- Good evening everyone.
My name is Shaun Casey.
I'm director of the Berkley Center
for Religion, Peace and World Affairs
here at Georgetown University.
It's my job to welcome
all of you on behalf
of the University and
particularly John Carr
and the Initiative on
Catholic Social Thought
and Public Life at Georgetown here.
We have a remarkable evening lined up.
My job is simply to say hello,
say a few words and sit down
and let the rodeo begin.
Which John is gonna
start in just a moment.
We have a number of cosponsors in addition
to the Initiative of Catholic
Social Though and Public Life
here, we'd like to thank
the Institute for Politics
and also Public Service at Georgetown
and the Democracy Fund.
The purpose of our event tonight,
Faith and the Faithful
in the Democratic Party
is to look at the role of faith
and roles of the faithful in US politics,
which are often misunderstood
today in the collective.
This topic generates
confusion and conflict
and as religious communities change,
political leaders and parties evolve,
it gets even more complicated
and harder to understand.
This is the third in a three part series
to explore the intersection of faith,
politics, and public
life and it will focus
specifically on the Democratic party.
Now as somebody who's worked for both God
and Caesar over the course
of my checkered career,
I've been asked to offer
just a few brief reflections
having sat on both sides
of that great divide.
Let me begin by speaking theologically.
I'm trained as a theological ethicist,
in two broad points here.
Number one, no political party,
and I'm speaking as a
Christian theologian,
no political party embodies
the whole Christian gospel.
Despite what you might have heard
from one of the political parties.
Secondly, having said that,
I believe Christians are
called as Gaudium et spes,
the last document of the
Second Vatican Council argues,
we are called to read the signs
of the times in light of the gospel.
So even though no political
agenda embodies the whole
of Christian belief,
never the less we are to
pursue things like love,
and justice, and the common good,
but we have to discriminate
and we have to use the gift
of the virtue of prudence
to make up our minds.
To read the times as they are.
Now a few years ago I
actually wrote a book
on the role of religion in the
1960 presidential campaign,
and I came up with four political maxims.
I'm gonna read those to you then
I'm gonna sit down and shut up.
I had four pieces of advice
for contemporary religious groups
and for contemporary politicians
at the intersection of
religion and politics.
The first one is, if you're a candidate
and you don't understand the
nature of your opposition,
particularly among religious communities,
it's your duty to go,
and learn, and listen
to what people of deep faith who disagree
with you have to think.
And not to be afraid to
have those conversations
because if you don't show up,
there can be no conversation.
There can be no democracy.
So you have to be courageous,
and maybe this is harder for Democrats
to do today than for Republicans.
I'll let the panelists debate that.
Number two, a lot of times,
politicians are tempted
to clandestinely organize religious groups
and raise money and I think
that's bad democratic form.
Interact with religious
communities transparently.
In terms of Ecclesiastical advice,
the third piece of advice is:
it's a good thing that faith communities
are politically independent.
That's good for faith communities
but that's also good
for Democratic polity.
One of the tasks of faith communities is
to remind the state and politicians
of its proper functions.
To provide for the common
good of the nation,
to uphold justice not
only for its citizens
but for everyone in the world.
To provide for the welfare
of the dispossessed,
to strive for peace in the world.
And that requires faith communities
to maintain some critical distance
from the state and the politicians.
So any kind of interaction has to be
on a basis of an ad hoc relationship
that's always subject to renegotiation.
Permanent covenants
and permanent alliances
between political parties
and faith groups always leads to mischief.
Both for democracy and for the
health of faith communities.
And so finally, politicians who
are the ones who are tempted
to try to build these religious groups
and to deepen the permanent alliances,
it rests primarily on the
faith communities themselves
to maintain independence
in their alliances.
So that's my two cents worth,
the panels get to debate that
and a thousand other propositions today
and I'm so excited that they're here.
Let me say a couple of closing remarks
about the purpose of the Initiative.
It's in its 5th year,
the Initiative on Catholic
Social Thought and Public Life,
and it's organized more than 40 gatherings
and it's been attended by
more than 16,000 people.
And it's become a
respected place of dialogue
in the applications of
Catholic social thought
to key national and global issues.
And it hopes to encourage a new generation
of Catholic lay leaders
to become salt, light,
and leaven to use the biblical language,
in public life.
I admire what John has done,
it's really remarkable
I think in five years
what you've accomplished
here going from zero
to where you are today.
The Initiative strives to be a vital sign
of Georgetown's Catholic and
Jesuit identity in action.
John himself is probably
no stranger to folks here.
Prior to founding and
directing the Initiative
he served for over 20
years as the director
of the Department of Justice,
Peace and Human Development
at the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops.
He held a residential fellowship
at the Institute of Politics
of Harvard University
during the 2012-2013 academic year.
A very tough job but someone had to do it
and I'm sure you had a good time.
He previously served as executive director
of the White House Conference on Families
and is director of the
National Committee for Full Employment.
So please join me in welcoming John Carr.
(applause)
- I apologize for the
delay in getting started.
You've all come out on a warm evening
and after we solve the religion problem
of the democratic party
we're gonna solve traffic
in Washington,
because one of our panelists is stuck.
And then we just got word
that Maria Therea Kumar
had an emergency and she
is boarding an airplane
in an hour to respond to that.
The rest of us will try and fill in,
we look forward to Michael
Wear joining us shortly.
I sort of imagine one of my
right wing friends emailing me
and saying, "It would
be a cold day in hell
before Georgetown had a panel
on Faith in the Democratic Party."
Well it's actually a hot
evening in Washington.
(laughter)
But, we are gonna have a
really important discussion
about faith and the Democratic Party
with some remarkable voices.
And the only thing hotter
than the temperature
is the debate
that is the example of where Faith
and the Faithful outta make a difference.
I'm sure all of you are familiar,
sadly from my perspective,
with this situation where
families are being separated
as they enter this country
and young children are being
taken away from their parents.
And it is no accident that
before the politicians stepped forward,
religious leaders from
across the spectrum,
Catholic bishops, yes,
but in the evangelical community,
the African American, of
course the Latino community
stood up and said not only is this unwise,
this is wrong.
And then we had the frankly, bizarre scene
of the Attorney General and
the White House Press Secretary
practicing theology without a license.
(laughter)
Trying to justify this
and ignoring
the fundamental message
of the Word of God about
welcoming the stranger,
caring for the children,
and measuring our lives by how
we treat the least of these.
So that is a good example of where faith
in public life has come together
and to their great credit,
leaders of the Democratic
Party have stepped up
and now some Republicans have stepped up.
I find it just amazing that
former First Lady, Laura Bush,
has chosen I think her
first op ed to jump up here.
But all is not well in terms
of the Democratic Party and religion.
There was a time, I show my bias,
I'm Irish and Catholic,
I always say I'm a product
of a mixed marriage,
my mother from Republican family,
my dad from a Democratic family.
But that sort of came with the
heritage in our Irish family
and we were aligned very much
with the Democratic Party.
It reminds me of a story
you may have heard me tell
or E.J. Dionne tell of a woman,
Mrs. O'Reilly in Chicago.
She loved her faith, her family,
and the Democratic Party,
not necessarily in that order.
And on election day, her son,
who had moved to the suburbs,
and had become a Republican,
much to her dismay,
came back to take her to the polls.
And they argued as they always do.
And he said, "Mother,
if Jesus Christ himself
came back as a Republican,
you wouldn't vote for him."
And she looked at him and said,
"Well why would he change
his party affiliation
(laughter)
after all these years?"
Well that may be true for Mrs. O'Reilly
but it's not true for a lot
of religious voters who have
become somewhat disenchanted
with the Democratic,
some have left, some are uneasy.
Some have found their voice
in the Democratic Party
and if Maria Theresa were here,
she would say quite clearly
is the Democratic Party is the place
for religious people to speak
about issues of poverty,
and health care, and human
rights, and women's rights,
and LBGTQ rights, and all the rest.
But, that's not a unanimous view.
And so.
What is going on?
We're gonna talk about that.
One of the things that's going on,
I think Elizabeth will
help us understand this,
there is a question of whether
our faiths shapes our politics,
or whether it's the other way around.
In fact, what we're probably gonna hear,
that in a lot of ways,
it's not what we believe
that shapes what we do,
it's in some ways who we are.
What are economic
status, our ethnic group,
our prejudices, our party,
our ideology that shapes
our political behavior
more than our principles.
The Democratic Party, which used to be,
and this will be controversial,
used to be the vehicle I
think for expression of this,
looks to be, at least to me,
heading in a somewhat different direction.
A coalition less of working class,
immigrant, Irish, Polish,
white working class
but also Latinos, African Americans,
and teachers and union members,
but now seems to be
moving towards a coalition
that is more of educated
and cultural elites,
singles and seculars,
I once heard one one of
the consultants talk about.
And the continuing support
of the African American
and Latino communities.
And it's a party that is
focused more on identity,
but seems not to be
focusing on the identity
and the inclusion of voters
who take their identity
from their religious faith as a reason
to get involved in politics.
Now I know everybody can argue about that.
