Trump Policies on Religion and Identity

Title: Trump Policies on Religion and Identity.

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We want to take a closer look now at the role of identity politics in some of what the Trump administration has been ordering. These involve ways they're trying to eliminate discussions of identity in some ways and elevate it in others. For example, on the restrictive side, you probably heard about some of these. CBS News reported, for example, that the Pentagon's intelligence arm has issued a memo pausing any activities related to Martin Luther King Day, Juneteenth, Black History Month, LBGTQ Pride Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day, among other so-called special observances. Also, National Disability Employment Month, which is October.

Another directive says government employees may no longer use pronouns in their email signatures. You know that Trump declared there are only two genders, officially erasing even the existence of trans or non-binary Americans. USA Today reported that President Trump issued an executive order declaring he would divert federal funding from schools that teach "discriminatory equity ideology," which USA Today describes as a vague phrase that loosely refers to systemic racism. It goes on. The edict says it will sanction schools that assert some people are oppressed because of their race or that the US is "fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory," that can't be taught.

Now, maybe you heard that West Point, in particular, disbanded identity related clubs at the school. The Washington Post first reported that an order signed by Chad Foster, deputy commandant at West Point, said the clubs, which include many. The Post article gave some examples that may not come right to mind, like the Society of Women Engineers and the Latin Culture Club, will be immediately disbanded and ordered them to "unpublish, deactivate, archive or otherwise remove all public facing content." Those are examples on the restrictive side.

At the same time, President Trump has now created what he calls a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. It says in part that the task force will review the activities of all departments and agencies to identify and eliminate anti-Christian policies, practices and conduct. It's getting harder to teach or otherwise focus on systemic racial bias, but mandatory to focus on anti-Christian bias.

Another example of a contrast, this from the military news website Military.com, an article called Military Drops Recruiting Efforts at Prestigious Black Engineering Awards Event. It says, "The army and other service branches are abandoning recruiting efforts at a prestigious Black engineering event, turning down access to a key pool of highly qualified potential applicants amid President Donald Trump's purge of diversity initiatives in the military."

What are they doing instead? Well, the article says the same army recruiting unit that would have attended Black Engineers of the Year awards instead participated in a National Rifle association sponsored event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a predominantly White gathering that recruiters acknowledge is less likely to yield high quality applicants. There's that comparison and its shaky relationship to the idea of merit that they claim to be elevating.

Just for good measure, that same article on Military.com notes that the Army Band canceled a concert at George Mason University of Virginia, where it was set to play music by Janelle Monae, Black singer and rapper. For Further good measure, Military.com also reports that for the first time since 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers will not participate in the annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, an outreach of event at the prestigious all- girls prep school Ashley Hall in South Carolina.

It says the initiative, once a staple of the Army's public engagement efforts, was designed to draw students into science and engineering careers, fields where the military has long struggled to fill critical roles due to steep academic requirements. Again, that from Military.com.

With me now, Konstantin Toropin, Pentagon correspondent for the journalism site Military.com. His bio page notes that he's a veteran of five years in the Navy, and in 2023, he was recognized as one of the top 10 veterans in journalism by the group Military Veterans in Journalism.

Also, Ryan Burge, political science professor at Southern Illinois University who specializes in the intersection between religiosity and political behavior in the United States. He was on the show in 2023 for his book about the decline of organized religion in this country called The Nones, N-O-N-E, The Nones; 20 Myths About Religion and Politics in America and the Great de Churching. Burge is founder of the website Graphs about Religion, which informs the public through graphs about religion.

Robert P. Jones, founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future. He was last on this show in 2020 for his previous book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award.

Ryan and Robert, welcome back. Konstantin, welcome to WNYC.

Robert P. Jones: Thank you.

Konstantin Toropin: Yes, thanks so much.

Brian Lehrer: Konstantin, since I ended the intro with some of Military.com's reporting, would you tell us a little more about some of these things? For example, the banning of observances like Martin Luther King Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Disability, Employment Month, what does it mean that the official observances are banned? What was happening that isn't supposed to happen anymore?

