"Christian" overtakes "Protestant" label among younger Christians

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This isn't exactly new or a recent development. Per that graph the overlap point when "Protestant" is more is at about age 55.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Worth noting that for a lot of people just "Christian" as a religious identity often means "not committed to any particular church or regular attender but still spiritual and believing in a vaguely Christian way", kind of just one step above "spiritual but not religious". It probably applies to a bunch of people who don't see themselves as any type of Protestant and even some who never were Protestant (this sort of categorization is not uncommon for ex-Catholics.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is funny to me because many people here (west coast of Scotland) would be more likely to identify as Protestant than think of themselves as Presbyterian or even Christian, for obvious, uh, sectarian reasons.

The trend in the US must be very much because Catholicism became destigmatised in wider American society and as WASPs lost cultural hegemony.

That's been true for a very long time. Like I said note that the intersection point is around age 55.

Also as I noted above some of these "Christian" identifiers probably were raised Catholic and have never been formally Protestant. I believe there's even a Democratic member of Congress this applies to, as in she (I'm pretty sure it was a woman) put down her religion as "Christian" in that Pew survey but said in an interview she was raised Catholic but no longer identifies as such...but I can't remember who or if I'm totally just thinking of someone else who I confused with a Democratic member of the House.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This makes complete sense.  American religion is much more influenced by frontier Restorationism or mid-century Jesusism than it is what some dead German guy nailed to a wall nearly 500 years ago.  American religious movements have largely rejected denominational labels in favor of ecumenism.

Posters who want to die on the hill that “Protestant” identity is something worth protecting can go back to their established churches an ocean away

You act like Mainline Protestants have been some historic minority and oddity in America’s history, rather than a clear majority for the vast majority of it and not that much smaller than Evangelicals now … if the whackier branches of Christianity want to have their fun, go ahead, but it seems rather strange and classless to insinuate normal older churches are somehow “less American.”  Frankly, it wreaks of a South-centric view.

That doesn't mean all or most Mainline Protestants particularly care about or identify with the Reformation. Most people today just view such churches as being liberal and don't really care about their historic roots.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I also think it's important to remember the US has not had any real sort of religious sectarianism for like well over 50 years now. Comparing it to Europe isn't even apples to oranges, more something like apples to steak. Europeans acting surprised that religious identity in the US doesn't work exactly like it does in their country (not specifically referring to anything in this thread) has always perplexed me, it'd be like someone from a country with proportional representation being surprised that a country with a FPTP electoral system doesn't have proportional numbers of seats to percentage of votes cast like in their country.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I also think it's important to remember the US has not had any real sort of religious sectarianism for like well over 50 years now. Comparing it to Europe isn't even apples to oranges, more something like apples to steak. Europeans acting surprised that religious identity in the US doesn't work exactly like it does in their country (not specifically referring to anything in this thread) has always perplexed me, it'd be like someone from a country with proportional representation being surprised that a country with a FPTP electoral system doesn't have proportional numbers of seats to percentage of votes cast like in their country.

You seem unusually triggered by this thread.

Not triggered nor do I really care about the topic much (as I noted it's hardly new and there's plenty of reasons), like I said this has more to do with the forum in general than this thread in particular.

Mind you if polled that's exactly how I'd answer: As "Christian" rather than "Protestant".