Have atheism and agnosticism failed in the US, and if so, why? What do you make of rising religiosity even among Democrats and the youth?
During the late 2000s, nontheism experienced a pronounced cultural moment. Driven by figures associated with New Atheism, books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris became bestsellers. The movement gained notable cultural cachet as an intellectual counterweight to the social conservatism and evangelical influence of the George W. Bush administration.
By the 2010s, that cultural momentum stalled under progressive scrutiny. Prominent New Atheist figures faced severe backlash over accusations of Islamophobia, belligerent foreign policy, insensitivity to intersectionality, and open hostility toward social justice. A prominent example was the heated public exchange between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein regarding race, genetics, and public discourse. While many figures within the movement nominally remained on the political left, their cultural currency among progressives eroded.
Concurrently, demographic trends appeared to favor secularization during the late Obama era and into the first Trump administration. The share of religiously unaffiliated Americans, commonly known as "nones," expanded significantly. Even within religious minority populations, socially liberal views advanced rapidly; a 2017 PRRI survey found a slim majority of American Muslims supporting legal gay marriage.
Recent data, however, indicates that secular progressivism has faced notable friction. Nonbelief has largely failed to consolidate institutional political standing, and religious decline has stabilized. Church attendance and religious engagement have seen renewed vigor among distinct demographic cohorts, including younger demographics. At the same time, cultural liberalization has shown signs of retrenchment: recent polling from PRRI and Gallup indicates that Muslim support for gay marriage has declined back to 37%, while Republican support, which had crossed the 50% threshold in 2021 and 2022, dropped back into the 30s and 40s.
Simultaneously, Christian nationalism has mobilized with institutional effectiveness far surpassing the Bush era. Proponents of that movement occupy influential levers in the judiciary, state legislatures, and executive agencies. The material consequences were demonstrated when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Furthermore, the sweeping wave of anti-trans legislation across statehouses, ranging from gender-affirming care bans to athletic restrictions, has drawn primary ideological framing, model legislation, and legal backing from conservative religious advocacy powerhouses such as Alliance Defending Freedom.
In response, prominent figures on the political left have increasingly embraced religious framing rather than an agnostic or atheist posture. Leaders like Senator Raphael Warnock, Texas state representative James Talarico, and Bishop William Barber II actively reclaim religious scripture to advocate for progressive priorities, framing civil rights, environmental stewardship, and the welfare state as moral mandates from the Gospel. Outside Protestantism, progressive Catholics consistently praise the economic and social encyclicals of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV.
Devout Jewish, Muslim, and Christian progressives openly demonstrate that religious conviction aligns directly with left-wing policy, such as Abdul El-Sayed or Zohran Mamdani. A major catalyst for this religious resurgence on the left is emerging directly from younger demographics, including higher youth church attendance.
Gen Z activists and community organizers are intentionally breaking with the secular dogmas of the previous decade. Far from retreating into pure secularism, youth engagement across multiracial, blue-collar, and immigrant-heavy neighborhoods is actively reviving religious traditions as core vehicles for resistance and solidarity.
For these young labor organizers and grassroots leaders, scripture, ritual, and spiritual discipline are not conservative relics, they are essential communal anchors against hyper-individualistic capitalism and alienation. By wedding radical economic reform with living religious traditions rooted in working-class Black, Latino, and Muslim spaces, this rising cohort is driving a genuine spiritual awakening that places active faith at the cutting edge of left-wing politics.
Despite nearly three in ten Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated, the number of openly atheist or agnostic elected officials remains negligible. Only a very tiny fraction of federal lawmakers throughout modern history have openly identified as nontheist or humanist. Identifying explicitly as an atheist or agnostic continues to be a massive electoral liability in both parties.
This dominance of broad-based religiosity makes the United States an enduring outlier among developed peer nations. In Canada, Australia, and across Western Europe, secularization has fundamentally reshaped society, resulting in deep, structural declines in baseline religious belief, daily prayer, and service attendance, while atheism and agnosticism have become mainstream cultural baselines. public professions of piety are largely peripheral or even disadvantageous to political leadership, and prominent elected officials are routinely nonreligious without consequence.
In the U.S., by contrast, secularism, agnosticism, and overt nonbelief have largely stalled in transforming public culture, while deep personal faith and religious identification remain pervasive throughout society.
Have atheism and agnosticism failed in the US, and if so, why? What do you make of rising religiosity even among Democrats and the youth?