Would a Catholic->Protestant convert be electable in 1928?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Would someone who was raised Catholic but converted and was then Protestant be able to win a presidential election in 1928? Or would they still be accused of being some of Manchurian candidate type that would sink them?

[RINO Tom]

I think they would absolutely be electable.  Let's remember that it was not theology that voters were all riled up about ... if it were, we would not have had multiple Unitarian Presidents by this point, as they literally deny the divinity of Christ.  I think it's clear that "average" Americans' problem with a Catholic President was the belief that he would somehow be beholden to the Pope in Rome.  If a POTUS candidate publicly declared himself to be a Protestant, I think that would be more than good enough for the average voter.

[Atlas Force]

BRTD threaf

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

James F Byrnes was this and was a favorite of the democratic establish in the 1930s 1940s, so I can easily imagine that this wouldn’t have been a big issue

[Dan the Roman]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

[Alcibiades]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

What happened in the interim period?

[Samof94]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

His problems were unrelated and he was too much of a hawk. The fact he was socially moderate later in life is irrelevant.

[Dan the Roman]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

What happened in the interim period?

1. Mass Eastern European integration which transformed the images of Jews from a Sephardic class of almost aristocratic cultured merchants to a working class, foriegn, "dirty" group whose intellectualism was leftwing.

2. Shift from a Puritian tradition which was Philosemitic(Cromwell brought Jews back to England) to a more secular eugenic Right in response to Jim Crow/the industrial revolution which combined with #1 caused Jewish dinner guests to go from status symbols to embarrassments


Antisemitism was largely a lower class phenomenon prior to the end of the 19th century. Then it shifted and remained an upper class one almost until the present (and arguably is - its strongest among cultural elites as the last two months show)

[Alben Barkley]

I think they would absolutely be electable.  Let's remember that it was not theology that voters were all riled up about ... if it were, we would not have had multiple Unitarian Presidents by this point, as they literally deny the divinity of Christ.

Few people knew, cared (the country was less religious in its earliest days, especially prior to the Second Great Awakening, contrary to popular belief), or understood that. Jefferson and Lincoln not being members of a church at all and with a history of skeptical statements about religion implying deism would be a major problem today; it was actually attempted by their opponents (especially Jefferson) but largely fell flat at the time.

Also I've always found it ironic that a state like Texas went from voting against Smith because "AHHH Papism!" to voting for FDR by its biggest landslide margin ever, when Anglicanism is basically just Catholic lite. Still believes in intercession of the saints and all the rituals and sacraments and liturgy, etc. Still has bishops, with their head bishop simply based out of Canterbury instead of Rome.

But you know, it can technically be considered "Protestant," which makes all the difference in the world to the types of Americans who are more concerned with labels and prejudices than thinking logically about things.

Really, the anti-Catholicism was more an extension of anti-immigration/prejudice against ethnic minorities than it was any coherent religious/theological opposition. The nonsense about the Pope running the country was just an excuse.

[RINO Tom]

As a side note, I find it cringe when Anglicans try to carve out some special place for themselves as like “barely Protestant” simply because they retained a lot from Catholicism.  That line of logic is dumb; if you came out of the Reformation, you’re 110% Protestant.  You don’t see Lutherans talking that kind of BS just because they want to appear special, lol.

[Alben Barkley]

As a side note, I find it cringe when Anglicans try to carve out some special place for themselves as like “barely Protestant” simply because they retained a lot from Catholicism.  That line of logic is dumb; if you came out of the Reformation, you’re 110% Protestant.  You don’t see Lutherans talking that kind of BS just because they want to appear special, lol.

Difference is Lutherans were the OG Protestants who left for clear theological reasons. The only reason the Anglican Church exists separate from the Catholic Church is because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. It was more political than theological or "reformed."

[RINO Tom]

As a side note, I find it cringe when Anglicans try to carve out some special place for themselves as like “barely Protestant” simply because they retained a lot from Catholicism.  That line of logic is dumb; if you came out of the Reformation, you’re 110% Protestant.  You don’t see Lutherans talking that kind of BS just because they want to appear special, lol.

Difference is Lutherans were the OG Protestants who left for clear theological reasons. The only reason the Anglican Church exists separate from the Catholic Church is because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. It was more political than theological or "reformed."

The actual theological founders of Anglicanism made it far more Protestant than King Henry XIII would have preferred, though.  “Via Media” more accurately describes a middle way between Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition.  Anglicans affirm all the essential tenants of Protestantism, they just kept a few more sacraments.