Mark Shields was with us the
other night at another event,
and he said you can tell the
health of an organization,
a church, or a political party,
by whether they're looking
for heretics or converts.
And one question tonight
is, is the leadership
of the Democratic Party
looking for converts,
are they looking to engage and persuade?
Are they listening and
learning, as Shaun said?
Or are they proposing an agenda
that people have to fit in to?
And there's been a cost for that.
Several people on this panel worked
for President Obama's election.
Since he was elected the Democratic Party
has lost 900 state legislative seats.
It has lost 12 governors,
69 house members, and 13 senators.
32 states have Republican legislatures,
14 have Democratic legislatures.
While in some ways, the
Democratic Party feels confident
that history and demography
is moving its way,
it's not here yet.
This is a party that lost to Donald Trump,
which isn't a statement of health.
So, with that happy news,
I wanna turn to our panel,
introduce them briefly
and then, ask them the question.
The Atlantic had a headline:
The Democratic Party's religion problem.
My question is, does the Democratic Party
have a religion problem,
if it does what is it?
Where does it come from?
And later on we'll talk about
what they can do with it.
So let me begin by introducing Elizabeth.
Elizabeth taught me how
to pronounce her name
and I'm going to butcher it.
Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac.
Close?
- [Elizabeth] Very close.
- Elizabeth comes to us from
the Pew Research Center,
the place to go for data on this.
She grew up in Philadelphia,
I ask you not to hold that against her.
She still roots for the Phillies,
that's two strikes.
She got a masters in
international affairs.
There are two things that I learned
about Elizabeth that
are really interesting.
She used a Pew Center report
in doing a paper in college,
and when she graduated she applied
and got a job.
So work on those college papers.
And secondly she met her husband
at a softball game on the Mall.
So take advantage of the
softball on the Mall.
(laughing)
She has done a lot of work
on the religious landscape,
on Latino voters,
on Jewish and Muslim voters.
Elizabeth, could you give us
a little bit of an overview
on sort of what is the situation
of Faith and the Faithful
in the Democratic Party?
- Sure.
As with any group,
with any large group like
the Democratic Party,
it is this coalition
of many smaller groups.
It's not necessarily one block
of voters, as we've seen.
You do have a large share
of religious nones, n-o-n-e-s,
the atheist, agnostic,
nothing in particular.
You do have a large share
who identify as that,
about a third of
Democratic Party are nones.
But you also have some
of these smaller groups.
You have a small share of
white evangelical Protestants,
of white mainline Protestants,
and you have a pretty steady
share of black Protestants.
That is, this group has
been relatively steady
over the past couple decades.
So while the composition,
the religious composition
of the Democratic Party
has been changing slightly due
to other demographic changes,
this part of the coalition has
remained relatively stable.
And as we've seen,
there are also other smaller groups,
about one or two percent
of the Democratic Party
are Jewish, are Muslim,
and a variety of other smaller faiths.
So it is this wide range here in the party
and that is possibly some of
what could be contributing
to, maybe, not a disconnect
but a lack of consensus on
some of these religious issues.
Because there are so many different
religions represented here,
and so that's one of the
areas that we can see here,
just this wide variety
of religious groups.
- Okay. Can you talk about,
Pew has this typography
that I find just amazing
of American politics.
You have these clever names
and the different coalitions
within each party.
Pew has a category called
the Devout and Diverse
within the Democratic Party.
Can you talk about who those people are
and what contribution
they make to the party?
- Sure so the Devout and Diverse,
and we did try to be clever
with some of these names,
we wanted them to stick, right?
So this one clearly stuck
so I will say congrats
to our politics team for that.
So, the Devout and Diverse,
they make up about nine percent or so
of the population overall,
and of registered voters overall.
So they are a relatively small group.
But like it says they are diverse in
both their race and ethnicity,
so they are what we call
a majority minority party.
About three in ten are African American,
about 16% or so are Hispanic,
and maybe seven percent
along those lines are
of another race or mixed race.
So there is this large racial diversity
within the Devout and Diverse.
The majority are Democratic
or lean toward the Democratic Party
but that's not the entire party.
There's still about a quarter
who lean toward the GOP.
So it's not just a monolith there.
And they have these,
it's not just diverse
in race and ethnicity
but it's diverse in
some of their views too.
So they do hold a lot of
traditionally Democratic views.
They are very similar to
Democrats overall on feelings
toward the social safety net,
and furthering racial
equality in the United States.
But they are a little
bit more conservative
on measures of global engagement,
views of business regulations,
attitudes on homosexuality
and some attitudes towards
immigrants as well.
As far as the Devout part,
they, a majority about,
more than six in ten,
say that it is necessary to believe in God
in order to be moral.
And about half or so are Protestant,
including about a quarter
who are black Protestants.
And then there are about
an even share of Catholics,
about one in five are Catholic
and another one in five are
religiously unaffiliated.
So it is this very, kind of wide ranging,
covering all the bases
group that are included
in this Devout and Diverse category here.
- It's interesting to me when some
of us look at the Democratic Party
and say it's increasingly a secular party,
when in fact that is the
building block of who they are
and how they are gonna succeed,
if they are to succeed.
I have a feeling, Justin,
that might be your category.
You bring some diversity to this panel
and I think you're devout.
That's a joke.
(laughing)
He's more devout than I am.
Justin is an Atlanta lawyer,
he's a political strategist,
he is the founder and
president of the AND Campaign.
I've known Justin for a few months
and I deeply resent him
because the organization I wanted to found
would be called the AND Campaign.
Which brings the pieces of
Catholic social teaching together
and he beat me to it.
He's already got the website,
and he's actually got a lot of followers.
And you can tell us this story,
of how you came to found
that group and why.
He went to school at Vanderbilt.
He played football, went
to Vanderbilt Law School.
Born and raised in
Denver, now is in Atlanta.
And his, help leaders there get elected.
And then he got elected himself as
an Obama delegate to the
Democratic Convention
and had some experience.
The AND Campaign, you can
explain it better than I do,
tries to bring, as the name suggests,
both social justice and moral
convictions to politics.
And particularly the Democratic Party.
One person who wrote about Justin said,
"He and the AND Campaign
bring courage, kindness,
and unshakeable faith to politics."
So, tell us a little bit
about your background
and why you founded the AND Campaign
and why you think it's necessary
in today's Democratic Party.
- Sure, thanks John.
So, as John said, I've been in politics,
running campaigns and
things of that nature
for almost a decade.
In doing that in urban politics you're
in a very progressive space,
and so there were
certain issues that I had
trouble really reconciling with my faith.
Being asked to run,
handling people's campaigns
and their platforms,
and just knowing that certain
things were off limits.
I didn't really think that
was fair or understand it
because the people that
I go to church with,
a lot of the people that I'm around,
are not necessarily secular progressives
so it was hard to
understand why everyone had
to fit into that box.
But it seemed like we were
being forced into that box.
And so the AND Campaign
basically came about when
I got with some other
people that I knew and said,
"This needs to change.
Why is it that we see social justice
and biblical values as
mutually exclusive?"
When I look at the walk of Jesus,
when I look through the gospel,
I see biblical values and social justice
in that social justice is a biblical value
along with other moral imperatives.
And so the AND Campaign
literally means compassion
and conviction, bringing the love
and the love and truth
of the gospel together,
and letting people know
that they can work together
rather than being two things
that we tend to separate.
As if the left is for love
and the right is for truth.
The truth of the matter
is if you don't have both
together than you're missing
something on both sides.
So that's basically where
the AND Campaign came from.
- What happened when you ran?
You're obviously a skillful
political operative,
you were successful.
Did people welcome this?
Did this upset people?
How was it received, both
in your own community
and among the leaders
of the Democratic Party?
- So the first time I ran was in 2012,
and I was really just tagging along.
Some of the older elected
officials in Atlanta
wanted someone younger to
run on the slate with them
and I was honored and they asked me,
so I was kind of in the background.
When I ran in 2016 it was a
little bit of a different story.
So I had a group called,
at the time it was called
Crucifix and Politics.
(laughter)
And I said you know what,
we're in John Lewis' district,
I said you know what,
I'm gonna run on a biblical platform.
So when I gave my speech,
I didn't really even say
anything about the party,
I just talked about how
the party can't be one
that excludes people of faith.
I talked about issues
such as sanctity of life,
and all those things
and how they don't change
for biblical Christians,
but we still deserve to be here.
And it was an interesting conversation.
Actually there were a couple
groups after I got done,
we won, the biggest thing,
we won by huge numbers.
We almost doubled or
tripled anybody else's votes
in one of the most
progressive places in Atlanta.
But after it was done,
there were people who
tried to get me removed
from the Georgia delegation,
because of what I said
about biblical values.
Now thankfully, I anticipated that
and I taped the whole thing,
so they couldn't move my words around.
But it was a difficult conversation,
and unfortunately there was an attack
just based on bringing
a biblical prospective.
We ended up winning
which I think said a lot,
but there was also an attack there
so you see the dynamic
in that small example.
- Yeah. I'm really struck,
Crucifix and Politics,
the Devout and Diverse,
you should have been around
when we named the Initiative.
