This is the really tough one, because both sides perceive that so much is at stake, and there is so little middle ground. Both sides implicitly accept that the blue team has won the war, but that is where the agreement ends. To Big Blue, the righteousness of their cause is self-evident, and anyone who disagrees is an idiot, a bigot, or both. The red team, on the other hand, looks despairingly into the PC future and sees itself constantly stigmatized at best and legally oppressed at worst. A few even go so far as to predict Christians will wind up in death camps if they don’t fight back now with every tool at their disposal.
You can dismiss this as hysteria and projection, and there would be some truth to that, but the fact is that these people represent about 30 percent of the electorate, so they cannot be ignored. Given a perceived choice between fascism and annihilation, they will obviously opt for the former. In some ways, they already have, by providing unconditional support to a man who doesn’t have the vaguest idea of what it means to be a Christian just because he shares their enemies.
So what can be done? Big Blue triumphalism needs to be muted. The leaders of the Democratic Party need to make it clear, over and over again, that they don’t view Christianity as just another form of bigotry, and that they respect red values even when they don’t agree with them. It might even be necessary, for tactical reasons, to create some limited opt-outs in civil rights legislation to accommodate right-wing Christians.
If that sounds like feeding the alligators, it’s better than having them feed on you. Are you listening, Elizabeth?