Why are German & Dutch Christians so Republican?

[walleye26]

In looking at elections data, especially in the Midwest, German and Dutch Catholics and Lutherans are overwhelmingly Republican. This is really evident in southeastern Wisconsin and Northwest Iowa, but also parts of Michigan. Why is this?

[Tiger08]

Deeply theologically conservative and Calvinist/Reformed

[Idaho Conservative]

Socially Conservative, Protestant work ethic, and white.  That's the core demographic of the GOP.

[MAPZZ]

Calvinism. Even today The Netherlands is pretty conservative in it's politics, it's not all weed and prostitutes.

[Greedo punched first]

Calvinism. Even today The Netherlands is pretty conservative in it's politics, it's not all weed and prostitutes.

Especially in the rural areas, which I imagine are conservative.

[SingingAnalyst]

Deeply theologically conservative and Calvinist/Reformed

A perfect example of this is tiny Missaukee County, MI. One of the poorest counties in MI, it voted 80% for Nixon in 1960 (highest of any MI county) and 74% for Trump in 2016 (highest of any MI county). However, in the 1978 MI governor's race, it voted for a pro-life Democrat over a pro-choice Republican, and in the 1986 MI governor's race, it voted for a white Democrat over a Black Republican.

Ottawa County, MI used to be another example, voting 80% for Reagan in 1984 (highest of any MI county), but in recent years it has become much more suburban and diverse.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Deeply theologically conservative and Calvinist/Reformed

A perfect example of this is tiny Missaukee County, MI. One of the poorest counties in MI, it voted 80% for Nixon in 1960 (highest of any MI county) and 74% for Trump in 2016 (highest of any MI county). However, in the 1978 MI governor's race, it voted for a pro-life Democrat over a pro-choice Republican, and in the 1986 MI governor's race, it voted for a white Democrat over a Black Republican.

Ottawa County, MI used to be another example, voting 80% for Reagan in 1984 (highest of any MI county), but in recent years it has become much more suburban and diverse.

To be fair, Missaukee County was still one of the worst for Blanchard in 1986. Lucas was utterly destroyed statewide.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Rural German Americans started out as Republican because of how opposed to slavery most were. This was true even in the south, like that area in the stretch from Austin to San Antonio. They were also very opposed to intervention in WWI and turned against Wilson and the Democrats heavily. At that point they had a pretty strong Republican machine. This wasn't true of rural Scandinavians who were mostly Republican in the 19th century too but supported Wilson and WWI at least initially.

Many of these machines supported Al Smith since many were Catholic and then FDR initially over reliance on the New Deal but as I noted in another thread a lot broke to Wilikie possibly because in contrast to WWI they did support WWII and Wilikie's position. At that point onward they were a pretty Republican machine dominated demo. Many of their towns were very insular (even larger ones like New Ulm, MN are known for that) and lacking in cosmopolitanism, they were still heavily driven by the Catholic church and even German Lutherans were disproportionately conservative like the Missouri Synod and WELS instead of the ELCA of the Scandinavians. There was no point in them to shift D then, especially as rural Scandinavians started shifting R too in recent years.

For urban and suburban voters though it doesn't matter much. Someone with a very German surname in a Midwestern urban or suburban area is actually likely to be a "mutt" who just ended up with a German name and even if they are religious you can't be certain they're Catholic or a conservative Lutheran with the level of intermarriage and conversion that happened the last couple decades. Also many who moved to places like the Iron Range ended up as union Democrats and assimilated as well. Today a college educated German-American in an urban or suburban area who doesn't regularly attend church or goes to a liberal church is just as likely to be a Democrat as any other white of a similar demographic. And if they live somewhere like Minneapolis, Madison or even Iowa City they're just as much bear guaranteed to be a Democrat as anyone else there.