Sorry for all the election posts, but I would be remiss if in closing I didn’t say a word about one of the weirder/more entertaining aspects of the 2024 election that dovetails neatly with my own eccentric interest in religious demography and politics: the rise of the Amish as political kingmakers.
In general this election has thrown a wrench in the “demography is destiny” ideology (I say ideology because there was never a lot of evidence to the idea that immigration would cause permanent democratic majorities; of course I’m partial but the DNC could have, you know, actually spoken to a demographer at some point, maybe?)
Still, this is one example where we are beginning to see the inexorable outcomes of demographic fundamentals in another way. To briefly summarize, according to some reports the largely neutral Amish were shaken out of their previous political apathy after health officials raided some of their raw milk outlets: registering in large numbers and voting republican, giving Trump tens of thousands of votes in the vital swing state of Pennsylvania. This doesn’t mean that they will vote republican forever, or that the democrats can’t find an angle to make a play for their votes, but in an increasingly secular world it shows the paradoxical power of small, highly fertile religious groups. In a world where modernity inevitably decreases fertility, the only highly fertile societies left are either those that are too poor to be able to afford modernity such as Francophone Africa, or religious groups that have voluntarily removed themselves from modernity such as the Amish, Haredim, and to some extent the Hutterites.
Of course, since after the trek West we have decided to live our faith in the world, to hold our religious faith in the face of modernity, as well I think we should for a number of reasons (I enjoy the fleshpots of modernity too much), but it is clear that in this world to have the kind of community, kin, children, and people-oriented culture that we enjoyed during the early Utah-era, with TFRs in the 7 range, it would require a sort of Benedict Option that has been adopted by the Hutterites, Amish, and Haredim. Again, I don’t think that’s the path we should take, but it is still fascinating to watch their fruits in real time.
For example, the Amish have a doubling time of twenty years. Of course, the way exponential growth happens is that it slow burns for a while before it explodes.
If we do some back-of-the-envelope math:
Given that the state of Pennsylvania will more or less remain demographically stagnant for the foreseeable future, we can reasonably heuristically double the Amish share of the population every 20 years. Right now they are a little under 1% of the PA population (.7%). If we double this every 20 years, then there is a chance that my newborn will live to see the Amish constituting over one fifth of the population of Pennsylvania. If that growth rate continues, during this time their total numbers across the world will increase from 394,720 today to 12 and a half million. That’s impressive, of course, but it’s really just queuing it up for the explosion that will happen in the next hundred years after that, where they will reach 400 million, or greater than the current population of the US.
Now, do I think this will happen? No, 200 years is a very long time and something will probably have to give. Still, while Amish fertility has slightly declined from a half century ago, their nature of being resistant to the very modernizing forces that have been so ruthlessly effective in cutting fertility rates means that they will probably be able to continue rapid growth for some time, and it’s dynamics like these that, according to the classic Stark hypothesis, led to Christianity eventually conquering Rome in 300 years. At the very least I would bet even odds that my descendants in 200 years will be living in societies that are 10% or more Amish. Consistent differentials across time can lead to world-shaking changes. Additionally, these numbers may in fact be conservative. The more traditional branch of the Amish, the Swartzentruber Amish, which have TFRs closer to 9, grew 171% in 20 years from 1991 to 2000, so they may become an increasing share of the Amish. As the demographic balloon of the Amish community grows the seemingly esoteric distinctions drawn between the different factions could become as salient as the differences between different Protestant denominations.
Oh, and during this same time the Haredi Jewish population to their east will be growing at a similar rate. We should count our stars that these rapidly growing groups are quintessentially peaceful (my understanding for example, is that the Israeli settlers trying to stir up trouble with the Palestinians are not Haredim, but are largely Modern Orthodox, but I might be wrong).
Also, as a personal, anecdotal sidebar, I won’t claim more than passing familiarity with them, but when we lived in Philadelphia we would sometimes travel through Amish country and buy their produce, and their reputation for being the nicest people is well-earned. And yes, I’m sure they have serious issues like all groups, but if we’re going to go there the kind of people who revel in criticizing peaceful, happy, tight-knit religious groups for their issues probably have even deeper issues. They just don’t make it onto Netflix specials.
