Mike Pence and the Values Voters
On Saturday, attendees of the 2010 Values Voters Summit selected Indiana congressman Mike Pence in its 2012 presidential straw poll. Watch five minutes of his speech and you’ll understand why. You probably won’t understand that you’re not watching a clip from one of the many Tea Party conventions, but more on that in a minute.
Pence has been married for 25 years, has three children, and has served in the House for 7 years. According to Wikipedia’s summary of his political views, he appears to be a real, Tea Party-style conservative: He always votes for tax cuts, he opposed several Bush administration programs, including No Child Left Behind, opposed TARP, and of course, opposed Obamacare. He supports unlimited engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposes closing Guantanamo Bay, and opposes trying detainees in civilian court.
Pence is a decent-looking white-haired guy with a smooth speaking voice that occasionally gives hints of a drawl. He delivered his speech flawlessly, seeming relaxed and good-humored. (He favors jokes about Nancy Pelosi, but to his credit also made one about Fox News.) He began by saying he is a “Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” Wild applause.
The speech itself was the most hard-line stump speech I’ve heard a conservative candidate give perhaps ever, though not in the John Boehner, podium-pounding “Hell No You Can’t“ mode. It wasn’t angry or even excessively passionate. But Pence effortlessly covered every shibboleth of both the Religious Right and the Tea Party. He heralded Tea Party victories around the country, including that of Christine O’Donnell, and credited the wins with pulling the current Republicans in Congress to the right. (Apparently, for Pence, being called the Party of No is a sign of the GOP’s health.) He cheered George W. Bush’s “courage” for pushing the surge in Iraq and said the CIA should be able to “fight wars like wars.” He talked about repealing Obamacare, “bondage to big government,” and obliquely opposed repealing the Bush tax cuts. For the values voter, this guy is the whole package and more.
A couple of things that struck me as noteworthy:
1) The biggest applause of the speech came when Pence lambasted Obama for criticizing settlements being constructed in the West Bank. Pence formulate the line as a superlative: “Let the world know this, if it knows nothing else: America stands with Israel.” (Emphasis mine.) The crowd shot to its feet and roared with applause. Sure, we all know Christians love Israel, but, why do they find that the most exciting line in a speech full of their favorite things? And does Pence really believe that support for Israel is the premiere value the U.S. should project to the world?
2) Though Pence insisted that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “remain the policy of the U.S. military,” and he did use the phrase “defend traditional marriage,” he did not say “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage.” This bit came near the end and almost seemed like an afterthought. There was no mention of Prop 8 or “activist judges,” or anything of the sort. In fact, gay marriage didn’t even rank into the top five issues the Values Voters said they’re worried about. (Abortion was first, but the rest were all economic issues.)
Observation #2 gives fuel to my theory that those who think the Tea Party is driven by some other demographic besides white evangelicals are misguided. Of course, there is no doubt that everyone in the room on Saturday, including Mike Pence, is against same-sex marriage. But the whole structure of his speech indicated that he knows what evangelicals—a huge number of whom I would bet serious money are also Tea Partiers—are angry about a lot of other things right this minute. Not just abortion and gay marriage, but trying detainees in civilian courts, health care reform, the stimulus, everything. With that much ammunition, there’s no need to pander too explicitly about same-sex marriage.
It’s also interesting that Palin came in last (of the major contenders) in the straw poll. Though I think there’s a distinct possibility she will run in 2012, I’m increasingly inclined to believe even the rightest of the right realize that would be an epic disaster, and would be happier to see her as either second-in-command or just a cheerleader for the cause. (Palin came in second in the vice-presidential poll after Pence, who won that, too.)
There’s not much original to say about the political incoherence of all this: that the cheers were just as loud for open-ended military boondoggles and tax cuts as they are for fiscal discipline. Pence shares Palin’s reflexive partisanship on behalf of Israel that may or may not be rooted in evangelical apocalyptic notions about the Middle East. Personally, I’m dismayed to see evangelicals keeping up their reputations as being some of the most steadfast supporters of war, torture, and outside-the-law detention.
