20 days until Election Day. What are evangelicals saying?

48% aren't voting because they think their vote will be manipulated. This right there shows you the state of evangelicals.

The underlying concern here, while not fully articulated is, that if we don't get more Christian's out, Trump might loose and if Kamala wins it will be "disastrous" for this nation. I remember a few years back that it would be disastrous for this nation if Biden won. Has it been disastrous? No. Maybe not everything is the best. The Stock Market grew 79%, wages grew. The Unemployment rate dropped to the lowest in 55 years and has stayed relatively low and the US has tamed the inflation that impacted the global economy and unlike many developed countries avoided a recession and appears to be headed for a soft landing. Roe v. Wade was struck down. Is it all rosy? No. But far from a disastrous situation.

Do I want my church spending more time on politics in the pulpit? No way!

>>Do I want my church spending more time on politics in the pulpit? No way!<<

While I completely disagree with your rose-colored-glasses view of the Biden administration, on this quoted statement we complete agree. Thankfully, my church doesn’t do politics from the pulpit, other than to mention that as part of our mandate to be salt and light, we can vote. The Word is what is preached, and any election choices people make as a result of their own application of biblical truth are up to them.

My view of Biden is less "black" than most Christians. My financial holdings grew at a record pace. My businesses were unhindered and grew at an almost unbelievable rate. The government did not introduce any restrictions on how I could operate in the business world, or in my private life. I was able to worship God freely. The most important goal of evangelicals in 50 years was achieved.

Was the border as secure as I wanted it? No. Did it create disastrous results? Not at this time. Major crime is falling and they didn't seem to take away jobs from the American people. Does it need to be solved? Yes. Will Biden or Kamal solve it? Doubtful. But it doesn't appear that Congress wants to solve it either.

But I don't see the last four years as utter doom and gloom where we are subjugated to a harsh lifestyle. I view Biden as pretty ineffective. And sometimes that is how I like my politicians. Keep out of my life.

Crime isn't down and never was. The government just fudged the numbers. From Real Clear Investigations--not exactly a right-wing kook site--today on the FBI Stealth Edit

When the FBI originally released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, it reported that the nation’s violent crime rate fell by 2.1%. This quickly became, and remains, a Democratic Party talking point to counter Donald Trump’s claims of soaring crime.

But the FBI has quietly revised those numbers, releasing new data that shows violent crime increased in 2022 by 4.5%. The new data includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults.

Anyone want to guess why the FBI originally understated the numbers? And this revision that reveals the actual increase still doesn't account for the fact that many of the more violent cities in America have completely stopped reporting to the FBI and so none of the crimes committed in them are included in the FBI numbers. Apples to apples, all crime, including violent crime is up massively. From later in the same article:

NCVS numbers show that total violent crime has risen by 55.4%. Rapes are up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55% during Biden’s term. Since the NCVS started, the largest previous increase over three years was 27% in 2006, so the increase under Biden was slightly more than twice as large.

There's a lot more that could be said, but the real numbers make it clear that it's time for you to retire that particular Democrat talking point about crime.

Here's a sermon preached in September by a megachurch pastor in Virginia, Gary Hamrick. Dr. James Dobson is featuring it on his Family Talk radio program. It pretty much sums up the "evangelical message" about this election.

https://cornerstonechapel.net/teaching/20240908/

If you take the time to watch Hamrick's sermon, notice how he answers the question: "What can we do to advance the Kingdom of God for the glory of God, and to stem the tide of evil in our land until Jesus comes?"

What is glaringly missing in his answer? Yet, he receives copious applause throughout his message and a standing ovation at the end.

And that, Brothers, is why the American church is powerless today. Christians are repeatedly given the wrong answer to this question by their pastors and Christian leaders.

Whether the FBI fudged or not, there are lots of studies confirming a drop in violent crime. Council on Criminal Justice is a nonpartisan group that carries out their own studies

https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2024-update/

Not all crime has dropped, but a significant amount of it has dropped.

