Hats off to the New York Times for seeing a blue wave building in Texas… and finding a way to center white evangelical women. 
It’s not that this story isn’t interesting or newsworthy. It’s that there are thousands of interesting, newsworthy stories, and the Times spends a disproportionate amount of time covering white conservatives.
This article is like an ad for #NotAll white evangelical women, playing up “an under-the-radar web” of compassionate conservatives while downplaying the over the radar majority and the broader social and political impacts of white evangelicals.
There’s a trick here where the rarity that makes this story newsworthy and provides the lede - there were TWO Beto bumper stickers in a church parking lot - gets discounted in the conclusions. The demographic is 87% pro-Cruz… so you’re saying there’s a chance!
It’s ego fluffing for white people, especially those of the Good Christian variety. Ignore the stats. Ignore the big picture. Focus on the bravery and decency of these folks we highlight. And please ignore their rarity, except when seeing them as a harbinger of a brighter future.
The majority of white people voted for Trump. The vast majority of white evangelicals voted for Trump. If you’re white, odds are a lot of relatives and friends voted for Trump. These are uncomfortable facts for a lot of people. Focusing on the exceptions is a form of escapism.
#NotAll narratives like this story let us maintain a sort of out-of-body experience where we’re separate from the skins that give us privilege. It puts the focus on us (and specifically our innocence) and away from the bigger picture (which implicates us).
This narrative is the flip side of all the stories on Trump-loving rednecks who, to a lot of Times readers, are distinctly Other. Both types of stories place the problem at a comfortable distance from their audience.
If mainstream outlets picked their subjects more representatively, you’d see a lot less about Evangelicals for Beto. You’d see a lot more stories about black women for Beto, and financially comfortable white guys for Trump. Instead you get subtle, ego-soothing propaganda.
