about secular people that you drew from it? It shows that the secular community, what I’m calling secular, which is people who identify as atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular, those are kind of like the three groups that they call the religiously unaffiliated, has kept growing. So, you know, in 2007, when they did the first survey, their numbers of the religiously unaffiliated was 16% of population, which was a lot. And a year later, the…

[14:35] The Institute for the Study of Secularism and Society and Culture that I used to work on, we released the American Realtor’s Identification Survey. We found 15%, which, of course, given how surveys work, essentially we had the same numbers. And from our perspective, which we had done a survey back in, well, I mean, my teammates did a survey in 1990. I was in elementary school, so it was hard for me to work on that one. They found that 8% of the country identified as secular.

[15:11] And so, you know, in a generation, 1990 to 2018, I mean 2008, sorry, essentially, like, the proportion of people who identified as secular had doubled. So it was very in line with what Pew had found. Then Pew did one in 2014, and that number had grown in just seven years, 23% of the population. And now, in the latest VUE survey, almost 10 years later, it stands at 29. So it has grown. It certainly hasn’t grown at the same rate. It’s slowed down a little bit, especially taking into account that one was a seven-year period and the other one is a nine, ten-year period between surveys. But it’s still growing. And there are a few things that I have focused on the newsletter.

[16:02] And the last one that I did about the Pew survey was about the growing number of what I call cradle seculars. And this is not my term. I don’t remember where I heard it first. It was in some meeting. And I don’t remember who coined it. So I apologize for that, for not giving you credit. But I have no idea where I heard it. I don’t remember where I heard it first. And it’s, but it’s people who are, who say that they were raised non-religious and they are still non-religious. And for the longest time, the assumption has been that, you know, like you may not be religious in your youth, but as you get older, you have kids and, you know, you’re going to need God at some point. And you’re going to go back to church and you’re going to go back for that community or whatever. And what we’re seeing is that’s not happening. People who are non-religious have remained non-religious increasingly. So in 2007, the majority of people who say that word reigns non-religious…

[17:07] Were religious in the survey. So it had a very low retention rate. I mean, not a very low retention rate, but 47% of the people who were raised non-religious were still not religious. But that had risen to a majority in 2014. And now it’s almost three quarters of people who say that they were raised non-religious are still not religious. So that is a big change in just less than 20 years. And so that tells you a little bit, to me, what it tells is that we may see.

[17:45] The rates of deconversion, so the amount of people who are leaving religion to becoming non-religious may be tapering off, maybe, you know, all the, I would say all the people, but a lot of the people who were going to leave religion, or at least who were become honest about not being religious and having this, you would call, superficial relationship to their religious identity are now mostly fully in their non-religious camp. And so now what we’re going to see is to what extent we can build non-religious communities that can keep those people non-religious, or to what extent it’s the brand of religion in these countries so tarnished, particularly the Christian brand. Thank you, evangelicals. To the extent that people just don’t want to associate it with them. And it may be less about, well, it may be about religion, but it’s also the fact that people don’t trust institutions in this country anymore because they have failed, and religion is one of those who have failed. And so…

[18:51] And I don’t think we’re going to see, I mean, we could see it, but I don’t think in the short term, and especially with the political situation, we’re going to see a great revival of religion anytime soon. And I don’t think the rates of secularism are going to decrease in any particular significant way, but I don’t think they’re going to grow as fast. Yeah. The one thing that I noted when I looked at the survey was that they had changed a little bit their methodology in that they went to online and paper surveys instead of exclusively telephone. They used to just do exclusively telephone. What do you think that is that something do we need to know that when we’re reading these results? Do you think that those numbers are affected by that? Yes and yes. So we need to know, I mean, the changes are important. When I worked in 2007-2008 with the ARIS survey, it was fully by telephone.

[19:59] And in terms of survey research, this is like the middle ages in terms of technology. But, you know, 15, 17 years ago, you could still do a telephone survey that was particularly robust and good methodologically. By the time I had moved in 2012 to PRRI and by the time I left in 2015, we were moving towards cell phones.