The moral of the story is: can you tell the difference between Values Voters and teabaggers? ‘Cause I can’t.
I don’t think that support for Israel has become (bizarrely) one of the conservative movements most passionate rallying points is really driven by the apocalyptic Christian thing, really, although I imagine that’s where part of the intellectual position descends from. (The other part is simply “Israel vs Muslims,” “US vs Muslims,” therefore “US♥Israel.”) It’s really just a function of the fact that enough prominent conservatives have made it a plot point and a wedge issue, the conservative base has come to see it as one of their major divisions with the left (which isn’t really true), and so they rally around it.
Because American conservatism has always been so desperately concerned with storytelling— because the movement exists for many of its most rabid adherents as a narrative, above and beyond anything else— once something gets into the story, it will invoke passion. There are very few positions that a savvy enough conservative leader couldn’t make hay out of, actually, provided he or she took care in how it was enveloped into the broader plot. Hence support for fiscal conservatism AND endless military commitments AND tax cuts on the wealthy.
— Freddie · Sep 19, 02:04 PM · #
Sessions might be right that Palin’s poor showing reflects realism on the part of “Values Voters.” On the other hand, the simple fact that she skipped the summit, whereas the other nominees attended and spoke there, probably knocked her down several places. (After all, how do you square the notion that hard Right types are ultimately tactical with the O’Donnell victory?)
I wonder if Newt Gingrich’s bad finish— beating only Palin— says anything about his potential liabilities with the Right. His efforts to hitch his wagon to Tea Party fears of shadowy Muslims and sinister Kenyans don’t appear to be punching through. Perhaps even the evangelicals sense his cynicism. That, and he can’t wash out the smell of his multiple divorces. Plus, for all his renown as a conservative shaker, he seems very DC. (How many people look at Newt and think, Georgia?) This can’t help him in the real America, to which DC is a hostile neighbor.
— turnbuckle · Sep 19, 06:43 PM · #
When you use the word “teabaggers,” you reveal to me that you are a closed-minded douchebag. Whatever you have to say, it’s stupid and trivial, and I will never read one of your posts again.
— y81 · Sep 19, 06:56 PM · #
Second the dismay with “teabaggers.” Clearly, they’re icky for you and you wish to renounce any potential association with them. But that, I think, betrays a casual contempt. Enjoy.
— Klug · Sep 19, 08:06 PM · #
Turnbuckle: Great point. I didn’t think about the fact that Palin was absent affecting her numbers.
y81: Don’t desert me now! You’ve been my favorite commenter of all time since this post.
— David Sessions · Sep 19, 08:29 PM · #
Lord knows, y81 has never resorted to casual contempt.
— Freddie · Sep 19, 09:05 PM · #
I personally am very comfortable being casually contemptuous of tea bag partiers becasue they are, in general, morons, and I feel contept for political movments that creates then pushes forth morons to run our country. It doesn’t take much more than a casual glance at their oxymoronic list of grevences/things they like to see that they haven’;t really taken the time to think things out. I think the word oxymoron was actully precreated (in greece, no less, the birthplace of reason)e specially with this group in mind.
PS. Note that “moron” right there in the word “oxymoron.” That’s probably where moron came from. Again, this word was invented by Socrates and just hung around for 3000 years waiting for it’s big moment. ANd here it is.
PPS. I know this is strong, but I feel strongly—nay, very strongly—that the teabagpartiers are one of the very most moronic things I have ever seen in politics and that only badness will result from their existance.
— cw · Sep 19, 10:51 PM · #
y81, Klug, the danger of comments such as yours is that one might learn the wrong lesson and merely avoid using the term “teabagger” while continuing to hold and promote superficial, reflexively hostile views about the movement. The nice thing about the use of political slurs is that it provides a quickly decoded signal about the likely depth of the analysis, which is tremendously helpful for blogsurfing triage.
— kenB · Sep 20, 02:25 AM · #
That’s harsh, cw. By your standards, then, we would all have to say that President Obama is a moron, too. Is that what you really mean?