The author of the Real Clear Investigation article, John Lott Jr has a long history of flawed and misleading research on topics related to crime, guns, and immigration. Sadly, his flawed research is often quoted by far-right Republicans in shaping policy on gun rights, crime, and immigration even after his research is widely debunked. He is known for making the most fundamental mistake in research, which is that correlation doesn't equal causation, along with making dubious claims without any research backing his claim and misrepresenting the data with faulty samplings. This is not just one time he misinterprets data; it's a two-decade pattern. Also, he was a Trump DOJ hire in 2020 as a senior advisor for research and statistics at the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs. It's Lott's debunked, flawed, discredited research that Trump quotes when Trump claims that illegal immigrants commit more crimes. Of course now that has indirectly led to Trump going further with his lie making the biological claim that these illegal immigrants commit violent crimes "because its in their genes." I am in a rare agreement with SBC Founders leader and pastor Tom Buck, who is now observing about the Republican Party that "with each election cycle, the gap between the “two evils” gets more and more narrow."

My point is considering how John Lott has a long history of flawed, misleading research and misrepresenting data, he has about as much credibility as Alfred Kinsey whose flawed and misleading research and misinterpretation of data 60-70 years ago led to his flawed and detrimental claim that at least 10% of men in America are gay.

I haven't looked at the data closely to see if Lott is misinterpreting the FBI data, but given Lott's pattern of lying through stats, I would trust dgszweda's link to the Council on Criminal Justice over Lott any day on the accuracy of crime data.

The underlying concern here, while not fully articulated is, that if we don’t get more Christian’s out, Trump might loose and if Kamala wins it will be “disastrous” for this nation. I remember a few years back that it would be disastrous for this nation if Biden won. Has it been disastrous? No. Maybe not everything is the best. The Stock Market grew 79%, wages grew. The Unemployment rate dropped to the lowest in 55 years and has stayed relatively low and the US has tamed the inflation that impacted the global economy and unlike many developed countries avoided a recession and appears to be headed for a soft landing. Roe v. Wade was struck down. Is it all rosy? No. But far from a disastrous situation.

Some have pushed back hard on this, but what are the facts? Isn’t most of what’s in this statement verifiable fact? The opinion part is the evaluation: “far from a disastrous situation.”

Here’s the point more need to grasp: People have been using desperation and quasi-apocalyptic language about elections for as long as I’ve been paying attention (about 1980). No doubt, it’s been going on longer. It is not going to be the end of the world if Kamala wins. I have to remind myself also—it is not going to be the end of the world if Trump wins.

I’m still hoping for some magical way they can both lose, but that’s like flipping a coin and landing it on the edge. Well, no, it’s even less possible than that.

Still, I may vote for my dog. She would not try to engineer society but also would also not try to turn conservatism into a brutish parody of itself. So… on the whole, a good choice.

You say three times that Lott's work is flawed and has been debunked, but I notice you don't provide any examples of that actually happening. And even if his work has been debunked in the past, this article includes and links to the revised FBI numbers, so it's pretty weak to argue that the numbers don't say what they say because of who reported it. It's also worth pointing out that the FBI did not publicly say the numbers went up (sharply), but that they simply had been updated. The only way to see what happened was to look at the two sets of numbers side by side.

Lott's article also cites (which I included in the original post) the National Crime Victimization Survey, which is conducted annually by the noted lying right-wing crazies at the (checks notes) Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice, which shows an even larger increase in crime than the FBI numbers do. Are you trying to argue that also is the result of dishonest reporting?

I understand how important it is to you guys that Trump be wrong about every single thing he says, but he's not wrong about crime. It isn't down.

Aaron quoting David and then commenting:

The Stock Market grew 79%, wages grew. The Unemployment rate dropped to the lowest in 55 years and has stayed relatively low and the US has tamed the inflation that impacted the global economy and unlike many developed countries avoided a recession and appears to be headed for a soft landing. Roe v. Wade was struck down. Is it all rosy? No. But far from a disastrous situation.