(laughter)
- That is about the most boring
name we could come up with.
Obviously, it was a committee.
Well that's quite a story.
Somehow I can't get used to
the idea of you tagging along.
Seems to be you might be a leader.
Michael, welcome.
We said in your absence that
after we solve the problem
of the Democratic Party
we'd solve the problem
of traffic
- Yes.
in Washington.
So we're glad you're with us.
I'm going to turn next to
Cecil, president Roberts,
Cecil is a fourth generation?
Sixth generation mine worker.
I read where two of your grandfathers
died in the mines.
He's been elected four times,
five times as president of
the United Mine Workers.
Some of you are old enough to remember
when that was a dangerous thing.
Not only to work in the mines
but to run as an advocate
of democracy in the mineworkers campaign.
His leadership has been
recognized by the AFLCIO,
he's a vice president,
he's a member of the executive committee.
When I talk to our
friends over at the AFLCIO
and I said, "We wanna
have a real discussion
about Faith and the Faithful
in the Democratic Party."
They said, "You have to get Cecil.
He is your guy."
They in fact thought you were a minister,
turns out you're just a preacher.
(laughter)
But they said you could preach.
One of the stories I heard
about Cecil was 20 years ago.
He and Jesse Jackson
went through communities
in Appalachia to talk about injustice,
racial injustice,
injustice against workers
and what they had in common.
I was very struck that the
president of the Mine Workers
from West Virginia won the
Martin Luther King Award
from the Rainbow Coalition.
He has two children, three grandsons,
two granddaughters.
- And one great-grandson.
- Wow.
- I'm old.
(laughter)
- Diverse and Devout.
How is it that
the party that has been
for so many decades the
voice of working people,
often working people who have their union
and their church as the
bulwark of their lives,
seemingly has less clout,
less influence in the parties these days.
How do your members, how do
you see the place of faith
and the faithful in the Democratic Party?
- Let me make a couple of
observations if I might.
First of all I'm a couple of things here.
I'm the second coal miner
been on this campus I think,
Rich was here so I guess
that makes me second.
So, the other thing is I
might be the only person
on this panel that's
been arrested repeatedly
for nonviolent civil disobedience,
which I'm very proud of by the way.
Traveling with Reverend
Jackson back in the nineties
and I'm very proud of that relationship.
Because I consider labor leaders
and civil rights leaders
being the same thing.
Because that's an
obligation I think everybody
in this room should embrace.
Because all of us should believe
that all of God's children
should have equal
opportunity in this society
and that's something I firmly believe in.
The third thing is, I
appear to be the only person
on this panel that doesn't have an accent.
(panel and audience laughter)
Let me explain that,
God talks like me, so.
If you don't believe that
then someday when you get
to the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter says,
"Yall get in the pickup truck, we're going
up to the Pearly Gates here shortly."
You understand what I'm saying right?
- I'm gonna say I know Cecil.
(laughter)
- Hopefully I'm still in
good stead at that point.
Let me just point
something out if I might.
All my life, growing up in the coal camps
of West Virginia, when I was a child
and teenager in high school,
when I was younger I'd
never met a Republican.
Because everybody was a Democrat,
and every one of those
coal company houses,
you could go into them
and there'd be three pictures on the wall.
One would be John L. Lewis,
the greatest labor leader that ever lived.
Franklin Roosevelt, which
the miners always believed
that he gave them a right
to middle class life style.
And Jesus.
That is not the case now,
and why is that?
I think that,
the perspective of people,
particularly in Appalachia.
Those of you that don't know
anything about Appalachia,
where I come from, it's been a hard,
difficult time for most of our existence.
We've had people come
in, like John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy,
what we talked about
previously to try to lift us up
into a middle class life style.
The one thing that allowed
that to happen was the
United Mine Workers of America.
And I'd point out we were the largest,
most powerful union in 1935
and we didn't just enjoy
that for ourselves.
We went out to the steel towns,
and Pittsburgh, and across this country,
at auto towns across this country.
We feel that we built the middle class
because we offered up the opportunity
for everybody to enjoy
the middle class lifestyle
and to join a union
and to be able to stand up for themselves.
One of the problems we
have in our society today,
maybe the biggest one is that
the powerful are too powerful
and the rich are too rich,
and that is the issue.
"Too few folks got too much money"
is a simple way to say
that where I'm from.
What I feel, and I think many feel,
particularly in Appalachia
is that sometimes people,
even in the Democratic Party who are good,
decent people make comments
and take positions that are
extremely painful to those
of us who come from that area.
I think some people think we're stupid.
If you've got an accent like me,
I know we talk about
not discriminating against people
because of their race, creed,
color, national origin.
You could also sometimes
discriminate against people
because of where they're from.
Just as soon as you find out somebody's
from eastern Kentucky or
south western Virginia,
southern West Virginia,
first thing that comes
in some people's mine is,
"They're probably not too swift."
And they probably don't understand
these complicated issues of our time.
So that's a form of discrimination.
And we've had two presidential candidates.
I've worked hard in
2008 for President Obama
but he did make a comment in California,
an extremely painful,
and talked about us embracing our Bible.
I don't understand a man
as intelligent as him,
what's wrong with people,
I imagine many people in this room
embrace their Bible every single night
and I don't see that as a problem.
I don't see that as something wrong.
I see that as something to be
complimented not criticized.
And then talking about,
"Well they like their guns."
Yes, we love to hunt in Appalachia
and people have been doing that forever.
So sometimes when people make comments
it's like they're looking
down their nose at us
at the same time they
ask us to vote for them,
and to stand up for them,
and work ourselves to death for them
and that's painful and it's hurtful.
And then the last candidate we had said
something extremely
unartful to say the least,
that was her explanation for it, said,
"We're gonna put a lotta more
coal miners out of work."
Maybe that's what's going to happen,
but one thing I would say is that people
have taken positions that
put coal miners out of work.
That's one thing but where is the position
that you're taking to
put people back to work?
Where is the position you're talking
to defend our healthcare?
Where is the position you're
taking to defend our pensions?
It doesn't exist.
So sometimes,
over and over and over again,
we hear the same thing.
Stand up for us, we're
the party of workers.
Well how about proving that
you're the party of workers
as opposed to telling us that
you're the party of workers.
There's a great difference
between saying something
and doing something.
You will be judged by how
you treat the least of these.
You will be judged here
on earth by what you do,
not what you say.
- Wow.
- Sorry to get on a high horse.
(laughter)
- You are a preacher.
(audience clapping)
In our family it was a little different.
We had a picture of John F. Kennedy,
Pope John XXIII,
and now we'd have a
picture of Pope Francis.
Sometimes people think we might not
have the right pictures on the wall.
Michael is a remarkable person,
he runs a new outfit,
let me get the name of
this right cause again,
you had a committee put
this together as well.
Public Square Strategies,
but you probably know him for his book,
which started off,
well it didn't start off but
really brought into focus
this debate about the religion problem
the Democrats may have.
It's "Reclaiming Hope:
Lessons Learned in the Obama
White House About the
Future of Faith in America."
Nice, catchy, short, clever title there.
(laughter)
- Not as catchy as the Initiative
on Catholic Social Thought
and Public Life.
- We may have had the same consultants.
(laughter)
Which means none!
He was the religious outreach director
for the Obama reelection campaign.
And it's worth pointing out that's the
last time the Democrats
won the presidency.
- It is. It is.
- He worked in the Obama
Faith Based Office,
Joshua Dobouis was part of one
of our sessions on this earlier.
He was one of the youngest staffers
in the history of the White House.
This is really interesting to me.
He's a proud evangelical,
I don't know what pictures were
on your wall when you grew up,
but I don't think there were any popes.
That's just my guess.
(laughter)
The Catholic group of
millennials named Michael the
"Millennial of the Year"
for the courage he had shown
in standing up for social justice
and values and human
life and human dignity.
So he's a proud person from Buffalo,
that takes some endurance as well.
Probably good preparation for the role
he plays in the party.
(laughter)
Tell us what that experience was like
and why you think the Democrats
have a religion problem.
- Well, working for President
Obama was an immense honor
and what was important was
his interest in and
engagement with religion
was embedded early in
his professional career.
Everyone knows he was community organizer,
not enough people know that
his first job as a community organizer
was funded by the Catholic Church.
And he was following a specific model
of community organizing that
was focused on churches.
So that all of their efforts
focused community organizing
on door to door knocking,
barber shops, all kinds of,
but his model was focused
exclusively on churches.
I've been reading David Garrow's biography
of the president, "Rising Star",
and I think for those who
think the know the president
but don't think faith had much
to do with his background,
if you read the first, it's a long book,
if you read the first 400,
500 pages of that book
you'll get a pretty good sense.
This was a part of who he was.
We all remember when he really launched
on the national stage in 2004,
he talked about the Awesome God
we serve in the blue states.
He talked about the fact,
I am my brother's keeper.
This was explicitly, he wasn't being,
it's important to understand,
he knew exactly what he was doing.
He wanted to send a message
that after eight years
of one model of religious outreach
that was promoted by the Republicans,
that he wasn't gonna let that vote,
he wasn't gonna cede
that vote to Republicans.