— The Reticulator · Sep 20, 05:08 AM · #
Mr. Sessions, you forgot to tell us whether there were any parts of the speech that you agreed or disagreed with. Or was that intentional?
— The Reticulator · Sep 20, 05:12 AM · #
Note that “moron” right there in the word “oxymoron.” That’s probably where moron came from. Again, this word was invented by Socrates and just hung around for 3000 years waiting for it’s big moment. ANd here it is.
— Replica Swiss Watch · Sep 20, 08:01 AM · #
Reticulator,
You may not be surprised that I don’t think Obama’s program is as incoherent as the tea party’s temper tantrum.
And Replica Swiss Watch? I agree with you 100%. Very trenchant.
— cw · Sep 20, 12:50 PM · #
Betting good money is not really an indepth analysis of association between this group and various Tea Party groups. For all the talk about the importance of nuance, when it comes to the Tea Party, the simplistic analyses are amazingly black and white. Yes, anyone using “teabagger” can be removed from the list of objective observers. It’s like a critique on Obama’s performance, referring to him as a Communist Muslim-lover — not exactly fair and balanced.
— mike farmer · Sep 20, 01:05 PM · #
“Teabaggers” is just juvinile. People like it because it offends Tea Partiers and maybe because it feels a little naughty, but ultimately, it’s just a goofy thing to say.
“Feminazis” and “Rethuglicans” are a little better, because they make a factual assertion about the group being critized. (In both cases, it’s that the group uses heavy handed, repressive tactics). You can agree or disagree with the statement, but at least it’s a statement.
Calling Tea Partiers “Teabaggers” is like replacing Obama with O-lame-a or something equally dumb. You’re not literally saying that the tea partiers enjoy giving or receiving ball sucking, you just think it’s funny to say a dirty word. It’s a mad libs style of journalism, which is sort of pathetic.
— J Mann · Sep 20, 02:11 PM · #
And, hey, I mean, evolution is just a theory.
— Freddie · Sep 20, 02:44 PM · #
“Calling Tea Partiers “Teabaggers” is like replacing Obama with O-lame-a or something equally dumb.”
That’s partly true, but let’s not forget than the Tea Party folks initially used the phrase themselves. It was only after the sexual connotations where explained to them that they rejected it, so you could argue that calling them “teabaggers” is a comment on how they don’t really know what they hell they’re talking about.
Mike
— MBunge · Sep 20, 03:30 PM · #
Ok, Mike, you are forcing me to ensmarten myself by googling “etymology teabagger.” Congratulations – a blog commenter’s highest, best use is educating other commenters.
Result:
I don’t necessarily think you’re right, Mike, but I would be delighted to look at some sources that can identify common use of the phrase.
1) I found a bunch of sources (like Olberman or TPMuckraker) who alleges that the Tea Partiers called themselves “teabaggers” first. However, none of those sources had any citations.
2) One source, Daily Kos pointed to some early incidents when the Tea Partiers used actual physical tea bags, but IMHO, that’s not the same. The group is obviously appropriating the imagery of the Boston Tea Party, and the most convenient way to mail tea to President Obama or wave tea around in a rally is to use tea bags.
To my knowledge, being in possession of an actual Lipton tea bag is not code for wanting someone to suck on your balls, using the verb “to teabag” can be.
If I see my department head drinking Lipton in the break room, then call her a “tea bagger” for the next 2 years because she’s too ignorant to know of the sexual imagery caused when she chose not to use a tea infuser, I think I’m still being pretty juvenile.
— J Mann · Sep 20, 04:00 PM · #
J Mann,
What’s important is that people learn the proper new meaning of teabagger on Nov. 2
cw,
I don’t understand how you can not find Obama’s program as incoherent as the teapartiers’, given that he spews out oxymorons (according to your meaning) on a regular basis.
— The Reticulator · Sep 20, 05:20 PM · #
What’s important is that people learn the proper new meaning of teabagger on Nov. 2
You mean “person whose anti-establishment rage gets manipulated for the benefit of the Republican party establishment”? It’ll be great to see those Washington insiders get rebuked by voters furthering the political careers of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Truly, a bright new day of populism.
