Harper's

After five days that shook the political world, are there religious dots for pundits to connect?

Three U.S. political axioms: African-Americans on average are more religiously devout than whites.

African-American Protestants pretty much determine who can win the Democratic presidential nomination and certainly boosted Joe Biden on Super Tuesday.

Black enthusiasm and turnout are all-important for the party’s prospects in any November.

Then look at the Democrats' two geezers. Former Vice President Joe Biden is sometimes befuddled, but he’s an appealing, old-shoe churchgoer (also pro-abortion-rights and he performed a wedding for two men, but who would still be the first Catholic president in 57 years). Sen. Bernie Sanders (a socialist independent, not a Democrat!) would be the first ethnic Jew in the White House, but would surpass Donald Trump as the nation’s most secularized chief executive.

Sanders swept non-religious Democrats in New Hampshire and South Carolina, then bombed with Sunbelt African-Americans, many of whom frequent churches.

Are there any faith-based dots here for pundits to connect?

The improbably rich Michael Bloomberg quit to back Biden — while at this writing Sanders’ ideological soulmate Sen. Elizabeth Warren stubbornly remained in the fray. (Update: She dropped out this morning, after this memo was posted.)

But pundits assure us it’s Biden vs. Sanders to the bitter end.


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