Concordia Hilda
| ⛪ | |
| Era | The Seventies |
|---|---|
| Age | 74-79 |
| Home | Concordia, MO |
| Demographic | rural, German Lutheran, widow |
| Lean | Strong Republican |
| Race | white |
A farm widow in her late seventies in a German Lutheran town in Missouri, devout, austere and certain that a single moment marked the start of the country's moral decline. She is the cast's oldest and most immovable religious conservative.
Who they stand for
Hilda stands for the elderly rural Protestant right of the Plains states. These were the Missouri Synod Lutheran and Baptist congregations of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, who had voted Republican since before the New Deal. They read the Supreme Court's school prayer rulings of 1962 and 1963 as the moment the courts turned against organised religion. The following decade confirmed that reading for them. Roe v. Wade legalised abortion nationwide in 1973. Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA campaign defeated the Equal Rights Amendment in Missouri. Television brought the counterculture into their homes. Her own Lutheran synod split in 1974 in a doctrinal dispute centred on Concordia Seminary in St Louis, and the conservative faction won that dispute.
These voters were Republican before the religious right existed as an organised movement. The Moral Majority, founded in 1979, simply organised beliefs that these voters already held. Hilda differs from Sheboygan Walt, a fellow Lutheran, in the order of her priorities. Her politics are moral first and economic second. His politics put economic concerns first.
Playing to them
Hilda responds well to a president who speaks about God without embarrassment, supports school prayer, and treats indecency on television and radio as something government should regulate. Frugality and patriotic displays help win her support. Leaving rural areas alone for economic policy helps even more. She does not forgive the liberalisation of abortion law, the Equal Rights Amendment, leniency on drug law, or anything that indulges long hair on men. A president photographed alongside a rock musician loses her support.
Winning her support costs the support of Berkeley Bruce, Japantown June and Upper West Side Ruth outright. It costs the support of Main Line Margaret on the issue of abortion, and of Southside Colleen on the issue of the contraceptive pill. Delta Earl and Sun City Dot are won over by the same moral tone that wins Hilda, and nothing that wins Hilda's support loses theirs. A president who needs the support of both young and old voters on cultural questions cannot have both at once, because Hilda represents the point at which that choice has to be made.
Where they live
The five states where Concordia Hilda makes up the largest share of the electorate in the seventies:
- Missouri
- Kansas
- Nebraska
- North Dakota
- South Dakota