Konstantin Toropin: It's a good question. I mean, so these things typically tended to vary unit by unit and service by service. For example, for myself as a former Navy sailor, that would mean your command, your ship would probably set aside time in the official schedule for a presentation on the Mestex for the crew to get together.

I recall, for example, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We would gather together, somebody of Asian-American descent would talk about prominent Asian-Americans in the Navy, heroes, that type of thing. There would be a-- I mean, basically that would be it and then we would go about the rest of our day. These things tended to be fairly low-impact and fairly low cost as far as the military was concerned.

Brian Lehrer: On the recruitment front, your news organization noted the contrast between withdrawing recruiters from the black Engineers of the Year awards, which yield highly qualified potential military talent, while showing up instead at a mostly White NRA event that would probably not be as productive for finding quality recruits. Did Military.com ask or get an answer from the Pentagon about the apparent bias displayed by that contrast?

Konstantin Toropin: I mean, aside from-- That particular story was reported by my colleague, Steve Bannon. Off the record, or excuse me, not off the record, but anonymously, certain officials are certainly willing to characterize it. Steve's story flat out said that one person told him that there was no way around it other than to say that it was racist. Officially, no, there has been no comment.

Very broadly, I'll say officials have been-- It's quixotic because despite the fact that all of this is happening as a result of two presidential executive orders, which you would think your commander in chief gave you an order, you're executing it. That would allow officials at the Pentagon to speak very freely about what they're doing. That has not been the case.

All of this stuff doesn't come from press releases. Nobody's announcing it. We in the media who cover the military have been forced to hunt and peck for this type of stuff, either have insiders flag it to us or notice it ourselves. Nobody in the services is coming out and saying, "This is what we're doing. This is what we're no longer doing."

Brian Lehrer: We'll come back to you in a bit, Konstantin, to ask about West Point and other military academies.

Konstantin Toropin: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Ryan Burge, for you, as a political scientist who studies religion and political behavior, what's your understanding about what Trump is getting at with this anti-Christian bias task force.

Ryan Burge: Oh, he knows where his bread's buttered, Brian. That's the White Christian vote. About 75% of Trump's voters were White Christians. Almost 40% were White evangelicals, and they want to feel like they're represented in government. If you're ever around evangelicalism much, you know they have a persecution complex. They want to feel persecuted. There's a lot of rhetoric in the evangelical church about the church grows the best when it's under persecution.

Let's find examples of times of the church is being persecuted. By Donald Trump doing this, what he's basically saying is, "I will give you the fodder that you need to maybe grow your religion or even increase those in-group ties between other evangelicals." Trump is a transactional politician. When it came to Dobbs, he ended abortion because that's what White evangelicals wanted him to do, and they voted for him to do that. This is symbolic, I think, in a lot of ways for Donald Trump. It doesn't cost him much and it shores up his base. That's exactly what he wants to do, is keep that base behind him because he knows he needs the White Christian vote for his support going forward.

Brian Lehrer: Some of this isn't even real. For example, the declaration against anti-Christian bias from Trump gives this example. The Biden Justice Department brought felony charges and obtained multiyear prison sentences against nearly two dozen pro-life Christians for praying and peacefully demonstrating outside abortion facilities. An AP fact check from last year when this issue first came up said anti-abortion activists convicted for blockading a reproductive health clinic, for blockading a reproductive health clinic, not for praying there.

Another false claim, the declaration says, in 2024, the Biden administration declared Easter Sunday as Transgender Day of Visibility. There were fact checks on Reuters and Politico last year that noted the Transgender Day of Visibility is March 31st every year. Established 15 years ago by advocacy groups, Biden recognized the day with a statement each year in office. Last year, March 31st happened to also be Easter Sunday. Biden, they point out, also observed Easter Sunday as a Catholic and delivered an Easter message. The implication that he replaced Easter with Transgender Visibility Day as an act of anti-Christianity is false.

The larger point is that there is this Christian political movement that argues Christianity is being discriminated against. Ryan, they seem to want freedom of speech to get in the faces of women entering medical facilities for reproductive care, but those women, any women, can't write she/her in their email addresses if they work for the government or teach about structural racism or sexism, if they work in education. Right?

