If moderate Republicans manage to win the GOP civil war, they may find their party cut in two.
As the Governors’ Association meeting in Miami this week suggests, the Republican Party in defeat faces an acute identity crisis. If they try to move in the direction of the successful Eisenhower presidency, making themselves a common sense, problem-solving party, they would probably precipitate the formation of a breakaway third party representing the religious right, perhaps called the Christian Party.
The current Republican excitement over Sarah Palin suggests, however, they may choose to continue on the course set by George W. Bush. Palin holds multiple wacky religious opinions: creationism (Genesis read literally); the imminent end of time and the coming of the Rapture (the saved suddenly wooshed up to Heaven); and a belief she won her race for governor of Alaska because of a laying on of hands by an African clergyman noted for chasing a witch out of town for causing automobile crashes. She now says that she is waiting for God to tell her whether to run in 2012.
To win elections Republicans will need to distance themselves from “social conservatism” and the religious right.
It was little noticed that the 2008 Republican platform – I’m not making this up – promised to end all abortions without exception. That includes pregnancies brought about by rape, incest, or abortions needed to protect the life of the mother. The party of Bush and Karl Rove is in a hole and with Palin would continue digging ever deeper. But can the Republicans ditch Palinism?
George W. Bush transformed the center-right party of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and his father, George H.W. Bush, into the political instrument of the religious right, tying the party to the evangelical protestants and to such Catholics as made the culture war central to their politics. In 2000 Bush-Cheney got 75 percent of the white evangelical vote.
This has had significant political consequences: federal funding for all embryonic stem cell work was blocked; federally funded faith-based initiatives (abstinence only) were begun; and the theory of evolution became politically controversial for the first time since the 1920s.
In a speech in Irvine, California on April 24, 2006, Bush even gave a religious reason for the Iraq war.
I based a lot of my foreign policy on some things I think are true. One, I believe there is an Almighty, and secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless what you look like or where you live, to be free. And I believe liberty is universal. I believe people want to be free. And I know that the best to defeat the enemy, the best way to defeat their hopelessness and despair, is the ability to give people the chance to love their life in a free society.
In that glimpse into his muddled thinking, almost everything Bush said was shown to be false. After all, God tells Islam rather different things than he tells Christians. Today very few societies are free. Over the long course of human history from the ancient world to the present, the number of free societies is microscopic. God hasn’t been working very hard. Bush believes a lot of other things, including that God wanted him to be president (Deborah Caldwell, Christian Ethics Today, Spring 2005).
The lethal problem for Republicans is that while religion of a particular kind is central to their party today, it is also toxic to moderate, independent, suburban, young and, more inclusively, educated voters.
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Renata Espinosa is the New York editor of Fashion Wire Daily. She is also the co-founder of impressionistic fashion and art blog TheNuNu and a sometimes backup dancer for "The Anna Copa Cabanna Show."
Amanda Fortini has written for The New Yorker, Slate, Elle, and New York, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.
Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.
Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.
by Jeffrey Hart
Perhaps the most unnerving aspect of Christian conservatism is their absolute conviction to their righteous crusades. Pious inflexibility, especially as a system of governance, worries most people.
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."
-Robert F. Kennedy-
By the way, Daily Beast...edit, edit, edit.
Phrase that needs to be banned: common sense. There is no such thing. Exactly what is this "sense" that is "common" among us?
John McCain made a huge mistake, in terms of the future of the Republican party, by unleashing a Sarah Palin on the nation.
"Palinism" indeed. It's enough to ensure a rosy future for Democrats and moderates for many years to come.
If I was a Republican I'd be furious. But since I'm not, I couldn't be more pleased. The Republicans brought this on themselves and they can't seem to stop it.
I think once the 'educated' in this country actually pick up a book and Read, then I would agree with you. Let's see....the list of 'good acts' by the brightest, even those from Amos Tuck Business School have plopped us in the middle of a DEPRESSION. Nice job Dartmouth. You have CAUSED the harm that has befallen the Nation by miseducating students. Now ... anyone there ever heard of the Ontological Proof of the Existence of God, written by perhaps St. Thomas Moore? What about Moore's Treaties "On Faith and Reason"? Bring on the eggheads that have CRASHED Western Civilization, ruined the Court System in the Country, Bankrupted Wall St., and every FAMILY in the country. Enough is enough with pseudo-intellectuals with Dartmouth Degrees that cause havoc for the country.....and the world. May 'something' have mercy on your soul.
A little enlightenment for you magicman: greed and an intolerance for education has been the cause of ruin.
"The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born." Mark Twain
Only an ignorant person would call the republican party, the "Christian Party", which makes his whole article ridiculously stupid. Believing in the Christian Bible isn't the problem of either party. The republicans problem is their callous, selfish greed!!! If they actually did what Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them done unto you", then they would be the party in control of everything. The republicans' main problem are on economic issues, not social issues. The belligerent foreign policy is only a reflection of their economic beliefs.
For Donatello:
Would that be the very same Mark Twain who also said:
"Nothing beats the cool confidence of a Christian with four aces."