He wasn't gonna cede
that vote to John McCain.
In 2006 he, of course, gave the speech at
the Call to Renewal Conference
where he actually took the time
to lay out a comprehensive vision of faith
and public life for the American people.
Just like Democrats would
go to a women's conference,
or National Council of La Raza,
or NAACP he said, "Look,
we're a profoundly religious country
and religious people, like
any other constituency,
deserve to hear what the
president thinks of them."
Or what a candidate for a
president thinks of them.
Cecil's absolutely right,
David Plouffe writes
about the cling to religion comment
that the president made at
a San Francisco fundraiser.
What's important about that,
well one of the things
that's important about that,
I agree, let's just say it
didn't make my job any easier.
What was important about
that is he had built up
enough of a reservoir of trust
that he was able to get over that.
David Plouffe, in his book,
recounts a conversation
he overheard at a bar
I think in Pittsburgh
of a voter saying, "Maybe this is really
who Barack Obama is."
And the person sitting with him said,
"Well, I dunno, that doesn't sound like
the guy I've heard on the campaign trail
and the guy whose books I've read
and whose speeches I've heard,
maybe we outta give him another chance."
And that is essentially
what voters did in 2008,
what voters did in 2012.
But you have to work to build
up that reservoir of trust.
You have to do the interviews
with Christianity Today
and America Magazine and
go out to these communities
and speak to the Nation
Hispanic Prayer Breakfast
and make sure just like any other,
like this isn't too complicated.
Democratic faith outreach
is about policy, rhetoric,
and institutional systems
for engaging that community
just like any other community.
I think, John, what we've seen is,
the Democrats, this
didn't just start in 2016.
The Democrats are always
looking for the time
when they could declare God is dead.
And then they remember
he's alive after they lose
a couple times at the ballot box.
We don't need to just think
of Time and Newsweek covers
that have sort of sent this idea.
We had pollsters writing
that it was the end
of white Christian America
and declaring values voters were done.
We had a Clinton senior
advisor according, E.J. Dionne
say that the Clinton campaign
was going to be the first
to run a post-Christian campaign.
Well that's a great
strategy except for the fact
that 70% of Americans consider
themselves to be Christian.
Maybe that's aspirational
from their perspective,
but what kind of data
minded campaign looks
at a country that
identifies as 70% Christian
and says, "We're gonna run
the first post-Christian campaign."
A losing one, that's the kind.
And so Democrats have the opportunity,
as they always have,
and especially in this time
and hopefully we'll get into this
with the current president that we have,
to get back in on the
conversation about values, John.
To get back in in the
conversation about faith.
But what it requires is not one offs.
It doesn't just require pointing
out how bad Donald Trump is.
They actually have to show that they care
about the faith community,
the diverse faith community
in all of it's diversity,
not just Christians but
including Christians,
Christians speaking to them directly,
speaking to Catholics directly,
speaking to evangelicals directly.
That'll be a big part of doing this.
The last thing I'll say is,
everyone talks about the 81% number.
81% of white evangelicals
voted for Donald Trump.
Especially if you're a Democrat,
if you're going to talk
about the 81% number,
you also have to talk
about the 16% number.
Which is that Hillary Clinton only won 16%
of white evangelicals.
Only 16%.
That's less than John Kerry,
that's less than Barack Obama,
that's 5 points less
than Barack Obama in 2012
after he had been accused of
engaging on a war on religion,
and after he had been the first
sitting president to endorse gay marriage,
and he still got 5 points more
of the white evangelical
vote than Hillary Clinton.
You really have to be engaging in serious
political malpractice to get
16% of white evangelicals.
And the reason for that is that she sent
the very clear message to those voters
that she didn't even want their vote.
That she didn't care about their vote.
At the very same time
Donald Trump was saying,
"I'm the only one who cares about you.
If you elect me I'll protect you,
if you don't you'll be left to the dogs."
And Hillary Clinton basically said, "Yes."
And that's a major problem
for the Democratic Party
if we're gonna be a national party
that's thriving in state houses,
that's taking back Congress,
and that takes back the
White House in 2020.
- I explained, Michael, before you arrived
that Maria Theresa got in touch with us
and had an emergency so she's
on an airplane right about now.
If she were here she would
echo some of these themes
but she would pick up some others.
One, that white Catholics
may be having some problems
with the Democratic Party
but Latino Catholics have
kept the Catholic community
as the bellwether in American politics.
That split almost 50/50 as a community.
And one of my fears is
that people like me,
who talk about the Catholic vote,
first of all in E.J. Dionne's
mind there is no Catholic vote
and it's really important,
(laughter)
that we're talking about
the white Catholic vote.
Elizabeth, you've done
some work about Latinos
and politics and their faith.
Can you share a little
bit of those dynamics?
- Sure.
Some of the older,
the kind of Latino vote
that's a little bit older data
and not quite as relevant to some
of this most recent 2016 stuff.
But what we're looking
at with the Latino share
of the electorate,
or at least the Latino Catholic
share of the electorate
of the Democratic Party,
that is increasing.
Latino Catholics are becoming
somewhat more democratic
over the past decade,
while white Catholics are
becoming more Republican.
They are trending toward the GOP
and where the Democratic
Party is shifting,
this religious coalition is shifting,
they're losing white Catholics.
And some of that yes, is
the fact that Catholics,
as a part of the American
religious landscape overall,
are ticking down, they are
shrinking a little bit.
And that decline is somewhat
offset by the influx
of Latinos and Latino
Catholics in particular.
But that is where some of
the shift is coming from.
The rest of it, I do want to point out,
kind of to some of the points before that
we are talking about the
Democratic Party's religion problem
and that's clear and has
been a long time coming
and all of that.
But I want to make sure that we are not
discounting the fact that the majority
of the Democratic registered voters,
they are religious.
- Yep.
- So, majority of them
are not irreligious here
you have just about a third
who are religious nones.
That is a growing share but
it's also a growing share
of the American population as a whole.
While all of these concerns
are absolutely 100% valid,
I just want to make sure we are
not discounting these
religious folks in the party.
Which it does sound like
we're talking about,
do you feel discounted in the first place.
The Democratic Party is also
becoming somewhat less white.
So a lot of the religion
problem that we have seen
is among the white part
of the Democratic Party,
whereas a lot of the black
Protestants, Latino Catholics,
they're still highly religious
and they are still very much involved
in the Democratic Party.
- Let me follow up with that
and pretty soon we'll be
coming to your questions.
I'm sure they're a bunch of them.
Each of you in different ways,
in the labor movement,
as a Obama delegate and organizer
and campaign consultant,
Michael is a White House
Staffer and campaign guy.
Elizabeth's point is most of the
Democratic voters are religious
and their faith is a big
part of who they are.
Is that true of the
Democratic consultants,
the Democratic donors, the
elites within the party?
How did we end up with
that NARAL and Planned Parenthood have
a bigger voice in the priorities
of a Democratic White House
than the labor movement?
What is the gap between the people
you need to win elections with
and the people who run
elections and pay for elections?
What's your experience?
- Absolutely, the donor
class and sort of the,
I guess you could call
them the leadership class
within the Democratic Party,
consultant class, is very much out
of tune with the rest of the party.
The issue is and the reason
why they control things
and kind of the tone
and posture of the party
is because the control the reward
and punishment mechanism.
And we've kinda given that to them.
So they get to choose
who's gonna be in office,
who's not gonna be in office,
who's gonna get exposure,
who's not gonna get exposure,
and that is very problematic.
I think there's two different,
so some people say well the
party's gotten more progressive,
that's good,
but I think there's two
different kinds of progressive.
If I were to call myself a progressive,
I would be talking more
so the progressive era.
Where we're talking about
social programs for the poor,
we're talking about government
reform, workers rights,
you can even throw
criminal justice in there.
That's what I would be referring to.
I wouldn't be referring to what a lot
of people are not referring
to is secular progressivism.
Where you're talking more about the kind
of Western European
expressive individualism,
the affirmation of a
very permissive society.
There's really a split there.
I believe the donor class is on
that secular progressive side,
and unfortunately if
you look at the policy
and what we've been able to
get through and prioritize,
it seems like that secular
progressive side is really taking
over that definition and
kinda moving along with it.
But I think you're right
in your assessment.
- What's the labor movement's
voice in the party?
How do you see this?
- Well I think for many many
years the labor movement's
played a huge huge role
in the Democratic Party.
But part of the problem
here is the Democratic Party
considers us part of the Democratic Party,
and they take us, quite frankly,
I believe, for granted.
I've even had people say to me,
"Well where else you gonna go?"
How much enthusiasm
are you going to garner
from any group, anywhere,
anytime, or any place,
when the people asking for you help says,
"Where else you gonna go?
You gotta come to us
because you can't go over to the,
Republicans are not gonna
stand up for organized."
Which is true for the most part.
Understand something here.
There's a lot of reasons that
Donald Trump is president.
Most of those reasons are
because people have had it up to
about right here with politics
that have been comin our way,
day in and day out for 50 years.
So people have said, "What
are we gonna do here?