Some have pushed back hard on this, but what are the facts? Isn’t most of what’s in this statement verifiable fact?

None of this statement is verifiable fact because none it is true. The DJIA was 30,930 on the day Biden took office. It closed yesterday at 43,119. Of course there are other measures, but that's the one most people use talking about the stock market. Up? Yeah. 79%? Not even close.

The unemployment rate is an artifice of intentional deceit. It doesn't count people who have "dropped out" of the labor force. But even so, last month it was 4.1%. In 2000 it was 3.9%. Lower than during COVID? Sure. 55 years? Not even close.

Inflation has not been "tamed." The official inflation rate (another highly dubious number--because it doesn't include luxury items like food) in September was 2.4%. While that is a decline in the amount of increase, it only measures year to year costs. It's true that prices for the items the government actually measures are not rising as fast as they were. But inflation is only "tamed" when prices go down. They aren't.

These may be numbers, but they certainly aren't facts...or at least not true facts.

Robert,

The 79% may not be right. I was just looking at numbers I had on my app. But 39-40% is still great from my perspective.

Employment Rate (https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2023/02/news-unemployment-its-lowest…)

Inflation is not tamed when prices go down. When prices go down that is called deflation. Deflation is bad for the economy. Inflation is tamed as it nears 2%-2.5%, although this is an arbitrary number set by the fed.

I agree with Aaron. It is not a disaster at the end of the day either way.

I'll just say that the markets (and my 401k) have enjoyed and benefited from a deadlocked federal government. Without congregational approval, the president (whoever he or she is) cannot enact significant changes that will impact the markets in the long run. Sure, they can direct agencies to tighten or loosen regulations, but the most consequential changes require both house and senate approval.

Regarding inflation, that is mostly handled by the Federal Reserve apart from direct presidential control.

So, really, what has happened in the last 4 years has little to do with Biden.

T Howard,

I agree, I appreciate deadlocked government. I also agree that presidents have limited controls and there are many more macro factors outside of political control.

Again, if Trump gets elected I don't expect the whole place to collapse by any stretch of the imagination. The two elements in Trumps approach (ignoring some of the lunacy in the 2025 project). Is the potential impact of tarifs and mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

I am not against tarifs and if they are done in a well thought out way they can be good. I wasn't even against trumps tarifs in his first term. My only concern is if he will go crazy his second term with them. I am not saying he will, but he has been a bit more bullish on them, than I would be.

Mass deportation of undocumented migrants would have a huge impact on the economy of the United States.

I tried to pick a study from a non-partisan think tank (https://cmsny.org/publications/mass-deportations-impoverish-us-families…)

But the default rates on loans, mortgages, unfilled jobs, drop in tax collections. The mass removal of 10 Million people would be detrimental to the economy no matter how you slice it. Will Trump mass deport all of these people? It is doubtful. I think some deportation would be good, I am just hesitant that all should go.

I’m not sure what all is being said about FBI data, but I’ve been pulling reports from FBI data for like a decade now, so I have some first hand familiarity.

There are lots of data releases from CJIS (a division of FBI) in a year, and adjustments to older data are not all that unusual.

Crime data reports from FBI are mostly from the UCR system (since 2021, the new NIBRS flavor). UCR is Uniform Crime Reporting. NIBRS is National Incident Based Reporting System. NIBRS is relatively new and counts things in a more granular way.

The curious can read all about them here: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/ucr

This is data voluntarily reported by police departments. Participation is not mandatory and many agencies don’t report. And some don’t report in time for an FBI release.

CJIS has a Crime Data Explorer you drill into to your heart’s content: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/home

Or if you like that sort of thing, you can download tables and analyze that way: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/downloads

Other sources of crime data include Bureau of Justice Statistics, which pulls data from a variety of sources, including, victim surveys.

They do a lot of charts and graphs in relatively short reports. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library

If you want to drill into victim survey data, there is an interactive tool for that also: https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/Home

Because the data comes from different sources, it is normal for NCVS data to not match FBI. One set is reported by alleged victims and the other is reported by police departments.

