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After Democrats lost yet another election last month — this one in a House race near Atlanta — the historian Daniel Williams urged the party to confront its religion problem.

That problem centers on “a generational and racial divide between a largely secular group of young, white party activists and an older electorate that is more religious and more socially conservative,” Williams wrote. “Put simply, outside of a few progressive districts, secular-minded young activists in the party are unable to win voters’ trust.”