Elect another Democrat
or another Republican
and they're gonna do the exact same thing
over and over again?"
And if there's nothing
else that's happened,
Donald Trump has changed things
but unfortunately it's been a change
that is really really difficult
in many many ways obviously.
I'll try to be kind here.
Workers voted for him.
Working class folks
helped elect Donald Trump.
We can try to hide from that,
we can try to say it didn't happen,
we can try to sugar coat it.
But people who work for a
living felt more comfortable
with him than the Democratic candidate.
That's a fact.
You can do a lot of things in your life
but don't ignore reality
and don't ignore the truth.
Because you're doing the exact same thing
that we're criticizing the other side for.
The truth is that workers
voted for Donald Trump.
In many many areas of this country.
- Michael, where you and I
first got to know each other
we were working together
around the Affordable Care Act,
and that act passed because 64 Democrats
voted to keep the status quo.
That abortion would be legal, available,
but you didn't have to pay
for someone else's abortion.
There was no funding for abortion.
Of those 64 Democrats,
three of them are left.
- That's right.
- In the House of Representatives.
Some of that was the work
of Susan B. Anthony fund,
of the Republican Party,
some of that was the work
of Democrats who think
we're better off with a pure party.
That this is a matter of
fundamental principle.
Some of them think we'd be better off
without Joe Manchin.
- That's right.
- In West Virginia or Donnelly.
You've lived in that reality.
What are the attitudes?
Part of it's true, I mean.
These are fundamental principles,
we shouldn't compromise on our principles,
we're in charge, you're not.
How do you deal with those realities?
How can you break through
that kind of polarization
that allows more respect, frankly,
for alternative views
but also might allow
Democrats to actually win?
- Right.
Yeah so, a few things.
So you're right,
President Obama repeatedly affirmed Hyde
over the course of his presidency.
- Speak up a little bit.
- President Obama reaffirmed
Hyde a number of times.
- And Hyde Amendment for the audience is?
- Hyde Amendment is the provision
that prevents federal
funding for abortion.
The 2016 Democratic
platform for the first time,
the first time in the
Democratic Party's history,
proactively called for a
repeal the the Hyde Amendment.
First time ever.
Now you would think that,
well there are a lot of
ways to criticize that.
One would be you would think when
the other party is running,
a person with a questionable
sexual history himself.
Someone who hasn't expressed a commitment
to the prolife cause in his life,
that maybe we wouldn't want to.
And when Republicans control congress,
that maybe front lining a repeal
of the Hyde Amendment just isn't
the smart political thing to do.
Then you remember that
people like Bob Casey,
people like Heidi Heitkamp,
asked the party not to do this.
But they went over
their own member's heads
in some cases to do this.
Part of what happened was,
the prolife sort of activists side
has really conspired
with pro-choice activists
to create this bitter
polarization that we see.
When President Obama took office,
five months into his time as President,
he went to Notre Dame.
And usually when Democrats
go to religious venues,
especially Catholic venues,
they'll give a message on poverty,
they'll give a message on the environment.
Something we all generally agree on.
Instead, President
Obama went to Notre Dame
and gave a speech on abortion.
In the midst of protests he actually said,
"Let's find some common
ground on abortion."
And that launched a two,
two and a half year policy process,
that I was part of the small team.
Well it was a big team
but the small core team
that was working on it.
Where we met with prolife
and pro-choice groups
across the spectrum.
Concerned Women for America,
and NARAL had a seat at the table.
It was really an amazing thing
and I think at the outcome
of that was supposed
to be a broad policy agenda.
Imagine the press conference,
they had Cecil Richards
and Cardinal Dolan at it.
It woulda been a critical moment.
What happened was politics,
midterm elections,
actually made it so that,
Hillary Clinton was
asked in the third debate
about late term abortion.
The traditional Democratic response
for the last 30 years to that question,
A, woulda been the Supreme
Court's already ruled on that.
But B, it woulda been, we
want to make abortions,
as John said, safe, legal, and rare.
And what was great about the
moment that she missed was,
by the end of President Obama's term
the abortion rate was the lowest it's been
since Roe v. Wade.
How as a Democrat, do you get
a question that's pandering,
especially after Donald Trump talks
about his prolife values.
How do you get that question and not say,
"Well do you know what?
If you want to talk about prolife values,
as of today we have the
lowest abortion rate
in this country since Roe v. Wade."
Instead she actually made a
defense of late term abortion.
Which is insane.
The supreme court already ruled on it.
So we have this situation
where pro-choice activists
decided during Obama's time in office
that they thought his rhetoric,
treating abortion as a moral issue.
He said on numerous occasions,
"No matter what you think
about the legality of it,
abortion is a tragic moral issue."
They said that that was
too big of a concession.
That actually, if you concede anything,
even on the rhetorical front
which safe, legal, rare
is a concession for them
on the rhetorical front.
Then you're actually giving
something to the prolife side.
Then of course, on the prolife side,
they said, "We don't
wanna give any bona fides
to people like Joe
Donnelly who may not vote
to overturn Roe v Wade,
but we'll vote for a 20 week ban.
We don't want to give
any bona fides to members
that would vote to keep
the Hyde Amendment,
even if they may not
vote for a 20 week ban."
So you have this really,
you have both parties representing views
that leave out a majority of the country.
Majority of the country thinks that there
should be more restrictions on abortion
while you should keep it legal,
and neither of our
parties support that view.
- If you think we're just trashing the
Democratic Party and that's unfair.
How many of you were here for
the Republican discussion a month ago?
President Trump did not do very well
on that discussion
(laughter)
it would be fair to say.
We're gonna ask people
to invite, ask questions.
And I'm gonna ask one while
we're setting up the mics.
A lot of this is focused
on cultural values
and respect and how people talk.
One of my concerns is that Democrats seem
to have lost their voice.
When you think about environmental justice
or racial justice or economic justice,
or immigrant justice or global justice,
ultimately this may
require some sacrifice.
It certainly calls people to compassion.
- That's right.
And that used to be
the go to place for the Democratic Party.
And the party seems to
have lost its voice.
When you talk about climate change,
coal miners are gonna be affected.
So where is the compassion?
You don't say everybody's
gonna make wind turbines.
You say there's gotta
be a way to take care
of the people who've been
providing energy here.
If you're gonna talk about racial justice,
for most of us the way
we overcome our prejudice
and our racism in part
is because of our faith,
which calls us to something better.
Democrats I'm afraid, I'm
gonna throw this to Justin,
have lost their voice in
appealing to people's faith
and their morality.
It's always their self interest.
It's always about
increasing the middle class.
You have a different
message for the party.
- Yeah, absolutely. Well I'll start off
by saying something
positive just so we can get
that in there.
(laughter)
I still do believe that
the Democratic Party
better serves those in need
and is more compassionate
than the Republican Party.
And that's why I remain
to be in the party.
I think that does need to be said.
To your point about the tone
and what we're asking people to do
and how we're going about it.
I think the civil rights
movement has something
to say about this.
Because the civil rights
movement, as we know,
was about changing policy.
It was about changing systems.
But they knew something else
that I think we've lost today
in all of our enlightenment.
It was that there was
something bigger than that.
And that the worst thing
that could happen to you
wasn't that you'd lose the policy
or that you failed to change the system.
The worst thing that could
happen to you would be
for you to allow your opposition
or the situation to have a
negative impact on your spirit.
Because you could win everything else,
and if the way that you
interacted with people,
treated your neighbor or the way you went
about things was wrong then you lost.
And I think the Democratic
party really needs
to understand that if Trump gets out,
is kicked out in 2020,
and at the end of the day we talked
to Republicans differently,
we look at our neighbor differently.
Then we haven't won anything.
Until we understand that there is
a spiritual component to all this.
And as Christians we should
certainly understand that.
There is a spiritual component,
and that was the reason that
the civil rights movement
could have people spitting on them dogs,
fire hoses and all those things,
but what you don't do is
let them kill you spirit.
You may lose on that day,
but you don't let them kill your spirit.
And until we get that back
I think we're gonna be in trouble.
(audience clapping)
- The floor is yours,
come to the microphone.
Identify yourself, I'll
repeat the line I always use.
Please put your question
in the form of a question.
(laughter)
- Who's got somethin to
say or I'll keep asking.
If nobody's running for the mic,
doesn't Trump give the Democrats
a huge opportunity here?
This is the least religious,
most religiously illiterate,
most libertarian in terms
of his personal life.
Isn't there a moment here?
- Oh absolutely, absolutely.
Democrats, I think that
there are some sort
of defensive things that
they need to take care of.
But this should be a offensive moment
where they are embracing
and inviting religious
communities to the table.
Senator Bennet and Senator
Brown from Ohio have a bill
that UNC Welmington professors say
would cut child poverty in half.
I've been looking, waiting, for the time
when they're gonna invite faith leaders
to take ownership over
a proposal like that.
And it hasn't come.
I've been waiting for the moment.
Speaker Pelosi actually held
an amazing press conference
with religious leaders around DACA.
But that was back in March
when it was crunch time.
Why aren't those meetings
being held today?
Why weren't they being
held nine months ago?