— Freddie · Sep 20, 05:48 PM · #
It’s simplistic to see tea partiers as merely antiestablishmentarian. Tea partiers want legislators who vote the tea party agenda and talk the talk; whether that requires new blood or adaptation is irrelevant.
Disagreement will not excuse inaccuracy! — says I to Freddie. I absolutely loath Christian paternalists and these so-called value voters, but I’m not blind to how they operate. They are loud and numerous and effective; they want what they want however they have to get it. In lieu of an all-out insurgency these teapartiers would be tickled pink to force the grand ole’ mothership to tack hard right on votes and whistles.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 20, 07:25 PM · #
J Mann, yes there is the juvenile aspect of using the term “tea bagger,’ but, the use of the term also indicates that a person has prejudged the group and that whatever they say has to be taken with a lot of salt. The other indicators are making associations with no real proof that the two groups are politically aligned, or even that the different Tea Party groups are aligned, except that many have the same color skin. Some of the these analyses are based on skin-color rather than ideas. A bunch of mostly white people get together to talk about values so they must be like the other groups of mostly white people at Tea Parties— rightwing, religious nuts — they all think alike, you know.
— mike farmer · Sep 20, 08:14 PM · #
That’s perfectly plausible to me, Kristoffer. It’s just also very frustrating. Like a lot of people deeply opposed to the Tea Party’s professed policy positions— oh, I’m sorry, people who sneer at/look down at/condescend to the Tea Party, because as everyone knows, it’s simply not possible to actually just disagree with them, considering they are salt-of-the-earth true Americans who we effete liberals love to hate— like a lot of people, I have tried to hear a coherent definition of what the Tea Parties are and what they stand for. And in response, I almost always get back the opposite of what you said, which is that it’s more about a dispositional resistance to “politics as usual” and “Washington insiders” and the like, not just plain Jane old conservative policies.
It’s like that because, as this comment thread proves once again, just having a policy position and arguing for it isn’t sexy enough. It doesn’t capture the imagination. If the Tea Partiers are just people who have certain beliefs that can be agreed with or disagreed with, you can’t spin this aggrandizing narrative about them as these new revolutionaries. Instead, they’re just some people working in a democracy for what they way, just like, say, liberals who have the same right to an opinion and to speaking it that the Tea Partiers do. And as the conservative intelligentsia (very few of whom live anything resembling the lifestyle of the average Tea Partier, by the way) is so enamored of the idea that the Tea Parties represent some terribly new and exciting wave of fundamentally different conservative populism, they need to talk about them in a way that is the opposite of democratic citizens with legitimate viewpoints. Acknowledging that they are that, and only that, invites the terrible consideration that perhaps liberals and Democrats are also democratic citizens with legitimate viewpoints, and that is the very antithesis of the current conservative modus operandi.
— Freddie · Sep 20, 08:22 PM · #
My, my. The ruling class doesn’t like it when the proles get uppity. It doesn’t like how they won’t provide a detailed point-by-point playbook for how they’re going to get rid of the oppressors of the people and restore limited government. I like it that they don’t like that, even though it’s hard to say how it will all end up.
Here’s an idea, though. If you want the tea partiers to have a coherent political position, try doing something about the incoherence on your own side, first. Set an example. Get the main stream media to light up a brain cell or two and do some reporting instead of just campaigning. Try to get the president you elected for us to speak honestly about how it is that he’s concerned about the deficit while he spends us into oblivion. Get the administration to explain how its jingoistic, nationalistic trade policies can be squared with a professed concern for the delicate sensitivities of other cultures. Knock off the irrational hate campaigns against people who think differently than you do. Show a little consistency re the burning of Korans vs the burning of American flags. Etc. Etc. Etc.
— The Reticulator · Sep 20, 10:00 PM · #
That comment is one of the purest and most useful examples of a commenter immediately proving a point he thinks he is rebutting, well, ever. Freddie: supporters of the Tea Party can’t admit that people get to disagree with the Tea Party, and instead constantly just say that those who do are uppity and insulting. The Reticulator: Liberals are uppity and insulting towards the Tea Party!