Ryan Burge: I think that story of the abortion clinic blockades, those people going to prison was actually, they were seen as martyrs by some people on the far Right of the Christian movement. They're used as almost fodder saying the government's against us. I mean, they'll quote scripture saying, if you're being persecuted, good, it means you're following Christ. The more persecution that we can find, the more faithful that we are. They somewhat invent or inflate, or exaggerate stories of Christians maybe being persecuted. Also, evangelicals are on the lookout for anything that could potentially be seen as persecution.

There's this thing that happens in religion where you want to create us versus them, and that's especially endemic amongst evangelicals. It's us versus the world. Look what the world's doing. It's putting us in prison for what we believe in. In some ways, that's the kind of momentum that Donald Trump used, saying, "You're under attack. I will protect people like you." A lot of White Christians go, "Yes, that's people like me." Donald Trump is at least paying lip service to those things by what he's doing.

Brian Lehrer: Again, that AP fact check headline last year, "Anti-Abortion Activists Convicted for Blockading A Reproductive Health Clinic, Not for Praying There." Robert P. Jones, you've written two books about White supremacy in the United States. Do you see White supremacy at work in any parts of the anti-DEI directives the administration has offered officially, by their language, I'm sure you know, they say they're trying to take race and racial discrimination out of government life and government policy.

Robert P. Jones: Yes, I'm chuckling on this end. Do I see White supremacy here? It'd be hard not to. One big tell here is what counts as just normative and normal, and what counts as special. Right? What notably, right? What counts as normal is White, Christian, heterosexual, male. What counts as special? What are the things that are being forbidden? Right? Non-White or Black history, non-Christians, particularly Muslims, LGBTQ things and things recognizing women. Right? These are the things that count as special identities.

This normalizing of really White, Christian, heterosexual, male identities and everything else is special is just the key part of this. The White evangelical base here is, I think, really key, as Ryan's pointed out. One other historical layer I'll put here is that in American history, this sense of being a persecuted group. Remember, White evangelicals are largely from the south, right? That's where they are in the country.

This comes a long, long history of, I grew up in Mississippi, went to Mississippi public schools, and it was not uncommon to hear the War of Northern Aggression, to talk about the Civil War, and attacks on a White supremacist Confederate Nation that was formed down there with racial hierarchies, patriarchy, all of it was built in there. It has this long history of feeling like the federal government is intruding on the way that White evangelicals want to set up society and live out their lives in very hierarchical and historically White supremacist ways.

Absolutely, there's just no other way around it. When you see these orders and you see their effects, there's really no other way to say it than to say it really is racist and White supremacist.

Brian Lehrer: I see that you have a new article on the Substack newsletter, The Contrarian, about the Trump order or task force, creation of the task force for eradicating anti-Christian bias. At the same time, you wrote a book with a subtitle The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Where, if anywhere, do you see the two intersecting this year? Does the contrast with establishing a taskforce to fight one kind of bias at the same time as de-emphasizing attention to other kinds of bias fit into that frame for you in any way?

Robert P. Jones: Well, I'm glad you're bringing up the contrast here because what's notable is just head spinning about, so why in the world do we need something like-- from what evidence will we provide for needing something like an anti-Christian bias taskforce? When you look at, for example, I cite in the article the 2023 Hate Crimes Report that was compiled by the FBI, out of 2,833 cases of hate crimes that were motivated by any kind of religious bias last year, only 10% of them were motivated by anti-Christian bias.

Now, by contrast, 71% were motivated by antisemitism, and 19% involved bias against members of other non-Christian or non-Jewish religions. Even if you're looking at a very real problem of hate crimes by religious bias, Christians made up only just a fraction of these things. It's a pure political play. I think that that's what this is really about. It is about-- I guess the other thing to say is that the Republican Party has been, over the last few decades, sorting itself in ways that are more and more of an outlier for mainstream American public.

If you just take the measure of White Christian identity, the Republican Party today is nearly 70% White and Christian, self-identified Republicans. The country today is only 41% White and Christian. It's essentially become this party of White Christian nationalism. You see Trump has been very adept at getting that identity and also noting that the percentage of White Christians have been shrinking in the country. Really that reality that White Christians have been shrinking, that's not persecution, that's just demographics, but playing it as persecution is something Trump has been very, very skilled at.