To actually just again,
like we would with any other community,
invite them to take
ownership over the aspects
of the Democratic agenda that they embrace
and there are many.
The electoral benefits are clear,
especially on labor issues and
issues of the working poor.
It's not just the policy
but when you invite people
to come as they are,
as religious people to these issues.
Faith and Public Life did work
around the Ohio labor
referendum I think in 2010
and showed a significant
double digit jumps
among white evangelicals
and white Catholics
when you reference things
like the Golden Rule.
When you reference Matthew 25.
When you said that this was
about Christian compassion.
I think that this is a major
opportunity for Democrats.
I think people like Senator
Chris Coons in Delaware.
Even Senator Kamala Harris,
it did not miss my attention
where she decided to
go to deliver, I think,
her first national message
appeal was to a church.
And so, Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren,
both appeared, and Joe Kennedy,
both appeared at religious
gatherings in the last few weeks.
So we're seeing some members step out.
The problem is, as you mentioned John,
we need a,
at the staff level,
we need
a resurgence
of basic religious literacy.
So that staffers don't
feel like they're swimming
in the deep end.
So that communication
staffers don't feel like
they have some certainty of
how stories are gonna play out.
They have a great sense of how,
if their member introduces a
policy around women's rights
or introduces a policy around
criminal justice reform.
They know what the trajectory
of that story's gonna be.
They don't have such a great sense
when it comes to religion stories
and so they just kinda back off.
It's a structural problem.
- And I would say, Michael, if I may,
that there's two ways of
seizing that opportunity.
There's the positive way
that you're talking about
where you can actually build the party
and actually be looking for
disciples to bring people in.
Then there's a negative way
to seize that opportunity.
Because we know that extremes
feed off other extremes.
So if I see Donald Trump
and I'm a far left group
or a group who is outside
of the mainstream,
I can use what he's doing to pull
the party further to the extreme, right?
And that would be a negative way
of kind of seizing that opportunity.
And I think that's so
unfortunately is happening more
than the positive way of
actually building a better party.
Hopefully that changes
but that's problematic.
- Elizabeth, you have been studying Trump
and it's impact on all of this stuff.
You've also been studying Pope Francis
and his impact on that.
These are two very different figures,
(laughter)
- What an observation!
- Both outsiders, both big surprises.
What opportunities would
President Trump and Pope Francis create
for progressive Democrats
to rally people of faith?
- So some of what we've been struck by
in both President Trump's election
and in Pope Francis' election as well
is almost the lack of change, if I may,
in the parties and how people
have responded to these.
With President Trump for example
and it's less so in the Democratic Party,
we know that he still
got the vast majority
of the white evangelical vote.
Even though, as we talked about,
you might have expected
really religious voters
to not embrace a man who said
and did the things that he said and did.
So you didn't see the change
that you expected to see there.
You did see that slight dip in support
for the Democratic nominee.
We also learned a lot about people's votes
for Trump verses against Clinton.
There were a lot more votes
against a nominee here
or against a candidate in
this particular election.
So that's one thing to
kind of keep in mind here.
As far as Pope Francis,
he had all of these speeches,
all of these talks, the encyclicals,
everything on the environment
and on being compassionate.
All of these, be better
and promoting these values
and we still saw white Catholics vote
for Trump by about a 23 point margin.
So it didn't really resinate in the way
that people expected it to.
So while we weren't completely surprised
to see white Catholics vote Republican,
they have been shifting that
way for the past decade or so.
These public figures, what they've said
on the public stage
that didn't really have
the impact that we might have expected.
At the same time,
to kind of contradict myself,
even though I study religion,
I love this, I think
this is really important.
We also know that religion is
not necessarily the primary
motivator in a lot of this.
That partisanship is very strong,
getting stronger.
And that a lot of time
partisanship will trump religion.
Religious affiliation specifically,
in the vote choices that people make.
- Susan?
- [Susan] Hi. I was fascinated by the
conversation about self
identity that growing up
we all saw ourselves
as Catholic, Democrat,
and our ethnic groups.
And that certainly seems
to have changed in America.
But when you referenced
81% of the evangelicals,
pardon me, voting for Trump,
are they people who self
identify as evangelicals,
or is that one of many things
that they self identify?
In other words do they see
themselves as teachers first,
or a woman first, or what
is their self identity?
And my other question would be,
would that have happened
had the evangelical leaders
not come out and supported Trump?
- Well I defer to our friend from Pew.
My sense is we don't have a great sense
of where their faith fits
in their spectrum of identities.
There is some interest polling
and speculation that I'm
not quite convinced of.
That those who were more religious,
who attended church weekly for instance,
voted for Trump less than
those who were only monthly
or sporadic attenders.
I've seen mixed, though again I defer.
What I will say is.
What was the second part of your question?
- The role of leaders.
- Ah yes. So,
2016 and I'm seeing my friend
from the National Association
of Evangelicals here.
2016 really exposed
the crisis of authority
in evangelicalism.
Evangelicals have always pride themselves
on not having a hierarchal structure,
on not really having a
burdensome institutions.
But what we saw was,
actually evangelical
leadership quite split.
We saw of course Franklin
Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr.,
sort of put their thumb
on the scale heavily.
But we also saw people like Beth Moore,
who's the leading female evangelist
for the Southern Baptist Convention.
And Russell Moore, and Ann Voskamp.
These names might not
mean, they're huge figures
in evangelicalism.
If not endorse Clinton or say that
they outright oppose Trump,
definitely sends some
pretty clear signals.
What we saw is that it
just didn't matter much.
Evangelicals aren't used to taking direct,
especially political cues
from their religious leaders.
Unless they associate with
someone like Tony Perkins
or unless they associate in
a religious political camp.
So it just didn't translate.
As I talk with evangelical leaders,
that's one of the major points of concern.
Not so much the political outcome
but what does it mean when
people are so segmenting
off politics from the
influence of their faith.
We have a major crisis of authority
and public theology and evangelicalism
that's gonna continue
to play out Ecclesially,
within the church and obviously in society
and politics.
- Okay. Over here?
- [Francis] My name is Francis Harden.
I have a question for Cecil Roberts
about what I think is voting
against their interests,
your member's.
I come out of a union background.
My father was Carpenters and Joiners,
my mother ILGW
and I'm a member of Sag Aftra.
I just wondered if you could explain why
I think your members voted
against their interests
and have fallen for what
I think is a connard,
that coal is coming back
when it's been displaced
by natural gas.
- I think that the point
you make is a good one.
But as most people that look at this issue
look at it very narrowly,
it's much broader than that.
If I told you that in the year 2000,
that was the first time since 1928
that West Virginia voted for a Republican
that was a non incumbent.
So from 1928 to 2000.
And we're not talking
about President Trump here,
they voted against Al Gore.
And the reason they voted against Al Gore,
and by the way we supported
the vice president.
The reason they voted
against Vice President Gore
is that they felt that he was
gonna do away after our jobs
and if you read what he was talking about,
that was true.
What needs to happen here,
if you listen to some of my remarks when
I was on my high horse
here at the beginning,
I apologize for that,
by the way I think now is the time
to be highly critical
of the Democratic Party.
I believe that.
Because this is not the leech party,
this is our party and we
have a voice in this party.
And if we don't exercise that voice,
we're not gonna have a voice.
So if we can't have a voice
in the Democratic Party
I don't know where we can.
I think the people in Appalachia
have gone from being firm
believers in the Democratic Party
to believing that what
has been decided here,
and I want you to think about
this as we leave here today,
that climate change cannot be
corrected by America alone.
We all know that.
We hear every scientist say that.
And that's true.
What people in Appalachia believe is
that our people in leadership have decided
let's let it be cured on
the backs of the people
who live in Appalachia
because we have no voice.
We don't have enough votes,
we don't have enough power.
So there has no been a position,
in my opinion,
articulated by those in
power on the Democratic Party
that says look, this is a problem,
and America is gonna
deal with this problem
and this is the way we're gonna do this.
I was with
then candidate Obama
in Lebanon, Virginia,
as far down in the coal
fields as you can get.
Lebanon High School.
And he repeatedly said, "If
we can put a man on the moon,
we can figure out how
to burn coal cleanly.
And if you elect me president,
I will invest in technology
to see that that happens."
Over and over again.
And if you look at the first two years
that he was in office
when he gave the State
of the Union address,
he talked about technology
being used to save coal jobs.
But that somewhere evaporated.
So people in Appalachia,
and people are always looking by the way
at how many coal miners are there.
It's not coal miners.
There's about a four to six to eight ratio
of jobs created by every
coal miner's got a job.
So anybody living in Appalachia
is being supported by those
jobs in the coal industry.
And they're going away,
there's no question.
Natural gas is taking their jobs.
But where's the plan?
Where is the plan?
I have been fighting for the last 10 years
to save retirees health care.
Every day of my life is dedicated.
Now I'm fighting to save the pension plan
of a hundred thousand retired coal miners.
Where's the plan?
Who's talking about that?
That's what I want to hear.
- [Francis] Where is the
plan from this administration
to save their jobs?
- I never said there was a
plan from this administration.
Ever.
And by the way I am a Democrat.