Here’s an idea, though. How about not claiming to be deficit hawks while at the same time supporting a 2011 military budget of $721 billion dollars (or demanding more), which “does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department’s payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA.”
Get the administration to explain how its jingoistic, nationalistic trade policies can be squared with a professed concern for the delicate sensitivities of other cultures.
I can only take this as a joke. My brain simply will not allow me to seriously consider thinking that Obama’s economic policies are insufficiently devoted to the globalist cause, nor can I wrap my head around the idea that what other cultures want is more “globalism” from the US.
Knock off the irrational hate campaigns against people who think differently than you do.
Lord knows, the Tea Party has nothing to do with irrational hate campaigns, what with the constant anti-Muslims screeds, the unhinged anti-immigrant rhetoric, the signs of Obama done up like a witchdoctor, equating liberals with Nazis, stoking anti-gay sentiment….
— Freddie · Sep 20, 10:18 PM · #
“If you want the tea partiers to have a coherent political position, try doing something about the incoherence on your own side, first. Set an example.”
Funny thing, the beef most tea partiers have with Obama has nothing to do with policy incoherence. In fact, they claim to read his dark agenda with utmost certainty— something about goosing all of us irrevocably into the government yoke to punish prospering whites.
Contrary to Reticulator’s remark, the tea partiers do indeed describe a detailed playbook— only it’s Obama’s, and apparently it plagiarizes Castro. However, that’s as far as their imaginations take them, which is disappointing. They are so fixated on their largely unwarranted anxieties about Obama’s agenda, that they have no time left to write its antidote.
— Patrick Bateman · Sep 21, 03:07 AM · #
From Yglesias:
“To chime in with Karl Smith and Kevin Drum more opinion leaders really have an obligation to point out that TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, looks set to go down in history as one of the most unfairly maligned policy initiatives of all time. The government took hundreds of billion dollars, gave it to banksters, and in exchange all we got was this lousy$7 billion in profit. Which is to say that even if TARP had no positive impact on the economy whatsoever, it had a negative cost to taxpayers. How many programs can you say that about? And how many of them are toxically unpopular?”
TARP is public enemy 1a (obamacare is 1b) with the teapartiers. To revisit the main points: Teaparty = not thinking things through, childish incohearent temper tantrum, not good for country.
— cw · Sep 21, 05:01 AM · #
Freddie writes: It’s like that because, as this comment thread proves once again, just having a policy position and arguing for it isn’t sexy enough.
Guh? Which post are you talking about? Not counting your posts, there are one or two posts about Sessions’ actual point (the degree of overlap of “tea party” voters and “values voters”) and several about the issue of whether Sessions is being juvenile by using “tea bagger.”
What are we conservatives saying about tea partiers in this comment thread, and in which posts do we say it?
— J Mann · Sep 21, 01:20 PM · #
So you’re a hypocrite if you simultaneously support a.)a strong military and b.)not spending us into oblivion??
This is where you reveal your ignorance about what tea party folks are protesting and why.
The military is indeed a function of the federal government and fully included in our Constitution. Spending $823,200 of our tax dollars to, say, encourage African men to wash their genitals after sex should NOT be a function of the federal government.
http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_details.cfm?aid=7814411&icde=5021426
Do you see the difference and understand why folks might be upset that the money THEY earned (not the government) is taken and used in this manner?
Or is your entire view summed up by the “teabagger“slur?
— tomaig · Sep 21, 03:00 PM · #
“Spending $823,200 of our tax dollars to, say, encourage African men to wash their genitals after sex should NOT be a function of the federal government.”
Dude, find better examples. When you single out such a small amount of money in the overall federal budget, you make yourself look unserious. And when you present an obvious health issue as though it were some kind of crazy thing, you look like you don’t know what your talking about.
Unserious. Deluded. Teabagger.
Mike
— MBunge · Sep 21, 06:26 PM · #
Was that a little too nuanced for you Mike?
