RSM recently wrote an article for The American Spectator in response to Reilh World View’s post on God and Government regarding a recent Newsweek article. Both tackle the so called “Christian Right”. Well, I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, but I feel I have to.
RSM wants to classify the growing split in the Republican party as ‘between those who see the GOP as being representative of the values and interests of identifiable electoral constituencies — that is to say, the politics of people — and those who see politics as a matter of coming up with policies and rhetoric that are defensible as intellectual truth in “the War of Ideas.” ‘ Well I hate to disagree, but to me, the divide is between the ‘Religious Right’ and and true socio-economic conservatives.
Let me take a moment to define who I mean by ‘Religious Right’. To me, the ‘Religious Right’ is the group of people that use religion as their primary guiding factor for voting and as such focus only on a few major issues they deem religiously important. The big issues in this case are abortion and gay marriage. These are the people that will vote for nearly anyone who is opposed to abortion and gay marriage regardless of anything else. These people will cave on nearly every other ‘conservative’ issue to see those two issues dealt with on their terms. I’ve seen these people, talked to these people, worked with these people. They are just as much salivating dogs as are the Obamatons, doing anything for their master who promises an end to abortion, an end to gay marriage, an end to the teaching of evolution, and sometimes promise to do this at the federal level, which flies in the face of true conservatism. These are the people that continue to drive the GOP to moderate candidates like Bush and McCain. Oh, hold on, you though Bush was conservative, yeeaahh, nope, never was, never has been.
RSM is wrong, in a way. Our current Republican politicians are focused on ‘the politics of people’. Candidates have focused on this large group of people, Christians, found their main priorities and crafted their policies after them. Find me a republican official who can be called soft on abortion or gay marriage. They are about as rare as a republican who has not voted to increase spending on welfare, education or other ‘liberal’ ideals that most conservatives want the federal government to spend less on. And yes, regardless of John McCain’s speaking the truth about insulting Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, it was Christian conservatives that got him nominated (it sure as hell was not those that are fiscal conservatives).
Mr. Robert Stacy McCain is right however, the way to win elections is focus on the politics of the people, and the GOP does need to again appeal to the majority of voters, this is obvious. But something I think he is forgetting is that during the rise of the conservative movement, the movement educated people along the way. Somewhere along the line we dropped that. I think we did the same thing Democrats did, found a few issues that we could harp on and grab a large group of people. The rest of the issues become muddled in the mix.
Riehl World View is right
Certain elements on the Right need to make up their mind as to whether they want to have primarily a political discussion, or a religious one. Certainly they can have both. But they are not the same thing. The “Christian Right” over-stepped in instances where it failed to realize that. Still, that doesn’t mean one’s faith can’t, or shouldn’t influence one’s politics at all.
We need to move the discussion back to politics, get back to educating the people on all the issues and away from this trapped cycle of nominating moderates. Fortunately I think we are, I think our electorate is becoming more and more educated, even those already erroneously calling themselves conservatives. I also believe that the ‘Religious Rights’ hold on the GOP is loosening as the number of true ‘Christian Conservatives’ grows.
For the record, I personally believe Pat Robertson is a moron who has a warped view of what Christianity is, so did Jerry Falwell.
-Fight the fight
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