“These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at catholic school,” wrote Rep. Maxwell Frost (D–Fla.) on X. “Don’t give us your fucking thoughts and prayers.” Well then.

But prayer is not fake to roughly half the population. It’s not just a nice thing you’re obligated to say in the wake of a tragedy. The devoutly religious portion of the country—somewhere between 32 and 45 percent (if weekly church attendance and self-identification of religion as “very important” are proxies)—experiences prayer as a conversation with God. We petition Him, calling out for help; we grapple with evils and horrors and worries; we align ourselves closer to His will. Prayer is not just a wish list or a “to do” list we present to God; it’s where we reveal our despair, where we seek guidance, clarity, and revelation. It’s where we hope to become more Christlike. For devoutly Catholic parents grieving children, prayer might be the only thing that can provide comfort right now. That’s how I’d feel, anyway.

“Prayer is not an escape from reality,” posted Franciscan University on X. “It is the very place we meet Christ, who Himself was unjustly slain.”

It would behoove Democrats, from Jacob Frey to Jen Psaki, to understand that American Christians and Catholics are not lying about the things we believe: Many Christians believe in demons and Satanic forces. Catholics really do believe in transubstantiation. We literally believe that Jesus was the son of God, who died on the cross for our sins—and, to borrow C.S. Lewis’ argument, that he could not have simply been a “great moral teacher” (as he was making claims about his own nature that were either true or disturbingly fraudulent). He was either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord; we believe that last one, and that He will come again. These are not fringe beliefs. These are core.

If these things sound crazy to you, that’s fine. They clearly sound crazy to a bunch of Democrats who—I guess?—thought we were lying.

Psaki saying that “prayer is not freaking enough” sounds to Christians like she’s saying God is not enough; like it’s last call for his mercy and grace, like we’ll be cut off soon, like it’s finite. That betrays a fundamental misunderstanding, or maybe it’s a deliberate put-down.

If what they mean to say is “Conservatives/Christians should not only do thoughts and prayers but also pursue our favored gun control measures,” that’s at least more honest. But perhaps the thoughts-and-prayers conservatives hit on something important: Policy levers can’t necessarily be pulled to prevent true evil. Westman had legally purchased these weapons and had no prior criminal record. Last month’s shooter in Midtown Manhattan had legally purchased his gun as well. And the policy change that some conservatives might want—way higher scrutiny applied before prescribing intense drugs to people looking to transition genders—may in fact be different than the policy changes Democrats have in mind. Be careful what you wish for.

Democrats would be wise to consider more deeply who exactly they’re trying to appeal to, and who they think lives in America. We’re still, despite declining religiosity, a pretty religious country. Most people have pretty traditional views about gender, believing—increasingly from 2017 to 2022—that it is the same as one’s natal one, not something that can be different from the plumbing with which one was born. Four in 10 adults live in a household that has a gun; about one-third of the population owns a gun (though the partisan split is wild: 45 percent of Republicans own a gun but only 20 percent of Democrats, per Pew Research Center). What do they gain from denigrating the value of prayer? And do they actually believe that incidents like these will lead to more scrutiny on gun purchasing as opposed to gender transitioning? Democrats seem confident that things will simply go their way, but the politics of this are complicated.