Did you think that this one example was my entire rationale for opposing the burden which is being laid upon my sons?
Delusional. Arrogant. Obama-worshipper.
— tomaig · Sep 21, 06:59 PM · #
There are lots of things in the Federal budget which are, sometimes obviously, sometimes arguably, sometimes only apparently, a waste of money. They make easy targets.
The real test for the Tea Party folks will be when they confront the fact that most government spending is either for national defense or popular entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and the like. A good part of the rest of government spending is for programs, such as farm subsidies, that have strong advocacy groups, or unavoidable expenses such as interest on the debt. At some point, the Tea Party members in Congress, if they want to be taken seriously, will have to make actual choices with respect how they trade-off cutting spending on popular programs, raising/lowering taxes, and public opinion.
Currently, I have no clear idea how the Tea Party will react when faced with those choices. I don’t really blame them for not talking about unpopular measures before coming into power —- that is how the political game is played. On the other hand, at some point slogans about wanting small government and lower taxes are not going to be enough.
— ratufa · Sep 21, 08:40 PM · #
Funny thing, the beef most tea partiers have with Obama has nothing to do with policy incoherence.
Similarly, the beef most of the ruling class have with the tea partiers has no nothing to do with policy incoherence, either. They may say it does, but they say lots of things.
— The Reticulator · Sep 21, 10:15 PM · #
Every time you use the term “tea bagger”, blogger man, and you create two more…
— PN Peterson · Sep 21, 10:23 PM · #
Every time blogger man says teabagger an angry doofus gets his wings.
— cw · Sep 22, 04:04 AM · #
The very acronym TEA, which I believe stands for taxed enough already betrays a fundamentally irresponsible attitude. Right now, according to the US debt clock the cost of just four major programs, medicare, social security, the military, including two wars, and the interest on the rapidly accumulating debt, adds up to 2.36 trillion dollars. Since the US government only collects about 2.13 trillion dollars in revenue, it seems obvious that even if the so-called “tea party” eliminated all other spending, let the interstates crumble and the national airspace system collapse, eliminated all supports for agriculture, and stuck with only the core obligations of the US government, Americans still pay less in taxes than you have chosen to consume in services, and you have to pay more if the current generations of Americans want to avoid leaving an even worse mess to their children and grandchildren. If they, or you, want to actually improve things, you will have to pay even more and consume less.
We might as well face the sad reality of politics in the year of grace 2010: American voters don’t have much real in the pipeline but hard choices. The TEA party seems intent on avoiding facing the issues. To the extent they prevail, I suspect they will leave your country drastically weaker.
— John Spragge · Sep 22, 10:09 AM · #
I don’t know that the Tea Party has put cutting the big three off the table. The interesting question is what effect Tea Partiers will have when the crisis comes.
You certainly could get the country on a sounder footing by substantially cutting spending (limiting America’s ability to fight overseas wars of choice by cutting weapons and troops; means testing social security; switching medicare to a Ryan-style voucher system). Or you could do it by substantially increasing taxes.
I don’t hear many people in any group (Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Tea Partiers) endorsing either of those options. It’s not exactly fair to argue that the Tea Partiers are unusual by arguing that they fail a test that Dems and Republicans also fail. (Libertarians and communists excepted, of course).
— J Mann · Sep 22, 01:38 PM · #
Dude, find better examples. When you single out such a small amount of money in the overall federal budget, you make yourself look unserious.
His example is just fine. He doesn’t need to look serious. He needs to be effective. When the bad guys are defending their heads, it’s OK to swing your broadaxe at their ankles. That may be unserious, but when they’re defending what’s left of their ankles, we can swing at the head.
Hitler (or whatever military aggressor you might prefer) didn’t get to call up the Pentagon and demand that we only go after big targets. So I don’t know why you should expect to be able to call the shots of those who are defending against the welfare-police empire.
— The Reticulator · Sep 23, 01:33 AM · #
@Reticulator: well, melodrama makes you look even less serious. Comparisons of the type you just drew mainly serve to remind us, yet again, the seventy year old social security recipients and inner city poor kids make much easier targets than Japanese aircraft carriers or tiger tanks.
