I doubt the GOP elite deliberately engineered the synergies between the economic and religious sides of their contemporary coalition. But there it is nonetheless. As the incomes of middle-and working-class people flatlined, Republicans pooh-poohed rising economic inequality and insecurity; economic insecurity does correlate with greater religiosity; and for white Americans, greater religiosity does correlate with voting Republican. For Republican politicians and their rich-getting-richer donors, that’s a virtuous circle, not a vicious one.
