My claim is that the more inclined you are to include God in your belief system about evolution, the more inclined you are to support Republican/Trump views no matter the facts. If Pew were to track this relationship between religious belief and Republicans there would be a way to support my thesis, which is simple enough. Trumpism flourishes because, among other things, it operates on the same basis as any faith cult, say, any form of orthodox Christianity (but it matters not which religion).
Those with faith-based claims are also _far more_ likely to support views that are (1) contrary to self-interests and (2) withstand little critical scrutiny (e.g., evolution vs. creationism or support for Trumpcare). The reasons for this are complex but the foundation is clear enough: to reject the faith-claim is to risk being outside the tribe and the faith-claim itself overrides any other fact-based argument. Your alternative facts are nothing less than your faith.
Further, in a faith-based world you don’t learn by asking how could you know if you are wrong. You can ask the Pope anything —’cause, you know, he’s a nice guy and all— but the idea that Jesus might not be the only begotten son of God come to save you, that is _not_ up for a change of mind. And all fact-based learning must be willing not only to change minds but to reverse conclusions. When we find out what’s true, we can be turned completely around until the next time. But that’s the name of the honest knowledge game: conclusions change on the basis of fact-based learning. Instead it’s just as plausible to cling to (guns and) religion— your belief, your faith no matter the facts—- because that is part of your cultural and personal identity formulations. You don’t just want to believe, the costs of non-belief are socially and personally dire.
We don’t have to go all the way to the existential fear of death, the pursuit of meaning in daily moral tragedies, or realities of human venality to witness the _need_ to believe. When the world offers no actual consolations, when we realize that morality is only up to us, or that people will do the next unthinkable thing, we _want_ to believe that there is a higher power that will make this all somehow better. Perhaps even more important is that there ain’t no one who wants to _feel_ the aloneness of a shared mortal existence. The need to belong is the need to believe.
Now for a few more (pesky) facts. According to Pew, “belief in creationism is 21% among those with postgraduate education versus 48% of those with no more than a high school diploma. Agreement with evolution without God’s involvement is 31% among postgrads versus 12% among Americans with a high school education or less. However, even among adults with a college degree or postgraduate education, more believe God had a role in evolution than say evolution occurred without God.” Add up these numbers and you will find a correlation between Trump voters and supporters of the Senate wealthcare bill and the role of God in creation.
[Could one believe in a God(s) that had nothing to do with creation? This is entirely different theological rant. But the point is that nothing we have learned from Darwinism, physics, and other fields of modern science proves “God’s involvement” and everything we know thus far (all knowledge is provisional is another thing the faithful really can’t like…) demonstrates the contrary.]
There is also a strong correlation between race and education with creationism and God-participating evolution among Trump voters. So faith in God is faith is _us_. This is the important take-away that further explains the Republican Faithful’s willingness to stick with their President even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue. He was right: their need to believe is not only real, he understood that they have an even greater need to belong _and_ have learned _no other way of thinking or living_. Faith is their emotional bond to one another, to Trump as the totem of their tribe, and believing in things that have no basis in fact is _normal_ and _expected_. Nothing changes minds when hearts have already decided what is true.