But I am not a Democrat
that's gonna fall in line
with anything and
everything somebody says.
I think that this party also is my party.
And I've gotta right
to have a voice in it.
And one of the things I would say to you,
there's an old labor song
that came from the 30's,
says, "We have been
quiet for too long now."
Thank you for that.
- [Francis] I woulda thought it was
"Which Side Are You On, Boys."
- "Which Side Are You On" came out
of a UMWA house, so (mumbles)
(laughing)
- One of the great things
about Pope Francis' encyclical,
he talks about care for creation,
care for the poor.
He lifts up workers as a central question
and talks about how we care for creation
and for the least of these.
Galen.
- [Galen] Galen Carey with
the National Association
of Evangelicals.
To what extent do Democratic
leaders understand
that a number of their policies,
particularly in the areas
of nondiscrimination,
threaten the very existence
of religious organizations,
like schools and charities and so forth?
A lot of people that I know
who are evangelical
Christians appreciate a lot
of the things that Democratic
politicians support,
immigration, criminal justice,
environmental protection and so forth,
but they're hard pressed to come to vote
for someone who's going
to put into place policies
that might threaten the very existence
of the college that they attended.
In fact in places where
Democrats are in power
in state and local
levels we see those kind
of things happening so.
I wonder do Democratic
leaders understand that
and they don't really care
or is it an area of maybe a
blind spot for some of them?
- Yeah I would say to the extent
that they do understand it,
they don't care as much
because again you have this donor class,
who may understand it very well
but doesn't have a
problem with eliminating
kind of those views.
And there's very much this
strong feeling within the party
as I get it and I
explained my story earlier,
that they're trying to
eliminate certain views.
The other side of it,
there is somewhat of a misunderstanding
of the free exercise clause.
It's this idea that,
religious liberty is good
as long as it's the stuff
that we can kind of say
let's agree to disagree.
But that's not what it's there for.
The free exercise clause is for the stuff
that we can't necessarily get over.
That we really disagree with,
that you may find offensive,
that you think someone
else shouldn't believe.
But that's what it's
there for, to protect,
and I think there is,
on the Democratic side,
somewhat of a misunderstanding about that.
Because of this expressive individualism
and the affirmation of that ideology.
So those are some of the things
that we're gonna have to,
that we're gonna have to work on.
But at the end of the day
it doesn't really matter
because as long as the donor
and the political class
are in control of that,
and they're fine with eliminating it,
then you're not gonna see it expressed
in much of our policy.
- Because Maria Theresa is not here
and she might have a different view,
let me try and articulate,
I happen to share the concern here.
Two things strike me.
One, who is the genius that
thought picking a fight
with the Little Sisters
of the Poor was a winner?
Secondly, who was the person on the
other side who said Taco Bell?
- That's right.
- Defending them was a winner.
- Exactly right.
- It seems to me both sides
have over reached here
and we outta decide that abortion
is different than other issues
and that
in order to
insure that poor people
get some attention.
That religious groups motivated by faith,
who provide shelter, who provide food,
can do so consistent with their values.
There's a lot of good
things the ACLU does.
There's not a lot of them
providing shelter in Anacostia.
Or healthcare in Africa.
So one of the, I think the best argument
on religious liberty is everybody
outta retreat from the extremes,
and we outta focus on the common good.
And frankly without religious
groups motivated by faith,
to provide essential
services for the poor,
the poor are gonna be worse off
and our nation is gonna be diminished.
- That's exactly right. Go ahead.
- I'm sorry I just wanna quickly add
if you asked the average
person on the right
and the average person on the left,
they would both say the
principle religious freedom
challenge right now is the cake baker.
And Galen's question just indicated.
That is not both in scale
and in the minds of
actual religious people.
We're talking about colleges,
we're talking about hospitals,
we're talking about churches
and parachurch ministries.
And yet this is another
issue where our polarized,
extreme parties and
activists are happy to focus
on these very sort of, divisive,
catchy issues that really are,
they're important but
they're on the periphery
of the religious freedom debate.
- Democratic leaders in
California are saying
the Catholic hospitals
that don't do abortions
outta be denied federal funds.
- That's extreme.
- That's where we are.
- [Audience Member] I
wondered if you could talk
a little more about,
I've heard some of the
folks from the AND Campaign
talking about black voters
feeling very taken for granted,
especially urban communities.
If you could speak to that.
And then John, I just wondered
on the Catholic level,
in terms of challenging
Catholic white voters,
if you think there'll be
something like we had?
We have this Fortnight for
Freedom thing that's been
very institutionalized and driven.
Will there be something like that
on the immigration
issue that will put that
in front of the parishes
as kind of a white parish,
Hispanic parish,
just like the Fortnight was.
- That's a good point.
- Will there be something
like that for this tragedy?
Do you think it will happen? Thank you.
- First I would have to say that,
obviously black Christians
aren't a monolith.
But I can speak to the
people from my tradition.
I really come from a constituency
of Democrats that is very much in the mold
of civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer.
Meaning that our political
perspective is informed
and very much bound to the black
Protestant biblical tradition.
And so for us, while social
justice has great importance,
it's also coupled with an understanding
and an appreciation of classic values.
Of a sense of morality that is set
and doesn't change with the times.
And that's I think very different
than where the party is going.
The message that I get now,
and there are two guys who ran for office.
Two black Christians who were
in the same tradition as I am,
in Georgia who ran for office
in the Atlanta metro area.
One for state senate and one for mayor,
and when they ran,
because they were Christians
and had made statements,
they were completely demolished
by the liberal establishment.
And when I say that I mean going
to forums and being shouted down.
And if you look up their
names on the internet,
they were just smeared all over the place.
Ads and mailers that went out.
So what the message was
to the black community
who was paying attention,
because they were smart enough
to kinda isolate these guys,
they didn't make it a huge deal.
But the message that I received was,
know your place.
We want your votes,
but we don't want you in office
if you hold certain types of beliefs.
And if that's the Democratic
party that we're gonna have,
they're gonna run into trouble.
Because the only thing
that is keeping a party
that does that to its base alive
is the fact that there's Trump in office
and there's some other terrible
things happening.
- That's exactly.
- That's not gonna last forever.
- [Audience Member] And
it doesn't necessarily
(short clapping)
bring the large vote in.
- Well a couple,
you asked about the Catholic community.
One, we outta be clear,
that the right demonizes,
diminishes, attacks, I mean.
The level of polarization.
If you're a Catholic that
doesn't tow the line perfectly
you get undermined really fast
and called a lot of names.
So this is a problem,
we just had 3 days on polarization,
and we'll be sharing some of that.
In terms of the Catholic community,
my experience is that the current crisis
has mobilized the Catholic community.
I'm in a little perish
in Price George's County.
My pastor talked about the border.
He's a lovely guy,
he doesn't always talk about the border,
Believe me.
My sense is that the bishops are talking
about doing a pilgrimage to the border.
I think frankly the Catholic bishops
have been the leaders on immigration,
on DACA and beyond,
and we gotta remind people not
everybody's a college valedictorian.
We're for immigrants who come
because they're escaping violence
and want a better life for their society.
I never thought the Fortnight,
first of all,
I think it was the people that advised us
to name this picked the name.
(laughter)
I don't think we need a Fortnight,
I think we need to be the church.
And I'll be blunt.
Could a Pope Francis
Catholic run for office
in the Democratic Party and be supported?
Could a Pope Francis Catholic be nominated
for a judicial position?
Absolutely not.
- That's right.
- Could a Pope Francis
Catholic have Michael's job
in a future Democratic White House?
I doubt it.
One of the things,
I looked up the Democratic
platform website
on the web,
and it said, "We support
religious participation
cause we support tolerance."
First of all I don't recall that being
the first value in the Bible.
But, I frankly don't
experience a lot of tolerance.
The things that I care most about,
that the Democratic Party stands for,
they don't talk about much.
The things that I'm uncomfortable with,
those seem to be the litmus test.
And so my hope is a new generation
of leaders that aren't as
stuck with what we've had,
will come forward and transform politics.
I hope Trump does that,
I hope Pope Francis does that.
Enough from me.
- Excellent deliverance.
- [Michael] Hello, I'm Michael,
I'm a junior in the college.
I just remember vividly around the time
of the Heath Mello
campaign that the chairman,
Tom Perez said specifically,
almost using the language of a bishop,
that if you are a Democrat
it's a nonnegotiable issue
to be in favor of abortion.
What specifically are the
dynamics surrounding that?
And what do you think,
what changes could move those dynamics
in a direction more
favorable to people of faith?
- Michael?
- Yeah I mean it's a.
So many mixed messages are being sent
and that's kinda the point is to have.
They know that we have
Donnelly, Heitkamp, Manchin up,
and so they can't be
completely inhospitable
but they wanna put out
a climate that tries
to make folks at least uncomfortable.
And send the message to activists
that they're puttin their foot down
and therefore you should give money.
You know I was
at another forum I heard
Perez make the case
to Democrats,
both prochoice and prolife Democrats,
sorry.
Who believe in a big tent party.
