Contemporary Church History Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 3 (Fall 2025)
The Catholic Vote in Times of Turmoil
By Antonius Liedhegener, University of Lucerne
It was the Italian philosopher, diplomat, and early expert on political power, Niccolò Machiavelli, who concluded that in politics, no one can successfully stave off the tide of time. The Catholic vote in the late Weimar Republic and in the 2024 US presidential election illustrates Macchiavelli’s maxim.
In both cases, Catholics committed to liberal democracy were running against time. The Catholic Center Party (“Zentrum”) of the Weimar Republic was – despite its internal rifts – a stronghold of democracy. Yet even it lost many voters to the up-and-coming Nazi-party. In the United States, the Catholic vote shifted decisively in favor of President Donald Trump, even as his critics warned that he would destroy democracy as we know it. In both cases, Catholic politicians and voters loyal to democratic principles of constitutional government were confronted with the pressing question of how to withstand the fact that many younger voters, especially men, were turning against them.
Comparing the crisis of Weimar and the emergence of the Nazi-dictatorship with the recent shift of power in the US and the first month of Trump’s second presidency is not self-evident. Any conclusions derived from such a comparison involve the historiographical problem of using analogies across time as arguments. The eminent historian and founding figure of modern historical research, Leopold von Ranke, warned against the trap of judging different times by a single standard when he claimed that any era is directly connected to God (“unmittelbar zu Gott”).
Yet if there are lessons to be learned from contemporary history for politics today, one is as follow: comparison is essential. The crucial question thus becomes: what is the point of comparing? What could serve as a meaningful point of comparison across time and space? I suggest addressing the question of why the trend of time seems to be running against liberal democracy. Purely economic reasons cannot be brought forward. These times of turmoil are likely to be rooted in culture. Both then and today, strong illiberal populist impulses led and lead to the decline of democracy. Leading politicians of the political right discredit the institutions and procedures of constitutional democratic government. They portray “the good people” as victims of “corrupt elites” and “dark forces” that are about to rob the future of their nation and their children. Voting for them is framed as the only remedy to overcome the misery of contemporary times. “Redemption” is offered to voters. And this redemption is a collective effort to bring about a new “Drittes Reich” or to “make America great again”.
How did Catholics react? Could they hold out against the trend of time? And why? Comparative answers to these questions do not come easily. In the case of the late Weimar Republic, historical research offers insights. The closer Catholics stood to their local parishes and the deeper their religious practices, the more they refrained from voting for the National Socialist party. According to historians and political scientists like Rudolf Morsey and Jürgen Falter, the Catholic milieu acted as a practical barrier against populism and extremism. Most priests and more Catholic women than men remained loyal to the Center Party. Catholic men, and in particular Catholic intellectuals who rejected the traditional form of being Catholic in Germany, were much more in favor of post-democratic experiments – but they frequently lacked a clear compass on what was going on in National Socialist politics. In the United States, the older New Deal coalition and its alignment with the Democratic party dissolved in the second half of the 20th century. The older, mostly white and Caucasian ethnic groups of Catholics became swing voters who increasingly leaned toward the Republican party. Younger migrant groups in the Catholic electorate, including Hispanics and East Asians, started from the bottom of American society and, like their European predecessors, initially aligned with the Democrats. Yet, the last election saw them voting in larger numbers for the Republican ticket. Given a populist alternative, the Catholic vote shifted, even among the core supporters of the Democratic party. In the aggregate, the Catholic vote makes up to roughly 25 percent of the US electorate, and the rule for presidential elections is that the candidate who wins the Catholic vote will win the election.
Which mechanisms are responsible for supporting authoritarianism? Among others, three are worth mentioning here. First, there is the effect of social contagion. Social contagion is a general social-psychological mechanism. It explains the spread of ideas, emotions, attitudes, and behavior in group contexts by handing on information from member to member repeatedly and rapidly, thus reinforcing and magnifying the initial impulse. Social contagion arises from narratives and networks. It shapes and reinforces societal trends by promoting specific political currents and making them dominant. This effect is used widely by populist movements to promote authoritarian content. Second, populist parties make their followers become ‘perpetrators’ and, in consequence, they become hostages to anti-democratic ideas and even deeds. The more followers of right-wing populist movements accept illegal measures against political competitors and social minorities, the more they become accomplices. They are therefore forced to stick with the populist movement; otherwise, they would have to admit to having done wrong. The Nazi-movement committed violent political acts well before coming to power in 1933, while Donald Trump inspired his inner circle of supporters to storm Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. That helped to bind together the followers in both movements. Third, shifting back and forth between legal and illegal political action secures and expands one’s political power base by using ‘terror’ against political competitors. Since the French Revolution, internal terror, i.e. spreading mistrust, insecurity, and anxiety among the people, is an infallible sign of moving from democratic to authoritarian rule.
In the early 1930s, Germany went down the road to catastrophe and disaster. In the United States today, politics is going in the same direction. Since the United States is an old and well-established democracy, there still remains hope that forces of self-correction will come into play sooner or later. As the old adage frequently attributed to Abraham Lincoln puts it: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Knowing that right-wing populism has its tide of time and causes times of turmoil, Catholics committed to liberal democracy and democrats – in the double sense of the word in the United States – need to talk about a democratic future for all, based once again on liberty, rule of law, and social justice.
