Hillary Clinton, Culture Warrior Still

Hillary Clinton left out Bible-believing Christians* out of her acceptance speech last night. Hillary Clinton, culture warrior still. She set a theme of unity for America. She identified a number of groups of Americans. Most of them were the special interest groups that Democrats have wanted in their coalition of decades. But not them.

Why?

With all of Donald Trump’s deficiencies, this vote was gettable. — For the first time in half of a century. That might have been Hillary’s problem: too much history; too much antagonism. For the older generation of liberals, the possibility of including that voting group among their voting coalition might have been too much of a leap.

Would it have been nice for Clinton to have talked unity and really meant it? Include everyone, including social conservatives. too. At least she could have said something nice. She could have acknowledged that their beliefs rested on Biblical passages and on historical traditions. She could have admonished the Democrats to not dismiss those Christians as mere “bigots”.

Looking forward, she could have anticipated problems with other groups within the Democratic coalition: such as the Muslims. A large proportion of that group oppose Democratic positions on abortion, LGBT rights, and so on even more passionately than their counterparts in Christianity do. Look for this to shake up the Democrats in future years.

In the speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination, she had an opportunity to open a doors to social conservatives in religeous communities. She chose not to.

Compare to Donald Trump’s pitch for support from both LGBT and “Evangelicals” (his term) in his speech. Why? Trump has no discernable ties to Bible-believing Christians other than party loyalty.

So, Trump may very well get more votes out of that community than he otherwise would. Doesn’t history have a way of affecting behavior and results.

* Bible-believing Christians: a/k/a Right-wing Christians; Social Conservatives; Evangelicals; Fundamentalists, or – well you get the idea.