That's really what it comes down to. They don't reject evangelicalism out of any sense of principle or theology. It's because evangelicalism doesn't have a cool enough "aesthetic" for their larping. For all of the faults within American evangelicalism, they aren't likely to endorse the degeneracy that comes from "waifu" culture.
As for moral therapeutic deism, it's not even that. At least in MTD, there's an allowance for divine intervention, if only to get the house, car, or job that you want. I have rarely, if ever, heard about providence or divine intervention from TradCats. They seem to approach prayers like mantras, if they pray at all.
Exactly. I will contend that most of these people joined their Catholic parish as a means of meeting a real life trad waifu. The reality is that most lay Catholics tend to be cultural or cafeteria Catholics, and it's harder to find the kind of pure, virgin, white girlfriend that they want to have.
As much as this is a meme at this point, there are a lot of closeted Catholics, and not just in the priesthood. In reference to TradCats, I think the appeal of Catholicism is the showiness, the decadence, and over all, dare I say, "effeminate" nature of it. Given the fact that TradCats also fetishize authoritarianism...well, you get the picture.
There are trad waifus to be had at the trad parishes, but the guys, in characteristic incel fashion, have totally unrealistic expectations. I saw a guy saying Catholic girls need to stop 'dressing like Puritans'. If you join an extremely conservative church, women aren't going to wear tons of makeup and tight clothes. It's a pretty universal part of extremely conservative churches.
That having been said, the women don't always have realistic expectations either. The issue is that the desired TradCat family structure is so outside of the current American norm that it's hard for people to deal with. Let me explain.
My general observation is that there are two main childrearing/family set ups in America today.
#1: People have kids young. They're not married. It's common for the couple to split up soon after the child is born, or for them to not really have been a couple in the first place. Women are both the primary caregiver and the primary breadwinner, often even if she still lives with the baby's father. She expects this going in, at least subconsciously. A lot of people have 3+ children, potentially with multiple partners. This does not have a huge impact on the mother's career, because her 'career' is entirely low wage jobs. She is not worrying about paying for Montessori preschool. Standards of living are low.
#2: People have kids after 30. They are married, and they were in a relationship for several years before marriage. Both the man and the woman have fairly well paying jobs. The woman might stay home for a while after the children are born, but her becoming a stay-at-home-mom until they're 18 is unlikely. Family sizes are small. The woman does care about the impact on her career, and both parents are worried about being able to afford the niceties of middle class life and, of course, college tuition. Standards of living are higher.
What these two have in common is the man is not solely supporting the woman, and the woman is not solely dependent on the man. In #1, you have a lot of freedom when it comes to partner choice and parenting. In #2, you have less--especially for women, since they have a shorter period of fertility--but you do have more financial security.
The traditional structure, however, is get married young, have lots of kids, and the man is the sole means of income. And if you're Catholic, if you get divorced, you can't get remarried or you're committing adultery. It's scary for the woman because it'll be way harder for her to get out of an abusive situation if she doesn't have money, and it's scary for the man because he's looking at supporting 6, 7, 8 kids on one salary.
The other issue is that everyone's desired standard of living is a lot higher than it was in 1963. Pre-Vatican II American Catholic life meant crowded tenements with one bedroom for the girls and one for the boys.
The other other thing about Pre-Vatican II American Catholic life is that everyone lived near each other, jammed into America's still-industrial cities. You had a village to help raise the children. I've seen a lot of TradCat women online saying they feel so incredibly lonely. A lot of them drive an
hour to go to the Latin mass. A lot of these churches don't even have coffee hour after! This is where TradJews win--they're not allowed to drive to the synagogue, so they all live within walking distance, and consequently, they have a community. And they've also turned previously normal Jewish neighborhoods into Hasidic ones because of this (and in some of the most expensive parts of the country!), whereas TradCats don't have the same incentive to do that.