[MyLifeIsYours]

The option would be more electable to 1928 electorate than the reverse, accounting for the anti-Catholic sentiment through most of the nation. The dip in attaining any Catholic constituency would make gains with the crowd who was worried any self identified Catholic would serve as the Vatican PR.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

What happened in the interim period?

1. Mass Eastern European integration which transformed the images of Jews from a Sephardic class of almost aristocratic cultured merchants to a working class, foriegn, "dirty" group whose intellectualism was leftwing.

2. Shift from a Puritian tradition which was Philosemitic(Cromwell brought Jews back to England) to a more secular eugenic Right in response to Jim Crow/the industrial revolution which combined with #1 caused Jewish dinner guests to go from status symbols to embarrassments


Antisemitism was largely a lower class phenomenon prior to the end of the 19th century. Then it shifted and remained an upper class one almost until the present (and arguably is - its strongest among cultural elites as the last two months show)

By the time Jews from the Pale of Settlement arrived most US Jews were German Jews, not Sephardic. But the same principles apply.

[Senator Incitatus]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

Not to bog this thread down too much, but I would dispute the characterization of the South as inordinately anti-semitic, even in the 1960s.

[TheReckoning]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

Not to bog this thread down too much, but I would dispute the characterization of the South as inordinately anti-semitic, even in the 1960s.

There was literally a Jew in the CSA’s cabinet. That would not have been the case if it was really that anti-Semitic.

[Dan the Roman]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

Not to bog this thread down too much, but I would dispute the characterization of the South as inordinately anti-semitic, even in the 1960s.

There was literally a Jew in the CSA’s cabinet. That would not have been the case if it was really that anti-Semitic.

The South was the least antisemitic part of the country in the 1850s and one of the most a century later.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

Not to bog this thread down too much, but I would dispute the characterization of the South as inordinately anti-semitic, even in the 1960s.

There was literally a Jew in the CSA’s cabinet. That would not have been the case if it was really that anti-Semitic.

The South was the least antisemitic part of the country in the 1850s and one of the most a century later.

Charleston had the largest Jewish population in the new world until 1800

[Republican Party Stalwart]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

What happened in the interim period?

1. Mass Eastern European integration which transformed the images of Jews from a Sephardic class of almost aristocratic cultured merchants to a working class, foriegn, "dirty" group whose intellectualism was leftwing.

2. Shift from a Puritian tradition which was Philosemitic(Cromwell brought Jews back to England) to a more secular eugenic Right in response to Jim Crow/the industrial revolution which combined with #1 caused Jewish dinner guests to go from status symbols to embarrassments


Antisemitism was largely a lower class phenomenon prior to the end of the 19th century. Then it shifted and remained an upper class one almost until the present (and arguably is - its strongest among cultural elites as the last two months show)

By the time Jews from the Pale of Settlement arrived most US Jews were German Jews, not Sephardic. But the same principles apply.

Tbf, many people seem to erroneously categorize all of the pre-Gilded Age Ashkenazi-Jewish-American groups (British-Isles Jews, French Jews, German Jews in the US prior to post-Civil War immigration) as "Sephardic."

[Republican Party Stalwart]

As a side note, I find it cringe when Anglicans try to carve out some special place for themselves as like “barely Protestant” simply because they retained a lot from Catholicism.  That line of logic is dumb; if you came out of the Reformation, you’re 110% Protestant.  You don’t see Lutherans talking that kind of BS just because they want to appear special, lol.

Difference is Lutherans were the OG Protestants who left for clear theological reasons. The only reason the Anglican Church exists separate from the Catholic Church is because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. It was more political than theological or "reformed."

The actual theological founders of Anglicanism made it far more Protestant than King Henry XIII would have preferred, though.  “Via Media” more accurately describes a middle way between Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition.  Anglicans affirm all the essential tenants of Protestantism, they just kept a few more sacraments.

Remember again that Henry VIII personally was a lifelong hater and opponent of Lutheranism as well as a lifelong self-identified "Catholic"; he famously wrote a widely-circulated rebuttal to Luther's 95 theses, of which the Pope's response was adulation and the bestowal of the "Defender of the Faith" title unto Henry. (Indeed, this ironically is the origin of the epithet famously used by Henry, and every subsequent English monarch save for "Bloody Mary," as the moniker corresponding to their role as supreme head of the Church of England.)

