Ron Guhname, “The Inductivist,” is scathing about Kathleen Parker’s now-famous “oogedy-boogedy” column.
New York City Republicans should become the center of the party. That there are six of them and 100 million born-agains isn’t the point; the NYC-ers are cooler.
I like Ron’s style, and I thought Kathleen’s column showed the ugly face of metroconservatism. She was right to this degree, though: the extremes of religious enthusiasm repel a lot of people who favor general conservative principles. I meet those people all the time. They generally end up with a grudging vote for the GOP, if they bother to turn out (and there isn’t a Libertarian on the ticket), and Ron is right that their numbers are not currently convincing enough for GOP strategists to start saying to candidates: “Tone down the God stuff, for God…, er, I mean, for goodness’ sake.”
That might change in a few election cycles, though; as, of course, might the preferences of evangelicals, who don’t vote Republican because they want small government and fiscal restraint, but from hostility to the greater social liberalism of the Democrats. (I probably should have said “white evangelicals” there.) As Jonah Goldberg says: “The Religious Right will stop being Right before they stop being Religious.” So far as conservatives are concerned, evangelicals are fair-weather friends.
It’s a tough circle to square. The GOP alliance of irreligious conservatives with religious haters of social liberalism may not be stable.
In any case, we on the secular Right have to understand, as Kathleen plainly doesn’t, how marginal we are in the big antler-clashings of national politics. Currently.
I think the main issue is not religion per se, but the trend of the American Right being an extension of evangelical Protestantism. If not for this, it seems likely that Mitt Romney’s chances of winning the nomination of the Republican party would have been much higher. Perhaps Kathleen does go too far (and I appreciate Ron’s use of the word “tard,” which needs to be dispensed more generously than it currently is), but, a party of evangelical Protestants will be a minority party. Is there a way of appealing broadly to like-minded individuals without a sectarian tinge? Obviously, it has happened before.
The Palin nomination was the “jumping the shark” moment for the Right-as-extension-of-evangelical-Protestantism. What Kathleen said needed to be heard by the “oogedy-boogedy” Right, and it looks like it finally was.
Did she go “too far”? I’m of two minds on this…clearly we don’t want to needlessly insult those who have been our political allies for a generation or more. But, it is increasingly clear that the GOP was becoming less of a (perhaps uneasy) alliance, and more of a lock-step, in-group corporate entity. The increasing willingess to overlook nearly any flaw so long as you were “one of us” (Palin), and simultaneous denouncing and casting out of those who appear to be “not one of us” (Parker, despite her long-time conservative cred), is telling.
The Right’s reaction to, and dismissal of Parker makes our own argument for us: They’ve become overly-dogmatic and narrow-minded where their religion is concerned.
Bradlaugh seems right though, when he notes that the Secular Right is rather marignal when it comes to the “big antler-clashings of national politics” (memorable phrase, btw.) This may be depressing, but just as Jonah notes that the Religious Right will cease to be right before they cease to be religious…my guess is that there are many who enjoy this newly-created blog who will cease to support the GOP before they will suffer an implicit “relgious test” at the grass-roots level.
The GOP needs to reflect on this, much as we Parker-sympathizers may need to mind our manners.
Of course, the religious right has been complaining of the being taken for granted by the secular right for, oh, three election cycles, now. The complaint of ‘fair weather friends’ is a two-way indictment and the only glue between the two has *always* been the ‘enemy of my enemy’ idea.
Parker is not being dismissed by the religious right ‘despite’ her ‘long-term conservative cred’, but because of it. After the religion-lite of Bush and then McCain many religious right members were very hopeful to see an actual religious person on the ticket (notice those big crowds?). This is not an issue of ‘dogmatism and narrow-mindedness’, it proof that we are disliked. For all the outrage that many secular conservative feel about Palin (such as A-BAX), imagine the table turned: imagine if for the last 20 years the GOP had been nominating people more socially conservative than Huckabee and Palin and that they only gave lip-service (and poorly) to libertarian issues? Then a fiscal conservative gets nominated and boom! Conservatives with a ‘lot of cred’ start disparaging the candidate and the entire fiscal conservative group. If you got upset, believe me – you wouldn’t think it was ‘narrow-mindedness’!
Before the social conservatives in America were convinced to see the GOP as the party that could help them reach their goals the GOP was used to being ideologically pure – and losing. Those days may be back. Beware of becoming the new part of acid, amnesty, and abortion.
I’m pretty sure that lots of the sit-out-this-election Republicans were evangelicals and Catholics. I know a couple myself.
I wish all the religious conservatives who sat out the election had spent Tuesday’s lunchbreak voting for Baldwin and Castle instead, if only so we could gauge their strength. Staying home is much easier to misinterpret as a signal (e.g. “Did they spit McCain out or do they just not care?”). Voting for third parties is no more quixotic than answering the GSS.
Blode0322,
I tried to encourage the same thing. I, personally, run in pretty rarified circles of the Right – Non-SSPX Latin Mass Catholics. Amongst my many neo-Voctorian conservative friends and acquaintance I tried to get all the ones refusing to vote for McCain or Palin to vote Constitution Party or something so people would know we were mad, not bored.
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