Brian Lehrer: On the contrast, there's no equivalent taskforce that he created with some big declaration to fight anti-Jewish bias or anti-Muslim bias, correct?

Robert P. Jones: Yes, right. Where's the task force to eliminate anti-Semitism, which would inevitably catch up some of his own supporters in the net?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your questions, comments or stories relating to the new administration's identity politics from whatever point of view or personal experience. Does it look like they're trying to eliminate identity politics in pursuit of a unified American identity, or does it look more like they're trying to de-emphasize certain kinds of identity for purposes of protection or inclusion while emphasizing others? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692.

Call or text for our guests, Konstantin Toropin, Pentagon correspondent for the journalism site Military.com, Ryan Burge, political science professor at Southern Illinois University and Author of The Nones: 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America and the Great Dechurching, and Robert P. Jones, who was Just Speaking, founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of books including the bestseller, The Hidden Roots Of White Supremacy And the Path to a Shared American Future. 212-433-433, WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692.

Konstantin, what's being struck from observances at West Point in particular and the other military academies? Maybe more important because we talked a little bit about the observances before, what can they no longer teach in their curricula per these orders from President Trump and Secretary Hegseth?

Konstantin Toropin: Yes, that's a good question. I actually just finished talking to the Naval Academy yesterday, and it seems that the academy, shortly after the order, reviewed all of its course catalog, which again, was not something that they proactively disclosed. They told me this after I began asking the question. It turns out that there are two courses. A Gender Matters, the Sociology of Gender, and Gender and Sexuality Studies were canceled as part of this review.

Then more recently, last week, the provost sent out an email to the faculty that included further guidance going forward. In the email, there was guidance that said not to use materials that can be interpreted to assign blame to generalized groups for enduring social conditions, particularly discrimination or inequality. I mean, that's what we're seeing at the Naval Academy. I haven't had a chance to ask West Point the same question, but you're definitely seeing impacts on curricula and courses as a result of these orders.

Brian Lehrer: Since part of this discussion is about the contrast between things that are being de-emphasized and things that are being re-emphasized. How much has Secretary Hegseth restored or said he intends to restore the names of military bases originally named after Confederate generals, names which have since been removed?

Konstantin Toropin: Yes, that's a great question. Obviously, Secretary Hegseth has made good on that promise with one base. He renamed-- he took Fort Bragg, which was named for a Confederate General, Bragg, and renamed Fort Liberty during the Biden administration. He has somewhat cleverly decided to rename Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, but instead choosing to do so for a different Bragg, a different service member with the last name Bragg, a service member from World War II.

In that sense, he's done this clever trick with Fort Bragg. I don't know if he's going to be able to repeat that trick with some of the other bases. One of the other ones that he's talked about is Fort Benning, that has since been renamed to Fort Moore. The Moore family, so it's named for both General Moore and his wife, their family has come out in the last several days saying, "We don't want you to do this. We want our parents to be commemorated." I think that workaround worked with Fort Liberty because Fort Liberty was a generic name. I don't know if that's going to work with some of the other bases.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting about winking to Confederate culture by renaming Fort Bragg Fort Bragg again, but technically after a non-Confederate person named Bragg. Robert P. Jones, I want to come back to you on this and see what's being struck that looks like a contrast to you in terms of training cadets. They can't be in women cadet's affinity groups or have an official Black History Month observance, or choose their pronouns for their email signatures, but they're going to proudly restore or wink at restoring Confederate generals' names in the name of honoring that particular American identity group from the past. What does that look like to you?

Robert P. Jones: Well, it looks pretty plain to me, too. One thing I want to say, too, is how much of an outlier this idea is. When we've asked Americans about what they think about what places like West Point and other universities should be teaching about our history. When we ask about that, we get overwhelming responses of people saying, 90% of Americans say that we support efforts to tell the truth about the history of slavery, violence and discrimination; 94% say we should teach the good and the bad of American history, even when we put that in terms of children.