Truth be told, contrary to what many Henry VIII-haters would like to believe, there were at all somereasons apart from the sole issue of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon as to why Henry broke from Rome. That said, the position that 'Anglicanism is less "truly Protestant" than Lutheranism' is indeed more true than false, if anything.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

A bigger question is how much conversion would do for a Jew. Quite a lot pre 1890s, but probably much less 1910-1970.

Barry Goldwater comes close to counting as an example of this — he wasn’t a convert, as he was raised Episcopalian, but he was ethnically half-Jewish through his father. Obviously, to say the least, he had a lot of issues which negatively affected his electability, but I don’t think that this was one of them; after all, the handful of states he did win were probably the most anti-Semitic in the country. I suppose one can question how widely this fact about his ancestry was actually known, but his surname is fairly clearly an anglicised German Jewish one.

Not to bog this thread down too much, but I would dispute the characterization of the South as inordinately anti-semitic, even in the 1960s.

There was literally a Jew in the CSA’s cabinet. That would not have been the case if it was really that anti-Semitic.

The South was the least antisemitic part of the country in the 1850s and one of the most a century later.

Charleston had the largest Jewish population in the new world until 1800

The rise of "antisemitism" in the post-Civil War South was really a reaction to the various socioeconomic phenomena and geopolitical happenings of the Gilded Age, Progressive, WWI, Interwar, WWII, and Cold War Eras. It was spurred by a) the advent of the Populist Movement (with all of its adjacent left/rural-nativist, prohibitionist, and white-hooded tendencies and offshoots), b) demographic changes within the American Jewish population, as well as c) the related (both to a and b) dynamics of (Northern-centric) industrialization, urbanization, and immigration in the United States, and the roles played by Eastern European Jewish newcomers in all of those dynamics. The historical context surrounding the Mary Phagan/Leo Frank episode is a pretty good case study of all of this.

I think they would absolutely be electable.  Let's remember that it was not theology that voters were all riled up about ... if it were, we would not have had multiple Unitarian Presidents by this point, as they literally deny the divinity of Christ.

Few people knew, cared (the country was arguably less religious in its earliest days than during the Second Great Awakening, contrary to popular belief), or understood that. Jefferson and Lincoln not being members of a church at all and with a history of skeptical statements about religion implying deism would be a major problem in recent years; it was actually attempted by Jefferson's opponents but largely fell flat at the time.

Also I've always found it ironic that a state like Texas went from voting against Smith because "AHHH Papism!" to voting for FDR by its biggest landslide margin ever, when Anglicanism is basically just Catholic lite. Still believes in intercession of the saints and all the rituals and sacraments and liturgy, etc. Still has bishops, with their head bishop simply based out of Canterbury instead of Rome.

But you know, it can technically be considered "Protestant," which makes all the difference in the world to the types of Americans who are more concerned with labels and prejudices than thinking logically about things.

Really, the anti-Catholicism was more an extension of anti-immigration/prejudice against ethnic minorities than it was any coherent religious/theological opposition. The nonsense about the Pope running the country was just an excuse.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

I think they would absolutely be electable.  Let's remember that it was not theology that voters were all riled up about ... if it were, we would not have had multiple Unitarian Presidents by this point, as they literally deny the divinity of Christ.  I think it's clear that "average" Americans' problem with a Catholic President was the belief that he would somehow be beholden to the Pope in Rome.  If a POTUS candidate publicly declared himself to be a Protestant, I think that would be more than good enough for the average voter.

Similar to how the opposition to the concept of a Muslim holding political office in this country, on part of many modern-day right-leaning/nativist Americans, has less to do with thoughtful opposition to or contempt for Islamic theological concepts (of anti-trinitarianism, rejection of the Crucifixion of Jesus as salvation for mankind, extreme opposition to "idolatry," antipathy towards alcohol, and/or the like) and more to do with reservations and misgivings related to Sharia and Jihad in particular, and the feudalistic/monarchistic/Old-World-classical-conservative geopolitical and sociocultural bents of Islamic countries, nations, societies, and cultures worldwide more generally.

[LabourJersey]

I think so.

Al Smith's electability problem wasn't just that he was Catholic.

He was also Irish and Italian (people forget the Italian part!), at a time when negative stereotypes about both were prevalent.

He was also a native of New York City and proud of it, at a time when New York and Eastern cities in general were viewed negatively by the heartland and rural voters.

A Catholic to Protestant convert from, say, Illinois, wouldn't have had the baggage that Smith carried.

[TDAS04]

I would think so, especially as the Republican nominee. A Thomas Nast-style convert to Protestantism shouldn’t have had any particular problems obtaining the GOP nomination.