Religion, Military Accommodation, and ISIS Recruitment in U.S. Politics
This paper analyzes three interrelated topics at the intersection of religion, politics, and national security in the United States. The first section examines how the 2016 Super Tuesday results — particularly Donald Trump's popularity among evangelicals — signal a decline in the organized religious right's influence. The second section discusses the case of Captain Simratpal Singh, a Sikh Army officer who won a religious exemption under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, arguing that case-by-case accommodation strengthens military diversity. The third section addresses the phenomenon of ISIS recruiting Western teenagers, recommending community outreach, parental supervision of social media, and engagement with pro-social subcultures as preventive strategies.
- The Decline of the Religious Right After Super Tuesday: Trump's rise signals weakening organized religious right
- The 'God Gap' and Shifting Democratic Voter Coalitions: Religion divides Clinton and Sanders supporters
- Captain Singh and Religious Accommodation in the Military: Sikh officer wins beard and turban exemption
- A Sociological Response to Military Appearance Policy: Letter arguing for case-by-case religious exemptions
- ISIS Recruitment of Western Teenagers: Western youth attracted to ISIS narratives
- Community Strategies to Counter Radicalization: Outreach and pro-social alternatives prevent recruitment
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper demonstrates strong critical reading skills by identifying editorial bias in source articles — for example, noting how the word "caves" in the Army headline reveals the author's ideological stance before the argument even begins.
- Each section moves fluidly from summarizing a source article to applying sociological or political analysis, showing the student's ability to synthesize journalism with academic frameworks.
- The letter-format response in Part B is an effective rhetorical device that makes the normative argument concrete and direct without losing analytical rigor.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models source critique — evaluating not just what a news article says but how word choice, omitted perspectives, and logical fallacies (such as the slippery slope in the Bennett piece) shape a reader's interpretation. This is a foundational media literacy and sociological skill applied consistently across all three sections.
Structure breakdown
The paper is divided into three clearly labeled parts, each anchored to a specific news article. Part A addresses electoral politics and religion; Part B handles civil liberties and military policy, including an embedded persuasive letter; Part C pivots to national security and adolescent radicalization, concluding with policy-oriented recommendations. The structure is comparative and thematic rather than purely descriptive.
The Decline of the Religious Right After Super Tuesday
Whereas the "religious right" had seemed to be a dominant force in American politics — particularly powerful within the Republican Party — the influence of this loud but still minority group appears to have waned. One analysis goes so far as to suggest that Donald Trump's surging popularity in the Bible Belt signals a nail in the coffin for the infiltration of politics by the religious right. Similarly, the author insinuates a possible shift in American social norms, as traditional Bible Belt causes now appear to be "lost causes." The "organizational weight has withered," Burke notes, referring to the lack of strong leadership among the religious right. Ironically, voters who claim to value religion strongly have come out in support of Trump. Also ironic is the fact that stalwart Democrat Hillary Clinton gained ground among African Americans particularly because of her personal religiosity.
Burke's article is brief and does not go into any depth in terms of analyzing the sociological causes for these changes in voter behavior. However, it is possible to infer much about the shifts in core values and social norms in America. It is also possible that these voter trends do not reflect genuine change so much as they reveal the more authentic political and social divides in the United States. For instance, Trump might be popular among evangelicals in the South because he stands for brazen anti-government rhetoric and blatantly racist worldviews. Anti-government rhetoric and racism might have always been more important to that subset of voters than what had previously been assumed about evangelicals voting solely for religious causes such as anti-choice or anti-gay policies.
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