Sorry, but I can't agree with my Big Cheese Boss Steve Waldman, who says "religious conservatives are being scapegoated in an almost grotesque way." His latest example is Kathleen Parker's column in which she complains that the Religious Right is what's wrong with the GOP.
Clearly, Kathleen is right. After all, it was the Southern Baptist pastors who came up with a plan to invade Iraq, and to get the US military bogged down there in an endless and extremely expensive occupation that turned the country over, in effect, to the Iranians. And it was the Pentecostals who arranged to deregulate Wall Street to let investment banks get wildly overleveraged; those well-known fundamentalist Bible beaters Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Arthur Levitt warned Congress not to regulate trade in derivatives, which got us into such a fix. I just hate all those churchy financial elites, don't you?
And lo, it was Father Richard John Neuhaus who went down to New Orleans and botched the Katrina response, if memory serves ("Heck of a job, Dickie," the president said, I think). I don't know how Jack Abramoff and his associates found time between his stints counseling youngsters at Jesus Camp to engage in criminal lobbying efforts, but boy, they did a real number on the Republican Party, didn't he?
And Sarah Palin and John McCain -- man, all they talked about all the campaign was gay marriage and abortion! You couldn't shut them up about it, the fundie freaks! I know they had big plans for how to fix the economy, and how to restore America's place in the world, but nooooo, their fixation on religious and social conservatism wouldn't let them talk about these things.
Clearly, the Religious Right has much to answer for. Clearly. The only reason more people aren't speaking out against them -- except for Kathleen, and Jeff Hart, to name two -- is because it's so difficult to get into the newspapers blaming Baptists, Mormons, Pentecostals and conservative Catholics for all the ills of the GOP. Editors don't want to face reality, you see.
[OK, sarcasm off.]
UPDATE: No, I don't think the social and religious conservatives are blameless. We were part of this coalition, and we didn't stand up to the party and its leaders when they were doing things they ought not to have been doing. We own our share of this disaster. But it's objectively absurd to blame us for the GOP's implosion, and we'd be fools to let that happen.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
G
Again and again I'm astonished (as as admitted before, not a little gratified) at the degree to which these posts and the supporting comments argue against their own points. I assume the RR aren't wanting to confirm the stupidity stereotype by arguing they've been duped by the GOP for what amounts to generations now, so what exactly is the reason for so consistently choosing to support them against their own principles? Anyone?
Yeah, that's basically where I've been thinking about the religious right since 2003 or so, when it became obvious that even with a skyhigh approval rating for the Republican president, both houses of congress, widespread support from the people...would result in them waging war, would result in dangerous tax cuts, would result in insane levels of deregulation...
...and not a single thing the religious right wanted.
There's an unfair stereotype that the religious right is full of ignorant people. But constantly voting those people is not really the best way to dispell it.
But I've been making my feelings clear about where Christian voters belong since I started posting here: We can either be on the side that claims to support us but has a never done a single thing for us, or we can be on the side that is actually doing the sort of stuff Jesus talked about and is open to our ideas except on abortion and gay marriage.
Large swaths of the GOP base are institutionally committed to the rejection of modern science (biology/evolution, astrophysics, geology, etc) because these fields differ from their literal/surface reading of the Bible. A pre-modern party, in a high tech world, and Republican policies reflect this. Scientifically educated (and other intelligent) people are not going to want to affiliate with this party which Andrew Sullivan calls a sect.
The Solution
Bertolt Brecht
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
People say that without the RR, McCain would have been crushed much worse than he actually was.
I say, hogwash.
Elections are won in the center, and Palin was a calculated choice to make centrists run away screaming, with her thorough denial of science, contempt for professionalism and expertise, and vicious anti-urbanism that sounded better in the original Arabic. Yes, she rallied the shrunken relict of the GOP base, which in and of itself can't win elections anymore. That conservative columnists still actually care about this only shows that they have failed to grasp the sea change that has taken place in this country in the last five years or so, and that they show no sign of being able to learn their lesson in time for the next four.
Had McCain picked his original choice of Tom Ridge, he surely would have done better among independents and suburbanites. Tim Pawlenty could at least have been defended without looking as ludicrous and unserious as Palin did. Even if he had still lost, he would have kept his personal credibility and reputation--which, at 72, is not something to ignore.
And yes, the RR is to a very great degree responsible for the freefall of conservatism: the mentality of ignoring all contradictory data, denying knowledge, expertise, and reality, was reflected in Bush's own managerial style, which woke up practically all non-RR Americans to the dangerous uselessness of conservative government. In case you haven't yet guessed, I am a secular liberal and a rather happy one.
There are probably stupid church people who will always vote Republican, I suppose. I'm certain of the stupid [insert your favorite stereotype] people who will always vote Democrat, I know some of that type personally.
Do either of them run the party? The un-paid-for automatic vote should not count because of their stupid reason for it? Be pretty hard to enforce. If you did it to one side you'd have to do it for the other, and they'd just about cancel each other out, so we'd have fewer votes in total but the same result.
Socialism is wrong. I don't expect you to understand that anymore, nor do I have space to explain it here. Go study up on it, it's really true.
The party that won the majorities in '06 and '08 is dedicated to socialism in every way. The opposition has been infiltrated with their agents too, but it can be (MUST BE!) recovered, because of all those stupid voters who will vote for Hillary if she runs as a Republican. Their votes will not change, so USE THEM!
Conservatism hasn't lost anything, because it hasn't been tried. Deny that and you are a liar.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.