The Right’s Loss Is Whose Gain?
I have a habit of reading things I intend to blog about, putting them aside to be written about later, and then forgetting about them. More accurately, I suppose, I put them aside, and when I pick them up again, I decide the post would be too untimely now. One item, on the verge of being “too old”, is the Sept. 12 editorial from the Charleston Gazette, titled “Shift?”.
The editorial discusses the “loosening of the bond between the GOP and hardline believers who denounce gays, abortion, sexy movies, stem cell research, evolution, sex education and the separation of church and state.” For some reason, the Gazette’s editorial staff (in their decidedly liberal-skewed view) seems to feel this is a good thing for Democrats. I don’t believe they’ve thought this through.
First, where does the Gazette think the Religious Right is going? The editorial doesn’t say that the “hardline believers” are becoming less hardline. Instead, it quotes a Voice of America treatise that said: “Republicans in Congress have not lived up to their commitments on issues such as restricting abortion or banning gay marriage.” If that is the major cause of the “break”, I’m not sure why the Gazette would consider it a win. Much like conservative-leaning libertarians who have been opting out of the Republican party in recent years, it sounds like these evangelicals are choosing to leave the party because it’s become too Democratic.
It seems unlikely that they are going to leave the Republican party for not being socially conservative enough and then run straight to the arms of the Democrats. After all, the Gazette quotes the Toronto Star’s analysis, “Is the Christian Right Withering?”, which said: “…Democratic contender Barack Obama, for instance, has accused the Christian right of promoting hate and challenged its contention that strict Christian values are integral to American society….†I’m pretty sure that’s not the way for the Democrats to win over these voters disillusioned by the Republican party.
Of course, it is possible that some of the former Religious Right will jump to the Democrats; if both parties are seen as too-liberal socially, then there’s nothing to stop these evangelicals from skipping over to the party that will provide liberal economic policies that Christ commanded[a]:
“The Religious Right’s Era is Over†was the title of a recent Time commentary by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine. He said American religion “has had a negative image in the past few decades†because of fundamentalist politics, but now “we have entered the Post-Religious Right era.â€
“Evangelicals — especially the new generation of pastors and young people — are deserting the Religious Right in droves,†the Time essay said. Churches are returning to more compassionate political goals such as helping the poor, increasing medical care, opposing war and similar humane ideals espoused by Jesus, Wallis wrote.
If Wallis (whose full article can be found here) is right, this shift could indicate a levelling of the playing field, making the issues the topic of debate, rather than the (often unrelated) religious beliefs of those on either side.
Liberals need to be cautious about celebrating the demise of the “religious right”, in that case. They’ve gotten by for quite a while now by attacking the Religious Right strawman, which allowed them to avoid any real debate. Imagine if they actually had to discuss partial-birth abortions (or abstinence[b] education, voluntary prayer in schools, or education vouchers, or…) without their usual, shrill outcry about the Religious Right’s attempts to legislate Christian values Without the Religious Right strawman to beat up on, liberals may find themselves facing a much more formidable opponent. They may actually have to argue against the facts [c].
- Whether Christ’s example really calls for Christians to forcibly rob from our neighbors to give to ensure equality of outcome and stand idly by, allowing atrocities to continue indefinitely, because we “oppose war” is debatable, I think, but that’s not the topic of this piece. [↩]
- Note that I didn’t say abstinence only education [↩]
- Actually, they probably won’t; the lack of a religious element to the gun rights debate hasn’t really forced them to face facts, come to think of it. [↩]
I have seen a lot of what is talked about here at work. For the most part the entire group of 10 or so people at work that I socialize with on a daily basis are conservative. Several consider themselves conservative because their views on fiscal issues and others because of their views on social issues. I consider myself the latter.
Over the last year or so, there has been a large rift in the political views of these people. Probably 1/3 of these people have jumped on the Ron Paul bandwagon (which seems like the ever popular thing to do among the overwhelmingly large libertarian internet population). So they think the Republican party has become too much like the Democrats about big government and foriegn policy.
There is also the group of people that think the Republican party and also the world in general has become too liberal in their social views. I don’t know that this necessarily means that these voters are going to leave the party, but they are going to pay closer attention to who they vote for and there will be no blind support of the party.
There is also a group that still support the entire party and blindly follow everything.
I can only speak for the republican side of things, but I do know just in our office that the republican voters here are very fractured. I think if the person that comes out of this primary election doesn’t unite the party, it will be very tough to win this coming presidential election.
Do you think people are really likely to vote for the Libertarian (or another third party) candidate if the Republicans nominate someone who’s not quite to their liking? Even if doing so probably means that Hillary Clinton will become President?
It’s unfortunate, because I could get behind a lot of his stances on various issues, but Ron Paul gives a little more respect for the 9/11 Truther movement than I’m willing to tolerate.
I think people see the Ron Paul support thing as the “in” thing to do. The internet is worse than high school when it comes to forming cliques. The majority of the people voting in this election will make our foreign policy the #1 reason they vote. The internet community I would say is pretty anti-war. But there are so many of these anti-war people that are conservatives. So the majority of these people are jumping to Ron Paul as the answer.
I would say there isn’t a snowballs chance that Ron Paul will win the upcoming election. He is not going to win the Republican nomination, but what does it take to get on the ballet as an independent or any other third party? I would say just the amount of people writing him in will have an effect on the election. I would hope that these people that are so eager to throw Bush under the bus, will quickly see that the republican candidate is the lesser of two evils.
I really don’t like Ron Paul much. His attitude kinda turns me off. Just search youtube or anywhere for Ron Paul and you will see him smarting off some anchor, and all his internet fanboys posting about how dreamy he is. His economic policy I dont think are terribly bad, but some are pretty out there. My biggest issue is his foreign policy of turtling. That all our problems will go away if we just pull all our troops out of foreign countries and turtle up.
[...] Instead, it quotes a Voice of America treatise that said: Republicans in Congress have not lived up to their commitments on issues such as restricting abortion o r banning gay marriage. … #8221;, which said: Democratic contender Barack Obama, for instance, has accused the Christian right of promoting hate and challenged its contention t… source: The Rights Loss Is Whose Gain?, One Stack Mind [...]