We should teach the history of racism, because this helps the country become healthier and move into a healthier future. This is overwhelming support for an honest history. I think that's the word I want to stay here, is this is really-- it's really only in the service of a dishonest approach to history that clearly just favors one group over another. In this case, favoring this lost cause mythology that comes straight out of the Confederacy and pushing against things that would uncover something.

Trump is often called unpatriotic history. That should give us all real pause that we have the president of the United States calling on what to be taught is patriotic history. By that he means only history that cannot be critical of its White Christian majority. That's just quite troubling. If we're really going to live into a pluralistic democracy, that can't be the kind of history. I mean, that's not history. Those are lies.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Konstantin, I'll come back to you on that as a Pentagon reporter. I'm looking for the exact quote, but there is a directive to teach American history from Secretary Hegseth. Again, I'm looking for the exact quote, maybe you know it by heart, that says they should be teaching that no place has ever done as much good for the world as the United States, which isn't history exactly. It's a patriotic argument.

Konstantin Toropin: Right. You see this in certain public facing aspects, too. Both the army and the Navy took down websites featuring female soldiers and sailors earlier in February. They have put them back up, but they've reworded some of the things. Basically, in covering that story, for example, I talked to a Navy official who worked at the Navy's Heritage and History Command, which is the historical repository of Navy heritage and tradition.

Basically, there's a sense that the administration is not necessarily-- at least the way they argue, is we're not erasing history, we're simply choosing what aspects of it we put front and center, I guess would be the best way to of frame their argument. I mean, at the end of the day, the military is in a little bit of a tough place. I do have a little bit of sympathy for these folks that I engage with on a daily basis.

Because at the end of the day, the on-the-record statement that we get time and time again from all corners of the military is something basically to the effect of we follow orders. The president issued an executive order. We are working to follow his executive orders. Agree with it, disagree with it. They're in a between a rock and a hard place.

Brian Lehrer: Here's that quote by the way, from the Hegseth Memo. It says the military academy should teach that, "America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history." We'll continue in a minute on this. I'm going to introduce a word that I think is missing from this entire conversation around the country. We have the words diversity, equity and inclusion, and now Christianity in play. There's at least one word that I think is conspicuously absent from the national discourse on this. Listeners, we'll take some of your calls. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we're talking about the Trump administration apparently de-emphasizing some identities but apparently elevating others in its early weeks in office with our three guests. Let's take a phone call from Art. I think he's in Mantoloking in New Jersey. Art, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Art: Hi, Brian. I just was wondering, are they planning on changing the actual curriculum for the Civil War and denying that it was brought about as a result of slavery and the elimination? Now that we're getting rid of the Department of Education, are we going to change all the history books and have a whole new stack of books being issued to the schools?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Konstantin, I guess that one's for you. At the military academies, will this make them teach differently about the Civil War?

Konstantin Toropin: It's a great question, and it's unclear. The one thing I will say is even though President Trump, when he was campaigning, was very transparent about what he was interested in doing and telegraphed these things pretty clearly. The sense we have all gotten from covering our branches is that they only began to move on this stuff when the orders were signed. Even though we're about a month in, we're still getting the sense that there's a scramble, a disorganized ad hoc, "Oh, did we look over here? Did we look over there?" process to this.

Maybe. I mean, it's a great question and something for me to consider as we continue our reporting.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe they're allowed to talk about systemic racism of the past, but not of the present. Ryan Burge, political scientist from Illinois who studies religion and politics. Here's the word that I think is missing; inequality. It's something that I think has been largely missing from the conversation about DEI. The White Black wealth ratio in this country is still about 9:1, according to government statistics. We talked on the show yesterday about the percentage of White Americans with bachelor's degrees now at about 42%, just 28% for Black Americans.

Does this de-emphasis on attempts at inclusion include, as far as you could tell, any announced plan to establish other paths toward more racial equality? Does it register with the religious communities, which is what you study, especially the conservative religious communities, as any kind of a contradiction with what Jesus may have taught?

Ryan Burge: Yes. I was actually doing some work on a question about do you think affirmative action is unconstitutional and should be overturned? What I found, interestingly enough, is a majority of Republicans agreed, which shouldn't be surprising. A majority of Independents agree, but also a majority of Democrats agreed with that, too, including almost 60% of Black Democrats. It was only 53% of White Democrats who agreed with that, which was the lowest percentage.