There is nothing better than an egghead contradiction, now is there. Twain was from what State??? I think it's a Mosee State isn't it? Maybe you could go look that one up in a book or something....you know, those paper things, wrapped in cardboard covers, found usually in places known as LIBRARIES???
I agree with magicman...we should all read more books. Then we would know that St. Thomas More (spelled with one o) was a protestant burning nut job. As far as the mystifying ontological theory of the existence of god, well it's actually a ridiculous argument that asserts if we can conceive of a god then said god must exist. Brilliantly conceived by the medieval philosopher Avicenna (not More) and widely believed in a time when even kings were illiterate and the majority of people thought the universe revolved around the earth. I may not have a fancy degree either, but instead of blaming those that do for the latest tragedies, I blame greed. The oldest and most common of all human downfalls.
The problem with many religious fanatics is they're full of evil.
Also for Donatello:
Your presumption at being 'educated', as you so tightly cling to for support, is officially in question. A missing piece, a 'magic' act if you will , not seen by your eyes, is in fact occurring and you are completely oblivious to it. That is not 'educated'. Additionally, there are certain facts about the organization of our Society that I know that you are completely unaware; the facts of which would instantly change your mind about what has occurred here. That also is not 'educated'. I do love Twain, but he was a deeply conflicted man. Bad example for these times. There is nothing the least bit 'conflicting' about the causes of this 'economic crisis'...in fact, the true shock is that it has even been trotted out in public.
To Donatello:
Read George Soro's article in today's Cheat Sheet. Isn't he also saying that the 'financial engineering' of derivatives and credit default swaps, invented by Ivy Leaguers, who know nothing about markets, who have been trained in equilibrium theory, are intrinsically incorrect because their Educators led them astray? Isn't being led astray intrinsically evil? As in ....say....a deceit or a lie from the mouth of Satan himself? Your holier than thou attitude somehow pales in the face of our current financial meltdown....doesn't it? Or is the proof no longer in the pudding?
Jeffrey, you are spot on in all your comments. Center right conservatives are being chased out of the GOP by Paliolitihic fundamentalists. Its time to take our party back. If we don't, we leave America's fate to the likes of Pelosi and Reid. Even Frank Rich acknowledges we need two viable parties, but he also rightly points out that is difficult to do when you are brain dead. The hard right must be consigned to the proverbial "dust bin of history". Thanks for your great work.
I think that the current notion that Palin and the religious right lost this election for the GOP is fundamentally flawed. While the hard right's attacks on Obama certainly did not help, and Palin's close and inelegant support for it clearly hurt, the fact is the GOP is in shambles because of its free market fundamentalism. The only other key reason for them looking like a party completely without ideas has been its constant degrading of governance itself. The party of 'conservatism' became of the party of radical governmental disfunction. Where they loved government inference, in abortion, in gay lifestyles, in security and eavesdropping, has come to seem (finally) as not doing much to advance the lives and livelihoods of average Americans. All they (and McCain) were left with was to say how they would cut our taxes. But who really benefits from their notion of tax cuts? That has been answered clearly over these last eight years.
Bush was the messiah of so many in GOP in 2000 and 2004. One can only say careful what you wish for. He brought about nearly everything the Republicans had been dreaming of, and look where we are. And had he accomplished those other things regarding abortion, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and privatizing Social Security, would we be able to say the country has any better lived up to its promise? The GOP shot off its load with Bush and now the barrel's empty. There is a lot of backpedaling and misdirection on the causes of this whole mess, but American's see and so does frankly the GOP. And it looks like one dark alley.
Now is the time. Own your failure.
I think that the current notion that Palin and the religious right lost this election for the GOP is fundamentally flawed. While the hard right's attacks on Obama certainly did not help, and Palin's close and inelegant support for it clearly hurt, the fact is the GOP is in shambles because of its free market fundamentalism. The only other key reason for them looking like a party completely without ideas has been its constant degrading of governance itself. The party of 'conservatism' became of the party of radical governmental disfunction. Where they loved government inference, in abortion, in gay lifestyles, in security and eavesdropping, has come to seem (finally) as not doing much to advance the lives and livelihoods of average Americans. All they (and McCain) were left with was to say how they would cut our taxes. But who really benefits from their notion of tax cuts? That has been answered clearly over these last eight years.%u2028%u2028Bush was the messiah of so many in GOP in 2000 and 2004. One can only say careful what you wish for. He brought about nearly everything the Republicans had been dreaming of, and look where we are. And had he accomplished those other things regarding abortion, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and privatizing Social Security, would we be able to say the country has any better lived up to its promise? The GOP shot off its load with Bush and now the barrel's empty. There is a lot of backpedaling and misdirection on the causes of this whole mess, but American's see and so does frankly the GOP. And it looks like one dark alley. %u2028%u2028Now is the time. Own your failure.
I like how people who call themselves the Intelligensa are always the least truly educated or intelligent. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the light, and NO man shall come unto the Father except through me." The problem with people not seeing God work in America or anywhere else, for that matter, is because they are too far away from the work. We are too busy involving themselves in self effecting, self absorbing pursuits.
I truly hope for a return to Christianity in America because I can find more truth and better outcomes in it than I can in this so-called freedom everyone longs for.