He said, "I was in the party in the 90s
when we went through all these fights
and Democrats have always
disagreed on stuff.
But we believe in having a big tent party
and so what that means,"
and I'm obviously paraphrasing
a little bit here but he said,
"But basically what that means is
you can believe whatever
you want on this issue
as long as you don't vote like it."
(audience laughter)
I said, "Chairmen Perez, we both served
with a Vice President
who said that the budget
is a morally document, which it is.
Every vote you take is voting your values.
And so it doesn't make sense
even in our schematic to
think that you're truly
being welcoming of people as long
as they can't vote a certain way.
I will say.
- Okay, Mike.
- Political leadership will
make a big difference here.
It made a difference a difference when
Barack Obama took charge.
- We started late but we're going late
so what I'm gonna suggest is we take
these last three questions together
and ask the panel to respond
and then we'll wrap it up.
Join us. Identifiers.
- [Audience Member] Well just to follow up
on the last 20 minutes
of conversation here
I've kind of a rhetorical question.
Is there anything to lead you to believe
that the election of a Democrat wouldn't
be the death note for
Catholic social services
in the United States?
- Oh.
- Okay. Well, that's subtle.
(audience and panel laughter)
- That's pretty powerful.
- [Audience Member] My question is this:
I assume, I think it's
a reasonable assumption
that the Democratic, let's
call them the king makers,
the party leaders and donors,
and the politicians on
ballots thinks their strategy
is a winning strategy.
And if they think it's a winning strategy,
how do you convince them that it's not?
Because clearly they're
not getting the message.
- Okay. Winning strategy or not.
- [Audience Member] Pretty
close to what he just said,
(laughter)
Two points.
One, how does that 33%
of nones engage with the
religious part of the Democratic Party?
And two, how can the
Democratic Party pivot
towards what it should be messaging on
given the climate, given the donors,
given the general environment?
- So.
- Thank you.
- What do we do to change things
and if we don't change things,
will religious based
social services provide?
And whatever else you
wanna say in conclusion.
- Elizabeth.
- I'll speak to the last question first.
As far as how they engage
with religious voters,
it's not going to be too much different
than how unaffiliated
engage with religious people
by and large in the American public.
These are people who are
obviously in the Democratic Party
because they do have a
lot of shared values.
There is already this kind of care
and compassion that is
shared across religious
and nonreligious folks.
This care for immigration,
this care for the poor
and disenfranchised,
and this desire to see a
furthering of racial equality
that is shared across this party
and across a lot of
religious groups as well.
I would also just say that.
Maybe one of the things
that we're seeing is that
because this party is comprised
of so many different groups,
it's hard to get one cohesive message.
And so we talk about how
to get the Democratic Party
to focus on what it should be focusing on,
they might have a somewhat
harder job in that
because there are so many
different interested parties.
I can't speak to the leadership
of the Democratic Party,
I can really only speak to how people
are responding to these survey questions.
And they are responding in similar ways
but they are still very
different groups of people.
And to have one cohesive message
that the party can implement
and this one cohesive strategy
to get everybody on the
same page, it's difficult.
And one more thing that
I'll point out is that
I would suspect, I don't
know as far as strategy goes,
But I would suspect that
both parties pay attention
to how these different
issues affect voting.
So we know from our surveys
that when people are talking
about what is very important
in their vote choice
for the next election
whether it be midterms
or a presidential election,
a lot of these issues,
these hot button issues
that we've been talking about.
Abortion, or same sex marriage,
or just views towards LGBTQ in general,
those are very low on the
priority list for many Americans
across parties and even
across religious groups,
even for Catholics.
Abortion does not play a big role
in your vote choice overall.
Not to people personally
but as far as we've seen in
our surveys it's very low.
And the top priorities
that people talk about
are the economy, foreign
policy, terrorism.
These things that are across the board.
And so I would suspect,
without trying to speculate,
that the parties pay
attention to these things.
And they know what
people decide to vote on,
and when that's not religion,
it's going to be a harder
case to bring religion
to the forefront in these parties.
- Justin.
- Yeah in regards
to the winning strategy point of view,
I think you hit it on the head.
All of these are political calculations.
Let's not make it too complicated.
At the end of the day the
reason that the platform
is the way that it is whether
it's religious liberty
or it's abortion is
because people like ourselves
are not speaking up.
- That's right.
- And so we,
let's not put all the
onus on other people.
Let's put it on ourselves
and say anybody in here who
cares about those issues
and is a Democrat,
the reason the Democrats
have gone that way is
because we haven't spoken up enough.
We haven't been organized enough.
One of the things that I
say within my community is,
we have to stop defining
ourselves politically
by our opposition to conservatives.
There may be a lot of things to oppose,
but when your opposition
becomes the standard,
doing what's right becomes secondary.
And instead, you wanna go
to the opposite direction.
So at the end of the day,
instead of saying what I
need to say about abortion,
saying what I need to say
about religious liberty,
I don't want to give
the Republicans a leg up
so I'm just gonna be quiet.
That is the wrong way to go about politics
but I think it's a very
prevalent way in today's society
because our religion,
I think our partisanship and our ideology
have become religious in nature
and as we said earlier it's beginning
to trump what our true faith is.
- Michael.
- Sure.
I just say, a couple things.
One, I think that we need to,
the national party has to give,
especially in 2018,
the national party has to give campaigns
the flexibility to run the races
- Amen.
- they need to run
in order to win.
You need to let Joe
Donnelly be Joe Donnelly.
- Exactly.
- Looking forward to 2020,
the party has a potential
to put forward a positive,
proactive faith platform on
issues that are important
to the faith community,
both positive and again
that are a bit defensive.
And take that out to the country
just like we would, again,
with any other community
and that's what I hope the party will do.
- Cousin Robert.
- Yeah I'd just like to say,
I think we keep looking at
the president's situation,
the presidential race
and talking about that,
but really so many things are
developed on a local level.
Whether it's in the state
legislature or the city council,
or in a governors' mansion.
And I'm talking about Democrats right now.
We need to take back the congress
of the United States of America
and we can do that.
Now, I played a role in
the Conor Lamb election
and I'm proud that I did,
because I think you
have to have a candidate
that speaks to the wishes
of his constituency
as opposed to somebody in California,
no criticism,
or somebody in Washington, D.C.,
or somebody in New York City.
Conor Lamb fit the congressional district
in southwestern Pennsylvania
and they asked me to
come down there and speak
and workers got excited about him.
There's two things we've
given up as Democrats.
Patriotism has been taken
over by the Republican Party,
and God has been taken over
by the Republican Party.
(applause)
And I don't think we outta
give either one of them
to them quite frankly.
Because they haven't earned that.
Now let me tell you this,
just so we're clear.
If you give somebody God and patriotism,
I don't know who's gonna win
but I know who's gonna lose.
And it's gonna be the
person that doesn't have
both of those things going for them.
Conor Lamb embraced both of those things,
but when I went down there,
in five minutes I think
everybody in that rally said,
"We're gonna support this
guy, we're gonna work for him
because of his service to
United States of America
and his religion."
That he wasn't afraid of,
that he stood up and spoke out
and I am a churchgoer, I believe in God
and he wasn't embarrassed by that.
The thing I said about him,
"He's a God fearing,
patriotic, job creating,
he's a gun owner,
there's nothing wrong with owning a gun
it's just those automatic
weapons we're talkin about here.
Labor supporting, health care defending,
Social Security believing
Pennsylvania Democrat
and he outta be elected
and he was elected.
And that's what we need some more of.
(laughing and clapping)
- The only thing I think you
forgot is he's a Catholic.
- That's true.
(laughter)
- I can support a Catholic.
(laughter)
- Couple closing thoughts.
One, we've focused a
lot on cultural issues.
The Democratic Party needs to
reach out to religious voters.
Not to convince people on cultural issues,
it's because so much else is at stake.
There are minimal requirements of respect
and openness, tolerance to use the word.
Abortion is not going to be outlawed.
Gay marriage, the country's decided.
Now the question is,
with those things in place,
how are we gonna deal with
religious institutions
and religious people?
One of the questions
for cultural elites is
can you accept yes for an answer?
(laughter)
And will there be some
openness to the work of
religious institutions
and to the reservations of other people.
It seems to me the Democratic Party
has adopted a strategy of mobilization.
And it turns out there's not
enough people to mobilize.
- That's right.
- Now they're gonna try
organization and mobilization,
and it's hard to figure out
how you win Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan,
under the current circumstances.
At least with these kind of candidates.
Shaun began with listening and learning.
That would be good.
(laughter)
How bout engaging and persuading?
- Yes.
- And showing some respect.
And not being condescending.
I think a party that listens and learns,
that engages and persuades,
and then that organizes and mobilizes
for an agenda that invites people in
instead of pushing people
away can probably prevail.
And given what's happened in our country,
that's really important.
Couple things I wanna say.
One is I apologize that we've
had mostly guys up here,
and no Latinos,
that was not the plan.
Maria Theresa was supposed to be here
and she regrets that she couldn't.
Secondly, I am really
grateful to the people
that have been here,
and the wisdom and the
passion they brought to this,
and join me in thanking them.
(clapping)