[20:28] And now both Pew and PRRI have moved to online surveys for the most part. um, Pew has their own in-house survey panel, which they have built, and it’s very good. I think they had to buy extra samples, because I don’t think it’s that big to handle all these at the same time.

[20:58] But, yeah, the change is important, because it may affect, like, if you’re talking to somebody else about your religious beliefs on the phone, you may be less, especially with social pressure, to be less willing to admit that you’re non-religious. I think that may have changed now over time, in which so many people are non-religious, that I think there’s still a stigma to be an atheist, but certainly not as much a stigma to being non-religious. But nonetheless, I remember 10, 12 years ago, So, Robbie Jones, Dan Cots, and I, when we were at PRI, we wrote a paper because we had a natural experiment, Fish, in which we had a survey, two surveys from the same time, same time period, in which one was on the phone, one was online. And the answers on church attendance or attendance to radio service were very different. It was much lower online.

[22:04] And our hypothesis was that essentially people lie. We know that people lie about their church attendance, but certainly over the phone where you feel judged by this person who may think that you are evil if you don’t go to church compared to the anonymity that an online survey gives you, certainly shows that there’s a real methodological difference when you do these services online and somehow with another human on the other side of a telephone line. Yeah, I really liked it. The Pew survey, they actually have a whole appendix where they did a bridge survey by telephone, and then they compared the different items that they see what could be compared, to previous ones. And one of the examples that they mentioned was about feelings about immigration. And they said that when they were doing it on the phone, people were less likely to give negative responses. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Yes. It’s not just related. It goes in many ways. But yeah, these methodological notes are very important because otherwise, and this is a lot of.

[23:22] My day job is as a research consultant, and so I do polling for private clients. And one of my criticisms of a lot of the political polling is that they’re very obscure in the methodology. So they will release some numbers out there. And I’m talking about the public pollsters, like the people who do a lot of public polling. Some of them are rather shady with their methodology. And so it is important that places like Pew, BRI, Gallup, you know, they’re kind of like straightforward mentioning their methodology. The case of Pew, I also want to mention that they actually did a partial release of this data. They usually wait one or two years to they embargo the data for one or two years. They did a partial release of this data. So I mean, kind of playing with it and kind of like recreate their numbers.

[24:23] And yeah, I mean, they haven’t released everything because I’m assuming they have more reports coming out. And so some of the variables look like something they will release in the future. Some other data that they have not released is kind of like more personal identifying information, which obviously for confidentiality reasons they can’t do. But yeah, I mean, I think they have done a pretty good job with the survey and especially on the area of transparency. The other thing, too, that I noted is that they are still using that catch-all unaffiliated for secular people. Is that something that can ever be changed or are they going to keep it that way because that’s how they’ve always asked about it? I don’t know, because I noticed that 69% of the unaffiliated believe people have souls and 47% believe in heaven. And that doesn’t include, I’m assuming, most atheists and agnostics. So, I mean, why did they do that catch-all? I think because it’s hard to, I mean, you know, they’ve been using that since forever. and it’s an organizational thing you have to use a.

[25:43] Religiously Affiliated, BRRI uses Religiously Affiliated, partially because they were founded by people who also work at PIVO at some point.

[25:55] But for example, us at IEEE C back in the day, we used Nodes.

[26:02] And so, I mean, at some point, I believe maybe it was Gallup. They used, and this is probably the 80s, early 90s, they used the Unchurched. So it could be worse yeah I remember that I remember the unchurched one yeah I remember so you know I think they already have a lot of, buy in in the concept and I don’t think and it’s essentially that they are not the problem is that it doesn’t tell you about belief and so you can have and this shows up these religion categories shows up worse in places like Congress, when they do their analysis of Congress, which is not one of their surveys, but they just analyze the responses of members of Congress to their religion, the incoming Congress. For a long time, a lot of religion, even talking about Pete Stark, Pete Stark for a while was the only openly atheist member of Congress. But in Pew Counts, there was no atheist member of Congress because Pete Stark was a Unitarian. And so, you know, he was not unaffiliated. So it’s very, you know, like these categories of belief and belonging are very, very confusing.

