Catholic political activism is at a crossroads. For about 40 years, the pro-life and pro-family movements had a home within the Republican Party, while a small minority continued to fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.
Two Supreme Court rulings, one establishing the right to same-sex civil marriage and one repealing the right to abortion, have resulted in both political parties leaning to the left on the social issues we have fought over in the past. New cultural issues have emerged, some of which are the result of previously won or lost battles.
At the heart of all this is the historic re-election of Donald Trump, the first president in more than a century to win a second, non-consecutive term, and Vice President-elect JD Vance, a Catholic convert who knows and knows politics well can express new populism that has rearranged the priorities of the Republican Party.
What has changed? Where is it now? And what are the opportunities – and threats – for Catholic activism and evangelization in the coming years?
Almost a decade has passed since the US Supreme Court's decision in 2015 Obergefell versus Hodgeswho invented the legal fiction of same-sex marriage. As recently as 2008, leading Democrats such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton said they supported traditional marriage. Leading Republicans like Mitt Romney also did this in 2012. But today there is no major candidate from either party running for president who is citing a coup Obergefellthe way Republicans ran for decades in overthrow Roe v. Wade.
The campaign against it Roe v. Wadehowever, was ultimately successful. But bringing abortion back into the democratic process proved to be a wake-up call for the pro-life movement.
The American electorate was more pro-abortion than many realized. Many referendums at the state level were lost. The Democratic Party's journey from “safe-legal-and-rare” rhetorical moderation to “scream-your-abortion” extremism accelerated when Vice President Kamala Harris made a campaign stop at an abortion facility and abortions were performed at a special “mobile health facility.” Clinic” set up near the site of the Democratic National Convention.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Trump-Vance campaign has undone the Republicans' historic commitment to protecting unborn human life. Trump claimed it was no longer a federal matter, but criticized states whose proponents of the law he considered too restrictive. The pro-life plank was removed from the party podium. Vance said he supports the drugs used to perform most abortions today. Trump declared himself the “father” of IVF and called for public funding.
And yet many pro-life Catholics are cheering that Trump defeated Harris. Understandably. Whatever our differences with Trump 2.0, they pale in comparison to what we would have faced under a Harris administration.
Under Catholic President Joe Biden, federal law enforcement has been deployed against domestic opponents in a manner reminiscent of a Third World country. Pro-life activists felt the brunt of this Roes Ban lifted: Federal SWAT teams enter a young father's home at dawn because an alleged incident has already been dismissed by local authorities, and elderly lifers are given disproportionate prison sentences for peaceful protests.
Harris, meanwhile, had pursued real-life journalist David Daleiden when she was California's attorney general. As a U.S. senator, she tried to declare judicial candidates unfit to serve if they were members of the Knights of Columbus. Had she won, Harris' combination of authoritarianism and anti-Catholic hostility might have led to a federal crackdown on traditional believers that goes beyond even what we saw under Biden.
But there are more reasons to celebrate this election than just the fact that we dodged a bullet. Certainly for reasons of public order. Trump appointees say they want to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. Trump himself spoke to pro-life leader Lila Rose for two hours before the election, leading to her endorsement. Regardless of the changes in the pro-life movement's relationship with the Republican Party, there are still opportunities to make progress on the causes we have traditionally fought for.
However, our options do not end here. Paradoxically, the greatest opportunity of all for Catholic activists and evangelizers lies in the larger coalition that Trump was able to create by partially jettisoning us.
I’m talking about the “barstool conservatives.” The term, coined in 2021 by Catholic writer Matthew Walther and named after digital media company Barstool Sports, refers to young male voters whose “viewpoint is culturally rather than socially conservative.” They are against “wokeness” – that is, racial and gender politics – open borders, cancel culture, soft policies on crime, attacks on American heritage, and so on. But they are not religious and support (or are indifferent to) abortion, same-sex marriage, pornography, and marijuana. We see this anti-woke libertarianism in public figures like Bill Maher, Bari Weiss, Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Rogan, and others.
Understandably, Walther thinks her growing power within the Republican Party is a bad thing. In his 2021 article, he worried that most social conservatives would be “happy to make their peace” with Barstool Conservatives because social conservatives had “largely accepted” that “the major battles are finally lost” and that “the best thing what one can hope for.” for” is “a limited adaptation” in which we are left to our own devices and “cling to traditions that will seem as bizarre as those of the Pennsylvania Dutch in decades to come.”
In a Dec. 1 column for The New York TimesWalther says his premonition has been confirmed by the 2024 election. After all, didn’t Trump win precisely by running an effective pro-choice campaign?
Walther recognized certain trends with foresight. But where Walther sees these trends as cause for despair, I see opportunities. For those of us who do not accept that “the great battles are finally lost,” but only that some Battles are lost for now, there is much to do here. As political analyst Michael Barone has written:
“Trump's majority coalition is more vibrant and demotic than the last Republican presidential majority in 2004. It builds on the majorities in the Deep South won by former President Ronald Reagan, has the breakthroughs of former President George W. Bush in the Greater Appalachians expanded, and now in …” 2024 has among the descendants of Ellis Island immigrants who remained in the Northeast and those who got there via I-95 and I-85 have slipped, the South Atlantic is making its own gains.”
Barone's “yeastier” coalition consists of Walther's Barstool Conservatives. Walther is disappointed with those he spoke to in the bars of rural Michigan. My experience in the bars where “the descendants of the Ellis Island immigrants who remained in the Northeast” live was completely different.
I grew up with these guys. I've known her all my life. They never shared my religious beliefs. Twenty years ago they thought I was crazy for fighting against the invention of same-sex marriage. But then COVID happened. The lockdown happened. Joe Biden happened. And something has changed.
Wokeness has turned them into cultural conservatives, especially when it comes to gender. No, it hasn't turned them into social conservatives, at least not yet. But they wonder how we got here. In many cases they are the ones who turn to me. They will tell me that they still support same-sex marriage, and a short time later, when discussing transgenderism, they will tell me that I should feel vindicated for fighting the history of transgenderism.
I think this kind of thing is happening all over the country. Or at least that it could happen when we trigger it. Anti-woke libertarians have noted that Catholics and conservative Christians in general have been on the front lines fighting these things all along. They're not sure what to make of it yet. But they know there is something there. They chew through it.
And that, in my opinion, is why Trump's coalition is more “yeasty” than Bush's in more ways than one. This is not just about building a political coalition. Why should we assume, with Walther, that it is the Barstool conservatives who will influence the social conservatives? Why not the other way around?
I feel like there's a real chance that we can influence them. With our Barstool friends, who are far more accessible than, say, the Kamala crowd, we have a new mission field for evangelization.
That is the task that lies before us. Certainly for the causes we fight for. But above all for the gospel. There is a new mission field for the “new evangelization” that the Church keeps pushing on us.
So stay yeasty, my friends. Your Barstool friends want to hear from you.
Peter Wolfgang is managing director of Connecticut Family Institute.