Another interesting source of national-ish crime data is Major Cities Chiefs Association.

They publish their own big-city crime data.

I think this might be their latest: https://majorcitieschiefs.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MCCA-Violent-Crime-Report-2024-and-2023-Midyear.pdf

Which raises a point…

Sometimes the conflicting narratives about crime rates arise from people, mostly politicians and pundits, looking at some subset of crime data then overgeneralizing. So they’ll look at a couple of big cities and say “crime is up” or “crime is down” and that’s just super sloppy. They do the same thing with violent crime vs. property crime, etc. So if you look at violent crime data and it’s up, do you get to say “crime is up in the country!!!!!” Well, no. Property crime and other stats may be way down. You can say “violent crime is up overall” but even then, there can be lots of places where it’s gone down… or vice versa.

But pols and pundits tend to not be into nuance. It doesn’t excite so much. The truth is often not very dramatic.

Edit to add: The truth is even more often not compatible with the conspiracy narratives so many on the right are so fond of these days.

You say three times that Lott's work is flawed and has been debunked, but I notice you don't provide any examples of that actually happening.

I didn't provide examples because its pretty easy to find on the internet. We can start with Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime." in which he argues that carrying concealed weapons significantly reduces crime in America. The National Academy of Sciences a non-profit comprised of a panel of eighteen leading researchers, concluded "that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right to carry laws and crime rates." https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10881/chapter/2. Their point was that correlation doesn't equal causation.

To back up his theory, Lott claims in his book and multiple newspaper op-ed and interviews that 98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack. https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2002/10/17/lottbrandish

The problem is that cited sources of his 98% figure has changed on multiple occasions. At first, Lott claimed that it was based on national surveys done by the LA Times, Gallop Polls and a Roper survey. However, this was quickly dismissed by one of the nation's leading quantitative sociologists, Otis Dudley Duncan, who declared, “Lott repeatedly made erroneous statements about the findings of other researchers. None of the national surveys that he cited by name actually had any figure at all for merely brandishing or firing. One of them, the Roper survey (which was mentioned in the Feb. 6, 1997, Nebraska testimony) never even did any survey on defensive gun use. Of the polls that did collect data on firing, none of them obtained a figure anywhere near Lott’s 2 percent. So everything he has said about surveys on this topic done by others is utterly, totally false. There is no room even for reasonable doubt.” https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2003/01/16/0116b

So then Lott began citing Gary Kleck's article "Crime Control through the Private Use of Armed Force." as his source for the 98% However, several researchers pointed out that Kleck's 98% also included the firing of warning shots as well as missed shots.

So then Lott removes Kleck citation and claims he did his own research back in 1997 that came up with the 98% figure. The problem was that there is no proof of the survey Lott claims he did. When these same researchers pressed for evidence of his research, Lott couldn't recall any of the names of the full-time undergraduate University of Chicago students who he claimed conducted the surveys for him. Nor could he produce the actual survey because he claimed his computer crashed, nor does he remember the questions asked on the survey, nor did he have discussions with anybody about sampling design, nor did he retain any of the tally sheets because they were lost in an office move in 1997. In other words, he has no proof that he ever conducted the research. https://archive.is/yHA2

But it gets even weirder. In defending his lie, he was caught using a false online identity named Mary Rosh that frequently defended his work all over the internet. https://reason.com/2003/05/01/the-mystery-of-mary-rosh-2/

In 2017, he conducted his own research about crime and illegal immigrants attempting to prove that illegal immigrants commit far more crime than US citizens. The problem was that he used a flawed sampling combining illegal and legal immigrants which inflated the his numbers. https://www.cato.org/blog/fatal-flaw-john-r-lott-jrs-study-illegal-immigrant-crime-arizona

This is just a small sampling of his debunked research and claims, albeit some of his most serious ones. What's sad is that his debunked research continues to have significant influence on today's populist Republican party that isn't nearly as concerned about facts as they are their own personal feelings about crime, guns, immigration, and criminal justice.