How Catholics Transformed America (What Colin Woodard's American Nations Gets Wrong about Yankees)

In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the profound influence of Catholic immigrants on American culture, particularly in reshaping the Yankee identity. Drawing from Colin Woodard's "American Nations" and contrasting it with David Hackett Fisher's "Albion's Seed," the Collins couple offers a nuanced perspective on how Catholic immigration waves transformed the cultural, political, and social landscape of America. This comprehensive analysis covers topics ranging from bureaucratic tendencies and voting patterns to the evolution of American arts and sports culture. Key points discussed: The misconception of Yankee culture's Puritan roots Catholic influence on American bureaucracy and politics The impact of Catholic immigration on urban centers The evolution of Catholic voting patterns Cultural differences between Catholic and Protestant traditions The role of Catholics in shaping American arts and education The future of Catholic influence in American politics

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. We were listening to the audio book for American nations by

Simone Collins: colin Woodard.

Malcolm Collins: . And we're likely going to do a series of episodes on them. This is a guy who divided America into 11 different populations with different histories. I'll put it on the screen here. I think he gets most things right. He wrote the book as a direct followup to another book that we mentioned all the time on the show called Albion's Seed that talks about the four founding cultures of America

Simone Collins: by historian David Hackett Fisher, which was written in either late eighties or early nineties.

So this answer is a much more modern take and quite interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Well, but it also does something quite different than Fisher's book. And I think it, it gets some things wrong. And one of the things that gets wrong, we're going to be talking about on this video, because I think he completely misunderstands the Yankee culture.

So first I'm going to talk a little bit about Albion Seed so you can get a little prep of this and, and why Albion Seed doesn't help us as much understand modern America as this [00:01:00] followup book does. Specifically, Albion Seed, they divide the original Americans into four Four distinct cultural groups, which is accurate.

The Puritans, the Quakers, the Backwoods people,

and the Cavaliers. Now what was interesting about these four groups is I remember I was talking to somebody about this, and they kept trying to guess. They were like, who are the Catholics? Which one is the Catholics?

And they go, like, I, I would go, so the first thing they go, oh, the next is the Catholic group. Or I mentioned the Cavaliers. And they go, oh, that must be the Catholic group. And I had to break to them something that is kind of, I think tough for a lot of Catholics today because they get this sort of retelling of American history that tries to include them in parts of American history that they just were not players in.

During the time of the American Revolution, only 1. 5 percent of America was Catholic. If you, and people are like, Maryland, Maryland was a Catholic colony, wasn't it? At the time of the revolution, less than 10 percent of the population in Maryland was Catholic. There was just no significant Catholic population in early America.

[00:02:00] However, that is not true of America today, even when we're talking about like significant declines in religiosity in America. You can look at something like Massachusetts, for example. And can you guess the percentage in 1990 of Americans , in Massachusetts, who identified as Catholics?

Simone Collins: 4%.

Malcolm Collins: 54%. Holy smokes. Do you, do you know what it was in 2010? 38? 45%.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Uh Oh. So we can go over some, some other, you know, new England states, you get 26% of New Hampshire, one of the least Catholic, of the New England states is incredibly Catholic. 22% of new Vermont, another low Catholic population of the New England states identifies as Catholic.

That is absolutely wild. [00:03:00] Yeah. Um, In terms of like how much of the population of New England Catholics makeup. So, the thing that the guy gets wrong in this book is he does get right. The Quakers, who ended up making up the Midlands population, were widely outcompeted by an alliance of the backwoods people and the German immigrants, who basically ended up erasing their cultural footprint until they came roaring back with a vengeance through the woke revolution, which we will do another episode on how that evolved out of Quakerism.

We talk about it heavily in the book, the pragmatist guide to crafting religion. However,

He incorrectly claims.

Malcolm Collins: the Yankees evolved out of the Puritans

When in reality.

Malcolm Collins: the Puritans. basically went extinct in the same way that the Quakers do. Oh, yes, they may got some small sliver of American population, but their ideals and their world vision was pretty much completely erased except for some small bubbles in places like New Hampshire, which I [00:04:00] think holds more to the Puritan political framing.

But largely speaking, they were erased by the many waves. of Catholic immigrants that mostly settled in the urban centers of New England. As to places why the, like Vermont and New Hampshire were not as affected, it's because their population doesn't live in urban centers. And most of the Catholic population went to settle in urban centers.

So, if you look here, , at his map and then contrast it with the concentration of Catholics in different parts of America. It is very clear that three of the regions. That he carved out are actually specifically Catholic cultural units. Here. We are talking about Yankee dim, the left coast and Eleanor.

Okay, This is the north Eastern United States. This is the far Western coast of the United States. And this is the Hispanic immigrant part of the United States. Every one of these has had an enormous impact on America's cultural [00:05:00] history.

And as such Catholicism has had an enormous impact on Americans, cultural history.

Malcolm Collins: Now, another thing that people get super wrong about Catholics modern, modern Catholics, and they go, Oh, Catholics, solid conservative voter place. Life begins at conception and all right. As of 2022, what percentage of Catholics identified was the Democratic Party versus the Republican party?

Simone Collins: That's a good question. I would say. Probably 68 percent of Catholics identify with the Democratic Party because it, it focuses more on this like, top down control and like charitable giving to the weak, right?

It's,

Malcolm Collins: it's 42 percent with the Democratic Party, 38 percent with the Republican Party. Oh, okay. So the rest aren't affiliated. Yeah. 20 percent are unaffiliated. There's still way more and they used to be even higher with the Democratic Party. So in the election cycle before that, in the 2020 election cycle it was 45 percent [00:06:00] identified with the Democratic Party.

And, and then if you look at exit polling, it's even worse. So you look at 2020 52 percent of Catholic voters voted for Joe Biden.

Simone Collins: 52%. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would think that the majority of Catholics are going Democrats.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Here I have contrasted to maps. For you. One map is the percent of Catholics in different