CLEVELAND — What if they gave a culture war and — well, people did come, but they fought it on different turf than usual?
Such a scenario seems to be shaping up as Republican delegates head next week to Cleveland, where they are expected to nominate presidential candidate Donald Trump despite a last-ditch “free the delegates” movement.
On the surface, some things seem familiar.
Already this week, the committee drafting the Republican platform has been checking some of the expected boxes for a party heavily infused with conservative Christian evangelical activism, such as opposition to pornography and transgender rights.
And polls indicate that Mr. Trump and his presumptive Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, are drawing support from their parties’ usual constituencies according to race and religion.
Like past Republican presidential nominees, Mr. Trump has relatively higher favorability ratings among white, non-Hispanic Protestants and Catholics, according to a June survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution. And Ms. Clinton has higher favorability ratings among various minorities — black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and adherents to other religions or no religion.
Those figures are depressed by significant unfavorability ratings for both and particularly for Mr. Trump, but the patterns look familiar.
Yet there are differences this year over what — and whom — they’re fighting over. In the past, Repulicans spoke of voting values, particularly on abortion rights and sexuality. Now they seem to be drawing up sides according to religious and racial identity.
Some evangelical leaders who normally would be reliable captains in the Republican legions have spoken out early and often against Mr. Trump, while others are lining up with the same enthusiasm they have given GOP nominees back to Ronald Reagan.
Not everyone is “automatically on board for the next culture war, but there is a next culture war,” said Beau Weston, a professor or sociology at Centre College in Kentucky and a regular commentator on the interplay of politics and culture.
Mr. Trump’s plans for draconian restrictions on Mexican and Muslim immigration stand out as much as his conciliatory stances toward LGBT persons.
For many, “the name of the other has changed, but the fear of the other is exactly the same,” said Mr. Weston.
Republicans, and especially Trump supporters, endorse building a wall on the Mexican border, temporarily banning Muslim immigrants and preventing resettlement of refugees (many of them Muslim) from war-ravaged Syria, according to the Public Religion/Brookings survey.
Few conservatives are seriously talking about rolling back gay marriage, legalized nationwide in 2015 by the U.S. Supreme Court after a steadily growing number of states did so on their own.
The current climate follows a revolutionary shift toward public support for same-sex marriage.
That contrasts with 2004, when President George W. Bush and many of his allies were helped to victory because conservative religious voters turned out in large numbers in several states that had ballot measures to approve constitutional amendments restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.
But now such states are enacting or debating defensive moves, such as those that would prevent discrimination complaints against wedding vendors who cite religious objections to catering to same-sex weddings.
Mr. Trump has promised to restore Christians’ political power, and some evangelical leaders support him primarily on issues such as terrorism and other foreign threats, as prominent Dallas pastor and Trump backer Robert Jeffress put it: “I want the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-you-know-what I can find” as president.
Other evangelicals remain adamantly opposed to Mr. Trump, saying he appeals to religious and ethnic bigotry.
Grove City College psychology professor Warren Throckmorton, a frequent blogger and researcher on politics, culture and religious leaders, said “many of the evangelical leaders are moving toward Mr. Trump out of fear of Hillary Clinton” due to her strong support of legalized abortion.
But he said many grassroots evangelical activists don’t like either choice. They are frustrated with evangelical leaders backing Mr. Trump, saying they “have short-circuited the process” rather than giving delegates a chance to come up with a better nominee, he said.
“There’s still a group of evangelicals holding out hope that something will happen at the convention,” he said. “It’s a more significant group than I would have thought just 3-4 weeks ago.”
The Block News Alliance consists of The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Peter Smith is religion editor at the Post-Gazette.
Contact him at: petersmith@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1416, or on Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published July 13, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