1. Stem cell research or its' methodologies isn't even needed.
It's a lie. The same results can be found in recovering cells
placenta's. It simply evades my reasoning that people who
are so anti-war and killing are adamantly approving of killing
babies. Seals before babies?
2. Abortion. The lie here is to use the rape, incest, danger
argument. The truth is all of those things are evil but
abortion is more-so. The real truth is that the majority of
abortions are convenience due to lack of planning and
a poor life-style choice of free sex.
3. Homosexuality. Abomination, pure and simple. Think about
it. What part of it is "natural" and "wholesome".
Look, you may sound bold, fresh, and brave by saying that religion is short-sided and hateful, but it takes faith to believe, to want to make things better, to live a wholesome life and walk a straight path and frankly too many of my fellow citizens are too lazy, too self absorbed, and too distracted by the enemy to listen to the true small voice. It's not too late. Seek and ye shall find. You will find it in those who truly live it, every day, believe it every day, and have hope in a better tomorrow. Through Christ, all things are possible.
The term Christian means Christ-like Right?? To walk the earth as one with Christ. I find myself having theological discussions with "Christians" (the ones that listen to the Rush type talk radio are my "favorite") And I find my attitude towards my fellow man is much more Christian than the Christians !! The True Christians never talk about, it they live it. The Godless Bush-Cheney dog and pony show that preached "Pro-Life" then Killed 100,000 innocent women and children is now responsible for a global recession that will starve 100,000 more. The Anti-Christ ? or maybe the Anti-Christian ! The smart and true evangelicals now know they were conned . I will Pray for You
To magicman:
Why so defensive? Donatello shows you the other side of the argument and you feel like you need an entire page to debunk a single well placed point. Education is not a negative thing. And how true is Mark Twain's observation about Christian Nations? Or do you not understand it?
It is a civic necessity that fundamentalists be isolated and marginalized in our democracy.
Twin premises of democracy are reason and employment of reason. Liberal (in the 18th century use of the term) democracy, and indeed the rule of law, are expressions of faith in the human race's God given capacity to reason.
A correlating faith is that through a reasoned debate of policy,the best policy will be found and selected. When selected, the policy will enjoy greater public support because of the open marketplace of ideas approach to finding the policy. These precepts have served the nation, and indeed the West, well for a score of decades.
Re-enter the fundamentalist. His mode of governance has a much longer history than democracy. He does not seek policy determination through democratic debate because he has the right choice directly revealed to him by God. Participation in the give and take of policy discussion, for the fundamentalist, is toleration of apostasy: He might pretend to do it as a necessity, but he never does it with any good faith respect for others involved--sinners all.
In the mind of the fundamentalist, only adoption of God's will as coercive law, applicable to all--believers and non-believers, vindicates God's plan for worldly governance.
The fundamentalist cannot also be a democrat. The practices of democracy are alien to his outlook. If you enter a discussion knowing God's will, accepting deviation from God's will is a sinful yielding to devilish temptation.
Truth and policy guidance is to be interpreted from ancient authoritative texts or received personally in direct godly revelations: social sciences, political theory and even the instructions of human experience itself are all temptations to sin rather than potential bases for wisdom.
So saith the Lord.
There's a reason the democratic platform had to move toward the center.
Christian-bashing is just that.
Extremism of any kind is the cause of everything that is wrong with the world today -- just as it always has been.
And the man's name was St. Thomas More, not Moore.
I am weary of Jeffrey Hart's crusade against orthodox Christianity. I voted for Obama with him. But I, as a creationist anti-abortion and rather pedestrian reactionary, cannot abide the Republican Party's simpering capitalism. I think Hart is slumming in the Democrat party for much more temporary and histrionic reasons than mine. I do not care at all for Palin's eschatology, or for her commercialized and very Republican form of Christianity. And for that Stepford wife sort of obeisance toward capitalism I left the Republicans with a light heart. But Jeffrey left the Republicans simply because he is pissed off at the simpletons on the Christian Right. He did not embrace the Democrats' denunciation of "trickle-down voodoo economics," whose only voodoo-doll is the poor. The true Conservative is small, distributist and agrarian. He is neither bourgeois or socialist. He is, and must be, Christian in an orthodox manner. And he is certainly not Jeffrey Hart.
God did the american people a favor by not electing Palin as VP. Now god needs to make sure that any door she wants to go through is nailed shut tight that can't be pride openned. God help us all for her kind of thinking makes it to the highest office. Eeeeek, eeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. Albert Einstein
And here is the evil in UTAH we ALL need to do something about:
http://www.bankingonheaven.com/
All this is good advice for the GOP. Fortunately, for the Democrats, it will be ignored by the Christofascists who are currently in change of the Republican Party and are likely to remain so after this election debacle.
Whether a breach of the party is by the evangelical right or the "old school" moderates seems ripe. The questions comes--post schism--will the BlueDogs and the Old Schools merge and become a force to be watched closely?
One small correction to the article. John Danforth--heir to the Ralston-Purina fortune--is not "now" an Episcopal priest. Senator Danforth has been a member of clergy prior to, during, and after serving as a US Senator.
Thank you.
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