[27:28] And in the case of, you know, like people in our community were even more, you know, more underrepresented in Congress when someone who is part of our community, like Pete Stark was, is not really a part of our community because he’s a Unitarian and makes you, and when you do this analysis, like, you know, when you read this analysis, like there are no atheists in Congress. I was like, well, yes, that is one, openly atheist. And then, of course, the questions of belief and behavior and belonging is like, you know, you can be, you can say, I mean, Barney Frank is a great example who came out as an atheist after retiring from Congress. But even if he had said he was an atheist when he was in Congress, he was still Jewish. For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at secularleft.us.

[28:29] Now, you noted in one of your newsletters, I believe it was one of your newsletters, that you crunched some of the numbers that were used in the, you went to the census tracts and counted things up. And you equated the 29% that were mentioned that were unaffiliated to be 76 million people in the United States. Did that number surprise you? Okay. So methodologically, no, I did. I essentially look at the size of the adult population right now, or at least the latest estimate, which is technically from 2023, and basically extrapolated that to 29%. So right now, yeah, they’re based on the amount, which I think it’s 262 million adults, give or take. Yeah, I think that’s what I said. So, yeah, so essentially it’s about 76 million. And the reason I did that is because, you know, a 6% point increase from 2014 to 2024, it’s a lot, but doesn’t look that much. And it doesn’t tell you in real numbers what it means. Because, you know, it’s not that the population has remained the same for the last, like, 15 years.

[29:50] Or 17 years in this case, since the 2007 ceremony. And so this is something we used to do at ICCC, kind of like look at, you know, in terms of real terms, real population terms, how many people in the country identify as this? I wouldn’t say I was surprised, but I just find it interesting, the scale of it, because it’s…

[30:16] You know, the U.S. population as a whole in those two periods grew about 7% to 8%. But the secular population grew like magnitudes of order more than that, even with a little slowdown. And compare that to Christianity, which actually reduced in this one. And that’s why I found the Pew headline for the survey was like, I’m not sure. There’s no doubt of Christianity. They undersold it. Yeah, they undersold it. And I’m like, I’m not sure that’s what happened here. But yeah. And so, yeah, but that was the whole idea. It’s like to put real numbers to see how many people in this country identify with those labels. And the part that I liked the most was looking at the growth of people labeling themselves atheists and agnostics. Because in 2007, it was just…

[31:33] Like three percent or so of the people and and in these days it’s it’s 11 of the population and 11 12 of the population identify as atheists and agnostics uh which is not uh it’s not a little amount of people in fact it is bigger than the many religions uh uh you know like, official religions, so to speak. So I think this is something that it should be discussed a little bit more. And I feel that we do a disservice giving information when we don’t try to show the real world impacts of this. It’s not like these percentage points without context doesn’t tell you much. Is even a 1%, you know, even if it grew at the population rate of like 7%.

[32:27] From like, you know, 50 million secular people, that means like it’s about 3.5 million people. So it’s, you know, it’s a lot. The other number that jumped out at me when I was looking at the survey was that, with the recent survey, less than 50% of young people identify as Christian. Do you know if that’s increased since the last survey, or is that a trend? That is, I don’t recall. I mean, it has grown. Like, yeah, younger people have become less religious over time. And that’s another one of those counterfactuals that, all these surveys are, breaking because for the most part, this assumption that young people are going to go to church eventually go back, it has not panned out. And the other aspect is how a lot of that growth is now coming inward, right? It tells cradle secularists. So these are younger people who grew up non-religious, and this is something that.

[33:41] Especially as a Latino, you know, coming from a Catholic background, we have seen the decline of Catholicism in this country. But a lot of, you know, in the 2000s, like these growth rates were minimized. So, you know, when we did the Aries in 2008 compared to the 1991.

