Although evangelicals have always been a minority in the US, evangelical Christianity is now widely regarded as the paradigmatic American religion. In the late 20th century, evangelical Christianity expanded beyond its traditional base in the South and among marginal groups to fill the ecological once occupied by dying mainline denominations.

As evangelical Christianity went upmarket it changed to suit the tastes of its new middle-class adherents, who had no stomach for the rhetoric or style of the hardline religious right. And so new generation evangelical mega-churches, like Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, in affluent, suburban Orange County, California, arose to offer these new customers the middle-brow banality and shopping mall glitz they preferred.

Progressives, keen for support from religious believers – designated by the Obama administration as "people of faith" and presumed to be evangelicals – reached out to them but never quite trusted them. The liberal elite, many a generation or more removed from religious practice themselves, regarded people of faith as irremediably other: an alien tribe on good behaviour which could, at any time go back to its racist, gay-bashing, anti-environmentalist ways.

When anti-government protesters disrupted town hall meetings and took to the streets, progressives reflexively fingered people of faith. There was, however, little evidence of religious themes at the tea parties, anti-government demonstrations or town hall meetings disrupted by protesters packing heat. Retirees on medicare protested against the proposed "government takeover" of healthcare. Children carried signs demanding school vouchers. Protesters attacked Obama as a socialist and as a fascist, but did not seem to care that he was – since his break with the impossible Rev Wright during the fall campaign – unchurched and showed no signs of joining any church.

If there was any one theme behind protesters' free-floating hostility it was visceral hatred of government as such. This was political conservatism American style, encapsulated by Reagan's motto that government was the problem, not the solution. Republicans never promised voters good government because according to the fundamental assumption of American political conservatism, no government was good government. Indeed, they assured Americans that their aim was, as conservative activist Grover Norquist put it, to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The religious right will, no doubt, look for ways to turn this popular sentiment to their advantage. Evangelical churches operate as businesses and make their living by satisfying consumer demand. When the US government enforced school integration mandates, the religious right established a system of segregated "Christian academies" throughout the South in response to the demand by white parents for segregated schools. When, within a generation, racism became an embarrassment to Americans, conservative evangelicals shifted their attention to sexual politics.

Religion in America is at once pervasive and powerless. For Americans, half of whom have changed their religious affiliation at least once during their lifetimes, religion is a consumer choice. We shop for churches that suit our lifestyles, appeal to our tastes and support our agendas. When they do not suit us we take our business elsewhere – or start new churches. In the US religion does not drive politics: politics determine Americans religious consumption choices.

Evangelical Christians did not push American politics to the right. The religious right emerged in response to consumer demand, and so long as the demand for conservative politics and policies exists, evangelical churches, Republican demagogues and others who exploit the conservative working class – another American peculiarity – will turn a profit.

So please don't blame us people of faith for 30 years of conservative misrule and the collapse of the world economy. We didn't do it.