Despite the societal trend toward religious comity and accommodation, sizable fractions of the American public hold antagonistic sentiments toward religious conservatives. Utilizing 1988-96 American National Election Study (ANES) data, this study explores the nature and depth of antipathy toward Christian fundamentalists. Data show that antagonism toward fundamentalists is significant today, and increasingly has become concentrated in segments of the populace that have distinct and overlapping characteristics. Multivariate analyses demonstrate that antipathy has religious as well as political sources. It is pervasive among the highly educated and among seculars. And recently, cultural progressivism has also become a significant predictor of antipathy. Antifundamentalism has declined among religiously conservative Catholics and Protestants, cultural traditionalists, and self-reported Republicans. Beginning in 1992, attitudes toward this religious group have become polarized. These results have implications for the American party system and religious pluralism.

Utilizing data from the 1988-96 American National Election Studies (ANES) and the 1997 ANES Pilot Study, we will show that voters have begun to orient their political attitudes and behaviors according to their feelings toward Christian fundamentalists. This is particularly the case with antifundamentalists, the roughly one-fifth of the white nonfundamentalist public who, significantly more so than other nonfundamentalists, intensely dislike fundamentalists and who perceive members of this religious group as militantly intolerant, ideologically extreme, inegalitarian with respect to women's rights, and monolithically Republican. These associations coincided with a marked shift in the proportion of antifundamentalists who became concerned about cultural and religious issues in national political life. Multivariate analyses show that feelings toward Christian fundamentalists are now a significant predictor of relative party assessments, adverse to the Republican party. Moreover, logistic regression analyses demonstrate that antipathy toward Christian fundamentalists has become a significant explanatory variable of vote choice in recent presidential elections. Antifundamentalism today has joined ideology as a predictor of presidential vote choice, and its impact surpasses the effects of traditional economic variables, such as attitudes toward government activism and retrospective assessments of the economy. Our findings lend support to scholars who contend that the 1992 presidential election quickened or heightened cultural and religious forces that to this day structure attitudes toward the two major parties. The data attest to the power of negative religious out-group affect in shaping political perceptions, attitudes, and behavior during periods of cultural ferment.

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Detractors call them right wing nuts, apostles of hate, fomenters of violence. Fans hear them as inspirational, voices of reason, enlighteners of the public. Similarly, their audience is portrayed as maladjusted, intolerant, and dangerous-or as guardians of the republic, socially conscious, and public spirited. Talk radio, its hosts and listeners: Is it a "bedlam of conservative yakkers?" A forum for seditionists? An electronic version of New England town meetings? Is it all of the above, some, or none?' Whether characterized as laboratories of demagogeury or of democracy, talk radio has become a staple of American political discussion, especially since the 1994 electionthe political tsunami that uprooted scores of Democratic members of Congress, senators, governors, and state legislators. The election ended forty years of Democratic dominance of the House of Representatives, over sixty years of control of state houses and legislatures, and perhaps laid the groundwork for the sixth realignment of the American party system (or signaled continuing dealignment).2 Republicans won 230 seats in the House of Representatives, picking off 52 formerly held by Democrats, with 52 percent of the national House vote. The Republicans also gained control of the Senate by capturing eight LOUIS BOLCE and GERALD DE MAIO are associate professors of political science at Baruch College,