[34:06] Catholicism kind of like remains stable. And you are like, oh, wow, this is amazing. Like Catholics are doing great. But under the surface, the fact is that at that point, it was the growth of the Latino population in those decades that basically stabilized the Catholic numbers because they had collapsed among white people. And now what is happening is that they’re also collapsing among Latinos. And a lot of these, it’s probably things that have been like 20 years in the making, right? Like all these, I hate to call them scandals because they’re not scandals. Like, you know, it was very serious, sensual abuse. It wasn’t like vandalism or anything. Like, no, this is sensual abuse that we’re talking. It’s more than a scandal. But I think a lot of people maybe were remained Catholic by name which is very common but I think eventually some people started calling themselves Catholic and then they stopped calling their children, stopped being Catholic and I think especially among that cohort we may be seeing something of that another thing is a lot of.

[35:21] Liberal, like, mainline denominations started losing a lot of their people in those earlier surveys. And I think, like, now you have two, three generations of people who have not grown with those identities. So, yeah, in that regard, you’re seeing a larger cohort of young people who are growing as non-religious as younger people have usually been less religious Uh.

[35:52] Yeah, that, that, that’s a trend that has continued. I was pleased to see your latest, uh, newsletter came out. Uh, I believe I got it today where you talk about how atheist transphobes like professor Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins are outliers in the general atheist community. Um, did that finding that out? Did that surprise you that, uh, that, uh, most atheists support the trans community? No. I mean, it’s known for a long time, and it’s for a couple of reasons. It was, you know, even, and this is not directly related to the transphobia that we’re living, like the special transphobia we’re living in these times, because there’s always been a lot of it. But this, like, revival of transphobia that we’re seeing, led by the current administration, The secular community in general has always been probably the most LGBT-friendly in public opinion. In the early 2000s, when the surveys didn’t even ask about same-sex marriage, they were asking about civil unions, and people were opposed to those. Secular folks were the only ones supporting…

[37:12] A majority of secular folks supporting civil unions. And then when same-sex marriage started becoming a thing that was discussed in public policy and states were pushing for this, at that point, when the majority of the U.S. Opinion was against same-sex marriage, secular people was in favor of same-sex marriage. So we were ahead of the curve in that regard. And the same has been with trans rights. There’s fewer questions about that. But, you know, it’s a similar track record, and it has to do with a few things. One is that the secular community is, a lot of people in the secular community are part of the community, right? The LGBTQ community, right? They have dual identities, and I think people like Dawkins and Pinker and Coyne, they have a problem with identity, right? They have a problem with identity politics, unless it’s their atheist identity and their white dude identity. Those are not identities, those are just stances, those are not identities, those are stances. And so, you have a lot of people who come to the secular community from the LGBTQ community, mostly because they’re rejected by religious communities.

[38:38] And, you know, there’s a lot of issues in the secular communities, but they usually have been more open to sexual minorities. And then to the extent that, you know, that there’s also trans people in this community. I know many trans folks in the secular community and they are being a valuable part of this community. And, you know, some of the most amazing volunteers that I have seen are trans people. And, you know, these guys who essentially, like, you know, they’re self-appointed leaders of the community and basically because they had name recognition that doesn’t really come from the secular community, right? Like, they were famous before. They were atheist famous. And they have parlayed that fame into, oh, yeah, like a natural, because they’re one of, I mean, in that regard, they do have some courage in the sense that. You know, they’re willing to be openly atheists in a society that doesn’t, although they’re academics, so it’s not that they’re going to feel a lot of pressure in their universities. But, yeah, secular people, especially atheists.

[39:52] Have been skeptical of transphobia, and especially when you talk about rights, it’s interesting because atheists feel that they’re usually under attack in terms of their rights, like the right to free speech, the right to free association for not being religious. And it’s just amazing to see an atheist talk about, you know, stripping people off their rights just because they, and then like using these biological kind of like, uh, arguments, which is seriously, dude, uh, Yeah, I know in Coyne, his essay that got a lot of blowback, he was talking about how some trans women shouldn’t work in certain fields. And that reminded me of the famous time that I believe it was George, might have been George W. Bush or might have been Bush Sr. Was asked about whether atheists should be in political office. And he said, no, I might get the exact same thing. That was the father. Oh, it was the father? Yeah, it was the father. And I was like, that’s the exact same thinking.