Politically speaking, we as Latter-day Saints have some experience with the power of block voting by small, “weird” religious groups. Once we were large enough to court politicians we started getting goodies like the Nauvoo city charter and Nauvoo Legion. In the same way that the Haredim are increasingly becoming the kingmakers in the Israeli Knesset, I believe we’ll see the day when the Amish are a political force to be reckoned with in certain states. Of course, they might lapse back into political apathy; if they follow the trends of the Haredim they won’t care about, say, Ukrainian NATO membership or trade with China, and will give their support to whoever will maintain their religious privileges.
Religiously it makes for interesting thought experiments. For example, do missionaries proselytize the Amish? I don’t know, and I don’t know anybody who’s given Amish-Latter-day Saint dialogue much thought. In the world of Latter-day Saint interfaith relations and diplomacy I suspect that in the coming centuries the Haredim, Amish, and Hutterites are going to become much, much more salient than, say, the Episcopalian or United Methodist Churches, mainstream prestigious institutions of yesteryear that have a storied past but not as much of a future. Whatever the case with these particulars, it is clear that the religious landscape of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be quite a bit different than what we have now. While currently we and other faiths are fighting an all-consuming wave of secularism, I would not be surprised if, the relationship between fertility and religiosity being what it is, in a few centuries down the road we are back to a world where we are competing against distinct religious worldviews instead of all of us competing against secularism. Time will tell.
My guess is that the Amish can’t “scale” that way, but we’ll see.
Even if they do, they won’t have the political influence that the Haredim have in Israel–our system isn’t set up for it. The Haredim have their own parties and work in parliament on their own issues. In the US, single-issue voters are expected to join a party and support the rest of its agenda in exchange for it advancing their signature issue, and I don’t think that’s something the Amish will be willing to do. Trying to play kingmaker just by voting isn’t going to be nearly as effective as being part of the legislative process from beginning to end.
As for missionary work, I tried once–GQ’ed an Amish patriarch right in his carriage. He was friendly but shut me down quickly.
Agriculturally they may have to adapt; there probably isn’t enough arable land for millions of farmers using 19th-century methods.
In regards to supporting a party’s agenda, I guess that depends on relative bargaining power. If they are a large enough force to be reckoned with and they’re single-issue, then the party their issue aligns with would *presumably* make allowances for lack of purity if it gets them votes (presumably, because one party seems to not be understanding that calculus at all right now and insists on strict purity all the time).
But yes, in general I agree that the parliamentary system is probably more conducive to singe-issue religious group power.
Search Youtube for “latter-day saint amish” and you will find some videos of some Amish/LDS converts. Very interesting!
A generation ago, weren’t the Mormons the demographic group that was going to increase rapidly and become a dominant demographic in the country?
Yes, but we are still part of the world and so are still subject to the fertility-buffering effects of modernity. The Amish and Haredim are more insulated from modernity, so I doubt the collapse in growth potential will happen on the same scale it has happened with us.
Hi Stephen C:
I decided to take a closer look at the “demography is destiny” issue, which I believe you have brought up in a few posts. And I hope you will consider answering a few questions for me.
What do you make the AP VoteCast data that says 75% of the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were by white people and 25% were by people of color, given that non-Hispanic whites make up only 64.1% of the citizen voting-age population in this county and people of color make up 35.9%, per table S2901 in the 2023 ACS?
How would you square those turnout patterns with the last time (2012) we had a presidential election with an African American as the candidate for a major party, during which the white turnout rate was 64.1% compared to 66.2% for African Americans, per the November 2012 Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement from the Census Bureau?
Would you believe me if I told you that by combining the ACS data with the NBC News Exit Polls, and recalculating the votes cast as if whites and people of color had the same turnout rate, that Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania would have gone for Harris instead of Trump?
If the idea that demographics will not deliver future electoral victories to Democrats becomes more widespread in this country, even though comparable voting rates for whites and people of color would have given Harris 267 Electoral College votes to 273 for Trump, is this mostly a rhetorical strategy to neutralize accusations of discrimination or do you think we will see an amelioration of laws and policies in this country that disproportionately impact the voting rates by people of color, such as early voting restrictions, polling place closures, voter roll purges, racial gerrymandering, and felony disenfranchisement?
