Who's the most religious and what's it have to do with Kanye?
Bottom Line: The past couple of weeks have featured atypical discussions of Kanye West being taken seriously in political circles. Most notably because he's had a point that's highly relevant. Why do blacks have to be Democrats?
Agree or disagree, right or wrong, the point Kayne's advanced is one that's gained traction. In fact, President Trump's average approval rating reached a high last week in part influenced by an improvement with black men. According to polling last week President Trump's approval rating improved from 11% to 22% among black adults. Clearly not good but certainty significant in its implications. There's plenty of historical context for black adults to identify with the Republican party – starting with President Lincoln and continuing through the Civil Rights Act which was passed with a greater percentage of Republicans voting for it than Democrats. For those reasons alone, it might be odd that an average of 92% of black adults have voted for Democrats over the past 40 years. But there could be a lot more to the story that further supports potential political shifts.
While social issues have been minimized in Republican politics in recent years there's still a stark political difference in matters of faith. It's no secret that Democrats have largely been opponents of traditional faith-based values being espoused and included in public policy while Republicans have often fought to retain them. That could matter a great deal with the potential re-evaluation of one's political preferences. According to the latest from the Pew Research Center black adults are far more religious than other ethnicities. The percentage of adults who read scripture weekly outside of a religious service by race:
Black: 54%
Hispanic: 38%
White: 32%
And this potentially opens up additional conversations about shared values generally. Previous research has indicated that black adults are often far more conservative on social issues than the Democrats as a party happen to be. It's unclear if Kanye's conversation has really started something that has staying power in the black community or if this is just a blip that will go away by the next time new polling rolls out but the potential for there to be a lot more to this story is there.