I think it's the devil's in the details here. I think a lot of people, even a lot of Christians, would say, yes, we want to reduce these inequalities we've seen, and this has been well documented in every aspect of American life. I think it's how do we do that in a way that anger White Christians? I don't think you can do those two things at the same time.

At least the way that the programs are being rolled out right now, a lot of White Christians who are, let's say, at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum go, "Look at all these programs that help out Black people or minorities, or other groups. What about me? What about people like me?" I think that's the kind of person that Donald Trump managed to turn to the Republican Party over the last 20 years. Those were Democrat voters in 2000. They are Trump voters in 2028.

Brian Lehrer: Right. The root of diversity, equity and inclusion is the fact that there is so much inequality. Maybe diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs are experiencing a lot of backlash. What I'm not hearing is the centering of the word and the reality of inequality as, "No, no, there's a better all-American way to fight that." It's just not being discussed as a problem, at least by the administration that I can see.

Ryan Burge: Oh, absolutely. I think the Democrats have even walked away from that. I mean, Bernie Sanders talked about it nonstop when he was running in the primaries. Elizabeth Warren talked about it nonstop. The richest of the rich, the 1% of the 1%. Both of their campaigns never got that much traction. I mean, I think the Democrat messaging on this has continued to talk about income inequality, racial inequality in this country. A lot of Americans just shrug their shoulders and go, "Eggs are really expensive. Milk's really expensive. That's what I care. What I care about right now is I can't afford my mortgage payment."

I think that messaging can be helpful, but even listen, in the area of religion, this is an area where politics matters a whole lot more. Pastors, by and large, are not talking about racial issues from the pulpit. They're not talking about income inequality from the pulpit. They're talking about helping the poor, but not any systematic way. Right? It's like the church should help the poor and that's as far as it gets. Almost all this teach, all this thought is coming from the political talking heads, not from religious leaders.

Brian Lehrer: Kathy in Long Branch, you're on WNYC. Hello, Kathy.

Kathy: Hello. Good to be talking to you. This is like I've been in a stew ever since he got in. First, I'm very disappointed in these Democrats who voted for him and others, Republicans as well, who knew who he was, who voted for him despite all the things that he was saying. Number 1, he is not a Christian. Never has been, never will be. He's a non-believer and he only believes in himself. He is just playing all of those Christians, his Christian base of the extreme Right. He's also, which really scares me, he is following Putin, Qi, Venezuela, all of the, even south-- what is it, South Korea. He is following their playbook, and that really scares me.

Brian Lehrer: North Korea. Kathy, thank you very much. We have about a minute left in the segment. Robert P. Jones, let me throw this pushback question from a listener at you. Listener texts, "I disagree with everything Trump is doing in this regard, except for one thing, blaming Whites, males, heterosexuals, et cetera. Not all of those people were racist, sexist and homophobes. America has long had a tradition of not blaming people for the actions of their ancestors or even their parents." That's how a lot of people experience, some at least, of DEI trainings and things like that.

Robert P. Jones: Well, just say, what it's about at the end of the day, I'll end on with your word, inequality. The fundamental question here is whether a true accounting of our past means that some groups have been disadvantaged by clearly Jim Crow laws, prohibition against women in the workplace, discrimination against LGBTQ people. We have a clear, documented history of discrimination. The question for us, the question of justice, the question of what do we do? What are we responsible for? Isn't about blaming somebody in the past.

It's about what are we responsible for in the present when we have this history that has disadvantaged some in the way that it has advantaged others. If we're thinking about a democratic society where we value equality and we value the impact of unjust inequality, what is our responsibility to tackle that? That's the very question that all of this is designed to make invisible and not askable.

Brian Lehrer: There ends our conversation about elevating some identities while diminishing others with Robert P. Jones, Founder and President of the Public Religion Research Institute. He has a new post on some of this on The Substack, The Contrarian. Ryan Burge, political science professor at Southern Illinois and author of The Nones. Konstantin Toropin, Pentagon correspondent for the journalism site Military.com. Thank you, all three, for your time today. We really appreciate it.

Robert P. Jones: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for Allison.

 

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