I’m not super familiar with the particular numbers you’re citing, but they make sense to me and I have no reason to question them, so sure. Non-whites are still largely a Democrat constituency, and an increase in non-White voting rates will improve Democrat chances of success. That makes sense.
The Demography is Destiny ideology in this case, and what I’ve been referring to in the past few posts, is the idea that immigration and Black/Hispanic fertility rates will cause semi-permanent, *comfortable* Democratic majorities. Listening to some, we were supposed to be at this point back in the Hillary campaign nearly a decade ago, but the long-promised Democratic majority bever quite arrives. Even if everything you note happened and increased minority turn-out gave Harris the presidency, it’s still basically a 50/50 nation when we were supposed to be long past that point by now.
The reason the long-promised demographic salvation of the Democrats never quite arrives is that it is predicated the flawed premise that the nexus of racial/ethnic/cohort identities and politics is static across time. The Democratic/Republican parties are living/breathing/changing entities, and the so are racial/ethnic/cohort identities and how they interact with political particulars. When Obama was running the first time he and his primary opponents were (supposedly) against Gay marriage, now no Democrat has a snowball’s chance in hell at winning the presidential nomination if they don’t think that Lia Thomas is the rightful national swimming champion. (I’m not implying that his anti-gay marriage stance is why he had such a higher Black turnout rate, just that this isn’t your father’s Democratic Party). There have been a billion takes on this, but suffice it to say that pendulums keep swinging and lines are constantly being redrawn. That’s one reason why in the Amish post, for example, I don’t necessarily make the case that the rise of the Amish will be a permanent boon to Republicans. I have no idea how the increasing power of the Amish will manifest in the partisan politics decades from now.
What, yet another conservative religious group turns out to be all talk when it comes to caring about honesty, integrity, sexual morality, rape, and basic human decency in their elected officials? Wild. Shocker. Knock me over with a feather. I hope all their raw milk doesn’t spread salmonella poisoning.
If an inward-looking, self-isolating religious group highly values being able to do its own thing, then runs into some new form of friction with the government, but one party promises to let them go back to doing their own thing, it’s not an irrational choice for the religious group to take that deal, while letting the rest of the world they’re trying to ignore go on with its wicked ways.
In somewhat related fashion, in 2015/2016, people were confidently advising BYU to change its housing policies because Title IX would soon inevitably end its discriminatory practices. Then a 6-3 Supreme Court happened and religious freedom jurisprudence took a sharp right turn. I don’t think doing lasting harm to the rest of the country was worth it, but the people whose top priority was government non-interference made a rational choice and got what they wanted.
That is essentially the approach to politics President Oaks suggested in his October 2020 conference talk Defending our Divinely Inspired Constitution:
“There are many political issues, and no party, platform, or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences. Each citizen must therefore decide which issues are most important to him or her at any particular time. Then members should seek inspiration on how to exercise their influence according to their individual priorities. This process will not be easy. It may require changing party support or candidate choices, even from election to election.
Such independent actions will sometimes require voters to support candidates or political parties or platforms whose other positions they cannot approve. That is one reason we encourage our members to refrain from judging one another in political matters.”
Fascinating that he says to seek inspiration on how to act on our priorities but not on choosing them! Personally, I’ve been repeating to myself “different priorities” a lot recently in working to avoid judging fellow members in political matters.
On the other hand, the 2023 First Presidency letter does focus on candidate attributes: “Members should also study candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation.” (That’s certainly an interesting list of attributes to focus on.)
So there’s some balancing to be done, and I doubt President Oaks would endorse being too myopic about our priorities either.
One thing they have in common is not being loyal to politicians or political parties. That will be a test for those who say they only voted for Trump because they don’t believe he’ll do all the awful things he said he’d do. I hope they’re right! But if they’re not, I hope they’ll be ready to stand up against the things they say they oppose even though they voted for the person who’s doing them.