— John Spragge · Sep 23, 06:19 AM · #
well, melodrama makes you look even less serious. Comparisons of the type you just drew mainly serve to remind us, yet again, the seventy year old social security recipients and inner city poor kids make much easier targets than Japanese aircraft carriers or tiger tanks.
Melodrama, did you say? You didn’t provide a definition. However, you did use the word in a sentence and you did act it out. So you get 2 out of 3.
— The Reticulator · Sep 23, 12:46 PM · #
Freddie…..the whole of our ME policy is about christianity—judeochristianity…. the Bush Doctrine and COIN are just proselytizing judeochristian/western style government.
We didnt go as armed social workers— we went as missionaries with guns.
Evangelical xianity is how Bush fooled himself into thinking we could stand up westernstyle/judeoxian democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It can’t be done.
America is a protestant nation and the American separation of church and state owes more to Martin Luther than to Plato or Aristotle.
Not to go all Dawkins on you, but evangelical christianity as practiced by GW Bush has done grievous harm to America.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 09:10 PM · #
Every time you use the term “tea bagger”, blogger man, and you create two more…
exactly! it is just like terrorists!
American Taliban. :)
srsly ….look at this mess.
This is why I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Exum, Kilcullen, Petraeus et al actually understand anything about social network theory (SNT). Just look at all that terrorist-creating revenge-influence propagating along both social and consanguineous connections.
quelles imbeciles.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 09:15 PM · #
Matoko,
I recently encountered this cute and funny animated cartoon.
I thought you might like it, given as how you warn us about what you call “snakepoking” and all.
I think it illustrates the point at issue very nicely.
— TEA · Sep 24, 03:33 AM · #
Sorry typed that too fast, the nom de web should have been THE.
I had cleared my cookies and needed to reenter the nick.
— THE · Sep 24, 03:45 AM · #
Cute cartoon. I take it the hamster with the lumps on its head is a tea-partier who is skeptical of the doctrines of the sky-god, Krugman, who probably does not even exist. The rod of righteous retribution and pitchforks are wielded by moveon.org. And the guy in the middle who says you had it coming is your typical American-Scene type pseudo-conservative.
— The Reticulator · Sep 24, 06:16 AM · #
It’s a parable Reticulator.
I think your interpretation is very ingenious.
— THE · Sep 24, 06:38 AM · #
There are two real problems with the Tea Party that they will find hard to overcome in the long run. When they are able to nominate candidates for high office, they turn out to be the likes of Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Rand Paul, Joe Miller, etc. These are people who large numbers of Americans would consider to be nothing more than kooks.
The other, and surely fatal flaw for the long run, is they attract almost zero support from minorities. When Reagan was elected in 1980, the electorate was 86 percent white. When Obama was elected the electorate was 68 percent white. That is a huge change in only 30 years and a continuing trend. Obviously, there is a huge demographic issue for the white, Christian Republicans that make up the Tea Party. With zero appeal to groups that will soon comprise 40% or more of the voters, this cause is hopeless in the long run.
— Pug · Sep 25, 01:09 PM · #
But more to the point— can a purely religious political party survive in the land of separation of church and state?
The conservative/teabag/republicans are HOMOGENEOUSLY ‘judeochristian’.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer thus got it right when he characterized American Protestantism as “Protestantism without Reformation.”
That is why it has been possible for Americans to synthesize three seemingly antithetical traditions: evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country.
Pug is right about minorities—but the other demographics the tea parties fail in are youth and teh college-educated…and scientists, academics, and intellectuals.
That is what 50 years of race-baiting and IQ-baiting will get you. :)
America is 70% nominally christian— but the older white christian demographic is declining.
Like Pence exemplified in DS’s post— the right has devolved to a religious political party.
I think that presages extinction.
— matoko_chan · Sep 25, 01:47 PM · #
Why this is not a good time for a war on science.
— THE · Sep 25, 11:21 PM · #