[41:03] Yes, no, and it’s quite interesting because what I have noticed about, especially that particular cohort of like new atheists, horsemen, horsemen adjacent kind of group, is that they were very good at questioning religion.

[41:25] But they have never been able to question society at large they don’t question their place in society outside of their, outsider status as a non-religious person they haven’t they talk about Christian privilege but you can’t talk to them about male privilege and definitely you can’t talk to them about white privilege somehow those do not exist, and it’s amazing how the limits of skepticism.

[41:56] You can question the existence of a God as a society, as a human creation, but somehow race and gender are not human creation. Yeah, it’s pretty hypocritical for sure, definitely. I did want to ask you before we wrap up today about the last election in November. I know you had made a post about it, but you said that you hadn’t come up with

[42:26] anything or you hadn’t seen anything about it yet. Have you gained any insight about that election since it happened? So finally, some data has appeared. I haven’t been able to launch it. But the APNORC podcast was released.

[42:49] Last month. So that’s over 100,000 people. And then this week, the Cooperative Election Study, which is like one of the most important academic surveys on every election, just was released this week. So I have downloaded them, but I haven’t been able to play with them. But I don’t think it changes a lot of the fundamentals in terms of, you know, secular voters rejected Trump. One of the interesting aspects of the secular vote is that white secular people talking about race are the only group of white voters who are not overwhelmingly Republican, and especially white atheists.

[43:41] Although we have to see that more with the CES because the Yetzig polls, which have not been released although there’s some public data out there some public graphics that they have released, show what they call the no’s in that case, in the Yetzig polls, they’re the no’s so the question is, why is your religion? And then the option of no which may affect also who answers it. And then the vote cast also has the known as a category. So the CES is the one that actually has a Pew-type question of ACS agnostic and nothing in particular, and that’s where we would be able to see more insights into whether there was still this gap between the ACS being more democratic-leaning than the nothing in particular, I’m assuming that’s going to still hold up but to what extent.

[44:40] You know nothing in particulars have shifted toward Trump and whether, that has, you know, what does that mean looking into the future? To a large extent, you know, atheist agnostics and nothing in particular are very different in their politics because atheist agnostics tend to be more partisan in terms of, you know, they’re less likely to say that they are moderates, they’re less likely to say they are independents, and the nothing in particulars, I think it tracks with the whole sense of calling themselves moderates, even when you look at their issue positions, they’re not really moderate. I wouldn’t say they’re not moderate, but they’re definitely not conservative. They tend to be non-partisan, but I think it’s mostly part of that distrust of institutions that also translates into distrust of religion. I really appreciate you joining us today and talking about these issues, about the Pew survey, and I’ll have links to that up on the show notes, and I’ll have a link to your newsletter. And as we close out here, was there anything that you wanted us to know about that we haven’t mentioned or haven’t discussed that you think is important? No, I think it is important for us to discuss these issues.

[46:06] Because I don’t think These secular organizations have exploited fully the secular boom.

[46:16] Most people probably don’t know who AHA, FFRF, American Atheists are. And to what extent, we can reach out and grow these communities, because certainly there’s a need for community, but people are not finding it in churches.

[46:35] I think the other thing I want to talk about is just a brief announcement, if you don’t mind, which is I’m going to be at American Atheist Convention this year in a couple of weeks. So if you’re going to Minnesota, please say hi. I’m going to be there. I don’t bite. I’m a little shy, but don’t be afraid to come talk to me. I’m the like, you know, brown bearded bald guy. Are you presenting there or are you just going? Yeah, I’m going to be presenting there. About kind of like these same topic lines. Well, you again, I really do appreciate you joining us today and good luck in your future endeavors. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used, in our show notes on our website at secularleft.us. Secular Left is hosted, written, and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content. Send us your comments, either using the contact form on the website, or by sending us a note at comments at secularleft.us.

[48:02] Our theme music is Dank and Nasty, composed using Amplify Studio.

[48:11] See you next time. Thank you.